We spend so much time wondering where we’ll find our people, but after eight years of bringing thousands of women together, Julie Marvel has learned that the community we’re looking for often begins when someone is brave enough to create it.
There is something strangely vulnerable about making a new friend as an adult, and I’m not sure we talk about it nearly enough.
When we are younger, friendship seems to happen almost accidentally because we are constantly being placed in environments where the same people appear again and again.
Then life changes, particularly as we move through our forties, fifties and beyond, and suddenly friendship can require something it didn’t seem to need before: intention.
We have to introduce ourselves, accept invitations when staying home might feel easier, suggest the coffee, organize the lunch and risk discovering that somebody is busy, doesn’t reply or simply isn’t our person.
We have to walk into rooms where everybody else appears to know one another and resist the urge to turn around and leave before anybody notices we arrived. It takes courage, and yet many of us assume everyone else has somehow mastered it.
They already have their friends, their “circle” and belong somewhere. Except, many of those women are looking around wondering the exact same thing.
That was at the heart of my latest Starting From Zero Live with Julie Marvel, a woman who knows far more than most about what happens when somebody decides to stop waiting for community and begins creating it instead.
Julie spent eight years building a women’s community in Florida that eventually grew to a Facebook group of around 10,000 women, with approximately 500 women attending events and activities taking place five to seven days a week. What I loved most about hearing her tell that story, however, wasn’t the size of what she eventually built; it was discovering how extraordinarily simply it began.
Julie needed and wanted friends - so she organized a lunch.
Sometimes the thing we create for ourselves is exactly what somebody else needs too…
Julie’s community began during a significant transition in her own life, when the end of a long marriage caused her to look around and realise that, somewhere amongst raising children, working, managing a home and doing all the things women become very good at doing for everybody else, she had lost some of her own sense of connection.
What she wanted wasn’t particularly complicated. She wanted to meet other women who understood the stage of life she was in, so she did what most of us would probably do and began looking for groups that already existed.
She tried Meetup groups, went along to a couple of gatherings and realized that none of them felt quite right.
At that point she could have continued searching, hoping that eventually she would stumble across the perfect group, but instead she decided to create her own and began with a lunch group for women in a similar stage of life.
What happened next taught her something she would see repeated thousands of times over the following years.
The circumstances bringing women through the door might have been different, but the questions underneath them were remarkably similar.
Some were navigating divorce or widowhood, while others were experiencing empty nesting, retirement, relocation or the loss of somebody they loved. Many were around 45 and beyond, reaching that stage where life had shifted enough for them to begin looking at themselves again and asking questions that had perhaps been buried beneath years of responsibility.
What happened to me? Who am I now? What do I actually want to do? And, who do I want to do it with?
Those questions feel incredibly familiar to me because they sit at the heart of so many conversations I have with women in this season of life.
We often talk about midlife as though it is primarily a reinvention of the individual, but perhaps part of creating a new chapter is also reconsidering who we want around us while we create it.
Because becoming a new version of ourselves can feel remarkably lonely when everybody around us only knows the old one.
One lunch became thousands of women
As Julie continued hosting lunches, the community began growing, but one of the smartest things she did was recognise that community did not have to depend entirely on her.
Women within the group began stepping forward to host the things they enjoyed, which meant one person’s idea of community didn’t have to become everybody else’s.
Some women wanted lunches and dinners, while others wanted happy hours, walks on the beach, book clubs, dance classes, art classes or pickleball lessons. Julie gave them the opportunity to create their own gatherings, and the community expanded around the interests and personalities of the women inside it.
Eventually there was a website and mobile app, the Facebook group grew to around 10,000 women, and hundreds of women were participating in events throughout the week.
But what I kept coming back to as Julie told me this was that none of it began with 10,000 people.
It began with one woman acknowledging something was missing in her own life and deciding to do something about it.
There is something quite powerful in that, because I think we can dismiss our own needs as though they are somehow too personal to mean anything beyond ourselves.
Yet sometimes the thing we wish existed is worth paying attention to precisely because we are unlikely to be the only person wishing for it.
Julie’s Story Took Me Back to My Own Search for Community..
Listening to Julie took me straight back to the period after I moved from the UK to America, because although I had moved towards a new life, what I hadn’t anticipated was how much I would miss having my people around me.
Starting again can sound incredibly exciting when we describe it afterwards, but living through it can be disorientating. The places that once felt familiar are gone, the friendships that operated through years of shorthand are suddenly thousands of miles away, and even something as simple as having somebody to call for coffee requires creating relationships from the beginning.
Eventually, I realised that if I wanted more connection, I was going to have to create some of it myself.
Near where I lived was a beautiful path beside the beach that I now affectionately call Manifesting Lane, because I would walk in one direction releasing whatever was occupying my mind and then turn around and walk back setting intentions for what I wanted next.
One day, I wondered what would happen if I invited other women to walk with me.
So I created a simple poster for Walking Wednesdays, making it very clear that this wasn’t networking and nobody was going to be pitched anything; it was simply an invitation for women to walk and talk together.
Around 15 women came to the first one.
What happened afterwards was far more important than the number who arrived because some of those women became genuine friends, travelled together and created experiences and relationships that had absolutely nothing to do with me.
As Julie and I talked about that, I realised there is a lovely measure of community hidden inside it.
A successful community doesn’t require its creator to remain at the centre of every relationship.
Sometimes our role is simply to create the conditions in which other people can find one another.
There is a difference between networking and belonging
One of the things Julie was very intentional about when building her original community was that it wasn’t professional networking.
Julie had spent years as a family photographer and understood networking perfectly well, but she also recognised that many women weren’t looking for another room where somebody would hand them a business card or ask what they did for a living before they had even finished introducing themselves.
Some were retired, some had no interest in building professional connections and many simply wanted friendship, so Julie created a space where friendship itself was enough of a reason to be there.
I think that distinction matters enormously, particularly now when we are encouraged to think strategically about almost every relationship we make.
Not every conversation needs an outcome, not every coffee needs to become a collaboration and not every person we meet needs to become a client, subscriber or useful contact.
Sometimes the entire value of meeting another woman is discovering that you like her.
There is something wonderfully freeing about that.
And perhaps genuine community becomes possible when people sense that they are welcome because of who they are, rather than because of what they might eventually be able to offer.
But what if you aren’t a natural community builder?
This was something I was particularly glad Julie addressed because not everybody wants to organise the lunch, manage the group or stand at the door welcoming everyone as they arrive.
Some women naturally create rooms.
Others are simply trying to find one where they feel comfortable enough to stay.
Julie’s advice was to make the process easier by beginning with something you already enjoy doing, because an activity immediately removes some of the pressure from that intimidating instruction to “go and make new friends.”
Join the walking group, the book club, the pickleball lesson, the art class or whatever genuinely interests you, because when everybody is there to do something together, you already have a reason to start talking.
I shared with Julie that I had recently attended a jewellery-making workshop where twelve strangers sat around a table with old beads and pieces of jewellery, swapping things with one another while creating something new.
We didn’t have to arrive and immediately reveal our life stories.
Our hands were busy.
There was something to talk about.
Then the conversation began finding its own way.
Perhaps when friendship feels intimidating, we don’t need to start by looking for a best friend.
We can simply start by doing something we enjoy in the company of other people.
What happens in the first 30 seconds matters
One of my favourite practical lessons from Julie came from watching thousands of women walk into her events, particularly those arriving for the first time.
She knew what that woman was thinking.
Do I know anybody? Where am I supposed to sit? Does everybody else already know each other? Have I made a terrible mistake coming here alone?
So Julie and her team became very intentional about those first few moments.
If somebody was new, they would acknowledge her quickly, tell her they were glad she was there and then find some small point of connection that allowed them to introduce her to somebody else.
Perhaps both women were originally from Chicago, or perhaps they had something else in common. The detail itself wasn’t necessarily important; what mattered was that within those first moments, the woman went from feeling like an outsider standing alone to somebody who had been noticed and welcomed.
As Julie was explaining this, I couldn’t stop thinking about how relevant it is to what we are building here on Substack.
Because perhaps somebody joining an online community is asking exactly the same questions.
Will anybody notice I’m here?
An audience and a community are not the same thing
We talk constantly about subscriber numbers on Substack, particularly when we’re starting from zero.
The first 100.
Then 500.
Then 1,000.
Then whatever number we decide will finally make us feel as though this thing is working.
But a subscriber count tells us how many people pressed a button.
It doesn’t necessarily tell us whether those people feel like they belong.
Julie came to Substack after closing the in-person event business she had spent years building and decided to take what she had learned about community into this next chapter online. By the time of our conversation, she told me she had grown to around 4,200 subscribers, but what interested me much more than the number was how naturally the principles she had learned offline were appearing in the way she was building here.
Julie wasn’t simply publishing and waiting.
She was talking to people, reading their work, commenting, replying, reaching out, suggesting a Zoom conversation and inviting collaboration when it felt natural.
She described commenting on somebody’s work as a small invitation to friendship because, in essence, you are saying: I’m interested in you, I noticed what you said, I think we might have something in common and I’d like to open the door to a conversation.
I love that way of thinking about Substack because it changes the question from:
How do I get more people to notice me?
to something much more human:
Who could I notice?
Julie and I are a perfect example of that.
She appeared in my world here and something about her work made me think, I need to know this woman.
So I reached out.
We arranged a Zoom, and within minutes it felt as though we had been having versions of the same conversations in different parts of America.
This Live wasn’t the result of a complicated collaboration strategy.
It was the result of two people being curious enough about one another to start talking.
The opportunity came after the relationship.
Perhaps we need more of that.
Community needs honesty as well as common interests
One of the most moving parts of our conversation was hearing Julie talk about something she created within her previous community called What’s Your Story?
Women who felt comfortable doing so would share a difficult experience from their lives with a room of around 50 other women, and then the audience would be given questions that encouraged them to reflect and talk about their own experiences.
Julie noticed that something changed when one woman was willing to be vulnerable first.
We can be terrified of telling the truth about something difficult because we imagine people will think differently of us, and yet when another woman stands up and honestly shares what she has lived through, our response is rarely to think less of her.
Usually, we admire her courage.
Sometimes we recognise ourselves.
There is an enormous difference between discovering we like the same things and experiencing that quiet moment of recognition that says:
You too?
Julie saw how those conversations created a deeper level of connection between women because they gave everyone else permission to stop pretending life was always perfect.
Perhaps that is another ingredient of genuine community.
We need enough lightness to laugh together and enough trust to tell the truth.
Starting from zero doesn’t mean arriving with nothing
This entire Live series has made me think differently about what Starting From Zero actually means.
Julie and I both arrived on Substack without established audiences here, but neither of us arrived empty-handed.
Julie brought eight years of learning what happens when women walk into rooms, what makes them return, what helps strangers become friends and what women navigating midlife transitions repeatedly say they are missing.
I arrived with everything my own experiences of publishing, community, magazines, branding, business and starting again had taught me.
We were new here but our experience wasn’t.
I think that distinction is especially important for women in midlife because starting again can so easily make us feel as though we have somehow returned to the beginning.
We haven’t.
A woman can be starting a new business, publication, career, relationship or chapter of her life while carrying decades of knowledge, instinct, mistakes, stories, relationships and wisdom with her.
Starting from zero does not mean being zero.
Perhaps it simply means taking everything we have gathered and asking what we want to create with it now.
Maybe the community we’re looking for is waiting for us too
At the end of our conversation, I asked Julie what she wanted people to take away from our time together, and her answer brought us beautifully back to where our own friendship began.
Sometimes it can be as simple as:
“Hi. I want to be your friend.”
Obviously, friendship doesn’t always happen quite that instantly, but the sentiment stayed with me because we can make connection enormously complicated in our heads.
How many friendships never begin because both women are waiting for the other one to send the message?
How many lunches don’t happen because nobody wants to risk being the organiser?
How many communities never exist because everybody assumes somebody else will create one?
How many women are sitting at home thinking that everyone else already has their people, while thousands of other women are sitting somewhere else thinking exactly the same thing?
The invitation won’t always be accepted, and not every coffee will lead to friendship. We will occasionally walk into rooms and discover they aren’t our rooms, just as there will be people who simply aren’t our people.
That’s part of it.
But there will also be the message that turns into a coffee, the coffee that turns into a friendship, the lunch that turns into a community or, as Julie and I have discovered, the Substack comment or message that turns into a Zoom, a Live conversation and the beginning of something neither person could have predicted.
Maybe we don’t always have to wait for belonging to find us.
Perhaps sometimes we can be the woman who creates the invitation.
Takeaway’s For Creating Genuine Community
After eight years of bringing thousands of women together, Julie and Sarah have both learned an enormous amount about what makes people feel welcome and what helps a collection of individuals begin to feel like a community, and these are the lessons from our conversation that I think are worth taking with us whether we’re building on Substack, gathering women in our local area or simply wanting more meaningful connection in our own lives.
1. Be willing to go first
If you are always waiting for somebody else to send the message, organise the coffee or begin the conversation, you are leaving the possibility of connection entirely in somebody else’s hands. Going first doesn’t have to mean creating a community of thousands; it might simply mean sending one message to somebody you’ve been thinking you would like to know.
2. Create what you wish existed
Julie couldn’t find quite the right community, so she started with a lunch. I wanted women to walk with after moving to America, so I created Walking Wednesdays. You don’t need to reinvent something completely original; you can take an idea that inspires you and create the version that makes sense for your life and your people.
3. Make the first few moments count
Whether somebody is entering a physical room or commenting on your Substack for the first time, notice them. Julie learned how much those first moments mattered to women walking nervously into an event, and I think the same principle applies online: a thoughtful welcome can be the beginning of somebody feeling that this might be somewhere they belong.
4. Give people something to gather around
Connection often becomes easier when we aren’t forcing it. A walk, book, shared interest, Live conversation or creative activity gives people somewhere natural to begin and allows relationships to develop without the pressure of “we’re all here to make friends.”
5. Don’t make yourself the centre of every relationship
One of the strongest signs of community is when the people inside it begin finding one another. Introduce people who should know each other, encourage conversations that don’t require you to lead them and create enough space for relationships to grow independently.
6. Be interested before trying to be interesting
This may be one of the most useful Substack lessons from our conversation. Rather than publishing something and waiting for everybody to come to you, go and discover other people. Read their work, leave a meaningful comment, respond to something that genuinely interests you and allow connection to begin there. Julie described those small interactions as invitations to friendship, and I think that’s a lovely way to approach them.
7. Let people see something real
Community becomes deeper when people feel safe enough to move beyond the polished version of themselves. Julie saw this through What’s Your Story?, where one woman’s willingness to speak honestly often gave other women permission to do the same. Vulnerability doesn’t require sharing everything; it simply means allowing enough truth into the room for somebody else to recognise herself.
8. Remember that community is made of people, not numbers
Subscriber numbers can tell us something about growth, but they can’t tell us whether somebody feels known, welcomed or connected. A smaller group of people who talk, support one another and return because the space means something to them may be a far stronger community than a huge audience that never moves beyond consumption.
And perhaps the simplest lesson is the one Julie left us with: take the first step.
You never know what might be waiting on the other side of it.
Continue the Conversation With Julie Marvel
If this conversation has made you think differently about friendship, community or the kind of next chapter you want to create, I would love you to spend some time with Julie’s work on Julie Marvel’s Substack, where she continues exploring friendship, community, confidence, purpose and what it means to create a life that feels like yours in this next season.
And if you haven’t watched the full Live conversation above, I really encourage you to do that too, because this essay contains the ideas that stayed with me afterwards, but there is something very different about hearing Julie talk about what she learned from thousands of conversations with women and seeing the conversation between us unfold in real time.
Most importantly, Julie and I would love to hear from you in the comments, because community becomes much more interesting when the conversation doesn’t end with the two women on the screen.
Tell us where you are with community right now. Perhaps you have found your people, perhaps you’re starting again and wondering where they are, or perhaps this conversation has made you realise that there is a lunch, a walk, a book club, a Substack conversation or even a simple coffee invitation that you have been waiting for somebody else to organise.
And if there is one woman you’ve been thinking, “I really should message her,” perhaps this is your sign to stop thinking about it and send the message.
You never know what one small invitation might become.
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Outside of Substack, you’ll find me creating Intentional Living Magazine and helping private clients build their platforms through House of Brand.
