When we talk about “community,” we're often thinking about “territory.”

We think that “community” means knowing your neighbors or being in the PTA at your kids' school. And if that's meaningful for you, that's great. But I don't think about my community in terms of how far away or close they are. I measure it in terms of the value people bring to my life.

Community means “being together as one.” It's whatever makes you feel that.

A NEW WAY TO EXPERIENCE COMMUNITY

People talk about finding your tribe, which is just finding like-minded people who share your values. My tribe is entrepreneurs. My tribe is people who challenge me. If I'm not a little fish, I'm not happy. I'm driven by feeling out of my depth. So I'm probably not going to find my tribe in the street where I live. My people are all over the world.

It might seem like a difficult thing to stay connected, because of the distance, but I don't look at it that way. I think about travel time versus wasted time, the time you waste by choosing mediocre. I've set up my life so that my offices, my girls' school, and the airport are all within 10 minutes' drive of my home. I'm not commuting every day like some people are. I refuse to commute because I can't commit to spending two hours every day in transit. But I can bundle that time and choose to use it for travel time when it suits me. I can't commit to a daily commute, but I can commit to traveling once a month or so. It's just taking the same amount of time and energy that I would have spent anyway, and directing it more effectively.

It's similar to the way I grew my haircare brand, Hot Tresses. There are two approaches I could have taken. I could have gone down the typical route of selling it through hairdressers, and knocked on a whole lot of doors to get a whole lot of small distributors in Australia. It would have taken a huge amount of time and effort, and I probably would have grown it to a two-million-dollar business.

But I always do the opposite of what everybody else is doing. Instead of going the normal route, I looked at the niche and the marketplace—globally—and decided I'd do better by sleeping overnight on the plane to LA, having those same conversations with distributors like Nordstrom, and growing my business into a 30-million-dollar one. It's the same amount of effort. I just thought, “Do I want to sleep in my bed and wake up in Brisbane to knock on doors all day, or do I want to sleep on the plane and wake up in LA?”

LA is also my favorite place to blend. Some of my closest friends live there, so my trips include great times with amazing dining and nightlife, quality conversations about business with like-minded entrepreneurs, and exploring new opportunities for my brands. Some “me” time without the kids and hanging with girlfriends is also good for my soul.

It's the same with long-distance friendships. I'm seeking out the tribe that I want, and I don't care where I need to go to get it. It's the same amount of energy for a better result. I don't care if they speak a different language than I do, or come from a different culture, or live in a different time zone. I make it work. Friends don't need to be geographically close. Just because somebody lives in my territory doesn't mean they're a good person for me to be friends with. If there's no chemistry with your existing network, seek out something else. Forget about territory boundaries and think more about what kind of friendships match your values and meet your needs. Everything else is a detail.

FROM LIKES TO MEANING

In a world of digital “connection” focus less on connecting and more on “moments of connection.”

—Paul Dunn, Chairman of Buy1Give1

In our world—Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn—it's all about making connections. But does the connection ever turn into anything deeper?

I don't really do Facebook personally, only for business purposes. I value people's time, so I'm also mindful of the value of what I'm sharing. I think most people are just posting their highlights reel. I'm not a gloater. I do have moments where I look around at the amazing things I'm doing and think “Yeah! If I posted this on Facebook, I would so win.” But the people who matter aren't finding out about my life from Facebook.

Having friends all over the world means doing a lot of digital communication. A really great side effect of our obsession with our phones is that you can feel just as connected to your long-distance friends as you do with the ones who live two streets away. You're less likely to notice the distance these days. Plus I'm a night owl, so communicating in the LA time zone works perfectly!

Some people say “I like to post on social media because that way all my friends can keep in touch.” But do you really need to post it on social media when you could just post it in a private group, or share it on WhatsApp?

We call Facebook contacts our “friends.” But are they really? I want to move away from “likes” and “friends” toward real friendships and real meaning. I like to share my wins with my closest friends—my tribe—but you don't need to shout it to the whole world.

Technology can do great things for building community. When geography is less important, your options become really beautiful. But I think we should be selective with what we share on social media, the same way we're selective with our real-life friends.

BLENDED FRIENDSHIPS

I hate it when people say to me, “I know you're busy, but …”

Or when I'm passionately sharing about something I love in my life and they react by saying “Wow.” Not the kind of “Wow” that means they're genuinely amazed and excited for me, but the “Wow” that says they think I'm a crazy dreamer. They say things like “Oh, you're intense,” or “I don't know how you do it,” or “How do you fit it all in?”

Or my favorite: “No wonder I haven't been able to get ahold of you!”

All of these phrases tell me that the person doesn't understand me at all.

When you say “I know you're busy,” I hear emotional manipulation. I hear you telling me that you expect me to act as though I'm more important than you. It sets me up to feel guilty and respond out of that guilt. I just feel slimy.

And, “No wonder I haven't been able to get ahold of you”? Is there anything more needy than that picture, of somebody wanting to get ahold of you? If I wasn't available, it's because I had higher priorities at that moment. That's not a reflection on you, it's just everybody's reality—we all have different things going on that we have to manage. It doesn't mean I love you any less. Empowered women will always tell you where you stand, so you don't have to guess all the time. A friendship with me is a very transparent one.

When you ask me, “How do you fit it all in?” I hear that your perception of me is that I never stop, that you think I don't know how to look after myself. In reality I think I get more downtime, rest, and self-care than most people I know.

I do have moments of flurry where I go, “I'm jumping into that Ferrari! I want to fucking drive this car as fast as I can because I'm so excited about it!” I have moments of inspiration that provoke heaps of activity. But the next moment I'll become a breastfeeding hermit who just wants to sit at home and nurture my children, to the point where my daughter says, “Okay, Mommy, I think you've made up for all the kisses you missed out on.”

It comes and goes in cycles, and I have no idea which part of the cycle I'm going to be in at any given time. If I didn't blend everything, I wouldn't have the flexibility to cope with it.

People who know me understand my values. They know that I really value quality time with friends, so they know I'm never too “busy” for that.

And they understand that I blend, so they try to pick a moment to blend our friendship into something else. They'll say, “How's your week looking? Can I tag along to something?” or “This is what I'm doing, where can we fit in together?” They know that I'm going to maximize my day, but they also know that I'm going to have moments of downtime. They check in on how my blended week is looking and where we might be able to overlap.

I tend to do my friendships during work and school hours so that I get to honor my family. If it's a weekend thing, I bring them all together.

FRIENDSHIP RED FLAGS

I have a group of friends, but I don't have an abundance of friends. I'm not still friends with the people I went to high school with. My friendships are intentional and aligned with where I'm at in life right now; they don't just happen to me. I'm very selective about who I spend my time with. My friends impact my mental health, and I bring them into my home, which is a sacred space.

I not only let friends into my home; a friend is somebody I'd invite to my house without doing a lot of preparation. If somebody is coming over and I feel like I have to tidy up, or change my clothes, that's a red flag. That's a warning that I don't feel comfortable in this relationship.

Another warning is if I feel like I have to put on a special persona for somebody. I don't have different faces for different people. You can't compartmentalize each section of your life—business, different friends, family, whatever—it gets too exhausting, because you've got to remember the rules for each section. I have the same values across all my life, and the same rules for engagement across all my life.

I don't like being called to show my worth. If you don't value me, I don't have to show you that I'm valuable. If you listen to somebody else about my worth, I'll leave the relationship. I don't have to prove myself. If somebody doesn't understand your worth and vice versa, then you're not aligned. Move on.

I don't like it when people ask me, “What do you think I should do?” Don't look at me. What sort of life do you want? That'll tell you what you should do. I don't like it when I hear my friends telling each other what to do. I don't find it healthy.

My rule is “experience-share only.” If somebody said, “Do you think I should leave my husband?” I might say, “Well, my experience is that I stayed in my first marriage for too long.” But I'm never going to tell you what to do. If you feel the need to do an opinion dump or if someone requests this because they are “stuck,” be sure to declare it first: “This is my opinion, take it with a grain of salt, and here's where my opinion is coming from.”

Conflict happens in a healthy friendship. To have a great relationship you need to share some core values and challenge some of each other's values. Otherwise there's no growth, and you don't get a kick out of being together. If you have too many conflicting values your friendship won't work. But even the best of friendships will have some healthy tension. If I'm growing, and my friends are growing, we're going to trigger stuff in each other. When that happens, it's a cue for me to ask myself—is there something in myself that I need to look at? Or have they got something going on that I need to support them through?

Women can erode other women's power base so quickly. What a horrible responsibility. In empowered friendships, we assume the best of each other. If there's a conflict, we have faith in each other that we're trying to do the best thing by each other. Everything else is resolvable.