Is there power in a community?

What do you think?

I feel like it depends on the community.

I say it depends a lot, right?

But the reality is it does

depend on the community.

We have just come back from the first

Thriving Women Retreat for 2024 and

In their own words, It was amazeballs.

What made it a maze balls?

It wasn't necessarily the content.

It wasn't necessarily the location,

but it was the power of community.

It's sitting back and realizing that

others have similar struggles to you.

It's sitting back and going, Oh, they

might have some ideas that might help me.

We had a client who was in Thriving

Women and she owns Allied Health

Practice, and she came into

one of our hot seat sessions.

Now, for those who don't know

what a hot seat session is, a hot

seat session, well, try say that

really fast, a hot seat session.

Is a session where we come together,

it's a small group of people and each

person brings an opportunity or a

threat or a challenge or something that

they want to kick around in the group.

And she came in and she just

had the news that a couple of

staff members needed to leave.

One to go on maternity leave.

the other one was leaving because

their performance wasn't great.

she came in feeling a bit

dejected and a bit deflated.

20 minutes with us and she

was like a different person.

And I'll tell you why in a minute.

Why is the power of

community so important?

I ask myself this question constantly.

And I think there's a few reasons.

Firstly, business is tough doing.

Business with other people

makes it feel more doable.

We can do hard things.

I also think business can be lonely.

If you don't have people around

you, you can get in your head a lot.

A lot of us work from home these days.

A lot of us are solopreneurs

and you can get in your head.

And so having a community

helps combat that loneliness.

There is an epidemic.

That is around loneliness

and that's not great.

We as human beings, we need connection.

As business owners, oh my

goodness, we need connection.

And the final thing is when we

have a community of people who

know us, know us relatively well,

they can be sounding boards.

They can be cheerleaders.

They can hold us accountable

to the things that we say

that we're going to do.

And isn't that what having

a community is about?

Have you had a community for

a while and you feel like,

oof, maybe I've outgrown it?

Do you need to refresh your community?

Who is it that you are hanging out with?

I think having a community

is so, so important.

So important, in fact, that

when I left my corporate roleI

joined a community immediately

and it has been the best

thing that I have done.

Did it feel uncomfortable?

Yes.

Did it feel hard?

Yes.

Did I not know anyone?

Yes.

But then I got in there, I threw

everything I had at it and you start

to create beautiful relationships

and friendships with people.

And this helps in life.

It helps in business.

It helps everywhere really.

And so I'm all about community.

I'm all about connection.

And I think that those two things

can go hand in hand in business.

I think the other thing that I

have realized is that you need

to find the right community.

There are a lot of communities

out there and there are a lot

of free communities out there.

Now I have nothing against free

communities, but I have seen people

who have joined free communities

and expect things that you only

really get from a paid community.

And so this may be an unpopular

opinion and I'm okay with that.

But sometimes you need to pay some cash.

And have some skin in the game.

It's almost similar to, we run

a lot of pro bono, tickets for

our events or our programs.

And do you know what I find when

we hand out the pro bono tickets?

There's just not the

same skin in the game.

So if you're not paying for a community

and you're not getting much out of your

community, those two things add up.

If you're paying for a community,

you're getting the very best

you can get out of a community.

Awesome.

I also think being part of a community

means, you know, you have to be all in.

You can't just half turn up, half show

up, like you have to throw yourself in..

I would love to know from you, have

you sat back and thought about the

community that you're currently in?

Have you sat back and thought

about whether this is still

the right community for you?

Have you?

looked at your community and looked

at the people that you are hanging

out with, liaising with, co working

with and thought to yourself, Oh,

I might need a little upgrade.

That's okay.

We grew up in business.

We evolve in business there is

absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Back to our client who came

along for the hot seat.

She came along for the hot seat and

she walked in a little bit deflated

and wondering how she was going

to get what she needed to get.

She thought she would have to go out

to a recruitment agency, she'd have

to go into a market that was just

not turning up the best candidates

and take the best of a worst bunch.

She didn't have to do

any of those things.

As we kicked it around, as we looked

at her org structure, as we looked

at her culture, what we realised is

that she had people sitting there.

waiting to be promoted.

And so we carved out a couple of

things for her to do, including

promoting one of her existing staff.

And what that actually meant a

few months later is that that

person stepped up to the plate.

They did all the things

they needed to do.

They have shown themselves

to be a great people manager

and it's a win win all round.

Now, yes, she still needs to fill that

person's role because you can't bring

someone up and then not backfill.

So she needs to do that, but it's

an easier fill than replacing

one of her senior people.

That's the power of a community.

That you can come up with these things.

You can enact them in a way that

works and you can go from there.

I want to tell you one other quick

story on our thriving women retreat.

We were talking about the offers

that we would put out into the world.

And through 16 of us having different

conversations, one of the ladies

came up with an offer that was

absolutely in her sweet spot that

she could enact straight away.

And two days later, she

had filled that offer.

She could not have done that on her own.

The power of the community pushed her,

propelled her to get those things locked

into the diary, to get the landing page

up, to make sure that she had people

that she could send the offer to, to

That is the power of the community.

So next time you're out and about,

have a look at your community.

And if they are not the people you

need to be with right now, where do

you need to go to get your community?

And have fun.

As I say, life's too short.

Have fun.

Bye for now.