Bringing Nature into my Business

I need more nature in my life. Living in the city has increasingly become a challenge for me.  It's noisy and there are people everywhere all the time rushing around. I need more space to be quiet and to just stop. Tuesday September 18, 2018 at around 6:30am, I went and sat out on the dock. I closed my eyes and here is what I heard: my breath, the wind in the trees, a fish jumping out of the water, crickets, birds, and nothing else. I cried. 

Last September I went to the EDGE3 Ultimate You retreat on Cherry Island.  I had had a really hard few years working on overcoming grief and anger and dealing with my mental health.  I was finally on my way out of a very lengthy depression. I hadn't take a holiday in about a year either, and as a travel addict, well that's just unheard of!  After 3 days up on that Island, I felt like I had been up there relaxing for a month! It was exactly what I needed. After the retreat I told myself I would write a blog post about it.

I have my phD in procrastination.

A week ago I returned from another EDGE3 retreat on the island.  Now if you haven't heard about this place before, it's beautiful! It's a private island in Muskoka, Ontario, Canada on a quiet lake. On this island sits a stunning house that sleeps 16 people in super soft comfy beds with plenty of places for people to spend time relaxing on their own or with others.  On one side there is a beach with kayaks, canoes, a hammock, a fire pit, and on the other a dock with Muskoka chairs, loungers, a table to eat dinner and watch the sun set, and it's the perfect place to jump off for an early morning swim. Behind the house is an ideal place for hiking and being one with the sound of the wind. This place is pure luxury!

The outside of Cherry Island cottage

This year I decided to do the Leadership retreat which is perfect for entrepreneurs, leaders, or people who work on teams.





Here are just a few of the highlights:

This year, business has been slow, most likely because I haven't been motivated to push hard and instead just wanted to enjoy doing a lot of things for myself. I have trouble with balance. Before the retreat we were sent a questionnaire. The first question was what do you want more of in your business? The second was, what do you want less of in your business? Just these two questions lead me to think of an idea for my business that I hadn't even contemplated before and that I'm very excited to put into action! I finally felt motivated to move my business forward, and hadn't even started the retreat yet!

On the first day, Jay from JDM Holdings who is the general contractor who built the home on Cherry Island talked about what it took to create this place and the challenges that came along with it.  It was really interesting to hear, and really inspiring to see how he took risks and they ended up paying off.  In many ways I feel like I'm pretty risk averse so his story was really encouraging and made me want to take more leaps of faith.

On Sunday night we took a sunset cruise. We sat on the boat with our headlamps and got a beautiful journal and a list of questions inside and we had to answer a couple of them.  The second one I choose was my challenges, because I knew we were going to spend some time focusing on this the following day.  This felt like it could be The NeverEnding Story. So since time was limited, I choose just a few to write about: responding to emails, dealing with depression and impossible tasks, trusting others when it comes to growing my business, and finances and also helping others through my business that may not otherwise get the help they need.  That night, when I awoke between my first and second sleep, all I could think about were my challenges and needing to organize them and figure out what they looked like. I felt like, if I knew what they were than I could figure out a way to face them head on.  So I opened up my journal and started creating a flowchart. It started with depression which basically made me not want to work, which lead me to not work, which of course led me to not getting paid, which lead me back to depression which all basically lead to exhaustion. But I knew there was more in there so I started a new chart and adding in things like shame & guilt, anxiety, and struggling with paying my bills.  By the end of it, this is what I was left with. The big fat fucking mess that is my life.

A flowchart of my challenges

Oh, and I know there is more that I just couldn't think of at 2am that I didn't put in there. Basically what I learned is that most of my challenges are somehow connected.  There isn't an obvious place for me to begin working, but I knew if I started anywhere and started breaking cycles eventually it would interfere with most of these challenges and I would become the perfect specimen that I'm meant to become. Or something like that...

As a participant, we were asked to bring something to the group.  Stacey from Stacey Services in Saint John New Brunswick, talked about how as business owners we can design our own time.  Now I'm really good at using Google Calendar to make sure my tasks gets done, but I'm less great at making sure my work things are balanced with my life things in any kind of routine way. It was REALLY hard for me to do because I have little structure and routine in my life. But I did my best and I noticed that there some things missing from my life, and other things were scattered all over the place.  So then we created an ideal schedule, and I really liked the way it looked!  This past weekend I even took out that schedule and started plotting things in my calendar for the upcoming week!  I'm making this happen and that is fucking awesome!!!

Jay, Megan, Dave, Stacey, and Jane perfecting the dumpling

The whole retreat we ate like champs!!!  We had Vanessa Yeung from Aphrodite Cooks preparing all our meals. On the last night, Vanessa ran a cooking class and we made a bunch of delicious food, but also dumplings.  No seriously, we made dumplings... my favourite meal food in the entire world!  Does anyone even know how much I freakin' LOVE dumplings?!

Me kayaking at sunrise at the EDGE3 Ultimate You retreat

Of course I got a chance to do two of my favourite things: Having a morning kayak with David Graham, executive coach and owner of EDGE3 where we got to peacefully paddle along the lake and catch up on life.  I love running my hands along the water as I glide across it. Also, Dave is one of my favourite people.  He's clearly so incredible at what he does, bringing people together and helping them to discover whatever it is that they need to. I also really enjoyed going Earthing bright and early with Megan (one of EDGE3's amazing coaches). There is something special about running your toes through the moss and feeling the wet ground on your feet with intention. Living in the city I don't often get the chance to feel the grass between my toes or the unevenness of the ground as I walk upon it. So when I actually get to do it, it feels, well, primal.

One of the things I really enjoyed was listening to other people's challenges and brainstorming ideas on things they could do to make some changes.  I liked it because it allowed me to feel like I was possibly helping to make an impact on other people's lives, but also, it helped to hear ideas that maybe we would never have come up with for our own business.  The majority of the things that other brainstormed for me are things that I've done in the past or that I've been contemplating doing, but it was interesting to hear it in relation to helping with my business. What I did come out with was a new accountability partner, Helen from Eye Candy Opticians in Toronto's Beaches area which I'm really excited about, as Helen is awesome and it feels productive when at the end of the day I know I have to report to someone else, and that someone else is depending on me.  Being an entrepreneur can be tough at times when you're working on your own. People often say they aren't motivated enough, and I know those struggles, but when I have someone else to report to it pushes me.  On Monday when I was out in the kayak I had a thought that occurred to me. Growing up, my parents were both entrepreneurs who worked from home.  Being my own boss was learned behavior that my parents modeled for me.  In that moment I wondered if perhaps I was meant to work at a regular job making a regular salary and having to report to others. I think sometimes that would have been much easier, but on the other hand, there are so many things I love about working for myself.

My photo of a rope in a hammock

As gifts, Dave and Megan gave each of us a set of phone photo lenses.  We went around the island exploring and taking photos of things through a different lens.  We had to then choose one image and how we felt it related to our business.  We then got to put the image into a frame that we painting.   I took a photo of rope from the hammock and here is how I explained it: I'm one thread of that rope. On my own, there would be no hammock. It's the other people whom I meet in my life and whom I learn from that are the other strings. It's all the people in my life that combined help to make me stronger and more knowledgeable.  Eventually it's strong enough to create an entire hammock.

There were so many amazing moments at this years retreat that I simply just can't list them all. I gain so much as a business owner and an individual and each year after the retreat I make changes to my life that help me to be better at reaching whatever goal I set.  Last year, I incorporated kayaking into my life, and who knows what this year will bring, there are so many exciting changes that I'm looking forward to!  If you want to know more or hear more stories, please feel free to reach out to me.  If you want to know more about retreats being offered by EDGE3 visit www.edge3.ca.