Gahhh, Ive been wanting to do a giant brain dump of all the feelings, joys, emotions, adventures and everything in between that I experienced on our entrepreneurial retreat last week to Hawaii...
You might say, "WTF is she doing in Hawaii if she's so damn busy..." That's what I was thinking to myself anyway and I can safely say that the other 6 business owners there were thinking the same fucking thing! Yet we all tore ourselves out of our week and managed to get ourselves into Honolulu on a Wednesday afternoon.
To make matters worse, there was no wifi on the 5 hour flight and I could tell we were all sweating bullets about it. Ah well, I guess the "unplugging" began early...
Our crew and journey was created by Iva the CEO behind Richer Poorer. She called it a social experiment and Jeni from the Jeni's Ice Cream empire, Jen Gotch, the CCO of ban.do, Jacyln Johnson CEO of Create Cultivate, Bobby Kim, CEO of The Hundreds and I willingly became her test subjects.
All of us were happy to be in Hawaii but were still pretty glued to our phones as we were getting dropped off to what would be our home for the next 4 days at the SurfJack... I was ushering with my laptop in and out of our van rides and squeezing in emails from the backseat thinking no one would notice. Eventually I gave in to the adventure and put my computer down and started gnawing on the sugar cane our team had just bought off the side of the road.
And so it went, everywhere we drove, there was food but then more than food, there were conversations starting to bloom in between the palm trees and the snow cones... We talked about decks, marketing campaigns, brands, run rates, product development, lead times, hiring, HR, you name it, we talked about it. And not in a " look at how we do it, but in a genuine effort to learn how the other was doing stuff and hence be able to adapt some of the knowledge to our own businesses.
You have GOT to get off the bike to fix it sometimes... when shit hits the fan which it inevitably does sometimes, I gotta get out of my head and into the moment. In life that means I either go and exercise; boxing, yoga, spinning are my current favorites. Or I'll watercolor, cook at Bestia, reorganize something or clean a room... To each his own though, I'm not judging. Just figure out what makes you feel better and do more of that.
So as the adventures and days progressed, we surfed, went to visit waterfalls in the jungle, hiked, swam, flopped on the beach, gave a talk at the awesome spot we were staying at, Surfjack and kept learning.
Its always easier to look at something when your head isn't buried in it so this was just that. It really blows my mind how isolating running a business can be. You are constantly figuring things out, putting out fires, growing, editing, adding and sometimes you are all alone and this trip helped me recognize that the people I need the most might already be in my life and I didn't even realize it.
So find those people in your life, and if you don't already know them, look for them and reach out, chances are they are feeling the same way. Crowd-source as much knowledge as you can from your community, ask for advice, don't just say "everything is great!" If you need some guidance, let down that damn wall and be willing receive help or give it too.
Lets help each other along the way and rise up together.
If you're in Hawaii, here's my list of go-to's!
Day 1:
Lunch:
Dinner:
Day 2:
Breakfast:
Lunch:
Dinner:
Day 3:
Breakfast:
Snack:
Dinner:
Day 4:
Breakfast:
Lunch: