this one thing makes business so much easier

Hey! 

I’m back from Portugal, knocking off a quick catch-up since I don’t have my usual weeklong lead time on this newsletter. 

I want to tell you everything about the last 9 days. 

I want to lounge with you over a fresh pot of coffee and a tray of warm pastel de natas while I regale you with stories. I’d spend a full twenty minutes on the 200-year-old historic home I rented, a creaky Old Europe house that sat at the bottom of a crater. Even though the house only cost $100/night, I felt like a major baller staying in a 2-story, 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom house all by myself.

The view from my bed was worth the price of admission.

Are you jealous yet? 

One of the best things I did was bring my guitar.

Travelling with an overstuffed backpack, a wheeled carry-on and a hard-shell guitar case is a lot of luggage for a solo traveler. I had a moment of doubt when Azores Airlines charged me $168 just for the guitar. Multiply that by three flights and I could’ve bought a whole new guitar! I resolved to start every day sitting by the water, drinking coffee and playing Leonard Cohen, so that it would be worth it. 

It absolutely was. 

I played a lot, and play is one of my most important values in business and life.

If you remember this email, I told you about my band. I couldn’t give you any details because we didn’t want to ruin the surprise for my mastermind members. The surprise happened so I’m free to share now.

I started a band with two members of my mastermind—the two other Canadians, which might be a coincidence or maybe not. I love Canadians and I love being Canadian. 

We met online every week for about six weeks preparing songs to play at the Lisbon retreat. It brought us together in a way that only music does. Even though it wasn’t business related, it increased our capacity for connection, which I believe has a ripple effect in other areas.

Having an audience was a gift, not just so we could share our music, but even more so we could share our joy in playing together. I felt like the luckiest person on earth, and being witnessed in that experience was very special. 

The retreat was everything I dreamed. 

We stayed up late talking about everything from our moms to our high-school boyfriends. We swapped origin stories, confessed what wasn’t working in our businesses, asked blunt questions about revenue and expenses, ate way too much fish and roasted vegetables (I discovered I hate Portuguese food), spent a whole morning dissecting a very cool funnel and toyed with ways of gamifying various parts of our businesses. 

Everyone left with full hearts, years of ideas, and renewed energy to carry us through the hard parts that are inevitable in business. 

I’m going to borrow a line from one of my members, who said “Being in business is better when you do it with people.”

I want to tattoo that on my heart. 

Business is so much better with people, especially if you have people who share your vision and values, who know how to listen without trying to fix you, and who care enough to say, “I’m sorry but I’m not buying that,” when you’re bullshitting yourself and they know it. (That’s another line I borrowed from a member.)

Every business owner needs people like that. 

I wasn’t sure until today what the next iteration of my mastermind would be, but I woke up this morning with all the pieces spinning into place, which felt amazing. I’ll tell you about it soon. This is just a quick catch-up, not a sales email. Stay tuned for more.

Thanks for sharing coffee and natas with me. 

I didn’t even get to tell you about ATV-ing around the rim of a crater, or the time I got whiplash rappelling too fast down a canyon on São Miguel. 

I’ll save those for our next coffee date. 

♥️

Tarzan

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Tarzan Kalryzian [she/they]
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