Collaboration Secrets with Biz Besties Geraldine and Jeannine

00:00:24 - Maelisa Hall
Here are your hosts, licensed therapists, entrepreneurs, and biz besties, Amber Hawley and Melissa Hall. Welcome to season two of the My Biz Bestie podcast. I'm Melissa Hall.

00:00:28 - Amber Hawley
And I'm Amber Hawley.

00:00:30 - Maelisa Hall
And today we are doing another BizBestie interview. And today we have Janine Widman and Geraldine Carter, who are both here.
Hi, ladies. Hello. Hello. And I am very excited for their interview. They have a couple of things that are unique and different. different compared with other people we've talked with so far. So let's just jump right in. We're going to talk to Janine and Geraldine about how they structure their BizBestie relationship and how they met and all the general goodness that you expect to hear from a couple of awesome BizBesties.
Hey. So Janine, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, let us know who you are, what you do, and then we'll talk to Geraldine.

00:01:16 - Jeannine Widmann
Sure. Yeah, I'm Janine Widman, and I coach women leaders and business owners. And mostly what we're working on is increasing confidence and just having them own their worth. I would say that's the biggest thing that comes up. I have an individual coaching practice.
I lead groups. I lead workshops. My signature program has been your bold, badass business for women entrepreneurs.

00:01:43 - Amber Hawley
Oh, wow.

00:01:45 - Jeannine Widmann
I like it. That I've been running for a couple of years now. And it's so fun to get women together and have them hear from each other. You do that thing I do. You're telling yourself that you're not good enough, just like I am. You know? Yeah. And then we're all out to create tangible results.
Like, okay, with the awareness, what are we going to do? Let's dig in and create results. I've also been leading, one of the things we'll get into a little bit is Geraldine and I have been co-leading a workshop called Ditch Your Money Hangups, which has been awesome.
I don't know about you, Geraldine, but it's just been blowing my mind and I'm having all kinds of money breakthroughs over here just because we're leading that. So that has been big work.

00:02:29 - Amber Hawley
Yeah.

00:02:29 - Jeannine Widmann
Oh, very cool.

00:02:31 - Amber Hawley
Yeah. Wonderful. So Geraldine, why don't you share a little bit about you?

00:02:36 - Geraldine Carter
So yeah, I'm Geraldine and Janine and I both live in Missoula, Montana. In fact, we just had beers last week. And I'm also a coach. I coach small business owners and early stage entrepreneurs. And I focus kind of on the nuts and bolts because I ran a business for six years.
I co-founded a business in 2008 that I ran for six years and then stepped away. And I was effectively the CFO and I did all the numbers and the systems and the operations and all that business. And so I take that plus my coaching certification, if you will, and put them together and help early stage business owners with the nuts and bolts and getting their, the systems of their business up and running so that they can focus on what they do best, which is whatever their craft is.

00:03:16 - Maelisa Hall
So, um, yeah. Cause the nuts and bolts is usually not entrepreneurs strength.

00:03:21 - Geraldine Carter
Yeah. Right. Like they go into it because they're good at other things. And I love the nuts and bolts. Like I can't get enough of systems and I, you know, I can't stop thinking about systems and I love that. So it's just how my mind works. So I, you know, put that to use in a way that helps people.
And similar to Janine, I coach people one on one. And I also do workshops and things like that. Yeah. And then in my spare time, I mountain bike and ski as much as I can try and get outside because it's really nice here. Oh, isn't that the benefit of living there?

00:03:53 - Amber Hawley
Right? Yes, yes, totally.

00:03:55 - Geraldine Carter
Yep. Easy access to the outdoors right out your back door.

00:03:59 - Maelisa Hall
I know. It's beautiful. But how cold is it right now? We're recording this, everyone, at the end of December, kind of mid-end of December.

00:04:08 - Jeannine Widmann
Nope. There's snow on the roofs. I'm looking out my window to snow in the hills and deer walking by.

00:04:14 - Amber Hawley
We're going to be driving to that. My husband and I are meeting his family up in Oregon, Bend, Oregon. So we will be driving to the snow. But Melissa and I are in California. So yeah, it's not...

00:04:26 - Maelisa Hall
It's been in the 80s here.

00:04:27 - Amber Hawley
Yeah.

00:04:28 - Maelisa Hall
In Southern California, it's been really warm for a long spring. So I'm not even busting out the boots.

00:04:38 - Amber Hawley
Yeah, I do like to call my family back in Minnesota and just tease them. I'll be like, oh, guess what? I'm in the pool. Blah, blah. I did that once and I dropped my cell phone in the pool, though.

00:04:52 - Geraldine Carter
Oh, no.

00:04:53 - Amber Hawley
Karma comes around. Oh, that's like an instant karma video right there.

00:04:58 - Geraldine Carter
It was.

00:04:58 - Amber Hawley
I never did it again, actually, because I was like, oh, that's so bad.

00:05:02 - Jeannine Widmann
That's some bad juju. That's funny, Amber, because I wasn't leading this particular call. I was a participant on this call. And I was like, you know, I so want to do this call in the tub.

00:05:14 - Amber Hawley
Oh, my goodness.

00:05:16 - Jeannine Widmann
I'm on so many calls. And I just really need a bath right now. But I thought, Janine, if you do this, you know that phone is going in that tub. So just...

00:05:25 - Amber Hawley
You are a smart girl.

00:05:30 - Jeannine Widmann
That's all I have to say.

00:05:33 - Amber Hawley
As long as you didn't mock them, maybe the gods would let you have your phone and be dry. But yes, for you.

00:05:40 - Maelisa Hall
So awesome. So ladies, so you both are in the same city. And it sounds like you probably have some crossover with your audience, but you're definitely doing different things. So why don't you tell us your story, your origin story of how the two of you met and got together?

00:05:59 - Jeannine Widmann
Well, when we met up last week, I was laughing with Geraldine. I said, you know, you are literally the first person I met at the first networking event I went to.

00:06:10 - Geraldine Carter
Oh, wow. What?

00:06:11 - Jeannine Widmann
What? Because I moved here a year and a half ago after 16 years in Seattle. And I went, all right, let me go to this networking event. It was called Western Women Who Get Shit Done.

00:06:23 - Amber Hawley
I love it.

00:06:25 - Jeannine Widmann
Right? And I go to the table with little name tags and I'm writing my name tag and I look over and I see this name tag and it says business coach. I'm like, oh boy, how's this going to go in this small town, you know? I'm not used to this. And sure as anything, it was Geraldine and no competitive vibe at all.
Just super collaborative. By the end of it, she's like, let's go out for a beer. And then tell them Geraldine, what, you know, what a tour guide you've been.

00:06:57 - Geraldine Carter
So I remember meeting Janina. What I remember most was just immediately falling in love with this woman and being like, she is so great. And I, She's just a ball of sunshine and laugh all the time and easy, easy, easy. And I was like, this woman has to be my friend.
But I was like, if you pursue her too aggressively, she's going to freak out. So she was from Seattle and I was like, have you been to the Sunrise Saloon yet? And she's like, huh? I was like, all right. So I take her to the cowboy bar. Yeah. And, you know, it's like you would imagine it to be men in cowboy hats and a dance floor and honky tonk.
And so we walk in and Janine's eyes go big and she's like, where on earth have you taken me?

00:07:47 - Maelisa Hall
Yeah, it's like a whole other culture.

00:07:48 - Geraldine Carter
Yep.

00:07:50 - Jeannine Widmann
Oh, my God. Yeah. Well, I walk up to the bar and she's having a conversation about guns with the man up there, just like his take on guns and this and that. And I'm like... Oh my God, I'm coming from my little Seattle bubble. I'm used to just like always being with my like posse of lesbians in Seattle.
And hipsters. Hipsters.

00:08:13 - Geraldine Carter
Oh, I love it. I took it as my responsibility to show Janine all like the variety of bars all around town. So that was sort of our bi-weekly mission or bi-monthly, whichever mission was to go out and explore the, the unusual drinking establishments that were available to us that she might not otherwise end up at.

00:08:32 - Jeannine Widmann
Oh, I love that. And I'm like, look at this. This woman is a coach. She's holding me to try something new every time.

00:08:39 - Amber Hawley
I love it. It's such a Cinderella story that it's the first person you met in the area. I love that. I know.

00:08:47 - Jeannine Widmann
I would tell my friends, I'm like, I have a coach friend. I have a coach. Because there's, you know, people to support you in your business. But when you're a coach, it's just, for me, super important to have another coach because, you know, we get together, we have our little coach jokes.
We put our mind chatter on loudspeaker for each other. And we just think we're so funny and crack up. And we just like call each other out, call each other forward.

00:09:11 - Maelisa Hall
Oh, I like that. I haven't heard that call each other forward. I like that too.

00:09:16 - Geraldine Carter
There was one time that Janine in one of our meetings, I believe it was at the James Bar, where she was like, you know, I'm doing this workshop and there's 10 people in it and that's totally fine. I'm not nervous. But then there's this other one that I'm doing and I don't know, it just seems so much bigger and there's 15 people in it and I don't know and I'm freaking out.
And I was like, so what's the difference between 10 butts in chairs and 15 butts in chairs?

00:09:39 - Maelisa Hall
Yeah. Yeah. And she's like five people. Hello.

00:09:47 - Jeannine Widmann
She just made me realize I was just like making it, you know, there was no reason for me to get all worked up about it. It was just like, whatever I had going on about it. And she was just so good at like, just asking that question. That's like, Oh, you're right.
Okay, fine. I won't resist it anymore.

00:10:04 - Amber Hawley
And I think that's the value of a biz bestie, right? Because like, that's what I think Melissa and I do for each other. And so many other people that we've talked to do is it's that way of like, you can have your freak out and you're not judged for it, but they help you like, okay, let's, let's reality test this a little bit and get a little logical.
But I, I absolutely love that. And I'm hearing you say the value of having somebody who's in the same industry for you guys is really beneficial.

00:10:34 - Geraldine Carter
Yeah. I mean, for sure. That part about just letting, um, when somebody else can just let you have your freak out and not get hooked themselves by it and try and problem solve it for you, because they know that it's just your freak out and we're going to handle it and it's cool, is so beneficial.
I mean, there are very few people in my life that I can go to for sort of super impartial ability to just let my brain spill over and my emotions spill over and we can just mop up the mess without having to you know, without any bombs having gone off.
And I walk away just being clear about what I need to do and much more settled emotionally on the inside. I mean, it's invaluable.

00:11:15 - Maelisa Hall
Yeah. And I'm really interested by, you know, the fact that since you two met at this networking event and it was local and Janine, you were new in town. Janine, did you have any kind of a community or a biz bestie when you were in Seattle before all this?

00:11:28 - Jeannine Widmann
I did. One of the women I went through my coach training program with, in fact- Yeah, we still get on the phone and like, what's going on with you? What's going on with you? And like I say, call each other forward. Now, I heard you say that two months ago.

00:11:41 - Maelisa Hall
Is that how? Yeah, yeah.

00:11:42 - Jeannine Widmann
You know? So I was very, I knew that relationship would continue because these things can definitely continue long distance for sure. And you two are a great example of that. I know you don't live in the same town, but it really was so like such a, when I realized that I could have a coach friend Here in Missoula.
That was just like a big warm welcome for me. And we would... Once we had that first beer together, we were like, let's keep doing this. And we set it up for about what? Every two weeks we would do it. And I think that really is helpful to me to have someone locally as well.

00:12:19 - Maelisa Hall
Oh, I could definitely see that. And it's nice. I know even when Amber and I... Because we do... Get together somewhat regularly, and whenever we're in person, it it's like everything fast forwards. Or it's exponential, you know, like the support we have for one another.
So even though we talk all the time, it's so cool to be able to see each other face to face.

00:12:40 - Amber Hawley
Oh yeah, if we live locally, we would be on. fire. It would be amazing. It would be crazy off the hook. So for the listeners, for people who don't know, how many people are in Missoula? What is the population there? 60-ish thousand. Wow. Okay. I guess I was even thinking it was bigger than that.
Because what you're mentioning is neither of you have scarcity and you understand that there are plenty of clients for everybody. And so there's that collaboration, which you know, could have easily gone the other way if you guys weren't both secure in the work that you do.
So maybe you could talk a little bit more about that. Like, obviously, you guys are now collaborating on some things. But how do you guys handle, I guess, is that ever come up for you? That's a struggle of the networking and marketing and, and kind of how you're doing dealing with referrals and such.

00:13:34 - Geraldine Carter
So we actually had a really transparent conversation about that, because it's You're right. You know, we live in a 60,000, you could think of it as a small town. And certainly within certain networks, it gets pretty small, pretty quick. And there's a lot of overlap between what we do and who we could coach.
And we were talking about it one day where I think both of us just had to admit that we were like, both of us have this occasional inkling of like competition. And that neither of us wanted to be that way. Because it just, you know, we don't want our relationship to be like that.
And it doesn't serve anybody. And There's 60,000 people here and each of us only needs like 15 clients. Right. And the conversation where we went with it was like, let's just tell each other, you know, if we're... So I think as coaches, neither one of us really talks about who our clients are.
But if we have reason to believe because we're in the sort of same network that we both know the same person, then we'll just be transparent about who we're coaching so that the other person isn't like...

Having a coaching conversation with that same person who might be the other one's client and invites them to some kind of exploration session, which would be kind of awkward. So, you know, we're just transparent about it and it just makes it really easy.
And it's like, Hey, I'm talking to this person. Don't talk to them. They're like, Oh, everyone's like, okay.

00:14:55 - Jeannine Widmann
I mean, you're right. It's a great question because it is in the space a little bit. As much as I love to be like, we're collaborators. And when I realized it was in the space, I was like, oh, I don't want this icky thing to be in between us. So that was a really awesome conversation to have.
Just say, hey, this is going to come up. And I love putting it in, when Geraldine put it in perspective of there's all these 60,000 people people in this valley here, and we each only want 10 or 15 of them. So there you go. Put that scarcity, kick it to the curb.

00:15:30 - Maelisa Hall
Yeah. And I love that you guys initiated having that conversation ahead of time so that you're basically saying like, hey, I'm thinking this could potentially become an issue. So let's talk about it and make sure it doesn't become an issue. I think that's so valuable.
Yeah.

00:15:45 - Jeannine Widmann
And especially because we're co-leading workshop together, the Ditch Your Money Hangups. And it's important. Some of the people in there might feel called to continue and do one-on-one coaching with one of us if they connected with one or the other. And we just kind of said, hey...
I'm interested in coaching these people if they're interested, or you're interested in coaching these people. Like if somebody were to come up to you, you know, let's just be honest with each other and follow up. So it just is, I think, you know, as long as you're having honest conversations up front and checking in, there's no need for anything to get so crunchy and icky and tiptoeing around.
It's just like, you just keep it real.

00:16:28 - Amber Hawley
Yeah, for sure. I think that says a Yeah.

00:16:50 - Geraldine Carter
And I would certainly say that doing it preemptively made it way easier than having to clean up something messy afterwards. Yeah. And it was a huge lesson for me in terms of like, I'm also sometimes a conflict avoider.

00:17:03 - Amber Hawley
Oh, really? She was like, I was going to call you out.

00:17:15 - Geraldine Carter
Not in all places of my life, but I could certainly think of a few key relationships where I intentionally avoid what I fear might be conflict. And, and just having that conversation with Janine and going, Oh, like, Oh, that was so easy. Made me go, Oh, huh.
I wonder where else in my life I could have proactive conversations like that to just see, you know, get this out of the way before it gets messy.

00:17:43 - Maelisa Hall
Yeah.

00:17:43 - Geraldine Carter
Yeah. And ever since then, I've just been like, boom, let me have this conversation. Ooh, I feel uncomfortable. How about I approach it now?

00:17:51 - Maelisa Hall
Oh, I love it. So it's like teaching you. Yeah, it's like bleeding into other parts of your life in a positive way. Yeah, completely. That makes my therapist part happy.

00:18:02 - Jeannine Widmann
Well, I think any biz besties who are working together on stuff that and getting close and you see each other in your ups and downs and all of it, it gets pretty intimate, right? And I think to have that foundation with each other to be able to say, hey, I rely on you that if anything, if anything I say lands in a disempowering way that you'll let me know because that's not ever my intention and I want a chance to clean it up with you.

00:18:29 - Amber Hawley
Yeah. That's great. That's very powerful. That's again, there's a lot of trust between you to be able to do that. But I do think that you need that trust in order to have that foundation for this type of relationship.

00:18:42 - Maelisa Hall
Yeah. And then together you can do a lot more. I'm interested to hear about the experience of doing the workshop together because I know Amber and I have talked about doing the podcast together has helped both of us to do something better or more quickly than we would have done on our own.

00:18:59 - Geraldine Carter
Oh, yeah. I think the thing about the workshop that really helps me is that I get to just be myself in my own style. And we complement each other really well in terms of how we are with the group and what things we see and what things we want to shine a light on what we want to skip or whatever.
And it relieves me of the responsibility of like having to be, I don't know, super woman workshop lady. And I just, and I just get to like own who I am a hundred percent. And then Janine provides great balance for that. And then I'm just like, oh, I don't have to worry about holding this whole space and holding everybody and making sure I think of everything and so on.
It's really great to be able to co-facilitate with somebody who has a really nice set of a really nice balance of strengths.

So that doesn't really answer your question, but that's my answer. You like it.

00:20:00 - Amber Hawley
You do you, girl. You do you.

00:20:04 - Jeannine Widmann
Well, it was really cool the way it came to be because when we, one of these times we got together, Geraldine says, you know, we should really lead something together. And that little thing that goes, oh, this is going to be intimate. You know, like, oh, how are we going to balance that?
Is do I want to let in one more level of intimacy in my life? I know we already connect well, but that's bringing in a whole new thing. You know, like you guys say with running the podcast together. But it was so awesome the way we did it because I had Geraldine come in and be part of the workshop I was leading.
I gave her a free seat in that. And I would have her give me feedback. So she got to see how I led. And then she had me come and be part of a workshop she was leading called Shift Your Time Mindset. And I got to give her feedback and just witness her impact.

And then I think both of us were probably like, oh, I see how we can work together. This is going to be awesome.

00:21:01 - Maelisa Hall
That's really interesting. I mean, I'm so impressed by that, too, that you were both like, hey, sit here and obviously, you know, maybe benefit, but like, you know, give me feedback and you're open to that because I think that could be so valuable, too.

00:21:14 - Jeannine Widmann
Yeah, I think that's brilliant. She was always like, leave me a voice memo on your way home and tell me what you thought. And I would always go off for like five minutes on a voice memo and text it to her. I'm like, you really leaned in on this part. And that was awesome.
And time management. Well, that's always an issue. I know how that gets. And we'll cut that off sooner next time. And we'll do that.

00:21:33 - Amber Hawley
I love it. I love it. It is really impressive. Again, the level of vulnerability and putting yourself out there to grow. I will say it strikes me as how thoughtful you guys are about working together and kind of taking that next step, where I think Melissa and I, if it was somebody else, we would probably be that thoughtful.
But for us, we were like, my God, we should do this. Oh, yeah, let's do it. Yeah. It was, it took all of that. That was our whole entire process.

00:22:04 - Jeannine Widmann
Hey, that's the only way, you know, sometimes just go and do it.

00:22:07 - Amber Hawley
Exactly. So no, it's nice to see that there, that again, this is why we wanted to do these interviews is to highlight, like everybody does it in a different way and has the things that kind of fit for them. But I think that's really great. And knowing that you got to see firsthand how each other works and, I think is really important.
And we do talk about that, about earning trust with people. We just didn't apply that to us.

00:22:35 - Maelisa Hall
But I also think it's super important. Like we talk about this as therapists too, and you're going to have the same experience as coaches. Like you're not, since you are keeping other people's information confidential, like most of the time you're not having other people watch you work unless it's like a workshop setting or something that you're recording.
So it's really helpful if you're able in any way to have the other one give you feedback on what you're doing. And that was the perfect opportunity. Yeah.

00:23:01 - Geraldine Carter
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's really great to have somebody see you and to be able to not just see the work that you do, but to deliver the feedback in a way that's really easy to take. Right?

00:23:12 - Amber Hawley
Yeah.

00:23:12 - Geraldine Carter
They can just say it plainly, say what they observed. Here's a suggestion for how I thought it would go better. And it's like... The feedback is so good and juicy that I'm always like, more, more, more, more.

00:23:22 - Jeannine Widmann
I know. And that's a great point, Geraldine. In a biz bestie relationship, any kind of partnership, how open are both of you to giving and receiving feedback? I think that's so big. And I always love that about you. You're always like more, more, more.
Give it to me.

00:23:43 - Amber Hawley
Yes. And that's an important conversation to have because not everybody is ready for that or wants that. Right.

00:23:50 - Jeannine Widmann
It would be really hard for me to be in a partnership with somebody who, yeah, wasn't open to feedback or wasn't giving me any. You know what happens when we don't really know? We just make up a story about it. And then that's where that weird stuff starts happening.
We're tiptoeing each other because we're making up a story about what you're thinking, what I'm thinking.

00:24:09 - Amber Hawley
Amen. Totally. However, not all biz besties are coaches and therapists.

00:24:14 - Jeannine Widmann
So I'm just putting it out there.

00:24:17 - Amber Hawley
What? Being that I work in Silicon Valley. That's why they should hire them. Exactly. So that's great. Well, why don't you guys tell us a little bit about the actual structure? Like we talk about ours as being unstructured structure where we tried different things that, you know, like worked for other people and it just didn't work for us.
But like, what is the frequency that you guys communicate and or see each other or so on?

00:24:44 - Geraldine Carter
I think we started out like every other week. Friday afternoons at four o'clock were best. It seemed like. Happy hour. Totally. And, or happy two hours. And, and we would just do like, without making it super strict, we would just do like, you know, we'd each check in for like 30 minutes about what one had going on and what was going well and what were, you know, some wins and what were you excited about and what was not going well and where are we stuck and what did you want some coaching around and, Yeah, and we would just sort of go with the flow.
And it also gave us a chance to think bigger picture, right? Like, you know, there's a sort of immediate what's right in front of your nose, but then there's also what do I want for myself in the next three months or six months? And having that time to just sort of put that stuff out there that's been bouncing around in the back of your head, but you haven't really had time to give words to you.

Was really nice to be able to do that with some regularity. So you could kind of keep an eye on the future of like the not so distant future. And then once we started doing ditch your money hangups together, we saw each other all the time. So we just sort of started integrating our conversations.
And on occasion we do like help emergency button. Yeah. I'm putting out the bad signal. I need your help for like 20 minutes. Can you come to my rescue? And that's also been really great. So we've just sort of ebbed and flowed with what's going on, both in our lives and in our businesses.
To just make sure that, you know, we've got regular, we've got the check-in that we need, it doesn't have to be scripted and regular. But just making sure that we've got the support, knowing that we have the support, that we can go to each other if and when needed is is just awesome.

If we're not doing ditch your money hang-ups, we might go back to more like scheduled regularly, but. since we've got Ditch Your Money Hangups kind of on a rolling basis. I don't know. What do you think, Janine? I think keep it the way it is. I love it.

00:26:44 - Jeannine Widmann
Yeah, I think so too. Although I will say it was nice to meet up with you Friday and just be super social and chatty. And so I do think that just straight up connection piece is important to put in there every once in a while. You know, with all biz besties, I feel like in other groups that I'm in, I never want to be all biz all the time.
You know, there's something about that personal connection too. But we always work that in, you know, we always work that in even when we're planning Ditch Your Money Hangups. Another structure piece that I wanted to put in there is the workshop itself is always changing.
You know, the first time we got together every week to really plan it out. And then we ran it through and we're like, cool, you know, and you want to think, okay, cool, set it and forget it. Now we've got this curriculum, let's just run it next time.
Well, our audience size, our participants doubled.

And what we were noticing was we can't run it the same way. We can't have time for everybody to share and we can't get through everybody's goals and write them down. Like, So we got together every week during that one just because we had to evolve it to scale it.
So unstructured structure sounds pretty spot on. Like we just adjust to what comes up and what needs to happen. And I think we should continue with that.

00:28:08 - Maelisa Hall
And so it sounds like a lot of your communication now is also like phone or texting, stuff like that, as well as meeting in person. Yeah.

00:28:17 - Geraldine Carter
For sure, it's a mix.

00:28:19 - Maelisa Hall
Cool. And it sounds like, I mean, similar to Amber and I, that you guys have progressed in your relationship fairly quickly. Since Janine, you just moved there, what did you say, a year and a half ago?

00:28:30 - Jeannine Widmann
Yeah. So yeah, it feels like it has been pretty fast because those regular meetups and then leading together, it just advanced it.

00:28:40 - Geraldine Carter
Yeah. And when we met, I was like, I wonder how long it can be before I propose that we teach a course together. Yeah.

00:28:45 - Amber Hawley
That's why we use the dating analogy because that's so something you would think about when you're dating, right? Like, I'm going to freak this person out.

00:28:55 - Geraldine Carter
Like, how long until I can ask them to move in?

00:28:58 - Amber Hawley
Don't come on too soon. She's going to freak. Now you just go full board, right?

00:29:08 - Maelisa Hall
She's all in. I love it. I love it. It's so cool. What do you think, you know, to kind of wrap up here is... Maybe each of you could point out the biggest benefit that you've seen from having this relationship together. Or even if you just want to highlight one thing that you think has been really awesome about it.

00:29:26 - Jeannine Widmann
For me, it just feels so wonderful to feel like I have an ally who understands me and has my back. And you're right. I still am amazed by how easy that feels to be in a smaller town and someone who's in my same field and that we can still... have each other's back like that.
It just reminds me that I'm not in this all alone. And I can rely on Geraldine to, you know, even be, you know, before you jumped on, she's like, what's your three month goal? So it really is that call forward. Somebody who's really, I always use the word standing for me, but that's coach talk, but really committed to my progress.

So thank you, Geraldine.

00:30:15 - Geraldine Carter
Oh, you're welcome. It's a pleasure and an honor to do it. I would say for me, it's kind of the same thing. I liken it to ballast in a boat or a counterweight or something. It's like, I know that I don't have to find all the strength to figure everything out myself all the time for every single one of my problems.
And that if I do find myself in the jam, I've got support that I can go to. And it just relieves any sort of self-imposed pressure that I would put on myself to carry it all myself, to carry my whole business and all of its challenges all by myself. And that if I am in a jam, if I need to bounce something off of somebody, if I'm, you know, off of Jeanine, if I'm really like, if I'm really stuck in my head, or if I don't know how to approach a certain problem, I don't have to figure it all out myself.

I can just be like, hey, Jeanine, like, do you have 20 minutes? You know, and we find a time to Connected. And I can just not have to do it all myself. And having and just knowing that that exists is such a huge mental relief. You know, I just don't have to worry as much and that's super, super nice.

00:31:28 - Amber Hawley
It sounds so freeing to have that, to know that that's there for you. It sounds like a lot of peace that comes with that.

00:31:35 - Geraldine Carter
Yeah, it just makes it, it just makes life so much easier. And similarly, you know, I know that if I'm hiding out in some place in my business, Janine's totally going to call me out on it, right? There's no hiding in front of me. And, you know, she calls me forward and challenges me to look at things that I would just as soon, you know, hide behind my back.

00:31:57 - Amber Hawley
Yeah. I love that you say that. And we've talked about our relationship, Melissa and I's many times and talked with many people, but I don't think we've ever said it like this. But as you guys were talking, what struck me was that she sees me and that's how I feel with Melissa.
And she does. I mean, I say, I call it calling me out, but it's in the best way possible. It's in the way that that helps me grow and helps me feel really supported. That being seen thing is, I think that's huge. Yeah.

00:32:27 - Geraldine Carter
Yeah. And in fact, when I took Janine's You're Bold, Badass business, one of the sections in there was being visible and showing yourself. And that was the hardest part for me. And Janine's been really great on helping me show myself and allow myself to be seen and to let others see me.
So thank you, Janine, for that piece, because that's been huge for me.

00:32:54 - Jeannine Widmann
And now look, you're up there giving... talks and speaking engagements and being all visible.

00:33:02 - Amber Hawley
And amazing podcast episodes.

00:33:05 - Maelisa Hall
I know. So ladies, if people are interested in finding out more about either one of you or especially about the workshop that you do together, where should they go?

00:33:16 - Jeannine Widmann
Yeah, you can find me at my website is JanineWidman.com. It's J-E-A-N-N-I-N-E.com. W-I-D-M-A-N-N. So janinewidman.com. And there's info on there about myself, coaching, any workshops I'm leading.

00:33:36 - Amber Hawley
And we will, of course, link all of the information in our show notes as well. But it's always helpful for those who just like to memorize.

00:33:45 - Geraldine Carter
Yeah. And then mine is focusedbizcoaching.com. And you can also just Google Geraldine Carter because there aren't that many of us. So I think I come up right at the top. And our workshop that we're doing, we're doing an online version of Ditch Your Money Hangups in April.
So if there are folks who are curious about that, there's information on my website about that. And you can express your interest and hold a spot without having to commit if you wanted to. So yeah, that's on there.

00:34:13 - Amber Hawley
That's great because I was going to ask you guys if you had any online stuff that you did or if you only did local work.

00:34:19 - Geraldine Carter
Yeah, we're going to see if we can take it online in April. There's just been a lot of interest in it. We've just been trying to find the right time because both of us tend to want to, you know, do more, more, more, more, more. And both of us are like, wait, wait, wait, wait, whoa.
I don't know.

00:34:41 - Amber Hawley
We only do one thing at a time forever. So you are shocking us.

00:34:48 - Geraldine Carter
So we're both learning from the process and trying to unpack our schedules. So it's currently slated for April. Nice.

00:34:56 - Jeannine Widmann
And I run your Bold Badass Business online through Zoom video conference. And if anybody who's listening is interested in that, I'm also interested in running that specifically for organizations. So you can always contact me through my website and say, Hey, I checked out your bold badass business and I want you to bring that to us.
I'm super open to that. And it is awesome.

00:35:18 - Geraldine Carter
We should totally take it.

00:35:21 - Amber Hawley
Yeah. We are going to have to take a look at that. Thank you so much for coming and, you know, answering our questions and kind of giving our listeners another, another way to structure the biz bestie relationship. Yeah.

00:35:33 - Jeannine Widmann
I don't know if there's any like final thoughts that you want to add or, or, I want to thank you, Melissa and Amber, for having us and for highlighting this particular topic, because I just think it's so crucial to, you know, we're not meant to do this work alone.
And that you two are making it fun and calling out all the different ways that people do this. I just think it's brilliant.

00:36:00 - Maelisa Hall
Thanks. We like having fun with other people.

00:36:01 - Amber Hawley
That's our ENFP stuff. Awesome. Me too, me too, me too. Great. Well, thank you so much, ladies. And for all the listeners out there, please visit us over at mybizbesty.com forward slash podcast. And we would love for you to visit over on iTunes and subscribe and give us a review as well.
And join us next week for another awesome episode of the My Biz Besty podcast. Thanks, ladies.

00:36:32 - Geraldine Carter
Thank you. This has been super fun.