Entrepreneurship
A Deep Dive with Celia Smith, Founder of Weekender Productions
Celia Smith is the founder and CEO of the company Weekender Productions. Celia and her team host luxurious destination based masterminds for entrepreneurs that want to learn about content creation, strategy, and creative direction for their personal brands. We highly recommend you visit Celia’s Instagram page and indulge in her breathtaking content, as well as visit the Weekender Productions website to learn more about her mastermind program.
Today we’re excited to present our readers with an interview we conducted with Celia this past week with questions our team collectively put together.
Let’s jump right in!
1. Celia, it’s an absolute honor to be doing this with you today. I have to begin this interview with asking why you love organizing Masterminds and creating content for individuals on social media? How important is this to you?
I first started creating content for people because I realized it was the best way to make friends. There is a psychological theory on the ontology of the photographic image, which explains how people are obsessed with seeing themselves replicated. In other words, an image, whether it is their reflection, or their photo, subsciously communicates to their conscience that they do, in fact, exist. So to be able to connect with people, by providing that type of value, is the greatest form of success to me. Not only is it financially profitable, but it also enables me to capture a memory or moment, and freeze it in time, so they can relive the feeling that came with that experience. They can be remembered, heard, and understood which is the greatest human need.
In addition to the value of content creation, I believe the quality of your life is directly proportional to the quality of your relationships. And a few years ago, even thought I had an incredible skill and was able to travel the world, I was missing high-quality relationships, and found myself hitting a ceiling, as most entrepreneurs experience, where I was unable to get to the next level without mentorship, guidance, and the surrounding energy of those who were working towards the level of success I had visioned for myself.
So I began to attend entrepreneur events, masterminds, conferences etc. And that is how I developed a few monumental relationships, where I was able to connect with them by bringing my camera, and documenting those memories for them.
At the end of the day, networking is everything. People are everything.
So creating content and hosting masterminds are far more than passion-driven revenue ambitions of mine. They are the soul purpose I exist.
My purpose is to connect incredible people all over the world by creating life changing experiences. And I do that by focusing on creating an unlimited ROI through high quality content creation.
I’m not sure it would be possible for me to exist in a world where masterminds and content creation did not exist.
And if a world existed without content and masterminds, I would simply bring them to live. As I am now. This is what I am supposed to do. This is why I was created.
2. What is your favorite part about your Weekender Masterminds?
Have you ever been to Santorini?
If you have, you’ll know what I mean when I say there is no drug that could be better than the feeling you get when you walk to the edge of the cliff and see the sunrise over all of the white cave buildings a thousand feet above the dark blue sea, facing a view of the volcano.
When I first arrived here, I felt a 100/100 feeling – “WOW. I did it. I’m here.” and then a 0/100 feeling I turned around, and I was alone. Which was great at first,
but that was when I realized I had everything I wanted, but no one to share it with.
So now, when we go to Santorini next week,
I will bring my clients to that same spot. Tell them to walk up to that cliff for the first time, and watch them experience that high, surrounded with like-minded people who are experiencing the same feeling. And the best part? I’ll be behind the scenes, capturing that moment for them. Capturing that feeling for them.
And THAT is far more fulfilling to me than simply experiencing it alone.
My favorite part about these trips is watching people experiencing once-in-a-lifetime moments, and falling in love with the unlimited potential for a future of abundance and adventure, surrounded with supportive new friends who feel like family, who they will be connected with for the rest of their life.
Sometimes, at the end of trips, people come to me with tears in their eyes, telling me how meaningful this experience was to them, and how it is the stepping stone for a new level of quantum growth and success.
3. How did COVID-19 impact your business?
I launched Weekenders in 2020 in February right before Covid hit, and for a while, it completely shut down my business. However, as an entrepreneur, I was still able to thrive, because those who are successful are those who are able to adapt and find a way to maximize the profit in a time where things change drastically.
So I shifted into creating a 1-1 personal brand consulting business, thanks to the help and guidance of the new entrepreneur friends I moved in with, (who I met at the first mastermind I attended.)
This worked well for me because I was really able to take the time to learn how to provide more value to those who would attend my trips in the future, because I was able to put all of my knowledge on how I was able to create high-quality content, build a personal brand, and get paid to travel the world into a program that could be taught and executed on step by step.
It was perfect really, because now that the world is opening back up, our trips are being booked out quickly, as people are realizing how important experiences are, after having the possibility of having them taken away so abruptly.
(Fun Fact, we still did 6 trips during Covid, to places that were not affected, impacted yet. So at the end of the day, even Covid couldn’t stop me.)
4. How do you select the participants for each mastermind? Is it open to anyone? Or is there a vetting process?
So when it comes to selecting my ideal clients for the masterminds, keep in mind the purpose of Weekenders:
Originally I just wanted to learn how to get paid to travel the world, but when I realized that PEOPLE mattered more than THINGS, or experiencing THINGS alone, I set out to find and develop meaningful relationships with incredible people who inspired me, because that is the best way to GROW.
I’m going to travel either way, so I created Weekenders to share the experiences I can create with a group of visionaries, creators, artists, influencers, and ambitious entrepreneurs who are committed to making this world a better place, as well as experiencing growth, adventure, and creative energy for themselves.
The reason we become so close during these experiences is because the quality of people who are invited to join us are the highest quality of people I have had the honor to connect with. Who you travel with can make or break your trip. So not just anyone can attend one of our trips.
Most of the time, my clients have far more knowledge, experience, and financial success than I do, but they value experiences, connecting with others like themselves, and documenting what really matters in their life so they can share that with the people who they are called to serve. So they value that I am able to empower them to reach and impact more people, which serves their purpose. They have to be a high caliber person who has the ability to impact people for a greater good. The type of content I focus on, in addition to the adventures, is called “Legacy content.” So I ask them, “if you were going to die tomorrow, what do we need to create TODAY that people will remember you by?”
These people value personal development, growth, connection, and experiences with incredible people.
So I have a team that generates high quality leads, and then a sales team who further qualifies them and gets to know them, and then they are sent to me, and usually by then, they’re qualified.
5. What tips can you give our readers who may not be able to afford one of your masterminds right now?
For those who are not able to immediately afford one of these masterminds right now, I would advise to do what I did:
Become resourceful. Find a way to provide value, and monetize it. Read business and personal development books. Find someone who has the success you’re looking for, and emulate them, study them, reach out to them. And invest in YOURSELF as much as you can. When the time comes, you will be able to attend events like this and many others, and they will only serve you as an additional investment to connect with people who will enable you to get to the next level in your business and personal life. One connection could change your life.
6. What is your own ultimate personal dream?
WEEKENDERS is my dream. I am living it and I’ve given up every inch of security I’ve ever had to make this happen. I’ve been homeless twice, lost a lot of people who didn’t support me, and even almost given up but at the end of the day, I exist to create these experiences for people.
There is nothing better than experiencing this world with incredible people. This level of creation, connection, and interdependent growth is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
7. What is one quote you live life by?
There’s three quotes that stuck with me.
1. When I was in highschool, my dream was to play D1 beach volleyball. When I first started getting good, I could hit really hard, but most of the time it was out. In other words, I failed a lot. Way more than I “won”, hit the ball in the court. Most of my teammates and coaches would say things like, “Celia just get it in. Nice and easy. Don’t try to hit it so hard.” But one day, when I was playing on the beach, I hit it out, and my teammate looked at me and said “keep swinging.”
That perspective of motivation changed everything – because for once, I found someone who was not accepting or promoting mediocrity. I found someone who wanted me to be GREAT. And I kept swinging, and even though I was only 5’7, and had never played beach seriously, I eventually became the only freshman recruited to play d1 beach volleyball at Pepperdine, the #1 school in the nation at that time.
That’s the difference between “just getting it in” and giving it your BEST swing.
The second great quote from my athletic career that inspired me was “I am going to walk out of this door better than I was when I walked in. Even if it is just 1%.”
If you become 1% better every day, you will become unbreakable and unstoppable. You will become GREAT.
3. he third, “I am who I am becoming.”
I’ll just leave that one with you.
Celia Smith is one of the most breathtaking new age entrepreneurs we’ve ever set our eyes on. We’re so thrilled and pleased to have been given the opportunity to ask her these questions. If you love Celia as much as we do, you can learn more about her by following any of the following links:
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