183: Planning A Business Retreat Brings Wisdom & Reward

Melissa:

You guys, this episode is all about why and how you can facilitate a women in business retreat, men in business retreat, whatever you wanna call it, but how and why you should take the initiative to schedule these at least once a year, and really how magical they can be as really part of your business plan. So I hope you listen in and get some great nuggets from this. Need some effective tactical advice that actually helps you get results and makes a real difference in your life and business? You've come to the right place. If you're finding yourself here today, it means you're getting ready to gain serious attraction in your business, rapidly multiply your income and impact, and you're ready to make it happen while living all out. Guys, I'm Melissa Henault, your trustworthy corporate dropout turned 6 figure business burnout turned happy and healthy CEO of a multimillion dollar online business, and you're listening to the burnout to all out podcast. On this show, we're serving up innovative growth strategies, simple implementation methods to put them into practice, an action stimulating inspiration tailored specifically for the modern entrepreneur. Let's dive in. Hey.

Melissa:

Hey. Hey, guys. Coming to you live with a burnout all out podcast episode where I am going to be giving you a recap of my most recent retreat with women in business and follow box Mexico. I'm coming off the heels of this thing feeling very inspired to share with you guys why you should do this too, and how it can contribute to your business plan as a business owner, and how you can specifically plan these and make them really effective. And by the way, These retreats can be a business write off. Right? They can be pretax payout for your trip because you are growing as a business owner when you go on these retreats. However, they are incredibly fun and unstructured, and that is the key. Because That incredible fun and unstructured space is where we're allowed to get into flow, and conversations just explode with ideas in collaboration.

Melissa:

And so we'll get into all of this here in a second. But this quick episode today is really why you should plan retreats with your business besties, and how you should be doing this, and how this truly should be part of your business plan. Right? Okay. So let's get into the why why I put together this retreat this year. And so I just wanna get into a couple of different reasons why you should do this to create buy in for you to go online today and start booking your trip and thinking through who you're gonna invite. Okay? Number 1, is that as entrepreneurs, CEOs, and business owners, we need a safe place where there's no judgment to share, and we need it outside the confines of Zoom, and office, and business meetings with our direct stakeholders, and employees, and people that we work with. Right? The reality is probably most of you run a business where your spouse, your family members, your neighbors don't really get what you're going through. Right? And so we need a safe place with no judgment to share.

Melissa:

Right? Your highs without jealousy or judgment, but rather a cheerleader are just as important as your lows in business. And having people that you trust, that you can confide in, that you can share this information. So for instance, the highs without having people look at you like you're crazy. 2 of us are gunning for $1,000,000 months this month. Right? 2 of us that went to Mexico this past week are gunning for $1,000,000 months. Most of the people in our regular world and around us would think we're crazy. Right? And so it's so awesome to be able to sit alongside with, laugh with, cry with, strategize with someone who has the same kick ass goals as me. Right? Many of us have endured massive shit storms this past year in our businesses.

Melissa:

Right? And no one can truly understand what you've been through unless you've been through it. Right? So I had a heart to heart with 1 of the girls as we were canoeing, talking about some horrible crap that had recently happened to one of their businesses that I had experienced 3 years before. Now, I can't necessarily solve her problems, but she can feel not so alone and isolated when you're leading the business, and it's not necessarily something that you are gonna confide in your employees or your direct reports about and bring the vibration down or concern in the whole organization. Right? It's just as important. We had someone in the group who's literally exiting, selling their business, and it's creating inspiration for the rest of us. It's like, wow, this is really possible after a number of years of hard work, being able to exit out and create legacy wealth. And again, your lows, right, where it can be held in confidence. There are certain things, and I think you would agree as an entrepreneur, there are certain things that may stress you out year to year that you don't wanna necessarily stress your spouse out about, or you don't wanna stress your team out about.

Melissa:

Right? But you have peers in an unstructured kind of place over good tea or a glass of wine or a good meal, and you can really talk through it to really understand that safe place for the tears, the laughter, all the things. Right? So that's just a little bit about a safe place. Also, I wanna talk about a safe place to talk about growth. Right, from a mindset, money mindset, personal mindset, the inner work, the conversations we had about what we're doing to grow ourselves in, like, our spirituality and our religion. Also, again, with our money, what's stretching our minds about what's possible, what we're nervous about, what we're working with, right? And even relationships with what we're managing within our team, within our household. Right? There's so much real talk that can happen and you don't feel so alone, and you also feel so inspired and supported when you strategically, and we'll talk about this in a minute, bring the right people in to a retreat like this. Right? I will also say that having it at the 1st of the year is just a great way to kick off the year with other for me women. It was all women in your shoes ready to go after it.

Melissa:

So At the end of our retreat on the last night, we went around the table and shared our heartfelt intentions for the new year. And we really discussed what was going to have happened in our business when we showed up at the same tree at the same time next year. We spoke as if it was already there, and that is some powerful shit. When you don't just write it down or say it to yourself, but when you speak it out loud to women who hold that space and support you and help see that vision for you and call it in for you and hold you accountable to it throughout the year so that when we come back next year, we can report in on that vision. And for some of us, the vision was very specific to business. For some of us, the vision was more specific to our health. Some of us, the vision was more about relationships. Some of us, it was all free.

Melissa:

Right? But it's like calling life into that vision and having these cheerleaders around you saying, hell, yes. We've got you, we're here to support you, we can't wait to hear you speak to this success when we're here at this table next year. So it's a great way to kick off the year. Also, getting out of routine and getting surrounded by the beauty of nature to inspire that feminine flow whether you're a man or a woman. Right? This is one of the reasons men love golf. Right? To get out in nature and get into that feminine flow state. I know with men, a lot of the best business conversations happen on the golf course. Right? Because we're in that flow state.

Melissa:

It's light activity with light structure and phenomenal conversation that can just continue to evolve because it's unstructured pictured as far as the day goes. Right? Other than, like, with golf swing in a golf club or at the beach with rowing your oars on your canoe. Right? So getting into that flow state in nature also reduces our stress levels and gets us out of survival mode, and actually truly allows us to flow blood to that forebrain and actually think more creatively and more collaboratively. And speaking of that, There was so much collaboration and intellectual sharing with this group of what we were working on, what works for us. You can take an entrepreneur entrepreneur out of their business and put them on vacation, but they're always thinking about it. And so the ideas were just flowing of how so and so is doing this and how it could apply to our business, how are you doing that, and who do you know that does this, and oh my gosh, connect me with so and so, and let me connect you with such and such. This is stuff that You can't put together on a Zoom or a text thread. Right? These are face to face, belly to belly hours of just unstructured conversation that just goes in and out of these alleyways of discussions and topics, and from money, to mindset, to the structure of your business, to marketing, to your social media.

Melissa:

So, I mean, all the things. Right? While having a blast. Uncontrollable laughter is necessary. I think back to 1 dinner that we had where I literally could not stop laughing with the conversations that were coming out and the things that we were discussing. Uncontrollable laughter is medicine. And I think that sometimes as entrepreneurs and business owners, we're so focused on driving the business, we forget the importance of slowing down and having uncontrollable laughter with our peers. Right? And the connection in the conversation, back to that for a second. The connection and the conversation, we had such an array of business owners with different subject matter expertise.

Melissa:

We had healers. We had folks who are experts at launching. We had folks who are really, really savvy with finances. We've got folks who run really, really phenomenal high ticket retreats. We had someone who runs a really, really high ticket agency. We had someone who's in the the process of a exit of a company that has physical products. Right? So like, there are so many different zones of genius and subject matter expertise that as you can imagine, when you get a group of women around at that level and they start talking, the intellectual capital. The intellectual value that was shared is a business plan in itself.

Melissa:

It is a business plan in itself. So much action was taken while laughter and fun and flow happened. Right? Okay. So how do you land something like this, Melissa? Okay. First of all, I am relentlessly cautious of energy. Right? I am a protector of my energy and I am relentlessly cautious of my energy. So before you plan a trip like this. Think about who energetically you would want to spend a couple of days with.

Melissa:

You really wanna bring people in who are energy contributors and not energy suckers. Okay? I'm gonna say that one more time. You wanna invite people who are energy contributors that when you walk away from a conversation with them, you feel better, you feel inspired. Also, you feel a 100% comfortable and you feel authentically yourself. Right? So you wanna invite the energy contributors, but you also ask yourself, when do I feel most like myself? Where I feel a 100% comfortable being who I am, saying what I wanna say, dressing however I wanna dress, right, and being exactly who I am. Right? Because that is where you're gonna have phenomenal conversations with no guard, and phenomenal support and laughter, and just authenticity. Right? So be very cautious of the energy suckers that drain your energy, are full of complaints, are very difficult to travel with, and are gonna bring the energy down in the group. No, thank you.

Melissa:

Right? No, thank you. So again, yeah. When do you feel most like yourself and who inspires you? You know, don't be afraid to ask someone to come along on your trip that just inspires the hell out of you. I actually kind of last minute asked my energy healer, spiritual mentor, an executive coach, Sam Deacombe. And I think so highly of her. I wasn't sure whether she'd be up for it or not, but it was a hell yes for her. And now, I can't even imagine the trip without her. She brought so much value.

Melissa:

She was so uplifting, but she also got a lot out of it too. Right? She and I sat and had, like a mini business strategy session for like an hour over breakfast, but she was doing phenomenal ceremonies with us and healing us along the way as well. So who can be dynamic and give in that setting. And reality check for yourself. Are you an energy sucker or an energy giver? Would you be invited to a trip like this? I mean, this is a reality check. Right? And if not, how do you need to change how you show up? How can you create reciprocity? How can you give? How can you create value in relationships and be selected or wanted to to come on a trip like this. Okay. So keep that in mind when you're planning your trip.

Melissa:

Also, think about light unscheduled free light activities and unscheduled total free time. You don't wanna risk being overly booked during these retreats because where the magic happened is the conversation. And if you're like overly booked, People are gonna feel stressed out and you're not gonna have that unstructured space for conversation. Now, when you do book things, you can book things that allow facilitation of conversation. Conversation. Right? So we took a cooking class 1 night, and that was beautiful. We were gathered around the same table for hours, chopping and prepping, and it actually brought me back to my roots of how much I used to love cooking with my mother. I've gotten so busy, and with little kids, I've delegated to a house manager a lot of the meal prep.

Melissa:

But now, I'm like, gosh, now that my kids are a little older, I need to bring this back in. Like the conversations I could have with my kids just while they're, like, shucking corn around the table. The kayaks. Right? Like, these light scheduled activities where You can get into these smaller little groups and really have deep conversations. We were on the water for 3 hours meandering through the city to just putts surround and shop and eat some ice cream and just see what we can see and discover the local experience. We have lots of poolside chat and scheduled breakfasts and dinners that we were would pop into. So lots of space on the trip to create and foster open conversation. Right? And the last thing I'll leave you with is that before we left, we went ahead and got our phones out and scheduled next year's trip.

Melissa:

So we literally already have next year in the calendar blocked and prioritized because we realize how essential it is as entrepreneurs to have some unscheduled time together that is so soul serving. It is so energizing for the year. It creates so much connectedness. We're in this group chat, and we're firing off messages to each other after the trip, checking in with each other and how we're doing and what we're executing on and supporting ours each other and things that we're going through with our families. Right? And so don't lose sight of the value of incredible friendships when it comes to entrepreneurship. Don't get so focused on your bottom line in your business that you forget to foster the human aspect of business and the relationships in business and how far you can go collectively versus alone, and how you can lean into your peers confidence when you don't have it. Right? It was one of the stories that was told at our trip last week was one of the girls said, I didn't believe in myself when you guys believed in me. So I chose to lean into your belief in me until I believed in myself, and that's what she did.

Melissa:

And she hit her half $1,000,000 month, and then she hit it again. And this was all because of the confidence her peers had in her, and now she's gunning for $1,000,000 a month. If she was in a silo and she wasn't connected with her peers, whose confidence would she lean on when she wasn't sure? Who would she trust. Right? So so good. Okay. So having great women in business as friends and slowing down to nurture those relationships and expand is a business plan, my friends. It is a business plan. I challenge you to put together a group of women or men or both, and do this on a yearly minimum, a yearly cadence.

Melissa:

If you don't have a community, you're not sure where to start, Guys, I have my burnout to all out live event in October. If you do a VIP ticket, it's a 3 day event. It is a great place to submerge yourself with hundreds of like minded entrepreneurs and network and find your people. Right? Find your people. The reason I have these people is because I invested to get in the rooms and meet humans like this, and then ask myself as I schedule this trip, who would I wanna invite on this trip? Spearhead it, recruit for it, foster the relationships, and watch the magic unfold, and watch how happy and supported and loved and nurtured you feel while you thrive in your business. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Thanks guys so much for listening in on today's podcast episode, and I Can't wait for you to see my upcoming guest in the next episode. You are going to love this keynote speaker.

Melissa:

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Melissa:

Cannot wait to hear how you are enjoying and applying what you're learning. You guys reach out to me over on social because I love hearing what's resonating with you. When you reach out to me and you send me those personal DMs, they really do impact the content I continue to bring forward to you. So, again, come find me, melissa_henault over on Instagram, Melissa Henault over on LinkedIn and Facebook. Can't wait to see you guys over there.