Q & A Episode 43 - Kettlebells, Campfires & Canyons: The Zion Retreat Recap
Episode #43 | Q&A with Mark D. Williams | Kettlebells, Campfires & Canyons: The Zion Retreat Recap
In this special Q&A episode, Mark recaps the inaugural Curious Builder Bootcamp held in Zion National Park. From early morning journaling and kettlebell workouts to canyon rappelling and Jeffersonian-style campfire chats, hear how 12 builders unplugged from daily life to reconnect with themselves and each other. It wasn’t just a retreat—it was a reset.
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About The Curious Builder
The host of the Curious Builder Posdast is Mark D. Williams, the founder of Mark D. WIlliams Custom Homes Inc. They are an award-winning Twin Cities-based home builder, creating quality custom homes and remodels — one-of-a-kind dream homes of all styles and scopes. Whether you’re looking to reimagine your current space or start fresh with a new construction, we build homes that reflect how you live your everyday life.
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Mark D. Williams 00:00
If you haven't registered for the contractor coalition summit yet, please head to the curious builder podcast.com, under events or directly to the contractor coalition summit.com for event details. It's June 19 through the 23rd if you're looking to level up your business and take that next step, trust me. As someone who's gone four times, I can't tell you how valuable the information is that is shared, as well as the connections that you make with builders across the country, head to contractor coalition summit.com to learn more and sign up today. It was really fun to watch people overcome some of their fear of heights, tackle something new, and it was really fun for me to ask them, like, Hey, what'd you think of that? Did you like that? Did you not like that? Was that? Was that? And it was really funny to see people's faces as they lean back into the rope and go down these 100, 200 foot cliff faces with very little training. Welcome to curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host. Today is Thursday, which is our Q and A and I thought I would address our recent Zion boot camp. So last week, if you've been following our feed, we did a boot camp for the curious builder. A couple months ago, we did our first health and wellness event, which was sauna camp in Minneapolis, or just west, where we had sauna and cold plunge. And this one was a little bit more intense. It was three days. The goal was to get between 10 and 20 builders. I wanted the group to be much smaller, more intimate. We ended up getting 12 builders from around the country. We had a couple last minute people get sick, so our numbers were affected a little bit. But it was really great. We flew out to Las Vegas, and then we did a two hour trip down to Zion National Park, and we stayed at this place called under canvas. You can look it up. It's pretty amazing. It's kind of like, that's basically glamping. There's no two ways about it. There's beds, showers, but it's all off the grid. It was really cool. One of the reasons we picked it is I wanted a national park. I wanted it somewhere in the US. I think next year we're going to go international, and we'll talk about that maybe a little bit later. And this, anyway, it's off the grid, so it's got a well, it's got solar, and it's got kind of a dark night principle. So at night, there's no outdoor lights on, and it's some of the most majestic star gazing universe in your life. It's pretty incredible, but you're out in the desert looking down into design National Park, incredible esthetic. The whole goal of this boot camp was to do a couple of things. One was to get owners from around the country together, just to get out of their heads, do something totally different, and it's definitely celebrating health and wellness. And we decided to do no phones. So as soon as people we got to camp, we had a drop bag, and everyone had to drop their phones in. And for the three days that we were there, there was no cell phone contact. And it was just to kind of break the habit. As business owners, we get so used to being accessible to our clients, but really we go down the rabbit hole social media posting, and it becomes a habit, and it's fine. It's part of our business. We need to do it. But I really wanted to take these three days and kind of reset the brain, and so that was really actually one of my favorite things that we did. We'll definitely carry that through for the future boot camps as well. And I think was really well received. A couple of people kept asking. We kept making jokes about it, like, oh, this would be a beautiful shot to take a photo of. Oh, wait, I don't have my phone, but we did have Kaylee Lamo there, or Lemoine, and she'll be doing a bunch of photo and video releases here in the coming weeks, so we can kind of share what we did as well, share it with all the people that were there. So I didn't want that to be the main focus. I wanted people to be wanted people to be very present. So the first day, we all arrived there and got settled in, did a nice talk, Introduction to everyone around the campfire that night, did some s'mores like your little kids again, and just chatting, getting people to know each other. I had the benefit of knowing most of the builders that were there previously, but just getting to know them a little bit deeper. One of the things that we ended up doing that was really left a big impact for me is someone had recently told me about it's called Jefferson Ian meals, and we've all been to, excuse me, we've all been to a dinner where you have six, 810, people, and you end up only having a conversation With the people that are right next to you. And you know the it's nice when you have a group, if everyone can stay on topic. And so I guess Thomas Jefferson used to do this. He would invite 1214, people over, and the rules are no distractions. So we had that covered, and only one question is posed at a time, and no one else can talk, so whoever's talking gets the floor, and everyone gets a chance to share their opinion on a particular topic. And it was really nice. We did this each night around the campfire, and I won't go into what everyone shared, because that's was the benefit of being at the camp and being in the moment. But a couple of the questions, one of them was, what is your favorite quote and how do you apply it to your life? And of course, I've mentioned the one I always mentioned on the podcast, which is boundaries create freedom. There's also another one I talk a lot about, just called A soft answer, turneth away wrath. And so everyone had a little saying or a motto or something that they use, and then it was just really interesting to hear how they apply it to their life. So that was really cool. Cool. And then one night was this one was pretty deep in it was the question was, is, what childhood memory that you had, good or bad? There were both informs a future path forward of things that you would like to incorporate into your life. And I'll just share mine. Mine was just our family took a summer off and just spent the summer together in a different environment. And that's something that I would like to replicate and sort of just take it was a timeout. I was in the middle of my dad's career, and it's something that in about five to nine years, I would like to do that with my family. So everyone had different things that they wanted to do, spend more time with their family, or do something for their parents, or there was just a number of things that went really deep, and it was really beautiful to see that. So those Jeffersonian topics were being handed at night, and I tried to make sure that they were non business related, more of a personal connection then. So we got there Thursday night, Friday morning, the first thing we did is we had roll call at 6am and then we'd have coffee light bites, and then basically was a half hour of journaling. So everyone would go back to their tent, or take up a comfy chair, look at the mountains, and basically just write. Addison Bain, who was there for kind of the physical training guide as part of it. I've known Addison for quite a while now, but he was really interesting. He, I guess he journals quite a bit. And there's different there's different kinds of journaling. One is called absolute truths. So the sky is blue, water is wet, the wood is brown, and it was just interesting. And I didn't realize till day two what that kind of journaling does, and he had just shared that a lot of times. If we write, if we're not used to journaling, or if we journal, we can just, we can start writing down what we think we should say, where an absolute truth is just an observation, and by leading with absolute truths, you are more likely to just be factual and true. And then therefore, if you go into your regular writing, you'll be a little bit more honest. And I just thought that was really interesting. And so everyone had a different Actually, I'd say half the group journaled regularly, which surprised me. I'm not a regular journal person, and so it was just interesting thing i Marty Galpin, who was in our group. He had just went on a drive out there. He had shared that at the end of each day he likes to list 10 things he's grateful for. And so for me, the first day that I journaled was basically I wrote down my family members names, and I wrote down things that I was thankful about them. So just, it's always kind of nice to be present and be present and be grateful. So that was one of the things that I journaled about. And then from 830 to 1030 we had our workout. So on day one, Addison had us doing kettlebell workouts. Most of the people there had not been familiar with kettlebell, so he worked us pretty hard, and I think there was a lot of sore hammies the next day, but that was really fun. So that's about two hours, a lot of stretching, some light running warm ups, and then you broke off into teams of two and did sort of these complexes of kettlebells. Then we had a lunch to go, and we got in the car, drove into Zion National Park, and it was wildly crazy. I guess they get 4.9 million visitors a year there, which is I think fourth or fifth in terms of the national park system. So it was a little overwhelming how busy it was. And so we really the hike that we wanted to go on, which is near Angels Landing, for those that have been there, was just as you can imagine. The bus situation, parking was just a nightmare. And we're like, all type A owners are like, we're not waiting in line. And we actually ended up getting out of the park. So we drove an hour out of the park and looped around to the top of, kind of the mesa, and then we did a two hour hike. It was about 10 and a half miles. We walked out, and then a handful of us ran back, just for different kinds of exercise, but incredible views. There was very few people up there, great parking, so it was really just to get out of the crush and be flexible. As builders, we all know how flexible we have to be at our day to day, so why not apply it to boot camp? And then that night, we ate in town, awesome restaurant, again, just a lot of there certainly was a lot of conversation earlier on in camp about businesses, because that's what we're all related what we can relate to business. Like, hey, how do you do this? This is what I'm struggling with. This is what I'm doing. But towards the end of it being more just personal stuff, which is for me, was really probably the goal. I didn't want to tell people they couldn't I already took away their phones. I wasn't gonna tell them what they could not talk about. But I'm glad that a lot of it ended up going away from business. I just feel like the conversations, while they can certainly be very deep, I felt like they got deeper and much more personal as people sort of opened up and got to know each other, and I think that's a benefit of a smaller group. Ian Ian Lake society magazine is Minneapolis premier target market, boutique lifestyle and design publication. It embodies the unique lifestyles and design of the Minneapolis city lakes neighborhoods from Lake of the isles to Lake Harriet. It showcases the best in local design projects by both premier builders, architects and interior designers in this area. Lake society magazine has the look and feel of a national publication with glossy covers, high end finishes. It's mailed directly to upper bracket single family homeowners in the city lakes area, and it's the perfect local coffee table top publication. Subscriptions can also be available through the web. Site, lakesociety magazine.com additionally, publisher and founder, Karen stickle has over 27 years in a local magazine publishing industry, and has a passion for high end photography and quality graphics. Her commitment to quality visual simplicity and beauty are strongly reflected in her beautiful lake society magazine. So then that night, everyone turns in, probably around 910, o'clock, we had, again, one of those, Jefferson Ian talks around the fire, doing some s'mores, looking at stars. And then everyone settled into their tents. And then the next morning for repeat. So then day two, we had a dumbbell complex, this time, so similar to day one, we broke off into pairs of twos. We had a nice warm up, dynamic warm up, and then Addison led us through some kettlebell work, or, sorry, some dumbbell work, which most people are familiar with, but it's always you can always do something more difficult. A lot of people that were there had either done weightlifting or were pretty used to it, but I think what made it unique was very dynamic in movements. So you'd be doing overhead lunges with weights above your heads, and there's always a way to modify it based on your strength level. And so we had a wide range of strength abilities. It was really interesting. People always surprise you who can do certain movements, and some that can't, and a lot of them were really excited. One gentleman lifts five, six days a week, and he was just the day before, was just blown away at how work. He was from kettlebells, and he's like, I definitely need to focus more on dynamic movements versus static movements. And so it's just interesting how people were taking some of the things that Addison was teaching them and there was gonna apply to their life. But then I forgot to mention, on day one, we did this water cup challenge, which was really fun. So there's a 1.3 mile loop, and every we broke into two teams, and everyone got a gallon of water, and then it was split into eight or nine clear cups. And Addison didn't tell us ahead of time what the deal was. He said, You're in the desert, and in the desert, water is the most important thing. The team that can run a mile with water in their hands and their cups and pour it back into the water with the most amount of water, wins. And every team had a different strategy, as you could probably tell my team, ADHD, led by years, truly decided that I'd give everyone else two cups. I took one cup and then I ran as fast as I could, trying to get ahead of everyone, which I did, but the goal was then I poured my water in the jug, and then I ran back to the person in the back with my empty cup, and emptied their cups into mine cup like half so that he could run a little faster because it wasn't so close to the brim. And so we kept running back and forth, and the other team we were competing against just went low and slow. And once you know it, just like the tortoise and the hare, the slow team won, so the team that went the slowest and the smoothest lost the least amount of water. And our team while we finished before them, we lost a little bit more water. So anyway, just interesting race. You were not expecting that. Anyway, back to day two. So day two, we saw that 1.3 mile course. And so Addison is basically saying, Hey, this is the only workout we're going to do after this, after that morning or dumbbell session, and you are gonna give it your all, max out, max effort, whatever. Everyone's at different abilities in terms of cardiovascular strength, but don't you can compete against other people if you want. That's all fine, but compete against yourself. Give yourself when you're done, you should be maxed out. So everyone got to pick whatever they wanted. Some people pick 20 pound 25 pound dumbbells, 25 or 35 pound kettlebells. There's this big, heavy, 30 pound weighted rope, and he said, You got to do one lap go. So everyone took off, no teams, everyone's individual. And everyone is just going as fast as they can. And anyway, I as we come up the hill towards the end, people had different strategies. Some people took the weights, put them on their necks so it could be supported. Some people hung up, down low, switched hands. It was just your problem solving, because it's not normal to run with a 35 pound kettlebell or dumbbell or rope or whatever. So it's real awkward. That's more like fast hiking, shuffle running, but your heart rate is jacked and there's lots of hills, and you're up and down and up and down and up and down. And of course, you're looking for rattlesnakes, but it was too cold this time of year, thank goodness. So there's no rattlesnakes. And anyway, you get to the end, you're completely maxed out. As soon as you cross the line, Addison says you have two minutes, and now you have to run it reverse order, but no wait, and you have to negative split to win. So you immediately you thought you were done, because that's what he said. And when you get to the end, the rules changed, and you don't know that until you pass the end. So one of the things that was interesting, reflectively, was, how quickly could people adapt to the new challenge? Some people bemoaned it for a little bit, and a lot of people just refocused and said, Okay, I've got two minutes to get my breathing under control, and I'm gonna get back at it. So then you reverse the course and run. And part of the goal, Addison was trying to mess with people's heads a little bit is as people start running backwards, as they're coming to the finish line, they see people running past them, and they're like, one person made a comment, like, we expected mark to run back, because I'd done that on a different workout, just to cheer people on. But then when they saw the second and third person running back, they're like, it dawned on them, like, wait a minute, this thing isn't over. So I think the people in the middle, in. The end of the first laps. Got a clue. Something's going on here. This isn't normal. And so anyway you run, and it turns out the entire group, everybody negative split, meaning that their second lap with no weight was faster than their first lap with weight. But the thing that's really interesting is everyone was in within one second to 30 seconds of their first time. So basically it was almost equal. The fatigue from the first one equalized it so that even when you ran it unencumbered with weight, it was almost identical, which is really interesting. And then that afternoon, we went, what did we do? We went canyoneering. So one of the things that I wanted to do with boot camp is just a lot of the things here are things that I've done in my life or that I found a lot of value in. And one of the things that people used to my mom in particular, used to always tell me is broaden your horizons. It was basically just try something new, whether it's food or adventure or travel or people or whatever it is. And so I've mountaineered a fair amount, mainly with my sister over the years. It's been a while now, but a lot of people had not been canyoneering. And canyoneering, you can do it just scrambling. I want to do with ropes. So we ended up doing like a rappel course we had, we had hired three guides, because the group was quite large, 12 people. And we drove about 20 minutes away from camp, so pretty close, maybe not even 20 minutes, maybe 10 minutes. And we spent about two hours rappelling down through these slot canyons, incredible photos. You'll see them on Instagram and on the website here in the next couple weeks. And it was really fun to watch people overcome some of their fear of heights or just also just tackle something new. And it's interesting when you do something and not that it loses his appeal, but just when it's something different or something you're used to. It was really fun for me to ask them, like, Hey, what'd you think of that? Did you like that? Did you not like that? Not like that? Was that? And it was really funny to see people's faces as they lean back into the rope and go down these 100, 200 foot cliff faces with very little training. We did a little tutorial ahead of time where the guides, obviously are walking people through emergency protocols. We're not just putting a helmet and a rope on someone and chucking him off the cliff. That's stupid. And so anyway, it was just really, really fun to see everyone, because sort of tackle it, and it was great. So that was the end of day two. Had a nice dinner in town, again, just a lot of great conversations. And really, even the car rides, I forgot sometimes, just even a simple car ride, how much conversation you can have in the cars. And so it was just really, again, without the phones being there, everyone was just having these amazing conversations, on top of the physical attributes and all the things that we're doing in the great food, walking around town for some ice cream after after a hard earned dinner, just, you know, people are joking and just settling into that relationship. So it was really rewarding for me. It exceeded all my expectations of what I wanted the camp to be when I first set out to do it, and originally, the thing I've mentioned before on the podcast in promoting the boot camp was despite the stereotype that builders are fat, lazy, hairy alcoholics that are lazy like I don't like those stereotypes, and there are so many builders, particularly in our industry and around it, that are very active and very interested in being healthy and health as wealth, and just really focused on Get in touch with themselves, and hearing people open up and talk about things that really meant a lot to them and like, why are they scaling their business? What are they interested in doing? Why did they come to this boot camp? How did their family feel about it? Did their spouses encourage it or hinder? And it was just really interesting to see people show up different parts of life, but really have just the chemistry was really impressive. And then day three, it rained pretty hard that night. In fact, everyone, I remember, everyone slept so good because it's nice and cool. Again, a big shout out to under canvas. They have got 14 locations around the country, and they are amazing. They're all on the edges of national parks. So if you're looking to do something a little bit different, I'd highly recommend giving them a look. It's really cool, but the wind was just ripping one night because the storm was coming in, I thought my tent was going to rip in half, but anyway, couldn't sleep that well on that particular night. One of the things that was really funny is one of the campers, and it's all on the website, what we were going to do, everyone was going to have their own tent. And by tent, it's like this canvas bed has glamping for sure. I would not sure most campers would call this camping. But anyway, it was really funny because one of the campers was like, Oh, wow. I thought we were all sleeping in one tent, and we all just died laughing, because I'm like, we're definitely not all sleeping in one tent. And I was like, I'm actually impressed that you came thinking that was going to happen. So we had a pretty good laugh at his expense. Anyway, then the last morning, we just had coffee, downloaded all the things that we learned, and everyone said their goodbyes, and we drove back to Vegas and flew home. So that was the that was the inaugural curious builder boot camp. And we'll do it again next year. We'll probably announce it in the next 75 days. I think we're either going to do Mexico, Costa Rica or Montana. I think are the three locations we'll do something very similar in terms of weights and workouts. Obviously, depending on location. If it's a water location, we might be doing some sand and water workouts, just because, you know, if it's a different environment, it kind of changes it up a little bit. And one thing that, like we did for the 75 hard recap, for those have been following the podcast for a while. We did that in, I think, October, November and December. We had everyone that completed it. We did a one hour podcast. Asked about lessons learned and kind of the challenges of it. So next week, we'll be recording with everyone that was in attendance at the camp. For those that are interested, everyone will share like lessons learned, like their perspective, and then we'll air the episode for everyone to get some insight. If you weren't able to make it and you wanted to go, or if you're just curious, like what went on from their point of view. We're gonna have a whole episode just dedicated to that. So thanks for tuning into the curious builder podcast. Mondays are episodes one hour with builders, designers, architects across the country. If you'd like to be considered for an interview, please read DM us, reach out to us on Instagram, LinkedIn, email, whichever works for you. And then on Thursdays, our 20 minute Q and A so again, drop us any questions that you'd like us to talk about or addressed or like sometimes we'll do mini interviews on a particular topic. Thanks again for tuning in the curious builder podcast. We've had the podcast now for two and a half, almost three years now, and we have a consulting page, one to one consulting you can book my time for one hour. Perhaps you've heard a guest where you like one of the topics. Maybe you want an introduction to some of the guests that I've had on. Perhaps you want to talk about branding or marketing, or anything that we've covered on the podcast over the last two and a half years. You can book a time at curious builder podcast.com thanks for tuning in the curious builder podcast. If you like this episode, do us a favor. Share it with three other business owners. The best way that we can spread what we're doing is by word of mouth, and with your help, we can continue to help other curious builders expand their business. Please share it with your friends. Like and review online, and thanks again for tuning in. You.
