[00:00:00] EMMA: What do blindfolded bowling, someone asking if we were gonna play Murder in the Dark, and a game of ding dong ditch have to do with running a business retreat? Absolutely nothing, and also everything. I've just come home from one of our Thriving Women retreats, and there is something that has been gnawing at me ever since, and I wanted to share it with you, because I think it says something much bigger than what happened over those few days.
[00:00:27] And they were a big few days. If you haven't been to one of our retreats, let me paint you a picture. This isn't a spa retreat. We're not sitting around drinking cocktails by the pool. Well, sometimes we are, to be fair, but that's not mainly what it's about. We're working. We're stepping out of our business to work on them.
[00:00:44] We have butcher's paper spread across the walls. There are notebooks everywhere. There are pens and texters, and conversations about pricing and sales, and leadership, finances, confidence, hiring, succession plans, boundaries, and all of the [00:01:00] things that come with running a business. And there are moments where someone shares something deeply personal.
[00:01:07] There are a lot of tears, not gonna lie, and there are a lot of breakthroughs. Sometimes there is silence, because someone is thinking harder than they have been in months. It's the real work, and I do love the work. But here's what I love just as much, the laughter. At this retreat, one of the women ran a three-minute exercise.
[00:01:28] Three minutes. It was silly. It was not strategic. There wasn't a workbook, um, you know, all the things. There wasn't a learning outcome. It was simply designed to make us laugh, and did it work. Within seconds, we were laughing like schoolgirls. Not polite little giggles, proper belly laughs, the sort where you can't catch your own breath.
[00:01:51] You know what it's like, or do you? The sort where your stomach hurts. The sort where tears run down your face and you don't actually [00:02:00] know why you're laughing anymore. You know those ones? And then there was the blindfolded bowling. Let's talk about that. When I run a retreat, I hand it over to a couple of people, uh, to run an activity, and this time's activity was bowling.
[00:02:15] It was not blindfold bowling. The two team leaders that I chose, shout-out Bec and Claire, decided to do it blindfolded. So we split the teams up, and we did blindfolded bowling. Now, you're probably cringing. I was, too. The safety was, uh, questionable. The gutters were up, and we didn't bowl that great, but they were cheering each other on.
[00:02:33] Oh, and we laughed. We laughed so loud that we almost got kicked out. Just saying. We also may have almost got kicked out because someone strode down the lane to get a ball, and you're not really meant to do that. Anyway, that was what blindfold bowling was. There was also ding dong ditch. One of the ladies had someone partying next door until 1:30 in the morning.
[00:02:54] I'm like, "That is not happening tonight. This is not what happens on retreat." So I walked her to her room the following [00:03:00] night. I listened at the next door, and it sounded like the room had been cleared of those individuals and new individuals there. And then I turned to her, and I said, "Would you like play a game of ding dong ditch?"
[00:03:10] Now, for those of you who don't know what ding dong ditch is, that's the new version. The old version is knock and run. Anyway, I don't know why she didn't take me up on the ding dong ditch offer. Someone suggested murder in the dark. One of the ladies had a little issue with her lights in her hotel room.
[00:03:25] She had called concierge. She tried to get it sorted, and for some reason she just couldn't get these lights to work. So there's about 10 of us, so we all wandered up to her room, walked in, and tried to fix her lights. And so I was first in the room, and I went to a different spot and turned the lights on, and then the lights flicked on, and they flicked off.
[00:03:45] And we did this for about five minutes. How many bright women does it take to make the lights work in a hotel room? I cannot tell you. But at one point I offered to play murder in the dark. Do you remember the game murder in the dark? Murder in the dark was the best. Anyway, everyone [00:04:00] started laughing. It just broke the tense situation of no lighting, and interestingly, no one took me up on the offer of murder in the dark, so that sucked.
[00:04:07] Honestly, if someone had walked into the room, they would have wondered whether they had accidentally wandered into a year eight camp instead of a room full of women running very successful businesses. Some of these women are leading teams. Some are making hundreds of thousands of dollars in their businesses.
[00:04:28] All the things. Some are responsible for their families. Some are carrying enormous responsibilities behind the scenes that no one actually sees. They are serious women doing serious work. But for those moments, they were simply women having fun together. And it got me thinking, somewhere along the journey of becoming adults, especially women, we seem to lose permission to play.
[00:04:56] When we're children, people encourage us to be [00:05:00] imaginative, and creative, and go outside, and play games, and laugh, and be silly. Then we become adults. We become professionals. We become mothers, business owners, carers, partners, leaders, and suddenly everything has to have a purpose. Everything needs an outcome.
[00:05:21] Everything needs to be productive. Even our hobbies become productive. We don't just walk, we count our steps. We don't just read, we have to learn something new. We don't just cook, we optimize our nutrition. We don't just catch up with a friend, we network. Everything becomes useful, efficient even, measured.
[00:05:45] And while there's nothing wrong with productivity, I wonder whether we've accidentally squeezed out the joy, not because we don't want joy, but because we've convinced ourselves we need to earn it. "I'll have fun after I launch. I'll [00:06:00] relax after tax time. I'll laugh after this busy season. I'll take a holiday once I've hit that revenue target."
[00:06:07] Sound familiar, ladies? Yeah Me too. Me too. And the problem is there's always another launch. There's always another busy season. There's always another quarter, another goal. Joy keeps getting pushed further down the list. And one of the things I noticed during the retreat was what happened after those moments of laughter.
[00:06:29] The energy in the room shifted. People contributed more. They became more creative. Their faces lit up. They became more open. They connected with each other more deeply. They connected with themselves more deeply. The conversations actually became better, not worse. Laughter didn't distract us from the work.
[00:06:50] It prepared us for it. I think sometimes we treat joy as though it's the reward at the end. I think it's actually the fuel. It's the thing that helps us keep going. [00:07:00] And as business owners, we spend a lot of time talking about energy. How do we protect it? How do we create more of it? How do we avoid burnout?
[00:07:08] What boundaries do we need to put in place? What if one of the answers is simply allowing ourselves moments of joy? Not because you've earned it, not because everything is finished, PS, it never will be, just because we're human. And at the end of the retreat, we sat in our closing circle. I always love that part.
[00:07:27] Everyone shares what they're taking away. And as I looked around the room, we're all sitting on the floor, something struck me. Everyone looked lighter. And it wasn't because every challenge had disappeared. Some women were still going home to difficult conversations. Some were facing interesting financial decisions.
[00:07:48] Some had team issues waiting back home for them. Some had family responsibilities. Life hadn't magically changed over three days, but they had, like, changed a little [00:08:00] bit. They'd laughed, they'd cried, they'd been seen, and they'd been challenged. They'd spent time with women who understood exactly what it feels like to carry the responsibility of running a business.
[00:08:14] And I think that's one of the reasons community matters so much. People often ask me, "What makes Thriving Women different?" Yes, I coach. I'm actually a pretty good coach, just saying Yes, we talk strategy. Yes, we talk sales, marketing, leadership, and profit. But underneath all of it is community. Like real community.
[00:08:36] Not networking, not collecting business cards, not pretending everything is okay. Community where someone celebrates your biggest win as though it were their own. Can you imagine? Community where someone sits beside you while you're having a hard day. Community where people challenge you because they care, and community where you laugh until your stomach hurts [00:09:00] over something completely ridiculous.
[00:09:03] I don't think those moments are accidental. I think they're essential. Business can be lonely, especially when you're the one making all the decisions, the one carrying the payroll, the one solving everyone's problems. Sometimes what you need isn't another podcast.
[00:09:42] Don't tell Brianna I said that. Or another qualification, or another strategy. Sometimes you just simply need to be around people who remind you what it feels like to laugh, to be yourself, to take the business seriously without taking yourself too seriously. And that, to me, is one of the greatest gifts of community.
[00:09:43] So here's what I'd love you to think about this week. When was the last time you laughed so hard your jaw hurt? When was the last time your stomach ached because you couldn't stop laughing, and probably a bit of pee came out? When was the last time you did something that had absolutely [00:10:00] no productive outcome whatsoever?
[00:10:02] No lesson, no KPI, no return on investment, just joy Because here's what I have come to believe. Joy isn't something we find when we finish the work. Joy is something we weave into the work. It can take one minute. It can take three minutes. It can take 30 minutes. It can take an afternoon. It doesn't have to be expensive.
[00:10:24] It doesn't have to be planned. We certainly don't need permission. So if you're waiting until life becomes less busy before you allow yourself joy, might be waiting a little while, don't you think? And that's a bit boring. Instead, what I want you to ask yourself is this. What could I do today that would make me smile?
[00:10:44] Who could I call that always makes me laugh? PS, it's probably me. What silly thing have I stopped doing simply because I'm an adult? Because the truth is successful women don't stop needing joy. If anything, they need more of it. Thank you for joining me on another episode of [00:11:00] Tea with the Q. If there is one thing I'd love you to take away today, it's this.
[00:11:05] Build the business, chase the goals, make the sales, lead the team, do the work, but don't forget to laugh until your face hurts every now and then. Your business will survive the three minutes. I have a feeling you'll be better for it as well, and less grumpy. See you next time. Thanks for listening to Tea with the Q.
[00:11:28] If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. It really does help to get the word out. For more about me, please visit emmamcqueen.com.au and I look forward to your company next episode.
