Leading with Nature-Based Wisdom with Chris Kyle | 009

Hello. Today, I'm leading with purpose. I am honored to welcome my dear friend metamine, member and deep dive business partner in launch Academy. Chris Kyle. Chris is a pioneer in nature based leadership, and his journey from corporate leadership programs to soulful, Earth connected wisdom is nothing short of extraordinary. In his chapter, a journey into nature based leadership from our newest soulful leadership anthology, Chris shares how powerful experience is on salt, Spring Island, communing with fire, scarred pine tree shifted the entire approach to life, leadership and purpose. Chris is also the visionary behind the big tent Summit, bringing together leaders in men's movement to catalyze real change from the inside out. I'm excited to dive into this rich conversation about grounded, embodied leadership and how nature itself can be the greatest teacher. Hello, Chris, welcome.

Hey. Great to be here with you. Mark. Thank you for that intro. Appreciate it absolutely.

Well, I'm so happy that you're here and on this show, it is obviously leading with purpose. You're somebody who's been in the leadership world for a long time. Yes, and it didn't start out in this transformation industry. You started your leadership journey inside of a fortune 500 company and now lead these powerful programs that are rooted in nature based wisdom. What catalyzed your transition from traditional leadership models into this deeper, more soulful path?

Yeah, that's a great question. That's kind of my my journey early on in my life. I, you know, I, when I left college, I decided to go work in a big company. I wanted to be a business person in an organization, not that I said climbing the corporate ladder, but that was kind of the expectation you'd come in and you'd get new responsibilities and move up the up the chain, if you will. And so I joined a pharmaceutical company, a big pharma company in Southern California, Fortune 300 company at the time. And you know it was, I would say this mark as it's coming out, and I know so many people understand this too, is it's like I felt like there was a prescribed path for me coming out of college, like I really wasn't asking the deeper questions, what do I really want? What do I really want? What's important to me? What do I love? And it was more like, well, this is, I spent all this money on my education, you know, I've got this degree, and that the where, where it looked like, the money and the success was, was in in business, in corporate America, the corporate world, it's not just the America, but being in the corporate world. So I, you know, I did that. And I actually did that for for basically five years. And at the end of that five years, I was really clear, because I was really checking in with myself. Do I like this? Am I enjoying this? And I wasn't? I wasn't enjoying it was not my cup of tea. I could feel it. It's like who I am and who I grew up to become and what I wanted in my life became more clear after those five years, and that clarity was more toward entrepreneurship, right? So that now I'm moving from corporate leadership, and I had amazing trainings and leadership trainings in the corporate space. I'd led teams there, but then it was sort of like, I want to do my own thing, and I want to find something that I'm passionate about. And the very first thing I did is leaving a big pharmaceutical company, and my first wife, my wife at the time, we started an ecotourism company, an adventure travel company, taking people to all these awesome places around the world. And I was super passionate about travel and the power for travel to transform lives, right? So there was already starting to feel the purposefulness of the work. So not just the work to make money, not just the work to have the position and the success, but really the work that that infuses excitement and passion and purpose. And so ran that for six years. It was kind of a burnout being in as you know, growing a business and all that, and, and, but that gave me that taste of both sense of purpose in the work, but also doing my own thing as well our own thing. And so that was the transition then into a series of other sort of entrepreneurial engagements and all that. And really kind of then the arc, and I'll just pause here, the arc was then moving from those entrepreneurial spaces where there was a different kind of leadership there, right with the teams and leading myself and about growth and not about politics and pecking orders and, you know, trying to figure out how to navigate a structure. It's more like, All right, let's get this going. Let's do this. And then it really began to for me, the transition, and I'll pause here, is okay, I'm doing the entrepreneurial thing, but I'm still just managing a company. I'm managing spreadsheets and people and all that. And what I noticed was missing for me was me directly being connected to the transformation of other people, right, indirect. So creating a business around helping people to grow and transform that was the next shift. So I'll pause there, and then just that opens up that kind of next big chapter my life.

It's very. Interesting. You mentioned Steve Jobs before. One of my favorite quotes from Steve Jobs is that you can connect. You can only connect the dots looking backwards, and so hearing you share your story, I'm connecting the dots, and that's a lot of fun. And one of those big gaps is really your story about communing with the tree on Salt Spring Island, yeah, the moving story. How did that moment reshape your sense of purpose? And how has that moment continued to guide your work in men's leadership and beyond that?

Yeah, yeah. And this is this late, kind of almost on the ARC of this latest chapter of my life, I would say, then imagine there was all these entrepreneurial things happening. And I launched my company, the current company, I have launch Academy, you know, in 2011 12. And then after running that for about six, seven years, I could feel living in the San Francisco Bay area, in the the heart of, you know, not in Silicon Valley, but the heart of the tech world, if you will. And just the craziness and the intensity and all that, I was feeling burned out, Mark So now, now I'd moved from the corporate space burned out in five years like not me, but then I was just seeing some of my own patterns in the way operating in the entrepreneurial space, and learning a lot about entrepreneurial leadership, from doing it wrong, from making mistakes, but also learning. And then the realization came to me as i Something needs to shift in me. Something needs to change in me, and and just being open to what that is. And then one of my friends and a mentor, I kind of consider a mentor, Bill Plotkin, has a company called animus Valley Institute, and they run a program called the soul craft intensive, among other programs, amazing organization, amazing man. And so i That was the spark when I saw that, and then I had a conversation with Bill, it's like, okay, I want this experience. I know this is part of whatever this shift is going to be for me for the next chapter of my my life, my work life and my personal life. So this is, yeah, 2017 I'm I head up to Salt Spring Island in British Columbia to do the five day soul craft intensive, and the first few days are just awesome. We're on the land a lot on our own, then coming back and then meeting and sharing with the group. And it was like only 15 of us, I think, something like that, so small group, and just beautiful. I mean, it's on this big reserve, 300 acres, and it's just forest and ponds and meadows, you know, just such a beautiful spot right off the coast of Vancouver Island. So that's where Salt Spring Island is. And this is the last so of the five days I'm now moving into the fourth day I've been out on the land all day on my own and through the night, we were encouraged to stay up all night or just sleep. Be out, no sleeping bag, no nothing. Just walk sleep, just sleep in a log or the hollow of a ground, just whatever. I mean, if you wanted to come back to your room, you could. But I stayed up. I stayed out all night, and just would find a place to doze and and there's a power in that, knowing that okay, instead of being freaked out by the night or whatever is, just embrace it, even if the the nervousness or the I'm held by this beautiful, natural place. And so that next morning, I kind of got up early, sort of the sun was just rising, walked up to the top of a hill, little knoll, if you will. And there was this big, huge pine tree, kind of a Sentinel. There wasn't, there weren't many trees around it. You know, this is the big pine tree, and it didn't all you some of its roots were exposed. They were looked burnt out. Some kind of burnt the roots in the wood were burnt a little bit. But the tree looked healthy. I mean, the top of it looked awesome. And so I'm now, I'm open. I'm wide open. It's been four days of just communing with the land, being in my body, relaxing, unwinding. No phones, no cell phones, no nothing. And I decided to go up and just sit at the base of this tree, just to relax and connect. And there was something very intriguing about the tree for me, and it was a moment that I'll never forget. It was just this place of being so relaxed and so dropped in and connected to the earth around me that I just naturally struck up a conversation out loud, like, Hi, how are you? How's it going? I noticed that your your roots have been burned, and then I was just in this altered space of like, I don't I didn't expect anything. And I got an answer back, and I began, and the answer was, was, you know, words in my mind that I like to say feels like this tree speaking to me, but it could have been my higher self. It could have been this creative imagination and connection with nature. I don't know. I don't even want to try to define or explain it, but I started this conversation with this tree and just asking about what happened, and the tree was basically saying, yes, a forest fire came through here, and it's part of the natural order of things, and we lost some of our brothers and sisters, but it's all good, and I'm okay, and it's just very wise and very gentle. Had a you know. Genderless, but had a feminine presence. And so I called the tree dear one, and dear one called me the little one. And it was just a little bit of a conversation back and forth. And then, of course, I'm the kind of guy that likes to ask the big questions, and so it's like, I'm not going to miss this opportunity mark to this being this beautiful, probably 400 year old, maybe 300 year old pine tree. And I asked the question that I hope most people would ask is, well, dear one, what, what wisdom do you have for me about my life, or, what do you what offer I don't even remember the exact words. It was something like, what's the wisdom you have for me as I, as I look at my life going forward and and there was just a little pause, and dear one said, you know, well, little one, teach them to love the Earth again. Teach them to love the Earth again. And it just, it always makes me a little teary and weepy, because it was so clear and so to my heart about how nature is such a beautiful place for us to restore and learn and grow and learn from, you know, learn from our for our own lives, that there was this place of me recognizing that myself and others have lost to that really deep, intimate connection with the earth. It doesn't mean we don't go out and look at it and looks beautiful, but the intimacy of coming back into really loving the earth again, our mother, the planet to every you know, coming back into that loving relationship, rather than a fixing relationship. Or or you're a bad human if you're doing this or that to the planet, it's just love the Earth again and then teach them. And then later, as I unpacked it, I started really realizing that my calling, that that that dear one was bringing me into was the them, was leaders. You know that I realized that's the pool that I want to swim with is helping leaders in all different settings of leadership to use and reconnect to the natural world in a way that informs who they are, helps them grow and helps them be better leaders.

Well, that leads perfectly into my next question, which is really about the framework. You've developed, a really beautiful framework for nature based leadership that's built on those four core capacities. How can leaders begin to cultivate these qualities in their daily lives, and even if they're not out in the wilderness? How does this apply to all types of leadership?

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. And that's what this experience brought for me, and maybe people can relate to this is like just breakthrough experiences in your life that you ask for, that you know is something is fundamentally shifted in you, and people do that through some kind of workshop they've done, or, you know, two weeks, you know, a month traveling the world or whatever. You know, there's these moments where we claim that we're ready for a shift, ready for transformation. And so this experience of the soul, craft intensive and being with dear with dear one, and that conversation was a seminal shift for me. So I just want to give context, I came back really alive and enlivened, and also in a way that was beautiful, as wanting to be a student again, around the idea of nature informed work, you know, nature inspired work, or just understanding more about, you know, this, the power of place, the power of nature, all these things that people are writing About and talking like around the power of nature to heal and transform everything. From what we hear about is when, when kids are, you know, addicts or, you know, runaways. A lot of times, these programs are taken out to nature for three months or six months into a camp area. And just like there's so much that we're already we're learning kids, for young adults and for adults, is the power of nature to support us and transform so I wanted to be a student again about that. So I went back to school, and I got my master's in nature based leadership at Prescott College, well known Environmental Studies school in Arizona. And so that was the next step after this conversation, is I really want to immerse myself more in the world of understanding how people are talking about nature, using nature therapeutically, using nature in settings of personal development, personal growth. And then there I created, I wrote a thesis that I knew was in me, which was, let's, let's look at creating a framework of nature based leadership. Like, how can nature actually be a guide and provide the template and the understanding and the possibilities for a leader, anyone really come on, anyone but, but for a leader to go out and spend time in nature and get informed in a way and find capacities developed in a way that will help with their leadership, with human beings, you know, and or the non physical, the non the non human world and the human world. So that was so, that's so then that frame. So that's where I spent a full year in do writing this, doing the research on it, and then actually running a program. I ran a day long program with my framework, this approach. Which is four quadrant approach to nature based leadership. And it would just went really, really well. And so I kept it super simple. So my framework is a classic four quadrant model that that that all native traditions and indigenous traditions have had for centuries, if not 1000s of years, the four directions, the four. Wins the four. You know the four corner. It's always this, the ground, the table, it's solid, the four pillars, the four legs of the table. So I knew it would be that I felt like, that's just how humans. I didn't want to create a fort, a 32 point model mark. Like I've seen some leadership programs. I know you have too, is like, here's the circle and the outer circle in these 20 capacities. And like I was really clear that what nature teaches us is also about simplicity and clarity, that things just unfold in a way. So this model I knew had to be simple and yet powerful in terms of that, these are the core capacities that if somebody is working with, they are going to be a great leader, a great human being. And yes, are there other little sub things and all that, of course. So the the model is simple. These four core capacities are are sensing. And we call that, I call that the looking out. So if you're in nature, it's looking out, but with all your senses, so it's outward, it's outside of self. So it's very important to know how to sense in present moment. So what are my eyes staring? What are my ears? What are my smell? So in nature, we can open up all those senses, even the creative or the imaginative sense, if you will, that sixth sense. And then how do we bring that back? And then with that, we bring that back into our day to day leadership. And it's just seeing the space. So when you've seen good leaders that are present, that come into the boardroom, and everybody's meeting their heads, not down into their papers and all that, they're looking at the room and feeling the room and seeing where people are at, that is powerful sensing with presence. And so sensing is one that's the looking out this. Another capacity is feeling. See, these are super simple sensing, feeling, and feeling is the looking inward. So this is the space of looking into how am I as a being feeling right now? Some of that is body sense, but it's also emotional sense. I'm feeling angry or sad or withdrawn, whatever that is. The magic of leaders in this today's world is that the ones that are leading really well have a high level of emotional intelligence. They know what. They know how to self regulate. They know what's going on. So all of my capacities relate to what other people have been sharing. But then I create these ways in nature that that feeds that capacity more powerfully than just me thinking about it. That's interesting. And so the feeling one is then about tuning in to self and interior what's happening there, and then being able to self regulate powerfully there. Know what's going on, know what's going on, and don't, don't vomit whatever is happening with you out to others. And then the next one is about what we call the place that I call it choosing, and choosing or and sometimes I'll use it as acting. So choosing is a powerful energy for leaders. Is a lot of times I am just sorting through all the data and information, and at times I need to come to some decision or a choice. And one of the things in all my leadership, whether it's corporate or entrepreneurial, is most people that are really in it say the number one challenge that they face is the feeling like, how do I make a good decision today, tomorrow, the next day? And there's both a fear and an excitement, as if I made a bad decision, I'm gonna freaking fuck everything up. And so there's a lot of fear, but there's also this kind of, how do I make a great choice consistently? How do I choose or make decisions that are empowered? And so this one is about an integration of knowing the inner terrain and the outer terrain, and actually using your whole body and your whole field to make a powerful choice. It is not just your mind that's a trap for a lot of leaders just trying to understand the pros and the cons. And this, it can be a trap. So this is again, where nature helps to inform the the imagination helps to inform, listening more deeply to the intuition and bringing that all online with a good mind and a good, you know, looking at things in a from all perspectives. And so that's choosing, decision making, acting comes from that place. And then the final one, which is its own quadrant, but in a way, infuses all the others, is presencing. And so presencing is really that capacity to bring myself fully present no matter what is happening particular leadership setting things are going crazy and whacked out and this problem is happening, this problem, well, the worst thing you can do is just being reactive to all of that. Great leaders know how to ground and get really present. Okay, we're here. Let's, let's, let's look at this. Let's, let's be with this. And can that leader be with anything? So some can be with all the positives and the growth, but if it gets really hairy, they're not present to that anymore in their business, and that creates. Face of challenge and a problem. So when you put all those together, that creates this framework of moving in and out of these capacities that work together, harmoniously together, but also leaning into one, leaning to the other. And then there's shadow sides of all of these that I talk about too. Where do I go out of my presencing? Where am I not being in my sensing fully? So we can explore that as well.

I love the the complete picture that you're drawing around leadership, and it leads into two different pieces. One is that kind of you were talking about, the bridge between your corporate leadership and then being entrepreneurship. We actually our first connection happened 10 years before we met in 2012 you helped one of my mentors, Gene Houston, to create her first or her online program, awakening to your life's purpose. Yeah, and then you help. You've helped many other people create these online programs through your own program, launch Academy. We we're now in a partnership around that so that you can now bridge into your next phase, going back to this nature based leadership, and specifically with men's word. Yeah, I think men's work for a very long time, and I want to dive into that a little bit more, but I'm curious what, what is the this program is leading with purpose? What does leading with purpose mean to you?

Yeah, leading with purpose. I think you know, for me, and I've done a lot of teaching around purpose to Mark, I don't know if you remember my very first course that I created for myself was called man on purpose, and it was a purpose Discovery Program for men in partnership with the mankind project, which is a global nonprofit supporting men in their growth and living emissions of service in the world. And so, you know, for me, leading, and leading from purpose is really about just deeply knowing, first of all, who you are, what moves you, what is calling you, what is you even your soul calling you? So you could even talk talk about soul purpose. So then purpose isn't just a thing, but it's really that deep calling in me that can change and shift over time. So what I like to say is, purpose is not a form. It's really important for people to get that. Purpose isn't, oh, I'm now teaching English in inner city schools. That's my purpose. No, it's not. Maybe helping to awaken and support conscious, you know, conscious teaching of children or of young people, that's the purpose, but you could do that in 1000 different ways, right? So people try to conflate their job or the thing they're doing as their purpose. So really, leading from purpose is about knowing who you are, what your essence is, what feels true as your calling in this life. And it might be a deeper level than any form or anything that you do, and so that's what brings this aliveness to then your leadership, because you're feeling on purpose, you're feeling connected to what's most important to you. And I do believe you can bring that into any setting, whether it's a corporate setting, entrepreneurial setting, or whatever. But you got to keep asking the question, Is this really the highest and best giving of who I am, of my purpose, what my soul is wanting and calling for? And if it's not, then you've got to be able to have the courage to adjust that. You know, you got to be able to have the courage to shift and create something different, or step out of the default life and create something different and new. So that's actually, and I'm willing to do it. People are willing to reinvent themselves throughout their life with, I think, is a beautiful thing. And I would say I'm probably in my in my adult life. So post, you know, first job to now I'm probably, I would say I'm in my fourth iteration of really getting even more clear at this stage in my life, too, of how I want to contribute and give my gift, and in what way and where have I been chickening out elementary Mark So, so the men's work. So this is the thing is, I've been doing men's work, deep dive men's work, for 27 years. I've been leading circles, and I lead men's trainings. And then lately, I've started creating my own nature based leadership programs for men. Some of those might be co Ed too, eventually. But I really realized this last year, as I'm asking these questions and sharing with you right now of what I call it, in terms of soul calling and purpose, is I realized I wasn't fully on track. I wasn't fully on it like launch Academy felt purposeful for for many, many years, but it's now felt like it's not the highest expression of what need to give now for the next 15 or 20 years of my life. And that is really around this men's movement, the men's workspace and supporting men and boys. I want to say it's both to be able to heal, grow and thrive like and that's and we know that all the data is going the wrong way. Mark for boys and men badly like badly suicide rates and lower the lack of education and lack of opportunities. And, you know, just all these stats that are just, it's kind of really heartbreaking, because there's so much confusion around masculinity, and what does it mean to be a man, and how do I live in the. New World, and that's there's a lot of need to support men and create healing spaces and communities so that men can really grow and evolve together, and that it's happening and it's happening, and it's just sort of like, I want to make sure that I help make that happen in a bigger, more, you know, bigger and bolder way, to reach more men around the planet and to unhook from the default, the male default life. That's also screaming loud, you know, the bro i culture and the red pill, and there's a lot of what I consider unhealthy masculine models out there that are confusing men like that's So Elon Musk or Donald Trump or Andrew Tate or whatever, that there's models, whether you like them or not, and it's fine if you follow them and like them, but they're not necessarily healthy models of masculinity. It can lead men down, I think, paths that that lead to not unhappiness. You know, so

And I was on a different end of the spectrum. I had this understanding of gender identity issues where it's another guy. I'm very clear in my being a man and my sexuality and everything. But as far as what it means to be masculine, when I was raised by my mom and two sisters, most of the masculine qualities were negative, being direct, meaning all of these things, and so I adapted a lot of feminine qualities because those were accepted by women to help build wonderful relationships with women. But even in my own relationships with with Renee, there were times where she's like, I need you to just man up.

That's great. And isn't it great to have a partner that can help you step into places that you've not fully developed. And I think at the end of the day mark, I mean, we it's such a fraught conversation about masculinity and femininity, and that's usually the way I like to bring it, not man woman. So there's this gender fluidity, and there's, you know, kind of an all gender conversation, but we can always talk about masculine and feminine dancing together. So where have I evacuated my sacred masculine because of my own wounding in my childhood, where I'm to maybe overly, you know, feminine, overly feminine, which is fine, and it's just these qualities of these two dance, the yin and the yang, masculine and feminine. How do I bring in a little bit more and clarity and energy and power that we might associate with masculine. But it doesn't mean that women can't have that masculine, right? It just how do we balance it? But for so many men, the lens first is masculinity, and then we start talking about how you integrate in the masculine and feminine. And a lot of that is just simply looking at being grounded, powerful, masculine man means a lot of qualities that we've denied too, like compassion and care and thoughtfulness and presence. It's not just all like charging out into the world. It can be also about self care and all these things that we're just balancing our masculine nature.

Well, that's, again, a beautiful segue from our partnership around launch Academy. What the baby that you've created with that? And then Renee, and I've been kind of helping with that so that you can lean more into this men's work. And you've got a big project that you're coming up with with two other friends of ours, George Shepard and Tim Wade the big tent Summit, yes, I'm curious to hear more about that. And specifically, what's your bigger vision for the future of this moment and a movement? Yeah. And how can nature based leadership be bridged between the deeper healing strength and connection for men today?

Yeah, yeah, beautiful. I think, you know. So the Big 10 Summit is the the event and the experience that I first came to when last year I really made that decision that I really want to put more of my work in the men's workspace front and center. And so one of the first ideas was I really want to create a gathering, a convening of leaders in the men's workspace. So these are the lead these are the these are the facilitators, the men's coaches, the workshop leaders, the authors, the podcasters, you know, filmmakers, all. I mean, there's all that are passionate about boys and men and helping them to learn, to grow, thrive and find their way in this crazy world. And so I knew that's like, remember the tree was telling me that if your people are leaders, so it's it's the same variation, it's just leaders in a specific space that I'm really passionate about. So the Big 10 Summit is an in person gathering in Colorado, end of this May, which is bringing together leaders from all over the world, from the UK, Australia, Canada. I live in Costa Rica, and so we're all gathering to talk about the future, to help shape the future of men's work, like, what does that look like, and what are the challenges in our work? And so a lot of it's about geeking out in our work and coaching, but also networking, collaborating. And I'm excited, Mark, because I got to tell you, it's. And this is a big tent, so men, all genders are welcome. So this is another part of my thing. This isn't just men with men. This is all genders supporting boys and men to grow and heal. So we have some amazing women there and a trans man that's coming, and it's just going to be amazing, and it's really going to be a place for this community to come together, to gel and learn more how to support each other in the community. So this event has never happened. I've been doing men's work for 30 years. Nobody has had the vision of truly a global gathering. Let's get all the people that want to be here, not just these five of us going off on a backpack trip, or 10 of us met in New York City to do something. I want it to be a space where anybody can come as long as they're focused and passionate about the men's workspace. So it's not, it's not a looky loo space. It's not like, hey, I want to check this out. And it's never happened, and it's already amazing. Who have signed up and registered. We're going to have, you know, a full house in this space, Casa sagrada in Colorado, and I'm really excited. It's the first one, but we're going to, and we're going to do it in it every year, and it's gonna be the spark, not only for me, it's, it's kind of like my coming out party, you know, my quinceanera, something like that. Because, because it is me having all these conversations and letting men know I've been doing this for 27 years, quietly in the background, and now I'm a convener and an organizer to bring us all together to talk and to share and to go deep and all that. And so for me, that's also other things that I want to do. I want to continue to do my Men's retreats. I still see doing some things co in a co Ed space, and then creating a high end mastermind for men and women who are in the men's workspace to really help them grow their business and their messaging and all that. So that one's practical, but it's also still supporting each other and going deep. And where do we each need to transform to grow what we're doing in the world? So that's that's a vision that's coming later this year, after the summit, and I'm super excited about that.

That is fantastic. And you answered this already, but it was so quick. It was the question I was going to ask you. Said, here and Summit, we are used to this virtual world, right about like in real life. This is in Casa sagrada, which is in Loveland, Colorado. That's right. A little bit more about that. It. First of all, we're in person where you guys are men can hug and fist bump and yes,

Oh, I hit so that was important to me, Mark. So the vision of this started with, I am not going to I'm the king of virtual like I have done so many summits and I do workshop. I do everything online. For 15 years, it's been everything online, or going to the soulful leadership retreat, and that's, you know, or a few other retreats there, and it's great. So I knew this had to be shoulder to shoulder, knees to knees, coming together. So yes, it's going to be the group is meeting in person for three days, may 29 to June 1, in Loveland, Colorado, Casa sagrada, in person. And every year this will be a in person event. I we might actually, in the future, live stream it and play with that, just to see. But we kind of want to, you know, we feel like if, if we live stream it, people get a little lazy, like, Yeah, I'll just live stream it. So we may not, we may say you got to come be in the physical space, because I know that's where the magic happens, the real creativity happens, the partnering, all these things that can really help each other. It's just It happens in real time space. And I know you know that from doing the soulful leadership retreat for five years, six years.

So when I highlight you're in Costa Rica, so you speak more Spanish than most. Casa sagrada literally means the Sacred House. The sacred house, that's right, they're coming in together, and the Sacred House. It also brings up another thing around events that people might have come to events. Quite often, when people come to events, there's a little resistance, because, like, I want to, like, buy anything, yeah,

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's great. Another part of that, the part of the vision, is, this is really our industry conference for the men's workspace, like, really a peer Conference coming together. So unlike many other in person conferences or or summits, virtual summits, that kind of thing. This is, we're not selling anything here, you know, it's, there's no back end offer. We're probably going to create a community. We feel like that's natural. It's almost like our association community. And so we're certainly going to offer people at a very low price to step into, you know, the monthly zoom calls and special talks and things like that, to stitch together the connection between each summit each year, right? So that there's some the community feels like it's connected. But other than that, we don't. This isn't a, you know, for Tim George and I and others, we're wanting to have this be an open space for anybody to come into and not feel like anything in their mind is that's just going to be a pitch fest, or they're just going to just going to sell me something, or whatever. This is more like wisdom 2.0 conference, or the American Association of cardiologists, because we do hard work too. You know it's like that. You come together and it's a peer conference. There's it's not a selling experience. So just thank you for saying that, because anybody that is. Interested that's listening, that might be in the men's workspace. This is a place to come and be supported, and connect and learn and grow your own capacities, grow your business, connect with other good people, and it's not about you getting sold something.

I've got one last question about Big 10 summit for somebody who might just be getting into men's work, thinking, This sounds fantastic, and maybe next time you will be doing these again in the future. Yes. What would you say to somebody who, again, might feel like you've got all these people that have been doing this for 1020, mankind project, people like really, the leaders in this industry, yeah, they're just stepping into it. They feel like they're not really up to par, or they might feel overshadowed, or they're just not ready yet because they're not known as leaders?

Yeah, that's That's great. It's really a great question. Yeah, I the only lens that we're operating from is if you have a passion about men's work in some form, or even if you're just starting with men's coaching, or you've want to put on a retreat or whatever, but you know that feels like a part of your work or a part of your purpose, then you're welcome, you know what I mean. So we talk about, in the information about the big tent song, we talk about the old guard, their new guard, and the old guard coming together as well. So we want again Big Tent. We want the newbies in the room. I mean, I know Nick, Nick vareal. You know, Nick, and he's awesome, and he's just started his program back to wild, literally, the last five months, six months, and it was on my mind when I was asking the question, good, yeah, it's an example like that. Nick is coming, but he's also, even though he's new, he's excited about the field and he's passionate about so that's all we're saying. We don't necessarily want people that are, you know, I don't think, I'm not sure about this field. There's dinner, but I'll go check it out. We'd rather have people that are even if they're new and fresh, they're passionate about the space. And remember, it's not just men, it's boys. So it could be mentoring in schools and, you know, kind of young youth programs for boys, all that. So it's boys and men. Boys, young men, men. So there are lots of people out there that are focused on boys in schools like middle school and high school. Yes, come this is your place, too. And those folks, the newbies, the ones that are new to this whole space, I actually think this conference is best for you, because you're going to now get fired up with meeting a lot of cool men and women that are in this space, learning from them, absorbing what's being shared there, making connections and feeling more confident and more engaged and more supported as you go out and do your thing, you know. And in some ways, the folks that have been doing a long time have successful businesses, some of them six figure, but seven figure businesses, a lot of them want to give back, so they want to bring their wisdom there and share it with others. Make some good connections, but they're there to be a part of the movement, right, to be a part of helping to lift this up. So everybody will have their different intentions, but it is a community coming together to raise the tide. So, you know, a rising tide rises, raises all boats, and that's what we need to do in the men's work space. And this kind of experience has never happened, and that's what I'm super excited about, it.

Yeah, I love it. I love being a part of your evolution in leadership. And at the time of this recording, you right now are getting ready for your big launch of launch Academy, and it's very integrated into that piece. So people that might be interested in launching their own program. We'll put the links below. They're ongoing things. The same thing with the Big 10 Summit. I'll put those links below, but I'm just curious, because for a lot of people that might be living in a city and they're like, nature based leadership, how do I connect for myself? I live in Lake Mary, Florida, you know, pretty suburban, pretty Yeah, not country, yeah, I grew up. But what I've become aware of is, like, all of the nature that is around me. I see the birds, I see the lizards, the Turtles like and I start to film it, just just becoming aware of it, and being open to the lessons. But somebody who might be living in New York City or San Francisco, where you were, or

Houston, or wherever, yeah, no, this is the beauty is, nature is everywhere around us. In fact, the sky and just looking up as a part of it feeling any kind of grassy area or trees. So this is in your backyard. This is in your neighborhood. And certainly, most cities have beautiful parks, big parks. You know, New York City has Central Park, which is freaking amazing, and it's just about your willingness to get an in connection, get out of the human only world, or the screens or whatever, and just connect with the elements so that can even be the wind wherever you are. It can be a feeling of the sun on your face or the sky or the ground around you or the trees around you, because the practice is to just opening up your senses to that wherever you are doesn't have to be deep nature. It's not the Sierra Nevada mountains can be anywhere, and then use those simple practices of like what I call a sit spot, is a practice to just open your senses, or doing a walking kind of open eyed meditation to ground you. These are just mindfulness practices, but really being in connection with nature that. To deepen the mindful practice. And you may be surprised, take your shoes off and your socks off in a park. It's okay everyone. You can do that and walk barefoot on grass or on sand or whatever, and notice what that feels like. And we all there's a lot of science out there. I won't even get into it mark, but there's so much science about how being barefoot on the land and how nature lowers cortisol levels, how kids can move out of their ADHD tendencies spending just a day in nature. So there's all this science already coming out about the power, and we've just disconnected ourselves from nature so much more than we ever have, from the car to the house to the office to the you know, to our screens to our rooms, and we just need to re engage it a park, your backyard, wherever, and just do it without your device. Do it alone. Do it with a friend. And that's where the magic is. And you might notice that out as you do that, things change your mood, changes how you act, changes how you notice your presence when you're with humans, if you spent time in nature. So that's, that's my invitation. Can happen anywhere, anytime.

I love it. I love the simplicity of it, especially when you brought up the sky, just being able to look up and then seeing the sky is always there, whether it's clouds or sunshine. See how Renee makes it a practice every day, usually right before lunch, to take a 10 minute walk the vitamin D. We know that the actual supplements of that, but just that, the endorphins, everything else that you just mentioned, all the benefits of something as simple as that.

Yes, exactly. It changes our chemistry, and that's how we've been wired. We've been hardwired for 150,000 years to be in communion with nature, and it's literally only been maybe the last 200 years that we've really start to cut that off and and get into our these boxes and places that can disconnect us from nature, and that's been happening more and more, and then that also disconnects us from this place of lovingly being in loving connection with nature. So we make different choices around our businesses and what we do and what we're doing polluting the world. So but it comes from a place of love and connection, not from a place of shame and a stick, because that's where so much of our world has been looking at humans as bad and you suck, and look what we're doing to the planet, and it's like, yes, we've made bad choices. How do we start making new choices from a place of connection, love and appreciation for the natural world and that intimacy so and that will naturally change things for for us. So spend more time in nature, wherever it is, backyard, Park, get out on an adventure for a weekend, and then, yeah, and then I'm, I have all these practices. So if somebody wants to learn more for about my, you know, leadership programs, or come to the Big 10 Summit, we're going to be talking about this, about nature and how that can inform and support men's work, certainly, but anybody really.

And so those who are hearing this before the big tent Summit, what is the URL for that?

Yeah, it's the bigtentsummit.com. Pretty easy. All one word, Big Tent summit tent, and that's t, e n t, like a tent. Some people kind of only hear 10, but it's big tent. Big Tent Summit.

Big Tent Summit. Again, all the links will be down below in the in the comments. We would also love to respond to anything that you have whenever you're hearing this. Appreciate you showing up for listening to this interview. Chris, I greatly appreciate who you're being, how you're showing up the world, our friendship, partnership. Any last words that you want to share before we say goodbye?

Oh, well, thank you. First, just appreciation for you mark, and deep gratitude for our relationship. And just gratitude for you, know, for the folks that are listening here is just, I'm sure, for those, the light workers in the world, those that are wanting to create positive change, not only in their own life, but with other people and whatever other communities are engaged in, is know that even when things look bleak, right, the world looks like it's just going to hell in a hand basket. It's like we each get to choose where this is the purpose in leadership. Where do I want to serve? Where do I feel called to help create the change that I want to see in the world, or the change that we want to make together and collaboratively. And go for that, go for that, because we need more change agents. We need more light workers. And that's what the call is. Even when things look darker or bleak or bad, how can we step into being these change agents of positive change

Beautiful. Thank you so much Chris

Thank you, Mark,

Talk to you soon