I spent a month off the grid fishing in Alaska.

I spent 3 weeks this summer learning to fish in Alaska.
Here's what I’m taking home with me (no, it's not salmon).

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Curious what a fishing day looked like? Check out our day in the life here.

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1. What you think is important might not be all that important

When I was in Alaska, we had to go to the nearest town (30 minutes by boat) to even get cell reception. Essentially, my iPhone transformed into a camera overnight.

This wasn’t much of a surprise.

What was surprising was the shift in my relationship with time. Now that I didn’t have meetings, classes or a workday, I didn’t need a clock.

Plus, during summer in the Last Frontier, the sun rose at 4:30am and set at almost midnight. My sense of time was completely out of whack.

But you know what? What I thought was such a driving force in my life disappeared for three weeks and I couldn’t have been happier.

What I thought was important wasn’t really that important.

Stripping away all the nice-to-haves (running water, electricity, cell service) made me think really hard about what I actually need to survive.

Clean water and warm food. Shelter. Connection with people. Books!

So how does this apply to your brand?

Do a reset and think about what’s most important to your brand. That’s a great place to start. Once you have a strong foundation it’s easier to build from there.

2. Good and functional are better than perfect

We all know Alaskans are a hearty crew. They ventured to one of the coldest, most barren parts of the world to live a freer life.

A downside of living in Alaska is the difficult of getting stuff when you’re so far from civilization. Whether you snapped an outhouse door hinge or broke your ax, it’s hard to replenish items. So that’s why Alaskans are fixers.

If something works properly, it serves its purpose. But if it doesn’t work, you can fix it with Alaska’s best friend – a little duct tape.

Stop waiting to launch your new idea to the world. It doesn’t need to be absolutely pixel-perfect.

Of course, don’t debut anything that you wouldn’t be proud of. But you can also figure things out as you go.

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3. You don’t have to catch every single fish

“We can’t catch every single salmon. Some fish just aren’t right. And some fish we purposely leave because they need to spawn new fish.”

Our guide told us this on the first day we went fishing. There were so many that I got stressed out trying to catch them all.

But rest assured, I didn’t have to. In fact, it was healthier for the salmon population if we left most of them to spawn new fish next season.

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Same goes for your marketing and customer strategy.

When you try to be everything to everyone, you accomplish being nothing to anyone.— Bonnie Gillespie

You’re not meant to serve everyone. You want to be “that gal” or “that guy” for one specific niche and serve them incredibly well.

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Lessons from a month off the grid in Alaska

1. What you think is important might not be all that important

2. Good and functional are better than perfect

3. You don’t have to catch every single fish

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