Q & A Episode 13 - Mental and Emotional Wellness for Builders
Episode #13 | Q&A with Mark D. Williams | Mental and Emotional Wellness for Builders
Mark discusses the launch of two new events - Sauna Camp and Boot Camp - aimed at promoting wellness, community, and personal growth within the construction industry. He also announces the expansion of the Curious Builder Collective to include a group for designers.
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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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let's say a client is yelling at you or you're in a very difficult situation understanding how to breathe through that so that you can make the best decision possible you know maybe you're up on a ladder and you know and you're you're you're you're nailing some shingles on you know an eve or you are you know exposed up on a lift and you're like you're I'm up three stories and that's a pretty long fall you know regulating your breath comes in very very handy welcome to the Curious build podcast I'm
00:00:33 Mark Williams your host today's Q&A is why have you started Sonic camp and what is boot camp so I probably take the 20 minutes here 10 minutes on each to describe both um I if you've been following the podcast or Instagram uh you'll know that I do a lot of training I've gotten into ultra running here the last couple of years I've always been a pretty Aid athlete between basketball and tennis and hockey and whatever sport um that I currently into uh I'm very passionate about talking about it and I found um
00:01:06 Athletics team building all those things to be super super helpful uh for owning a business and because we are in such a stressful field you know constructing homes we talk all the time about how emotional it is you know I feel very strongly that not only myself but our community we need releases we need resets we need a place to you know refocus and to get off a lot of that energy so that you can show up and and do your job and so you know being such an avid fan of these things and seeing how they've helped really transform my
00:01:37 life and my wife's life and just our family as we raise our kids trying to show them what's important I realize that this isn't just lip service like you know just like a diet is not just a momentary thing like if you need a lifestyle change and so it's really just embracing um the things that you love and you know finding a community that is really into it and so for me I've often I have all these ideas I've I've said before that you know usually Monday to Wednesday I come up with 10 ideas and
00:02:05 then Thursday and Friday I have to figure out which ones I have to say no to because I just come up with a lot of ideas and so for me I basically if I find something really really interesting and I'm curious about it and I want to you know see who else is interested and so I'll usually call four or five people and I'll say hey I'm really interested in this do you think you know is this something that you would be interested in and um they say yes and I'm like fine I'll make a business business out of it
00:02:30 or I'll make an idea out of it so the Sonic Camp was the first thing that was more approachable um it's going to be held on the 24th of January and it's going to be in on Lake minow wasta just west of excelsia here in Minnesota it's going to be a halfday event and there's uh it holds up to 60 people so we've rented out the entire Camp I think we have about 10 people that have already signed up which is pretty early actually that we've had that many people sign up um I I want it to be open to anybody so
00:02:58 anyone that wants to network with you know Builders designers Architects anyone in the building or honestly any business owner my goal is that everyone would be a business owner and that you know while we're uh you know partaking in wellness and as we're learning things about ourselves while we're sweating in the sauna the kind of the Finish nature as we're cold plunging into the lake um but there's also going to be a component of uh breath work and I'll talk about that in a minute but the goal is that
00:03:24 like you know whether you talk about business or not it's just the community we have such a strong community in Minnesota and I think we have a strong community of Builders across the country so I I know there's several people that are flying into town and uh Brad Robinson who I'm good friends with down in Atlanta Georgia shout out to him you know he's flying up uh you might even bring some of his team uh Caleb McDonald up in Toronto he might come down and before you know it you've got six or seven people flying in to basically take
00:03:50 a sauna together and cold plunge all because a they might be passionate about it already I know Brad is you know he sends me pictures of his cold tub I know Brad levit is a big uh cold tub guy down in Arizona although you'd have to be if you lived in Arizona it's you live in a sauna you'd need you would need to get into a cold tub but you know there's been such a celebration of this wellness and the effects it has on your body physically but mentally it's massively uh important and I think with like cold
00:04:17 water if you can sit in cold water and train your mind to be calm like when we get into stressful situations like we can get through it and you know I'm not going to get into all the different things that we're going to cover come to the camp and so the what it's going to be is it's a half day I think we start at 1:00 and her name is Dr Mel Krug she's going to be a facilitator and so I think it's for like about an hour there's a meeting area uh kind of a chalet up by the lake and we're going to basically sit down
00:04:46 and we might even lay down I believe and I think you put something like a a blanket or something over your eyes and she works through sematic breath work I don't know I'm not an expert on this but basically think of like yoga or deep cleansing breaths and I believe it's a way to um kind of work through maybe your feelings your your emotional bandwidth uh stressful situations so you know you think of let's say you're in sales and you're about to go into a really pressure meeting you know taking a few deep breaths and understanding how
00:05:18 to regulate your respiratory rate and your blood uh pressure before you go into meeting is going to make you feel more calm and more relaxed let's say a client is yelling at you or you're in a very difficult situation understanding how to breathe through that so that you can make the best decision possible you know maybe you're up on a ladder and you know and you're you're you're you're nailing some shingles on you know an eve or you are you know exposed up on a lift and you're like you're I'm up three stories and
00:05:47 that's a pretty long fall you know regulating your breath comes in very very handy and there's also the wellness and of course the health side of it from Athletics you know uh you know a stressful shot at the free throw line or maybe the game is on the line or whatever sport people play on the side there's so many applications we obviously are humans we all breathe and so understanding a little bit more about it I'm a little shocked that we don't actually have this as a more regular thing that we're aware of so Dr melru
00:06:14 she's she does a lot of corporate seminars uh where she walks people through how to you know regulate their breath and how to do it in a community setting then we're going to go down into the water uh into the lake and we are going to practice using the breath techniques we just learned in the cold water many people are familiar with whm Hoff um he does he's really a celebrated outdoor Enthusiast that you know you can actually regulate the temperature of your body your heat um through breathing
00:06:42 you can fire up your engine and in cold environments you can actually get hotter I believe he has you know been in glacial Waters Arctic Waters and can actually increase his respiratory rate and increase his actual temperature output to offset the cold which is pretty wild um I don't think we're going to get that deep in one uh day or one hour but you can see where this is going and I have some experience in going to cold water there's a cold plunge that I use regularly in running um last winter
00:07:09 I went out with an architect and a friend of mine to Lake Harriet actually it was two Winters ago and uh we went in there and the advice was if you can just make it past the first minute you know kind of that your uh fight or flight kind of leaves and then after that it becomes a little bit easier and you know you don't have to stay in a long time one minute two minutes three minutes it's not like you have to show you know who's the you know know who's the craziest that's not really what this is
00:07:31 about it's about challenging yourself and then really just kind of getting this this this endorphin flush of blood when you get out of the water and it's really rejuvenating you feel very very alive so then um at the camp here we're going to go straight into there's eight Barrel saas that will hold up to 60 people you know in these different eight um saunas and they're all Woodfired saunas so they smell great you've got kind of this cool finish they've got big um glass out to the lake so it's very
00:07:59 serene very quiet um obviously what I like about this is that they are small person saas so they're going to you know hold anywhere from 6 to 10 people and what I really like about it is now you're GNA have small you know discussions in there people going to talk about life they can talk about health they can talk about their business they can talk about why are we at sauna Camp how did Mark get us here uh why don't we do this more often or I have a sauna in my backyard I didn't know I mean I love this I wish I had a
00:08:24 lake and so I find that you know having traveled a bit um and gone into some of the Sonic culture especially in the Nordic countries it's just this really warm inviting place where people just kind of open up um I have a sauna that I built during covid in my backyard and maybe an hour before I probably use a sauna about three times a week uh for to aid in recovery and I just like I like the uh you sleep incredible after a sauna um you know when you're really warm and then as your body cools down it
00:08:54 basically does something to your nervous system and it's like lights out so I I sleep extremely deep but where I'm going with with this is I'll often it seems like the sauna has become part of um our neighborhood culture so I'll send out a text to four or five of our neighbors and I'll say hey I'm going in sa at 8 o'clock after the kids go to bed you know who's coming and you know I don't know who's going to show up maybe nobody shows up maybe two or three people show up one time I had like six people show
00:09:15 up and they won't all fit I have a pretty small sauna at my house and uh but it ends up being this great place that for you know we usually do a 20-minute session we'll go outside and cool down or rinse off of the hose because I don't have a a lake right next to me and um and then we'll go back in for another 20 and so understanding that you do kind of these these small segments and kind of regulate it um it's great and I have found it to be so helpful in recovery but really it just is sort of amazing what it does to you
00:09:41 mentally so Sonic Camp is really just that it's it it could be open to anybody but because I'm a builder and because I have the Curious Builder podcast I thought you know what I'm going to invite the building Community to do this with me and there will be a lot of people that hey this isn't for us but I think there'll be I hope a lot of people decide to say you know what I'm going to give it a try why not what do I have to lose and then the fun part is after I think we're going to do the the cold
00:10:04 sauna cold sauna cold sauna and then we are going to have actually a Mediterranean style meal prepared over an open fire and I've heard from other past attendees that this cook or this Chef is amazing so we'll all have a a meal together back in the Chalet and you know just kind of bond more kind of family style and so I feel like our community has so much to share together and so I really hope this is something that resonates with business owners who we're already doing such you know we have so many tough decisions to make
00:10:29 taking some time to focus on your wellness and hopefully learn something new about yourself that's really the point of the Sonic Camp Lake Society magazine is Minneapolis premere 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
00:10:56 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 tabletop publication subscriptions can also be available through the website Lakes Society magazine.com additionally publisher and founder Karen steckle has over 27 years in the local magazine publishing industry and has a passion for high-end photography and quality Graphics her commitment to Quality visual Simplicity and Beauty are
00:11:26 strongly reflected in her beautiful Lake Society magazine the second thing is uh the boot camp so of course this is a logical next step is the Sonic Camp is a half day I mean you know honestly going into a sauna and going into cold water is is you can do it anybody can do it the length of time is really up to you so I know you can do it um the the boot camp was something a little bit bigger goal a little bit not more difficult but someone that wanted to challenge themselves a little bit more and where this came from was every
00:11:58 year uh in fact I'm going next week up to the Boundary Waters with uh some family and some cousins and a couple of dear friends from across the country and I over the years have found that this week um is one of the most recharging weeks of my year and what I mean by that is when you go up to the boundry Waters which for those who aren't familiar with the boundry Waters it's a series of you know thousands of lakes up on the Canadian and Minnesota border that you can only access by canoe so you're
00:12:26 canoeing your portaging which is putting your canoes up on your shoulders walking through the woods you know you're fishing you're camping you're cooking over a fire um but there's no cell phone you're just completely off the grid um you know you basically you're following your circadian rhythm of the Sun so you go to bed usually we go in the fall so we can avoid the mosquitoes you know we go we go to bed at probably 8 8:30 uh you know you wake up when the sun gets up and you know you got you know 10 11
00:12:51 12 hours of sleep um you know you don't necessarily sleep that great on the Rocks but you know you do your best and the problem is you come out feeling so alive and it's really for me about the third day that I stopped you know you know how when you don't have your phone with you it's really important that your phones don't go with you in my opinion that's I've kind of made it that a group rule because I find that by not always having that constant stimulus especially somebody like myself who you know is
00:13:15 definitely ADHD and I'm constantly needing that that stimulus or that you know that little endorphin rush of like what's next or who's texting me or you know what sports scores am I looking at or all these other things that are in getting into our brain we never give our our brains free time especially me so I need sort of a forced Retreat to do this and so you know we bring phones but we lock them in plastic bags in case there's an emergency and that's pretty much it and it's really simple you're
00:13:39 just in nature and you know you're just being with family and friends and by the third day I'd love to go for a week but you really start relaxing you can feel it in your shoulders you start relaxing you feel it in your body you just feel more in tune with what you are and then guess what you start getting these amazing ideas about business about life you get sort of energized about all these things so I'm bringing up this I'm telling you the story because this is really the mindset I thought you know
00:14:03 there's so many people that don't have access to the Boundary Waters and I we had a cabin in Montana for 20 years so we used to go camping all the time in the mountains I love probably more than anything else I love being in the mountains I love skiing um you know I just did a Ultra trail running uh Marathon here uh last weekend and just being in the woods in the quiet it it's amazing it's so energizing it it's kind of wild at how much energy you can get from nature and I thought you know maybe
00:14:30 Builders and again going back to how stressful building is and the community around it is you know there's this I want to fight The Stereotype as well that you know that Builders are are fat and hairy and wear flannel and drink beer and sure are there those out there like that yeah that's not a big deal that's not even what I'm I just want to combat like there are a lot of very healthy you know triathletes and Runners and people into lifting weights that are just very healthc conscious that also
00:14:58 happen to be build and um what where this came into real Clarity is I was out at contractor Coalition in hunting to Beach California two years ago and I think I got up at 5:30 to go for a run on the beach and Caleb McDonald shout out to him he's up in Toronto um he's like hey I'll go running with you let's go he's a runner and I'm like great let's go running so we ran on the beach it was miserable it was like 40 mile winds the the sand was coming up off the it was pestering our eyes and we were just laughing our heads
00:15:26 off having a great time it was raining it was just Miser and then we went back inside and there's a bunch of Builders you know lifting weights and on the treadmill or stair master or whatever and it's like the majority of the people here are working out and it dawned on me at that point in time like there are probably a lot more people across the country that are interested in their health and you know like Athletics and need kind of this in order to operate in their business it's not just me it's not just the you know a
00:15:53 bunch of people I'm talking to that are passionate like there's a lot more people out there and so between these two things the need for seclusion the need to get away from your phone and then this community that's very interested in their health and being around others that are like that is what sponded the boot camp idea so we were GNA go down to Costa Rica and a shout out to build her retreat with Morgan Moler and a few of the others Alison case and Meg Billings and Danielle gelli um they had just gone down there so I'm
00:16:22 like you know what let's switch it up so it's not the same in in future years we'll probably go to Mexico or Costa Rica somewhere warm in the winter but this one I wanted to be domestic just to make it more affordable and also make it more approachable so we're going to go to Zion National Park in uh May 15th through the 18th and so the goal here is people will fly in um we'll have three vans ready so people can come at different times and from the moment you get off the airplane we're gonna have
00:16:47 you check in your phone there's no phones for these three days that's kind of the whole point is to kind of get unchecked we'll have emergency contacts for people obviously if they need to get a hold of somebody they can get a hold of someone at the camp and um and then there's going to be no alcohol and so the whole point is that every day um we're going to kind of have family style uh lunches dinners and uh meat breakfast together but um Addison Bane he's a incredible um coach he's down out of
00:17:13 Bentonville Arkansas coaches the Red Bull mountain biking team uh has opened up a number of CrossFit Gyms he's coming up and he's going to lead us through different exercises each day and again I don't care if you can run a five minute mile or a or a 20 minute mile um you will sweat but the effort is really up to you and because every at the end of the day we're not racing against another person we're just trying to be the best version of oursel and this Camp is really to celebrate people that want to
00:17:37 celebrate themselves and do something different do something challenging but also Bond it with other business owners because at night when we're on the campfire we're going to be talking about you know how do you structure your day how do you you know how do you navigate these difficult situations and there's going to be some really neat relationships that come out of this and so we're going to be in Zion National Park which is one of the most beautiful parks in the the world and we're going to be hiking around we're actually going
00:18:02 to do canyoning one day so we'll break up into smaller groups so that you know we can repel down the canyons and um we're going to do some trail running or hiking for those that want to do that and we're going to have something kind of different in small groups we're going to limit it to just 20 people the whole point of this particular experience is that because it's over three days I want the experience to be much more intimate much more one-on-one um honestly even if only 12 people came that would be enough
00:18:25 because the real strength in this is not the number of people but it's the for the relationship and I think right now I think we have four or five people that have signed up so actually we only have uh 15 spots available even as this podcast is airing and so I'm really and that's you know it's eight months away and so I if you're interested you can go to the website for both these things the cus Builder podcast.com oru.com they're under events both Sonic camp and boot camp there's a whole bunch more material
00:18:51 there uh information pictures videos um and so the boot camp going back to to that a little bit more in detail is I think the morning routine is we're going to you know wake up probably around 6:30 or that's the mustard time and you know probably like a half hour of you know breath work Mobility work with Addison have a light breakfast do a little bit bigger workout most of it will be body weight you know maybe we'll be lugging rocks around the the town uh I I think there's gonna be some team building
00:19:18 competition stuff where we'll have like teams of two teams of four things like that doing some fun challenges and then um and then we're GNA have like an hour of quiet where actually people can't talk uh everyone will be given a journal and they just get to journal about their time their thoughts you know maybe it's their business maybe it's their personal life you know maybe they're just going to space out and you know look at the Sunrise and drink coffee that all that's fine and the whole idea is just to get
00:19:41 kind of quiet inside your own mind I think it'll be a real challenge for me specifically we're excited to announce that we've opened up another curious Collective for the last year we've had the Curious Builder Collective we now have the Curious Builder Collective for designers the first ones will be happening in September all the details are going to be on our website we have 30 spots available half of them have already filled We additionally have eight spots left in the Builder Collective if you're interested in
00:20:07 getting together in small groups of nine with local Minneapolis based Builders and designers in separate groups and talking about your business talking about your Brands asking those questions that you wish you could ask another business owner then this is the place for you details can be found at the Curious Builder podcast.com and then um at lunch you know probably from 11: to 5:00 or 10 o'l to 5:00 it's going to be you know outside you know we're going to be doing you know long hikes into the
00:20:34 mountains uh exploring Zion National Park you know exploring the canyons and just kind of seeing what there is to offer out there and then in the evening we'll have a couple hours of downtime before dinner and then we'll do family style dinners and then that night you know we'll have a big bonfire every night and you know just chill around the bonfire talk about life talk about family talk about your business talk about whatever people want to talk about and it's really kind of that I have found that you know I've gone to a
00:20:57 number like the contractor Co Coalition like obviously I love those I've spoken about it a lot I've been to four of them now and um you know that you're never going to go wrong with that but a lot of the learning at those is what happens out of the classroom it's what happens at the dinners it's what happens at breakfast it happens on your run on the beach with another crazy Canadian while you're running down the beach in 30 m hour winds and so I wanted to sort of isolate those moments and kind of make
00:21:22 the whole Camp just about those moments and there's no structure um other than sort of the athletic structure the rest of it is people you know when I as a man and maybe this is not specific to men women do it too my sister and I do it all the time like the best way for us to talk when I go into the mountains with my sister and we go camping or hiking or mountaineering is is talking you know we we're going on an eight hour hike you know sometimes you're talking about life your kids your family your business
00:21:48 whatever and sometimes you're quiet for an hour and I just think that like while you're exercising and while you're outside you're getting all these really cool ideas and so anyway there's a lot more to share about it but that's kind of the high level if you're interested you can DM me you can reach out to me email me and again all the information is on the website uh hopefully that answered the two questions of why I started Sonic camp and why I started boot camp till next week thanks for listening to the Cur
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