218. Walking the Camino: Lessons in Business Growth and Personal Achievement

8 weeks ago today, I took my very first step on the Camino. Walking from point a to point b, 6 days of walking on the Camino, a 115 kilometers, were pretty close to 80 miles. That was 3 marathons in 6 days. And today, I wanna share with you some of the lessons that I learned while walking on La Camino. Are you a coach, consultant, or service provider who's frustrated with the growth of your business? You're in the right place. I'm your host, Loriam Yorabito, and you're listening to be in demand, where I talk about how to leverage speaking opportunities to grow your business, get positioned as the expert, and monetize your expertise. Let's get on to the show. So the Camino has been on my vision board since about 2017.

A friend of mine had walked the entire 500 miles and wrote a book about it. It really intrigued me, both for the physical challenge and also the spiritual challenge, the emotional challenge that is associated with it. And now that I have done a sampling of it, I'm putting it on my vision board again. So I wanted to share with you some of the lessons that I learned while walking in silence, walking with some friends, walking with the challenge of the rain. The first lesson is preparation. They always say to train specifically. Like, if you are a marathon runner, you need to run. That that has to be your training.

If you're gonna be a body builder, obviously, you're gonna be lifting weights. But I walked a lot. A lot. And I live in a hilly neighborhood, and one loop in my neighborhood is just shy of a mile and a half. So I would go to the gym, come home, and then do a couple of laps, add an extra 3 miles to my workout. But nothing really prepared my body for the Camino except for the Camino. And I remember my friend, Mark LeBlanc, saying that you will get in shape within the 1st week of walking the Camino. I even walked day after day after day because I figured that was exactly what I was going to be doing once I was in Spain was I'd be walking for 6 days.

So it's about preparation. Are you preparing for what it is that you want to do, what you want to accomplish? You can prepare and you can train, but nothing compares to game day. That's all there is to it. It was I left the hotel, and I had to get to the next hotel. And this sort of reminds me, and I'm gonna correlate some of these lessons to speaking and growing your business as well. You can practice and practice and practice your speech, and it's exactly what I tell my clients to do. But on game day, there's always the speech that you wanted to give, the speech that you actually gave, and the speech that you wish you had given because hindsight is always 2020. You prepare for that speech and you give your very best speech, and sometimes things just go wrong.

Tech doesn't work out. They can't connect your laptop and slides to the overhead projector. The lights go out. It's a smaller room. It's a giant pillar in the middle of the room. That actually happened to me. And you just have to work with it. You can prepare as much as you can, but nothing will prepare you as much as the actual gain.

Your walking buddies, this is lesson number 2. Choose your walking buddies very carefully. I remember Mark saying even if somebody's pace was off by just an inch, over the course of that day, that inch adds up whether they have a longer stride than you or a shorter stride than you. But, also, who are you walking with? Who are your friends? Who are the people who are encouraging you? Who believes in you? And there were 2 very special people that I walked most of the Camino with. There were 2 people that I walked a great deal of the Camino with, Sarah and Lisa. I would travel with them anywhere now. I would walk the entire camino with them. We were just all very encouraging.

We had certain strengths, and we were just worked really well as a team. Choose your walking buddies carefully. Who are you surrounding yourself and who are you letting influence you? Lesson number 3, and I'm not sure if this is really a lesson or this is just something that I decided to do, But I did decide not to walk with any music or listening to any podcast. It literally was just me, the woods, the trail, and my thoughts. And I didn't want anything to disrupt the thoughts. Although I will say, in hindsight, I do believe that the rain acted like a little bit of interference. That variable really came into play as the week went on, and the rain got heavier and heavier, which leads me into lesson number 4, which is about the rain. The rain was hard, especially as the rain got harder, meaning it came down a lot harder.

But it sort of reminds me about life. You know, life is not always easy. Life is hard. There are variables. There are things that you prepare for, but you're hoping doesn't really happen. And in this case, I brought rain gear, but I deep down inside, I really was hoping that I wasn't going to to use it. But I did have to use it. I used it more days than I expected to.

But it's just like in life, you just don't know what you're going to get, but there's always a lesson in everything. There's something to be learned by the amount of rain that we did have that and when I say we, I mean, that I had because it was my Camino. It was my experience of walking this very spiritual pathway, and I did look at it as a baptism. Like, what are we washing away? What needs to be washed away while I'm here? Because it's very interesting that the rain started on day 2, and we finished in the rain. And the very next day, it stopped raining. But also regarding that rain is that the sun is on the other side of those clouds, the other side of those rain clouds. So the sun is always there, and the sun is eventually going to come out. Those clouds are going to part.

So whatever difficulties you're going through right now, it is going to part. It will come to an end. The skies will clear. If your business is not at the level that you want it to be at, if you're not attracting the right clients, if you feel like the algorithm is working against you, like sales calls just are converting, just know. Stick with it because the sun is on the other side of those clouds. Those clouds are eventually going to move away. And whatever it is that you want, I want you to just to stay tenacious and keep going, whether you are also I keep trying to pitch myself for speaking event. I keep asking for referrals.

I'm just not getting the referrals. I'm like, people aren't writing me testimonials because I know, like, these things happen, and I'm not hearing from my pet. Just just keep going. Keep going because those clouds, those dark clouds are going to move away, and it's gonna be a sunny day real soon for you. Lesson number 5. Where is your attention? Now this is something that I've learned, few years ago, and the whole where's your attention? What are you focused on? Because whatever you focus on, you get more of. I really played with this, and I really mean I played with this. My feet were killing me as you can imagine.

Some of the days, like, the very first day was a 14 mile day, followed by a little bit more the second day. And then day 3 day 4 were 9 milers. And then another long day, and the very last day was 12 miles. So that first day, I mean, my feet were killing me. And I could either mentally focus on my feet and, oh my god, how much they hurt, how much they were killing me, or I'd be like, oh, look at that bird over there. Look at the beautiful scenery to my left. Let me focus on my right hand. And whenever I did this, when I changed my focus, I didn't feel my feet.

They weren't bothering me as much. Interesting. So you should definitely play around with this. But what are you focused on? Are you focused on the problems in your business? Are you focused on the fact that maybe nobody laughed at the funny parts in your speech? Are you focused on the fact that somebody hasn't answered your pitch yet? Are you trying to get on more podcasts? Are you thinking about starting a podcast, and you're like, oh, but there's so much work that has to go into this, and all you can see is the giant mountain. Like, what is your mountain that you're so focused on that looks so hard and painful? What you focus on, you get more of. What can you focus on that will help you move forward? Because I gotta tell you, like, when I started focusing on anything other than my feet, it just became a more enjoyable walk even when I was focused on my right hand, looking at the scenery, knowing that it would never be just like it is that day. Even as rainy as it got and muddy, and we had to sometimes walk off the trail, but that's okay because sometimes you have to improvise in life, don't you? So those are just a few of the different lessons that I've learned. And even though it's been 8 weeks later, I'm still learning different lessons from the Camino.

I did it both for the physical and the emotional challenge, And I'm glad that I did it because one of the things that I learned is that I can do hard things. I can go beyond the limits that I thought I had for myself. During all of my training, I did not walk 14 miles. I think my longest walk was 9 miles, 9 miles in my hilly neighborhood. But that didn't really prepare me for 14 miles with a backpack, walking up mountains, because there were some steep mountains that we went up. Rocky, walking through villages, walking on asphalt and dirt trails, You name it. It was not like my training, but I know that I can do hard things, and I can definitely go beyond what I thought I was capable of. And when I finished, this was also a very big lesson for me when I look at it, when I step back and I really look at this particular situation.

When we finished, when we got into the courtyard of the cathedral, it was like, oh, okay. We did it. I felt defeated. I felt beaten up. I was cold. I was tired. I was wet. I was hungry.

So it was no wonder that I got into the courtyard, and it was like, okay. But what I noticed about myself is that I have a tendency just to I achieve the goal and I just okay. Check. Move on to the next thing. I don't always celebrate the things that I need to celebrate, and I do need to celebrate more often. Not just the big things, but also smaller achievements. And finishing the camino, finishing a 115 kilometers, walking 3 marathons in 6 days, That's something to be proud of, and I needed to celebrate that. And I think we really celebrated it.

Me and my 2 walking buddies really felt the achievement the next day. The sun was out. We were dry. We'd eaten. We had rested. We were able to just stand in that courtyard and just feel what we did and acknowledge what we did, and we took some pictures. And then we were able to look around at some other people as they were coming in, and I can really just, like, celebrate with them, like, because I know what that felt like. And people would come up and just hand me their phones and say, would you take my picture? And I'm getting a little teary eyed just like thinking of that.

But it was a big deal. So that is one of the bigger lessons that I also learned is, what do I need to celebrate? What can I pause and just slow down and celebrate and acknowledge what I just did? And there were some other things. You never need as much as you have. I had a carry on size suitcase that had everything that I needed. I only used half of the items that were in my suitcase, half the items that I brought. Of course, I didn't expect to be wearing the rain gear the entire time, So any of my tank tops or skorts, I never ended up wearing them. But it reminds me of speaking also, because a lot of times, like, as new speakers, So it also made me realize, where am I carrying a lot of stuff? Where can I declutter? And I gotta tell you, like, since I've been home, I have been decluttering. I look at my bookshelves and my closet of clothes, and it's like, what can I get rid of? What don't I need? What can I release and donate somewhere so that somebody else can begin to enjoy my clothing items or the books that are on my bookshelf that I no longer need? I want you to take a look at your speeches, your presentations.

Maybe you need to beef something up. Maybe you need to replace a story. Maybe you need to have less stories in your speech. I don't know, but less is best. So in closing, I'm so glad that I did it. I'm so proud of myself for doing it. It was an unbelievable experience, and I would definitely do it again. So I wanna encourage you, if if you've wanted to do the Camino, you or if you have any questions regarding the Camino, and by the way, I did do the French way, the pathway that goes from the south of France all the way to the cathedral in Santiago, I can see myself doing it again.

Of course, I also did know from my friend, Marc LeBlanc, that walking in the spring, it can be rainy and muddy. And so I hope the next time that I do walk the Camino, it will be in the fall as well. That would be the other thing that I would change. I would like nicer weather next time. Thank you. And I would love to learn new lessons when it was warmer and sunnier and drier, please, universe. Thank you. So what's next on your list? What's a challenge that you have? What's a limit that you wanna, like, go above and beyond? Where do you wanna test yourself? Where do you wanna test something new in your business? Me having 2 podcast episodes coming out a week, this is something that I just decided, let me test this.

I don't even know how much I'm going to enjoy this. I have been telling people that, yep, I've got, like, 2 episodes a week, and I am loving the second episodes. Well, I love, like, the first episodes that come out on Monday, like this one, but I love the second episodes that I've added on because it's my audience being a part of the podcast. So there are different ways that you can be a part of the podcast. If this happens to be the first episode that you're listening to, I want to encourage you to check out the different links that I will provide for you down below for speaker breakthrough sessions, q and a, that you can ask me a question, you can record your own question, and I will answer that. And then there are the speaker circle community calls. That's another way that you can be a part of the show, and I hope that you'll sign up for 1 or all of those. And I would love to hear what's a goal that you have for yourself.

What's something that you've been thinking about doing, but you just haven't done it yet? I would love to hear that. And you can feel free to reach out to me here or DM me over on Instagram or even LinkedIn, and you will hear from me. Not a team member, not a bot. It's always me. And if you do reach out to me on Instagram and I don't see your message right away, please have some grace for me and just be a little patient. I will definitely see your message and then reply to it soon. Or the one of the better ways is just to comment on one of my posts and let me know that there is a message over in the DMs for me. Share with me what your goals are.

Share with me because I would love to celebrate with you and encourage you and be that cheerleader for you just like Sarah and Lisa were for me, just like I was for them. And remember, life is an experience. Until next week, I want you to be in demand.