(FORTUNE Small Business) – I've never been one for Organized Networking. My family's business, Cybernet System Management, provides engineering and design services for large food and pharmaceutical manufacturers, but the engineering world is too close-knit to find confidantes. I don't want people in my field to know too much about how I'm doing because I've had jobs stolen from me. Fortunately, in the five years I've been running the business, I've learned that other small-business owners in different fields give the best free advice, and when I need to voice my frustrations, nobody understands the way they do.

My dad founded our company in Schaumburg, Ill., in 1983. I went from college to optometry school with no intention of joining the business, but the summer after I graduated, I spent three months at home waiting for my license. I knew my father wanted to retire at 50, and at that point he was already 45 with no succession plan. I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and it occurred to me that rather than start an optometry practice from scratch, I could go with my father's business, which was established and had a great reputation. In 1995, I made him an offer: I would give him five years and do whatever work he chose for me at the company, and when I turned 30, I wanted to be running it as president. When he turned it over, he really turned it over: He moved to Hawaii. My business education came from books I checked out of the library.

The things I tell my entrepreneur friends aren't things I would talk to my husband about. It's not that I'm hiding anything; it's just that he takes what I say so personally. I met my first business confidante, Mike Katz, at a friend's wedding. Mike owns a trucking company, MLK Delivery Service, on the other side of Chicago. He and I are in different industries, but we chat on the phone about employee issues, usually about an hour a week. Our routine is that I give him half an hour to gripe, and then we switch. Sometimes we don't even talk business. It's more like, "How are you doing?" When most people ask that question, they expect a "good." But what we do has incredible ups and downs. Mike and I have the trust to say, "Really, how are you doing?"

I attended a minority business forum at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business in 2001, where I met Frank Stuart and Alex Wan. Frank owns a defense-contracting company called Global Professional Services, and he and I are complete opposites. I'm fairly reserved with strangers, and Frank feels free to express his opinions to anyone. I needed someone who could give me candid advice without sparing my feelings. When one of my senior staffers quit, I was frantic. Frank told me to let him go. "If he's not going to leave you now, he will eventually," Frank said. "Promote from within and get him out the door so you can start fresh." He was right.

Alex runs Optima, an engineering firm in Atlanta. We're both Chinese Americans who run companies inherited from our fathers. He understands the cultural way we were brought up to do business. Alex and I instant-message each other to bounce ideas around and just to vent. Our friendship may turn into a partnership as well--as his firm moves overseas, we've talked about my company taking over some of his U.S. customers.

I wasn't unhappy with being an entrepreneur before I met Mike, Frank, and Alex, but I don't think I'd be as successful as I am without them. For that hour or so a week I spend talking to them, I get not only advice but a boost to my sanity. I could run my business without these guys, but I wouldn't want to.