When you’re a solo business owner, it’s so important to have relationships like this with outcomes like these. And there are other roles where keeping close to others of your ‘species’ can prove invaluable.

The single parent. The Dad. The buck-stops-here Boss. The Church minister. The Youth Worker. The Creative type. For all of you, it’s very very easy to become isolated, unchallenged, unsupported, stale. If you’re feeling like that, I encourage you: go looking! Refresh those old contacts; join a group; have a beer or a lunch with someone else from your species.

Twice this year, I’ve run 8-week Dad groups in my local community, each with a different group of men. Both times, one man in each group said something to this effect: “I thought these things just happened in my family. I thought there was something wrong with me, with us. Now I now we’re normal and it happens everywhere. I’m a lot more relaxed at home and less stressed about how I’m doing as a Dad.”

Seek others of your species. We all need each other…