Many of us have heard that close friendships come with health benefits like lowered stress levels and bolstered confidence. But do you know that business BFFs are especially important to military spouse entrepreneurs?
I’m going on year 20 of being a military spouse and I’ve found that it’s impossible to keep in regular contact with all of the wonderful friends I’ve made. That’s not to say that we’re not able to pick up where we left off when we see each other again, but for the good daily interaction that keeps isolation at bay, that happens with my business BFFs. When I was scared for my parents when they were evacuating the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, I Slacked my team for support because those were the people I was in routine contact with so it felt more natural than dropping a crisis text bomb on somebody out of the blue.
Business BFFs can be people on your remote teams, or they can be other individuals that you choose to invite to come along with you on the ultimate collaboration-over-competition entrepreneurship journey. Here are four important reasons why you need to have one or more business best friends:
That’s a relationship you get to keep when you PCS. Saying goodbye is hard. Making new friends on the other side of a move is hard. Business BFFs help bridge that gap because they’re just a message or a video chat away and you already have routine communication established. These are the friends that send you an invitation to a holiday party in another state, but you actually show up because it’s only a six-hour drive away when you used to be an ocean apart. Besides, the opportunity to talk shop in person is an extra bonus to gathering in person for a social event or conference.
You have an invested sounding board. As an entrepreneur, you’re in the business of new ideas and it’s important to bounce them off of someone that’s more invested than your spouse who doesn’t need to know the nuts and bolts of your daily operations, or your friends with the eyes that glaze over when you’re spilling all of the potential options for your next big thing. Your business BFFs are people who are invested in the idea, either because it’s also part of what they do, or because you’ve established a give-and-take relationship with them, so they’re happy to listen because they know that you will return the favor.
You hold each other accountable to your goals. Entrepreneurs’ brains are always churning, and in the military spouse space, there are numerous opportunities for collaborations. This is fantastic, but it can be easy to lose sight of the big goals when you get stuck in the weeds of fun projects and daily responsibilities. Having a routine time to set goals and review progress is a perfect use of business BFF time. This might look like quarterly meetings with your team or it could be a half-day virtual retreat twice a year that you set up with a friend that also needs to set and track goals to move forward in business.
You have somebody to complement your skills. Editors and graphic designers. Photographers and makeup artists. Dreamers and developers. Introverts and extraverts. Detail people and big-picture people. A business BFF dream come true is somebody who is passionate about the same things you are but approaches the end result in a different way. As an introverted details person, when a new teammate loves to network and tells me she’s a big picture person, I know we’re going to do great things together because we’ll have a lot of, “Oh, I didn’t think of that” moments that will create something more wonderful than we would have come up with on our own. We’ll also have a lot more fun getting the work done because we’ll have the capacity to work within our strengths.
If you have people in your life that you call business BFFs, hold them close and make it a point to nurture your relationships. If you’re remote, make it a point to meet up in person to deepen your friendship and schedule time to chat about non-work things. If you do not yet have a business BFF, the Association of Military Spouse Entrepreneurs community is the place to be. One really special perk of having a Society Membership is the private Slack channel. There are general spaces for things like accountability partners and mentors needed. And, there are spaces for interest areas like freelance writers, wellness spouses, and nonprofit spouses. It’s set up to help you find your people. Sign up here!
Meet Kim:
Kimberly Bacso is an MBA who exchanged an office with a view for a life of adventure when she became a military spouse in 2001. She is the co-founder and operations director of InDependent, a non-profit on a mission to make wellness accessible to all military spouses. She is the managing editor of Legacy Magazine, a print publication celebrating service member families and the communities that support them. Kimberly is an experienced registered yoga teacher and a lifelong vegetarian who can often be found traveling off the beaten path with her husband and teenage daughter.
