400 - How Friendships Change as an Entrepreneur

Do you find that you no longer fit in with many of your friends when you become an entrepreneur?

If so, you’re not alone.

In this episode, I’m sharing my take on this common “friendshift” for web design entrepreneurs and it’s based off a recent newsletter from Web Designer Pro member Alexia (of visualvibedesign.com) who shared a very open and honest take on this topic.

So in this solo episode, it’s narrative as I’ll read you Alexia’s newsletter and follow up with my take as well on things like:

• Why old friendships shift when priorities change
• Belonging in the awkward middle between old circles and new peers
• The value of small, curated communities over giant groups
• Practical steps to find “web besties” and collaborators
• Identity growth, ROI on social time, and protecting focus

And more.

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned, along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/400

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage: A Solo Narrative
• 2:57 Introducing Alexia and Creative Confessions
• 5:47 The Newsletter: Childhood To Changing Circles
• 10:21 When Ambition Outgrows Old Friendships
• 13:41 Finding Your People Online
• 17:36 WDP Con: From Strangers To “Web Besties”
• 22:01 Josh’s Reflection: Paths, Priorities, ROI

Transcript

Josh: 0:52

Hello, my friend. It's so good to have you here. This is a different episode for the podcast for many reasons, but um it's gonna be a little more narrative and it's a solo episode here. So I just want to share some thoughts with you about a recent newsletter from one of my Web Designer Pro community members. This newsletter you're about to hear is from Alexia Lynn, who was just on the show recently because we repurposed one of our coaching calls. She is a coaching tier member in Web Designer Pro. And she's also my newly appointed graphic designer. So she has come on on retainer with me to do a lot of incredible design work for Web Designer Pro and Josh Hall.co. But she recently just started a newsletter called Creative Confessions. And she has released a couple issues so far, and her latest one just prompted so many good ideas and talking points about specifically friendship and entrepreneurship and how old friendships often change because when you become an entrepreneur, it makes your old friendships sometimes very challenging. So I want to share some thoughts on this idea. And what I'm gonna do is I'm actually gonna read you her entire newsletter. And yes, I will, of course, include in the show links or the show notes uh the link to her newsletter so you can sign up and check it out. It's completely free. And I will actually uh repurpose this newsletter that you're about to hear on the show notes for this episode, which can be found at joshhall.co slash 400. So episode 400. And yeah, I just wanted to give my own insight on this. But first I want you to hear from Alexia because she has some incredible thoughts to share. So the newsletter was titled Mama said don't meet strangers from the internet. I did anyway. So here we go from Alexia. For the first couple weeks of first grade, little six-year-old me used to run across the playground and hug my friends at recess like I hadn't seen them in years. My kid brain didn't quite get that summer break was temporary. I legit thought kindergarten was the end of the road. Like, well, I guess I'll never see y'all again. Thanks for the crowns, it's been real. In high school, Friday nights meant hanging out in the Walmart parking lot or driving an hour to a sketchy house party. Peak small town Missouri vibes. Add in a little troublemaking, and you've got bonds that lie that last 10 plus years. All that to say, I've always been the type of person to take friendships seriously. Heck, I'm still one of the ones who ho or I'm still the one who hosts our annual Friendsgiving party for my friend group, and it's been going strong as we come up on our seventh year. But ain't that the thing about life? It always changes. What they don't tell you is that everyone takes a different life path. And when you get into your mid-20s, things can change because of it. Building my business meant that friendships shifted in unexpected ways. Translation, I became the friend who couldn't shut up about websites and SEO while hanging out at the bar. My old friends didn't quote unquote get it anymore. When I started diving deep into my business, I couldn't be the person who drove an hour every weekend to hang out anymore. Even when I did make it, my brain was buzzing with client projects, strategy ideas, and late night thoughts of how to get to that next level. They didn't get it. And honestly, how could they? Once they clocked out, their brains could switch off. But for me, my business wasn't something I could just leave at the office. It was my baby, my future, my everything. That put me in a weird spot. Too ambitious for old, my old circle, but not established enough to fully click with the business owners I admired. Belonging felt complicated. I started connecting with more like-minded people and business owners online who had the same goals, ambitions, and who just got it. So when the opportunity came to actually meet some of these wonderful people in real life, I jumped at it. Meeting a bunch of strangers from the internet. I flew for the first time, terrifying, to stay in an Airbnb with women I'd technically only known from the internet. Risky? A hundred percent. But the second I got there, everything just clicked. Honestly, I could write an entire newsletter about how transformational WDP 2025 was or WDP Con 2025 was. But for this one, I'll stick to my group of girls. We stayed up until 1 a.m. geeking out over websites like a bunch of teenagers out of sleepover. But instead of prank calling boys, we were comparing lead magnets. We swapped advice on how to grow our business and laughed too hard over snacks and drinks. And for the first time in a long time, I felt understood as a business owner. Like I could be fully me without toning anything down. These weren't just conference friends. They become my they became my web besties. And months later, we're still hopping on video calls, sharing wins, and cheering each other on. Shout out to Tamara at Serene Studio, Sandra at Cerrus Media, and Megan at Megan Fletcher Design. This was honestly one of the best and most unexpected wins of the entire WDP Con experience. In closing, friendships shift as you grow. Some fade, some stay. And some show up exactly when you need them most. What I've learned is this you don't have to choose between being the old version of yourself or the new one. You can just have you just have to find the people who fit the season you're in now. The ones who get why your brain never really turns off and who love you for it anyway. And sometimes they're waiting for you in a random Airbnb in Ohio or writing this newsletter to you on a Sunday morning after staying up late working on her business. XOXO, Alexia. So enter Josh now. First off, such a good newsletter. Like Alexia, I mean, I think this was her second issue. Absolutely killing it already. Again, I'll have that linked over at joshhall.co slash 400. Her newsletter is called Creative Confessions. Her website is visualvibedesign.com. If I can add a little bit of my insight on this, it's funny because I was just thinking about this recently. I had released an episode with one of my best friends from high school, Chris Webb, just a few episodes back on episode 397. And what Alexia alluded to there about some friendships fade, some stay, and some show up when you need them most. That could not be more true as an entrepreneur. And as a web designer, whether you know it or not, you are an entrepreneur. Even if you think you're just a freelancer, just wanting to get by, getting some clients, you welcome. You are you have entered your first step into the deep end of entrepreneurship. So I mentioned Chris Webb just because he's actually a friend of mine, a rare friend of mine from those years, who is still kind of active in my life. And there's a lot of reasons for that. I think Chris and I are somebody like Alexia mentions here, who uh while we have somewhat different paths, he's a corporate web designer, we still have a lot of similar interests. And we're kind of going, we may be going, you know, not the exact same path, but we're still going in the same direction. And again, very, very timely issue from Alexia. And I think this is probably needs to be talked about more because I'm sure I'm not the only one who, as an entrepreneur, now I've been graduated from high school for 20 years. That's why I look back and I'm like, I really don't hang out with anyone from high school. And I'm not saying this is right or wrong. This is just me, but there were there just weren't many people who were either entrepreneurial or uh since we're talking about Alexia's brand visual vibe, they just didn't match my vibe. Their vibe wasn't what I wanted to take with me long term, which means you get to a point where you do need to seek new friendships. And this can be really hard. And I think Alexia hit a very, very interesting challenge and pain point there, which is you find yourself just not identifying with your old friend group. And it may be because they're, it's not that you're better than them, or it's not that we are different than them in ways that they could never get to. It just means that as an entrepreneur, we're fired up. And we we may like to party, but yeah, on like you know, a Thursday night, we can't stay out till 1 a.m. when we have a meeting at 9 a.m. the next day. Like we just get to a point, and this may depending on where you are in your life, the stage of your life, or your age, but I I remember vividly being literally in that moment. I remember being at a bar downtown in Columbus with my old friend group from high school, and my business was really getting serious and starting to take off. And it was a Thursday night. And I remember being out, it was like 11, and I was like, guys, I gotta, I should have figured out the rides, I gotta get going. Uh, I got a meeting in the morning, and they were like, Where are you going? Like, hang out. And they were just, they could not understand um not wanting to hang out on a Thursday night because yeah, they had some jobs to go to, but a lot of their jobs were things where they just didn't quite frankly had to think much. They just showed up, clocked in and clocked out, and that was it. But when you're an entrepreneur, you realize that number one, it's very, very hard to turn it off. I don't think it's actually possible to completely turn it off. But number two, like it just it's the priority. It's priorities that change. And I think Alexia really alluded to that, where you get to a point, maybe you're there now, where you're like, oh my gosh, my I don't want to do what I've been doing for a long time. It's not that I don't enjoy it, it's not that I wouldn't like to do it ever. It's just my priorities have changed. And I think that's the hard thing for a lot of people who are not business owners to understand. Their work is not your work. Your work is completely different because your work is not just what you're doing for clients. Your work is growing your business. And hopefully you're planning on or going to get to the point where you can work on your business 50-50 with the amount of work that you're doing for your clients. It really is ideal to be able to work on your business, i.e., your website, tweaking your processes, refining your systems, marketing your business, taking time to hang out in Web Designer Pro or whatever web design community you're a part of, making friendships, going to events, working on you, working on your business. That's the goal, 50-50 at least. But there really is that point where you realize you're just you're not the same person you were before. And the reality is that's the statement. You are not the same person that you were before. And your quote unquote friends, they are friends, but they kind of have a choice. They can either go with you if they choose to to be somebody who might be a part of your life, or in my case, I've let so many friendships go because and it's it's weird to put this in like business terms because I want to make all life about business, but um, I have thought about this recently where I've had some opportunities to meet up with old friends, and I'm just I'm sitting here, I'm like, uh, what's the ROI on this hangout? You know, like if I drive for 20 minutes and meet them, we spend a couple hours together, drive back, that's three hours. That's gonna, if I do that on a weekday, if I do it on the weekend, I'm gonna miss family time. I do it on a weekday, I'm gonna miss some work time or an appointment or something. What's that gonna you know look like with our schedule? This this sounds ridiculous, but those of you who end up having a family in particular, you'll you learn, you're probably some of you are there now, where it's like a a one-hour lunch ends up being a huge deal because there's so many factors and so many variables, and it's gonna take you away from your flow of your work. Like it becomes a half-day deal, at least at minimum. So you really start to measure your ROI on this. And I guess I'm I'm saying that to say Alexia is not alone. I'm there too. And I'm also, I just want to say, I think it's okay. You you don't need to be lifelong friends with people who are not going in the same direction as you, and that is fine. And I'm not saying that's for everybody because there's a lot of people who make friends in elementary school or middle school or high school, and they're friends forever, and that's awesome. And I and I like I said, Chris, who was just on the podcast, he's in that bucket for me. He's somebody who I knew at a young age, and um, you know, we we don't hang out as much as we'd like to, but he also has four kiddos. I've got three, so you know, a couple times a year, that's that's that's about what we're we're able to do. But it all that to say, like it, it's okay if you feel like you're alone and you're in this weird middle spot where your old friendships are just not where you want to stay, but then you need to make some new friends. And then it's hard because you want to be friends with high performers and people who are going where you want to go, but then you may not have the level of investment to join a 10K mastermind or uh, you know, a top-tier community that's thousands and thousands of dollars yet, unless you get a grant or join Web Designer Pro and land a $5,000 website in a couple of weeks. Whatever the case may be, you may want to get to this point where you're you're ready to move out of your old table of friends and move into a new table. And there's a lot of different ways you can find friends. If you're in a local area, I would definitely encourage doing some stuff in person just because it's so good for just our well-being and mental health to get in person, to go to meetings. And you can do that in you can look at meetup.com to look at web design groups in your area. Some of those meet virtually as well. But this is the softest layup ever to saying that is one of the main reasons I created my community Web Designer Pro. Alexia's newsletter here is like one of the main reasons I had a vision of bringing people together who were just awesome and who are at specifically this place where you are just not fitting in with your old friend group and you need new friends. You want community, but you also, let's be honest, maybe a 10,000 person Facebook group just isn't your idea of friendship, nor do I blame you. Nothing wrong with big Facebook groups. I ran Debbie Web Designers for years. I built that group up. It's 25,000 plus people now. I'm I don't I'm not terribly active in that group anymore. I did sell it a few years ago, but all that to say, there's a very different mindset with like forums and public groups versus a true private community where you can build friendships like Alexia has done with Megan, Tamara, Sandra, and so many others in Web Designer Pro. Um, when Alexia was on the podcast recently talking about what what episode number was that? Because Ben, who is another amazing member of Web Designer Pro, was also on this one. It was 395. Uh, Alexia and Ben came on the episode on 395 and we talked together. I shared one of our coaching calls. But even Ben was saying Web Designer Pro has become so much more than just a community, it's actually like co-workers for him. And that's another little unanticipated perk of Web Designer Pro is we do we have weekly hangouts and people are connecting with each other, and there's these like little micro interactions that I don't even see. I mean, quite honestly, I probably see a fraction of what's going on at Web Designer Pro because people are meeting up and having calls with each other and going to coffee together and becoming true friends and helping us all carry each other through this ever-changing digital world. So um, I think it's more important than ever. And if you are where Alexia was last year, where she just needed to get out of where she was in her either friend group or circles online and into a place that's welcoming and into a place where you're pretty much guaranteed to make some friendships because everyone is freaking awesome, then Web Designer Pro. I really encourage you, my friend, to jump in. The community level is where you should definitely go because that will give you access to Alexia and Sandra and Tamara and Megan and so many other amazing Web Designer Pro members. But that's where I would go. Introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about where you are in the world, literally, what you're up to, and you will make some friends. And yeah, I just wanted to share this because what I'm seeing in Web Designer Pro, I probably need to do a better job at marketing this. It's just hard, it's hard to market, it really is hard to market community because like when Alexia joined Pro, I couldn't have said, you are gonna hit it off with Tamara, Sandra, and Megan. You guys, you four are gonna stay in an Airbnb together and be best friends. I didn't know. You know, those those kind of things aren't something that can be foreseen or and they're very tough to market, but those are happening on a micro level all over in Web Designer Pro. So I just really want to encourage you. If you've been on the fence and uh, you know, yes, you want to grow your business, you want to make a lot of money, you want to be able to build a successful business and do all that, huge. Obviously, that's the you know the main thing that we're doing in pro. But also, if you want some friends, it is the best place for a web designer to find friends because it's a small group, it's small by design. We have 215 total members in between the community and coaching tier. So uh coaching members just get more access to me and weekly coaching calls, but even as a community member, you'll get access to everything else. And it's just incredible, guys. I mean, I just don't know what to say other than these people are freaking awesome. And you just heard in the last episode, Sam, who took his business to 250K in three years. There is something about being around high performers, and I can't wait to hear Alexia's uh recap on WDP Con 2025 because she had sent a video testimonial in or a um a response when I because I messaged everyone who came to the event and just personally thanked them and wanted to hear their thoughts. And she I remember her saying it was a transformative event, which is what she alluded to here. And I want transformation for you too. I want revenue, I want profit, I want a life of freedom, absolutely, but really truly the thing behind all that is transformation, and that is what's going on in Web Designer Pro. It is truly transformational for so many web designers, and I hope that's you too. So if you've been on the fence, jump on in, go to webdesignerpro.com. Links in show notes for this one, including Alexia's website and her newsletter where you can sign up and get access to these, will be over at joshhall.co slash 400. This is episode 400. Uh, but yeah, friends, I hope you enjoyed this. I just wanted to take some time to share my thoughts on this incredible subject. I know I'm not alone. Alexia's not alone. And if you're feeling alone, now you know you're not alone. And you will definitely not be alone when you join Web Designer Pro and we can build our businesses together. And as they say, I'll leave with a quote: rising tide lifts all boats. So if you want to jump on that tide, come on in, friends. Webdesignerpro.com. I hope to see you there. And cheers uh to whatever friendships are gonna be in your near future here, whether it's Web Designer Pro or elsewhere. I truly hope this helps give you some give you some inspo, some friendship inspo, a little web designer therapy session on me, my friend. All right, I hope to see you in pro. By the way, when you join Web Designer Pro, I will uh this it's an automation, but I will automatically DM you and you'll have a chance to get a little coaching boost from me. You can tell me about where your business is, any initial challenges, and I'll give you a little five to ten minute video coaching boost sharing uh what I'd recommend you do next. All right, my friends, have a great, great week, and I'll see y'all in the next episode.