As a follow-up to last week’s Community Breakdown about the art gurl community, I am excited to share my next Community Breakdown with Brian Helfman, the Founder of Third Nature.
Before we dive-in, I recorded a very open podcast chat with Steve Schlafman, the Founder of Downshift. You can listen here and learn more about Downshift and their upcoming Fall 2024 group coaching cohort here!
Okay... now onto Brian!
1. Tell us about Third Nature. What was your most recent camp experience like?
At Third Nature, we create events & experiences that inspire people to love life more, by helping them connect more deeply with themselves, others, and the natural world. Our adult summer camp is for people on non-traditional (life / career) paths who want to live with intention and love to have fun.
Our most recent camp was a few weeks ago, and it might have been our best ever. This year, we really leaned into the fact that camp is a co-creation, contributed to by everyone who attends. We had 10 awesome facilitators leading workshops, morning movement classes, and an ecstatic dance activity that was a big hit. But even outside of those pre-scheduled workshops and activities - whether it was organizing a musical jam session in the center of campus, teaching 10 other campers how to play pickleball, a spontaneous golf outing on the baseball fields, standing up at the end of meals to celebrate another person in the group, or stepping up to launch people off the BLOB, aka the trampoline on the lake - the many ways in which participants contributed made the experience as connected, energizing, and magical as it was.
2. You switched from 2x camps to once per year. What was the reasoning behind that?
Over the years, the business of Third Nature has shifted such that the majority of our profit comes from custom workshops & retreats for other companies and universities. Ironically, this was never our intention when we started the business. But as far back as 2016, people would come to our adult summer camp weekends and ask: “Could you do something like this for my company offsite?” And we would say, “Sure, why not?” These custom workshops & retreats always had a much higher return on our time than any of our open-enrollment offerings, but it wasn’t until after COVID when we rebranded from Startup Island to Third Nature (which we officially announced in January 2022), that I got really intentional about how I was spending my time within the business.
Third Nature Summer Camp is truly my favorite weekend of the year. And doing it twice a summer was awesome. But camp occupies a lot of my time, energy, and attention throughout the year. Switching from 2 camps per year to just 1 has allowed me to focus more on those custom workshops & retreats, and build a healthier, more sustainable business. Now there’s less pressure on camp being a huge profit generator. All this enables me to show up for camp with the right energy, and pour from a full cup.
3. Are there any common patterns behind the people who attend camp? What do they hope to get out of camp?
Two of the main questions we ask in our pre-camp intake are:
-What kinds of people are you most excited to connect with?
-What do you hope to get out of this weekend?
So I should be able to answer this question!
Third Nature Summer Camp brings together a beautifully diverse group of multi-passionate individuals who come from different backgrounds, and are at different stages of their journey – yet have a shared mindset and outlook on life. It’s less about what they do, and more about who they are.
These are people who:
Are kind, curious, open-minded, and creative.
Are reflective deep thinkers, lifelong learners, and optimists.
Can’t be described with any one label - they think and act outside the box.
Believe in the possibility of a better world, and in their own ability to create positive change.
Take action with intention.
Enjoy deep conversations, are active listeners, tell good stories, and ask good questions.
Support and celebrate one another.
Know how to have fun, prioritize play, and don’t take themselves too seriously.
Love life, and help restore our faith in humanity.
These people come to camp to temporarily disconnect from work, the city, and their devices, and feel more connected to themselves, others, and nature. They come to slow down, reflect, have deep conversations, and be inspired. They gain higher levels of self-understanding, new friendships, and lifelong memories. They leave feeling rejuvenated, with clarity, confidence, and intention in how they want to live.
They also come to play on the lake, relax in a hammock, eat s’mores around the campfire, laugh, and have a whole lot of fun.
4. Third Nature was previously called Startup Island. What is the story behind that?
This community dates all the way back to October of 2015, when we launched the first Startup Island trip as an alternative spring break for college entrepreneurs. Through our own startup experience prior to that, we knew that pursuing an entrepreneurial lifestyle could be lonely and isolating — like it’s you against the world. But we also felt and witnessed the sighs of relief that came from connecting with others who were trudging a similar path.
Over the next 4.5 years, we welcomed hundreds of people onto our trips, and into our community – including many who weren’t entrepreneurs. At least not in the traditional sense of the word. We realized that this thirst for purpose and connection was (and still is) prevalent across all walks of life, and we had created experiences that helped provide that.
As our community expanded outside of the startup world, we began to consider changing the name of our business from Startup Island to something that better reflected how our programs and community had evolved. Then COVID hit, and we had to cancel all of our IRL workshops and retreats - a common story for many community builders at the time. Like many others, we started rolling out more virtual programming - and that was nice - but we’ve always championed IRL, and that wasn’t going to change. The best thing about that time was it gave us an opportunity to step back and move through the long awaited rebrand.
We wanted to choose a new brand name that better encompassed everything that we do, and gave us the creative freedom to expand as we grow. Rather than focusing on the “what,” we aimed to find a name that touched on our “why” and the core value that we provide.
After many internal conversations and debates, culminating in one particularly impactful ideation session, Third Nature was born. Here’s how we define it:
If first nature is how we’re genetically predisposed to be…
and second nature is our conditioned, mechanical response – those habits and ways of being that have become automatic and engrained over time as a result of our environment…
Third Nature is a more intentional, conscious, and purposeful way of showing up in the world. It’s a self-aware way of being that understands our unique first and second nature, and gives us the power and freedom to choose who we are and who we want to be, now and in the future.
5. What is the breakdown of campers from NYC and not? Any particular insights, trends, or stories here?
This year, about half of our campers came from NYC. I love bringing people together from different parts of the world, but have also loved seeing the Third Nature community in my home city of NYC grow, especially these last few years.
Back in the Startup Island days when half of our community was college students, we spent a lot of time in Boston and Philly, where there are lots of colleges with great entrepreneurship programs. My former co-founder and I would stay in shitty Airbnbs (some CRAZY stories there), host meetups for our existing community, and facilitate workshops on different campuses to reach new students. That was a lot of fun, when we were in our 20’s.
Since rebranding to Third Nature, we don’t offer any open-enrollment programs exclusively for college students, and our community has shifted to encompass more of our peers. Now that I’m 35 and feeling more grounded in Brooklyn, it’s been nice getting to focus on building community here.
6. How have you been able to build community in-between camps?
We’ve always said, camp is just the beginning. As a community builder, I’m always doing my best to gather feedback from the people who come to camp, seeing what emerges organically, getting creative with new events & experiences we can offer during the “off-season” and empowering people within the community to initiate their own member-led events.
Some of the things we offer year-round are:
Fridays With Third Nature, a free offering that takes place every Friday from 12-1pm ET on Zoom, that community members can join from anywhere in the world.
NYC meetups, about once every 2 months.
A WhatsApp community where every camp “cohort” has its own private chat. We also have groups for NY, Boston, and Philly area campers, a “Camp Music Share” group, and our Creators Circle.
7. You seemed to have developed a knack for facilitation and large-scale event planning. What resources or tools can you share that may have been helpful?
When it comes to experience design and facilitation, I think the best way to learn is by doing. There’s no substitute for putting yourself out there in the form of a heartfelt experience that you designed, injecting your own essence and lived experience, and gathering feedback - both external (from the people who show up) and internal (reflecting on how leading the experience felt for you).
Outside of that, I have been through XChange’s facilitator trainings, which I highly recommend, and have read many books that have also been valuable - two in particularly about experience design and facilitation that I’d recommend are Designing & Leading Life-Changing Workshops by a team of facilitators at Kripalu, and of course, The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker.
A few years ago, my friend (and 2-time Summer Camp workshop leader) Jake Fishbein, and I, distilled all of our experience as facilitators and built out the Third Nature Facilitator Training Program. We’ve graduated 3 cohorts, and have led the program for faculty at two universities. Another great way to learn is by teaching.
8. Is there anything else upcoming or anything else you are excited about that you definitely want to share?
Honestly, after a jam-packed, roller coaster ride of a summer, I’m excited for a (hopefully) more chill fall in Brooklyn. I want to spend more time writing, connecting and reconnecting with good humans (ideally for walk & talks in Prospect Park), and exploring more of my neighborhood (Park Slope) with my wife Alexis.
That said, I’ve also found that the time right after camp when the experience and feedback is fresh in my mind, is the best time to make improvements to camp for the following year. I’m SO excited for what we have in store for Summer Camp 2025 - so if anyone out there is interested, you can express interest through our website, and we’ll reach out when official details are available.
NYC Gatherings
Looking for a cool NYC gathering to attend this week? Check this out!
Podcast Episode
As mentioned above, the most recent podcast episode is this one with Steve Schlafman, the Founder of Downshift.
You will learn about “slowing down to speed up” and hear a basically live and unexpected (but amazing) coaching conversation about the current state of my podcast and more! I would love to hear any thoughts or ideas you may have from it!
Have a great day,