Episode 193: Are you making time for friends?
We're social beings. We need to thrive from other people. In today's episode, Fiona talks about the importance of making time for friends despite running a business and being a parent. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Marketing For Your Small Business + Group Coaching
On making time for friends
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Katie Bottomley
Hello and welcome to episode 193 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. Today, you are listening to a quick tip episode, days come out every single Tuesday morning, Australian time, and they really are a tip tool or tactic that you can implement immediately in your business. Now, before we get stuck into today's quick tip episode, just wanted to remind you that if you're listening to this in real-time, we have opened the doors for the marketing for your small business course and coaching program. That's a nine-week live coaching program with myself, where you go through online course marketing for your small business and work through everything from finding out your audience, looking at your values, looking at the different channels you use for marketing, what sort of content you wanna put out there? What are your communication messages? Things like taglines, what is your website gonna do?
And pulling all of that into a marketing plan that you're happy with for the next 12 months. So if you do, you can do the course. Anytime you can find that anytime at marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com and then if you choose to do the coaching component as well, that just allows you to turn up to a live coaching session with me every single Tuesday for nine weeks from the 26th of April, 2022. And we go through the module that you've just covered. So there are eight modules and there are nine weeks of this. And that's because the last week is open for people. If they want to share their marketing plans with the group and get feedback. So it really keeps you accountable. It's not another course that you buy, and then you actually do nothing with which I think it's like 80% of courses are bought by people who never finish them.
Do not let that be your yourself, whether you buy my course or somebody else's try and make sure that you've got time to actually go through it. The marketing for a small business course really keeps you accountable because you've got the coaching component as well. If you're interested in that, check out marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com or you can find all the information at mydailybusinesscoach.com/marketing as well. Before we get stuck into today's quick tip episode, just an acknowledgment of The Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation who are the traditional owners and custodians on the land, on which I live and record this podcast. And I just wanna pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. All right, let's get on with today's quick tip episode.
So today it’s a little different, it's not necessarily a tool or tactic, I guess it's a tip. So it totally fits into this. So a few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to be asked to do a keynote at an event. And I went and did the event. And it's just so lovely to do events in real life these days, because after so many lockdowns, especially here in Melbourne, it is just wonderful to be able to be around people, without everyone having to have a mask on, you can actually see them smiling and talking. And it was just really to meet people. And there were about a hundred women that came to the event and I ran a workshop and then we had a panel discussion. And during the panel discussion, we had questions from the audience, and one of the questions, this woman, was very incredible.
I don't know if I'd say I wasn't gonna say I was gonna say very bravely, but it's not really brave. It's just, I think it's sort of pinpointing what a lot of people feel she got up. And she asked a question about friendships and specifically around how do you make time for friends and being all when you run a business and particularly she was a mom as well. So she's got kids and a business. And she sort of said “You know what? I have put all my effort for a great number of years into the business and into my family.” And I haven't had much time other than that. And now I've got a bit of time and I can't remember if she specifically said, I don't feel like I have any time for the friends that I have, or I didn't make time for them.
And now I feel like they're not there. Or if she was sort of saying, I feel like I haven't cultivated a really good friendship group around me. Now, if you are that person and you're listening, please forgive me if I've got the question wrong, but it started this whole conversation on the panel and with other people in the audience. And again, after the event finished, I know a lot of people kind of came up and I was talking to them and a lot of people resonated with that question. It was something that I think really hit home to people where they were like, I feel alone. I feel alone in terms of, yes, I've got this business and maybe they're on Instagram or they're on social media, chatting to people. And maybe they even have a physical business where they're seeing people and having these face-to-face conversations, or they're turning up to a physical place.
And yet there was this feeling of, I don't feel like I've cultivated a good friendship group around me. And how do you do that? And how do you have the time to do that? And I thought today I'd kind of go through. So it's worked for me in case it would work for anybody else. And I just think, I just wanna thank that person again for getting up and asking that question, because it's something that so many people deal with. And I definitely work with so many people and they'll say, I don't have any friends that have a business, or I don't have any friends that are in a similar position. And so I find it hard to talk about these things, cuz I don't feel like they can relate. And so one of the things that I sort of raised there on that day and that I talk through today was my own kind of creation of friends later in life because it is really, it's hard to make friends as an adult.
Like, let's be real. I look at my son and he can just turn up anywhere and make friends instantly, like from the playground having to play with a different basketball team or occasionally back before the pandemic, he would sometimes like team kids this holiday program for kids. And so he might do a day or two there during the holiday where they take them to the movies or they take them to the zoo or do some fun things. And it's not like he just ran in there he's a super extrovert or something. He would get kind of nervous before going in. But then when I'd come to pick him up, he would be like, “Oh yeah, I made friends with this person” and he'd have all these people waving and be like, bye and have a great night.
And I'd be like, you have got that real trait of just making friends anywhere. And I think children have that. You see that my other son, he's a toddler again, he can go into a playground and suddenly they're like besties in the sandpit and it is much harder when you get older. Especially if you have moved away from say your high school friends or maybe your high school friends have just grown apart. And so what happened for me was I had a really lovely group of friends from high school. And then I had a lovely group of friends from university. And then I went in and worked my first job at a fashion journal. And some of those people that worked with me are still my really good friends. One of them is my best friend, Paul, one of my best friends in the world.
He lives in New Zealand. We met cuz he was the first person that I hired at a fashion journal. He was the art director. And so there's certain employment places where I've got good friends and we've kept that up. But later in life, like more recently when I had started my business, we had just bought this house in North Warrandyte. And I really didn't know anyone around here. I had bumped into somebody that I worked with when I was in my very early twenties in a call center. I bumped into her at a shopping center near here. And we were like, “Oh my God.” And she's like, “Yeah, I've just moved to Warrandyte. And so I had this one person, but I hadn't seen that person for like almost 20 years. So it wasn't like a bestie.
And then I had a couple of people that I'd interviewed for the design files. I'd interviewed them about their hair houses or their business when I used to have a column in the design files. And so I had a couple of people and I went into my son's first year of primary school. And I just sort of had this idea that I'm gonna make all these friends from his primary school. Like I'm gonna be suddenly besties with all these moms at the primary school. And that didn't happen. His first year that he went into school was 2019. I was pregnant. I was due in the middle of the year. My dad was really unwell. He was in a nursing home. He actually passed away at the end of that year. There was so much going on. I had my business, I was trying to put out online courses for the first time.
And we had a tiny class. His class only had 14 people in it. So definitely the women were lovely, but I definitely didn't have this instant. Let's catch up all the time. Let's go here, let's get coffee. All the things that I maybe had imagined. And also I just didn't have the time in my calendar to be able to do that. I often was dropping my son off and then rushing back to do work or rushing to an appointment about my baby, all sorts of things. So what I ended up doing was late 2019 around September, I actually just sort of went through a bit of a like I've got some friends that live closer to the city. That's a good 45 minutes away. I have this brand new baby. So I'm not really going places very much.
I'm trying to breastfeed. And I want to cultivate a community of friends around here, around where I live. Like, people, I could go on a walk with or people I could have dinner with locally. And so I had gone, I had run a workshop a while back marketing for your small business. When I used to run that life back in the day before the pandemic, we will get back there. But somebody had come to that workshop. Kate Stokes from Coco flip had come and I was just making small talk and sort of saying, Hey, where did everyone come in from today? And she said I came in from Melton and Melton is very close to where I live in North Warrandyte. And so I said to her, “We're like neighbors. We should have a book club.” And she was like, we should.
And I didn't know, she would just said that in passing or she was just being polite. But so, and then in September 2019, like a good, at least a year and a half after that, I sent her a message, she was in my group coaching program as well. And I said, “would you be open to doing something like a book club?” And she was like, yeah, I'd love to do that. I was like, awesome. And then I had this other person V from Stay Hungry, who is super creative. And so she had been the person I'd worked at the call center with like 20 years earlier. And so I contacted her and I said, “Hey, would you like to be in a book club?” And then Emma from Emma Graton, who is just so wonderful and funny and creative and lovely.
And you may know her from the new normal podcast that came out many years ago. So they were like the OG in the podcast world in Melbourne. And so I had interviewed her about her house. And I was like, Hey, we are putting this book club together. And then my other good friend, Katie Bottomley who used to live in Warrandyte at the time and now has moved to Melton and is super creative. There's so many great things including I think it's called styled by Katie. So many interesting people. And so I thought, I'm gonna pull them together. And then people started asking, you know, could, could I bring my friend or could I bring this person? And it ended up with, I think there was like 12 of us that first night. And I was really worried because I was like, what if this just is really awkward?
What if no talks, what if we have nothing to say to each other and it's all over in an hour. And I've kind of put my foot in it to make friends with these people or make friends just in general, in this area for ages. We also had a couple of moms from primary school and we went to this pizza place in Melton and we did not stop talking. We actually were asked at the end, we were like the last people in the restaurant. And then we stood out the front of the restaurant for at least another hour and a half. It was probably 11:30 or later when we left. And we had got there at seven and it was just this wonderful group of women who were like, we don't get a chance to talk like this.
And one of them actually even said, “I'm not used to driving at night with all the traffic lights because I just don't go out.” And we all laughed and we all understood. And it was just this really lovely group of like, we've all kind of recently moved the area. Our friends might live far away and I kind of would like to make a friend. And so we started the book club and that has been going every single month, since September 2019, we had Zoom calls during the pandemic and lots of people have joined and some people have left and it's just been such a lovely group. And we've now got such interesting people in there. And they all have their own stories and they all contribute so much. And we have a chat group and it's just a really lovely thing.
And from that, I have created really great strong relationships with some of those women. I've mentioned before Phoebe from Sage and Claire, we go on a walk every week and I would definitely count her as one of my good friends and other people in that as well. And I know other groups, other people from the group go on walks or go on runs in-between times that we catch up for book club. And so that's just one example of creating a friendship group where I didn't have one. And I've carefully got other good friends, but a lot of my good friends, my good friend, Paul live in New Zealand, and my other good friend Marsh she lives in Amsterdam, my great friend, V she lives in Geelong, which is a while away, have many friends who live around Fitzroy, Natasha Ace she lives in the city.
So I had these friends, but I just felt like in my own little pocket of where I live, I just didn't know that many people around me. And I was like, this is where we're gonna stay for like, at least the next 20, 30 years. So I need to cultivate friends. And it just so happened that a lot of those people also run a small business. And that has been fantastic as well, to be able to have people that are in a similar boat. I'm a mom, they're moms, most of them in the group. And it's just a wonderful mix. And so I just wanted to put that out, if somebody's listening to this right now and feeling like I'm a bit alone, or wishing could either make some more friends in the industry or make some more friends around where you live or just think about is there one person that sort of, you could reach out to, and maybe they could invite a friend and maybe just start with a coffee.
Like, “Hey, I know we live near each other. I'd love to get a coffee.” Somebody who I work with who is just lovely, Sophie from Australian Birth Stories, she doesn't live that far away from me. And we've actually set up a play date. We weren't able to do it, cuz the kids were sick, but we will do it. And I think that's just sort of thinking about, are there people around you that on social media, they've mentioned that they live right near you or maybe you've got some friends on Instagram that you've sort of are like, let's take this off, go Instagram and into the real world, let's go and have dinner. Just, it starts with a small step. And just one, just find one person that, you think you could connect with and you never know what is gonna come from that.
Laurinda from Collective Closets. We sometimes hang out as well. She doesn't live close to me, but that's another person with whom we were working together and we'd become friendly through Instagram. And then we were like, Hey, we've both got kids the same ages. Like why don't we have a playdate and why don't we go to MGV and do some fun stuff? And I love that sot don't stay in that idea of like, it's really hard to make friends. Yes, It is harder. But there are so many times there are other people out there that would love to hear from you and love that opportunity to make a new connection themselves. So if that can be a tip, I definitely think it should be because business should not consume a hundred percent of our lives.
And I think I might have mentioned this at this event as well, that when my father passed away, he was in a nursing home. My mother had passed away a couple of years earlier and I lived near the nursing home and I was going probably three times a week. My sister would see him, but she lives a long way away, but she would come up and see him. My brother would see him, but outside we had to work as well. And we all have young families. And whereas, I saw all the time that a friend had this one friend that came on Fridays at 10:30 for coffee. He had another friend that took him out sometimes for coffee. It was his friends that were there at the end as well.
And that's what you wanna cultivate. You don't wanna work so much in your business that you forget to actually create a social life, because that's what we need. We're social beings. We need to thrive from other people. So that is the tip today. Do not work so much in your business that you forget to have a life as well. So I hope that helps. I hope whoever needs to hear it, here's this. And if you wanna go through the transcript of this or kind of look at this again, you can find that. And over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/193, and of course, I know people have love and hate relationships with social media as do I, but Facebook groups can also be a great place to start. There is often a community Facebook group for your area.
I know in Warrandyte, I, we have like 50 of them, but I know also, so we've got a good business group on Facebook and you can find 1,200 plus small business owners there. Many of whom are in Australia. So if you're Australian listening to this maybe get out over there and be like, Hey, just listen to this podcast. I'd actually love to catch up with somebody in Sydney. This is where I live or in Adelaide. This is where I live and go from there. Just start. If that is an important thing, just start. It is not always as hard as you think that it is. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next time.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business coach podcast. If you wanna get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram @mydailybusinesscoach.
