This is Your Sign to CREATE the COMMUNITY You Wish Existed

In honor of my book club celebrating our 3 year anniversary/birthday, I wanted to remind you that YOU are in control of the COMMUNITY surrounding you. Look around and see if you're happy with your circle. If not, CHANGE it! 

You don't necessarily need to cut people out (though you might want to), but you ABSOLUTELY can be the leader in CREATING the COMMUNITY you wish existed if you don't already have one. 

Think of your top 3 interests or hobbies, in particular maybe 2-3 things that you'd like to IMPROVE or PRIORITIZE and think about whether your closest 5 friends SUPPORT you in those things or HINDER you. If the answer is the latter, take some ACTION to change that and start forming the COMMUNITY you need to PURSUE those more fully!

As always, i'm here for you and rooting for you. If you need a confidence boost or some help in connecting to others, let me know! I love that sort of thing.

Love you, thank you!

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Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. I am so glad that you're here. Just a heads up, our neighborhood is having our annual garage sales. I actually love this. I think it's so cool. If you're a part of an HOA, and you don't have this, you should suggest it. But twice a year, our HOA organizes a big neighborhood-wide garage sale and puts out all the signs and everything, and because there's more sales happening in a smaller area, I feel like they're more visited. And then the following week, we have a dumpster day, which is so nice because if you didn't get rid of anything at the garage sale, and it's not something you can donate to Goodwill, you could kinda get rid of it at the dumpster day. Or they also do, like, a yard waste dumpster, so in spring and fall when there's been a lot of limbs or, you know, we've had a lot of storms recently, so tree branches and tree limbs and sticks and all that, you can get rid of in the yard waste dumpster instead of having to make another trip. It's great. But tangent aside, the reason I was saying that is because you may hear my dog in the background. He goes nuts when these garage sales happen because people are walking past our front door all day long, and he's like, "Get away. I'm protecting my owners. Ahh." So, I don't know if you have dogs and can relate to that, but he definitely barks when people kind of approach our house, and when the garage sales are happening, they are much closer to our house than typically. So, he also hates Halloween. But I am recording this morning, and that is what is happening. So just a heads up if you hear my dog in the background, that is why, and give him some love. Shout out to Edward. That's his name. Anyway, I wanted to come on this episode because I was reminded this week that it has been three years since I started my book club, and we started as six women. I had just reached out to anybody in my life that I knew that read or might enjoy reading or might enjoy having friends. It didn't matter. I just reached out to a bunch of people, and then the six that said yes came to book club, and then three years later, we are 20 members strong. We actually had to kinda cap it recently on new members and... it's a blast. We meet once a month, and I just think it's so cool. But the reason that I'm bringing this up today is because it reminded me that you are the community that you create. So this is a book club that I created three years ago. I was really looking for community, specifically a book club, and I had been kinda waiting around because book clubs are really big now. Like, everybody's reading. I feel like ACOTAR or Court of Thorns and Roses, everybody started reading that, and then they started creating book clubs, and it was great. And I was kinda waiting around for other women in my life to create a book club or to, yeah, make this consistent monthly group. And I had had a conversation with someone who had been a part of one, and she was telling me a little bit about how they worked and, and she no longer went to that book club. But she and I were sitting down, her name's actually Morgan too. But we were sitting down, and At the beginning, I was kinda like, "I kinda wanna just start my own," 'cause I wanted to be able to invite my sisters and my friends from high school and my friends from college. I just wanted to be able to invite my friends from work, anybody that I wanted to, and I felt, I feel like, obviously, when you're the starter or founder of a group, you have a little, you feel a little bit more freedom to just invite anybody you want. So I had been talking with her, and I was like, "I kinda wanna just start my own and just see who shows up and just reach out to people." And so it has been such a blessing, and I feel that the women in this group are so amazing and just very supportive and celebratory of one another when something happens. We have had, since three years ago, we've had, oh my gosh, how many book club babies? I don't know, four ba- maybe book club ba-babies. And then there are other children that were already... Like, they were adopted into the book club whenever their mom joined or stepmom joined. And so we just, we have book club babies now, we have birthday celebrations, we have groups going to see Devil Wears Prada 2 together. It's just turned into this really wonderful community. And because this is our birthday/anniversary week, woo-hoo, shout out to Shared Shelves, that's our book club name. Because of that, it made me want to talk about this on the podcast, and specifically talk about creating your community, because we know, or maybe you don't know, but this is a stat I heard a long time ago That said, you're basically the culmination of your five closest friends, or five people you spend the most time with, or five people you communicate with the most. And that could be your family, if you're really close to your family, that could be your siblings. Like, I would definitely consider my sisters to be in that five closest friends. For me, I'm gonna say 10, because I think that I love having friends, but... And my sisters are already four of those, so I feel like I need to expand that to 10. But regardless, there's a quote or a fact and it says, "You are the culmination of your... Like, the sum total of your five closest friends," right? And so I want you to reflect on that real quick. I know, I think I have mentioned this on the podcast before, but think about your five closest friends. Think about the people you talk to the most on a day-to-day basis, or you consider being closest to, whether that's physically, you don't necessarily have to see them all the time in order for them to be your closest friend. But whoever you talk the most to and you guys connect a lot over certain things. So typically, whatever your five closest friends are really into right now, you probably are too. If your five closest friends loved Justin Bieber's Coachella performance, they're probably messaging you about it. Those are the people that are your five closest friends probably. If your five closest friends are huge Justin haters, they probably also were messaging you about Justin Bieber's Coachella performance, but the content was very different. Or if your five closest friends are really into reading, you've probably gotten more into reading, right? Or if your five closest friends are really into these new reformer Pilates classes, then you've probably looked more into those, or you've probably explored that more than you would've if your five closest friends hadn't. So all this to say that your five closest friends really do truly influence you, and they do shape the person that you are. I remember the first time I realized this before hearing the quote was in college when I lived with four other girls. We lived in a house called The Butte off of East Campus at Mizzou. M-I-Z, if, if you're a Tiger. But anyway, we lived in this house off of East Campus together, and obviously we were very close because we were spending a lot of time together as roommates. And I remember I had never watched any of The Bachelor or Bachelorette, and all four of my roommates watched that series. And they were watching, I wanna say it was Rachel, the first Rachel's season of The Bachelorette maybe that year. No, no, no, it was Jojo. Jojo's season, because they were all obsessed with Jojo 'cause she... Oh my God, that girl was gorgeous. Anyway, so it was Jojo's season. They were all watching it, and that was pretty much all they would talk about for a while. I was like, "I have no- I have nothing I can tr- contribute to this conversation because I don't know anything about it." But what did I do? I immediately started watching with them because I wanted to be a part of the group. And so that happens, that's a very silly example, but that happens in your life with anybody that you're around. I have a bunch of friends right now going through the early stages of mom life, and they lean on each other for conversations about breastfeeding or feeding in general, like solid foods or sleep schedules, sleep training. And everybody has different opinions, right? But if your four closest friends are all doing the same style of sleep training, you're probably gonna do that, right? If they were all doing something different where if they're all doing co-sleeping, you're probably gonna be more okay with co-sleeping. I just think, I don't know if you agree with this, but it is statistically true that your friends influence you directly and the choices that you make in your life. Whether it's subconscious or conscious, they do. And there's even a quote, or there's even a statistic out there, let me double check the percentage, but there's definitely a statistic out there that I feel shines a lot of light on this. Yeah, so friends heavily influence health, happiness, and behaviors, including a 57% increased risk of obesity if a friend becomes obese. So this isn't all about... This, this definitely isn't primarily about weight, but that's just an example of how if you have a friend who has become obese, you're more... You're 57% more likely to become obese, and that is because it's in those small, little decisions like I'm talking about, right? If you have a friend who... If, if your four closest friends really like getting together for pizza every Friday night, that is gonna be different than if your friends really like getting together for a yoga class every Friday night, right? Your friends are shaping who you are and the behaviors that you choose, and obviously it's not on, all on your friends. I don't want you to leave this episode and go, "You're the reason that I'm this way," about your friends. But the four closest people in your life or five closest people in your life, they are shaping you whether you realize it or not, whether it's at the forefront of your brain or not. So that's why I really wanna emphasize the importance of creating your own community. So I feel like the most important thing when you're thinking about this, because for me, I had been sitting on it. If you know me, you know that I kinda, I sit and really probably overthink ideas a lot longer than I should. And I also get a lot of feedback from people, maybe more than I should. But I remember when I was thinking about the book club, I had been thinking about it for several months, and I had talked to several people. Like, "Do you think it would be better to do this, or do you think this?" Or really a lot of the time, I am just seeking validation. I know that about myself, that I remember when I first started, I would talk to people and be like, "Yeah, I really wanna start a book club." And my thought is that we can rotate who chooses the book each month, and we can rotate settings, like where we host it. It could be at a house or it could be at a bar or a pub or a park. And we could do it on a weekday evening, like happy hour timeframe, like between 4:30 and 6:30, somewhere in there, start somewhere in there. And I would tell people about this, and they would all be like, "Oh, I love that idea. That's a great idea. How cool." And that is definitely what I was seeking, but when... But looking back on it, even though it probably took me longer than I needed to to actually act on it, I do think that spending a little bit of time just really thinking about what the What kind of atmosphere I wanted to produce really, really helped. So what I would encourage you to do is if you are seeking community, because it is hard when you get older, it is hard to have community. If you are seeking community, think about the top three interests that you have. It doesn't necessarily have to be, like, a full-blown hobby, but say that you are a new mom like I was talking about, and being a toddler mom is a big interest of yours. You wanna be around other toddler moms. That could count as an interest of yours, even though it doesn't really seem like a hobby. Or it could be an interest like reading, or it could be an interest like cooking or meal prepping, or it could be an interest like yoga, or it could be an interest like social work or mental health I thought it was really cool. I had a friend visit recently, and she was talking about a social work book club, and that they didn't really read... Like, we read romance and thrillers and mysteries and historical fiction, pretty much all fiction in our book club. But their book club was specifically kind of to brush up on social work concepts and ideas and see what new ideas are coming out there and see what someone else might have gained from a book that they read in the social work sphere I think that's a really cool idea if social work is something that you're, uh, you have a profession in or an interest in. It could be about your profession, whatever this interest is. But think about your top two or three interests. Think about the one that you are really feeling like, "I really wish I had more support around this. I really wish I wasn't the only one of my friends that did yoga or wants to do yoga. I wish I had more friends that want to do yoga." Okay. Now, the hard part is reaching out to people and putting it out there that this is something that you wanna do. I know for me, I think I am naturally a gatherer and a-- I seek out friendships because I'm a huge extrovert. It doesn't really bother me to go out of my comfort zone, and it-- probably because it is in my comfort zone, to reach out to people and invite them to things or ask them to do things. I just... I don't feel like I have thin skin when it comes to someone saying no to, hanging out with me, I guess. And that would be one thing that I would say is when you are forming this community, you can take nothing personally because we are all busy. Think about yourself. Think about, think about the last time that someone texted you and was like, "Hey, wanna go to brunch?" Blah, blah, blah, And then your kid bonked his head on the table, and your dog peed in the living room, and the trash truck went by and you realized you hadn't put your trash bins out, and then you came back and you totally forgot that someone texted you about getting brunch, right? We're all busy, so you can take nothing personally. The person on the other end is not thinking, "I don't wanna hang out with you 'cause I hate you, and you're the worst, and never ask me again." They are probably just busy. But the reason I bring that up is because when I first started my book club, I just reached out to anyone and everyone that I knew liked reading or I was really close to and thought would be fun to have in this community and would be kind of uplifting. That was something that I really was important to me whenever I first started was I want people that are welcoming. I don't want any weird vibes 'cause sometimes with large groups of women, sometimes that can happen. I mean, it can happen with men, too. I just feel like sometimes women are a little bit more catty about it. But with large groups of people in general, you wanna have good vibes, right? So you don't want to reach out to people to ask them like, "Hey, maybe we could start doing yoga on Saturday mornings," and invite someone who you think is gonna come and talk during the whole yoga class if you're trying to be zen. Or someone that you know hates yoga. You don't wanna necessarily invite them because for one, they probably don't wanna go. But for two, you don't necessarily want someone there that is going to, like, diminish the activity that you're doing. So just reach out to anyone and everyone that you think might l- like yoga or might just like the community that you are building for yourself. So the best advice I can give you about this truly is if you go back, I had a episode a few weeks ago about a call to all is a call to none. You can't just reach out to a bunch of people or, put it out on Facebook. I guess you could. You can't really put it out on Facebook like, "Hey, anyone wanna join a book club?" Because that's not really targeting anyone specific. But what I always do when I'm trying to start something or get something off the ground is I reach out individually, and I tell that person, "This is why I thought of you." So there were people that I was like, "I thought of you 'cause I know that you and I read a lot of similar boo- books," which was true for them. But then there were other people that I thought of and I was like, "I thought of you because we recently had a conversation about how hard it is to make girlfriends, and I think that this could be a community like that." It doesn't necessarily have to be the same exact type of person. But when you reach out to someone individually and you say, "Hey, I thought of you for this reason," it is so much more genuine, and that person is so much more likely to be interested in joining. So that's just kind of a logistical aspect of how you can start this community, and really start small. I probably invited 15 people when we first started our book club, and I said, "Hey, I think I'm gonna start this... Like, this is kind of the idea I have for the group. Do you want me to add you to the group thread? We're gonna start a group th- thread on Facebook." And some people said, "You know, I'm not really a reader. I don't wanna be added to the group thread, but thanks for the invite." Some people said, "I honestly just have too many commitments right now. I don't wanna be added to the invite." And some people said yes, and I added them to the group message thread, and I think we had maybe eight or nine people in the group message thread, and then six showed up for book club, and it was awesome and I was so happy. I was like, "Honestly, I'd be happy if I was sitting here with one other person." I just wanted to talk to someone about books, and I didn't expect it to snowball the way it has. I'm not surprised because they're such a welcoming group of wom- women. But it has snowballed into, you know, now we have 20 women. And there have been times throughout the couple of years that we've been together, three years exactly, um, but the three years that we've been meeting, that some women have come and gone. Some women have joined the chat, and then they came to a few book clubs, and then they stopped coming, and that's okay. And, and That's again, why you can't take anything personally because everybody has other things going on in their life. But I just wanna encourage you, if you are seeking community or maybe you have a community but it's not exactly nourishing the parts of your life that you want to be nourished, think, really think about what it is that you want. If you were to think about yourself in five years and the way you wanna look, the closest five people to you are going to influence that. So think about what things you want to be important to you and what things you care about or interests that you have and use this as a sign to create the community that you are looking for Because someone else isn't necessarily gonna do it. And there was a quote that I was reading from-- I've been telling you guys I'm in a Mel Robbins kick. This was from her 5-4-3-2-1 rule, or Five Second Rule is what she called it. And it was just at the beginning of a chapter, and it said, "Courage is the commitment to begin without any guarantee of success." And that applies to so many things, but espe- it does apply to building your circle and building your community. And if you are feeling lonely or you're feeling like other people don't care about the things that I care about, maybe it's time to take the courage and commit to something without knowing that it's gonna work out. And I feel like with community, you just have to go into it with open arms like that, where when I first started book club, I was like, "I don't know if this is gonna work out." I remember even at the beginning, I was saying, "Yeah, I really wanna start this book club because a lot of my friends are starting to have kids. They're starting to talk about having kids." And I feel like when they do, our-- like this ship is gonna have sailed. Like people aren't gonna wanna be a part of book club anymore because they're gonna be busy with their newborns and toddlers and infants. And actually, that hasn't been true, so that's exciting. But I didn't know if it was gonna be successful. I just had the courage to commit to it without any guarantee of success. And if it hadn't been successful, probably would've moved on to something else, you know? But sometimes things are successful, and sometimes th-things aren't. But this community has really reminded me of that truth that when we have the courage to move forward in something and just commit to it without even knowing if it'll work out, it really can lead to b-beautiful things, so... hope that this is helpful. If there's a community that you're seeking, maybe I could help link you up with them. There's a lot of great channels on Facebook or Instagram or ways to find community that already exists, but I do think that there's so much power in creating what you want to exist when it doesn't already. If you are really fiending... Is that a word? I don't know. Fiending, I'm just gonna use it. If you're really fiending for other people to talk to about books, or you're really fiending for other people to talk to about wine, or you're really fiending for other people-- I have to stop using the word fiending 'cause I don't even know if it's a word. But you're really, really wanting people that have really yummy, healthy, gluten-free recipes or people who love yoga, or you really wanna talk to someone else who's in the same profession as you. You want a teacher group of friends. It, it could be anything. But I really hope that this gives you the courage and empowers you to create the community that you are wanting and seeking for yourself. And I bet that there are other people who listen in to Rise and Energize that want a similar community, so I would be happy to link you up with them. So I love you. Thank you