Today we’d like to introduce you to Abigail Jones.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Abigail. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I have always been a voracious learner driven to test limits, ask questions, and build community. As COO of Cairn Leadership, I get to exercise my core competencies by designing and delivering human-centered solutions to connect people with other people and resources to help them thrive.
After graduating from UCSD with Bachelor’s degrees in Linguistics and International Sociology, I worked for the Lab of Comparative Human Cognition at UCSD for five years as the Community Wellness Research Lead. In 2015, I went back to UCSD to earn a certificate in Business Management. That summer, I met a fellow at San Diego Startup Week whose leadership development team was working to activate the world of work with play.
For the next four years, I climbed the small ladder from intern to business development lead, learning the landscape of corporate training and development. Here I experienced firsthand the grit required and the high-stakes decisions entrepreneurs need to make to build a company from the ground up.
After delivering my Mindful Games for Leaders training for an educational conference in 2015, Dr. Erik Conklin with Prism Educational Consulting hired me to develop and deliver research-backed methods in mindfulness and improvisational comedy to train academics and purpose-driven teams in resiliency and peak performance.
In 2016 I helped launch and run Veterans Ventures at UCSD’s Rady School of Management, an entrepreneur training program for former U.S. service members. In 2018, I planned and led a multi-day development retreat in Lake Tahoe for Veterans Ventures graduates. While looking for the final speaker and coach for this retreat, I met my current business partner, Knight Campbell, CEO of Cairn Leadership.
Knight and I began talking, walking, hiking and exploring our deeply shared beliefs, extensive education, and experience leading. We found shared excitement around the power of movement, nature, and authentic connection to propel leaders and teams forward.
It’s quite fitting that our first official business meeting was also my first multi-pitch climbing summit at Tahquitz in Idyllwild, CA. We officially became partners of Cairn Leadership in April 2019.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The slow is smooth. Entrepreneurship is the opposite! Facilitating leadership development experiences sometimes demands full-time engagement for multiple days in a row. For one retreat this year, I led 45 participants and a team of seven through 10+ hours of curriculum per day – I was on for 96 hours straight!
Holding myself and my team to the highest standard, I had this intense pressure to deliver top quality leadership training, which entails customizing design in real-time, actively listening and responding to key stakeholders, and ensuring logistical details get handled down to the last ice cube. This is amidst not letting anyone get hurt (one 45 year old man taunted a baby rattlesnake with a stick – come on!), getting quality meals out on time, and making sure my team had everything they need.
One particularly awesome moment is when I had just begun facilitating an interactive wellness workshop when I saw a small dead animal right in the middle of the main walkway. To keep the program on track, I had to subtly ask one of the chefs, who had gloves, to come to pick it up without letting participants know what was going on. This finesse, to paddle under the surface like crazy while above the surface maintaining a calm and presence for the benefit of the group, is one example of a bump that I’ve learned to smooth.
Starting a company demands quality energy to thrive. At times this first year, I have learned the hard way to not forego self-care in the short term to ensure I can manage my energy in the long-term.
People often ask, how do you manage your energy to pay bills and get a new company off the ground? The answer is the same solution we provide business leaders: relentless persistence towards holistic fitness, in body/mind and soul.
By developing professionally and personally in tandem, I don’t get burnt out. In 2019, I raced my first two Sprint triathlons, attended my first three day silent retreat, first organized one mile swim, and swam in the ocean by myself more times than I can count on all my phalanges.
I consistently seek adventure to enter flow state – where I am driven by physical challenge, pure joy, and timelessness. It is because I am developing personally that I can move leaps and bounds professionally.
Another question I get asked is: You? Consulting? Aren’t you too young? My response: We are changing the way we do training, so why would you spend 10 years doing the old way?
The time is now. It would be a disservice to the world to NOT begin now by offering the conversation tools, skill-building activities, and enriched environments that Knight and I can offer based on our education and experience with methods from neuroscience and industry trends. We want people to feel more alive at work now!
Because we use movement, thought-provoking discussions, and practicing decision-making with real consequences in primarily outdoor settings, the process of facilitating training is almost just as refueling as the outcome is for participants.
Starting on my own was tough. And, partnering with another human is tough in a better way. Knight and I work to develop and strengthen a strong business relationship with constant challenge and consistent support. Building a successful company is only possible with the right team and an organizational structure that optimizes for sharing information and energy. It is because we work so much on our relationship and the business together that we can deliver the best leadership training the industry has to offer.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Knight launched Cairn Leadership in December 2017. After flying helicopters for the Navy and teaching leadership at the Naval Academy for a few years, Knight was accepted into the Ph.D. program in management at George Washington University. He quickly realized that academia would not be the hands-on, impactful experience he wanted to create.
With a deep love for adventuring outdoors, he quite the Ph.D. program, applied and got a job teaching rock climbing at REI, got into the instructor course for NOLS, and was accepted to the executive leadership coaching program at Georgetown. He named it Cairn Leadership because when mountaineering in extreme winter conditions, as he and his wife often do, they often navigate by finding and moving between Cairns, or stacks of stones that guide the way on desolate paths. “Cairns guide us in the most difficult times and we leave them for others to find their way. That’s leadership!”
I joined the Cairn Leadership team in April 2019 because I too deeply believe in authentic, holistic development and the amplifying effects of shared outdoor adventure.
As COO of Cairn Leadership Strategies, I manage day-to-day operations and drive our process to activate leader and team potential through team development, coaching, and retreats for organizations.
Our clients tend to first engage with us when they are seeking Team Development. We develop teams through a unique and powerful process. We use shared adventure to expand cohesion and trust. We use peer-reviewed research, industry best practices, and personal experience to achieve desired outcomes. We enhance the transfer of training by following Team Development events up with powerful coaching.
We follow up on team Development events with ongoing leadership coaching. We coach based on The International Coaching Federation’s definition: “Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”
We are unique because we offer somatic, experiential coaching while adhering to Co-Active Coaching industry standards. Our coaching yields personal and professional development in tandem. We rely on challenge, accountability and support to help clients reach their goals face.
In 2019, we executed discovery, design, delivery of five team development offsite events for clients such as The UPS Store and Mission Edge. We launched our flagship program, Crux Society, for leaders from different industries to explore, connect, and excel through shared outdoor adventure. We ran our first Crux Adventure in Joshua Tree in October with seven business leaders from different industries. A testament to success is that every single participant dined together unprompted by us a few weeks after the overnight outdoor adventure at Café Gratitude.
We are only beginning to realize the powerful change that’s happening for individuals as well as in already established and new groups. Looking ahead in 2020, we are excited about our monthly Community Hike Series in Mission Trails, our ongoing Adventure Coaching engagements with Crux Society members, and women-specific events in San Diego.
What were you like growing up?
San Diego is an understated place to be. We have a lot of growing startup businesses in the biotech and life science industries, and some bigger players like Amazon and Sony who’ve established themselves here as of late. With three major universities and increased residential and business development in downtown and Sorrento Mesa areas, we in the training and development industry have a great opportunity to help shape the cultures and behaviors of young companies who we partner with early on.
One of my Linguistics professors at UCSD once described San Diegans as “laid-back overachievers”, which fits the bill. There’s a lot of talent here – just wait until the surf dies down and you’ll see! In reality, Knight and I are glad to get started in a city where we can count on good weather so much of the time to establish our corporate training company primarily using the outdoors as our venue. For local adventures, we’ve had great success taking leaders and teams to Mission Gorge and Joshua Tree, and are excited to climb Mt. Baldy in January and backpack across Catalina in April.
Our vision is to scale Cairn Leadership to a national level in the next few years. With an expanded reach, we will give leaders access to a plethora of epic adventures like rafting through the Grand Canyon and mountain-biking through Colorado. Just imagine what adventures we will have in store once we reach international status!
Pricing:
- Individual leadership coaching, which includes guided personal outdoor adventures. Pricing starts at $250 a month.
- Team Development events range from 2 hours to a weekend. Pricing starts at $90 per person.
- Crux Society is a membership-based community. Your monthly fee includes coaching, peer mentors and overnight shared adventures.
Contact Info:
- Website: cairnleadership.com
- Phone: 410-980-6458
- Email: abigail@cairnleadership.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cairnleadership/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cairnleadership/
- Other: https://g.page/CairnLeadership?share
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