Hey appreciated listeners,
l am sorry it’s been a little while since you received the last episode. I moved houses and countries, left social media, wrote a zine and enjoyed summer. Thanks for your patience!
Now that I am all set and unpacked I am really excited to started sharing more episodes since one of my main aims with leaving social media was to be able to create more long form media and have more in-depth conversations.
This one with Eli Trier stayed with me for a long time and gave me a whole bunch of ideas that I have already implemented. I am honestly so grateful I met Eli and got this little glimpse behind the scenes of how she does things. It’s magic! Here is what we talked about:
- How to reach out to others as an introvert
- Overcoming social anxiety and creating working conditions that truly work for us in a sustainable, regenerative way
- The magic of creating community projects that go much deeper than your average telesummit or weekend gathering
- Why bringing people together around a shared passion is so much more powerful than shouting random stuff from the rooftops
- Redefining our ideas of success and “adulthood”
- Rehumanising business relationships and investing in transparency, kindness and connection
Listen to the Embodied Business Podcast
on Apple Podcast // Spotify
⋒ Hi, my name is Yarrow.
My show is a podcast for introverts who want to build gentle & sustainable businesses that are aligned with their values and fun to work in. Subscribe to be supported in defining your own ethical marketing compass, building rock solid systems and finding the confidence you need to thrive.
You can learn more about my work and listen to other episodes at PinkWellStudio.com. I also offer free monthly Spark Sessions and share resources, ideas & new episodes about once per month over on Substack ⋒
Transcript
Hey everyone, my name is Yarrow and you’re listening to the DIY business podcast. Yay. Thank you so much for your patience. I know it’s been a while since you last heard from me on this podcast. And that is because I moved to Scotland I moved houses. I enjoyed summer, I had a lot to unpack. And now I’m back and properly set up. And I’m excited to bring you more episodes in this upcoming season and to kind of pick up the pace a little bit again after a little bit of a break. This episode honestly is one of my very favourites that I’ve ever done. I spoke to Eritrea, Eritrea communities, about well building community around your business. We spoke about reaching out to other people as an inter word about creating working conditions that are really sustainable and that feel good. We also talked about overcoming social anxiety and the magic of creating community projects that go way deeper and make space and time for connection and intimacy. We also talked about redefining our ideas of success and adulthood and air quotes, which as you know, is one of my favourite things to talk about. And we spoke about humanising business relationships and really thinking about how we can offer transparency and kindness and connection and make other people that we’re working with feel seen and heard, which I think is so important, and so powerful. And now that we’re spending a good chunk of our lives on the internet, really. So yeah, I hope you’ll enjoy this episode as much as I did, let us know I think we both would really love to hear from you. Let us know also, if you have any questions at all, or if there’s anything that you would like us to expand on in a possible future episode, a small announcement from me, which actually not I said, isn’t so small. I was sitting down this morning, in my meditation cornet, when I really felt like, I have found the sweet spot between one on one support and running my collective teaching, design work and tech support, and it feels so good. And I feel with every year that I am able to be more myself in my business, explore my truth, and then also speak it even if not everyone will like it, which is cool. And I’m just so grateful. I’m grateful that you have been on this journey with me. And so, yeah, thank you so much. Many people have joined a dry business collected last month, and I’m so grateful for the people that have come together this Sunday. So two days ago was our kickoff call, which was incredible, and really beautiful, really cool people. And we’re moving forward. Now next week is the first group coaching call, I’m releasing new modules and the decor is as we speak. And I’m definitely up for more people joining us, you can watch all the replays. And you also get access to a huge archive of all the teaching that I’ve done in the past year. So there’s an existing eight module course. And there’s I think more than 10 replays from workshops that I run last year that you can enjoy in your own time. So quick recap the do business collective has at its core, a 10 module, video course that teaches you everything from newsletters, strategies, setting the tech out, finding your way around social media, creating graphics, thinking about pricing, accessibility, creating offerings, self care for entrepreneurs. So I really feel like it’s everything that you need to get started. But I also really wanted to have this container where people can be together and receive the kind of support they need. So we also have monthly group coaching calls the way you can ask them for anything, you can be witnessed and seen and connect with other people, then we have themed monthly live workshops and retreats go deeper, then we have weekly journaling prompts to kind of connect with our community on mighty networks, which is far away from social media, free from distraction and just full of really cool people as more than 60. Right now we’re doing the programme already.
And then we have quarterly business planning workshops in which we step away from our business for a moment to really see the bigger picture and make plans about how they are related to Yeah, like how we want to move forward and how that’s related to our bigger live version, which I’m also really excited about. It’s $24 a month, which I found really affordable. And I’m really proud I found a way to make that so accessible. And then there’s a seven day free trial. So if you want to check that out, you can use that week to come to our workshops, and meet everyone and see if you like the online training itself as well. And so if you have any questions about that, let me know. But for now, on today’s show, thank you for listening. Hey everyone. I’m really excited to speak more about community with Elliot here today. So as you notice is something else super passionate about in my business, too. But there’s a lot to think about. And my guest today has so many really cool ideas. We met in also a community group, which is run by Sophie Dale is called creatively connected. And one day there was a mastermind call, or what we call it that I’m not sure. But it was like a cool call. We just came together. And we talked a little bit about podcasting. And then I got to know Ellie’s work on the website and saw some of the previous projects that she’s been working on. I was just like, Whoa, really, once you’re on my podcast, I’m super excited. You said yes. And thank you so much for being here. Hey,
oh, thank you so much for having me is it’s a pleasure.
So do you want to maybe begin by telling us where you are in the world right now what nature is like around you?
Yeah, so I’m in Copenhagen in Denmark. And it has been, we’ve just come off the end of a heatwave. So we’ve got my favourite weather in the world at the moment, which is kind of soft and grey and cool, very gentle, non demanding weather. But there are flowers everywhere, just outside my window here there have a flood of pink, Japanese and enemies, which are beautiful, and attract loads and loads of butterflies and things. I have a little cloud of butterflies outside my window every day.
That sounds so beautiful. That’s like, yeah, there’s a lot of butterflies here at the moment, too. And it sounds like I’ve read somewhere that has to do with the heatwave, and the intense rain and lots of different things I think have come together this summer, to really grow the butterfly population, which makes me super happy.
Oh, it’s amazing. I went down the line to my house because I live in the city. But I live in kind of just on the edge of a park. So it’s very kind of rural. And when I walked down the lane to get to my house, there’s buddly down both sides. And it’s just like walking through a cloud of butterflies. It’s incredible. That’s so cool.
So we’ve already touched a little bit on what what it is that you’re doing. But maybe you can say a little bit more about, you know, why are you doing this work? How did that come to be? What are you doing? And so excited to hear more?
Okay, well, I’m what I do. For anyone who doesn’t know me. My specialty is running online community projects. So that means bringing together a bunch of people over the course of about a month, and diving deep on one particular or one particular topic. And having a discussion about it, basically. They are, oh, they’re so good. They’re just so good. I was so happy I get to do this work. Every single project that I’ve worked on has been incredible. And we’ve covered topics like I’ve got project coming up, which is about ageism, and how women are supposed to be become kind of invisible after the age of 50 and is run by a woman who runs a company called rebel groans rising which is just like just gives me goosebumps talking about it like the idea of pebble krones like I want to be that when I grow up. I’ve got a feminist life coach who’s who’s running a project coming up in the autumn about and untangling kind of feminine conditioning and the masks we have to wear as women to just be perceived as acceptable. I’ve had projects about the massive turning points in life and how they transform us ones about the state of the the online business world and anti hustle culture and stuff like that. So they’re all like really big meaty topics. And people come together and there are submissions, like content, submissions, essays and things from people. And then everybody else can kind of discuss and share their own stories and it brings people together in this wonderful kind of vulnerable way over what is on the internet a really really long period of time. Like we don’t get together for with that level of depth on the internet. Usually it’s like a weekend here or a week there and everything which is part super quick. So these projects are really opportunities to slow down and really kind of think stuff through you know. Um, and yeah, so that’s, that’s the kind of primary thing that I do in my business. And I also I’ve just started running a group programme called Love is greater than numbers, which is about helping introverts and highly sensitive people to get Get connected and start building those all important relationships that every business needs and focusing on the quality of the relationships rather than masses of followers. And the second part of the question as to how I actually got started with this is, if you had told me, like 2025 years ago that I would not only be doing this work, but absolutely loving it, I would have laughed in your face. I was my background is in marketing. And until the age of about 2425, I had crippling social anxiety, like I couldn’t speak to another human being, I couldn’t look anybody in the eye. I have Asperger’s as well, which doesn’t help. But I worked in it, I tried working in a kind of normal career in my 20s. And to hop from job to job, I always felt out of place, I could never find somewhere where I felt happy. And that didn’t hurt, like going to an office every day, physically. I couldn’t bear it. So I’ve my solution was to just to jump to a different office and try that and see if that would work. But at the age of about 2728, I decided, Okay, that is enough, I’m gonna figure out how to, to, I didn’t even make a business or just find a way to earn money that doesn’t involve like going to a place every day and being bombarded with stuff. And I read a fantastic book by a woman called Barbara winter called making a living without a job. And I was so excited. This is the first that I kind of heard of like, not having a job wasn’t in my orbit before. And I was so excited by that book that I stayed up all night, I read it in one day, I stayed up all night, like making lists of all the things all the skills that I had, and all the ideas that I could do. And like all the different things that I could imagine people paying money for me, to me for. And that kind of blew my world wide open.
So I went out, I just left my husband at the time, and left my job. And I just moved to a brand new city as well. I moved to Bristol from the countryside. So it’s one of those, I don’t know if the Saturn return means anything to you, but it was mega return thing. So I went to Bristol, I didn’t have a black business plan, I didn’t even have a business idea. I was just like, there’s got to be something, I’ve got all these skills, I’ve got all these talents, someone’s gonna want to pay me money for them at some point. So the only thing that I could think of was to just go out to places where other people who had their own businesses were and talk to as many people as possible. I had luckily gotten over the worst of my social anxiety at that point. But my autism really kind of helped me with that, because it was a mission. Like I had a clear, defined goal that I wanted more than anything else in the world. And I would do whatever it took to make that happen. I was absolutely terrified. I was nervous as hell every single time I walked into the door of some networking thing. And I went to everything like I went to like lecture series, I went to BMI networking, which is horrible. and everything in between just anything I could find were the people that might want to work with me where I’m and after a couple of months, I ended up meeting a woman on Twitter. I think like Twitter was the only thing that was around I think it was before even Facebook was a thing. And I happened to get chatting to the woman who was writing the Financial Times guide to business networking, and we got chatting and I told her what I was doing. And she was just like, wow, that seems insane. Can I put you in the book, which I thought was absolutely hilarious. Like, going from someone who couldn’t talk to anybody to being in the Financial Times guide to business networking is just bonkers. But she also introduced me to my first clients. And I ended up doing kind of admin copywriting a bit of marketing assistance, that kind of stuff. And that’s how my kind of self employed life got going. I did that for a few years. And then I went through what was at the time diagnosed as a period of depression but I now know since getting my autism diagnosis that it was just an epic down and I basically went to bed for a month and didn’t come out. Excuse me, and during that time I started picking up kind of making art work and something that I’d done my whole life. But I really started focusing on it, I was just like, this is what this is what feels good to me right now. And I also kind of got into the idea of gratitude as well. And I ended up doing a blog project where I made a painting and wrote a thank you letter to someone who had changed my life, every week for a whole year. So it was 52 paintings with thank you letters, and I actually sent them out to people as well. And over the course of the year, over the course of doing that, I started to get like people would see my my paintings, my illustrations, and I’d started to get commissions, like completely organically through doing that. And I shifted my business into doing like some illustration and a bit of creativity coaching and realised that I was the people that I was working with doing the marketing stuff, nine times out of 10, it would end up being coaching, because a lot of creatives struggle with marketing, so you have to kind of coach them to the point where they can actually do the stuff. So I was doing that. And that was when I discovered these community projects. I’ve seen people do kind of various versions on them of them online. And I thought they look at this or they look cool. I didn’t really kind of think of them as a marketing thing at all. I just thought that’s a really interesting idea. And one day I was having a conversation with with an incredible artist friend of mine, who is the epitome of a real artist, you know, capital letters, inverted commas, she she ends a full time living from her artwork, she exhibits all over the world. She’s in No, she’s been in Elle decoration. She’s been in all sorts of magazine. She gets commissioned by shakes and hotels and cruise ships and the whole thing like she’s a real artist.
But she was saying to me, like, I’m not real artist, because I don’t do paintings I do I do pay plans, like that’s not real. I said, Don’t be ridiculous. If anyone’s not a real artist is me. I just do these silly illustrations and they go in books. Like that’s not real art. And we’ve we both realised that we were being completely ridiculous, but it’s a conversation that stuck with me. And I thought like, What is wrong with, like, society’s idea of what an artist is that two people who are making a full time living from selling artwork don’t feel like they’re proper artists, like they’re real artists. And that was the birth of my very first community project, it was called demystifying the artist. And I got 30 of my artists friends together, like real working artists who were, you know, earning a living from it being proper artists, you know, by any criteria. And I asked them, like, What does being an artist means you? And I’ve just knocked this thing together, and I put it out, I figured out how to do it. And the response was phenomenal. I had about 700 people sign up to receive the project. I had another 250 300 people in the Facebook group, like talking and commenting every day. It’s the most engaged community i’ve i’ve ever seen, like I was blown away. And people were were making friends. They were sharing their own resources, they were connecting in the group. And there are so many people going, Oh my god, I thought I was the only one who felt like this, like thank you. And it was just the most incredible experience. And I got to the end of it. I was like, Wow, that was pretty good. I wonder if it was just a fluke. So I did another one. And then I did another one. And at this point, that kind of happened at the same time that my love for what I was doing was on the decline. So I realised that I didn’t like being creative to somebody else’s specifications. And I was getting really kind of tired and resentful of the clients that I was working with. Like it just wasn’t gelling for me at all. And I kept saying to anyone who would listen, all I want to do is community projects, like these are the best things ever. I just want to do that. And I’d looked into kind of getting sponsorship for them and all these different ways to monetize them and it just, I just couldn’t figure it out. So I had I had a little marketing gig that I had kept on freelance job, which I knew was gonna last for a few months. And I just closed my business in February of 2018. closed it all down, deleted all my social media accounts, deleted my mailing list, just got rid of everything. And so I’m just going to do this little marketing gig and read books and take naps and chill out and just not be performing on the internet for anybody for a while, and see what happens. And I thought I’d give myself a year to kind of figure out what I was going to happen. But six months after I closed the business down in August, it just hit me like a bolt of lightning, like, Oh, I can actually help other people to do these projects like this is this is amazing, they get results. They’re brilliant fun, they’re perfect for introverts and sensitive people. And they’re a great way to be visible without actually having to be out there yourself kind of on a pedestal. And that’s, that was that was it a month later, I had a website and I had my first kind of beta test client going through the process, which was lovely Sophie. That’s actually how that membership group came about was from her doing that project and falling in love with the community that she built so much that she changed her business model to accommodate it long term. And then yeah, that was almost a year ago now. And here we are.
That’s so beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that story. I, I resonate so much with a lot of different things that you said from like, really hating having to go into an office to wanting to go community but not wanting to be out there on a pedestal all the time. And yeah, I think so many of us can really relate to that. And I also really love how your story illustrates that following what you’re passionate about what you’re really good at what comes naturally to you can really work. And if I’m honest, if I see that out there as a meme that’s really flat, and that doesn’t have any context. And sometimes a bit resentful. I’m like, Oh, come on, you know, like, it takes a lot of privilege to just, you know, quit your day job and be like, Hey, I’m just gonna do what I love now. But I love these real stories of people that have made it work somehow. And I think I don’t want to dismiss this concept as a whole is really smart and valuable to do something we’re naturally good at. I mean, there’s nothing that makes more sense, actually, you know, in a way,
love for what you do can carry you through when it gets hard. Yeah, you know, when you run your own business, it gets hard a lot of the time, really in love with it, then you’re not going to keep it going, you’re not going to be able
to do totally Yeah. And I think we have, as a culture, such a high tolerance for doing work we actually don’t really love especially with an employment. I thought in my early 20s, like you, I thought that that’s the way it is that you go somewhere that you don’t want to be around people that you don’t want to be around, and you do work that you don’t actually care about. But I thought that’s adulthood, you know.
I thought you know, I knew people ran businesses, but I thought it was like this really complicated affair that involved getting get, you know, getting a premises and a bank loan and, and it was really formal and all the rest of it, which of course, it was a lot of the time before we had this glorious internet.
Yeah, totally. Oh, wow. This is super cool. Um, so I’m wondering if people hear this and they I excited. And I want to build more community around their business as well. What are the kind of first steps that you would encourage them to think about or maybe tools to look at?
I think the the idea of, of building a community on the internet has got wildly skewed over the last few years. I think that when people think of a community, they think of having 1000s and 1000s of fans and followers. And what it actually means is having proper, mutually beneficial relationships with people, it’s not just about you standing up there on the pedestal, and being you know, in the spotlight and everybody else’s swarming around, you know, you’re not David Bowie. If you want to really kind of good sustainable business that lasts you over the long term, you need to concentrate on building your community from the inside out and concentrating on one person at a time. And, and, and having good relationships with people that really is what it’s all about reaching out to individual people one at a time, and taking exquisite care of each other in whatever way that that transpires you know. And when you do that, growth naturally happens. But when you go for the big, massive audience and loads of fans and dealing with lots and lots of people, then you’re going to end up frustrated, like you’re either going to have to take shortcuts and it’s going to feel really sleazy see an achy and Yup. Or it’s just not going to happen for you, and you’re gonna feel like a failure. It really is about building an audience, one person at a time building a community, one person at a time and being a decent human being about it.
Yeah, I actually also really think about, there’s something deeply healing about that about looking at the relationships, we’re burning around our businesses as real human relationships, just the way that we would make friends, maybe with a different focus, like I don’t need to be close friends with everyone that I’m working with, that’s maybe not realistic. But it is still a human relationship. And I’m really excited about the re humanising aspect of trading with people. an unfair way of like, looking someone in the eye and being like, these are the things that I love sharing about, like, if you’re excited about this, too, you can be in my community, and maybe some of my work will resonate with you, and you will, at some point, maybe want to make an investment to you know, work with me one on one, or take a class or whatever. And if not, that’s cool, but we all are open and caring and those boundaries around what we have to give, it’s not about over giving, and like making everything available for free. Yeah, like, generally being in a spirit of generosity and sharing and, and understanding that competition really is harmful for everyone, which again, like sounds like such a cliche. And there’s lots of memes about that as well. But I think doing community based work really illustrates that and it’s just the truth. It does hurt everyone, it’s beautiful, and really healing. to step out of that. I feel like now in my fifth year of business, I’m still like uncovering or unpeeling these layers of, of conditioning and hurtful things that I’ve experienced in my years of employment, and what that has done to my understanding of myself of my value in the world of my talents, and the things that I’m excited about, and my relationship to creativity. I feel like every, yeah, every year as a new level of understanding, like, wow, that wasn’t right, that’s not, you know, that’s not what humans are meant to spend their time like, and that kind of thing. So, yeah, cool, thank you. And I’m also kind of, um, this is, this could be about communities, but it could also be about something as I would just love to know a little bit more about what has worked for you and what hasn’t. So I think you’ve been really courageous, and like starting over last year, and, and that’s really beautiful. I think that’s like a key skill to know when to close something down and move on to something else. So you Yeah, maybe you can speak to that a little bit more.
Yeah, um, I mean,
I think
being able to quit something, being able to say, No, this is wrong, this isn’t working and just be able to let it go is a bit of a superpower of mine, I have to say, I have a very, very low tolerance for not being happy, not feeling good. Like I’ve, I’ve done that. As far as I’m concerned. In my life, I’ve spent many, many years not being happy, and putting up with stuff that I knew in my core wasn’t right. And that’s not something I do anymore. So that was a really, really easy decision for me. And also, because I had this backup gig, which was, you know, a set number of hours every month, I knew that I’d have a regular paycheck, I could still be at home. And it was, you know, it’s still freelance, so I didn’t have to worry about any of that. And that gave me this lovely kind of safety net. To to just be like, No, okay, let’s just let life wash over me for a bit and see what happens. And when the idea for this business hit me, it was just I just knew, like, down to my very bones, like, this is what I’m supposed to be doing. Like and you can see, like, even now when I think about it, I just stopped smiling. I just love it. Um, and but it was, let’s see, September, October, November, December. I’ve got my first paying client in January. So I had four months of no money coming in. I did a couple of workshops for people in Copenhagen. But as a kind of side thing. And those four months were spent. I started off by emailing every single person I knew, every single person I had in my address book, every single person I had on my, my Facebook friends like my Instagram followers, every single person that I could possibly think of. I’d send them an email and say I’m doing anything this is what it’s good. This is who it’s good for like if you know anyone let me know. And the other part of that was was going out Kind of meeting new people. And in collaboration with people I was I was a guest expert in in people’s group. So I was I don’t think I got any on 20 podcasts during that first few months. I think my first podcast interview about this business happened in January as well. I just kind of Yeah, keeping an eagle eye on what people are up to if anybody says anything about Oh, I’m interested in community building that I was in there, like a shot and I was like, hey, me, you know, this is what I’m doing now. Like? Yeah. And that is basically I mean, I do. I do. It was monthly, but it’s now a weekly newsletter, where I share a tonne of resources and kind of insights into my journey. I pass about a bit on Instagram, with no real strategy or consistency or anything, I just share who I am and what I’m up to. And I love doing stuff like this getting on podcast episodes. But apart from those three things, the talking to people is the bulk of my marketing. That’s the thing that I do above anything else. And I make sure that every single person who comes into my world is greeted by name is is treated with with gratitude and respect. Every single person who signs up to my newsletter gets a personal welcome video from me saying thank you.
Oh, that is incredible.
Because it matters. You know, they’ve given me that email address, they want to hear from me, they’re interested in what I’m doing, what a gift that is. Thank you. Um, so I so I find them and I welcome them into my world. As a byproduct of that I can serve many clients from doing that, because people feel like they’ve been seen and heard and acknowledged, and we just miss starved for that as a species at the moment. No, we don’t get enough people who are willing to acknowledge you as a human being rather than a number on a list like so yeah, it was something that was important to me that I signed up for trial for the company, he does these little video message thing that I use, and they sent me one. And I was so touched by it. I burst into tears. I was just like, wow, I feel see. Yeah, like, why it was so powerful. And I was like, instantly, I need to give my people that matters. And, you know, bollocks to the marketing. bollocks to this will be a thing that will get clients. Oh, yeah. What a lovely thing to somebody when they give you their email address.
Yeah, totally.
What? I’ll send you Yeah. Banchero I think they call it that I use is quite expensive every month, but it’s so worth it. It brings me so much joy. But, but that’s the that’s the stuff I did that is how do I market my business. And I am to give you some context, I have about 250 people on my newsletter list at the moment, I am earning more money than I ever have in my life on a monthly basis. And I am booked out until 2020. I have about 700 Instagram followers. That’s it is not about the numbers. It’s quality of the relationships within that, you know. So that’s kind of that’s what works for me it’s talking to people is having these conversations, it’s sharing my passion and my enthusiasm for what I do. And, and treating people like people instead of, you know, targets or potential clients or numbers or you know, all of that horrible stuff that we talk in online marketing school with. Yeah,
yeah, totally. That’s beautiful. I Oh my God, that’s just the most massive thunderstorm I’ve ever seen going outside my window. Yeah. Yeah, that that really feels true to me as well. I have really nice, beautiful experiences with just showing up for people like my very first clients. I also found by just answering tech questions like I, the first two years, I really focused on building websites for people. And I was noticing that to me, it really felt Emma’s issue because I was seeing so many women being locked out of their own websites and like really feeling disempowered around Understanding the tag and like, you know, some guy had made it for them. And they felt quite intimidated by it. And were like, Oh, I don’t know, you know, like, Can I change like how and I’m like, you can do whatever you want. Let me show you how. And so I just hung out and other people’s Facebook groups a lot, which was more of a thing at the time, I think Facebook groups for me, and not so much a space I want to be in anymore because Facebook has changed, you know that that’s different. But I really, that was so cool at the time to just, I would be in these huge groups with 1000s of people and a couple of times a week, I would like put WordPress in the search bar and see all the dozens of questions around WordPress that people had just mentioned daily answer their questions without saying like, you know, if and then if you want to buy this thing, here’s where you need to go. I was just like being helpful. And every now and then someone was like, cool. I get what you’re trying to say to me. But can I just hire you to do that? Because this is a no, I don’t know. I want to hire someone to do that. And so I totally agree. That’s so beautiful. I’ve just like caring for people and showing up and making them feel seen and careful. is so powerful. Yeah. And what kind of online spaces Do you enjoy being ends? And I’m just interested, you know, like, how, what, yeah, what what do you enjoy?
Well, there’s always surprises people, but I’m really not a group person. I do not thrive in in groups at all. I’m a massive introvert to the point of like being a recluse. But I love I love hanging out on Instagram. I love the community I have around me on Instagram, and I love how kind of loose and unstructured it is. And I can be. And the majority of my activity on Instagram happens privately in the direct message feature. I love like replying to people’s stories and having conversations and I get a lot of clients kind of not necessarily finding me on there. But getting to know me on there and understanding more about who I am and what I’m about and that I do actually practice what I preach. So it’s a really nice tool for people to kind of hang out casually and just have chats. More often than not I’m talking about my inflatable bathtub, or the latest drag race or you know is not business related at all. But it’s building those relationships, regardless, you know, person to person rather than a target to market marketer to target you know, I love Sophie’s group. But again, I’m not massively active in that she has one feature on a Friday, which is where you recap on your week. And it’s like, she does this wonderful thing which I love, which is rosebud Thorne. So raise is something that’s gone? Well, a bird is something that’s kind of in the works and the thorn is something that you’ve struggled with. And that I love that that’s part of my Friday morning routine to go in and share that. And occasionally, I might reach out to somebody and have as part of the group. I like the little virtual circle thing that she did where you and I met. But again, group calls and things if I’m not the leader, I find it difficult to understand what my role is within that. And that’s part of the autistic social thing. Oh, Facebook is a minefield, I’m still in a few groups, but I don’t engage anymore. I don’t like spending time there. And I’m also in another mighty networks group, which is the What Works network by Tara McMillan, who’s also a client of mine. And that’s for kind of established business owners sharing kind of tips and tricks and stuff. And I really like that I’ve, I’ve only been in there for a couple of months, I haven’t really kind of found like, which is the thing that happens regularly that I can comment on and kind of engage with. I like to have something that makes it part of my routine, but it’s also a great place to kind of find find new people and find resources and and stuff like that. But that’s mostly it. Other than that, I’m just you know, talking to my my newsletter peeps, so if I’ve got time I’ll be on Instagram, but
yeah. Yeah, I definitely want to learn more about your inflatable bathtub because bathtub. Like I live for having a bath at the end of a long day. And it is so hot. I mean, because I have a dog I work for myself, you know, it’s just a bit tricky and I’m just staying with friends at the moment because I’ve just moved to Scotland but if I stay here, I might not have bathtub. So this is definitely something I need to learn.
Don’t you? Yeah, they don’t do they don’t do fast tool here I think you will have maybe out in the country, they’re more so. But Copenhagen bathrooms are notorious for being like, tiny King, all showers and I have to I have to be submerged in water regularly or I just go in say. So my lovely fiance Lars found this, I think it’s a Dutch company or double. And they do. It’s it’s as big as a full size bathtub will hazard on the bottom. it inflates in about a minute, maybe less. And it’s got like a proper plug and stuff. So you can just put the pipe down the drain and drain it when you’re done. It’s a life changer. And it folds down into like a bag. A tiny, tiny little. And it has saved my life. I was just going crazy. And I was looking at like old Victorian copper tubs and some crappy Chinese inflatable tubs that were just like, inflatable bucket basically, kids paddling pools learn something. Yeah, yeah, absolutely amazing. I love it.
I will definitely look into that. So cool to know. And before we go, I just want to love I would love to hear what you’re offering, and then very excited about your newsletter. And you’re going to get on that. That’s one thing we already know about. And I’ll link to that. But what else are you offering? And where can people find you if they want to know more about you or your inflatable bathtub.
I’m most often on Instagram. That’s the only social media I’m on. And I’m elytra communities over on there. So if you want to come over and follow me and slide into my DMS to ask about my bathtub, you will welcome with open arms. But my home base is my website, which is eletric communities calm. And that’s where I talk about all my client projects, sign up for the Sunday letters, they are really, really good. There’s not just me blowing my own trumpet, like everybody says, I love doing them, I poured my heart and soul into them, you get a lot more kind of personal stories from me tonnes of resources. Yeah, they’re really, really nice place to hang out. And in terms of what I’ve got love is great. The numbers is coming back in mid October is a six week programme. Very, very small, like there’s undertand for going through at any one time. And I will give you a link to that, because it’s not easy to find on my website. So if you applications are kind of open, but I haven’t done a big launch or anything for it yet. But you can still find the page and apply and all that kind of stuff. And that’s lovely. I’ve running the beta round at the moment, we’re almost finished. And it’s just the loveliest group of women that I just want to hug them all all the time. And that’s more about building a network getting connected. Like if you’re if you’re starting a new business, or if you’re super introverted, and this whole idea of outreach makes you want to cry. It’s all super introvert friendly. And it’s all about finding your kindred spirits, basically. And then community projects, if people are interested in running vincci project with me, I am just about to open up bookings officially for 2020. And my prices will be going up considerably then as well. So if people want to talk to me about community project, then between now and mid September is a really good time to offer like a 190 minute standalone session, which is just kind of strategy and objectives and getting the theme, right. And which is based on the first session of my bigger package, which is called conception to completion. And that’s where we work together over three months, doing two months of prep, and one month of you actually running your project. And that’s all on and you get a whole load of extra material and pre written stuff and templates and all sorts of good stuff. Cool. The all the details are on my website.
Oh, no. Yeah, that sounds great. I’m linked to that and show notes. If anyone didn’t catch any of that or where to find it. This will all be there waiting for you. Thank you so so much for sharing everything that you have shared today. I’m really excited to bring this out to everyone and like see what people think about it. I’m sure everyone will need to know more about the path as to why and yeah, just I’m really grateful to To you, thank you so much.
Oh, thank you so much for having me. It’s been a real treat. Thank you.
