Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Megan Jo Wilson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Megan Jo , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

In 2017 I wrote my first book. I had been Coaching and studying Leadership Development professionally for about 15 years and was supporting other Coaches to build full-time businesses by teaching them the fundamentals of marketing and selling. My business was thriving like it never had before.

Meanwhile, my role as a professional singer and performer was taking more and more of a back seat. I loved to sing, but the late nights, sound checks, and minimal pay was getting old and I just didn’t have space for it as a full-time entrepreneur.

I still had a great singing gig with a 19-piece big band called The Fogcutters. At our annual Christmas concert, we performed in front of about 1,000 people or more and after the show I did the usual meet and greet with friends and family and fans who had come to the show.

The crowd was slowly dissipating when a singular woman approached me to say hello. She looked me right in the eyes and said with such honest longing, “I am in awe of what you do… I would give ANYTHING to be able to sing on stage like that.”

In that moment, I knew right away – “I could give that to you… I could make that fantasy come true.” I knew exactly who I would hire for the band, the club, the hair and make-up. I could see the curriculum. I could feel the impact it would make. I went home and outlined the basics of what I would include to make it happen.

When I woke up the next day, it felt like an insane idea. Who would PAY to get on stage with a live band – especially if they weren’t trained musicians?! Thank God I was working with my friend Angela who was my coach at the time.

I said, “Is this crazy, or brilliant?”

She said, “It’s absolute genius,” and Rockstar Camp was born.

I didn’t know if it would work. I just knew that it could work. I called a handful of Women from my book-writing network and offered it at cost. I had 10 women all in within a week – most of whom would be traveling from other parts of the country.

The problem it solves is not unique. It’s about confidence, I suppose. Empowerment. All that good stuff.

The approach is completely unique. It’s not thought work. It’s giving women a somatic experience in actually reveling in being seen and heard in their embodied and fully adorned feminine power. The band is all men by design. The crowd is cheering. Their Sisterhood community is going nuts with adoration.

It completely rewires the way she sees and experiences herself, her world, and whatever she thought was “challenging.”

“If I can do that – I can do anything” is a phrase I hear most often. That and, “Everything is different now.”

It’s exciting to see the transition in real time. She actually looks and feels like a different woman from the start of the adventure to the end in a VERY short period of time. It’s not an arrogant confidence that sucks the air out of the room. It’s a relaxed radiance that actually gives breath to the room and takes everyone higher.

Plus – we get to make music and play dress up and be outrageous together like we used to do when we were young girls at slumber parties. The fantasy land becomes reality and the reality becomes like fantasy land. It’s quite magical.

Megan Jo , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My brother introduced me to life coaching in 2004 when I was 27 years old. At the time, I was working as a farmer, cook, artist and musician, and studying to get my black belt in a wilderness-based Martial Art called Universal Movement in the deep woods of Maine. That was 20 years ago and since that first weekend of training, I have always had at least one client and I knew it was the work I would do in one form or another for the rest of my life.

I’ve coached women in hair salons and women transitioning out of incarceration.
I’ve coached CEOs and celebrities and homeless people and artists and managers.
I’ve built coaching programs with the legendary icons Marianne Williamson and Mama Gena.

But I’m most proud of the work I’ve done with Women who deeply desire to lead as Coaches, Teachers and Healers. They know they have great wisdom to share, but for most of them, the act of stepping out, speaking up, and claiming space as an expert in a violent patriarchal culture – feels utterly and viscerally terrifying.

As a Professional Musician, Coach and Leadership Trainer of many years, I wondered what would happen if I gave Women an experience of being seen and heard that was thrilling, visceral, somatic, playful and lasting? I wove together coaching, performance, and Sisterhood and called the experience “Rockstar Camp for Women.” The results were astounding.

Since that first Camp, I have graduated over 70 Rockstars (including one small and mighty cohort of Rockstar Men).

My graduates have launched winning podcasts, written books, and built businesses.
They have fallen in love, gotten divorced, found dream houses and moved to new countries.
They have been on radio shows and TedTalk stages.
One Woman started doing stand-up comedy and another one became a competing ball-room dancer.
One quit her job as CEO and another started dating for the first time in 15 years.
They’ve transformed their closets, their friendships, their lovers…

To list the results of the expansion that is Rockstar Camp is impossible. It’s too vast to capture it all.

When a Woman knows how to celebrate herself and approve of her desires with relentless commitment, she is unstoppable.

She can attract more of what she wants, and survive anything.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When Covid hit, I was running Rockstar Camps quarterly which meant running one Camp while marketing and selling the next one. I had a group that was supposed to come to Maine in June of 2020 and two more cohorts that were almost full. In other words I had about 20 Women who had paid to get on stage to sing with a live band and and audience.

Anyone who was running live events at this time went through the same nightmare. There was no way to plan for the future because we had no idea how long the travel restrictions would continue. In the first couple months of quarantine, I just kept my group going online. I didn’t ask them to pay anything more I just said, “let’s hold hands and keep circling up and stick together.”

Those Women (The Quarantine Queens) still talk about how profound the experience was. Even though most of them never got on stage, they learned the true value of Sisterhood and riding the waves of life with the tools I had given them which is the actual point of Leadership development. Not “what will I do IF things don’t go my way” but “who will I be WHEN things don’t go as planned.”

Everyone was very gracious about waiting to see how things would unfold. I had been teaching online for a long time so I was able to fire up my online courses again which was exhausting, but it kept me afloat financially in that strange liminal time.

That screeching halt was a real heartbreak for me and one that I can still feel. So much of business-building is about momentum and keeping the parts moving forward in synch and in rhythm with what’s happening in the world. To lose that momentum is just so rough for any business.

Still, I would never have worked with Marianne (Williamson) or Regena (Mama Gena) if it weren’t for the pandemic. Who knows where I would be now. Who knows where any of us would be…

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Consistency, Generosity, and Integrity.

Consistency meaning I’ve been pretty much talking about the same stuff in a million different ways for 20 years. When you beat the drum of your message over and over, you become a brand that people can recognize and trust.

Generosity is huge for me. It’s a corny cliche but thinking about what I can give is really helpful and motivating. I can’t keep in touch with every client I’ve had or give free time to all the causes but when someone asks for my help I genuinely want to help them and do my best to put some wind under their wings.

Both of these things mean integrity. I’ve worked in environments in the coaching industry where there was a lot of manipulation, false promises, and flat out lying. It was sickening to me – quite literally. There’s a real dark underside to the self-help industry because there is so much money to be made and so little regulation of how it’s done. If you don’t have impeccable integrity, I just don’t think you’ll make it over the long term.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.meganjowilson.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meganjowilson/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/megan.j.wilson.90
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganjowilson/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@meganjowilson5517

Image Credits
All photos taken by Lauryn Sophia Photography https://laurynsophiaphotography.com/