The Gen X/Z Exchange: Navigating Career, Purpose & Modern Life Across Generations
Ever find yourself wondering why you aren’t happier, where your career is going, or why life suddenly feels uncertain — even when everything looks fine on paper?
If you’ve ever felt stuck, off-track, or unsure what comes next, you’re not alone.
The Gen X/Z Exchange is a life navigation podcast where a Gen X dad and his Gen Z daughter explore the biggest challenges facing modern life - from career direction and purpose to relationships, wellbeing, identity and the changing world of work.
Across generations but facing many of the same questions, Chris and Lily bring honest conversations and real-world perspective to the uncertainty so many people feel today. Chris has navigated layoffs, career pivots and the realities of midlife change, while Lily is figuring out early career decisions, identity and adulthood in a fast-changing world.
Together, they bridge generational perspectives to help you:
- make sense of career and life transitions
- navigate work and purpose in a changing economy
- improve relationships and wellbeing
- feel less alone in the challenges of modern life
These aren’t expert lectures or quick fixes. They’re candid conversations about figuring life out - together.
If you’re navigating a career change, questioning direction, dealing with midlife or quarterlife uncertainty, or simply trying to understand how life looks different across generations, this podcast is for you.
Follow us now and join a growing community learning how to navigate modern life - one honest conversation at a time.
The Gen X/Z Exchange: Navigating Career, Purpose & Modern Life Across Generations
Our Ultimate Guide to Friendship: from childhood BFFs to adult social circles
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Is your social circle shrinking? Learn the rules of making and keeping friends, no matter your age.
Why is it so much harder to make new friends after school? From the playground to the workplace, the rules of friendship change drastically. In this Ultimate Guide, Chris and Lily break down the lifespan of your social circle.
We share our stories about those childhood BFFs and dive into the tough adult realities: different roles in a friendship group, what you risk ‘borrowing’ friends from your partner and the impact social media and AI is having on really connecting with your friends.
You’ll learn:
- How and why our friendships change as we get older
- Gender differences in friendships
- Why it’s nearly impossible to maintain more than 150 relationships in total
- Causes of loneliness
- How to manage friendship breakups
- How to get better at making and keeping friendships as an adult
If you've ever felt the pang of loneliness or wondered how to build a stronger crew, this episode is for you.
Whether you’re Gen X trying to juggle your friendships and your partner’s, or Gen Z figuring out social media's impact, listen in to transform your social circles and get better at the art of being a friend.
Hit play now.
1.34 Lily and Chris’ best friends
5.13 Defining friendship
6.37 Can you be friends with someone you’ve never met?
9.10 Loneliness limbo
10.40 Earliest friendships
15.48 Gender differences in friendships
21.15 Social media’s impact on friendships
23.30 Dunbar’s number explained (why you can only handle about 150 social relationships)
25.56 Roles in a female friendship group
29.40 Roles in a male friendship group (spoiler: not as many!)
30.45 Are your friendships ‘side-by-side’ or ‘face-to-face’?
34.00 The risks of ‘borrowed’ friends
36.19 Ways to overcome loneliness
37.53 Modern solutions to creating new friendships
40.55 Friendship breakups
42.42 How to get better at making friends and keeping friends
The Gen X/Z Exchange is a UK podcast exploring career change, purpose, wellbeing and modern life through honest conversations between a Gen X dad and his Gen Z daughter - helping you navigate life’s transitions with perspective across generations.
Send us a voice message on Speakpipe!
https://www.speakpipe.com/thegenxzexchange
Connect with us:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisperkins172/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lily-perkins-8446a82bb/
