We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Claudia Pfau a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Claudia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Making new friends as an adult can be really difficult for many people. We blame it on our busy schedules, our kids, moving to new cities, working from home, or simply our fear of stepping outside of our comfort zones. So it’s no surprise that our society as a whole is lonelier than ever! Nearly 80% of Gen-Zs and 70% of millennials report feeling lonely, and the average American only has one real friend.

It’s sad to think how disconnected we are, yet how incredibly important it is for our mental health and well-being to have a supportive group of friends to lift us up. Yes, you can join a gym, go to bars, or sign up for networking events, but none of those activities set you up to make real friendships.

My mom and I experienced our own bouts of loneliness in 2021 – she was recently divorced and had to uproot her life to a new country, and I was working from home with very few opportunities to interact with real women in my community. We knew that if we were both struggling with this while being in such different phases of life, we likely weren’t the only ones.

So we went on a mission to start Minded Society – a safe and fun friendship club for women to come together, free of judgment, to create meaningful lifelong bonds. We help women find their tribe through interactive virtual events, weekly happy hours, and impromptu meet-ups. Everything we do and all the activities we put together are specifically designed to make it easy for women to connect. Our hope is that every single one of our members finds their tribe!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a content marketer by day and a clean beauty blogger and friendship club co-founder by night. Being that I spend so much of my time completely immersed in the digital world between my work and social media, I was deeply craving heartfelt connection and in-person experiences. I wanted to get out there and do things I usually wouldn’t – like take a pottery class or go to the theater – but I wanted to share those experiences with friends.

I wanted to have a tribe of girlfriends I could call during my highs and lows, go to happy hours with, travel with, host themed parties with, etc. I wanted what you see in the movies or TV. I wanted to find the Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda to my Carrie.

Growing up, I moved a lot with my family, which, as much as I hated it as a kid, was truly a blessing in disguise. Living in different cities and countries taught me how to be a great “new girl” and exposed me to many cultures. No matter how scary it felt to start over, I always knew that I had the ability to make friends quickly. And it’s led me to have beautiful friendships all over the country and world. But when I moved to Michigan to be with my husband and start my career in marketing, I realized how difficult it could be to make friends as an adult when you don’t have a school environment to rely on. Even after living here for 8 years, I still struggle to find my tribe. And more so now that I work remotely.

After brainstorming with my mom, who was ironically going through something similar even at her age, we decided to leverage our “new girl” powers and launch Minded Society – a friendship club for women 21 and up. We realized the struggle to make new friends is universal and transpires across generations. So we wanted to create a safe and fun space where women from all walks of life can come together to create lifelong bonds.

Our club members will get access to weekly virtual Zoom chats, in-person get-togethers, and monthly mingles where we pair a few members together for a smaller, themed virtual hangout. Eventually, we will also host member retreats and weekend getaways! Memberships are currently on a launch waitlist and will officially open once we feel we have a well-rounded group of women to start all of our fun activities.

In the meantime, we have a free Facebook Group called #FindYourTribe that anyone can join to get to know women from all over who are all looking to make new friends. We ask fun daily questions, organize chill Zoom hangs, and host IG Lives where we can all get to know each other better.

This isn’t just another networking group or an awkward friendship app. We take the burden off of you to find your future besties by creating special moments on a weekly and monthly basis for incredible, kind, and supportive women to connect with one another.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I’m working to unlearn is that success is the end goal. Yes, of course, we all want to be successful but the definition of success isn’t just about reaching the finish line. It’s about all the little milestones that happen between now and your “bigger” goals. It’s about enjoying the journey because once you reach those goals, you’ll have a whole set of new ones to work towards.

As a new business owner, I’m learning to appreciate the small successes we’ve had – having 75+ women in our Facebook group, reaching 100 followers on Instagram, hearing from so many women who are experiencing loneliness and feel connected to our mission – rather than fixating on the fact that we haven’t reached our membership goals yet.

I’m a big believer that everything happens when it’s meant to happen. So for now, I’m grateful for the smaller mountains we’re climbing now that will eventually lead us to our bigger triumphs.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

While our Minded Society following is still small, I’ve been able to grow my clean beauty blog (@uncovertheglow) to 2.5K followers on Instagram over the past 5 years and have such an amazing group of women supporting my journey there.

Social media can be tough, not only because of algorithm changes and never-ending trends, but because of the constant comparison to others in your space. It can be disheartening to experience slower growth when others around you have much larger reach.

My biggest piece of advice is to put your blinders on. You need to tune into who you are, how you want to show up, and what value you bring to your audience. And stick with it! Be consistent, be authentic, and don’t forget about the person on the other side of the screen. Think about how your content serves them and speak to them directly. The more people are connected with the real you, the more likely they are to trust you and share your content with their friends. Which, in turn, will help you grow in the most organic way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mindedsociety.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindedsociety/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/findyourtribeforwomen
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cpfau/
• Other: My clean beauty blog: https://uncovertheglow.com/ https://instagram.com/uncovertheglow