friendship week: encouragement from friends

Amy from Lemon and Raspberry is an amazing encourager. Through her blog, Twitter, emails and classes, she works hard to help build others up, and I love that about her!

One of my favorite blogs to sponsor is without a doubt Wild Olive .... and one of my favorite reasons to sponsor this site is all the creative and thoughtful ways Mollie has of promoting interaction and a sense of community between herself, her readers and her sponsors.

This week's 'Friendship' theme is of course no different. Mollie always finds a way to find a common thread and line of conversation on her blog that I just love. ..... and that I'm realizing I've missed in my life.

Now that I'm out of school, I've noticed I've reached the age when it's not as easy to make friends.

In high school, of course, you're with the same people all day every day ... and especially if you do extracurricular activities, these are likely people you have something in common with. I'm still good friends with several of my theater-friends from high school, for example.

But by this point in my life .... between my responsibilities that keep me busy and my growing online interests, I'm finding it more and more difficult to make NEW friends.

Enter the internet.

I know not everyone agrees that online friends are "real" friends, but believe me when I say sometimes they are exactly what you need.

This image below is of me, Kam (of Campfire Chic) and Justine (of a new beginning) .... 2 girls I can email (or tweet, or text) and any time with questions, problems, or just to celebrate a milestone with me.

These are girls whose blogs I found - or they found me, I can't quite remember - who share so many similar interests. We may not be spending hours together every week (like I did with friends when I was growing up in a church, or involved in school), but we interact every week, and have the ability to follow each other's lives online.



Online friends understand your frustrations with e-junkie. Online friends understand your joy at being re-tweeted by Ali Edwards. Online friends share that whole online experience that your 'in real life' friends know nothing about.

And when you are trying to build an online business, or leverage your online presence to really do great work, you need a friend. You need a cheerleader who really understands where you are coming from.

This has been one of my big goals behind Onward and Upward - a 6 week online workshop designed to help you get out of your rut and take things to the next level.

Among other things, this online workshop will not only discuss the value and importance of relying on your friends, but helping you identify who your cheerleaders are and when you need to call them.

Plus: There will be a private forum in place so all workshop attendees can meet, interact, and maybe even make new friends.

I am really looking forward to this being an environment to meet new people with similar interests, to be open and maybe even to be vulnerable.

Registration for Onward and Upward is NOW OPEN! And especially for Wild Olive readers, register with the discount code WILDOLIVEOU before Sept 7 for a $15 discount.

I hope we'll see you there!

And of course, if you want to give a shout out to your #1 (or #2 or #7) cheerleader in the comments you totally should!