Community Over Competition: MAC Retreats
If you know me, you know that I love to see people succeed.
Funny story before I dive in:
Once upon a time, someone I knew made a social media post talking about how absolutely disgusted they were by a couple of women who had become very successful at their chosen path. These women had risen to semi-fame out of obscurity, and they were earning a ton of money. The poster basically called them sell-outs and couldn’t believe they were buying their dream homes and using their hard-earned money for themselves.
When I say I was surprised…
Isn’t that the point? Isn’t the whole point of chasing our dreams to succeed? Isn’t the whole point of earning money off our passion to… earn money? I mean, anyone who comes from poverty, or even middle class, and succeeds wildly and becomes wealthy, should do whatever they want to do with that money. I celebrated these womens’ success. I was thrilled for them. And I still follow their journey.
All that to say: lighting someone else’s candle will NEVER dim your flame. You do that yourself.
So when my girl Cara approached me with this idea to work with her and her friend Anne on this new project they were doing, my initial reaction was yes, I absolutely want to support this.
Together with another friend, these women were creating a year-long retreat series. Once a month, on the 4th Saturday of the month, they would gather with their community and spend 3 hours learning, growing, pouring into each other, and connecting. Every month would have a different set of speakers, with a different theme. Women could attend the whole year for a set price, or purchase tickets to individual retreats as they were able.
I was all in.
Because community over competition is always going to be my choice.
So each month, I meet with Cara and Anne and their presenters and we plan the day. Then I show up for the retreat and capture all the beautiful interactions between the women who have chosen to invest in themselves. It’s been such a great experience for me, to watch all these women blossom and connect and grow this amazing community.
And in the spirit of community over competition, Cara and Anne allowed me to speak at the end of each retreat leading up to my annual Self-Love Retreat, to talk about my event and how it ties into what they’re doing.
If you’re a woman in the Tri-Cities, and you’ve been looking for an uplifting network of supportive women, join one of these Saturday afternoon events. You won’t be sorry.
Here are some of the great interactions I’ve been able to capture at these events. Enjoy!
Do you have an event you want to commemorate in pictures that you can then use to market your work?