In addition to the work trip this week and juggling multiple closings, I spent a few days at a resort in Puerto Rico. It was not a destination I would have chosen and probably not a place I’ll return to anytime soon, but that wasn’t the point. There were red flags on the beach consistently and warning signs about rip currents anyway. I took a short walk on the beach one morning when I woke up way too early, but otherwise stayed out of the sun and returned just as pale as I’d started.

I went for a retreat through a community of entrepreneurs with online businesses. I am the only attorney as it is a group of people running content, digital agencies, ecommerce, and SaaS businesses, but the way we operate our business looks a lot like many of the digital agencies and I’m able to share a perspective on the M&A process that is otherwise absent from the group. I’m not in the group for business development (though I have assisted members of the group with transactions), but for me it’s more about exposure to cutting edge ideas and being around my people.

The event was two days of sessions, a mix of presentations and hot seats to help members with particularly pressing issues, and an excursion day where we went into Old San Juan and kayaked into a bay filled with bioluminescent plankton. I skipped out on the morning coffee tour and instead sat around talking with other people who decided not to schlep up and down hills in the sun; I don’t drink coffee anyway. The notes I took during the sessions will take weeks to fully process as I mentally turn over the ideas in my head and think about how they might translate into my own context.

I’ve attended several events with this group, both in-person and virtually. At this point, I know most of the people and even if we only see each other once or twice a year we’re able to have conversations as friends. It is the sort of community that I’ve not yet really found in any one place, a group of people who understand the business and life challenges that come with the path I’ve chosen. It’s a group of people with whom I’m able to have conversations that just aren’t possible elsewhere. It says a lot about the group that I’m willing to leave North Carolina during what is some of the best weather of the year to go to tropical humidity and that I’m willing to go to Las Vegas every year for the main conference even though Sin City is hardly my speed.