Coming at you live from the Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago, listener Jill asks us how our business bestie relationship even started. So we’re sharing our business bestie origin story and how we continue to nurture our own plus other business bestie relationships.
Kathleen Shannon 0:04
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Emily Thompson 0:43
Hey, bosses, today's minisode is a question we got live at the printers row lit Fest in Chicago.
Kathleen Shannon 0:53
Hi. I What's your name? Where I'm sorry.
Jill 0:57
I'm Jill. I live here in Chicago. Kathleen, I've actually been following you since before you started braid. Oh, wow. When I heard you guys were coming here. I was like, Oh, hell yeah, I have to be there. Oh, so um, I have to tell you, I'm mad, jealous of the business bestie relationship that you guys have. But I know nothing about how you two met, you know, was it designer? vaycay was I because I think indie shopography was a client of braids, right? But like, how did that start? And how did that develop?
Kathleen Shannon 1:26
I don't remember. I'm pretty sure Emily was reading my blog at the same time was
Emily Thompson 1:31
where I discovered her hair is what really honestly happened. I don't remember how I stumbled upon it. But I stumbled upon Kathleen's blog a really long time ago. And all I remember was her hair and being so jelly for sure. And I think I just started commenting on your blog, and you came to mine and started commenting. And we went to alt summit several years ago, I guess, like cross paths there.
Kathleen Shannon 1:55
So we both happen to be there right now together. But think about seeing someone in real life like, oh, you're real. I'm not gonna get catfished into like a business bestie relationship?
Emily Thompson 2:04
Not for me, not for me. Um, so it's just started, like, I discovered her blog. And we started commenting, and back and forth. It turned into some emails I do. I remember several years ago, we were talking to some other like people that we know who are business besties we're like double dating, I guess. And we're feeling right. We were talking about the first time we had ever interacted. And they had pulled up like their first email exchange. And I was like, I bet I have mine too. And so I went and pulled it up. And it was from years before. And I think I had emailed you saying you were just getting into doing branding. And I said something like, you know, I do websites, if you ever need branding to turn into websites, let me know. And then a couple like a year or so later, I hired braid to do my branding. Braid hired me to do their ecourse. And then we just started having ongoing conversations.
Kathleen Shannon 3:02
I think that Emily is really good about being intentional about making sure that we're scheduling time to get together and Skype. And so even now with our business besties that we double date. She's like, Hey, have we talked to Paul and Jason in a while, we need to schedule this, like, Let's get it on the calendar. I'm like, What do we we don't have anything to talk about, like we don't and she's like we're talking to them. And then lo and behold, we have an hour long conversation. That's incredible. And it a lot of it's very personal. But then also some of it is like Oh, that's a good thing professionally that we need to remember and try that out. So I think it really is just about the intentionality and vulnerability of saying, Hey, can we Skype or responding to I remember, even one of my friends I met he I was, I replied to his newsletter. So he sends out a weekly newsletter, I said, Hey, I just want you to know, I really love everything that you're putting out every week. It was as simple as that. And now we have regular Skype conversations. And so I really do think it is making the first move, which can be really hard sometimes. And am I going into this being like, okay, you're gonna be my work wife. You know, like, I didn't know that we want to get married one day. No, no. Right. I agree, which is basically what like business partnership feels like. And it took years. Yeah.
Emily Thompson 4:24
But it also did just start basically with an email because saying, I have several several other business bestie relationships that I have, where we meet up every month, every quarter, whatever. And every single one of them started with one of us and then the other an email and being like, I see what you're doing in the world and just know someone sees it, and I appreciate it. And they'll usually respond back. Oh, that's cool. Let's chat and then there you go.
Dana Kaye 4:47
And it goes back to our honesty and authenticity, I think is not going and saying like I need something from you or I want you to be my bestie or my mentor and just being honest and like saying what you're observing that you appreciate the other person I think goes Long way
Kathleen Shannon 5:00
Yeah. This minisode was brought to you by twenty20. Check them out at twenty20.com/beingboss. That's t w e and t y 20 as in the number.com slash being boss.
Emily Thompson 5:18
Did you like this minisode Be sure to check us out on our website at beingboss.club. There you can find more from being boss including our full episodes minisodes and blog posts. And while you're there, be sure to sign up for our mailing list so that you can get access to behind the scenes and exclusive content from Kathleen and myself to help you be more boss in your work and life. Do the work be boss
