"If the change we desire is big enough, we are going to find all sorts of ways to sabotage that."

You've told your board the culture is strong. You've told your co-founder you're fine. You've told yourself the exhaustion is just the job. Mike Brcic has watched what happens when a founder finally stops saying that out loud — usually somewhere in the Icelandic backcountry, twenty minutes into a silence he made them sit in on purpose.

Mike is the founder of Wayfinders Events, running multi-day wilderness expeditions for founders and leaders in Iceland, Bhutan, Patagonia, and Colombia. Nearly half his community is women, over 75% come back, and his alumni don't call it a retreat — they call it the return. In this conversation, Mike breaks down why the fluorescent-lit boardroom is the worst possible environment for honesty, what h ...