Lessons from Hell on the Hill

It’s officially been 2.5 months since crushing Hell on the Hill in Connecticut at Jesse Itzler and Sara Blakely’s lake house and I’m still revelling and reflecting in the lessons I learned leading up to this event and participating in it. If you are not yet part of Jesse’s Facebook group ‘We Do Hard Stuff’, dial into it.

Lessons from the Hill:

1. Take opportunities when they are presented, for the may never be presented again
2. Apply logic but act on intuition
3. Commit to being resourceful
4. Stretch your plate
5. Ask for help
6. Learn to receive
7. Be generous
8. Build a longer table
9. There is more than enough cake to go around
10. Under-indexing is hazardous to your growth

Let’s speak to these lessons in succinct yet impactful fashion.

1. Lesson one: capitalizing on opportunities. Don’t put things off until tomorrow or wait until they’re offered ‘again’ at a ‘later date’. There are no guarantees. Life is 100% now. The opportunity to head to Jesse & Sara’s with a group of like minds happens how often? I’m not sure, but I’m counting on the opportunity not necessarily being a standing invitation since these individuals have lives of their own and are making an impact for more people than just myself.
2. Lesson two: do not discount your core by over-analyzing. I said yes to this opportunity without knowing what it was, I just felt pulled. I also didn’t have an extra several thousand dollars ‘laying around’ to allocate to this, because it wasn’t planned – but it became a priority and I committed to making it happen.
3. Lesson three: resourcefulness. Yes, you can liquidate tangible things, earn income through your service-based business, sell more products, start a Go Fund me page, sell baking, run errands for others, and more. Need a plane ticket? Fly on points, or – ask someone who has airlines points to gift or sell some of theirs to you. You decide how bad you want to do something, and be resourceful in putting their pieces together to make it happen. The timing will never be perfect. You will rarely have piles of spare cash laying around or, for that matter and more importantly – time.
4. Lesson four: stretch your plate. I say stretch your plate but don’t break your plate, there is a difference. Reallocate your time and see what you can create and expand time for. I guarantee you have more usable hours and minutes in a day than you think. This year, I’ve realized how much more I’ve been able to fit onto my plate because I’ve made more people a priority in focusing outward rather than focusing in on me. It’s a miracle in shift in all areas of life I must say.
5. Lesson five: ask for help. I just wrote an email on this one 🙂 . Asking for help is massive in that you allow someone else to feel good in supporting you and you get to not ‘go it alone’. Resources are meant to be shared. Think about how much easier it is to just be vulnerable. I know this may take practise but teamwork makes the dream work. You’ve got this.
6. Lesson six: learn to receive. In our natural state of flow we are both givers and receivers. Without one, the state of flow breaks. It was difficult not to be a gracious receiver on this particular trip and during this experience as Jesse and his crew, and all of us who attended went beyond the extra mile to ensure everyone was taken care of and no one was left behind. On receiving: learn to graciously accept a compliment. See how that feels vs deflecting it. There’s a mass difference in tone and vibe.
7. Lesson seven: be generous. There’s always more. Give and then some. Whether this is information around your business and profession, beauty tips, helping someone bridge a gap in some capacity, giving someone your coffee on the street or giving up your seat on the subway, there’s always a way to give to someone else without taking away from the entirety that is you. Giving doesn’t mean depleting yourself so long as you feel abundant and are also open and in receiving mode.
8. Lesson eight: build a longer table. This was a realization in remembrance of something I’ve always wanted in life and when feeling it in the moment, it came rushing back to me. Have you ever had that feeling? A memory imprint or sorts.
9. Lesson nine: there is more than enough cake to go around. There’s no need to ever feel that when you ask for more, that ‘more’ is taking away from someone else. There’s an infinite amount of resources in this universe and they are always being circulated. Ask and you shall receive. Ask for more and you might just get that. Stop being modest unless modesty is what’s best serving you 🙂 Me? I like to have an abundant supply to share with others.
10. Lesson ten: under-indexing is hazardous to who we are and who we become. Most of the time we aren’t pushing ourselves. It’s a fact I’ve proven to myself since May. Our minds are conditioned to think we’re capable of ‘this much’ when in fact if we just pushed beyond the barrier we’d find we are capable of so much more. I found this in the physical trainings Jesse put together for us. They were rigorous and ‘looked’ like a cakewalk at first glance. Once dove into, they were no joke and I found myself (someone who’d be considered in shape) floundering until I adapted to the new norm. Since adapting, there’s no going backward – only leaps and bounds forward.