The Women We Find Along the Way
Perhaps one of the most important parts of starting from zero isn’t what we build next, but finding the people who make us feel more like ourselves while we’re building it.
There is something about friendship that seems to become more precious with age and I think it’s because we understand time differently. Experiences have taught us the difference between knowing a lot of people and being truly known by a few.
After many years of trying to fit into places, relationships and versions of ourselves that weren’t quite right, we become better at recognizing the people around whom we can simply exhale.
Whatever the reason, finding your people matters. It matters when life is going beautifully, when there is plenty to celebrate and you want someone beside you who is genuinely delighted by your happiness.
That was the conversation at the heart of my latest Starting From Zero Live with Ellen Newhouse. Ellen and I didn’t know each other a few months ago. We met here, on Substack and what began as a serendipitous online connection quickly became regular conversations, brainstorming, accountability and friendship.
Fast forward to today and we support one another in what we’re creating here, but increasingly in everything else we’re building too. During our conversation Ellen shared that at the beginning of the year she had written about wanting to find her tribe - she wanted women around her who understood this season of her life, including someone who could become an accountability partner.
Somehow, we found each other - thanks to Substack! Here we are.
There is something incredibly serendipitous about those moments in life when someone who was a complete stranger a short time ago suddenly feels incredibly familiar. You find yourself thinking, there you are - where have you been all my life?
Maybe one of the gifts of getting older is that we become better at recognizing that feeling. We know what it feels like to perform a version of ourselves to belong somewhere, and we know how different it feels to be around people who require no performance at all.
Eight years ago, I moved from the UK to America and, in many ways, genuinely started from zero and what I hadn’t anticipated was how disorientating it would feel not to have my people around me.
For the first few years, the absence of community affected me deeply. There were times when I felt incredibly alone and overwhelmed, and when I struggled to understand who I was within this completely different version of my life.
We often romanticize starting again. We talk about fresh starts, pivoting, new chapters, possibility and reinvention - and all of those things can be true. But there is another side that deserves acknowledging.
Starting from zero can also involve grief for what was familiar. It can mean losing the people who knew the shorthand of your life and having to rebuild a sense of belonging alongside everything else.
What Ellen and I talked about was that nurturing friendships is far more than encouragement. The people we need around us aren’t necessarily those who constantly tell us how wonderfully we’re doing. Sometimes the greatest act of friendship is grounding someone.
Ellen did that for me recently. I had a lot of opportunities to consider and, as I tend to do when possibilities start appearing, my mind was running in several directions at once. Her message was essentially: Feet on the floor. Buckle up. This could be quite a ride, but I’m going to be one of the people who keeps you grounded.
I remember thinking, hallelujah. Because those are the women we need.
Women who remember what we said we wanted when we become distracted by everything else. Women who can see when we’re disappearing down another rabbit hole and gently bring us back to ourselves.
Accountability, when it comes from the right person, doesn’t feel like pressure. It feels like kindness with a kick. And during our conversation, Ellen turned that idea inward.
She had recently been challenged about whether she was giving enough time to something that matters enormously to her: her music. She had intended to spend time singing, but hadn’t put that time into her calendar. Other things happened. The days passed. The singing didn’t.
What could easily have become a conversation about productivity became something much more interesting. Had she shown up for herself? Ellen reflected one of the most important points our our conversation:
“Before we can truly be a good friend to somebody else, we have to learn to become a good friend to ourselves.”
That thought stayed with me because it reminded me of something my mum used to say. Whenever she talked herself out of doing something or knew she had stood in her own way, she would say, “I’m my own worst enemy.”
I always found that phrase strange. Why would we want to be our own worst enemy when we have the opportunity to become our own best friend?
It is a simple question, but the older I become, the more profound it feels.
What would change if we treated ourselves with the qualities we value most in a good friend? If we encouraged ourselves without lying to ourselves, kept the promises we made to ourselves, noticed when we needed rest and gently challenged ourselves when we knew we were hiding?
One of the analogies Ellen shared during our conversation was to think of Substack like moving into a new neighbourhood.
Imagine arriving at your new home, closing the front door and waiting inside for everybody to discover you. Eventually, you might begin wondering why nobody has introduced themselves or invited you anywhere.
But you haven’t come out of the house…. I love this anology!
We can spend an extraordinary amount of energy online wondering why people aren’t finding us, reading us, subscribing to us or talking to us. Yet genuine community has never been built by standing in the middle of the room shouting, notice me.
You have to notice other people too. You have to come out of the house.
So, how do we actually find our people?
Perhaps the most useful thing to take away from my conversation with Ellen is that finding your people rarely happens by accident alone.
Serendipity might make the introduction, but friendship is built in what happens afterwards. It happens when we show up.
When we become interested in somebody else’s story rather than simply hoping they’ll become interested in ours. When we move beyond liking a post and start a conversation. When we remember what someone told us, check in again and slowly allow an online connection to become something more meaningful.
That is certainly what happened with Ellen and me. So, if you’re starting from zero here too, there are a few things our conversation made me think about.
Come Out Of The House
I think Ellen’s neighbourhood analogy is one of the best descriptions of Substack I’ve heard. Don’t publish and run… spend some time wandering around this rather wonderful neighbourhood.
Read publications that genuinely interest you. Join Lives. Leave thoughtful comments. Respond to Notes because you have something meaningful to add, not because you’re trying to get noticed.
And, when you find someone whose words make you think, I like how this woman sees the world, tell her. Sometimes friendship begins with something as simple as, “I really loved what you said here.”
Look Sideways, Not Only Upwards
When we’re building something new, we’re often encouraged to find the expert, the mentor or the person who is ten steps ahead of us. Of course there’s enormous value in that, but I think we sometimes forget to look beside us.
Who else is figuring something out right now? Who is building at a similar stage?
Who makes you feel excited after you’ve spoken to her? Who could you brainstorm with, learn alongside and perhaps hold accountable?
Ellen and I don’t need to have the same goals to support one another. In fact, our work is very different. What matters is that we understand what it feels like to be creating something that matters to us.
There is something powerful about having another woman beside you who can say, “I know you can do this. Now, are you actually doing it?”
Find The Women Who Can Give You Kindness With A Kick
We all need cheerleaders. But we also need truth-tellers.
The women who aren’t intimidated by our ambition but aren’t dazzled by it either. The women who can celebrate the exciting opportunity and still ask whether it actually aligns with what we said we wanted.
The right accountability partner isn’t another person to disappoint when you haven’t completed your to-do list. She is someone who understands the bigger picture well enough to remind you of it.
That’s why I keep coming back to the phrase kindness with a kick.
Encouragement without honesty isn’t helpful and honesty without kindness isn’t friendship - the magic is having both.
Be The Friend You’re Hoping To Find.
This may be the most important one because if you want women who recommend your work, remember that relationships are an equal exchange of energy:
If you want someone to check in with you, check in with someone.
If you want thoughtful conversation, start one.
If you want women who celebrate your success without comparison, become the woman who celebrates theirs.
And if you want an accountability partner who encourages you to show up for the things you say matter, begin by asking whether you’re showing up for yourself.
We can spend years waiting to find the community we need.
Sometimes we have to start creating it.
Show Up For Others Who Support You.
There’s a lovely full-circle moment in all of this because the very thing Ellen and I were talking about - showing up for the people we care about - is something we can now we can all put into practice.
Ellen is creating something incredibly special. After decades of working with sound, healing and helping other people reconnect with themselves, she is reclaiming another part of her own voice: her music.
She has written an album, Reclaiming My Voice, and her vision doesn’t stop there. She’s developing a show around the music and beginning to imagine taking it out into the world on tour.
So let’s do what we’ve been talking about throughout this entire conversation.
Let’s show up for Ellen, Listen to Ellen Newhouse on Spotify
Listen to Ellen’s music. Follow her journey. Subscribe to what she’s creating. Tell someone else about her. And when that album arrives, when the show takes shape and when Ellen announces those tour dates, let’s be the women in the audience saying:
We remember when you were talking about this before it existed.
Perhaps we were never supposed to do this alone.
The more I think about our conversation, the more I realize that finding your people is a life lesson. There will always be seasons when we have to walk into the unknown ourselves - but - doing it ourselves doesn’t mean we have to do it alone.
We can surround ourselves with women who remind us who we are. Women who make us laugh when everything feels too serious. Women who challenge us when we’re hiding and ground us when we’re flying in seventeen directions at once.
Women who see what we’re trying to create before the rest of the world can see it. And perhaps, as Ellen reminded us, it starts even closer to home. We become one of those women for ourselves.
And every now and then, if we’re lucky, amongst all those conversations we find someone who makes us think:
There you are. Where have you been all my life?
And maybe that’s one of the greatest things we can find when we’re starting from zero - finding someone to walk beside us while we become everything we’re still becoming.
We’d love to know: have you found one of your people here on Substack? Tag her in the comments and tell us how you found each other.
