Rockstar Camp Confidence: Megan Jo Wilson

Lisa Belisle: Hello, I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to or watching our video podcast, Radio Maine, where we explore and celebrate creativity and the human spirit. Today I have with me Megan Jo Wilson, who is the creator and founder of the Rockstar Camp for Women. I'm pretty excited to talk to you about this today.

Megan Jo Wilson: Likewise.

Lisa Belisle: I think this is such an interesting idea, Megan Jo, because when I read the impetus for this, it was all about confidence and about having women get up on stage and be able to work with their own presence and their own voice. I have to say that I see this quite a bit. There's quite a big difference between women and men and what they think they bring to any given situation. So talk to me about your inspiration and why you decided this would be something you wanted to focus on.

Megan Jo Wilson: Well, I love what you said about this program, creativity and the human spirit. That's what it's all about. So thank you for your voice and your work in the world. The difference is stark between women's confidence and men's confidence, and I say that in a context of doing coaching work for 20 years now, working with men and women and doing business coaching. That's where the really stark contrast became so revealed to me. I was teaching coaches how to build a profitable business as a coach, because most coaches get trained in the skills, but not how to run a business. So I was running groups with men and women, and I'm teaching the tactics: know your client, create awareness, share what you're offering, and charge a certain amount that will support your livelihood goals, your revenue goals. And the men, for the most part, would say okay, and they'd go do it, and the women would just sort of spiral in this perpetual, I'm not ready yet. I don't know how to be an expert in public. The highly trained, brilliant, passionate women. I'm terrified to do a Facebook Live or share a post about what I really think, and when it comes to charging money, now I'm really uncomfortable, because how do I receive revenue for my gifts, my wisdom, my talent? So that experience was like, wow, there's something really profound that I want to play with and see if I can shift, because these women have such medicine to bring to the world and they're just stuck in sharing it. So I think it's actually a crisis of confidence. I think it's pretty intense.

Lisa Belisle: Well, I have to agree with you, because I do a lot of work with mentoring and coaching women clinicians, and in particular women doctors who are leaders. And it's interesting when I bring up imposter syndrome with men, male physicians who are leaders versus female physicians who are leaders. The men will be like, most of the time no, sometimes yes, but it's pretty rare. But women who have been in the profession for quite a while, they will say, I feel like I don't know enough. Why would people believe in me as a leader? And it sounds very similar to your experience, just in the broader context.

Megan Jo Wilson: Absolutely. And so what we tend to do then is get more training, get more certifications, try to collect more data. I'm not there yet. And it's just a huge cost for all of us. So I've been a singer and performer for my whole life, and I've done all this coach training and all this leadership development training. And in all my leadership development training, I was noticing, oh, I know how to do that. I learned that by being a professional live musician. I know how to feel the energy of a space. I know how to connect with the other people. I know how to command a stage. I know how to use my voice. I know how to show up and shine even if I'm tired and not in the mood. And I thought for years, there's got to be some way to play with leadership and voice and performance.

That's what Rockstar Camp was born out of, because it is a leadership development program. The concert, where these women are quite literally at Portland House of Music here in Portland on stage, spotlight, live band, all men behind them by design, a live audience cheering them, and they just sing one song. None of them have musical training. Most of them have never sung in front of another person. And so they're having this somatic experience of being not just seen and heard, but in the most extreme way, and celebrated. So the concert is sort of the most spectacular piece of it, but it's really just a laboratory for us to see all the things that come up for a woman when she's placed in that position, so that we can acknowledge it and heal it. And it's not our fault that we have imposter syndrome. We weren't born that way. Five-year-old girls don't have imposter syndrome. It's a learned condition, so you can unlearn it.

Lisa Belisle: You wrote your first song at 12?

Megan Jo Wilson: I did.

Lisa Belisle: And I love the story of singing Tina Turner on your Cape Elizabeth lawn when you were growing up. So it sounds like, when I know your background, it seems like you took this sort of five-year-old, eight-year-old, 12-year-old energy, and you just kind of held onto it over time. That's so cool.

Megan Jo Wilson: That's beautifully said. Yeah.

Lisa Belisle: So how is it that you were able to do this? It's so hard for many women to do this.

Megan Jo Wilson: Part of it is probably, I don't know, my astrology, my personality, my purpose, my spiritual, who knows. I love to sing. I love to perform. I actually feel quite relaxed and at home. My version of rockstar camp would be playing basketball in public or standup comedy. There's many places in which I would be like, oh man, I can't do this. But I love what you're saying, that my inner five-year-old is a part of my adult woman work. And I have this theory that because our culture is so confused, a lot of our gifts are the things that we were criticized for as kids. I'm just meeting you, but your inner five-year-old probably loved to talk to people and connect with people and play with people. Or your work in healthcare. You are interested in making the world a better place and interested in bodies. So yeah, I think play, and the things that light us up and fill us up, are a great compass for the work we're meant to do here. And the women that do rockstar camp, it's funny, when I offer it, there's a stark response. So if I said to you, Lisa, what do you think about getting on stage to sing a song? How do you respond?

Lisa Belisle: Oh, me personally? I love getting on stage. So you're like, great, give me a microphone, give me an audience anytime.

Megan Jo Wilson: Exactly. So for you, it's like, sounds fun. Let's do it. For many women it's like, oh, you couldn't pay me enough. There is no way I would do that. And then some women say, yeah, do it, that sounds fun. And then the ones who join are like, ooh, there's something there for me. I'm terrified and I'm all in, because there's something there that I know wants to be revealed. It's sort of like this archetype of the rockstar. Oh my God, this is why we love rock stars. They're so unapologetic and free. And if I could just tap into that part of myself, maybe I'd have more permission, which is what I hear all the time from my grads. I just have so much more permission.

Lisa Belisle: When I hear you say this, it brings up for me this idea that the people who sign up for your camp are really being so brave.

Megan Jo Wilson: So brave.

Lisa Belisle: Because they're not necessarily the ones who automatically would sign up for a camp. They're the ones who really have to make a conscious decision to move towards something that is really scary for them. So how do you reach that particular group of people?

Megan Jo Wilson: Yeah, well, they're out there. Like I said, I've been in the coaching industry for 20 years, so we're at a time now where personal growth is just almost an addiction for a lot of people. It's like, oh, how can I stretch my comfort zone even more? We are at a place where science and spirit is really integrating, and it's like, I want to look at myself. I want to grow. I understand that challenge is the space where I grow. So that's sort of how I frame it. And I share that message in all kinds of ways through marketing and my coaching communities. I belong to a lot of women's groups, and I haven't met a woman yet. And by the way, I did a rockstar camp for men, which was an amazing experience, but I haven't met a woman yet who has said, well, I don't get it, I don't think that's really an issue, I think we're all really doing great. We are doing great. But you know what I'm saying. Women get it when they hear about it.

Lisa Belisle: So you've created something relatable.

Megan Jo Wilson: And a lot of personal growth experiences, the challenge is translating the depth of the work, because it looks, on paper, you've seen probably the photos, they're on stage and it's the lights, but it's also really deep. There's a lot of crying and screaming. And being in sisterhood is a huge component. Teaching women how to relate to one another with actual love, with actual admiration, with inspiration, which is our natural way of relating and is trained out of us from a very early age. So it's such a relief and deep healing. So many of us have wounds with other women, so to be in community, that's why they're able to get on stage. They know their sisterhood's going to catch them at the end of it. And so when they have that, then they can face the next stage, which might be a podcast, a book, a play they want to write. These are some of the things my grads create. They're not starting a band. They're starting a movement. They're starting a mission. They're saying, well, if I could do that, I can do anything.

Lisa Belisle: I love that, because it is true that if you do things that are hard, then the next time something that's hard comes along, you say, well, I did this last thing and now I can use that feeling, that information, to do this next thing.

Megan Jo Wilson: As you said that, this is sort of an odd share, but I remember when I was in labor saying, if I can do this, I can do anything, I'll never be afraid of anything ever again. It just stretches. You get to see what your capacity actually is in a somatic way, an embodied way. And women's intelligence is in the body. We are brilliant intellectuals, but our bodies have so much information and wisdom, and most of us are kind of operating from the neck up, because that's what we're trained to do. So you have to be in your body to sing. You have to be in your soul to make art. You have to be present to just the joy of music. If someone sings happy birthday or a gospel song or whatever the song is with no emotion, it's like any art or paint without emotion, it's not going to move people. But if you know how to feel and move people, you have a huge fairy dust as a leader.

Lisa Belisle: So one of the things, as you're talking, I was thinking about a situation that I was in, that I was going to go on stage with an individual, and he was a long time performer and really great musician. He actually was my teacher in high school.

Megan Jo Wilson: Oh, wow.

Lisa Belisle: So I was going to go and I was going to sing, but I wasn't really feeling it. And he said, that's not my problem. They hired us to do this thing. So you need to show up and you need to put yourself out there. And you need to embody this performer person, because that's what people are expecting. And I think that also comes up for me when you're talking about this, because sometimes you really don't feel it. And we can't assume that all rock stars, or people who get up in front of others, always feel like doing it. Sometimes it is actually work, and that doesn't matter.

Megan Jo Wilson: Right, that doesn't matter.

Lisa Belisle: You don't wait for the inspiration, because this is the job.

Megan Jo Wilson: I love that. And there are really practical tools and exercises that I'm giving these women to flip the switch back into aliveness. I love that, that's not my problem. You have a job to do, and part of that job is bringing your aliveness and feeling to this show, because that's what the audience will need. So how do you do that? How do you do that in a boardroom? How do you do that at a family table? How do you do that in a newsletter you're writing? And when you have the tools to do it, for women in particular, when we're in our aliveness, we're very compelling, magnetic, enrolling. And most of us, because again, we're trained out of that, just need some practices that can get us back into it. And they're very effective. And it is a discipline, because it's so easy to slip back into zombie mode.

Lisa Belisle: This idea that you've just described, this idea of practices and processes, and just show up and do the work. I think that is really powerful, because a lot of times people get stymied by, I don't know what the next step is. I have this overarching vision for my life, but how do I actually get there? But I do think that when you break it down and you start acting as if, you start creating the mental neuron connections, I do think it makes it much easier for the next time and then the next time. So the fact that you're talking about moving your 20 years' worth of coaching experience into, okay, I'm going to create some strategies, some practices, I'm not going to throw you up on stage right away, we're going to work through this process. And on the other side, you will have what you need to have gone to this place where you can perform in front of a group.

Megan Jo Wilson: And this arc of the camp now, it's about three months. So I give them tools. I give them enough that they can pull it off, but I don't give them a year to train their voice. I really want to push them in the deep end. And I remember one of my grads, Susan, going, wait, you're not going to give us voice lessons? And I do a little bit of vocal training, but I said, no, you don't need voice lessons.

What you need to know is your magnificence and your pleasure. You need to sing with pleasure. If you sing for yourself and you are in your pleasure, you'll be magnificent. And even if you're not, you'll feel great about it anyway. And she said, I'm a little faint. I'll never forget the Zoom call. She literally got faint. And this is how powerful the body is. This is why we get dry mouth and sweaty armpits and hands, because our digestion system is shutting down, preparing for a battle, even when we're just about to do a keynote speech or a podcast interview or sing on stage. How amazing is the body, that it does that, that it feels like battle. It feels like life or death for many women to say, this is my voice. This is what I have to say. This is what I believe. This is my expertise. This is what I stand for.

Lisa Belisle: So, Megan Jo, in contrast, when you had the rockstar camp for men, what did that look like? What did you learn from that experience or observe from that experience?

Megan Jo Wilson: It was really funny. I did it because several men, friends of mine, said, we really want to do this. One of them was even a little offended that I was only offering it to women. And I said, well, if I can get enough men that want to do it, I'll give it a shot. And I immediately had enough men who wanted to do it, which was fascinating. I did not change the curriculum. I did not change the tools, because it really was a social experiment. And I worked with enough men, and I'm intelligent enough to know that women are not the only people who struggle with imposter syndrome. Women are not the only ones who have stories and inner critics and issues with our bodies and our presentation. And I really feel for our men, our amazing men, because a woman can go like this on her phone and find an empowerment workshop. There's just so much for them. For men, it's getting better, but it's a little bit harder to find community and support in being a man, and being a white man in particular right now. It's a very strange place to be. So what I learned was, and we were laughing because the biggest questions were like, should the menu be the same, should we have beer or wine, do you want to have ribs? It was so silly. It was like, people, just feed them.

What I learned was that we all, when we have access to this part of ourselves, this kind of rockstar quality, we have access to more permission, and men need that too. And as we already addressed, when it came to things like bragging, taking up space in a group, for example, there was just so little charge around it. There was just not any concern. Boys are given permission from a young age. You are supposed to take up space. You will be a leader. You are surrounded by examples of other men being leaders. So it's the cultural influence that's so profound, and they have deep rage, deep grief, deep despair. And the feminine that's in all of us can take us there. And for most men, diving into those depths is so unfamiliar and so liberating when they get to go there, especially rage, because I have them really scream and we get baseball bats.

It gets wild. This isn't true of all women, but generally we are taught, we have permission to feel and to express our feelings, so we can go there a little bit faster. But they really expressed so much gratitude for that permission to be with their feelings, to have a space to go deep into it and be witnessed in it and honored in it, and not told real men don't cry, or settle down, you're a little too angry right now, this could get violent. And that was just a really healing experience for them.

Lisa Belisle: This idea of rage is so important, because I do think we've been, and by we, I am just a member of the culture, not me personally per se, but we have been asking people to sublimate their rage. Anger is a very natural emotion, and it is a very somatic experience as well. And the fact of it is that if you have these energies and you sublimate them, they don't disappear. So anger management I think is probably not a bad idea, but it's not like the underlying impetus for the anger necessarily will go away, and nor will the feeling. Especially with what has happened lately, it just seems like we're setting up our society, our culture, for some sort of eruption at some point.

Megan Jo Wilson: Well, it's erupting.

Lisa Belisle: I also feel that's true, but I didn't want to go too far down that path.

Megan Jo Wilson: Yeah, it's erupting, which I think is a huge reflection of what happens when it is sublimated. It will erupt. It is erupting. And if we had access to that in healthy ways, we would feel our heartbreak and our outrage at what's happening and then go, oh, I can feel it. I can be with it. What am I going to do about it? Of course I can't just stand by and let this happen. Our culture is really good at distracting us and numbing us, and that's why we can just drive by a homeless person, didn't see it, or look at the news and go back to shopping for sandals. If we had access to our feelings, which I think is what the artist brings to the world in a lot of ways. We're like the smelling salts. Go wake up and feel something. We'd have a very different world. So I love what you're saying, and I agree wholeheartedly.

Lisa Belisle: You presented the metaphor of the stretching and the empowerment of giving birth. And so that's right there for people who have had that experience. And not all people will have that experience, but men in particular, at least people who are biologically born male, most likely, they're not going to have that experience. They never have that ability to have this tremendous feeling of having gone through this powerful energy and then coming out of the other side.

Megan Jo Wilson: Except when they were born.

Lisa Belisle: That's true. Good point.

Megan Jo Wilson: Because every human comes from a woman's body. And 8,000 years ago, 5,000 years ago, women were worshiped for it. And it was understood, we are the source of life. What could be more worship worthy than that? And then you see the arc of a culture that very intentionally denigrated, erased, dismissed women. And it's really beautiful to see how that's shifting. And it's not just women who get it, our men get it too. Many of them really get it. And I kind of go, yeah, what we're doing, it ain't working so well. We need each other. Any feminist is not going to build the world she wants. We need our men, and we need to love our men and learn from each other. And the patriarchy, which is a word that's thrown around, it's terrible for all of us really. So this is my project, of giving the tools and playing with ways to decondition ourselves and see how that spreads. Sometimes I think, oh, is this even making a difference? I feel like it's a forest fire and I've got a spray bottle, but if you've got 4 million people with a spray bottle, we are going to put out the fire. So this is my contribution to all the beautiful work that so many people and women are doing to shift our culture and our world.

Lisa Belisle: You've said a lot of really powerful things, and first of all, I want to thank you for acknowledging that by othering people, we're not really going to get very far. It's always felt really uncomfortable to me to say, well, I'm going to put men over here and I'm going to be over here as a woman, particularly since I gave birth to one male child and I have three stepsons, but I also have five brothers and a lovely father, and I have a lot of really wonderful men and a wonderful husband. So it never felt great to me that in order to take back our power as women, we ended up having to take things away from people who also deserve to live.

Megan Jo Wilson: We're all in this together. And it's interesting too, when you look at the history of feminism, activism, organizing, there's waves of feminism. In my mom's generation, she just turned 80. Her generation of women in the seventies was really like, well, a lot of public rage, which we still have. But when we were trying to claw our way out of this, we did develop these claws, and it was sort of like, man up, and we're equal, and I'm going to take back my rights. And then the feminine kind of got lost in feminism, the feminine being soft and receiving and nurturing. And so it's really interesting to watch what many call this fourth wave, where it's like we're all in this together. We recognize this binary map is not going to work, and we all need to have access to this outrageous, playful, soft, nurturing, non-linear way, in addition to all the beautiful masculine qualities. We don't want to lose those. We need logic, we need linear, we need strategic. It's just we're so imbalanced in that side. We could go on about the medical industry forever. But I had a physical this week and she said, how are you? I said, can you be more specific? She said, how's your mental health? Because she knows that I live with depression and anxiety. So she gave me that form. What's that form called, that you do with the numbers?

Lisa Belisle: The PHQ-9.

Megan Jo Wilson: The PHQ-9, Lisa. So I'm filling it out as always, and she looks at the numbers and she goes, oh, those are some high numbers. Are you concerned about your mental health? And I said, honestly, I am concerned that anyone right now would say they have no mental distress. That's what concerns me about the world we're living in, that so many people could say, no concerns, nothing keeps me up at night, everything's fine. She didn't quite know what to do with that, but we ordered some blood work.

Lisa Belisle: That seems to be the response that often we offer people.

Megan Jo Wilson: I'm like, okay, let's do some blood work.

Lisa Belisle: Let's see. And this is not a criticism of your provider at all.

Megan Jo Wilson: No, she's amazing. Western medicine, yes, let's do some blood work, maybe that will help you sleep better at night. I'll take it. But it's so interesting, and I get it. It's like we're going to separate the emotional spiritual part of your life from what's happening in your body, when they're just so deeply connected. And to imagine that 10 questions could assess my mental wellbeing, to me, is insane. How are you feeling in the last two weeks? To me, it's absurd.

Lisa Belisle: Yes. I think you and I absolutely could have at least 10 podcast interviews on issues within the current healthcare system. I'm here for sure. And I know that you also worked within healthcare.

Megan Jo Wilson: And have a great passion for it. Some days I'm like, I really should have been a surgeon. I just think it's fascinating. The bodies are amazing. So maybe we'll do a part two.

Lisa Belisle: Yes, we'll do part two. One thing I wanted to ask you about, because this hasn't been part of the coaching that you've described or the rockstar camp for women, but you also are a writer. And you also, I know, have done some consulting work with Marianne Williamson and there was another?

Megan Jo Wilson: Mama Gena is sort of her public name, Regena Thomashauer, of the School of Womanly Arts.

Lisa Belisle: And those are big names. So what I really am finding fascinating is that you're able to embody all of the spiritual and emotional and artistic, and you're also like, and this is a business.

Megan Jo Wilson: Correct.

Lisa Belisle: And I'm going to write books and I'm going to show people, this is a business, coaching is a business. I can work with Mama Gena and I can work with Marianne Williamson, and we can create things that are a value that other people will want to invest in.

Megan Jo Wilson: And for me, that's my path of living in a capitalist world. I need to generate money to pay for the things. I don't have other revenue streams coming in. It's on me. So that's the path that's worked well. And until we don't have a capitalist society, I don't know how we'll ever get there, but I really want to support other women in getting in relationship with their money, because a successful business is a business that made a profit. And this is true of men too, but for so many women, understanding money, being, I was going to say empowered, but it's even just baseline understanding of revenue generation, it's just such foreign territory for so many women. And it's not that, if a woman just wants to be rich to be rich, great, I don't really care what her desire is.

But the really cool outcome of being in right relationship with your money is that you can do more of the thing you're good at in the world, your message will have more impact and spread to more people. Because if I have the revenue to fuel my mission, to pay for the computer, to pay for my car that got me here, then I can bring more of what I have to bring. And that's really my passion. And I don't know why I have this odd combination of artist and strategist. Most of what I did with them was curriculum design, like sitting at my desk, just going module one, here's the worksheet. That's just part of how my brain works.

Lisa Belisle: I can actually relate to this, because I do also a lot of leadership development, curriculum design, and I really like it.

Megan Jo Wilson: It's so fun.

Lisa Belisle: Right? It's really fun. But you're right that when you talk about being someone who likes to perform and someone who's artistic and someone who's spiritual, most people are like, oh, but those don't match up. But why couldn't they?

Megan Jo Wilson: Well, you're going to get me started. There used to be a restaurant, I can't even think of the name of it, and it's probably better that I don't, they had an item on their menu called the Starving Artist. And when I was a young girl, I am an artist. So I grew up in Cape Elizabeth, Maine in a school system that had arts but didn't really center the arts, very sports centered, all white students, all white faculty. And I just wanted to do art. I just want to make art. What do you want to be when you grow up? I just wanted to make art. And my stepdad said, that's your choice, if you want to be a starving artist. And everybody knows this term, and artists, we even sometimes wear it as a badge of pride. I'm so broke, look at me, I'm so starving. And I want to shift that narrative with every fiber of my being. Let's be abundant artists. Let's be resourced artists. Believe me, I get a good struggle can lead to some great art. But it's just so interesting that that narrative has survived for so long. Some of us get to be successful, some of us are starving.

So I really love to teach artists, healers, coaches, spiritual teachers. You get to make money for your gift. What does Michael Beckwith say, to be the light, you've got to be able to turn the lights on, something like that. Let's learn how to redirect resources to the people that have such important stuff to bring to the world. No more starving artists.

Lisa Belisle: Well, given that this podcast is sponsored by the Portland Art Gallery, we certainly agree with you on that one. Because this is the thing that often seems to come up, which is we're going to support artists by going to an opening.

Megan Jo Wilson: Right.

Lisa Belisle: Fantastic. Thank you for coming. Also, please leave with some art.

Megan Jo Wilson: Please leave with some art. And also, there's a couple things in the music industry that I find really wild. I played music full time for maybe 10 years. In an arc of loading in, setting up, soundcheck, performing, breaking down, getting home, that's about an eight or nine hour arc for a woman who gets her hair and makeup done. You make negative $10 an hour. But for people to balk at a $5 cover charge, five bucks, 10 bucks, I'm bringing live music into your life. You bought a Starbucks coffee this morning, that was $8.95, but you want to get on the guest list and get in for free and then have an $80 bar tab, but you don't want to pay $5 to see five musicians play their souls out for three hours. It's just very bizarre.

Lisa Belisle: Whereas people will spend quite a bit of money to watch professional sports. And I have no problem with that. I think sports are great.

Megan Jo Wilson: I spend $50 watching professional sports.

Lisa Belisle: It's completely fine. And also you're watching people who have gotten very good at what they do. So why can't that be true in the artistic field as well?

Megan Jo Wilson: And that's the other piece of my work and your work. It's like, whose voices do we want to amplify? And it's the voices in the margins that have the most to teach us. So those are the folks that I want to amplify: women, people of color, queer people. These are the folks that have the most to teach us, because they are navigating under insane circumstances and they know better than anyone how to stay rooted in resilience, self-love, their identity, not apologizing. And we just need those voices in the mix more and more. On the way here, this is so interesting, this just popped in. I was driving and at the stoplight, and there was, I don't know if she's homeless, a woman with a sign as we see all over Portland, and I was looking for change, which I usually have.

I couldn't find it. And I looked up at her and rolled down my window, because if I don't have change, I try to just say, hey, how you doing? And her sign had a lot of words. And her sign said, something like, just a reminder, you're beautiful, you're amazing, and your smile really makes a difference to me, or something like that. I'm like, wow, let's get her on the podcast. How did she come to that conclusion, that that's what her sign would say? And we had a little exchange, and I put down the window and I said, I'll circle back on the way back, will you be here? She said, I don't know. I'm rambling. But my point is, we want more voices outside of the mainstream.

Lisa Belisle: I agree. Yes.

Megan Jo Wilson: And you've been doing this podcast for three years?

Lisa Belisle: Yeah, I've been doing this podcast for three years, but we've been doing podcasting since 2011. So many years of many different people and a broad range. And I've learned a lot actually from pretty much everybody. So you're right. And it's healthcare leaders and artists and business people. And actually, we interviewed somebody who had been unhoused and worked with Preble Street, and that was a fascinating conversation, because how often do you actually get to sit down with somebody and say, so tell me about your experience, as opposed to, I'm going to assume I know about your experience being unhoused.

Megan Jo Wilson: So grateful for what you're doing, and so happy to be here.

Lisa Belisle: Well, thank you for connecting. Originally you reached out because you knew Andy Patstone, who we interviewed not too long ago. And it is typically the way that this works, somebody connects to somebody who connects to somebody, which I love.

Megan Jo Wilson: And I just reached out to you on LinkedIn. Thank you so much.

Lisa Belisle: Absolutely.

Megan Jo Wilson: And I was like, maybe you might be interested in what I do, and it just kind of fell into place.

Lisa Belisle: I hope that you are able to get a completely full rockstar camp for women coming up. It sounds like you've been very successful, so I'm sure that that will happen again. How can people learn about your work?

Megan Jo Wilson: Yeah, the best way is through my website. It's got really full context of everything that's included, because again, the show is just a small piece of it, and lots of photos and stories of my grads, the impact that it's had. I always reiterate over and over again, you do not have to be a trained singer to do it. That's not what this is about. I have never had a singer get booed off the stage. In fact, oddly, sometimes the ones who are kind of like the worst singers get the biggest applause. I have people flying in from all over the country to come to the show to perform, and also many people who fly in just to see the show. I'm also on Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn and all those things. Just Megan Jo Wilson, M-E-G-A-N. And if you do a search, you'll find me. There's lots out there.

Lisa Belisle: Okay, very good. I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle and you have been listening to or watching Radio Maine, where we explore creativity and the human spirit. Sponsored by the Portland Art Gallery in Portland, Maine. Today we've been speaking with Megan Jo Wilson, who is the creator and founder of Rockstar Camp for Women. Thanks so much for coming in today.

Megan Jo Wilson: My pleasure.