A Different Kind of Spring Break: Costa Rica’19
Two years back I met Josh Gershon one of the two co-founders of Startup Island (SI) at a Husky Startup Challenge ideation session hosted by the Entrepreneurs Club at Northeastern University.
The moment Josh pitched the flagship program of SI: A week long immersive spring break in a beautiful retreat property at Costa Rica, meeting like minded college students with an entrepreneurial mindset from all around America, growing personally and professionally through various workshops and coaching sessions, taking part in various cultural exchanges, exploring nearby local towns and becoming more aware of oneself with intentional conversations, yoga and meditation: I WAS IN.
When I first posted pictures of this trip on my Instagram a lot of my friends asked me where I went, what I did, how they too could go and said the pictures looked gorgeous. Through this article, I am going to try and give you a glimpse into some of my favorite moments on this trip and hopefully inspire you to take a different kind of Spring Break!
- The Retreat Property
We stayed at a beautiful property called Leaves and Lizard Arenal Volcano Retreat. It is hard not to fall in love with this property the moment you enter it. The property has cabins spread over a huge estate and every cabin has its own unique characteristic, with a different view of the Arenal Volcano. The cabin we stayed in called humming bird had no blinds and and all glass windows in the rooms which allowed us to open our eyes in the morning with a view of the sunrising across the Arenal Volcano.
2. Yoga, Meditation and Animal Flow
Imagine a bunch of college students on a Spring Break holiday getting up at 6:30 am with the rise of the sun to do yoga and meditation together in the middle of a forest with the birds chirping around them. Sounds crazy right? Well on our trip with SI that’s how our mornings started with Josh leading the meditation session and Brian Helfman (co-founder of Startup Island) leading the yoga sessions. We were also lucky to have Danielle Gertner (Founder at Gertner Grind) teach us the basics of Animal Flow which looks way cooler than it sounds.
3. Food and Desserts
Now Imagine, if I told you you that you yourself could collect the eggs you would eat for breakfast from the chicken, milk the milk you would drink during the day from cows and had only one vegetarian and one non vegetarian option eat to chose from for lunch and dinner. This might not sound appealing at first, but the food in Costa Rica was so delicious and fresh that we all could not wait until our next meal. All the meals were eaten together on a long table. Instead of watching Netflix, some sports channel, Youtube Videos or looking at one’s phone or laptop screen people actually ate food together with conversations, laughter and discussions ranging from the internet of things to Buddhist philosophy on happiness.
The favorite part of the dinner meal was the dessert options at the end: with the lemon bar, brownie and cheesecake being offered with various flavors of ice cream people were bound to have a good nights sleep.
4. Workshops
One of the reasons why the SI trip is different is because of the workshops they had focusing on personal growth and learning from one another. The workshops ranged from the flagship workshop The Business of Being Happy and Healthy (lead by Josh and Brian), recognizing and capitalizing on Personal Growth (lead by Sean Biava), Crystal F****** Clarity (lead by Danielle Gertner), dealing with imposter syndrome (lead by Aarti Amalean) and a workshop on community engagement (lead by SI Head of Community: Shivank Taksali).
What surprised me most about all these workshops was how honest and open everybody was when sharing their personal experiences. Through these workshops I learnt about the concept of holding space. When a workshop was conducted there was a different kind of energy in the room, all eyes were on the person speaking and most workshops could have gone on for another few hours if we weren’t short on time.
5. Exploring the local towns
We also had a chance to spend an afternoon roaming around the nearby town. After eating our sandwiches and drinks in the nearby garden we walked around the town talking to people, buying local arts and crafts for family and friends, seeing a nearby church and clicking pictures. I also had the chance to go to a nearby bar and have the most authentic Costa Rican drink called the Chiliguaro.
6. Learning how to communicate with horses
One of the most anticipated parts of the trip is the ‘Power of the Herd’ workshop where you get to learn how to communicate with horses and the horses in turn teach the person about team dynamics, leadership styles helping the rider access strength and confidence they didn’t know they ever had. This is something that one has to experience in order to believe.
As a person who has never ridden a horse before, these workshops were particularly special as I had the chance to connect with Dorado (my horse) and learn a lot about communication and leadership from another living being. It was indeed a beautiful experience.
7. Coaching Sessions
At the program each of the travelers was given a coach. These coaches were typically SI veterans, founders or CEO’s and were leading workshops throughout the trip. Josh and Brian paired travelers with their coaches very intentionally and I was lucky to be paired with Coach Sean Biava. During these coaching sessions we were encouraged to have meaningful conversations and build a plan of action with our coach. This part of the program was awesome as it gave travelers a coach/mentor who travelers had access to even once the 1 week long trip was over.
8. Visiting a school where kids actually like attending school
We spent a day at a local school which turned out so much more fun than it sounds. In the morning before our visit Brian Ardavin (one of the travelers on the trip) gave us a crash course on how to speak Spanish. At the school we had an amazing time playing games with the students, singing/dancing with them in the classroom, attending their gym class which was loads of fun and eating food in their canteen.
It was amazing to see how happy and active all these kids were attending school. All these kids were smiling, talking to one another, having fun while learning which was very refreshing.
9. Dancing (like crazy) without any alcohol
One of the nights we had a startup pitch competition with a twist. We were supposed to pitch our idea but the catch was we had to sing it to the tune of the song as the music was blasted in the background. This pitch competition had crazy energy with amazing ideas. Our team consisting of Brian, Abrielle Mason and I pitched our idea to the song Girls Like You by Maroon Five. After the pitch competition as Brian and Josh (our two judges) went to another corner to decide who was the winner the music continued and all of the participants started dancing. Nobody had had even a drop of alcohol but we continued dancing to song after song for an hour and if someone saw us they would think we are possessed by another kind of crazy energy. It was indeed a magical moment born out of the blue and one which no one will forget.
10. Living Fancy with the Hot Springs
On one of the last days of the trip we had the option to either go to the Hot Springs or Zip line. Since I had already been zip lining before and Costa Rica is famous for their hot springs powered by the Arenal Volcano I chose the hot spring options. For the hot springs we went to the fancy The Springs Resort and Spa at Arenal, which I was told was visited often by Will Smith.
The Springs was phenomenally relaxing where I was able to sit in the hot springs and watch my favorite soccer team Manchester United stage an unprecedented comeback to knockout Paris Saint Germain with a view of the Arenal Volcano while eating some nice protein. We were also able to enjoy the slides in the springs, the amazing view from the hotel, some nice food and drinks and some meaningful conversations with some amazing people from all across the world.
11. Riding our horses across Costa Rica
Now imagine you don’t know how to ride a horse and I teach you how to communicate with a horse and tell you now you are ready to ride your across a beautiful scenic mountain route across Costa Rica to a waterfall. Sounds crazy right? That’s exactly what happened to me and it was exhilarating.
At the waterfall we changed as Jake Willis and Abbie lead the charge of jumping in the fall. After that, all of us jumped as Brian acted as the photographer and Jaison Patel, Marissa Beriolebeau, Adit Agarwal, Shivank, Aarti and I played frisbee, did yoga poses, swam, and jumped near the waterfall.
12. The Farewell Siesta
The last night was very special as the SI trip was going to end the next day and all of us were going to fly back to our respective colleges and begin our normal lives. But before that Josh and Brian had a party planned for us. The siesta kicked off as all of us sat in a circle and discussed our favorite parts of the trip, Brian showed us another of his talents as he started rapping to some old school Eminem and 50 cent and of course then the dancing began as we danced into the night, had more fun and games and I decided to jump into the pool after someone asked me if anybody would do it.
13. Keeping in touch
I have been with many groups and a lot of them have said that they will keep in touch once we part ways and almost all of the time that never happens. But I had a feeling that this group was special and we would remain connected once we went our separate ways. And my feeling was true as we had weekly video calls with members who were free, members visited one another in different cities (Danielle came to Boston and Sean stayed in my house for 2weeks as he explored Boston and the surrounding areas), we had occasional meet ups (Sarah Gaines lead her signature joy flow session by the Charles River for some of the previous travelers in Boston), we got access to the Startup Island book, podcast and movie list and Shivank Taksali kept us connected through the AWESOME monthly newsletter/Medium publication: The Business of Being Happy and Healthy.
Now imagine you too could do this by applying to be a Startup Island traveller.
Apart from all of the above this trip gave me a week full of not caring about classes and emails and truly being connected to my breath, body, surroundings and people. It gave me fresh perspective as I got up with a view of the sun rising above Arenal Volcano and it gave some friends who became very close as the trip progressed. It taught why ‘Pura Vida’ (meaning Simple Life) was words to live life by.
It took me two years before I took the leap of faith, paid the deposit amount to take this trip and join this community. If you need someone to convince you to take the same leap (or even give you a small push) feel free to reach out to me via LinkedIn, Instagram or Email (kishorepuria.k@husky.neu.edu).
Till then, #MiCasaSuCasaWibes :)
This story is published in The Business of Being Happy and Healthy, brought to you by the Startup Island community.
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