The Yeah, No, For Sure Show | Friendship Takes the Mic

Season one finale of The Yeah, No, For Sure Show—a friendship podcast about female friendship, midlife friendship, chosen family, and the lessons we learn when we finally look closely at the relationships that shape us.In this finale, I revisit the moments, clips, and guest reflections that stopped me this season: what Katharine realized about building things with friends, what happened to Marcy’s mother’s best friend after listening to our episode, what Alice discovered about grace — and about herself — and what changed for Alisa, who came on this show and said out loud that she sucks at friendship.I also answer a few questions my friends sent me and share what’s coming in Season 2, plus how you can help build it.This episode is a celebration, a reflection, and a thank you for anyone who has been here from the beginning, found us in the middle, or is starting right here.Here’s what friendship revealed when we finally gave it the mic.Topics: female friendship, friendship podcast, friendship lessons, chosen family, midlife friendship, loneliness, connection, women and friendship, friendship stories, graceJoin the conversation + community → yeahnoforsure.show | Instagram → @theyeahnoforsureshow

There’s always one friend you watch everything with—the one who gets your 11pm recap text, the one who made you watch it in the first place, the one whose name comes up every time a new season drops. This episode is for her, and for you.Holly Curtis is back—creative director, sauna companion, and the friend who helped build this brand with me—and today we’re each revealing our top five friendship shows of all time. We built our lists independently and reveal them live, with no idea where the other one landed. You’ll hear where we overlap, where we completely diverge, and why this conversation turned out to be about so much more than the shows.It’s about the shared ritual of watching something together. The post-episode group texts. The remember-when rewatches. The way certain stories become inseparable from the people you watched them with. Because sometimes what we remember most isn’t the cliffhangers or the characters, it’s the friends we tune in with.This episode is for anyone who has ever loved a show the way you love a friend—or loved a friend the way you love a show.Topics: friendship shows, watching TV with friends, top five lists, chosen family, shared experiences, nostalgia, friendship rituals, comfort TV, binge watchingTell us which shows made your list—head to Instagram or Substack and let's debate it.  Join our campfire: yeahnoforsure.show | @theyeahnoforsureshow  

What does friendship actually feel like at 13 when middle school drama hits hardest and you're figuring out who your people are? This week I sit down with my daughter Emma and her best friend Sierra, both 13 and in 8th grade, for a conversation about what friendship looks like right now from the inside. You'll hear the four words Sierra said in a fourth-grade recess line that started their whole friendship. The summer they spent watching Riverdale on call simultaneously so neither one got ahead. How they've built a tight, drama-free friend group without social media, what they honestly think about it, and how they feel about having their moms be friends too.I also share what 8th grade was really like for me: the cheerleading formation, the girl who said out loud she couldn't believe she had to stand next to me, the three days of silence and heartbreaking lonliness that followed.Because watching these two show up for each other the way they do, with that much honesty, kindness and maturity, it gives you hope. This one is for those with 13-year-olds in their lives, all of us who remember our first real teenage friends, and anyone who thinks middle school friendship is just drama.Emma and Sierra's Friend Picks: Keeper of the Lost Cities book series, Duolingo streaks, late-night phone callsTopics: middle school friendship, teenage friendship, 13-year-old best friends, friendship without social media, Riverdale, middle school drama, parenting teens, finding your peopleJoin the campfire → yeahnoforsure.show | Instagram → @theyeahnoforsureshow

Jeanne McDermott gave the eulogy for her oldest friend two weeks before we sat down together. She’d known her since she was ten years old. Alice Markowitz, filmmaker and Jeanne’s closest friend for nearly 50 years, was sitting right beside her.The three of us talked about how beautiful it is to hold a friendship across an entire life: what you gain, what you lose, and what you carry forward when someone is gone. We also talked about what friendship in your 70s looks like, the shock of aging, and the real joys of a community choir.This one comes with a lot of laughs, a little heartbreak, and so much wisdom about how to cherish your friends and give one another grace.It’s for anyone who has friends they’ve known throughout their life—people they love deeply and are also a little terrified of losing.Topics: lifelong friendship, friendship grief, friendship in your 70s, aging, women and friendship, midlife connection, chosen family, friendship after lossAlice’s Friend Pick: Anything written by Anne LamottJeanne’s Friend Pick: A good game of Charades.Join the campfire → yeahnoforsure.show | Instagram → @theyeahnoforsureshow

There's a particular kind of longing that hits in midlife—not for more friends exactly, but for a friend nearby. Someone whose door you can walk to. Someone who knows your life because she's actually in it.My neighbor Marcy Yeager sent me a text she rewrote 800 times—and what followed was one of those rare friendships that sneaks up on you. We talk about how cul‑de‑sac Halloweens and carpooling turned into deep friendship, what it means to have someone in the foxhole of raising a teenage girl with you, and the quiet magic of friends down the street.Marcy is a CliftonStrengths coach who can spot your superpower—and your kryptonite—in about five minutes. We get into what your wiring reveals about friendship chemistry, why she modeled her entire approach to showing up after watching her mom, and what happens to a neighborhood friendship when the kids grow up and you realize you're not making plans around them anymore.We also talk about bringing back the afternoon pop‑over, the magic of a door that's always unlocked, and why sometimes the bravest thing you can do is text the person down the street and say: do you want to be friends?This episode is for anyone who has ever wanted a friend nearby. And for anyone who has been rewriting that brave little text for way too long.Join our campfire:yeahnoforsure.show@theyeahnoforsureshow

Have you ever asked your friends how they actually feel about your friendship - what it means to them, what they need from you, how it's really going? Most of us never do. Even though we talk to our friends for hours, for decades.This week there's no guest, just me on the couch halfway through season one, sharing the biggest revelation these first six conversations have given me: turning the lens onto the friendship itself changes everything. It makes friendships more intentional, more honest, and more seen, for you and for them.I talk about what I'm hearing from you, the listeners, the questions I'm asking my own friends now, and the ripple effects I didn't see coming: reconciliations, teary car calls, and women texting the things they've been meaning to say for months. You'll walk away with real questions you can steal for your next walk, voice memo, or parking‑lot debrief.This isn't a recap episode. It's about what happens when you finally talk about the friendship itself.For anyone who has spent years talking to their friends and never once talked about the friendship.Topics: female friendship, intentional friendship, how to talk about friendship, midlife connection, loneliness, chosen family, friendship questionsAmy’s Friend Pick: Social Print Studio — my favorite place to print photos of my friends, because the people who matter deserve to be on your walls, not just your camera roll.Join the campfire → yeahnoforsure.show Instagram → @theyeahnoforsureshow

What happens when someone who isn’t a “match” on paper becomes one of your most important people—and stays that way?I sit down with Sarah Orr, my daughter Emma’s former outdoor school teacher, our family’s nanny, coworker and creative collaborator for over a decade, and in a few months, a mother herself. Sarah came into my life when she was 23 and I was almost 40, and for the last thirteen years she has quietly witnessed every season of my adult life—including my journey into motherhood—and now I get to witness hers.We talk about the Venn diagram of friendship that gets chunkier every year, what frozen pizza has to do with friendship resilience, and the moment Sarah found her late father’s painting in a thrift store—a bird on a cliff—on the same day a healer had described that exact image in her energy field.We also get into cross‑generational friendship chemistry, “pebbling” as a love language, and what it actually looks like to build chosen family when nothing about it makes sense.This isn’t about friendships that were meant to be. It’s about the ones that find a way anyway.This episode is for anyone navigating a cross‑generational friendship, craving chosen family, or wondering if inviting a friend deeper into your life is the right move.Sarah’s Friend Pick: The Infinity Pillow — the circular travel pillow she sleeps with everywhere.Follow your new friend Sarah on Instagram: @sarah.from.maineJoin the campfire → yeahnoforsure.show | Instagram → @theyeahnoforsureshow

What if you actually bought a vacation home with your closest friends? Executive coach and writer Katharine Campbell Hirst did—and this conversation will make you want to call your people the second it’s over.We talk about co‑owning a seven‑bedroom house with sixteen friends (yes, the legal docs and money conversations), the Burning Man origin story, and what it feels like to stand on a deck and know you’ll be there together at 80.Katharine has spent her career walking with women at their crossroads, and she’s terrible at small talk in the best possible way. We get into what it means to be the friend who goes deep first, why she deliberately became “weird” at seven so she’d never have to say goodbye again, and how a childhood of moving countries and lonely seasons turned her into a student of human nature with a chameleon‑level superpower.We also talk about playing it cool versus just telling someone you’re in awe of them, working out your attachment issues on your friends before calling in a partner, and the midlife shift from big adventures to being woven into each other’s daily life.This episode is for anyone who has a friendship they’ve been meaning to lean into—and a vacation home with friends they’ve been meaning to stop just dreaming about.Topics: making friends in midlife, co‑owning property with friends, friendship and business, going deep fast, feminine energy, loneliness, attachment, and building things with your people.   How to Co-Buy a Vacation Home with Friends —> Katharine and friend's roadmap!Katharine’s Friend Pick -> Read Matrix by Lauren GroffFollow Your New Friend Katharine:  Website | Instagram | LinkedInJoin our campfire 🔥: yeahnoforsure.show@theyeahnoforsureshow

What happens when the person who’s known you your whole life becomes your closest friend—and what does it take to actually get there?This week I sit down with my sister Megan, the only person on earth who has seen every version of me—the awkward ones and the becoming ones—for a conversation I’ve been wanting to have for years. With a six-year age gap between us, we weren’t always close. We were siblings growing up in different worlds, and there were seasons where I wasn’t the sister I wanted to be. This is the honest story of how we found our way to real sisterhood and chose each other as friends in midlife.We talk about the camp summer where Megan wanted into my inner circle and I was too caught up in my own world to see her, the slow burn of becoming actual friends through motherhood, a fight in Chicago I’m not proud of, and what sisters bring to friendship that nobody else can. We get into aging parents, sister‐in‐laws who became dear friends, staying close across distance when life has taken you in different directions, and the Yeah, No, For Sure lightning round—including whether Dad actually likes me better.One of her answers surprised me. One made me emotional. And one involves Santa Claus, a boombox, and Amy Grant at Christmas.This episode is for anyone who has a sister they love, a sister relationship that’s complicated, or has ever wondered whether the person who’s known you longest could also be the one who knows you best.Join the campfire → yeahnoforsure.show Instagram → @theyeahnoforsureshowCome share your stories of sisters!

My friend Alisa told me something completely matter‑of‑fact: “I suck at friendship.” Not apologetically. Not with shame. Just as a plain, true thing.Alisa loves people. She’s a birth doula, amateur cattle rancher, and the woman who became my founder doula during the hardest years of building Pumpspotting. She listens in a way that makes you feel fully seen. She just has a very specific idea of what friendship actually means—someone you’d give a kidney to, someone who’d be in your delivery room—and by that definition, she feels like she’s failed more than she’s succeeded.   This conversation goes deep. We talk about the grief of losing friends you thought would be there forever, and looking honestly at your own part in those endings. About what friendship in your 50s feels like when you finally have time and you're choosing people with intention. About surviving the teenage daughter years to become friends on the other side. And at the end, Alisa tells me something I wasn't expecting: that I'm the first person she's ever done friendship differently with.If you’ve ever lost someone you loved and wondered what your role was, or you’re in midlife craving friendships that are real and chosen and yours, this episode is for you. Stay with it all the way through; it only gets richer.Join the campfire → yeahnoforsure.show | Instagram → @theyeahnoforsureshowFollow Your New Friend Alisa Marie:The Mothership on Substack | Let's Talk Birthy | @LetsTalkBirthy Alisa’s Friend Pick: The Besque Body Oil she’s gifting everyone she loves right now.

What happens when reality TV says no, but your friendship says yes and you build something impossible together anyway?I sit down with Lindsey Witmer Collins, the brilliant software architect and tech founder who saw my Pumpspotting pitch deck and believed I’d succeed before we’d even met. We pitched to Gwyneth Paltrow and Will.i.am on a moving escalator for Apple TV’s Planet of the Apps, got all green lights, and still got rejected. So we drank tequila until 4 a.m., dreamed up the Breast Express, and spent the next few years proving everyone wrong by building a startup that changed the conversation around breastfeeding.We talk about what it’s like when your app consultant becomes one of your soulmate friends, the isolation of being an inventor, and why our friendship survived when the business didn’t. We get into the serendipitous Costa Rica connection that brought us together, standing in that pitch circle refusing to back down, and the beautiful role reversal happening now where I support her dream of Scribbly Books after years of her holding me together on her couch.This isn’t about perfect partnerships. It’s about startup friendships forged in fire - matching someone’s ambition, saying “let’s do it” instead of “are you sure?”, and building something that changes lives even when it doesn’t work out the way you planned.For anyone building something impossible, wondering if friendships survive business failures, or looking for that one person who sees your vision before anyone else does.Lindsey’s Friend Pick: Small dogs, sparkly OJS‑M nail polish from Olive & June, and Lake Pajamas.Join the campfire → yeahnoforsure.show | Instagram → @theyeahnoforsureshowFollow Your New Friend Lindsey:Scribbly Books | WLCM App Studio | Website@ScribblyBooks | LinkedIn

What happens when a friendship hits a breaking point, and you choose to repair it instead of run?I sit down with Holly Curtis—brilliant creative director, sauna companion, and the friend who answered the phone when I had my first panic attack in an orthodontist parking lot. Holly and I have been friends for a decade, we're on each other's emergency contact lists for literally everything, and we almost lost each other.We talk about the Newport Folk Festival rupture, the midnight apology letter, and why we decided this friendship was worth fighting for. But we also get into matching metallic snowsuits through Covid fires, constantly lowering our expectations and being really excited when plans actually happen, and the Gilmore Girls vs. Parenthood debate.This isn't about perfect friendship. It's about the messy, vulnerable, life-saving kind - the kind where you can call from a parking lot and someone says, "I can feel that you're not okay." For anyone who’s ever almost lost a friend, wonders if deep friendship is still possible in midlife, or knows the feeling of calling someone, crying from a parking lot.Follow Holly on Instagram. Join the campfire → yeahnoforsure.show | Instagram → @theyeahnoforsureshowHolly's Friend Pick: Wooden Spoon Magic Magnesium for better sleep (way better than another glass of rosé). Use code YEAHNOFORSURE for 10% off.

If you're in the messy middle of life craving friends who truly get you, welcome to the campfire.I’m Amy VanHaren, and in this first episode, I share how friendship carried me through business collapse, perimenopause, and outgrowing old connections — and why I’m starting a show about the beautiful mess of showing up for your people.In this episode, I talk about the loneliness epidemic, shifting seasons of friendship, and why now - more than ever - friendship deserves the mic.This isn’t an advice show. It’s a campfire for women who love their friends and are still craving something more.Join the conversation + community → yeahnoforsure.show | Instagram → @theyeahnoforsureshow

This is the podcast that makes you want to text your people. Celebrating every season of friendship: the joy, the mess, the changing dynamics. Because without friends, life is f*cking lonely.The friendship podcast you've been craving starts February 4. New episodes drop every Wednesday at 5:30am.Hit subscribe. Text your people. Pull up a chair.Join the community:yeahnoforsure.show@theyeahnoforsureshow