The Friend You'd Buy a Vacation House With | 🎙️ Episode 6

Skipping Small Talk, Building Things Together, and Co-Owning a Vacation Home with Friends with Katharine Campbell Hirst

What if the kind of friend you aspire to be actually did the thing you’ve only ever dreamed about, and then told you exactly how?

I have been wanting to have this conversation for a long time. This week I sit down with Katharine Campbell Hirst —executive coach, wordsmith, and honestly, someone I’ve admired from a slight distance since the moment we met. We found each other through a women’s network at one of the hardest moments of my life. I was letting go of a decade of work and pretty lost, and she was the person who helped me find solid ground. Turns out, that’s kind of her thing.

She’s the friend you call when your husband’s left you, when the business is ending, when everything’s up in the air. She showed up for this conversation exactly like that—no small talk, no warm up, straight to what’s real.

What I didn’t expect was how open she would be about her own story. Katharine spent years between seven and sixteen deliberately becoming “weird” so she’d never have to say goodbye to anyone again. She was lonely in ways that would break your heart, and she turned all of it into one of the most extraordinary superpowers I’ve ever encountered.

She is a student of human nature in the deepest way, and sitting with her for this conversation felt like a gift.

Oh, and she actually co-owns a seven-bedroom vacation home with sixteen of her closest friends! A life-long dream of mine (and all my camp friends). We go into all the details: The Burning Man origin story, the legal docs, the hard money conversations, and what it felt like to stand on that deck and know she’d be there with her people when she’s 80.

I may have gotten a little emotional. Who among us hasn’t texted a friend a property picturing that same beautiful thing?

We also talk about working out your attachment issues on your friends before calling in a partner, the midlife shift from big adventures to being woven into each other’s everyday life, and why the fastest shortcut to real friendship is skipping straight to what’s true.

This one really stuck with me. I think you’ll adore Katharine, too. It’s for anyone who has a friendship they’ve been meaning to lean into—and a vacation home with their people they’ve been meaning to stop just dreaming about.

Have a listen:

“The thing I want to give and get most right now is grace. Grace to not answer a message for three months. Grace to cancel the night before. Grace to be seen as someone who really loves you, even when life is consuming.”

In this episode, we talk about:

• Becoming “weird” at seven so she’d never have to say goodbye again

• The chameleon superpower born from lonely seasons

• Why shared experience is the fastest shortcut to real friendship

• Co-owning a house with sixteen friends — the legal docs, the money talks, the joy

• Working out your attachment issues on your friends first

• The midlife shift from big adventures to everyday life woven together

• Building things with your people: bake sale to school board to vacation home

Friendship in Midlife: Coming Over While You Do Dishes:

Katharine’s Friend Picks:

• Matrix by Lauren Groff — the literary fiction she recommends to everyone right now. Set in medieval times, wildly feminist, a little witchy, and deeply matriarchal. Perfect for when the news is too much and you need to retreat into something extraordinary.

• An Akashic Records Reading with Tiffany — Katharine’s most likely brunch recommendation. A channel for your guides who can answer anything — from what to charge for your next offer to what your heart needs to hear right now.

• Want the docs to get start on your dream vacation home with friends?
  Katharine and her friend Phil Levin @ Supernuclear have got you covered: start here for the full story (and legal doc examples!).

• Follow your new friend Katharine at The Idea Shift here on Substack and over on her website.
  

Join the campfire:

Have you ever dreamed about co‑owning a place with your closest friends?

Or is there someone in your orbit you’ve been admiring from a slight distance, a friendship you’ve been meaning to lean into but haven’t quite yet?

Tell us who you’d buy a house with. Where would it be?

Listen, Share, Connect:

🎧 Listen to the episode above, or wherever you get your podcasts

📺 The 1‑min show trailer is here

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💌 Share this episode with a friend you’d buy a house with…or the one you’ve been meaning to get closer to. Tag us @theyeahnoforsureshow to enter to win a handwritten note and a little something in the mail.

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*Katharine didn’t know what “for sure” meant before we recorded. She asked me to explain the context beforehand, which felt very on brand for someone who moved countries five times growing up. She did great with it in the lightening round!