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Do you get stuck in the comparison trap every time you’re online? Social media has subconsciously taught us that everything should be a competition, when in reality it doesn’t. Listen in as Natalie Franke, author of Built to Belong, joins me to discuss reframing how we think about comparison and competition, along with explaining the difference between healthy and unhealthy competition!

Natalie Franke Hayes is an entrepreneur, mobilization marketer, community builder, and neuroscience nerd.
As one of the Founders of the Rising Tide Society, the Head of Community at HoneyBook, and author of Built to Belong, she leads tens of thousands of creatives and small business owners while fostering a spirit of community over competition around the world.

Competition is a part of every facet of our lives. (2:30)

Why do we feel the need to compete? (3:00)

Competition in History (4:40)

Competition Enhances Our Bodies (When Healthy) (5:40)

Unhealthy Competition Puts Individual Performance Above Collective Good (6:45)

Reframing Our Mindset Around Comparison and Competition (9:28)
The group boundaries that we create in our mind are arbitrary.

How The Pandemic Reframed Competition for Entrepreneurs (12:24)
How are all of us going to survive this pandemic as business owners?

Struggling with Comparison on Social Media (17:34)
Change how you’re engaging online by connecting or creating first, then consuming.

“Comparison Doesn’t Go Away When We Put Down Our Phones” – Laylee

Unpopular Opinions (24:13)

Links
nataliefranke.com
instagram.com/nataliefranke
Built to Belong – nataliefranke.com/book
Join the Launch Team

Review the Transcript:

Laylee Emadi 0:05
Welcome to so here’s the thing where we share candid conversations that lift the veil on what it takes to find success, even if that means sharing a few unpopular opinions. I’m your host Laylee Emadi, grab some coffee or cocktail, and let’s get real.

Laylee Emadi 0:21
Hey, friends, welcome back to the show. I am so excited to have my dear friend Natalie Frank, back with us. She’s been on the podcast, gosh, I think at least twice, right? And I’m so excited to have her back. Because this is gonna be just such an amazing conversation. Because Natalie is, as we all know, the queen of community over competition, I actually think Didn’t you just trademark that like, it’s, it’s yours. This is this is your phrase. And she’s literally written the book on it. Wow, that was the cheesiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, but it just came out and I’m gonna go with it. I really like the fact that you did actually write the book on community over competition, and that people are going to be able to read it and have it, I got an early copy. I’m super excited to be part of your launch team. And I’m excited to talk about community over competition and what that means, and more. So I’m excited to kind of have a conversation with you about what it looks like to reframe the concept of competition, so that it’s not stealing way all of our joys so that it’s not getting in our way on a daily basis. So I’m gonna just kick it over to you now. And you can just tell us all about you know, the book and what you’re doing with it, and how we can maybe tangibly and tactically reframe our concept of competition in this creative space.

Natalie Franke 1:40
Thank you for having me back. It is a life goal of mine now to be the most frequent guest on your podcast. I don’t know if I’m there yet. But third time of many, I hope, I hope you forgive me back. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I want to start here, I think this is a good place to start. Because sometimes when people hear this phrase community over competition, or, you know, they engage with content that is super community centric, super pro collaboration, it can it can feel a little bit like, are we trying to ignore the existence of competition? Or are we somehow you know, saying that we want a life without competition. And what was really interesting is in writing this book, and actually sitting down to write about this concept and this mindset and tackle it from a level of depth that I have never done before bringing in science bringing in, you know, neuroscience and psychology talking about it, through the lens of an athlete to a professional to a mother to, you know, just being a human being and how it can sometimes feel as though competition is a part of every single facet of our life. It isn’t just limited to how we perhaps compete as business owners, it isn’t just limited to how we might compete in trying to rise up in our career and become, you know, a more more advanced professional, it doesn’t just exist in our relationships with other people. Competition is a part of every aspect of our life. And I started by kind of asking the question, why? Why is this? Why do we feel this constant need to compete? And why the sometimes it feels subtle, and almost subconscious. And other times, it’s almost we get screaming at us, like I think about, you know, we talked about Instagram and comparison and the scroll all the time. And that’s when it’s screaming at us, that’s when we’re being confronted with it. But it’s also these subtle moments of how we judge ourselves, right? How we second guess ourselves how we’ve been almost trained to doubt ourselves, because we’re measuring up to somebody else’s success metric, or we’re trying to kind of see, well, how did she do? How did they do? What are they How are they performing in their life, and again, not just in their career, in every single aspect of how we look at ourselves against other people, there’s this this very undercurrent, that that tends to rise up. And that is competition. And the truth here is that yes, we are built to belong and that’s the title of the book built to belong, but we are also wired to compete. So, in one in one aspect, we are created for community we are meant to be social creatures, we are, you know, very much designed to live with other human beings in community. And we see that from all different perspectives, historical, sociological, psychological, like you name it, you look at it from whatever lens you want to look at it human beings are social creatures, we are meant for one another. And at the same time, as a as a species, we also want to survive. And that survival instinct is very much integrated into our need to compete. And what’s interesting is that as we move into the current climate, the current world we live in, we’re not necessarily going out into the forest and competing for food in the same way that maybe our ancestors did or into wherever your ancestors are from competing for resources at a very basic level, although we still do just it looks very different. This competition emerges from within us in all different places, how we view ourselves and other people in our relationship, as I’ve mentioned, and all these different capacities, because we are wired to compete, and competition, and look, it gets a really bad rap, even when I talk about it, you know, with community over competition, it’s like the enemy oftentimes. And the truth is, it’s not. Competition is not inherently a bad thing. Competition actually has a purpose, it serves a purpose in our in our bodies, it acts as a performance enhancing drug of sorts in our brain, that pushes us to be better versions of ourselves when healthy. And so in the book, I talk about very specific studies that have been done, where essentially you can look at it like a gymnast, or a weightlifter and a weightlifter will lift more weight simply in the presence of another human being, then that weightlifter will will lift alone. So by having one other person in the arena, even if it’s just an observer and not a direct competitor, it changes the level of performance and output that a person has. And we’ve all felt this, you know, we’ve, if you’ve ever played a sport, it’s different. When you’re training alone, when you’re maybe you’re in a gym, and now there’s other people around you’re, you’re more cognizant, maybe you’re pushing yourself a little bit harder, maybe you don’t even know that you’re doing it. But you notice that you’re propelled by simply having others around you that is that is knit into the very fabric of how we are wired, as human beings. And so we see competitions serving such a healthy and positive kind of role in our lives, you know, but what can happen, and what a lot of us experience we talk about it from a negative perspective is when competition shifts from being that healthy, performance enhancing drug that kind of pushes our bodies and our brains to be better to do just a little bit more into the unhealthy realm into the realm where it starts to consume us where our focus shifts from, why we’re doing something or what we’re aiming to achieve ourselves to. How does this measure up against other people? How am I measuring up against other people, and kind of allowing ourselves to lean into a space where competition becomes consuming, it becomes detrimental, it can become harmful, it can become overwhelming, and it can put individual performance above collective good. It can put personal success above community benefit to a degree at which we stop caring about how our actions impact others or we stop caring about other people at all. And when we start only focusing on what we get out of something, we start only focusing on our climb to the top, regardless of who we heard along the way. So those are two very different extremes of the same conversation. But the point here trying to be illustrated is that we all are going to compete, we are all competitive in one way or another that’s never going away. So this mindset isn’t saying get rid of it, like go have it. This mindset is simply saying, let’s acknowledge it, let’s understand our drive to compete, let’s let’s know where it comes from. And then let’s shift our mindset in a direction where we understand it, we embrace it. And yet, we still choose a mindset of putting others, you know, in in the scope of how we perform, we understand how our actions impact them that we see community as a way for all of us to arise and thrive together not as something that’s going to take away from our ability to succeed or our joy. And so it’s a little bit of a mindset shift met with quite a bit of understanding how we’re wired and the opportunities that that presents us.

Laylee Emadi 8:15
I love that. I mean, there’s just so much we could unpack there. But I just like as you were talking, I was thinking about examples of that in just my my life and my history. And I was thinking about when I was teaching dance, and I was a competitive dancer. Although our whole lives were rooted in competition. If something happened with a neighboring team, we would come together to support that team. I remember there was like, you know, a natural disaster or something that happened with the team that we were competing against, and we all came together to fundraise for them. We still competed against them, you know, that didn’t go away. But the community aspect was there. And I think that oftentimes, like as small business owners and entrepreneurs, because that’s who’s listening to this right now, we kind of forget that part of it, that we are still a part of a community, even if our businesses are thriving on competing with other business owners or whatever to like, gain clients. How can we how can we reframe that in our minds? Like, I’m I know, this is stuff that you talk about in the book. So like, I’m excited to hear, you know, some ways that we can get past that comparison because it is so it becomes so unhealthy when competition healthy competition turns into unhealthy comparison. I think that’s when people start to struggle.

Natalie Franke 9:28
Yes, I totally agree. I love your example, with dance competitions and sort of dance teams. I think that first it kind of begins by understanding that the group boundaries that we create, in our mind are arbitrary. And I’ll give you a little example. There’s a story in the book where I talk about being a kid and sitting on a park bench at recess and a friend of mine looking over at me and asking a very simple question I had never been asked before. Are you in any foreign outtie and I looked at her and I’m like, I don’t even know what she’s talking about. Like at that point in my life. I didn’t know what that meant. And I was like, oh, gosh, okay, quick at school. I was like, What do you mean him? You know? And she goes, No, your belly button? Like, are you an engineer and outie belly button? And the question again, quite simple, I thought about it, I go, I’m in any, I’m in any big belly button, she looks at me and she goes, me too. We’re both nice team any. And I was like cool team any. And suddenly, I was a part of the any group, right? Whereas somebody else might be a part of the outtie group having an outie belly button. And, you know, I references writing the book, and I go into far more detail. But the point being that the way she framed that question, set up group boundaries, there were those of us who had any belly buttons, and those of us who had outie belly buttons. In this case, we’re talking about a silly example. But this is how the brain works. And it has immense consequences, both for us as individuals, and collectively as the world because we set these group boundaries based on things that in some cases are visible, and other cases are invisible, in some cases are significant. And other cases are completely insignificant belly buttons. But the framing of the question created the boundary and once creating the boundary, it was us versus them. And in the book, I talked about what a different question it would have been had, she asked me, Do you have a belly button? Because the scope of where that group boundary would have been drawn would have looked very different. Now she’s asking me a question. If I have a belly button, in which case there’s no knees and no Audi’s. There’s humankind against, I guess, those without the belly button. And so in the framing of the question, when we ask, how do we move beyond feeling like it’s me versus my competitor, that it’s my industry versus the client, that it’s whatever the boundary is, it starts by asking a different question, it starts by reframing how we look at that group boundary. And I want to be clear, the boundaries have consequences. They exist in all different aspects of human life and existence. So by sitting there arbitrary, I’m not saying they’re insignificant. But what I am saying is that we can change them cognitively, just by taking that question and reframing it and changing it. So what I suggest first, is not looking at someone else that does what you do as your competitor. But asking a different question and asking, Are they my colleagues? Are they doing the same thing that I’m doing? Are we a part of the same industry, the same group, that’s up against an immense amount of challenges. And I’ll give a really, really, relative example here a great example here, because this just happened to all of us, because what I mean a recent example here, but pandemic, so at the start of the pandemic, I want us to remember as business owners what it felt like to go from operating and daily life, many of us aware of our competitors, maybe paying attention to our competitors, maybe in our local markets, especially for those of us that are service based in a local geographical region, you know, and being very cognizant of what they were doing with how they were performing what they were up against, all of a sudden, it went from us against our competitor to, okay, it is business owners against a pandemic. It is all of us who are livelihoods now have been threatened, regardless of which business you run, the world is being shut down. We now have an opportunity to reframe that group boundary and to see us as a united front to lobby for PPP legislation to reach out and support one another with rescheduling to share contract language understand force majeure and what we need to be adding to our contracts to protect one another to share resources, I could go on and on and on. But we witnessed a huge cultural shift in the industry at the very start of the pandemic, where we stopped looking at one another as Oh, I can’t share anything with her. I can’t tell them what I’m doing. I can’t tell you know him, what I’m up to you to how all of us going to survive. And that reframing of the group boundary is something that I want us to hang on to, I want us to cling to, not disregarding that, yes, we still compete, but instead saying I know that we compete. But when we’re not in the arena, when I’m not sitting down in front of a client, like when I’m when I’m in that room with the client, of course, I’m going to give it my all I’m going to show up, I’m going to share exactly what I’m the best option for them or what I have to offer. If they’re my ideal client, the right fit, or whatever it is, I’m going to show up and give my best. And I’m not gonna say anything mean about another business owner never gonna do that, again, like talk about ethics, we talk about operating from a place of respecting one another, but I am going to give it my all right. The minute I’m out of that meeting, minute, I’m operating that business beyond the scope of that arena, that moment of competition match, right? If we want to think of it from an athletic perspective, the minute I’m out of the match, you’re my community, I’m not competing against you, like you need something, I’m there, you get sick, I’ll show up and be your replacement. You need advice, I’ve got your back, you’re struggling with something. Let me know how I can help. Your detriment is not going to help me succeed. Right. So it’s about switching the mindset. It’s about embracing sort of a different approach to the future of running our businesses where we’re operating from that place of it’s us against the world like it’s us against every statistic that tells small bits insiders are not going to succeed. It’s us against the technological changes that are keeping the entire world on their toes and the industry on their toes, certainly. So that we can all adapt and grow and share, share what’s working and share what’s not working so that people are operating from a place of having access to knowledge, having access to support, having access to community and not being denied that out of fear, not being denied that out of a mindset of scarcity, not being denied that because we can’t possibly want a newcomer to succeed, right. And it’s just about shifting that mindset and kind of being aware that these boundaries cognitively they, they were we’re aware of them, we make them sometimes, sometimes, subconsciously. But a lot of times consciously, we’re making these these boundaries in our minds. And so it’s about really evaluating that, and kind of challenging that and reframing that and doing the work that’s required within ourselves so that when we go out into the world, we can be the type of business owner that genuinely does not feel threatened by others in our community that genuinely wants to see them succeed. And it does require a little bit of mental gymnastics, but it is worth every single reframed thought, when you get to the other side,

Laylee Emadi 16:11
I love that I feel like I’m super excited as you’re talking to think about like, not only the movement that you created years ago, because I was I mean, I started my business before community over competition was like a well known phrase before rising tide society. And before you were making your massive waves that really changed our industry. And it was extremely cutthroat. And it was very rare to find what you’re talking about now. So I’m so excited to see the impact that the book is going to make on just the world, not just our creative community. But I just I really love everything that you just shared about it. And I couldn’t agree more. I feel like I don’t know, even even thinking back to the multiple small businesses that I’ve, you know, created and grown over the past few years, it would have been so much more difficult to really like be able to grow them without the support of my community. And I only have that because I was able to make that mental shift. So can we talk really quickly about like, what you would say to somebody who’s really struggling with comparison in the season and really like leaning into each other? I know, when you’ve been on the show before, we’ve talked about abundance versus scarcity mindset. And like, I just feel like, no matter how much we talked about it, there are still times when we struggle, everybody struggles with it. But what would you say to somebody who’s having just like a really hard season of it right now.

Natalie Franke 17:33
So first, I want to quote my wise, amazing, brilliant friend Laylee, with a saying that, you know, the comparison doesn’t go away when we put down our phones. And that comparison, just like competition will always be a part of how we are wired. But it also can’t be simply erased by disconnecting from social media. And I want to start there because I have talked about scarcity in abundance mindset. And in the book I write about it and kind of reference like the origins of that and where that came from. And kind of now how I look at it as sort of like many, many years later from the original, the original author that kind of coined that phrase. But let’s let’s look at it from a little bit of a different lens here. Let’s tackle it from the perspective of so often when we talk about comparison, we are talking about how it relates to the way we view other people, and especially in the last 18 months, the way we are engaging with others happens to be virtually it happens to be on these platforms, like Instagram, or Tiktok, or Facebook or you name it. And so while a lot of the sort of modern advice on the subject as well just take a break, turn off your phone step away from it. I I’m not a believer in that I’m actually not a huge advocate for that as a true solution. Now, I’ll be clear, I’m not saying that break from social media can be great for your mental health, absolutely. But what I’m trying to tackle is if we’re not doing the hard work of addressing the problem, then we’re simply you know, Kate finding a short term solution that’s not really going to cure the disease, we’re saying, I’m going to take a break every time I feel like I’m comparing myself too much to other people on the internet or when it leaves me feeling like I’m falling behind or when it leaves me feeling, you know, sad or disconnected. And we’re not changing the way we’re engaging with these platforms such that we don’t have to feel that way. We don’t have to let these platforms lead us down a path where the end result is burnout, exhaustion and disconnection from others. We can leverage these platforms, when we understand you know, how they’re run and operated. And the challenges we’re up against which we talked about in the book, we talk about the algorithms that are designed to keep us scrolling and how that keeps money in the pockets of these platforms. And it’s funding these social media giants. When we talk about it, we get to look at let’s really address the issue here. But then we also can kind of take a step back and say, but how am I participating? How am I engaging and I’ll give you a very specific example. If you’re listening to this and you find yourself often at The end of the road here that I’m referencing, when you go down the journey of scrolling or picking up your phone, the end of the road looking like comparison, the end of the road looking like feeling like you’re falling behind feeling almost overwhelmed and stressed because I can’t keep up, I can’t do this, you know, I can’t be creating rules every day like so. And so and then I can’t be doing XYZ like this person. And I’m not having this success like this person, if that’s the end of the road where you’re landing before you turn off the phone, then let’s have a real heart to heart here about how you’re opening up and starting your engagement on social media. And here’s what I mean, there’s a psychological study that was done to try to understand how social media leads to mental health outcomes. Because so much research that’s been done social media shows connection between the amount of time spent on a social media platform and negative mental health consequences. And we’ve seen like these, these studies have been done over and over these other scientists that well, I’m just not convinced that that we’re seeing the whole picture here. And they looked at it with a slightly different perspective. And instead of just simply measuring time spent on social media and mental health outcome, they looked at how someone uses social media and mental health outcome, and they’ve divided it into two categories. One being using social media to connect with others, and the other being using social media to consume content. And when we open our phone, and the first thing that we do is consume content, the first thing that we do is see what other people are doing, the first thing that we do is scroll and scroll and scroll, that leads to a negative mental health, sort of, on the other side of it that leads to, you know, increased rates of things like depression, and I would argue comparison, although not looked at in the study, and that leads you down the road of consumption and consumption, consumption and leaving on the other end of that feeling, you know, these feelings that we’re talking about. Whereas on the flip side, this study showed that when someone opens social media, and they’re using it to connect, they’re actually picking up the platform because I want to check on Laylee, and like ping her about what she’s up to, or I want to check on my bestie see what she’s doing cheer for her get on her account, you know, root for her pop into my DNS, there’s a significantly different outcome to how you feel at the other side of that. So if you’re picking up your phone, and the first thing you’re doing is consuming, what I want to challenge you to do is to pick up your phone and do one of two things. Either Connect, go onto the platform, make a list, I this is a really easy way to start changing your behavior, make a list of five people that this month, you want to connect with five people, that when you pick up your phone, you want to intentionally go connect with engage, maybe with what they’re doing cheer for them root for them, whatever it looks like that was the five, put it on a sticky note wherever you normally are working or scrolling or whatever it would be that you’re you know how you’re engaging. So that you are connecting first, before you consume and even limit the amount of consumption you’re allowing yourself a day in terms of scrolling on that platform and just seeing what other people are up to. That’s one route to go about it. The other route would be if if not connecting. It’s kind of an andorre, then creating, so not stepping onto the platform just to consume but instead stepping on to share and to create. So actually using it as an alphabet to say, here’s what I’ve been working on. Here’s something cool I’m doing using it for that. That purpose that ultimately, it’s supposed to be used for for many of us as business owners or marketers are creators. And so taking how you’re using it, flipping it on its head, moving away from consumption and moving instead towards connection and towards creation.

Laylee Emadi 23:28
I am here for that tactical approach. I am living for it. Thank you. That’s amazing. Yeah, I love I love the both of those ideas. And I feel like there is power in stepping away. But I do think that it’s just a symptom of a larger problem. And thanks for quoting you, I feel so special. But no, that’s amazing. I completely agree. Obviously. Wow, you have given so many things for people to think about. I am so so excited for everybody to be able to hear this episode and really like have those tangible things to start working toward. I’d love to hear I mean, I feel like you already kind of shared some but your unpopular opinion on community over competition on any of any and all of this, but I know you won’t shy away.

Natalie Franke 24:13
I mean, there are a lot I do I do a lot I do have a lot of unpopular opinions. We can start we’ll start with where we just kind of were discussing unpopular opinion number one, taking a break from social media is not the answer to popular opinion. Number two, quitting social media isn’t the solution. You know, when we talk about that, or we see that advice given again, I’ve just been emphasize it is a short term pick me up it is not going to be a long term solution. And in the book we talked about why in the book we go into detail and you know we really really dive in but I’ll just say this, we live in a digitally connected world you can no longer think about your life in terms of physical over here and digital over there. Which leads me to unpopular opinion number three and that is the internet friends are real friends. This is an opinion where I I admit in the book openly I was wrong. When I first started rising tide, I thought the digital relationships digital connection online community was inferior. I thought that physical connection and in person relationships were the only answer to caring loneliness. And I want to be very clear, I was wrong. And it wasn’t just the past 18 months that transformed my opinion on this. It was, frankly, a conversation with my sister in law. That really shifted my perspective, because when the pandemic hit, I was someone who had built my whole career on cultivating community. That’s, that’s what I do. I create communities. I love in person meetups, I still love in person meetups, I’m aching for them. I’m aching for big events. I keep saying I love being around a crowded table, you know where you’re like stuffed in like sardines. Like that brings me joy. It really, really does. However, when the panic first hit, I was terrified. I I remember having a conversation with my sister in law on the back porch, and, you know, socially distant back porch. And I just said to her, I said, I don’t know how I’m going to make it through this without my meetups in person. Like, I mean, I started to community because of my loneliness. What am I supposed to do if we can’t get together. And you know what she said to me, she says, and to give a little context, my sister in law has cystic fibrosis. And she said to me, in the CF community, we’ve always had to be six feet apart. This isn’t a new recommendation for us. In the CF community, I can’t be within six feet of another patient who has cystic fibrosis, because we will share lung bacteria and actually could make one another much sicker. So we’ve always had to maintain physical distance. But that that is not what defines a community. Some of my close relationships are with other folks going through what I’m going through, even if we can’t be in the same room, or even if we can’t be, you know, within six feet. And it just kind of rattled my brain. I’m like, oh, tell me more, tell me more. And she started to talk about how all of these innovations that many of us who have not experienced which she has experienced for those of us who haven’t been part of a chronic illness community for people listening to this, but the first time they’ve experienced needing to be physically distant was during the pandemic, we have seen these innovations. And these adaptations happen over the course of the last 18 months. And they’re new to us, but they’re not new. She referenced like online book clubs and digital movie nights. And, you know, like podcast groups that they would chat about podcasts they’re into, and they might have to do it virtually. But it didn’t diminish the relationships, if anything, it enabled them through digital connection, to discover people who were going through uniquely what they were going through and build a bond forge a friendship that is unlike any other end. So unpopular opinion. Number three is that internet friends, actually, in fact, are real friends, but digital community can be when we lean into it correctly, just as meaningful, as in person community. And I understand that for a lot of people, I think, is there going to be a Natalie Frank mindset of 2017. And you’re like, I’m done with the virtual like, Do not tell me there’s another webinar. I can’t do it, I hear you. But I really again, I just want to emphasize that as we move forward, as we look to the future, as we think about a world where we are all hoping that the pandemic that we are enduring now and have been enduring, dissipates, we’re all hoping for that. In that future. What I want to encourage us to do as well, and the book tries to hit this home is not to run back to the way things were. There is no returning to normal. A lot of us don’t want to return to what life was like before. And if you’re something Are you sure, yes, 40% of the workforce is contemplating quitting their jobs in 2021 40%. April salt, one of the largest numbers of people 2.7% of the American workforce, quit in April alone, and people are estimating that’s lower than what’s about to happen in September and October. So when I say no one wants to go back, you know, maybe they’re 60% maybe might be hanging on to that job. But 40% of people are saying I don’t I’m done professionally, I I can’t keep operating the way I was offering I don’t want, I don’t want the two hour commute daily, I don’t want to be away from my home, I can work from home, I can still do my job well. And that applies to so many different aspects of our lives, the digital conveniences and advancements of the last 18 months in so many different facets are here to stay and ultimately, there is no returning to the way things are and so what I want to advocate for an unpopular opinion number three is that we look to the future with more opportunity we look to the future as a place where we can be both physically connected and digitally connected. Where if we are enduring something in our lives that’s unique to us or that is rare in our community. And you know, I’ll use a very specific example in my own life I’m going to I’m not even that rare, but you know, one being in fertility going through infertility I in my immediate circle at that when I first was diagnosed and told that I was going through really, I didn’t know a single other person who was considering IVF. Not in my small circle, especially not coming from a Catholic background and upbringing. It was just not not talked about, I didn’t have the support that I needed. So what did I do? I went online, and I found an online Facebook group with other people going through fertility treatment. And I dove in, I showed up, I started connecting with people. And today on the other side of years of this, some of my closest in person, friends and digital friends, have been through a similar experience. And we’ve been able to bond and bond and forge a friendship that is unlike any other the same with being diagnosed with a benign brain tumor, I still, you know, in my physical life, I don’t know anyone else that has had gone through that. But I know plenty of people on the internet that either are going through it have gone through it. And they became my family and still are part of my family through digital connections. So what I’m encouraging here is to acknowledge that there is such benefit here. It used to be that you might be the only person in your circle who’s ever gone through something. And now you can open up the Internet, and immediately find other people, they can connect with you and your unique situation circumstances, dreams, desires. It’s not just negative, like your hopes and your goals, you might be the only person right now dreaming as big as you’re dreaming. Right? We’ve all a lot of us have faced that a lot of us have people in our struggle telling us we can’t do it. Who are we to think we can accomplish that? Why would we possibly quit that steady job and go out and build that business? You might be the only person in your physical circle feeling that way right now, who are you to want to stand on a stage and teach. This is what lane Lee does. gashi he empowers people to go out and do that thing. You might be the only person in your physical world feeling called to go out and do something big. Let me tell you something, ladies, creating a community around it literally has a mastermind about it. There are groups and places where then you can go digitally and immediately be connected with people thinking dreaming, hoping for more. So both in things we struggle with and and hopes we have for our future. My point being and I’ll summon up here Laylee, I probably I know I’m going off on a little tangent. unpopular opinion. Number three internet friends are real friends. And the future is not just in the physical world, the future is in an integrated world where we see both our digital and our physical relationships as meaningful to us. And we move forward accordingly.

Laylee Emadi 32:20
Oh, my goodness. Well, you know, I love that. You know, I agree, I feel like definitely the closest relationships that I’ve built within, like the entrepreneurial and creative space have definitely been virtual have definitely been online friends that have been, you know, transferred into real life friends. And that’s just that’s just I agree that integration of the two is something that is unavoidable. It just is our world. And I think that’s that’s kind of a hard reality for a lot of like millennials and older to deal with. Because we were always taught at a young age, like I remember, oh my gosh, I’m at age myself so bad. But I remember when we got the internet, like that was a big deal. And I wasn’t allowed to talk to people on the internet. Like, it was scary. And so I think reframing that as an adult is is definitely a journey for a lot of people. So I love that you shared that. And oh my gosh, I love all three of your unpopular opinions, obviously. And I’m so excited. I’m so excited for everybody to get their hands on your book. And to learn more about this important topic. It’s like Natalie mentions called Biltz belong. And I’m going to like you jump in if I say any of this wrong, but you can pre order it now. Yeah, I know, because I did. So I don’t know why I’m acting like I don’t know. And then you can also join the lunch team through when Natalie when when when can people get an early copy of this?

Natalie Franke 33:35
Yes. Okay. So here’s here are all the options. I’ll just throw them on the table. So one would be if you’re like, Okay, this sounds interesting, or I yeah, I’m just I’m really curious. Because I will, I will say this. Every single person who has read this book, front to back, has said the same thing to me, which is, wow, that was not what I was expecting. And they say this. And I’ve heard it from like, literally, if someone says I hate self help books, it ain’t a self help book. There’s enough science in there that I was taken notes like this was excellently researched. I have another friend that’s like, your stories, like I just there’s a lot for everybody. But my point being it may not be what you expect. If you’re someone who’s like, I just want to preorder the book, go for it, you can either preorder a hardcopy book or it just went up on for audio book on Audible. So if you’re an audio book listener, you got credits in your audible audible account, go preorder an audible it’ll drop right into your account when it goes live. If you’re someone that’s like, not only do I need the book in my life, but I can’t wait now, like I want to read it right now. You can join our launch team, all you have to do is preorder the book submit a form so that we have your address, we can send you some perks and goodies in the mail and join a Facebook group and you get immediate digital access to the manuscript you can start reading today. Although anyone who pre orders if you submit to my website will get access to chapter one, both audio and digital, so that you can dive in and start to see what what you’re in for. And like I said it, I have a feeling for a lot of folks, even those who know me well, even those who have heard me speak for a long time. A lot of heart research. went into this book both hard and research. And it may not be what you expect. And I hope that’s in a really good way. So I want to encourage you to preorder and or join our launch team be a part of it ladies in the launch team. It is a really sweet group. We are over 400 people now. And the feedback has just been amazing. And we’re doing some kind of cool things even beyond the book, some random acts of kindness and loving on some people. It’s fun. It’s just a cool group to be a part of so highly recommend. We’d love for you to preorder we’d love to have you on the lunch team.

Laylee Emadi 35:27
That is amazing. I love being a part of the launch team myself. I think it’s something that is super fun to have like that feeling of community around for sure. So I’m excited for people to get their hands on the book. I’m excited. I’m like halfway through and I can say I agree that it is not what I expected, but like integrate way. So I’m super excited about that too. Thank you so much for sharing.

Natalie Franke 35:48
Thank you so much for having me and again life goals to be the most frequent guest on your on your way you’re on your way. I

Laylee Emadi 35:56
think if you come back one more time, you’ll have everyone else beat so I’ll see you at the next episode for sure.

Natalie Franke 36:01
Can’t wait. Thank you for having me

Laylee Emadi 36:03
for show notes and resources mentioned on today’s episode head to so here’s the thing podcast.com and if you’re enjoying the podcast, I’d love to read your review on iTunes. Thanks so much for listening and I’ll catch you in the next episode.