PP 348: Anne Gordon, Owner of Whale and Dolphin Wisdom Retreats

Website: http: //www.annegordondebarrigon.com/
Whale and Dolphin Wisdom Retreats Website: https://www.whaleanddolphinwisdomretreats.com/welcome.html
Facebook: https: //www.facebook.com/anne.gordon.121
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EmberaWhaletour
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/1/110351476435721358082

Kim Sutton: Welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity. This is your host, Kim Sutton, and I’m so happy to have you here with us today. I’m also thrilled to introduce our guest, Anne Gordon, and she’s the owner of Whale And Dolphin Wisdom Retreats. I’m so excited to chat with you, and thank you so much for joining us.

Anne Gordon: Thanks for having me, Kim. It’s gonna be a lot of fun.

Kim Sutton: Oh, it definitely is. I would love if you would give the listeners a background of how you got to be the owner of Whale and Dolphin Wisdom Retreats, and what exactly you do. No, actually just go there okay. See, my brain in my mouth is already disconnecting.

Anne Gordon: No worries. I know there’s a lot to think about either is, yeah. How does somebody get that job title? So I understand. I started out studying biology and animal behavior in university. I grew up in Washington State, running on the water. My dad had a boat, we got to go out and spend a lot of time with the Orca whales right there. So I grew up with Wales around. And then throughout my career, I worked as a zookeeper. I trained animals for educational outreach programs, like taking Tigers out to schools.

Kim Sutton: You took Tigers out to schools?

Anne Gordon: I did. I took them out and did wildlife assemblies to teach respect for wildlife.

Kim Sutton: Oh, wow.

Anne Gordon: Yes. And that’s just a step along my varied adventurous career. After that, I raised and trained both domestic and wild animals for movies and television for over 20 years. So that was a lot of fun.

Kim Sutton: What types of animals for television? I’m just so intrigued. I didn’t even know about this whole backstory.

Anne Gordon: I know. Exactly.

Kim Sutton: Tigers, bears?

Anne Gordon: Yes to all of the above.

Kim Sutton: Oh, my gosh.

Anne Gordon: Obviously, you see dogs and cats on TV much more than anything else. So I’ve done a lot of that–

Kim Sutton: Are they really alive? I hate to say it like that. Because sometimes, they’re just so well behaved. It’s like, looking at my animals, I could never expect them to sit still. I mean, no, I’ve never taken my dog to dog training. But my cats, they have a mind of their own. I don’t know how you can train cats?

Anne Gordon: You can actually. It’s actually not that hard as long as they’re hungry or have a food drive. You don’t starve them, you want to make it fun for them. But yeah, if they have a food drive, they’re actually pretty easy to train. The hard part with a cat on film is that they’re naturally shy in new places. So getting them used to working on a film set with all the commotion and craziness, that’s the hardest part. I’ve worked with big cats, wolves, deer, raccoons, around elephants and bears, chimpanzees, etc, etc. So that was great fun.

Kim Sutton: It sounds fun, but it also sounds a little bit scary at the same time.

Anne Gordon: The scary part was not the animals because that was what I knew. That was my expertise. That scary part was producers and directors, and some of the actors with their egos. And that is the more unpredictable part for me.

Kim Sutton: I know better than you, so I’m just gonna scare this animal and hope, not even think about the fact that it might bite me because it’s not unexpecting me to come up behind it.

Anne Gordon: Yeah, that’s exactly. Yeah. Or forgetting to tell me they’re having explosions in the middle of the scene when the animal is supposed to lay quiet. So as I was doing that career, I got a call to work on a film in Panama. So I went on this job, and Panama was never on my radar for visiting as a country. I was like everybody else that had a canal, a jungle and nothing else. So I came on this film, and it hired a local tribe of indigenous people who still live out in the jungle as they have forever in traditional villages, no electricity. The only road in is a river. They traveled by dugout canoe. So I got to hang out with them on the movie set and visit their villages on the weekends, and I just was so touched by how warm, open and friendly they are, and they were so happy. They have the quality of life the rest of us are searching for. And then as fate would have it, I met one in particular and married him.

Kim Sutton: Oh, wow.

Anne Gordon: So I am now 14 years later here in Panama after having married into this tribe of Indians from the jungle. I’m with him, I’m loving my life, and I’m thinking this is great, but how do I make a living here in Panama? And his village survives on tourism. So people come out to spend time with the people in the village and see how they live, and learn about their history and culture, and so on. And so I thought, well, I can do that. So I started doing tours, freelance, and as a tour guide to the village, and that was great fun. And then about a year later, I thought, well, maybe I’ll start my own company. So I started my own tour company to go out to the village. Now, the whole time I’m here in Panama, I’m also thinking, I’m in a country with two oceans only 50 miles apart. What species of dolphins and whales must be here, and how do I get out to see them? And I realized that not one single person to accompany anybody was offering whale watching or dolphin tours, nothing.

Kim Sutton: How is that possible?

Anne Gordon: Exactly. How is that possible? And just that nobody paid any attention. Nobody cared.

Kim Sutton: I live in the middle of cornfields and soy fields in Ohio. And if I traveled about 10 minutes, there’s actually a farm that has zebras, camels, and elephants, and wild, exotic animals. I mean, you can pay to go see them.

Anne Gordon: Sure.

Kim Sutton: How do I have that here? And that just blows my mind.

Anne Gordon: It blew my mind. And then it took me a couple of years, but I finally found out that Panama is the only place in the entire world where we have humpback whales that come from both the southern hemisphere from Antarctica, and the northern Alaska to breed and give birth here in Panama. And nobody was paying any attention to it. Nobody.

Kim Sutton: Wow. Okay, I just want to back you up a second.

Anne Gordon: Sure.

Kim Sutton: All right. So maybe this is a false assumption. Were you in California doing the movies when you moved to Panama?

Anne Gordon: Yeah. It’s a common assumption. Most of my film career, I was in Seattle, because that’s where I’m from. But the last four years of my film career, I sold my own company and went freelance and did move to California, and was there for four years. Now, interestingly, I had an inner knowing that my time in LA would be a transition. But I had no idea it would be in Panama. I’m marrying a man, a guy from the jungle.

Kim Sutton: So this is where my question was actually going. You said, no electricity.

Anne Gordon: Right.

Kim Sutton: So what did you do? I mean, you moved in and had no electricity, or did you live somewhere else.

Anne Gordon: We spent a lot of time in the village with him and his family. And when there’s no electricity, you sit around with a little lantern made out of a jar with kerosene and a wick sticking out of it. And you tell stories, and you talk.

Kim Sutton: It’s amazing.

Anne Gordon: And you take your morning bath in the river, which is amazingly refreshing. You wake up to the sun and the birds. But yes, we also did rent a place just outside of Panama City. Because working in tourism, I had to be close to the hotels and be connected to be able to communicate and find out when there is a tour.

Kim Sutton: Oh, that sounds like heaven. Actually waking up to sunshine and birds. Not that I can’t do that here in Ohio. But to be totally honest, most of the mornings it’s, mom, I gotta go pee.

Anne Gordon: Exactly.

Kim Sutton: Or the kids stomping around. I mean, you can still have sun birds, kids stomping around and having to go pee, but it just sounds so blissful. Okay, so I interrupted. So really, what happened next?

Anne Gordon: So I’m realizing that Panama has this wealth of whales. And so I literally pioneered the whale watching industry here, which was not easy as a white American woman in this Latin American country, and that nobody in the world knows Panama is an amazing place to watch whales. So trying to educate the entire world or any potential tourists that might be coming here that this is an amazing thing to do. And now, been doing our whale watching for 12 years, and we have a 99% success rate on all of our tours.

Kim Sutton: Wow. And outside, I mean, 1%, you can’t, even an animal trainer. I mean, this is the ocean, you can’t control the ocean. You can’t control nature.

Anne Gordon: No, not at all. But we have so many whales that it’s really really hard not to find them. It’s not about, will we see whales? The question is usually, which whales do we want to look at? Because they’re over there, there and there, which ones. So it’s pretty amazing. So I was doing that. I love all things spiritual, I love to learn and more about that. I love animal communication. I love to respect nature and to be as one with it as I can. And I love meditation. So I thought, why don’t we put together some spiritually themed retreats where we spend five days out in the pearl islands here in Panama with these tropical white sand beaches and crystal clear waters of 83 degrees. And go out every day on a catamaran sailboat and just hang out with the whales and the dolphins and connect, communicate, swim with. Just immerse ourselves in the healing energies and learn. And so I started that, and those retreats, it’s been really, really amazing. And some of the transformations of my clients are inspiring and so awesome.

Kim Sutton: Wow, okay, this is gonna make me sound naive. I believe I know what a catamaran is, is that the one that has two basically cylinders going down on either front or back on the boat?

Anne Gordon: Yeah. It’s a sailboat. Most boats are what we call a mano hole. So it’s one hole, or one tube that goes down the front, and the boat sits on top of that. Catamaran has two of those. Okay, so it’s a wider space. So that means that nobody has to compete for viewing. And it’s very, very stable on the water.

Kim Sutton: So that had to bring along its own challenges. I mean, we’re not just talking about starting a business on the internet, putting up a website and serving people over Skype or phone. I mean, the equipment and buy equipment. I mean, catamarans.

Anne Gordon: Yeah, exactly.

Kim Sutton: What did that whole experience, I know, this is sort of a nosy question, but what did that look like?

Anne Gordon: No, it was a challenge. It was a huge challenge. I didn’t want to own a boat because the whale season is three and a half months. So it didn’t make sense to buy a boat for three and a half months. And having grown up with my dad owning a boat, I know how much money and how much work is involved in maintaining them. So I look to charter boats as needed. And Panama is not a big sailing capital. There’s plenty of big fancy yachts, but they’re more all about these big cabins and the luxury inside the cabin, and not about seeing and going forward, and looking at what’s on the water, which is what we want to see. So there’s like just a handful of catamarans elbows in this country. And then to find one that we can work with that’s open to doing what we want to do out on the water, that’s easy. That’s the right price, checks all the boxes that I need. Yeah, it’s been a challenge. But thankfully, each year, we’ve had one and been working with the last boat for the last four years. He’s a British French captain. Really nice guy, really cares about the animals, super respectful, and a great cook because he provides lunch on the boat. And so it’s worked out really well. But yeah, it wasn’t easy.

Kim Sutton: I’m getting hungry. I don’t know why. Well, we in our pre chat, listeners, we were talking about, I mean, I already have shared on numerous episodes before and already in this one that I live in a small town in Ohio and there’s a lot of American food right here. And then I mentioned, I actually have a doctor’s appointment today so I’m really excited that I get to go somewhere where there’s not American food. And just hearing about being in the middle, I don’t know, maybe it’s just my body craving something that’s not quote normal. I’ve gotten into the habit of lazy food again, I mean, lunch on a catamaran surrounded by the waves in the ocean, and blue skies, and sunshine, and whatever. Sea Life decides to pop its snout. Give me the right word.

Anne Gordon: Snout or head.

Kim Sutton: Oh my gosh.

Anne Gordon: Yeah, it’s pretty incredible. And yeah, you do get hungry when you’re out on the water and fresh air. And when we get too warm, we just jump in the water and swim, cool off and get back on. And we usually stop at one of the nearby islands, and most of them are uninhabited. So we walk around, we swim, we enjoy the beach, we snorkel the coral reefs, and then we get on for lunch. And it’s amazing.

Kim Sutton: Wow. If one of your clients from one of these experiences could make your day by giving you a description of the transformation that they received, what would they say to you?

Anne Gordon: I’ll tell you a story that happened just recently, and this is the second time I’ve had a similar thing happen. This was a woman whose husband died seven years ago, and in the most horrendous way. They were driving home from somewhere, and they were in two different cars following each other. Her husband was in the car ahead, several car lengths ahead, and he got into a horrible car accident. I don’t know how it happened. His car caught fire.

Kim Sutton: Oh, my gosh.

Anne Gordon: And there was nothing she could do but watch. So I can’t even imagine the horror of that.

Kim Sutton: Neither can I. I just got chills just thinking about having it happen is, number one, having no choice but to stand by and witness when you can’t do anything.

Anne Gordon: I can’t even comprehend that. And so a friend of hers who had been on one of my trips before was coming back and brought her along. And I didn’t know any of this prior. But on the last day of the retreat, she shared with all of us that for the first time in seven years, she truly felt happy.

Kim Sutton: Wow.

Anne Gordon: Yeah. Incredible, and such a gift. And really, I don’t have to do a whole lot of facilitating. I mean, yes, I share what I have learned so much of the wisdom I have learned by spending time and communicating with the dolphins and whales. But really, the whales and dolphins work the magic. You just have to be there and be immersed in their energy, and observe them and be open to it. Because when you’re with them, when there’s a whale in front of you, or a dolphin riding the bow or the front of the boat, it’s impossible to think about anything else. You are right there in that present moment, which is such a gift to us in our busy world. We’re always thinking about tomorrow and our regrets of yesterday, and being right there in the moment is incredible.

Kim Sutton: Being right there in the moment is often a challenge for me. For many of us, yeah, being still is a challenge for me. Last night, I actually took my laptop into my bed because my husband and I, I’ve been working on a huge launch for the last three weeks, and he has seen very little of me because I’ve been in the office working. And he’s been taking care of the household. This isn’t necessarily better, but I did take the laptop in the bed. And because he’s sitting right there, his desk and his quote offices in our room, it felt like every time he put his headphones on to be listening to whatever he was doing, I was like, oh, did I tell you? Oh, did I tell you? Oh, did I tell you? I mean, we go to church. And it’s the same way I feel like, I don’t know. I would love to experience the stillness, and yes, sometimes, I just wish I could turn off the, oh, did I tell you?

Anne Gordon: Yeah, yeah. No, I totally get it. And with our technology, and our texting, and our this and that, it teaches us to be like ADD, whether we are naturally or not. It’s just like we’re constantly being distracted. And so now, our minds are racing even more than before. So yes, when you get out on the water and there’s a whale breaching in front of you, it’s like, oh, my god, you’re just so taken away that it totally clears your mind. And you become more playful, more like a kid again, more able to be in that present moment. And it’s such a gift that we all need so desperately.

Kim Sutton: Absolutely. What is one of your most, and there’s a word I want to use, but I don’t know it right now. Amazing experiences, personal experiences, if you don’t mind sharing that you’ve had personally while on any of these trips?

Anne Gordon: Well, again, I just took one. I do my retreats here in Panama, as we’ve talked about, but I’ve expanded. And now, I take Whale and Dolphin Retreats all over the world. And for the last four years, I’ve taken one to Baja to be with the gray whales. Now, the gray whales are the most friendly whales in the world because they actually will, where they go to breed and give birth are in these lagoons along Baja, California and Mexico. And they literally will come right up to the boats, and then they’re just little open boats, and maybe hold 10 people maximum. They come right up to the side of the boat and you can touch them, and they want to be touched. They even will bring their little babies and push them up so that these newborn calves, they trust us with. So it’s such an amazing gift. And really, they represent forgiveness, this species of whale. But when they were being hunted by the whalers were known as devil fish, because they were the most aggressive species of whale that fought back when they were being hunted. But now, they’ve transformed and trust humans so much that they will literally bring their babies. And so the forgiveness, if they forgive humans as a race so much, how can we not forgive ourselves?

Kim Sutton: Oh, absolutely.

Anne Gordon: So on this last trip that I just took in March this year, it was the first, I’ve been there four years in a row, and it’s always been amazing. But this time was by far and away the most amazing, because there was a mother gray whale and her calf, and this mother swam right up to the boat into my open arms and just hung with me for probably five minutes. And I was able to just hold her, and hug her, and massage her, and kiss her. And it was all her choice. That’s the amazing part that they choose to be with us. Because the ocean is huge. They can go anywhere they want to, and again, yeah, it’s so powerful. I’ve had humpback whales do the same thing. Not touching, but here in Panama, I’ve been swimming in the water. I know that there’s a whale over there somewhere, but I can’t see where she is. And there’s a mom and a calf. And at one point, I called back to the captain of our boat and I said. “Where were the whales?” He says: “They’re right there.” And she pops up, the calf pops up 10 feet in front of us. And I looked down in the water, and there’s mom, so close that she has to pull in her spins to avoid hitting us. And she came to us, she had been quite a ways away, they came right to us and it’s just, oh, my gosh, such an amazing gift to have that happen.

Kim Sutton: If you woke up tomorrow and found $100 million in your bank account, would you change anything about what you do?

Anne Gordon: I would change a little. I’d be able to relax a little bit with the finances taken care of. And my goal is to, I love to take people out and share these amazing transformational experiences. And the one thing I would do differently would be to, say, if I have a week retreat, I would do a week retreat for my people and give them everything I can give them with the whales and dolphins, and then I would take a week for me where I just hang with the dolphins and whales. And I love being with the people, I love it. And when I’m with the people, I have to take care of them and their needs. That’s my job, and I’m happy to do so. I also love having my alone time with the dolphins and whales where I don’t have to put everybody else’s needs to head. So I don’t mean to sound rude about it, but I love both aspects. So that’s what I would do.

Kim Sutton: I don’t consider that rude at all. The three pillars of Positive Productivity are self care, systems and support. And you and I met about a month ago. I haven’t had a day, even just one day of downtime since we met, because I’ve been working on this launch. And one of my coaches told me, Kim, when this launch is done, I want you to take the rest of the week off. I’m taking this afternoon off, which is huge. Yes, it’s a doctor’s appointment, but I would love to take tomorrow and Friday off. But it’s just nature right now. I mean, no pun intended, considering you are really with nature. But you know, it’s just the nature of the industry I’m in. When there’s a launch, you don’t just take a day off.

Anne Gordon: Right. It’s intense, and just the nature of entrepreneurship. When you’re running your own business, there’s always something to do even if it’s 11:00 o’clock at night. So if I had unlimited funds, I would do equal time for my clients and for me.

Kim Sutton: But do you have other people who do retreats with you as well?

Anne Gordon: I sometimes have co leaders. Like on my Mexico retreat, I have a friend who’s an animal communicator. So she and I lead the trip. But I don’t have anybody at this point as the main person or that I can just send and go do a retreat for me. At some point here in Panama, right now I schedule my retreats every other week throughout the three and a half month season. And at some point, I envision that when I get to the point of being sold out on all of those and I have waiting lists and demand, then I hire somebody who can run the off weeks.

Kim Sutton: That’s great. Yeah, I’ve been looking at that in my own business. I would have to imagine that your experiences that you’re offering are very personal. Mine, I can’t say I’m offering so much experience, like in that whole launch process is the technical knowledge. I realized just in the last three weeks, it can’t be just me. It can’t be. If this business is going to be sustainable, there needs to be more people than just me who are building out all these components. I mean, I do have an incredible team. And one of them will edit my bloopers out of this episode and get fantastic show notes, and everything put together. Leng, you rock. However, there needs to be more. So that question was not to be nosy. It was inspired by my own experiences right now, because I don’t want my husband going a month at a time without seeing me.

Anne Gordon: Of course. And I totally get it because when I started the tour company, we got to the point where I was doing all the tours, leading all the tours, I was doing all the email booking, I was managing the website. 100% me, nobody else until I took the leap and I hired a tour coordinator to handle all of the booking and all of the emails. Because I would do it to her. I would come home and I would be on, like you, on the computer in bed with my husband. I’d barely have time to eat until I fell asleep, get up and do it again. And so I hired this person, I wasn’t even sure how I was going to pay for her. And it was the best move I ever made. Because what a relief to have actually a little bit of time to myself in the evenings, I didn’t have to think about anything, and she would let me know when there was a tour. I could just relax a bit. So yeah, it’s honoring yourself to do so.

Kim Sutton: Oh, I love how you said honoring yourself. Absolutely. In the last year, and listeners, if this is not your first episode, you know I tend to repeat things. I do it to my husband all the time, and it’s not just on the podcast. And have I told you this before? But one of the expressions that’s been running around in my head over and over again lately is, rich people spend money to save time. Poor people spend time to save money. And actually, I was just talking to my son, my 15 year old son about this last night because we were talking about grocery shopping. I was saying, I really want to get into the habit of ordering groceries online, and then just going to pick them up through the drive thru. He’s like, but mom, that costs money. But it costs $6, Jacob. It cost $6, and it doesn’t cost me an hour of client time. It doesn’t cost me all the extras that go into the basket. Yeah, that way when Dave, my husband. That way when Dave goes to the grocery store, he’s not bringing home through packages, the cookies that we don’t need, like, exactly. And the same goes for paying somebody to do our lawn. We can grieve the time and the energy, and just for my husband, it means physical pain of doing it himself. He can free up his mental and physical side to do other things. So no, I totally get it, and bravo to you for hiring that support. That is not where your genius bonus is. You need to stay in that.

Anne Gordon: Exactly. My genius is not sitting on the computer responding to email or door requests. It’s not that hard. I mean, yes, my tour coordinator is fabulous at it. That is her talent, but it’s not mine. So you’re right, my time is better spent in creating, organizing and facilitating the retreat.

Kim Sutton: Absolutely. Okay, so here’s a huge question because I know we have listeners that are wondering, okay, I want to know more. How do I book one? This episode is airing in May of 2018. What is the season in Panama? How far out in advance do people need to book? Where do they go? I told you, I stack questions. Where do they go to actually get in touch and to book their retreat?

Anne Gordon: Perfect. Yeah, those are all easy to answer. So our season is just coming up so this is perfect timing. Whale season, in fact, the humpback whales are on their way. Right now, they leave Antarctica in May and they arrive here late June. So our season is July 1 through the middle of October. And to book a trip and to learn more details, I’ll give you the easiest website domain name which is whalewisdomretreats.com.

Kim Sutton: Fabulous, whalewisdomretreats.com. And listeners, if you are driving, please don’t try to write it down right now. You can go to the show notes which you can find at thekimsutton.com/pp348. If we just remember thekimsutton.com, you can click on the podcast tab and you’ll be able to find an episode at your convenience. Please do not drive and write at the same time. And this has been an absolute pleasure, I have loved every moment of finding out more about what you do. And actually, I’m really excited because I have ideas in my head going around the Positive Productivity brand, and I think it would be incredible. So we’ll definitely have to keep in touch. So thank you so much for being on.

Anne Gordon: Oh, it’s been my pleasure. It’s been a lot of fun. And yes, it would be a lot of fun. And I also let people like yourselves who are coaches bring groups. So if you have clients and you want to bring a group on one of my retreats, if you bring a group, then your trip is free. We can have a lot of fun that way and talk about the different wisdom that the dolphins and whales can teach us about being in the present moment, being transparent. Whales represent abundance, stepping into the natural flow of abundance that can support whatever message the coach has to share with their clients.

Kim Sutton: Listeners, I’m going to challenge you right now, if you would be interested in accompanying me on one of these retreats, I definitely want you to go to thekimsutton.com/pp348 and leave a comment down below, or just click on the contact tab and let me know. Because oh, my gosh, that sounds absolutely amazing. There’s so much that we could do on the catamaran and off in the way of addressing self care systems and support in our personal and professional lives. You’re not supposed to be contributing to my chronic idea disorder, and this is not the calendar for anywhere before October. So listeners, I’m just gonna put it out there, this will be a 2019 event. Sorry Anne, but I already, I need to be smart about this. But yeah, go to my website and let me know if you would be interested. I know I’m interested, but I want you to come with me.

Anne Gordon: And nothing better than to focus on self care by going on retreat. It’s all about you. Relaxing, reconnecting with your inner self, rejoicing, playing and giving yourself the most amazing experience, unforgettable experience you’ll ever have.

Kim Sutton: Yeah, this won’t be one of those trips you go on for your business that you go home completely exhausted.

Anne Gordon: No. We won’t have that problem at all. You’ll come home so relaxed, refreshed, rejuvenated and energized, ready to go.

Kim Sutton: Absolutely. I just need to throw this in there so that listeners know this was not pre scripted. We had no idea where this conversation was going. I don’t even know where my solo episodes are going until I start talking sometimes. So this was definitely not scripted. Thank you so much again. Do you have a last piece of parting advice or a golden nugget that you can offer to listeners?

Anne Gordon: Sure. It has been a lot of fun, so thank you for having me. I would say it’s a piece of advice what the dolphins always give me and everybody else around is that, get out and play. When was the last time you really played like a little kid where you’re on the floor and you’re rolling and laughing? As adults, we don’t play or laugh enough. And if you don’t have little kids to play with, find some girlfriends, some buddies to go play and laugh with. Or go find some puppies, maybe at the local shelter, puppies or kittens that you can get silly with and just play in the moment, and that’s a real self care gift you can give to yourself is play.