Loves,

Once upon a time, in the olden days of working in a cubicle, I used to invent lunchtime adventures. I’d send an email around midmorning, and invite a hodge podge of people I knew who worked in the city. I’d give them the lunchtime mission, if they chose to accept it, and told them to bring a random friend.

We’d gather, this motley crue of delightful humans, and have absurd adventures like picnics to celebrate the first 25 degree celsius day after winter, and secrets lunches where everyone wrote anonymous secrets on post it notes to be passed around and read out loud.

Walking back to the office today from one of these shenanigans, my friend David would tell me:

“You’re like one of those social supernodes. You like to link people together.”

And it was true. There amongst the crew would be people I’d met on the bus, sacred womens circles, at work and anywhere else I could find them. I’d merrily introduce everyone to everyone, sure that if I loved them, they’d love each other. I can’t keep a secret to save my life, and I can’t gatekeep good humans from good humans.

Looking back through my blog archives as I write this, I find this post on taking a grace walk with David and our friend Andrea, and my heart skips a beat.

I wrote:

“we talked about our secret selves.
i am georgina, the artist by the sea. andrea is angela, the greek cafe owner. dave is bjorn, viking forest man with muse.
and i delight in the sharing of our secret selves. i delight in walking in spring, with no cares in the world. good conversation, dear friends, a sweet stroll and miracles.”

I included in it this photo taken on that grace walk:

My friend David made his journey over the rainbow bridge earlier this year.

I hope in the afterlife, he is living his best life as Bjorn, living in the forest with his muse, enraptured in spring’s blossoms as always, remembering how remarkable he is.

I feel enormously lucky to have had so many incredible friendships, and to be so seen in them. And I also feel so very lucky I’ve been blogging about it all for 21 years now… so I can travel back through time to remember and have my heart skip a beat and think what a miracle this whole thing of life is.

And this isn’t what I meant to write you about tonight. But here is where I am, anyway. And it’s all too precious and soaked with synchronicity to not share.
I had a ticket to go to the Heart Centred Biz Conference in Noosa this week. And leading up to it, I had a knowing deep in my bones that it wasn’t my time to go. That I was being called to stay home. And so I trusted, and I stayed home.

And I’m glad I did, because it’s been a week where both my daughters needed me. I’ve been in emergency rooms and ongoing tests with one daughter, and holding my other daughter’s hair back as she hurled with fevers. I’ve sat still as one daughter snuggled her sick, weary head on my shoulder, unwilling to move lest I disturb her. This, I think, is right where I need to be, and I’m glad I am here.

And all week long, my phone pings with messages from all my beautiful friends who are at conference together. They send me photos together, tell me they miss me, give me play by play accounts of what is happening, and we fangirl each other and all our friends so hard.

One of them even surprises me by sneakily ordering a Leonie designed t-shirt to wear at conference so I feel energetically a part of it.

And my heart just swells with tenderness. How lucky am I, to be loved like this? How lucky am I to have such sweet, supportive friends?

I want to travel back in time to that young primary school self of mine… the Autistic kid with no friends who would hide in the library at lunchtimes… that one day her life soon would be brimming with the most beautiful friendships.
And now we get to the part of what I really meant to tell you today… before we went on some merry (but important) storytime side quests.

Like the social supernode I am, as David would say, I want to foist one of my friends upon you. Clasp you both together and say:

I LOVE YOU! SO YOU TWO WILL LOVE EACH OTHER!

because I’m chill like that.

I wanted to introduce you to my friend Katie.

I met Katie online in 2020. And we met in kind of a hilarious, wonderful way. She took my Money and E-course programs. Then she’d share her gorgeous illustrated notes she’d taken during them with me. We started chatting on Instagram and never really stopped.

Then earlier this year, Katie flew over to come to our business mastermind retreat.

You know how there’s three things that can happen when you meet an online friend for the first time in real life?

  1. It can feel completely flat… your online chemistry just doesn’t connect IRL.
  2. It’s pretty much how you expected it to be.
  3. In rare cases, it’s even BETTER.

With Katie, it was #3.

As evidenced by me texting her this while we were at retreat together.

So much aligned for us at retreat. One glorious night, while everyone else was out to a fancy dinner by the beach, Katie and I sequestered away together to sing Alanis Morisette, draw together and giggle uproariously for hours. Total kindred spirits, and we revelled in it.

 

And, I wanted to share Katie’s story with you more. Because not only is she a thoroughly good and fun human, but she also is crazy talented artistically AND has a brilliant business brain.

She has crafted something remarkable with her creative businesses, and has completely smashed the Starving Artist Myth.

So I invited her to do a podcast episode with me. This is only my second interview in… 215 episodes (!!!!!) so that’s how much you know I love Katie.

Listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, PocketCast.
Watch the episode on Youtube

In it we talk about:

  • how Katie got started as a live illustrator (and what live illustration even is!)
  • her three successful creative businesses
  • the scary moment she knew she had to close down her agency
  • how she’s crafted a 7 figure business with her creative gifts
  • where I rank in her friendship scale (important)
  • why we discuss bowel movements on elevators (also v important).

It was blooming inspiring and I’m still thinking about it days later.

Friend! Meet Other Friend! I know you will love each other!

Let me know what you thinky winky. I’ve been thinking of having more of my friends on my podcast lately. Waddya reckon?

I’m so glad I wrote this tonight. So glad it got me time travelling to remember all my friendships… past, present and future. It really is a miracle to be seen by other souls, to get to love them and be loved for being just as you are. I feel so blooming lucky.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for being you.

Big love,

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