“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” - Alexander Graham Bell

The Open Doors

Client: Merrell Canada

Workshop: Canmore Alberta August 2022

Thursday...

Stiff, sore, incredibly exhausted, and feeling like a failure I rolled into Canmore, Alberta with Asia by my side. Less than one week ago we left Victoria with stars in our eyes, over the moon with excitement to be on our first long distance motorcycle road trip and the potential our future held.

After 4 days of riding, sleeping on a friends floor on the way, and some bad news the stars faded, and the discomfort set in.

It didn't occur to me that a motorcycle road trip with a bike and sidecar would be such an upper body workout. Nor did it occur to me that my back would get sore sitting in one tense position for hours on end.

Not to mention the future work I saw on my near horizon had evaporated only hours before. Less than a week before arriving in Canmore I had received the biggest contract I had yet to receive. Stars weren't the only things in my eyes - dollar signs were dancing as well. But as I rolled into Canmore news hit that the contract was being withdrawn due to the projected recession in the United States, and just like that all the excitement faded away.

Here I was, coming down from rainy Lake Louise feeling like a failure. Worse - a frozen, wet, soggy failure.

How on earth was I supposed to host a workshop revolving around creating our dream lives when I couldn't even make my own dreams come true?!

Feeling utter defeat I pulled into my hotel in Canmore wet, cold, and terrified of the future. I checked into the hotel, brought all of my gear up from the motorcycle, and burst into tears.

I gave myself a moment to feel the feelings. I let each and every tear come out, and gave them the grace they deserved.

Feelings are meant to be felt.

But not dwelled on.

I needed a moment to stare at this closed door in front of me and mourn what could have been. I had my future all planned out. I was going to work with an incredible media company, and slowly over the next three years I would build the coaching and workshop practice of my dreams.

The workshop with Merrell Canada was meant to be just that - a one time workshop. One I had done many times but rarely publicized it. A repeat offering that I dreamt of one day growing into a coaching and workshop collection, but right now my focus was the dream of handing off my film festival company to a media company and working with them for a couple years.

When one door closes, others open.

Here I was, staring at the closed door to the media company, I was about to miss the newly opened door to launching our workshops with full capacity in the way I had always dreamt of.

It was time to take charge of my story.

I was not about to miss the open door while staring at the one that was closed.

In just two day's time I was going to be meeting with 10 incredible people to learn about our brain. I needed to practice what I preach, and redirect my thoughts. I was using my favourite cognitive distortion thinking trap by labeling by calling myself a failure. I was mentally scaring myself out of the events I love most, thinking I was incapable of teaching them because I myself was a work in progress.

Just because I experienced redirection did not mean that the lessons I share held any less value. In fact, they had the opportunity to carry even more weight.

They had the opportunity to become a turning point in my life.

As my tears dried up, I got to work.

I had two days. Two days to dive into Summit Within with full force. Two days to bring everything I had been quietly working on in the background to the foreground. After having the Instagram handle for 3 years, and hosting workshops, coaching and speaking on our topics for the last 5 years, suddenly I had two days to comprehend what I was about to do.

I pulled together the logo I had delicately done many moons ago, the workbooks I had created and all our topics together preparing for the launch at our hike. Suddenly, with all the material I had created over the years amalgamating into one coaching entity the launch seemed less daunting. I have been doing this for years - just in a scattered manner.

I went down to the hotel concierge to pick up the biggest box of Merrell gear I have ever seen. I brought it up to my room and began building everyone's packages so that everyone received a beautiful Merrell bag, water bottle, towel, journal, pen, patch and discount card.

It was clear that this event was going to be sweet...

My family arrived later that afternoon, and we celebrated our reunion out for dinner at my mom's favourite Canmore restaurant - The Iron Goat. This was her birthday weekend, so to be able to launch a company, host a workshop and celebrate one of the most important people in my life all at the same time was an absolute blessing.

Friday

Friday was my scouting day. I hadn't been in the Canmore area since 2019, so I needed to be sure our hike was the perfect route for our group.

Our first choice was Chester Lake in Kananaskis. This beautiful lake hike is a 9.3 km out and back hike that is rated moderate. The views are incredible and the lake is that beautiful see-through turquoise blue, a hike dreams our made of.

However with such a cold June, and snow last reported at the lake on July 21, the bugs were brutal! Not ideal for a 3 hour sit for a workshop!

Next choice: Grassi Knobb Hill Loop. The last time I hiked this gorgeous route was in 2018, but if memory was serving me correct it was a pretty sheltered, and an easy hike that was not a full mountain summit.

Memory served me wrong.

Yes, it was not a full mountain summit, but it was not as easy as I remembered. And with 3 hours of our day dedicated to the workshop the elevation gain involved in hiking Knobb Hill would create a very long and exhausting day. With a general understanding of everyone's capabilities I knew that the steepness of the trail was not ideal for our group.

So, I defaulted back to ol' trusty - the Grotto Loop.

The beautiful thing about Grotto is we could decide as a group where, how far and how high we wanted to go. And since this is a non-guided hike it is important for everyone to gauge their comfort level with the trail.

Huge thanks to my dad, who trekked A LOT of kilometres with me on Friday! I believe we found the perfect spot - if I do say so myself.

Saturday

Before I knew it, Saturday had arrived.

Mom, who is quite honestly my number one supporter and who has come on almost every one of my retreats, workshops and conferences, excitedly got ready for the day. She is quite possibly the cutest human ever, and REFUSED to put her stuff in my backpack. She had to have her own. I love that woman.

I made sure mom's hands held her favourite coffee, and we were off - ready to meet everyone in the Stoney Nakoda parking lot in Kananaskis.

Slowly everyone began to arrive, and our group began to take shape. After a bit of a wait, we handed out our awesome Merrell packages, had an introduction conversation to share which hike we were going to do and help gauge everyone's comfort levels around the difficulty of the hike. We talked about bear safety on the trail, how to use bear spray, and some important safety tips for our non-guided experience.

We left a couple vehicles in the parking lot to eliminate as much driving as possible, and we convoyed to the Alpine Club of Canada's parking lot.

Once we arrived we took a moment to double check out packs, have a quick pee, and learn how to tie our hiking boots to avoid pressure points on the trail. Then, we were off!

After about 1.5 hours on the trail we arrived at our workshop location. With big, beautiful views of the Three Sisters and the town of Canmore, our dopamine levels were vibing high as we stopped for lunch and began our workshop.

The Workshop

The full day Summit Within Workshop is one of my favourites. Paired with a hike we have 3 hours to cover the following topics:

• Unconscious bias

• The evolution of our brain + thinking traps

• Limiting beliefs

• Imposter Syndrome

• Comfort zone expansion

It is an incredible experience to see everyone collaboratively working through the 4 mini activities and 4 larger exercises together. We are all journaling, standing up and moving our bodies, and partnering to share our experiences, together.

What I personally love about these workshops is how we are actively hacking our brains. When we reach our summit, and are rewarded with a beautiful view - like the Three Sisters in the case of this workshop - we are literally hacking our brains.

Recent studies have shown how important dopamine is to our learning experiences. Dopamine is the chemical in the brain that controls reward-motivated behaviour, pleasure and memory in the brain.

These workshops actually utilize our natural production of dopamine at the summit of our hike to hijack our learning capabilities and motivation to increase attention spans among learners and inspire further learning.

By utilizing a dopamine release while learning we are:

1. Increasing the pace in which we learn

2. Strengthening our ability to retain information

3. Inspiring new perspectives and an expanding of the mind

In the blog post "Why Outside" I dive into this holistic brain hack even further. I also link the studies referenced for further research.

Regardless of the brain hack or not - the results were tangible. Here we were, starting the day as 10 strangers who are now encouraging each other's dreams, goals and capabilities as we overcome the barriers we didn't even know existed.

It was a pretty incredible experience.

Here are a collection of photos from the day! Scroll down to read more about the end of the weekend, my personal learnings and my must have Merrell gear.

Our workshop ended at 4 pm, and almost everyone opted in for an optional post event hang out at The Blake in Canmore. What a beautiful way to end this blue-bird day, and what an INCREDIBLE public launch of Summit Within!

If it wasn't for the tools I use - and coach - to hack my brain, I would have missed this incredible opportunity to launch while still mourning the closed door.

It turns out hacking our brain does truly create the most beautiful, true authentic life!

Final Goodbyes

Leaving Canmore was bitter sweet. Though my back craved a real bed, and my feet were exhausted from clocking some serious kilometres on Friday and Saturday, my heart was so full of love it was hard to hit the road.

With it being mom's birthday, the road home was especially hard to fathom. This cute go-getter of a human is my inspiration each and every day. Dang blessed to have her rooting me on.

Lessons Learned

As I reflect on our first official Summit Within workshop experience I cannot help but see a tangible example of why hacking our brains is so unbelievably important in our everyday life.

I had the potential of missing out on a whole new exciting chapter of my life. I could have mourned the closed door to the media company, allowing myself to spiral downward into negativity and convincing myself that I was a failure.

This spiral had the potential to ruin a workshop, and close more doors the deeper we went.

Instead, I had a tight turn around to identify the open door and get my booty in gear.

I allowed myself to mourn. I did not shut down the feelings. As I mourned I identified the thinking traps to ensure I wouldn't get stuck in that thought process.

I moved through my feelings with awareness, which allowed for a quick pivot.

This is something I love focusing on with clients.

Thinking traps are our brains natural path. Some research suggests that cognitive distortions were a survival technique, other research suggests that negative neural pathways are easier to create than positive.

Regardless of their reason for existence, cognitive distortions alter our reality.

When we practice awareness, we are able to shift our reality.

My labeling distortion could have won.

Instead, I did.

I look forward to bringing this practice to you, so you can pivot too!

Merrell MVP's

A huge thank you to Merrell Canada for supporting this event. Their encouragement of this workshop was beyond a brand connection. Merrell Canada truly wants to make the world a better place. They empower, engage and inspire their consumers – every step of the way.

My MVP's for this event were:

1. My Siren Travellers, which have zero pressure points and are my new favourite shoe.

2. My dad hat, but mine was green!

3. My two duffel bags, which I strapped to my bike like a maniac and they arrived round trip good as new.

I cannot wait for our next Summit Within Workshop Series in Victoria BC!

(This time only a 20 minute road trip away!)

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