Creative dreams flourish with positive support. For the past two years I’ve been participating in a 90-minute conference call every other Wednesday with my Nurture Huddle. In fact, we’ve got our call tonight – Yay! We’re a small group of creative bloggers who get together to help support each other in our creative process and in going after our big dreams. Their support and encouragement have been invaluable. We’ve watched each other grow and stretch, move past challenges, and bring our visions to life.

When I’m working with clients, one of the things I hear a lot is that they feel alone going after their dreams and growing their business. It can feel isolating working for yourself or taking risks that other people in your day-to-day life might think are totally crazy. Having a support system like a Nurture Huddle can give you the perspective, encouragement, and accountability that will propel your forward with more confidence, ease, and fun. You’ll feel understood, heard, and called forth to your bigger self.

Here are some tips for creating  your own Nurture Huddle:

• Choose people who are also working on their business or creative projects so that you can mutually support each other. Four to seven huddlers is a good size to get different perspectives and still have an intimate feel. Make sure your huddlers are positive, constructive people you can count on. Because you can meet by phone, your huddlers can live anywhere.
• Set up a conference call line. There are several free services like freeconferencecalling.com or freeconferencecall.com. Or you can use video conferencing like Zoom or Google Hangouts.
• Depending on the nature of the calls, you can get agreement with the group if you want to record the call so that the ideas are easier to refer back to. We don’t record our Nurture Huddle calls, but I’ve been on other accountability type calls where we do because sometimes there’s some great brainstorming that can happen and you might not be able to write down the great ideas fast enough.
• Rotate leadership each time so that each huddler facilitates a call. The call leader sets the agenda and reminds people ahead of time when the call is and what the conference call number and pin is. During the call the leader kicks off the Huddle and helps to move the conversation along so that each Huddler can get her turn.
• As each Huddler shares, make sure that you’re identifying what they want accountability around so you know what to follow-up with the next time you all gather.
• Over time your calls may become more casual and organic as you get to know each other more deeply.  But when you’re first forming, it’s good to have some structure so that you create a safe container for sharing.
• On the very first Nurture Huddle call, get alignment around group agreements such as confidentiality, time commitment (including how long the huddle will exist for and when, how long, and how often calls will be), group communication between calls, how to handle accountability with each other, role of leader, etc.
• You can keep in touch via e-mail in between calls and/or you can set up a private blog or online community to help you stay connected.

Reach out to a few people this week to see if they’d be interested in forming a Nurture Huddle with you. Try it out for 3-6 months and go from there. I hope you’re able to get some good nurturing and huddling!