You're listening to How to Be a Better Human.

I'm your host, Chris Duffy.

If I have to pick a single thing that I think is the most important thing when it comes to

friendships, relationships, and even your relationship with yourself, I'd say it's being

able to communicate honestly about what it is that you're feeling.

Today's guest, the inimitable writer and podcaster and woman around town Aminatu,

so, is extremely good at this.

Aminatu gives honest advice to strangers in her newsletter.

She wrote a book, Big Friendship, How We Keep Each Other Close, with her friend Anne Friedman,

where one of the memorable sections was being very honest about how they went to couples counseling

together as platonic friends to figure out how to navigate issues and communicate better and

stay connected. She and Anne also hosted the popular podcast Call Your Girlfriend for years.

Call Your Girlfriend was always funny and fun, but it was also refreshingly honest.

As an example, here's a clip from one episode where Ann and Aminatu are talking about being

self-employed.

We were having a conversation some months ago about the ways in which the skills we have

had to develop in working for ourselves and on our own, do and don't

translate to staff employment. And also about some of the myths surrounding self-employment

that I think are perpetuated by a lot of self-labeled creative class, digital people who are

like, this is a thing that everyone should aspire

to so we kind of want to talk about this whole cocktail of stuff right i mean it probably helps to

talk about how we ended up being self-employed right i agree how did you end up self-employed

...