the bossbabe podcast - 3. The Real (Lonely) Journey of Entrepreneurship That No One’s Talking About

Episode Date: March 5, 2019

On this week’s episode, BossBabe’s Natalie and Danielle dive deep into the true loneliness that comes with being an entrepreneur and how to find your tribe to help you overcome that. They get real and honest about the challenges they’ve faced and how to deal with making decisions that pull you out of your comfort zone. Natalie shares her “magic list” technique which is how she has intentionally surrounded herself with incredibly successful and supportive friends. Natalie and Danielle created The Société because it’s what they wished they had when starting out. Head to thesociete.co to find out more. This episode is sponsored by Après. On-the-go post workout? Looking for a quick snack to get you to your next meal? Après is designed from the ground up to give back to your body with clean, plant-based ingredients. Head to drinkapres.com and use the code BOSSBABE15 for 15% off. 

I've definitely felt lonely on this journey and being able to create a community of women that support each other and help them feel less lonely is really at the core of what we do and it's because we've experienced that ourselves. It's so easy to make friends when you're young but as you get older I think you almost have this fear of rejection. You only have to be friends when you're young but as you get older I think you almost have this fear of rejection. You only have to be lonely if you choose to be. You never have to be alone unless you want to. Hey and welcome to this week's episode on the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share and discuss the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all. In this episode, Natalie and

I are talking about loneliness and how that has affected us as individuals when we felt lonely and how we've tried to overcome it. It's raw and real and it's us sharing our truths. Before we dive in though, I want to say a special thanks to the sponsors of this episode, Apre. I love this company, not just because their plant-based protein drink is amazing, but also because their founder Darby is a total boss babe. Darby has used her experience as a health coach and a personal trainer to create a plant-based protein drink which is the first of its kind. I have to be careful with how much dairy I consume so it's so nice to have found a clean plant-based vegan protein shake that actually uses organic plant proteins, metabolic fats from organic virgin coconut oil and electrolytes from organic coconut water. It's perfect for

mid-morning snack or post-workout and Apri comes in four super delicious flavors, cold brew coffee, vanilla, mint cacao, and sea salt chocolate. And the chocolate is my total fave. So if you are someone that wants to have confidence in what you are consuming and putting into your body, then head to drinkapres.com, at prespout, A-P-R-E-S, and use the code BOSSBABE15 for 15% off. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going, and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Boss Babe podcast. I'm Natalie Ellis

and I'm joined by Danielle Canty. Hi. We're the girls behind Boss Babe and we're just going to dive straight in this week with a podcast all about being lonely. It's something that us as female entrepreneurs can really relate to and I feel like wherever you are, whether you're listening to this in the car, in the bath, at the gym, I feel like this might touch on a lot of things you've experienced or maybe are feeling right now. And we love to just dive into the truth about what it's really like to be a female entrepreneur, to be an ambitious woman, to be on this path of growth and just really unpack and address all of these things that go on. So we're going to dive straight into that. But before we do,

I want to share with you my little tip of the week. I love a little tip. I love how excited you are about sharing your tips. So my tip of the week is we often talk a lot about having morning rituals and evening rituals and how important they are. Listen, I completely believe that having a routine that sets you up for success in the morning is so key to setting the tone for your day. But what I've really been looking into lately is the power of changing up your routine and maybe doing different things on different days. So the thing is, if you wake up every day and you do the same things every single day, you might find that you get into this autopilot mode. You're just doing things

and you're not even having to think about it. You get up, you open your curtains, you go and put the coffee on, you do some stretching, breathing, whatever it is, you get out a book, you start reading and you're almost doing these things without even having to think about it. And the reason is you've already developed these neural networks in your brain that just know what your morning routine is. You're not having to step into any unknown and your brain isn't having to do any work, no rewiring. You're not having to grow in that sense at all. And so what I've really loved doing is trying to create new neural networks in my brain. If you know anything about me, you'll know I'm obsessed with the brain. I'm obsessed with high performance. So yeah, I've been really trying to make those new networks in my brain and doing that by actually changing up my morning routine. So yesterday's morning routine was me getting up and it was a

very slow kind of morning. It was stretching and breathing, reading with my coffee and reflecting and journaling. It was very slow and that's what my day needed. That's who I needed to be in order to show up very balanced for my day. But today's day was really, really different. I got up super early. I went to the gym. I did half an hour workout. I came back. I straightened the shower. Then I got out. I made my coffee. I was actively journaling. I was doing some visualization and tension setting. So that's who my day needed me to be today. And what that kind of change up does, it really starts to rewire things in your brain. And if we are on this journey of growth, we need to be on this journey of creating new neural networks. We need to be on this journey of creating new optimized routines. We need to be on this journey of asking, what do I need to do

today? Who do I need to be today? How do I need to grow today? And it's that kind of plunge into the unknown where all the growth happens. And we see this in brain scans and we see this in our daily performance. We see this across the board. So I really encourage you this week to think about how you can start switching up some of your routines, get out of autopilot. And yeah, that's my tip of the week. How do you feel about that, Danielle? I think that's so important just to raise that and just lean in to what is right for you in the moment and just not be so strict on ourselves and allow us to channel the feelings that we have and act on them and I think starting your day like that is just so incredibly powerful so thank you so much for sharing let's take a

quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform Kajabi you know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which I love not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place. So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you.

It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe you're welcome i honestly feel like i'm really aware now of myself going on autopilot and trying to pull out of that as much as possible i think it serves us in a lot of ways if say you're

driving to work if you're on autopilot there, that's great. You can think about other things. But isn't it nice to really step into the present and not be an autopilot and be thinking about things right now in the present? And the present is where the unknown is. The past is fully known. That's autopilot. And if we are going into the future in the exact same way we lived the past then all of those networks have been created for us we understand it there's not really much unknown there but if we pull into the present more and we feel into that and start to really embrace what that is we step into the unknown and I think that's where a lot of the magic happens so yeah think about what you're doing in your day that is very much on autopilot try and pull yourself back to presence

and like no I'm gonna feel into this yeah and also just being present in the moment with everything we do right I think there's so many of us on autopilot check our phones in the morning or we do something out of habit and we don't question why we do that and whether it's actually serving us we do it because we've always done it so I think like you say in the morning but just throughout the day and throughout our lives we should be in the moment and not, you know, even conversations. How many times do I go to a restaurant now and I see everybody sat on their phone around the table? In fact, that probably brings us on perfectly into the topic that we're going to talk about today, loneliness. Because in a world where we are so connected now and we have, you know, our phones on us constantly and

with a touch of a button, we can be communicating with thousands of people at once. That surely you would have thought would mean we are more connected and loneliness doesn't exist anymore. But in reality, it exists more than ever. Yeah, I feel that. I think that's why we both do what we do. I've definitely felt lonely on this journey and being able to create a community of women that support each other and help them feel less lonely is, I think, really at the core of what we do. And it's because we've experienced that ourselves. I was just at a mastermind last week. I feel like I'm always at masterminds. It's like, you know, when you hear the thing, one time at band camp, I'm like one time at a mastermind. But I was just at a mastermind last week. And I'm going to pull up the quote. One of the girls who was running it, she said this thing. She said, you only have to be lonely if you choose to be. You never have to be alone unless you want to be. And that really struck me because for a long time, a few few years ago the story that I kept telling myself over and over again was it's lonely in business it's lonely as an entrepreneur it's

lonely doing this I'm lonely all of this kind of stuff and actually if you make the decision to lean in to your relationships your friendships your. It doesn't have to be lonely, but it all starts with you kind of stepping out of your comfort zone and pulling people in. I mean, I'm speaking for myself here, but I do think some people are more afraid to lead that these days. We are so connected on Messenger and all of these kind of micro sessions we have with each other, whether it's a voice note here or there, we're keeping up these micro relationships. But I think some people feel anxious about just messaging and being like, hey, I want to get a few people together for dinner next week. Can we all organize that? Can we go out? And it's like, oh, I'm too busy for that. I don't have time. Or we

can just connect online or we can do a video. And it's like, no, there are a few things that really replace conversations that raise your vibration and raise your energy. I call them soul nourishing conversations. I felt like I was a total introvert. What I realized was I was actually just not hanging out with people that nourished my soul and raised my energy. Whereas now that I know that, I don't feel introverted at all. I make a point at least five times a week, I'm hanging out with people and seeing new people whether it's having coffees going for dinners going for a walk a hike I'm leaning into that but I'm leaning into people that help me feel more extroverted that really nourish my soul I just had one of those

coffees last night and it was amazing and we need to be more active about finding those people and taking responsibility for finding those people and leaning into those relationships because it's not just going to happen it's not like at school you know when you sit down at the lunch table and someone sits with you you're like okay we're friends now this is it we're going to do everything together it's not that easy anymore so you kind of have to take responsibility for that I feel yeah I agree actually because you know when you're a child and you used to well we certainly did this in the UK anyway you used to go around and knock on your friend's door and be like are you coming out to play and I think that boldness has gone like it's so easy to make friends when you're young

but as you get older I think you almost have this fear of rejection maybe do you want to reach out to them they might not want to be your friend or they might think you're weird if you just start conversation whereas actually that other person is probably feeling exactly the same on the other end and for me the journey of entrepreneurship and being an ambitious woman has felt lonely in the sense that I didn't necessarily have the right people to talk about it with like I have my friends from the past who are amazing but they're my friends for like different activities and I needed friends for new activities and I think that's the other thing that we all need to be aware about when we're talking about taking responsibility for loneliness and what is it

that we want from our friendships and seeking that out and not being afraid to not necessarily get rejected but it's okay if someone says actually I'm too busy and they don't have maybe room for a new friend but somebody else will and about connecting with those men or women but making the effort to meet new people and put yourself out there I think you've hit the nail on the head with fear of rejection and I know that showed up for me in the past where I felt like nervous to reach out and that fear of them saying, no, I don't want to spend time with you. Otherwise I would have invited you. And that feeling of I'm not invited. So they hate me, all of those different things. Whereas actually I think everything's internal. And if you don't

get invited to something rather than thinking, oh my God, they hate me. They're not inviting me. Hold a mirror up to that situation and be like, am i reflecting on this and maybe it's you're not inviting yourself in you're not letting them know you actually want to go you're not really actively leaning into your relationships and i think that fear of rejection is actually a massive thing and like you said earlier taking responsibility for that because if we want to grow as ambitious women and female entrepreneurs, then it's true what they say, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, right? So if you're going to be lonely, if we kind of like reflect that, if you are associating with the people that raise you up and raise your vibrations, that's going to have a

positive impact. But if you're also wallowing in the whole loneliness side of it, or feeling that you're not taking responsibility for going out there and finding your five people, then where does that leave you? Does that have a negative impact? I love that. It's so true. If you're surrounded by people that are constantly like, I'm broke, I can't afford this, I can't afford to do that. Well, you're probably going to stay broke too. And then if you get surrounded by people that have these amazing abundant mindsets and everything flows a lot easier, you're going to step into that and your vibration is going to match that. I would love to ask you, how do you think the women listening can, and men, can start leaning into their friendships more and finding those five people that are just raising them up and that they really are inspired

by and want to spend more time with how would you suggest they do that well that's a good question so for me I think it's about first of all finding a common interest so when you're a child it might have been netball or doing a certain sport and what is that as an adult is that dancing or is that entrepreneurship or is that fashion what is the common interest what are you passionate about and then looking for people in that area so where are they hanging out it's so easy to find now whether it's groups on Facebook or people to follow on Instagram for example we have the society right so it's a place where female entrepreneurs connect, grow and build. That's what it's there for. So understanding what your interest is and how you want to align with others. So I would

first of all start there. And then once you get into that group network and get rid of that fear, don't put yourself out there and be brave and bold and step into it because I think everyone needs to like I said earlier take ownership of their actions and you can't always expect other people to lead forward for you I think you have to lean into it yourself and make the effort take the first step so that's what I would say like first of all find where they're hanging out then join them and then be bold enough to put yourself out there I love that I think I've met the majority of my really good friends through Instagram just them DMing me or me DMing them and just being like

hey like I noticed where we've got a mutual friend in this person I was wondering if you want to go and grab coffee and then building on from that I'd have coffee with that person and I would just be really bold and push past the fear of rejection and say hey I really would love to meet more people like you I'm new here or I feel like I've outgrown my current friendship group could we do something with a bunch of people next time you invite your friends and I can invite some of mine and we get together and enjoy each other's company if you know you like this person you can probably assume you're going to like their friends too. So you open that up, you get introduced to their friendship circle and you do the same thing. And then if you really get on with someone that you

meet there, then you can DM them or message them and say, hey, can we go for a coffee next week and keep that relationship going? And it kind of snowballs from there where you build these deep one-to-one relationships and also get opened up to their circles. And I'm very Capricorn in the sense that I recommend you like set a goal. Like, okay, this week I'm going to have coffee with at least one new person, or this month I'm going to have coffee four times with a new person and I'm going to invite them out. And really being intentional about that. And when you're setting your intentions for the quota, my intention this quarter is to really lean into my friendship. I desire to have a friendship group of people who are interested in what you're saying, coming in just X, Y, and Z.

And being so intentional about that. And one thing I would add, which I've talked to you about, I'm obsessed with this idea of this magic list. What a magic list is, is a list of people who would be your dream friends. Now, I don't encourage you to go and write like Oprah and Reese Witherspoon and all these amazing women on there because really consider what is it that I'm looking for in a friend. Is your dream friend someone that has a similar job to you, is interested in the same things to you, wants to hang out, lives where you are? Think about what you would want out of your dream friends and then look at people and be like, you know what? I really look up to this person. She really inspires me. I'm going to add her to this magic list and make a list of like 10 people.

Even if you think it's unattainable or even if you think it's creepy, you don't have to tell anyone about it. Actually, one of my best friends, she admitted to me that I was on her magic list. And she reached out to me on Instagram and she was like, hey, we have a common friend and I've been following you for a while. I think you're amazing. We're so similar. I think we should get together and have a cybles. And that's what we did. I was like, okay, she doesn't look creepy. I feel safe. I'm going to go and have a cybles. And it was honestly just like finding a long lost friend. We just connected so well because she'd really seen from what I was posting about and my stories that she would really get on with me. And it was the same with her. Like she is such an incredible person. And from that moment,

we've been inseparable. But having that link of a mutual friend was helpful. Then it's not just like hitting up internet strangers and coming across as like a little creep you know validating yourself and being like I really see you this is me just coming at it and leaning into this and I would like to be your friend and doing that it can be scary but you get used to it so have your magic list and write 10 people on it and then think about okay of this magic list how do I get an intro to each of these people? Do I have mutual friends? If so, can I ask that mutual friend to invite this person out for dinner next time we go? Thinking through it like that and being really proactive about it. That's what I really recommend doing. And I believe so much in magic, but if you write this list of 10 people

and you start in making that your intention, come back to me in a month's time and tell me what magic happened because I guarantee some some shit went down it's that whole thing though isn't it you write someone's name down and then you start bumping into them or you start seeing people that you've not seen for ages you know it is such a small world the world is so small it's amazing who knows. And when you put it out there, you want to meet somebody. It so often happens. I love how calculated you are with it all. All living things and everything else in the world are six or fewer steps from each other, so that a chain of a friend of a friend statements can be made to connect any two people in an absolute maximum of six steps. And my magic list, I'm only actually one step away from every single person on there and I'm just super intentional about that I'm very calculated about it in a positive way like I'm

very intentional about my network and the people I'm surrounded by and I've really learned a lot of this from my husband Stephen he's so intentional and he really leans into his relationships and I could never understand how he was so sociable. He is that person that loves to go to events where he doesn't know anyone and is a total social butterfly and I might not be that level of extrovert but I get it now because I get the kind of people he's surrounded by and how he's been so intentional about those relationships and maintaining them. Even if you can't see that person next week, send them a voice note and just let them know that you're thinking of them. I've literally, just as I'm on this podcast, got a message from one of my close friends saying, how are you feeling today, my little love book? And it's just so cute and positive and uplifting.

And it just makes you feel like, oh, wow, that person's really thinking about me. And you never feel like, oh, that's so crossing a boundary or, oh, how dare that person text me. You always feel warm inside and loved. I mean, we're all human human beings all we want is to feel loved and accepted bottom line so why not reach out and be that person you know if you have a great dinner with someone it's the first time you met them and you're walking away from that and you're feeling great send them a text and saying I had the best conversation with you let's do it again soon or the day later message them just saying thank you so much for yesterday it felt great and I had such a good time with you and don't be fearful of putting yourself out that way and understand people just want to be seen and they're not judging you for saying that

we all have the same insecurities quite often don't we I just want to ask you though Natalie you spoke at the beginning and I know this from conversations I've had in the past that you were quite lonely when you started on your entrepreneur journey and hearing you speak about this now and how intentional you are with your network and making friends what was the defining moment for you which made you change like what was the switch the flip that's a really good question I've kind of always felt like I was a loner and didn't really lean into friendships. I was the kind of person at school, I never got bullied and I always had so many friends, but I only had a very small handful of really, really good friends and I didn't let a

lot of people in. And I felt very comfortable with that at school. It was amazing. I had my little group and it just felt great. And then I went to university and I felt very different from everyone else there. And we can get into that in a different podcast, but I really, really struggled at my first year of university and I felt so deeply lonely. And it was because I was from a different background. I had interests in different things. I mean, I was that weirdo that was obsessed with entrepreneurship. I felt different. I felt strange. And that made me sad. Like I didn't feel like really accepting of myself. And I can remember this defining moment. I had a boyfriend at the time. He didn't go to the same university as me. He was in the year above and he'd kind of done

this experience of university. He was a year into it. I trusted his judgment. He's actually one of my best friends still today. But I remember a moment of locking myself in a bathroom at university crying my eyes out and calling him being like please can you come and get me I don't want to do this anymore it's so lonely I don't have any friends I hate sitting in my lecture theatres alone and he was like you need to change this like this is on you and that was a big defining moment for me and I then went and set up a society at the university and started to attract people that I felt would be my ideal friends. And I started to build it from there. And all of a sudden I had this little group of people who were really interested in the same things as me. And I

was having those conversations that lit me up and that really built throughout university. And I just had the best group of friends from making that decision to lean in and go out there and be proactive. And then post-university, I started traveling the world. I lived in the jungle in Thailand for a few months. I was actually in Asia for six months. Then I came back. I went to LA for a few months. Then I went to France and I think I was in France for a year. And then I went back to LA, I went to New York and then I came back to LA again. I traveled a lot. And the main time I felt lonely was in France because in Thailand, I was put together

with a small group of people in the jungle. We had no excuse but to lean into each other and support each other and build those friendships. You know, we didn't have signal on our phones. We couldn't dive into social media. There was no other option. We had to lean into each other. build those friendships. You know, we didn't have signal on our phones. We couldn't dive into social media. There was no other option. We had to lean into each other. That was great. And one of the girls I met there, I class her as my sister. She is one of the closest girls in my circle. Even though she doesn't even live near me, we often spend Christmas together and she's amazing. And I met her in that experience. But then when I moved to France, I felt very disconnected.

I didn't speak the language. I didn't really know anyone. It was really like a scary move for me to go and do that. And I felt like, okay, it's really hard for me to have these conversations. I don't understand what people are saying. And not everyone knows to speak English. And I really got beat up by myself. And that's when I started leaning into the social media world and creating communities online and really saw the value of that, which I guess you could say is when the whole boss babe thing for me started.

And that's why I'm so deeply passionate about the society because that's what I needed right then when I felt so lonely and it wasn't always as simple as going out and finding people I could hang out with. And I did it and I did find some people that spoke English and I really created some great friendships there, but I did find this amazing way

of leaning into this online community. And that kind of just stuck with me from then on. And whenever I moved to a different country, I really leaned into finding out how I could make friends, whether it was at a yoga studio or whether it was using apps or Facebook, whatever it was, groups, like I really leaned into it. And it's just been so valuable for me. But this whole thing, it really did start so young. I remember when I was in the second year of high school, I was in four different schools. So I became the master of fitting in. And I think with that, it did instill in me this thing that I felt like I needed to be a certain way to be liked. Like I knew how to arrive

at a school day one, by the end of the day, have a ton of friends. I never got bullied at school. And I just kind of learned how to work that. I was, I guess I was good at psychology from a really young age because I had to be. But with that, it instilled in me this thing of you have to be this certain way to make friends. And now, and over these past few years, I've really understood, no, you need to embrace exactly who you are and in doing that you're going to attract people that love you for it that don't want you to change that you're never too much for and that's how I go into my friendships now if people can't handle me and think I'm too

much then guess what they're not my people and I'm very unapologetic about that so yeah I kind of went into a life story there but there you go I think it's really nice that you shared it and just to give people an idea of where to start, because it can be daunting, particularly if you are in that negative place and you are feeling really lonely, but knowing that you should always honor yourself, you should be yourself. And almost a little bit like the 80-20 rule, 80% it's all down to being yourself, but that 20% about overcoming loneliness is stepping out of your comfort zone and making the effort to make those friends they won't necessarily all come to you you have to be intentional about going out there and finding them and I think that's what

I've really taken away from this podcast that we've done today it's just that it's all very well being yourself but actually if you want to do something about loneliness, you have to step out of your comfort zone and go meet your tribe and find your tribe. And what we've created with the society, that's what it's all about, a place where people can connect, grow, and build. And with Boss Babe, the community, it's all about ambitious women. And there are so many, depending what your passion is, there's so many tribes out there and you just need to make the effort to find your own.

And I really want to share one of the boss babe quotes that we posted the other day, which is probably one of my favorites because it really brings home this whole conversation about loneliness. And when you find your tribe and you find those best friends, they really are with you through thick and thin.

And the quote is, friends will ask for discounts, best friends will pay the full price to support you, your time and your work. I just thought that was so powerful. I love that. And it's something I really try and do. Like when my friends launch new products, I'm like diving in. I buy at full price.

And I just think you create such an amazing energy by doing that. What an amazing way just to end this podcast. I think we've really touched on some amazing points. And I think one of my big takeaways has just been get that magic list, get intentional and take responsibility for the people you're surrounded by and know that you only have to be lonely if you want to be. If you loved this episode, please subscribe and be sure to leave us a review. We want to hear what you enjoyed, what your main takeaways were, a review we want to hear what you enjoyed what

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