I just got back from summer camp.

For weeks, I’ve let people know I was going to Nashville in October and when they asked what for, I’ve responded with ‘To go to business summer camp.’ 

And then kinda raised my eyebrows like, you know, waiting for their quizzical response.

I didn’t really know what to expect, either.

What even is Business Summer Camp?

Turns out, I had no idea. I was way off. I wasn’t just pleasantly surprised, I was perfectly delighted.

Business Summer Camp was exactly what I needed.

Okay, so of course now you’re wondering for real, what was this Business Summer Camp. I went to Camp Clockwork, a first-of-its-kind gathering for business owners and their teams to connect in nature, surrounded by other people going through similar things, to play, to explore, every once in a while to make a s’more.

I didn’t rhyme that on purpose.

I went with my biz bestie, Catelyn, who owns a cash chiropractic practice in my town. She and I went to South Carolina in 2019 for a business conference together and also run a women business owner networking group where we live, so we knew if nothing else, we’d have time together and that would be more than enough.

We got the agenda, and Catelyn looked at me and said, ‘I have no expectations, but there’s a lot of recess on here.’

Arts and crafts, giant swing, ziplining, canoeing, archery.

Buffet-style lunch in a cafeteria.

A few organized group things, including CAPTURE THE FLAG.

It was everything I remember about my one summer camp experience from growing up; trying things that were a little scary, making new best friends so fast it’s unreal, and yes, the tiniest bit of homesickness.

And while I could go on and on about the things we did at camp, I think what was unlocked for me the most during this adventure was up here, in my dome, my thoughts.

To grow my business to the level I want it to go, I have to grow in my leadership skills.

I’m phenomenal at what I do. That’s why I started my business… to do more of what I’m really good at, which is email marketing strategy and execution for wineries. But I can only do so much of that. My time is a finite resource. There are parts of the execution that I’m not the best at, and don’t want to become the best at, so I hired for that… and then, I started to become a boss.

Shit! I gotta be a boss? It was like it all happened on accident. 

And I have a LOT of mental chatter about my abilities as a boss. I’m a bad boss, I fail as a boss, nobody else can do it as good as I can do it. You want it done right you gotta do it yourself. I have a tough time trusting people, not only to do their best but also to be good people.

But on this trip, I saw a few stellar examples of rockstar teams. I saw what collaborative leadership looks like. I saw clear visions with teams that rally behind it.

And I was like, ‘I want that.’

And then I immediately started objecting to it, like I couldn’t possibly create it.

It sounds like a lot of work.

But it is the most important thing. I have to become the leader my business needs, and that requires me not only understanding my own authentic and true expression in leadership but understanding what the people who are on the ship with me need from me to become their own most authentic and true expression in their roles.

The next thing I realized is how much my own desire to be liked is holding me back.

I want my team to like me. I want my clients to like me. I want everybody in the wine industry to have nice warm feelings about Erica.

But I’m not making big moves because those moves might alienate the people I want to be liked by. I’m not changing the way I price our services, our product offerings themselves, I’m hanging on to clients that are no longer a good fit, and I’m putting people in roles and giving them tasks that don’t align with their strengths or what we need as a business. 

I have to be laser focused on what our business needs and intentionally creating that every day, because where we end up by default rarely is going to (by accident) be where we want to go.

And finally, perhaps the most powerful thought is, I get to choose.

I can design the business, the life, I want. I don’t have to be a victim to what happens to me. I don’t even have to settle for taking action in my world and being accountable to myself. My business, my home life, how I exist as a mom, wife, a person… those are all happening by design, but whose? Society, what I think other people want to see? From now on, I want to question what I’m creating both in my business and as a person to make sure I’m not just making a choice because of what the typical rules of life have been to this point. 

I don’t want to live a perfectly normal life. I am here to create a FANTASTIC life. To be an example of vibrant and abundant living, presence, bravery. To show my kids they can design their own lives as well. 

I’m in a perfect position to do this in my business. It’s mine. Nobody can tell me what to do with it (even though I can tend to indulge in believing that my clients or existing team might…).

But in my home life? As a human being? That’s where the stakes seem to be highest. What will my husband / kids / parents / friends think of me when I stop being what everybody expects? 

Now I’m not sure I’ll do that much outside of the norm… I don’t even really know what ‘questioning what I’m creating’ is going to look like. I haven’t started it in earnest yet. And I think it’s likely to be a process. But what I can tell you for certain is that I’m guaranteed to bump into some resistance, both from my own crazy brain and from the people around me who love me, who I love, and who I want to like me too. 

There’s the nagging already. ‘This sounds so selfish. Are you sure you even want to publish something like this, Erica?’ 

What are people going to think?

Perhaps my first act of bravery, of embracing my authentic expression, is to publish this rambling summer camp download and share it loudly with… well, with you.

If you’re still reading, this has piqued something in you. Maybe you look forward to skewering me in side convos with other people you know or even online (will you be my first troll?), but I’m guessing part of why you’re reading this still is that you also feel that you might have been living your life by other peoples’ design and are curious how to make a shift. You want me to give you the answers, maybe.

But I’m just on a journey to find ‘em. I’m not there yet. 

How deliciously adventurous, though, to set off in search of the answers. To question the life I’m building and to decide on purpose what I want in it and what I want to let go of. 

I almost scratched the ‘what I want to let go of’ line just now. (See, I’m really letting you in my head with this one)

Because I know that writing that line and letting you read it, if you’re one of my closest companions, might have you a little afraid that you would be in with the ones I want to let go of.

LOVE

I want more of my life to come from a place of love. And I LOVE all the people in my life, yes, even the ones I’m not so sure I want to keep around. I want to tap into a loving expression of myself fully in this next chapter, surround myself with more of it, embody it, emanate it. And so if you’re reading this and wondering if I’m about to cut everyone off – no. I’m going to love everybody more, intentionally, where I’m at and how I want to, the right way, the authentic way. 

Myself most of all.