Creative Entrepreneur Retreats that Inspire Action with Jaime Nolan

I’m chatting with Jaime Nolan from the Anima Collective about why a retreat should send you home with a plan, and how ADHD or multi-passionate business owners can actually get stuff done (and not want to burn their businesses down every six weeks!)

In this episode:

2:27 The amazing retreat house that makes it all possible
5:49 Why in-person retreats help women entrepreneurs break through
7:25 Planning your business year so you don’t scramble last-minute
10:31 The “six months vs. six weeks” theory for business progress
14:48 How multi-passionate/ADHD entrepreneurs can rotate their offers for more focus

Hang out with Jaime:
https://www.theanimacollective.com
https://www.instagram.com/the_anima_collective
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimenolan
https://www.youtube.com/@theanimalcollective

Hang out with Deanna:
https://deannaseymour.com
https://instagram.com/thedeannaseymour

🪩 Check out The Playhouse: A networking community for creative business owners at jointheplayhouse.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hey, welcome back to my series Cool People Doing Cool Things. I'm Deanna Seymour, graphic designer, creative director, and founder of the Playhouse, where networking is actually fun. Today I'm hanging out with Jamie Nolan, founder of the Anima Collective, life and business coach, and her cool thing that caught my eye was a super fun retreat in a wildly creative house in Florida. We are gonna dive into the difference between aspirational retreats and retreats that send you home with an actual plan, and the fake retreat that I hosted a couple of years ago. Jamie blows my mind with an idea of six months versus six weeks ago, and we talk about multi-passionate and ADHD entrepreneurs accidentally maybe changing directions too often. And also a cool paint palette analogy for rotating through your offers throughout the year. All right, let's just get to the episode already. Jeez. Hey Jamie, how's it going? Good. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being here. Um, I I know I already said this, but I just love your glasses. So I'm saying it one more time for the people who can't see them, so they can have some FOMO. Like, how cool are these glasses? I love them.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Listen, man, glasses are the best. They are there, they can they can just take the place of having to do makeup. So that's why I like to wear ones, big ones.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Oh my gosh, I have context, but um, you're right. Maybe that would be a more strategic play for me. I like it. Um, okay. So I had you on this series of cool people doing cool things because let's see, we okay, so we're connected through Kara Steinman through Ravel, who has her new platform, Raina, which is where I was like, oh yeah, hey, Jamie, oh my gosh. And we reconnected there. And then, you know, when you're on one of those platforms, you just like re-click, at least I do, on people's, you know, you like catch up. You're like, what's going on here? And I somehow stumbled upon your retreat on your website. And I was like, oh my gosh, this looks amazing. Will you come on and talk to me about it? And now we're here.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Amazing. I I love how we get here.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Um, okay, so let's just dive right in. This retreat looks really fun. Um, the house is really cool. Have you done it? Like, it seems like you've done it before. Is it yeah?

SPEAKER_01 2:09

So this was the second year that we did it, and um, we will have another one in September, and then another one, and then the following like January, February, we'll have another one. So um, yes, the house is my friend's house. It's called the Tribute to Animation. It's like an Airbnb you can rent, and it's got it's the best. It has it's the best retreat house because it has 15 bedrooms and 17 bathrooms. And so you can be on retreat, but not feel like you're on top of a bunch of people. Um, and yeah, the idea from it came from this idea that we really wanted to have a retreat where you actually do something, like you come out of it like with a plan to continue to do things, not just like in the theory. Um, the kind of coaching I do is really that idea of like, I don't want it to like think about how we're gonna do stuff. Like, I want you to actually do stuff. And like there's so many cool people doing cool things in the world, so we might as well do those things like really well.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Yes. Okay, so you don't know this about me, but I did um like a fake retreat a couple of years ago because what is a fake retreat? Well, I never like hosted a retreat, but I honestly, I mean, I have little kids, they're six and nine now, so I guess they were probably like five and eight back then. And I was like just talking to my one friend who I boxer with all the time, and I was like, uh, I feel like I want to like, we need to get away and like do some work without these families of ours like getting in our way. And so then I just, you know, was like kind of daydreaming and looking on Airbnb. And I found I'm in Richmond, Virginia. I found a beach house in North Carolina, and I was like, okay, this seems like maybe we could do it. And so I was like, Will you split this house with me if I can't get anyone else to sign up? And there was only like four bedrooms, I think four or five. But we I ended up like inviting a couple other friends, like, so it wasn't like a real retreat. There wasn't like a sales.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Listen, it was a beta. It was a beta.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

It wasn't a fake, it was a beta. Beta. Um, and one of the people who came did say, Oh my gosh, I'm getting so much done because I'd never done a retreat before. So I was like, we're mostly gonna like co-work and like chat, share each, like basically what we do on Boxer is just do it in person and you know, sit at this house and get stuff done. Your retreat does look legit. So I will say that. But I was like, when I saw your retreat, I was like, oh, okay, this is this is what I could see my my beta, not my fake, my beta retreat turning into. Um, and it was cool because also I just want to say I like that it's a house because I was kind of like, okay, four was nice and cozy, but we all like knew each other. So it was, it wasn't like I don't think I could have put up a sales page and just got like four different people. Um you know what I mean? Like, but 15 feels like a bigger group. You can branch off into smaller groups, like a bigger house. Everybody has their own bedroom, everyone has a bathroom. So, anyways, I did start after that. I never did it again. So, like I would have done it again, but I was like, oh my gosh, like it feels hard. Like, I'll wait on that.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Um listen, I I will tell you that retreats are hard and they're also the best. And it's like it's always so interesting to me, like what you can get out of them because, like, and like setting the intention really high on the idea of like, okay, like what are we trying to do? Like, this was the second time I had done this retreat, but I've run like many retreats in my career and this space of like really being able to be like, all right, what's the purpose of this? And like, where do you want people to go? Like, what do you want to get done? And and I think so many times for like women business owners, and you know, especially like you gotta leave, you gotta go somewhere, yeah, you gotta have some food, yeah, you have to really be able, it's like you need other people to get those things moving, and it's amazing what can happen in a couple days, you know. Like, you're like, all right, I've had all these ideas in all these different places. Like, can I get them to come together into one thing? And like on the working retreats, like I love I want to have more of those. I want to do more of the like, hey, everybody's coming and you're working on your stuff, and we're gonna like have points where we come together and like come apart and you know, do do actual work. I'm not very good at like being quiet, so like I need like a timer set so that I will please shut up for a minute. And like that stuff is great. It's such a great like way to like meet people and do things and like really get stuff done. I mean, our intention in this one was like we're gonna plan the whole year. Like when you think of planning your whole year, like a lot of times it's like, it's like, oh, I can do one million things in a year. And it's like, okay, no, you can't. Like, you can't. And then you're just disappointed. So then it's like, okay, like let's plan it out. Like, what does that really look like? We do um, like, okay, these are the things you want to do or host. Most of a lot of the people that are coming are like coaches or healers, or well, we had some, we had the real estate person there this time. So, like having like the idea of like, okay, what happens over the course of the year and like where do those things go into place? And then, like, what actually like what does the sales page look like? And how long does it take you to make that? And then, like, what's the sales cycle? Is it because people want to do stuff in six weeks, and it's like, no, people need like three months to decide that they're going to like pay for this thing. So you have to be like six months back. And this idea of like that's the work, and then like the actual thing is like, oh, okay, like I accomplished the finish line is there, but you know, we wanna we wanna shorten a lot of stuff and then also like elongate things that don't need to be elongated, right? It's like if you can see it on some kind of track, you're like, oh, okay, this has to be finished so that I can do this. And like knowing that each of those things finishing to start the next thing is like feels really good.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yeah, I'm the queen of like, oh my gosh, it's about to be Christmas. I should do something Christmassy, but it's like December 9th, you know? And I'm like, oh my god, it's like snowing outside. We should do something Christmassy. And I'm like, oh, I think I was supposed to be planning that like back in September to launch something Christmassy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

So I think those like launches are like those kinds of things where you're like, hey, what do I want to do? Right. Because like if you don't choose what you want to do, you're gonna get roped into something. Yeah, and like a lot of times those something are not like that interesting. You know, you're like, I I would have, if in September I started thinking about the Christmassy thing I wanted to plan, right? Like, I wouldn't have done the weird things I did in September, October, and November that have led to like not exactly what I want. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Or you also probably don't have that feeling of like just kind of being reactive and flounder and just sort of being like, I guess I'll do this. Like, okay, it's Christmas, I'll do that. Like, it sounds more intentional if you start the year off by kind of having a plan. And so I also love that you were talking about like not just theory. Now my brain is like not working. I'm like, did we say this before we hit record or not? Like a little snarer is gonna be like, that didn't happen, or you're I'm like a chat GPT, I'm hallucinating. But whether it was before this or after we hit record, we were talking about like getting stuff done, like not just theory. Um, so can you talk a little bit more about that? Like it sounds like people also leave your retreat with like a really solid plan and probably some of it already checked off. But even if like you can't obviously plan and implement your whole year in a weekend as much as we wish we could.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

We wish we could, but you know, yeah. I mean, to me, like there's like all the different stages, right, of your business and like how to I mean, planning literally anything, but like the idea of you want to be able to like not just talk about it, right? We've all had one million ideas, and if you were in the entrepreneur space, you probably have had 10 million ideas, right? You're like, oh, and we can talk about them until we are, you know, seven years down the road, but until you actually like do the steps, you can't then narrow the field, right? Like there's so many times we have these ideas, like, oh, I'm gonna like I want to build this kind of thing, and then you start building it, you're like, I hate this. Yes, and the only way you're gonna find that out is to build it. Like, you can't over-theorize most things, and so it's like, all right, it's really a good idea to like set up parameters for yourself. Like, I'm gonna try this for three months, like I'm gonna try this for six months, and how long people think some stuff takes. I heard this quote, like, I don't even I wish I knew where it came from because I would go back and find it, but it was that the work you did six months ago is showing up, and the thing you didn't do six weeks ago is also showing up.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

And I okay, wait, we have to hold on, my brain is like on table today. So we have to figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Like what you were working on six months ago, like is it has taken that long for it to show up over here, like as a product, as a thing, as a whatever. But what you didn't do six weeks ago is also showing up. Okay. So if you were like six months ago, you were super gung ho, you were doing the thing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're like, I want to have 12 clients by, you know, six months from whatever. Let's six months ago was November, right? So, no, further back, whatever. October, you're like, oh, okay, I want this. And you do you start doing the work, right? You're putting out the emails, you're talking to people, you're doing the networking, but you're on the early stage of it. And you're like, it's gonna take this long. Oh, I'm gonna put up the posts, I'm gonna like, I'm gonna start writing my Substack, I'm gonna do these things, right? Six months. If you just kept doing those things in six months, it would be showing up. But if six weeks back, like so now we're only whatever, we are in April right now, six weeks back was like the end of February. If six weeks back, you're like, fuck it, I hate this, I'm not doing it. I I don't want to. Like that is like those two things can like be coexisting, and but it's like that's why like the results don't come in in a way that feels like good, right? You might have been like, Oh, I had all these calls, right? I had all these, all these people sign up for to be on the podcast, they're all coming, they're here, whatever. Oh, I'm doing all these interviews, but like six weeks ago I didn't feel like editing. And then you're like, oh, they didn't show, like, oh, now I'm behind. And so it's like that energy. If you're always balancing those two things out, of thinking about like, huh, what was I doing six months ago? Things that are good that are showing up are like the things that you were doing six months ago, the networking, the this, the that, you know. But the stuff that is like, huh, I don't know why this isn't working, looking back six weeks is why.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

And it's almost always true. I mean, sometimes it's like, oh, it was two weeks ago or whatever, but it's like the not working is usually in a much shorter period of time, and the working has been for much longer.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

So I would imagine just making sure you find I mean, I talk about this too, but now the way the way you're putting it, I'm like, oh, this is cool. Like finding things that are sustainable for you so you can just keep doing them. And like six months ago you started doing this thing, and six weeks ago you didn't want to like burn it all down. Right. Is that what we're talking about?

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Yeah, and it's that idea of like, all right, like the consistency of what you're into, and the the other pieces, like realizing in like how many six-week periods are in there that there's like the one thing that you're just not doing, like either A, hire somebody else to do it, because you obviously don't want to, or B, like figure out how to do it because it probably doesn't take as long as you think.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Like the never ending, like I waited eight months to do this thing and it took me 12 minutes. Like I that this is, you know, this is the entrepreneur problem.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

But well, what about okay? So I am ADHD lady. Do you see a lot with people multi-passionate or or diagnosed a neurodivergent or whatever reason? Um, that sometimes we change, we change too often. And then that at that six weeks, it's like we started something six months ago, and then five months ago we were like, Oh, we're just gonna, we're just gonna noodle on this a little bit. We're just gonna, we're gonna tweak it, we're gonna change it. Is that a bad idea? Sometimes.

unknown 14:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Well, I feel like there's always a narrowing that is a good idea, right? You can start with something really big and then bring it in and bring it in and like and recognize like the different parts, right? Like, like, I want to have a business is like a big idea, right? But like coming down to, you know, like if you're like, oh, I'm gonna sell something online or I'm gonna whatever I'm gonna do, right? Like that you can keep getting a little bit more clear, but you don't want to be taking like hard rights off the path, right? And the space of it is is like, you know, in most of the neurodivergence, and just if you're most multi-passionate, it's like figuring out what your time frames are. So much of the time, like if you're a kind of person that's like, I hate doing things for a year or six months or whatever, then pick four things that you can do, you know, rotatingly, right? Yeah, because you can get back into them, right? Like, I'm a coach, but I run three accelerators a year that are a group. I run like one-on-one coaching, which I love. I run two retreats and I have a community, right? So I am very multipassionate. All of them point in the same general direction of like, I really just like helping women entrepreneurs. That's my favorite thing to do. But I need a little bit of excitement on the who and the how, right? Like, because I need a little bit of a tweak on like, you know, the pieces, I need there to be some novelty. One of the reasons I like working with clients is because the every one of their problems is different. What I'm doing is the same, but their stuff is different, right? So it it gives me the variety that I need. If you know you need a lot of variety, you know, having multiple things, just don't have your multiple things overlapping hard. You know, they can, they can, they can fade in and out of each other, but they should not be like, hey, we're gonna launch two things at the exact same moment. They shouldn't, you know, be like, oh, I'm promoting seven things at the same time, and then they all run at the same time. Like, that's a bad idea.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe it's also a bad idea to just be like, these are the five things I do all year round. There's no like launches, there's no open close, and then you're just have five things to do, but it's kind of boring because they're all you're like not really focused on any one of them at any time.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah, you can't give every you can't like you can't give a hundred percent to add anything, and so then you're like, you're like, am I using the other things as a distraction? Right? Like it's fine to have multiple things, it's good to know how they relate to each other, right? Do my retreats leave in l lead into my accelerators? Yes. Do my accelerators leave it lead into one-on-one coaching? Yes. Does my community show people what I do? Yes. Is the community a great place for people to go after they've done any of these things to still be connected with people? Yes. So then it's like it's it's a very clear circle of, you know, things. Do people leave? Of course. But that it's that the the points of it make sense and it doesn't take me out, right? Because I mean, the the problem that you're always trying to combat is your own, you know, boredom, your own mental capacity, your own physical capacity, your own energetic capacity, because like those are the pieces that make you be like, oh, well, that's interesting. That's not interesting. That could, but the thing that's not interesting could actually make me some money right now. Right. And so it's like knowing where where the money's coming. I mean, if you're in business, right? If you're not in business, if it's just a hobby, then that's fine. But if you want to like make money from the thing, so you have to know where it's coming from.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Yeah. Okay. I like that. I like that. Having that sort of like a little paint palette that you can pick which color you're painting with during what time of year. Yes. But it's still like all connected. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Yeah. And if it's gonna be like, you know, if you're like, hey, I like go between these things, at least like, hey, I'm working on these things on Monday, first week of the month or the whatever, like just being intentional about what you're doing, not letting it be too willy-nilly out there in the world. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Well, I actually experimented with like I love my newsletters. I love writing my newsletters, but I did kind of start, I guess, to get a little burnt, a little burnt out on them or something. Well, no, I know what I did. I have my community, the playhouse. And then I was like, I don't want to use this, it's just a random thing. Like now looking back, I'm like, why did I decide I don't want to use the heartbeat automated emails? I want to write my own emails for them every other week. And so then I just started kind of changing the levers of segmenting my list and when I'm gonna email and whatever. And then I like wasn't emailing as much. And I'm like, oh, because a Thursday at 1.45 is when I've been sending emails for years. That's what works, that's what I need to do. So I had to like go back to it and be like, this is boring, quote unquote. But like in that, like I can write an email about anything I want. I can make cute graphics, I can make funny jokes. Like writing the emails was fun. When I started messing with the like logistics of it, I was like, oh, I don't, I just write them when I like feel like writing them, which sometimes wasn't happening. You know, like I was like, oh gosh, okay, we need that structure, that like container to be creative inside.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

That's okay. Yes, a lot of times I think about it too. Like, I like the idea of like parameters as opposed to like hard rules, right? Like the ADG, my brain does not like to be told what to do, even if it's by me. Yeah, at all. I will rebel directly against myself, even for the greater good. So I'm like, okay, I like to think of it as like the bumpers in the bowling alley, right? We're still going down the lane, we're just not veering off course here. Yeah. Like, okay, you can hit the bumper, you can bump to side to side, but we're staying here, you know, and that space of being able to like really like know, like parameter-wise, like I always send in Easter days at 145. I might be writing it at 1222 on a Thursday, or I might be inspired on Monday and have it finished, right? Of the like space, but that the parameters are like they flow a little, like it's not such a hard, fast thing that you like you know, wanna bang into and rebel against.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Exactly. And you called it. That's exactly how I do it. Some days I'm writing them right in kit right before I hit send. And sometimes I'm like, oh my God, I have two. I have two really good stories that are like ready to go for the next two weeks. Look at me. Um, I love that. Okay, let's talk really quick just about this idea, because I know we already kind of talked about it, but like there are some retreats or some events where it's very aspirational. And like you kind of leave like hyped up, but you're also like, okay, now what? Like now then you get home and you get back to your house with your kids and your partner and like you know, life. And you're like, huh, now I have to do all these things. So I kind of want to talk just for a little bit about um the idea of um creating space at your retreat to get stuff done. Cause I think that's also why I sort of called my my retreat a little bit fake. Because I was like, well, we're mostly just doing stuff, or we're mostly just hanging out and doing stuff, which I felt like a retreat had to be a little more like aspirational. You know what I mean? So that's why. But so then when I also saw yours was like getting stuff done, I was like, oh, maybe it was fake. Maybe it was real.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

So no, listen, it was real. It was just a beta. You're good. Um, and I think that space of like there's the the aspirational is great. Like we all need I mean, mine had a little aspirational to it, but like it ha you have to have some to be able to like step into the realm of expansion, right? Like to get your mind getting out of the like day to day, like. I gotta like type the emails and do the things and blah blah blah and pay the bills and make sure my children are, you know, fed and safe and you know, not killing each other and all those things, right? And then you're like, okay, but like what's the big picture? Right. Like we don't spend enough time like picking our heads up and like looking around, you know. You're like, what am I doing? Where am I going? What am I, you know, am I still contained by the bumbers that I set? And so it's like, I always think it's a good idea to have like a couple times a year to be able to be somewhere else. I think that the being somewhere else is a huge piece of it. I think the setting intention on like what is going to be finished, like in our retreat, you leave with your entire like we do a map of your business of like where does the money come from and how do the people get to the places? And we map that whole thing out, and then we map out what they're what you're gonna do for the year. And most of the time, people coming to my retreat, they are pretty aware of what they're doing. Like they're not like, I have no idea. So it's like, oh yeah, I'm doing this and this and this. And then when they put it on, because we do it on physical paper, there's something about physical paper and writing it down and you looking at it and being like, oh, I always have this thing back to back with this thing, and that's why this doesn't work. It's like, oh, I've never had more than five people enroll in this. It's like, okay, but are you pitching three things at once? And so you've gotten 15 people, not 15 and three, you know, and so like really looking at how it's gonna work, and then we try to break down the first quarter for everybody. Like, these are the things you are gonna do, and we check back in. I mean, I am like accountability is the only way, like, especially if you are living on the uh neurodivergence spectrum over here. Like, I mean, the number of times I've gone back to a notebook two years later, and I was like, that was a great idea that has gone out to the universe, right? Because you need the people to be like, hey, what about say you were going to like those kinds of things? And I love like doing it in a space with like other women. I think it's so important to be able to, you know, tell these things to people and then know that they're gonna ask you about it later. Like everyone on our retreat always comes out with like, we don't assign accountability partners, but they all eventually get one where they're like, oh, we're doing the same thing. Okay, we're gonna keep each other accountable. Okay, we're doing this, and like that level of up-leveling is so important, right? You need you need to know other people are struggling, you need to know other people are doing it, you need to know other people are like, I don't want to, but I will. You know, you need to have those things in your life to be able to be like, okay, if they did it, then this is possible. If this person is doing this with this situation in their life, like, I have no excuse, let's go. You just you need that like forward momentum. And I feel like the the only way to have that is to step out of your regular everyday day.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Yes, I love that. So, yeah, mine was beta. It's not fake, it's beta. It's a beta. I love it. Okay, this was so much fun. Tell everybody where they can learn more about you, hang out with you, maybe come to the retreat. They want to see this house. You guys gotta check out this house. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

The house, the house we have is like a fully Disneyed uh, because I'm in Miami. So we I have a friend who he who owns this house in Orlando and it's super cool. Um, the Anima Collective is how you find me. I mean, you can find all of my stuff from there. Um, Anima means soul, and so it is always a great place. We have a community that's open, totally free, and so we have some events that happen that during the month, but you know, I'm on the socials and doing all the things under that name.

unknown 25:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Okay. Well, this was awesome. Thanks for hanging out with me, cool person doing cool things. Thank you for having me. I love I love talking to other cool people doing other cool things.