Conscious Creations: 6 Lessons from a Nicaraguan Retreat for Entrepreneurs
Every year I try and take a week fully offline to listen to what I want to create in the year ahead. This time I did it with a group of friends I’ve been connecting with all year and it was fantastic.
The Elevator explores products, services, and ideas for Founders & CEOs using their business as a vehicle for personal, professional, and spiritual transformation.
I’m David Sherry, founder of Death to Stock, and partner to 15+ Modern Founders & CEOs with a new vision for how we build companies. X, Instagram, Tiktok, Linkedin.
I recently got back from a week-long retreat in Playa Marsella, Nicaragua with a group of entrepreneurs all working to consciously plan the year ahead. We held workshops on calendar planning, discussed our relationship to social media, learned a ton, and shared about what our aims were for the year ahead.
We did a “Fuck Yes” workshop, and I hosted one on how to sell services at a high level.
Every year I try and take a week fully offline to listen to what I want to create in the year ahead. This time I did it with a group of friends I’ve been connecting with all year and it was fantastic.
Below I wanted to share some takeaways and insights from the week.
1. Elevate Everyone to VIP
Your customers, the people you buy services from, your staff. You don’t need to differentiate the experience you provide from one person to the next, and this goes for the people you hire as well. I was blown away by the staff at the location we stayed who were participating in some of the same events as the guests. We had a “blindfold” dinner where we couldn’t see or speak and ate a tasting menu with our hands. This dinner was also attended by a member of their staff. It made it special for us and for her.
2. Blur The Lines Between Teacher and Student
Every workshop we hosted shifted the dialogue from teacher to student and back to teacher. While less possible in large audiences, engaging in group dialogues was more effective than individual instruction.
A secret I learned from conferences; the teachers (speakers) are the ones who are learning and benefiting the most, not the audience.
3. The Infinite Value of Experiences
You race to the bottom with your product’s pricing when you are focused on utility. When you focus on delivering a unique experience, you can scale your margins.
Another way of looking at this is there are two ways to scale; more, or “better.”
You can consume 1,000 average bottles of wine, or 1 of the rarest wines in the world. Both are the same price. The low-cost wines are low margin. The rarest bottle in the world has an extremely high margin.
When people earn more money, they often want more highly differentiated experiences, not cheap low-cost options.
4. Everything is a journey.
When you start to live a more conscious life, you begin to experience everything as a series of unfolding journeys and processes that are constantly beginning and ending. Each event or series of events has a flow to it, has lessons, and has opportunities to be present within them in new and unique ways. In this way, a simple dinner can be life-changing. One night we had a dance party after dinner with an invitation to get lost in the music and my experience was profound. A silent walk in the morning. Having a funny conversation with a stranger. All of these experiences unfold in completely novel ways if you are paying enough attention to connect to them.
5. How it Feels Getting to your “Fuck Yes”
A fascinating part of this workshop was allowing participants to share things in their life that was a “Fuck Yes!” for them. What you notice as a pattern is that when people are talking about the “shoulds” of others, you often notice that their voice sounds more flat and they don’t seem as connected to what they’re discussing. Suddenly they hit on something that they are truly passionate about and they totally come alive.
I believe that active energy is a preview of the energy someone has for creating a new project, and so it’s a sample of what you truly have energy for vs. what you want to have energy for.
6. You’re Not Stuck.
I love personal development as much as anyone. The trap, though, is to continuously buy into a story that you are in a struggle, that you are stuck, unable to move forward for any variety of reasons. The day you wake up to the fact that you are not stuck, that change can happen, and that it’s in your control, is the day that all personal development shifts from a need to a want.
It’s the difference between I “need” to fix my problems and “I want to” create this opportunity for myself and feel empowered to do so.
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Some other personal takeaways.
Group planning is exponential: Hosting group sessions rather than my personal individualistic version of yearly planning leads to a great deal more learning and collaboration.
Having a private chef is life-changing for you and how you feel every day. It’s a new goal for me to have.
Having silent morning time for reflection to prepare myself for the day drastically shifted how I felt. I now think about a morning routine as much longer than just a little meditation or journal first thing.
Be with people you can be your whole self with, even at work. The late Charlie Munger emphasized almost more than anything else, “Work only with people you enjoy.” Having collaborators or clients that I’m excited to partner with has been a blessing and my aim is to always bring more of my full self to work whenever possible. That goes for how I show up in this newsletter, with friends, etc. You can be “professional” (I.e. take responsibility) without cutting off who you are to do so.
Make a list before any inputs. Make a list of what you truly want to accomplish for the day before you get any inputs from the outside world, then simply work through it one at a time. The world is pulling so strongly at our attention and reaction that we need to have space without inputs to naturally come to what we personally find most important.
Bringing lessons into the year ahead
The retreat in Playa Marsella, Nicaragua, had every texture of experience. It opened my eyes further to group collaboration in ways I hadn’t previously seen which I will be incorporating into my work in the year ahead. Mostly it helped me experience a new way of being that I can bring home, because it took me out of my typical day-to-day experience and habits.
Much love to everyone!
xx David
Amazing takeaways and sharp writing. Starting my business at 23 now - sports & health magazine + club - glad I found your newsletter. Cheers x
Beautiful reflections, thanks for sharing! I just got back from a 5-day retreat with my wife (and business partner) in the woods of central Portugal, and I'm feeling equally refreshed and motivated.
Excited to reconnect in the new year my brother!