112: {Solo} Level Up Your Leadership Recap

In this episode, I share my transformative experience at the Level Up Your Leadership retreat in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Over the course of three days, myself and nine other women engaged in immersive learning, team-building activities, and personal growth exercises. The retreat emphasized the importance of mindset, resilience, and self-care for business leaders, culminating in a powerful meditation session on the beach. I encourages listeners to invest in their personal development through similar experiences.

takeaways

• Every person should attend a leadership retreat for growth.
• Immersive experiences provide clarity and connection.
• Team-building activities enhance critical thinking skills.
• Mental resilience is crucial for business owners.
• Self-care is essential for effective leadership.
• Meditation can be challenging but rewarding.
• Networking with like-minded individuals is invaluable.
• Personal development retreats foster community and support.
• Investing time and money in growth is worth it.
• Transformative experiences can lead to significant insights.

Transcript

Caroline Pennington (00:01.528)
All right, in today's episode, I am recapping my week. I just spent the past week at Level Up Your Leadership in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Casey D'Amato was our host and business mentor for a fabulous weekend, so I just wanna talk through exactly what that looked like and why every single person should attend a leadership retreat, a mastermind, whatever fill in the blank that looks like for you. Yes, it costs time.

Yes, it costs money, but it is worth it every single time. Okay, so this Level Up Your Leadership retreat was a two and a half day immersive experience where we dove into our businesses, into our mindsets, into taking care of ourself, our bodies, our health, and it truly was an amazing experience. I arrived on Monday. There was, let me back up.

This was an event that opened and closed last year and was set for the January of 2025. so Casey, who is an executive leadership coach, business strategist, she's built and scaled multiple businesses and I can't say enough nice things about her. She opened up 10 slots. She wanted to do a live event and she wanted to host it in her hometown, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

And so I applied and was accepted to be part of this. So there was 10 women that were a part of this Level Up Your Leadership Retreat. And each of us, all of us have our own businesses. We all do different things and have different niches, but we are all around the same levels in our experience levels and where we want to go with our businesses. So the first day started on, well, I got there on Monday. I got there early because

A couple of the other girls were getting there early. I know I to spend time with them and get to know them better and create more connection with each of them. So I got there around noon on Monday. I was coming from South Carolina. The couple of the girls started arriving in the later in afternoon on Monday. I was able to get some work in, but we had a lovely dinner and happy hours together, just getting to know each other on more of a personal level on Monday night, which was so fun and we had such a good time.

Caroline Pennington (02:13.131)
Tuesday was the official day when the leadership retreat started. So we started around 1145. We had a working lunch. So we talked about what it looked like to lean to our future, how to master our mindset, and the critical balance of successful leadership and what that looked like. We dove into the nitty gritty of how to grow our business, the bottom line in the economy, and strategic approaches to growth and identifying opportunities, regardless of how the economy is doing.

So that was a full day of literally drinking out of a business fire hose, but it was so, so, so good because it gave me the clarity that I needed as how I'm moving forward with my new LinkedIn marketing agency. So after that, let me stop and wait. At the very end of our session, Casey is a Zumba fan. And so Casey had her Zumba instructor come in and give us a private Zumba class. And my gosh, he came in with a full boombox on his shoulders.

and two additional fitness instructors with him and his energy was literally so insane in all the best ways. So we ended the business session with the Zumba class and it was so, so, so fun. All of us were lit up with energy, like super excited about everything. So then we walked down the street and had a fabulous dinner at Dune D-U-N-E by Lauren Truesdale. It was a beautiful event outside. We had a table and.

preset menu and desserts that even had Sprecklers and were lit on fire. And that was just such a great experience. Day two was a full day from basically 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. So we met, had a casual breakfast, then we went off site for an activity and we had no clue what we were going. We had no clue what we were doing, like no information whatsoever. So, you know, it's a little unsettling to just have a car pick you up and you don't know where you're going, but we all trust Casey.

and knew that it would be a great experience. So the cars took us to a escape room in Port Lauderdale. And for those of you that don't know, being in an escape room definitely put me out of my comfort zone. I've never done one before. It was a first time experience for me. And so they split us into two groups. And I was in the group that the escape room that we had, we had to crack the code and solve the mystery of a serial killer. And so that experience was just...

Caroline Pennington (04:37.541)
You had to complete it in under an hour and it was just amazing. You had to work together as a team. You had to use critical thinking skills. You were put in an uncomfortable situation. Had to figure out how to push past your comfort zone and actually move forward in completing the task. And we actually completed the task in under an hour. We had eight minutes to spare. And so we were pretty proud of that. We worked really hard together with finding the clues. You watch the television with the mystery and they kind of roll everything out and then you get a letter.

And then from there on, you literally have to figure everything out as far as the clues. So it takes a lot of critical thinking skills. And the reason that she had us do that is she really wanted us to press our boundaries because as business owners, we will be put in uncomfortable situations. There will be lawsuits. There are going to be uncomfortable things having to do with accounting or finances or taxes. And so she wanted to make sure that we were mentally resilient and could be prepared for those types of things because we're going to face those as business owners and founders.

So I thought that was a great activity, very creative. We came back to the hotel and we dove straight into how we're gonna take care of our team, growing our team, compensation, org charts, how to compensate for success, how to time block for maximum impact. And we had a full blown mastermind session at the end of that day. So another day of completely drinking from a fire hose when it comes to business. And it was so, so, so good because it gave me a lot of clarity as to how I need to be spending my time.

Especially since I just launched my LinkedIn marketing agency two weeks ago. being cognizant of how I'm spending my time, where I'm spending my time to grow my business is huge. So after that, we were done around 4.30 or 5. Me and some of the ladies went, had a glass of wine by the fire, by the ocean, just to hear the waves and kind of soak everything in and decompress for the day.

And later that night we had dinner at this place called Shooters in Fort Lauderdale and it was so freaking good. I cannot say the most amazing things about this place. I mean, it was right on the waterfront on the canals. They had yachts pulling up, people getting off, fabulous food, know, fire pits, streaming lights, everything, all the things. So if you ever go to Fort Lauderdale, you definitely should have dinner at Shooters. Day three was our final day. That was Thursday and that was a day

Caroline Pennington (06:57.794)
completely full of meditation, manifestation, and trust building. So that morning started out on the beach. Casey had a occupational therapist and a Reiki mentor come and guide the session for us. And so what we did is this all happened on the beach. So we walked outside, we had our own space, our own towels, our own umbrellas to really.

Focus on ourselves, focus on our minds, focus on finding peace and grounding as we continue this business journey. And that was so helpful because as business leaders and female founders, we have to take care of ourselves before we can take care of anyone else. And that means our health, it means regulating our nervous system, it means meditating and calming our mind, which I don't know about you, but for me, meditation is very hard. I am like a squirrel and thinking about things like every single second.

But this past year I actually have tried really hard to spend time meditating and manifesting. I can only do two minutes. At this point my goal is eventually to get to five. But we take baby steps, right? So you gotta give yourself grace and forgiveness. But that was a really amazing day of just working on ourselves, working on our minds.

thinking through our thoughts, processing our thoughts, and it just was truly transformative. She did the sound bowl healing, the gong, like the chimes, all the things. It was just so amazing, and it couldn't have a more beautiful day in sunny Fort Lauderdale, and just being by the beach and listening to the waves was just so, so special. And if you're listening to this and you're like, I don't have a beach to stay on and do meditation, I don't either, I don't live on the beach.

But one thing I've done, especially if the weather is okay, is I just go outside of my porch and I put a mat down and that's when I sit down and I focus on my thoughts and I manifest my future, what I my day to look like, and I feel like that's been super helpful with regulating my nervous system, which has been just huge overall in the health department. So ending this, if you have the opportunity to go to a leadership retreat, to go to a personal development conference,

Caroline Pennington (09:05.569)
to be included in a mastermind, I would highly, highly encourage you to do so because not only will you be surrounded with other women who are investing in themselves and doing the same things as you are, is you will literally make so much, you will have so much clarity when you end the event and so much connection with other humans doing the same things that you're doing so you don't have to feel like you're alone through this journey and it truly is an amazing, immersive experience and I can't say enough wonderful things about it.

So until next time.