I don't want fake friendships. I want real friendships. I want to have real, authentic,

vulnerable, meaningful relationships and friendships. You are listening to The She Means Business

show with me, Carrie Green. I'm the founder of the Female Entrepreneur Association and the

author of the bestselling book She Means Business. And every single week, I will be talking

with you about how you can turn your ideas into a wildly successful business and actually live

the life of your dreams. You can do this and I'm here to show you how. So let's get started.

Oh, hello there. So in the UK, last week was mental health awareness week and the focus of it this year was loneliness. And I thought it would be really good to talk about this because one of the biggest reasons why I started the Female Entrepreneur Association was because I felt so lonely building a business. I really felt like there were very few people who understood what I was going through and I felt really isolated.

I also felt really isolated going along to events and not going to the right

events and feeling like I just didn't belong. And that really left me feeling isolated. And,

you know, so many studies have shown how much loneliness impacts entrepreneurs because it's so

different for us. We are the people that are, you know, we're making the decisions. We are driving

the vision forward. We are, we're building the business and we're the ones that, you know,

you know, especially if you don't have a partner

in business, it's just you. Sometimes I feel like it's me, myself and I, even though now I have a

team around me, but it's, it's not really the same as having colleagues and, you know, it's just

not the same. And, you know, I remember there's a report once I saw that said that at least half of the CEOs in the report in the study said that they'd felt lonely at some point.

I mean, and I think that's the people that are actually speaking up and saying it.

I think actually there's so many more,

more than 50% of CEOs, entrepreneurs feel lonely and feel isolated. There was also another study

that's done that found that of the CEOs that said they felt lonely, they were far more likely

to burn out. And I can really see why, because when you're building your business

and you're the one that's making all these crucial decisions, there's a lot of pressure on

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