This is part three of a four part series here on The FoundHer Files about the lessons I actually learned at camp, and how every one of them still shows up in the way I run my businesses today. If you missed the first two, on self-reliance and confidence, you can read them here: Part 1 and Part 2
It was some of my school friends and their moms who convinced me to give Camp Sea-gull a try. I made the decision to go with a family friend of mine, someone who shared a birthday with me and who I’d known since before we could talk. I assumed that we’d all be in the same bunk, and camp was just going to be an extension of the life I already had, in a prettier location.
But the night before I was leaving, my mom got a call from a friend who had a daughter that worked at camp and she told my mom I wasn’t with any of my school friends. My family friend and I had been placed in a bunk with a group of girls I didn’t know. Girls who all went to the same private school together across town. The night before I got on the bus, I found out that wasn’t happening. I was devastated. This was the summer before sixth grade and I was planning to spend it with a bunch of girls I would be going to middle school with. And now, I wasn’t in a cabin with any of them.
My mom asked if I was sure that I wanted to still go. She could see how upset I was, and there’s a particular kind of hesitation a parent gets when they’re about to send their child somewhere new, to a place where they’ve never been, not knowing if it’s going to break them or build them. But I went. I got in the bus and I had to figure it out.
It ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me at camp. The girls in that bunk became some of my closest friends. We spent years following at camp together, gave speeches at each other’s bat mitzvahs, and made some of the best memories together. That summer became one of my favorite summers, which became five more summers after it, which became friendships that never stayed inside the walls of that cabin.
These friendships followed me home. I became friends with their school friends and they became friends with mine. In high school we met up at parties and hung out whenever we could. I didn’t understand it then, but having friends who existed completely outside of my school life, turned out to be one of the most important things camp ever gave me, especially in middle school. I didn’t choose that bunk. I would never have chosen it if I’d been given the chance before I left. But what it gave me was more than the bunk I’d planned for ever could have.
I watched a version of that same lesson play out with both of my daughters this summer. My oldest, in her final experience as a camper spent thirty-five nights out west with camp, placed with the eight girls who have been in her cabin every summer for eight years. This was incredibly important as this is the reason my kids go to camp…to be with the friends they’ve made over the years. But she was also placed with a group of boys who’ve been in her co-ed programs the last two summers, and a whole additional group of girls she knew but had never really spent real time with/hadn’t spent time with in years. Going in, there was hesitation from every direction. Different groups, different histories, different comfort levels. As parents, we all worried they wouldn’t gel.
But they did. Last week I picked her up from that trip, her very last as a camper, and the whole group got off the bus together, one big group, laughing, exhausted, clearly they had the time of their lives together. It turned out everyone got along spectacularly.
My youngest was placed on a camping trip with one girl she knew and the rest, girls she hadn’t ever spent much time with. Do you want to know what the letter I got said? “Mom, I made some new friends!”
That’s the lesson I learned and use every day in my business: you’re not going to always know everyone in the room. You’re not going to always be comfortable. You may have to walk into rooms (ir places) where you don’t know people. And you have to learn how to navigate that.
I think about that first summer at Sea-Gull, every time I walk into a room of people I do not know.
Networking has never come naturally to me, does it come naturally to anyone? It’s clunky, awkward, and often…uncomfortable. I’ve attended many conferences, dinners, or events full of strangers that still give me a pit in my stomach before I head inside. It was the same feeling the night before I got on that bus not knowing the girls who were going to be in my bunk. But camp taught me that the pit in my stomach is not a sign to stay home. It is just the feeling that shows up right before something good.
I never know who I am going to meet in most of the rooms I walk into, and that is really the whole point. Some of the people who have mattered most to my business, collaborators, people who introduced me to my biggest opportunities, were not people I sought out with a plan. They were people I met because I showed up somewhere that may have been a little uncomfortable, and stayed long enough to have a real conversation. Just this week I was asked by a big brand to go to dinner. I knew no one going. Was I a little hesitant? Sure. But I made some great connections and don’t regret going for a moment.
That is what camp actually trained me to do, long before I understood it as a skill. Get placed in a room, a bunk, a trip, a table, with people I did not choose and do not know yet, and instead of shrinking into a corner, learn how to actually be there. Ask a question. Sit next to someone new. Stay a little past the point where it would be easier to leave.
My daughters are learning that same thing right now on buses, trips and on programs with kids they may not have picked either. Next summer, my oldest has already decided that she wants to go on a program where she probably won’t know anyone. But guess what? Nine years of summer camp have prepared her for that moment. I hope she carries it the way I did, because walking into an unfamiliar room and making something of it is not really a camp skill or a networking skill. It’s the same skill, just practiced in different rooms.
This is why I no longer avoid the awkward mixer, the icebreaker, the event where I do not know a single name on the list. Somewhere in that room might be my next collaborator, my next partner, the person who ends up mattering most to whatever I build next. I never know until I walk in and find out. And I’ll forever be grateful that camp gave me the skill to do so.
I’m sorry this was a little late, I’ve been taking some time off. The last installment of this series will drop on Friday. Have a great start to the week,
Lindsay
P.S. What’s a room you walked into not knowing a single person, that ended up mattering more than you expected? Reply and tell me, or leave a comment below.
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