I left Facebook in April, not because I was falling victim to that kind of thing, but because I saw how toxic it was and how it was being used as a tool to hurt and manipulate other people. (It was also time-consuming and soul-sucking, while giving strangers the impression that it’s okay to expect access to your personal life and immediate attention.) I also wouldn’t share a damn thing about what goes on with me or my business, because who does it benefit? Me? How?

It doesn’t.

A lot of the people who do the most bragging, flexing, and posturing are the least successful. Social media makes it easy to present a convincing–but false–lifestyle. I keep quiet, focus on my business, collect my money, and ignore everything else.

EXACTLY! I don’t want to come across as anti-feminist, because I’m certainly not that, but I refuse to be made to feel guilty or like I’m not fulfilling my “duty” to other women by keeping my trade secrets a secret. Are men placed under the same pressure? Nope. How many of those Instagram memes are designed to make them feel responsible for “elevating” their entire gender? ZERO, by my count. So why are we being made to feel like it’s our obligation–especially in our industry–to give other women easy pathways to the success we worked so hard to achieve.

That’s what educators and bloggers (like me) do. Female entrepreneurs of all kinds should not be made to feel similarly burdened.

You did the right thing, and you’re absolutely correct. It can be hard to establish and maintain professional, cordial relationships with competing business owners, especially during a time when social media and online business coaches are encouraging us to band together–a concept that would only make sense if we were not operating in competition with each other, lol. I’m happy to share my expertise and talk about the details of my business model because I feel that there’s a strong need for more salons that cater to the elderly and those with compromised immune systems and mobility issues, but I’m not sharing our product recipes, lol. If the situation were different and salons like mine could be found in every town, there’d be no way I’d be so forthcoming with the information I share.

This did hurt as if we were breaking up and I hoped we could have remained friends, but her current actions of reaching out to my client base (which never should have been in her software but I followed her directions) and my Naïveté never saw what came next.

I work in a small community filled with hair and nail salons. There is plenty to go around as I’m told, I have lost no clientele during this change and hope to gain new clientele through my new full-service salon relationship and marketing efforts throughout the holiday seasons. I choose not to speak about the break up, even when people share the crap talk they’re hearing from my last salon. Taking the higher ground as they say. And I guess I need to get thicker skin, but clearly so many of the insightful scenarios shared in your article will never happen between us and that is sad. Again thank you for your article. Sisterhoods Do serve purpose but finding out that purpose is the challenge.