Episode 484: Loneliness and small business
Feeling lonely in your business? You’re not alone.
In this episode of My Daily Business Podcast, Fiona Killackey dives into a topic that often goes unspoken by entrepreneurs: loneliness. Even when things are going well, many business owners still feel isolated. Fiona explains why this happens and how to change it.
Running a business on your own can be tough—not just because of the work, but because of the mental toll it takes. Fiona shares personal stories, advice, and insights from other entrepreneurs on how to build real, supportive connections that help you thrive.
Here’s what Fiona covers in this episode:
The hidden costs of loneliness and how it affects your mindset.
Why many entrepreneurs feel isolated, even when they're succeeding.
How to build a network of small business friends who truly understand.
Tips for overcoming competing priorities and making time for connections.
Why group coaching or communities can help you build a support system.
The importance of taking the first step to combat loneliness and find your people.
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I wanted to talk about, I guess, like the hidden cost of loneliness in small business and what to do about it because, you know, you don't want to just sit and hear about the problem. But how do you work through this? And also how can we all start being more open about this? Because the reality is that for a lot of us, including myself, a lot of people work by themselves.
Do you love your life as a small business owner?
Let's be real.
Sometimes we just don't. It's my hope that this, the My Daily Business Podcast, helps you regain a little of that lost love through practical, actionable tips, tools and tactics, interviews with creative and curious small business owners, and in depth coaching episodes with me, your host, Fiona Kalaky. With more than 20 years experience in marketing, brand content and systems and having now helped thousands of small business owners, I know what it takes to build.
A business that you can be proud of and that actually aligns with your values, your beliefs, and your hopes for the future. So much of our daily life is spent working on and in the businesses and the brands that we are creating, and so it makes sense to actually love what you do.
So let's get into this podcast and help you figure out how to love your business and your life on the Daily.
Hello and welcome to episode 484 of the My Daily Business Podcast.
Today it's a coaching episode and it's about a topic that I don't think is really talked about in any genuine transparent way as much as it should be. And so I really want to bring it into the light and have an open discussion about it. Before we get stuck into that, I want to let you know that group Coaching is open. So if you would like to take part in, our next round of group coaching, which is a 12 month programme with myself and a very small, beautifully curated group of small business owners, then you can cheque that out. Ah. At mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching,
We go through every part of business. We have a bunch of experts come in from legal, SEO, finance, psychologists, all sorts and then myself as well. And you have a WhatsApp group between sessions. We meet live every two weeks on Zoom. It doesn't matter where you are in the world as long as you've got a good Internet connection. We often time it so it can work with other time zones such as Europe and the us. So if you would like to be part in that, cheque out mydailybusiness.com group coaching and do so quickly.
If you're listening in real time, because we do have interviews already happening and we try and just meet with people and cheque and curate a really, really great group so the earlier you can get in, the better.
Alright, before we get stuck in, I of course want to acknowledge where I'm coming from and acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of these beautiful, beautiful lands. And for me, that is the Waurong and Reundjri people of the Kulin nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
We are also days away from the 26th of January. If you're listening in real time and if you are in Australia, I would urge you to really think about what this means for our country and how we can come together and be more unified than ever before.
If you want to cheque out some really incredible reading sources on this, you can cheque out Clothing the Gaps. Their education hub is incredible and so you can find that @clothingtheaps.com.au. If you go to Impact, under the Impact section on their navigation, you can find a whole bunch of information, including about the 26th of January.
If you are First Nations in Australia and you're listening to this, I'm sure a lot of feelings are coming up every year as they do. This is not a date to celebrate, in my opinion, and I feel, you know, incredibly passionate about this.
If you are First Nations, then I would urge you to, you know, chat to your friends and to look for potentially support with 13 Yarn, which you can access at 13 the numbers 113 y rn.org.au or you can call them 1392 76.
There are also another bunch of mental health resources for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and you can find them through Beyond Blue. We'll link to those in the show notes.
Alright, let's get into today's coaching episode. So today's podcast theme or topic really comes from a multitude of conversations that I've had with small business owners, some clients, some friends, some just, you know, people that I've met through social media. And also something that happened a few years ago that has really had an impact on me.
It was a very powerful moment and it has really stayed with me, as I said, for years. So a few years ago I was asked to do a keynote at a women's business lunch and there was about 100 women there. So I did my keynote and then I had also invited a couple of friends who were also business owners onto the stage with me and we were doing like a bit of a panel discussion.
You know, after that we had Q and A, and people stood up and asked a bunch of questions. And, one woman stood up and she said, I'm feeling very vulnerable about what I'm about to share, but I kind of want to know, like, how are you guys friends?
And then she relayed very openly and very bravely that she was incredibly lonely and that she had spent so much of her effort and her time and years on her business and any other time was spent with her children and family. So she's like, I've nurtured my children. They are now grown up. You know, they're adults. They're, 18, 20, et cetera.
And I have also done really well in the business to a point where it's running without me. Or maybe she'd sold it. I can't remember that exact point. But she said, I'm actually at a point where I have the time to invest in friendships and I don't have any friends. And she said, how do you make friends at this age?
And it was a really vulnerable moment because there were 100 other women. A lot of those women had come with friends to this lunch. People were in these big tables and it was a really open moment.
But what happened is that a lot of other women sort of put up their hands too and like, yeah, I'm also really lonely. And it obviously is not just something that women or that's just on one gender, that anyone of any gender can go through this and does go through it, because there's a massive epidemic of loneliness.
And we've moved away from this kind of village and community way of living, particularly in the west, where it's so individual and they've got the whole capitalist system and everything else. That friendships aren't necessarily seen as a really important part of success as small business owners.
And so it really impacted me because I definitely have felt this myself, which sounds bizarre because I speak to people all day long. And, I'm very lucky that I have got a bunch of friends. But a lot of my friends don't live anywhere near me. I have a really close friend who lives in Amsterdam. I have another really, really close friend who lives in New Zealand. One of my greatest friends in Australia lives in Sydney. I live in Melbourne.
We've been friends for 20 plus years, but she and I have very rarely lived in the same city. My sister lives two hours away. My other good friend lives two hours on the other side of Melbourne, away. And even the friends that I do have, and I'm very lucky to have some really incredible friends that are small business owners and they know who they are, but they don't necessarily live really close or if they do, we've all got kids, we've all got busy lives.
And so you can sometimes feel quite lonely. I'm also somebody who lost both of my parents in my 30s and I was an immigrant to this country. I don't have aunts and uncles, I don't have cousins. And so I definitely have had moments where I just feel incredibly lonely.
And so today I wanted to talk about how to work through that, how to manage that. It is a reality at peaks and trops in your business that at some point you may feel lonelier, than others. And that's not necessarily when things are going bad. It can actually be sometimes when things are going really well and you feel like, oh, God, I'm like here.
And I don't want to be boasting or I don't want to relay this financial success to somebody who I know hasn't been going through that. And so I wanted to talk about, I guess like, the hidden cost of loneliness in small business and what to do about it because you don't want to just sit and hear about the problem. But how do you work through this?
And also how can we all start being more open about this? Because the reality is that for a lot of us, including myself, a lot of people work by themselves. I have two people that work in this business alongside me. We don't live anywhere near each other.
I think actually one of them does live in Melbourne, but we've never actually met in real life. We've just communicated through email and Zoom calls and things. So the reality for many, many people running a small business, even if you have a bunch of staff, is that often you're the one making the decisions. You're the one looking at things late at night.
You're the one that, especially when you're at the start, starting out, getting yourself out there, having to pump yourself up, you with music or whatever, before you have a meeting and so you can have this seemingly very successful, booming business and you can still feel incredibly lonely.
And I work with small business people all the time that will say, I don't feel like I have anyone I can talk to about this stuff. And so we want to talk about today, I guess the reality of this, but also what steps can you take if you're in this and if you're not in this, feeling at the moment.
And it is a, it comes and goes. I can't say I sat there feeling lonely for like months on end, but I've definitely had moments where I felt lonely. And I work with people all the time who will say, I don't have a single friend who also has a small business.
So I find it very difficult to talk about this with some of my other friends who are like lawyers or employed or, you know, just different, I guess, lifestyles than a small business owner. Like I said, a lot of small business owners will be working by themselves or with remote staff or with staff that, you know, are very periodic or sessional. And so when you're in this small business world, it can feel quite isolated because you've got these thoughts around your business even if you're doing something else. So even during family time or holidays or you may still be thinking about it where.
And I get that it can also happen when you're an employed role. I've been in lots of employed roles and you do keep thinking about work. But a lot of the time you can go on firstly, a paid and you'll leave holiday and you can leave that work behind or you know, that I'm employed and other people in the team picking it up while I'm not there. When you are the owner of a small business, the work is still with you. You still need to make decisions even if other people are doing things. And it's really hard to genuinely switch off.
On top of that, there is also the pressure of things like content creation and constant content creation and thinking about all these other parts of the business that aren't necessarily the business itself. For example, myself, I do a lot of coaching, I do a lot of teaching, a lot of like, speaking gigs that is separate to actually then also turning up and doing podcasts, sending the Sunday email, doing Instagram. This year we're launching YouTube. Like there's so much content creation as well.
And that can feel isolating because you're like, o, now I have to film this or now I have to go and do that. And a lot of them are solitary situations. You're not like a podcast. Right now I'm talking and I love doing podcasts. So this is definitely not a lonely exercise. But I'm doing it by myself. And I'm someone who's totally fine to be by themselves. I am an introvert. I love being by myself. But I get for a lot of people, they don't.
And maybe you've come from a big employed company where you had a whole team and you had people to bounce ideas off and then suddenly you're by yourself, especially if you haven't employed any staff yet or if maybe you're not going to employ staff. And so there's so many instances of feeling like you're alone, feeling like a bit of isolation. The other thing is where, again, like I said before, if something happens in your business, the sense of not being able to necessarily share it with non-business friends.
So people who don't have a business because they may not get it and it might be something silly, like, not silly, but you know, seemingly small, like, oh my God, three people wrote back to my newsletter that I sent out and they're like, that's cool. But three, that's not very many. Whereas maybe people in business are like, oh my God, you finally sent the newsletter. I get it. I get how scary that is to send it and how awesome that three people wrote back.
Also, things like, you know, getting a brand deal or getting a partnership or getting the lease to something, or extending your lease or you got rid of 5 subscriptions this month and actually your profit increased by XYZ. There's so many things that are happening all the time that it's wonderful to be able to share those with people who fully understand it.
The other thing is just the amount of psychological work that you have to do as a business owner. And that can feel isolating, the kind of questioning of yourself. I know that we're doing a lot more video content this year. And as much as I love it, and honestly, I feel like I've been creating content in some form since 2001 and then 2003 when I was editing and doing magazines and writing a whole bunch of content and all there this kind of content creator and it's just moved into a different medium.
But I will question myself and be like, oh my God, Kalaki, you're in your 40s, really, you're going to get a video camera out. And I've talked to my kids and my husband and said this year I'll be making a lot more videos, don't worry. I'm, not trying to be a 247 kind of selfie person, but it is part of my business. And I mean, they're not going to be in the videos, but if you see me with this, this is why I'm doing it. I'm not just on my phone all the time. I'm not trying to become famous. We're just doing more content in this particular format.
But those are the questions and discussions that I've had with some of my good friends who are also small business owners. Because there's all sorts of things like, oh, God, will people think this or that? Or, you know, is it actually gonna be damaging to the business? Or, you know, and these are questions that some of my friends have said to me as well. Like, oh, well, what if people think I'm xyz? Or, what if it just tanks? And that's so embarrassing, all of these things.
Or you, gosh, we're in our mid-40s. Or I had a friend the other day, she was like, I'm in my mid-50s and, God, what am I doing? Like, am I trying to become a vlogger? All of these things can come up, and I'm just being very, very real and open here. And everybody goes through this stuff. However, it can feel very isolating if you're like, well, everyone else is turning up and they look super confident and they look like it doesn't, you know, it just comes so naturally.
And maybe I'm the one with the problem. And so that can feel incredibly isolating. And so that is the first part. Just this reality of running a small business is isolating at times. It really, really is. The second part of that is kind of life's competing priorities. When we're thinking about friendships and building friendships and building connections as small business owners with other small business owners, there's also a huge elephant in the room, which is, do I have the actual time to put effort into those friendships?
I was listening to the new Mel Robbins book, Let Them the other day, and she quoted a study, which I've heard quoted in numerous podcasts and things as well, that said, on average, to become a good friend with somebody, I think it was, God, now I'm going to stuff it up. It was like 200 hours you need to have spent with them. Okay, I have just Googled this, and from Sage journals, they say there's three point estimates. 94 hours is when acquaintances become casual friends.
164 hours is when casual friends become, like, proper friends, and 219 hours when friends become good friends. So 219 hours you need to put into a friendship for you to become good friends. Now, that's a lot of time. I mean, even if that's just like one hour a day, that's almost a whole year of, one hour a day with every single, like, you know, person that you want to be friends with.
And so there's also these massive competing priorities when you are running a business. It's not just the business, it's all the other stuff going on in your life that may mean you don't have time to go and get a coffee or you don't have time to, you know, go away for the weekend or you don't have time to like go out for dinner twice a week every week.
And so I know in my own situation, I started this business in two the very end of 2015 and my son, my eldest son, started school in 2019. Now in 2019 I thought, okay, I'd gone through the death of my mom, I'd gone through trying to get pregnant for years. Like I'd gone through all these other stuff that had been a huge priority. And so I hadn't really been putting a whole bunch of effort into friendships and things. And I was also trying to build up the business.
And then in 2019 my son started school and I was also pregnant and I thought, oh, I'm going to make friends with like the other mums and the other parents at his school because you know, that's what people do, right? And I found it really difficult because they are a lovely bunch of people. But I was working and so I was also pregnant and I was trying to bank as much money before my other son was born mid year that year. So as soon as I dropped him off to school, I didn't really have time to like stand around and chat or go for coffee.
So I would rush home, but get home by like 9:30, do as much work as I could. I was building out courses, I was doing other things like speaking gigs and then, you know, be finished by like 2:45 so that I could get back to school and pick him up by 3:30. So that would happen. And then the other thing that had happened is that my dad would just put him into a nursing home after my mother's death and we had to sell the house and everything.
So my dad, I lived closest to him. So I was constantly, you know, picking up groceries for him or going and checking on him or taking him out for a drive or all these things. So as soon as school would finish, I would take my son and my pregnant self to the nursing home and I'd hang out with dad until like dinner time and then I'd come home and do like bed, bath, etc. And so that was really. I just didn't have the time to make friends and to go to networking events or to do things like that.
So that's the second part is that you May well have like limited capacity for new friendships and that life stuff that can be totally normal and happening. And it could be kids, it could be elderly parents, like I said, it could be your own like chronic health conditions. And so it's figuring out, okay, well if I'm feeling isolated, but I also have these poies like what's gonna change? How can I actually start making some business friends?
And I just want to validate this is a very common experience for people, particularly for women. And I know it'll be all genders, but women are predominantly the ones that will look after elderly parents or that will go part time for children or that will, you know, step in for the community to look after a neighbour or something like that. So also be really honest with yourself about do you have the capacity at the moment to put time and effort into friendships?
Because like I said those statistics, I mean 219 hours is a lot of time to nurture a friendship. So the third thing I guess in this whole conversation is really understanding the uniqueness of business friends. Like why is it important to have small business friends? Because I think this is a huge salve for loneliness, especially as small business owners to have other people that you can dissect stuff with or you can go, oh my God, I can't believe, you know, I can't believe I did that, that's so exciting.
Or I can't believe I did that. Oh God, how cringy. And they'll be like, totally, I get it, I just did this last week or I just did that earlier on. And so you want to think about how important small business friends are. And as I said, I've touched on a few things. There's celebrating financial wins without feeling awkward. There's sharing imposter syndrome feelings which every single person goes through.
The understanding, the pressure of things like content creation or oh my God, I've got to get my head around this whole new platform or ah, I sent my first email or oh my gosh, I've gone live on YouTube and I've got like three subscribers, like can you go and subscribe to my channel?
Like this is where you really want these small business owners who understand it to come into your orbit if you don't have them already, because they can be so crucial and useful and helpful and supportive and encouraging, and being a biggest cheerleader. And you can also do that with them as well. So it's a reciprocal relationship.
I think these relationships that I've been able to cultivate with people who are also small business owners are so deep because there's not just the normal friendship stuff, there's all the other elements of business like I've talked about. It's such a psychological journey being a small business owner. There are so many wins and challenges and issues, and just being able to bond over that.
Recently, I went through an experience with one of my staff members, and a client had also gone through that same experience. And so that client and I bonded. We really did. She'd been working with me for a while, but the conversations we had, the chats, the DMs, we just were laughing about things. It was like, "Oh my goodness, I can't believe this happened!" and "This is such an interesting story," even though we were both really frustrated and annoyed by what had happened.
But it bonded us in a way that someone who hadn’t gone through that potentially we just wouldn't have been able to fully, fully connect. And so this is where you want to really understand how important and how unique business friends are when you're in the small business community.
And like I said, I've been able to cultivate some, and it's amazing because you can have these conversations where you're talking about the kids, or you're talking about a recipe. And then you can flip to talking about TikTok and whether it's worth it. And then you're talking about some platform that you're using, or an AI that's really good. You can go between all of these different things, and it's really a rounded conversation about all the parts of your business.
As opposed to not always—but depending on the situation—sometimes when you're talking to people who are just in an employed role, there's certain things that you're just not going to bring up. Unless, say, for example, the pressure of content creation. If that person that you're talking to is employed but they have nothing to do with marketing or content, chances are they don’t actually have that pressure of creating content all the time.
And so it's just sort of something that, or if you start talking about it, maybe they're thinking, "Oh my God, are you trying to be an influencer?" I had a good friend who said that recently. She said she was talking to one of her friends and they literally said, "What are you doing? Are you trying to be an influencer? Are you trying to be famous? Are you trying to be like Kim Kardashian?"
And she was like, "No, I'm not. This is just what small business owners need to be doing. Like, we're showing up. It's showing up, building our audience, building our community." And she said it was just a really awkward conversation because she felt that they sort of judged her and looked down a little bit on it. Almost like giggling, "Oh, God, really? At your age?"
And so that vulnerability can be there more with people who... And again, all friendships and relationships are different. I don't want everyone who's employed coming for me about this. You can have incredible relationships with people who are employed or not employed at all. But sometimes the relationships and friendships, and conversations you can have with people who totally get it, are just next level. It's just next level. You can be yourself, you can be vulnerable, and you can also have these incredibly supportive communities.
Which brings me to one of the ways of working through this loneliness or working through the idea of feeling like you are doing it all, you know, by yourself: is to find a business community. Like, how do you build that? How do you cultivate that? Where do you find these people?
One place, obviously, is something like group coaching. So, I run a group coaching programme. It runs for, well, I always say 12 months; technically runs for about 14 months, because we take a break over the summer period in Australia. But that is an incredible place to find other people who, A, are open to meeting up regularly, going back to that 219 hours, but also a place where it’s encouraged for you to share your wins and your challenges.
It’s encouraged for you to talk about money, it’s encouraged for you to talk about growing your brand, it’s encouraged for you to talk about where you are finding difficulty, or where the gaps are. Or encouraged to talk about your staff issues or other stresses that are happening in the business with other people who fully get it.
The other thing with a programme like mine, or other group coaching programmes, is that it’s often done within business hours. It depends on your time zone and everything else, but usually it’s done within business hours. For example, hours are usually 10:00 a.m. on a Tuesday or 12:00 on a Tuesday. And so it’s within school hours. It’s within that time that you’re already working.
So it’s not like, "Oh, it’s this networking group that you have to go after hours or you have to get there at like 8:30 on a Friday," which is just very difficult a lot of the time, especially if you've got young children, or you've got a health condition, or maybe you've got mental health stuff that you don't want to leave the house.
And so, a group coaching programme like the one that we have at the moment, Sidestep the Hustle, which is open, I should say. And if you're interested in joining, you can go to mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching. But it combines learning and educating and upskilling with connection with community.
And it's just a natural way to network and to meet each other. And even outside of group coaching, we have a bunch of courses and coaching programmes, and you see people genuinely connect within those. Like our Marketing for Your Small Business course and coaching programme. It’s wonderful to see people, like, become friends and meet up outside of that programme that they did for nine weeks together.
Because it’s a natural way of networking as opposed to potentially turning up to an event, putting a badge on, and then having an hour to sell yourself to somebody. It’s a whole year together. Well, Marketing for Your Small Business is nine weeks, but the group coaching programme is a whole year with people.
So you see over the course of the year, or all of their seasons—like, all of them. Often we have people that will cry in group coaching because they’re genuinely sharing things, or they’re having breakthroughs that they haven’t had elsewhere, and they feel supported by this small community around them.
We have a WhatsApp group so that people are sharing their wins or challenges. We were just chatting about the new year in one of them, and somebody had said, you know, "I find it a kind of challenging time because it’s positive and exciting and uplifting. But it’s also..." She had certain reasons why she finds it quite a vulnerable time as well.
And so having that space where you can say this, and you can say it in a safe, secure place, as well as learning and upskilling and talking about things and sharing ideas with people is just... It's an incredible thing as a coach to witness. But I’ve also been in group coaching programmes myself. My good friend that I mentioned previously in Amsterdam, we met through a US coaching programme that we were both in during COVID.
And also going back to that 219 hours, when you think about how many hours a group coaching programme like mine is. I think we have 26, let’s say, like 26, 28 sessions. Then we have another six for the book club, like the business book club part of it. So what’s that? 28 plus 6? 34. 34 hours.
Then you have additional hours in the WhatsApp chat or doing the coaching because you get all of the courses for free during that 12 months. You know, you may also be in the coaching and course programmes. And so... And then we also, you know, potentially meet up in person as well. So there’s, let’s say, 60 hours.
And then there’s also an option for people to become buddies where they meet up themselves outside of the group coaching programme, just two people. And so let’s say they also meet, let’s say, another 30 hours in the year or three times a month. That’s almost half of the 219 hours that you need to become a good friend with somebody.
So you can see how that friendship and that ability to build community and to build out a system, to not feel lonely, can happen within, say, a group coaching programme. And so you really want to think about, in your business, if you're not going to do something like a group coaching programme, where else are you seeking out those business friendships?
A friend... I have a number of friends who have come through either coaching with me or friends that I've made through Instagram that we've connected, and then I’m just going to one of them's house next week with my kids. And we’ve connected through Instagram and we've started meeting up every so often with our kids, or just ourselves.
And that’s a lovely friendship to have. We both do a very similar job, and so that's a lovely thing to have and to be able to be really open and talking with people and not feel like, "Oh, it’s competition," or "I have to hide stuff," or "She has to hide stuff," or whatever.
So think about, are there people that you're already talking to on, say, a social media platform, that you really, you know, enjoy talking to and chat with? And like, let’s take this off social and actually be social in real life. And even if you don't live anywhere near each other, maybe you start having Zoom calls.
My good friend in Amsterdam, M, we have like a quarterly Zoom call. I mean, we actually talk a bit more often than that, but we have like a two-hour session where we go through our business for the next quarter. We also talk, like, literally every single day on WhatsApp. I talk while I’m on my walk. She talks on her walk in Amsterdam. I talk, you know, from here in North Warndite. And so we're building that business friendship.
Another really good friend of mine runs an incredible brand and lives very close to me. And we built our friendship up by going for walks for like three hours at a time during COVID. And so again, if you think about that 219 hours, we were building on that a lot. And now we see each other most Wednesdays for a couple of hours.
And it's beautiful. I love that friendship. And so thinking about, how can you put more effort in and how can you think about, is there a process for us to catch up? And I know that can sound a bit like, oh, God, you have to put a structure in place, but that can work. I have another good friend who's just been on the podcast, Chris Mandixx, and we meet up four times a year. We have dinner and we meet at the same restaurant at the same time. Like it's 7 o'clock on a Tuesday at this Japanese restaurant and it's about halfway between both of our houses. We don't live near each other, and we meet up in person. We also talk, obviously, throughout the year. But we have those four standing appointments. And so sometimes you do need to put a bit of a structure in place and be like, this works for us. So let's figure it out.
Another friend of mine is also a client. A lovely, lovely person. We send voice notes, but we also catch up. We both have two children that are the exact same age, so we catch up and do like play dates. But we do play dates often where the kids are off and playing and we get a proper chance to chat.
So thinking about sometimes when we're feeling lonely, sometimes you really need to be honest with yourself and go, how much effort am I actually putting in to cultivate these friendships? How much effort am I putting in to like, check in on people or to catch up or to send them a text or to phone them, God forbid? One of my friends who's been a client previously as well, the other day just texted and said, hey, when can we have a call just to chat, like, nothing urgent, but like, when can we book in a phone call? And I'm like, I love this. No one calls anymore.
So thinking about in your friendship, acquaintances, and people that you know, if you are going to tell yourself, oh, I'm lonely, or I don't have any small business friends, it's like, well, what are you going to do about that? Now, I'm not saying if you're seriously suffering from mental health challenges, 100%, go and see your GP, go and talk to a professional. But if you're sitting there sort of watching people on social media and being like, oh, look at them, they've got this or that or, gosh, I wish I had some small business friends. Think about how you can make that happen. How can you make that happen?
I have another amazing friend, Kylie from Ofkin, and we were just chatting and I said to her, we know so many great women, like, we should have a dinner each quarter and just both invite two people and meet each other's friends and like, you build these communities, build these connections and not in some, like, oh, what can I get from them? Just in a way of making the effort to build connection.
Likewise, I've mentioned the group coaching programme that I run and part of the way that I run my business is very much to—well, part. A huge part of the way I run my business is that my business supports my life. My life doesn't support my business. My business works around my life, and I seem to attract a lot of people who want that as well. And so we come together as a group to talk about this. How are we going to work together? What is the meaning? What is the impact? What's the purpose? All of that. And it's just such a beautiful community.
So if you are interested in joining the next round, we do have that open at the moment for intake and that is all the information. The application form is available at mysdailybusiness.com/groupcoaching. Please go and check that out if you're interested, because we are interviewing people currently.
So, we have gone over a few things today. We've gone over the reality, I guess, of small business isolation. We've gone over the competing priorities that come up in life and being really realistic about how much time you actually have to spend on cultivating friendship and getting yourself out there and nurturing things. We've also talked about the uniqueness, I guess, or the unique understanding that comes with having business friends when you're running businesses, and then talking about, you know, finding your business community.
So I guess I just want to remind you as I finish up that you're not alone. The amount of people that feel lonely from time to time in business is huge. It is absolutely huge. The amount of people that feel lonely in general around society is gigantic. I mean, there's so many people that are alone. When my dad moved into the nursing home, like, I'd see people there all the time and I'd say to him, I never see, you know, do they have family or he'd say, oh yeah, they've got a daughter, but she never visits or nah. Or all their families in Queensland and they just sit there by themselves. And often we have a chat to them or bring them over to the coffee table or like, because there's so much loneliness. And when you get older, you can see it, you see people that, I mean, gosh, we had an incredible TV show here in Australia called Old People's Home for Four Year Olds and then they did Old People's Home for Teenagers. If you can watch it, find it online. It's incredible, but it really talks about the loneliness epidemic. And between teenagers feeling incredibly lonely, I think it was like 75% of teenagers in Australia feel that they don't have a good friend. I mean that is just absolutely heartbreaking. I could cry thinking about it.
Same with a whole bunch of older people who say that they don't talk to anybody and that's why they want to chat in the supermarkets and they want to chat in the street. I walk my dogs a few mornings a week and I bump into three people that are definitely in the older category and we always stop and have a full on chat, and I love it. And I often think I might be the only person that they're chatting to this whole day. I'm sure they're not, they're very social people, but you just don't know that. And likewise in business, you can have people that are very big and out there on social media, and then, you know, behind the scenes they're quite lonely.
So it is normal. If you are really, really feeling it and it's getting to the point where it's kind of hindering your normal life, then I would absolutely go and talk to somebody. Of course, there's Lifeline that you can call as well. I think it's 13, 11, 14. You can check out Beyond Blue, but also talk to your GP. It is absolutely normal for people to feel bouts of loneliness, particularly if you've moved to a new city, or maybe your relationship's broken up, or maybe your children have left the home, or all sorts of things. So just a reminder, you are not alone at all.
A lot of the times I will have people in one-on-one coaching as well who will say, you're the only person that I could talk to about this. And, you know, sometimes there's tears involved, sometimes there's—it's really—there's so many parts of running a business that are hard. It's hard, it's challenging, it's confronting, of course. It's also amazing and exciting, but sometimes without having... We're social creatures, we want people to talk to about that, and not in some social media flashy kind of way, but in a real, genuine way.
Also, I want to just remind you that if you are interested in group coaching, check out mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching, but the biggest thing I would say to take away from this episode is to really encourage you to take action on building business friendships. Whether it's this year, you know, whether you're listening to this at the start of the year, awesome. Make it a goal. If you're listening anytime, really, what can you do to build those business friendships?
And sometimes it is incredibly vulnerable and awkward to make the first move. I mean, it's like dating. It's like saying, I really like you. Can we hang out more? It is. It's really daunting. And especially if you're kind of in a professional relationship with somebody, that can be daunting to be like, can we also be friends? But I promise you, it is worth it.
With my friend in Amsterdam, I said to her, hey, I'd love to, like, chat outside of the Zoom calls. And she was like, me, too. I've been thinking about that. I would love to chat with you. And we started chatting, and it just built and built to the point where we now send like, 30 messages overnight to each other. Not every night, but we know a lot about each other's lives. And we met last year. We went to... Oh. No, the year before now. We met in 2023, went to Mallorca, spent a week together at this incredible Airbnb just laughing and getting to, you know, seeing each other in real life. And that's awesome, too.
But I have a bunch of other friends here in Melbourne that I started. Or it started by being like, do you want to go for a walk? Cool. Or our kids are the same age. Do you want to catch up and have a play date? And inevitably you make a friendship happen.
So I would really encourage you, if you're feeling lonely at all, anything like that, please, please think about what you can do to take that first step. And if you absolutely don't know where to start, and you maybe are not in the position to join group coaching, feel free to reach out to me. I know so many people in small business, and I'm more than happy to set people up. I constantly do do this already. I'm like, oh, I think you guys would, like, get on well. Do you mind if I send an email to you both? And they're like, most of the time, I would say 99% of the time, people are like, yes, yes, I would love to meet them. Or, oh, my God, I followed them on social. I think they're amazing. Yes, I think it would be great to meet.
I just had somebody on the podcast who lives in Bali, and I have another friend who lives in Bali who's in small business. And I was like, oh, you know, she was saying, how... I said, do you know a lot of people there? And she was saying, I know some people, but, you know, it's always good to know more. And I was like, let me introduce you to this other friend of mine who's in Bali, and I just introduced them on Instagram and I think they're going to meet up later this month, so feel free to reach out to me too, and I will do my best.
So that is it for today's session. Just all about, you know, loneliness and building real connections and why business friendships are so important. So if you want to go through this in text format or find the link to the group coaching programme, although it is literally just mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching, you can find that online in text format at mydailybusiness.com/podcast484.
Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Podcast for a range of tools to help you grow and start your business, including coaching programmes, courses and templates. Cheque out our shop at mydailybusiness.com and if you want to get in touch, you can do that by email at hello@mydailybusiness.com or you can hit us up on Instagram at mydailybusiness_. You can find us on TikTok at mydailybusiness or find me Fiona Killackey on LinkedIn. I look forward to connecting.
