Retreats with Extreme Adventure: Creating Vulnerability with Chris Hardwick

Hello and welcome to Mastermind Mastery, the podcast for professionals who want to create and run successful peer advisory councils, or as we call them, PACs for short, or they're also known as peer groups or business mastermind groups. I'm your host, Tina Corner Stolz, founder of Elixir Council, where I've been in the industry running groups since 2005 and now help those like you with education, certification, and support wanting to do the same. At one time, I ran 10 groups, nearly 100 members, and sold my groups For a Good Multiple and recently released my second book, Your Seat at the Table: How to Create and Run Your Own Peer Advisory Councils, published by Forbes and grateful to you that it's an Amazon bestseller. I invite you to join each week where we share strategies and techniques to successfully launch and become a master of running your PACs. You'll hear insights, perspectives, dos and don'ts, learn from my and my guests' mistakes, successes, and get the inside track to key takeaways. Each time we have a guest, we'll be having a bit of fun. So are you ready? So welcome everyone to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. This is Tina Corner Stolz, your host, and today's topic is creating trust, accountability, vulnerability, and a word you might not expect, adventure, all right, through retreats. And we have talked about retreats in the past. A little bit of kind of why do them, how to do them. And they play such an important role with peer advisory groups in order to kind of grow the relationships, the understanding, the bonding between members. It's just another enhanced experience that you can have when you are doing your groups on, you know, a regular recurring basis with your members. And so today we're going to dive into this type of retreat with some really cool insights from our guest today, Chris Hardwick. And he's going to share his experience with us. And Chris is coming to us from Vancouver, Canada, where right now we are thousands of miles apart. Right, Chris?

Absolutely. Yes. So only as the crow flies.

Only as the crow flies. As the geese. As the geese fly. So We are today with Chris, who has a wealth of experience. He's 7 years at least in running business peer groups for Tech Canada, right?

Yep.

Okay. And but tons of experience in regards to business, building businesses, selling businesses, driving a lot of value through businesses. And at the end, I encourage you to go to his website. You can see his background and all the wonderful things he's been doing. Which obviously play into why he's a great moderator for business peer groups. So welcome today, Chris, to the show.

Thank you very much for having me, Tina. It's a pleasure to be here.

Absolutely. And so let's get— dive a little bit into kind of when did you start doing retreats and how did that evolve?

I think that as the name Retreat, I guess I would have to say is when I became a tech chair 7 years ago and as part of the program, we take our groups on a retreat every year. But prior to that, I was actually a member for 7 years. So I got to go on retreats as a member. And I would have to say that, you know, prior to that, I'd been one of these people that even at the age of 10 and 12, through Cubs and Scouts and Venturers, I'd been going on adventures my whole life. And so, you know, today we call them corporate retreats. Or group retreats. But in reality, I've been going off on adventures my entire life. And so I have a different spin on a retreat to most people. To me, it's a group adventure.

Okay. Now, what does that mean, though? Can you expand on that?

Yeah. So a typical corporate retreat is, you know, you, you go to stay in a hotel and like a conference center and you, you have your morning executive session or a speaker session, and then in the afternoon, you might go for a walk or a hike or a kayak or a stand-up paddleboard or something like that. Okay. Initially, I would have to say that for my retreats, when we started doing this, you know, our activities were more like ziplining, quads getting muddy, side-by-side off-road vehicles, maybe renting rally cars, going to circuits to go racing Formula 1 go-karts or racing cars. They were a lot more extreme. Now, as I pivot again and add to these events that I'm doing, I'm taking them to the next level again. So we're now talking not sitting in a boardroom table, we're talking about being around a campfire, talking about vision, values, mission, purpose. And so what I'm now doing is more full immersive experiences where we'll actually get people off into the wilderness. So now I'm sort of taking it to the next level again.

So what prompted— we're gonna dive into that for a second. What prompted you to do that? What I mean, take to the next level. So did you see something happening in the groups that was like, okay, now it's time to do this?

What I found was, is that the traditional, what I would call traditional corporate retreat of spending a whole bunch of time together in a boardroom and then maybe going for a walk or something, it was, we were sort of getting partway there. What I really look for in the lives of the people that I work with is a transformative experience where people actually transform and they become a truer version of themselves and they really have an opportunity to learn more about themselves. And I find one of the best ways of doing that is to get people out of their comfort zone. So I love taking business owners and entrepreneurs into the wilderness and scaring the you-know-what out of them. And so the more edgy, the more aggressive, the more adventurous, the more crazy I find, the more transformation takes place. I took a group of 7 people to climb Kilimanjaro last year, and some of them were speakers, some of them were clients, some of them were friends. And we, we had some really amazing experiences as a group. The other thing that was a byproduct of it, as we became like this Army platoon unit, like this Special Forces platoon, like we, we were watching out for one another, we were caring for one another, we were helping one another. You don't get that transformation sitting in a boardroom. Mm-hmm.

Because you have to be doing something. And act like a team, right? Something's on the line. Like, your life is on the line when you're out there, right?

Had his blood oxygen level went down to 58, and normally below 85 you would go to emergency, right? And I was having to help this guy and roll up his sleeping bag and check his blood oxygen levels with this little guy every hour during the course of the night, you know, putting it on his finger while he was sleeping, like, like That was a little extreme, you know, and we had an ability to get him out. And I'm not suggesting that that's the sort of thing I'm doing all the time, but I did just do a trip down to Nevada last month where we took some people out into the wilderness on a 3-day backcountry ski trip. And, you know, one of the ladies hadn't been doing that for years, so that was a real stretch for her. I'm taking another group down along the Pacific Coast Trail in June, and that'll be entrepreneurs and business owners. And we're doing a Via Ferrata, which is a climbing course where you're hanging off the side of a cliff. And yeah, and so it's safe, you're clipped in, you're not gonna die. But what's the conversation that's going on in your head? It's very much around getting people to face their fears head on. And coach them through the process so they actually find out what they're truly capable of achieving in life. And I find that these types of experiences are directly transferable to business because it's about getting out of your comfort zone. It's about taking a risk that is not an uncalculated risk, But it's a, it's a risk nevertheless that you learn from, and you have this incredible transformation in growth. And I've experienced it throughout my entire life. And as I now do more and more adventurous retreats, what I'm finding is that there's this wonderful connection between adventure and entrepreneurialism, which is why I call myself an adventurepreneur. Is I like bringing culture, the culture of adventure into organizations. And that's what I'm now doing with several of my clients. And so we're using adventure not only as a metaphor, but as an actual way of galvanizing teams, bringing people together. And you just can't do that sitting around a boardroom table.

And it's much more impactful, I suspect, than the traditional ways we all used to do that, of trying to do team building, quote unquote, exercises, right?

And yeah, yeah, it's so different, right?

It's just, it's not fluffy. You know, those could be fluffy. In some ways. One of the things, as you're talking, it makes me think, is when you do this, and typically how many people are in your group?

In your peer group? My groups, I find that 8 to 10 is a real good sweet spot. I mean, one of my groups has got 16 members in it. Another one has 15. I also will look at whether or not it's a spousal retreat and, you know, what the dynamics are going to be. So it's really about designing a bespoke program for the individual group or groups of people or a combination of the individuals. So I have another corporate, more traditional corporate retreat program that I'm working with as well. But we're going to exotic locations and where we're doing things like mushroom ceremonies and Reiki energy healing ceremonies and things like this that are on a different spectrum. Because I'm finding that this also is really helping people to open up and talk about things that they might otherwise not talk about in a more traditional structured I use the boardroom table scenario. I mean, you can create, even in a boardroom type environment, which is what I'm doing mostly with my, with, you know, my tech and Vistage groups, you can create high levels of vulnerability. You can create these really emotional connections and, and, and do amazing work if you've got you know, the right type of people around the room and the right levels of vulnerability, and you can create accountability. I mean, you can do so many things in that environment. I just find that when we get into this visceral, tactile environment out in the forest on the side of a mountain, it's kind of like an exponential increase on what you can achieve in a boardroom.

So are there any techniques that you use while you're doing this, or do you not need to really do that because the experience in itself creates—

I think it's a different environment that helps to create a whole new set of parameters. Mm-hmm. Whereas in a boardroom type environment, We've got to, as a facilitator, we always have to be really careful to make sure that we're engaging with all the people in the group and they're not, you know, half the time they're sneaking little, they're pulling their phones out and doing a quick text or they've got their laptops on where they say they're taking notes but they're actually sending an email. You know, the trips that I like to take people on, these things stay at home. Mhm. There's no laptop, there's no phones, there's no smart devices. I've got an inReach for an emergency SOS call. That's about it. Like a Garmin inReach. But, um, if you want to bring a camera, you know, bring a camera, not a phone. And so we're removing a lot of the distractions. And so now what happens is we've got people who are really you know, leaning in and they have to, right? They gotta keep up. If we're going for a walk or a hike or last night I was digging through waist-deep snow on a snowshoeing trip up on the local mountains just with a buddy of mine and it was crazy, right? Like there's no stopping and taking a call. We're going up the side of a mountain like this. Digging through, you know, 3-foot deep fresh powder. Like, this is full immersion. So there's— you are 110% present. There's no—

exactly what I was thinking. It's the word present.

You've got to be present. You've got to be there. And, and now what happens is you're actually looking out for your friend or your colleague or your other member of the group, and, and you really create these cohesive. That's why I go back to the sort of the, you know, like this, the, what's the word, SEAL team, you know, or, you know, like a little platoon, right? You create this environment, the environment creates a different experience.

I would think a different mindset.

It's just so much more immersive, right? In addition to the fact you're in the forest or you're on the mountain or wherever you are, it could be in the desert, whether it was a trip I did to Africa or whatever, it's just a more immersive experience.

So this makes me think, what happens if some people in the group go and some don't and now they come back right? And they've had this experience with some of everybody in their group but not others. Is there anything that you do to help bridge that gap, or it's now just a gap and it encourages them to go next time?

I would say it's the latter. Um, oh, no way, I missed out on that. Oh, I should have gone. Oh, Tina, look, What I do is not for everybody, and, um, no different to a peer group. Peer groups aren't for everybody, right? Um, so I think I always look at alignment on values between who I'm working with and who I'm not working with. Some people are just going to not be into this. I always survey people. I have the— a very simple question. One of the questions I ask them is, uh, what's your on a scale of 1 to 10, how adventurous are you? 1 is a couch potato. 10 is, you know, I'll jump off a cliff kind of thing. And I tend not to work with people below about a 7. I'm really looking to work with adventure-seeking entrepreneurs.

Well, if you'd ask me that question, I'm a 10. But I think one of the key points though is I jumped off a cliff a couple of years ago. Like really high to conquer the fear of heights.

Yeah.

And it was when I had a monumental birthday and I'm like, you know, I need to do this just to keep myself on edge and whatever, except I didn't do it safely. Oh, I think one of the things that you have mentioned in all of this is everything is safe. It's not crazy, not safe. But part of the thing is, is that then they can enjoy, I suspect, the experience because they know it is safe. As well.

But often that is leading by example. It's about me going first. And you use the analogy of jumping off a cliff. I mean, I used to be a free climber back in the '80s in Europe, and I'd climb 100-foot, you know, hundreds of feet cliffs. But there was times when I fell off the cliff and I would have to push off the cliff, but I knew I was gonna land in water. And even at, 50, 60, 80, or 100 feet up. Like, it was gonna hurt, but I knew how to enter the water correctly. All right. Mm-hmm. Um, I don't do that sort of stuff with my clients these days. All right. Yeah. I don't think I could get the insurance. I don't think they'd sign a waiver, you know?

Right.

So now, like, I use the example of a trip I'm doing in June, which is a Via Ferretta. A Via Ferretta was invented by the Italians and the Spanish during World War II to navigate their way through the mountains. To avoid capture by the Allies or the Germans, depending upon the case. And these are cables that are set on the mountains. There's lots of them throughout the world where you clip in and you can't fall. You cannot fall. However, in your head, your spidey senses, your parasympathetic nervous system, your amygdala is kicked in. It's telling you all the all the alarm bells are going off about you should not be doing this. And you've got it like, and I coach people on how to change the conversation in their head, how to get, how to turn off the amygdala, how to turn on their prefrontal cortex and recognize that this is actually safe. And what happens is by taking these kitty steps, the next day I can get them on a wall without a via ferrata with ropes. And actually climbing. And it's by taking little steps you build your confidence. I'll use another really quick example. I've taken people ziplining who are afraid of heights, and the first time they go on the line, they're screwed up in a little fetal position with their eyes closed, hanging on with like— and by the 6th or 7th zipline, They're doing an upside down starfish with their eyes wide open. And I have helped them conquer their fear of heights because they know they can't fall because they're safe, right?

Yeah. It's funny, when you were talking about that, my hands got sweaty and the ends of my fingers started to hurt because I have in my head that I'm up there and I'm like, oh, this is just not going to go well.

I did a talk on Saturday at a conference and I shared this story of my eldest son and I climbing a mountain not far from me on the way up to Whistler. And I had people like on the edge of their chairs because we were doing a climb where we didn't have any ropes and we were actually climbing past all of these professional groups of climbers. And they're looking at my son and I going, who are these idiots? But I've been climbing my entire life, right? I'm very comfortable with climbing. And if, if I'd have felt that I wasn't, I would've been roped up, you know? So it's all about your level of experience and your risk threshold. And everybody has a different risk threshold, threshold. But what I'd like to see is that people change that risk threshold. And it can be in business, and I use the mountains as training ground and an analogy. But the reality is, is it no different to business when we might be taking out a small loan or a bigger loan, or we might be doing a small acquisition and then a bigger acquisition, or we might be hiring this, we might be topgrading our organization and hiring this really expensive person that we can't afford. But then, you know, then they're going to build their own team and help build the business. So I use, I flip-flop back and forth between my, you know, 20 years as a serial entrepreneur and my, my 60 years as a serial adventurer. And I put the two together and that's how I came up with what I'm doing because it just works.

So one last question, Chris, as we come kind of towards the end, is can someone, if they have not done a retreat with their group, Or maybe they've done that traditional retreat that we talked about earlier and they immediately jump to this kind of a retreat, immersive experience, adventure, et cetera. Or is there a path that you kind of have to have your members work up to? Or it just depends?

Yeah, I think it's like anything in life, it's best to not just jump off the deep end. Sink or swim, you know, because we don't want to sink and drown. So I do think that it's a process of evolution and it's about getting confidence and building up and working up to it over a period of time. And I mean, as I say, I've been doing this my entire life. So really it's more about bringing my world into the world of corporate retreats. As opposed to the other. So I think it's, yeah, it's building on the experience that I already have and looking at the application of that into the corporate world versus the other way around. I'm not saying it's not possible. I just that I think you work your way up to it and you don't just like, you don't take a group of people and jump in the deep end until you know what you're doing.

And I said that was my last question, but I think this one the listeners would love to hear. So maybe in 30 seconds or so, are there any dos and don'ts about planning the retreat that you would suggest that our listeners think about when they're doing it that you've learned through all your years?

Yeah, I would never take anybody, either an individual or a group of people, on something that I haven't done before myself. I want to know what the exact experience is going to feel like in my own head. And I'm somebody with a very high risk threshold, which I've built up during the course of my life. So I don't think it's something where you just want to farm it off to somebody. The other thing is when I bring professional tour guides in on things where I don't have all the equipment, you know, and I want to leverage off their knowledge and experience, It's no different to hiring a good coach. You don't just go out and do stuff you don't know anything about, and you don't just hire somebody that you don't know or you haven't built a personal relationship with or been on any of their trips before. So I would never work with anybody as a professional tour operator or as a professional guide unless I had sampled the wares myself. So I, I think that's just my process. Thanks.

It's great advice.

Yeah.

Well, with that said, I know you have a tool that you would share with the audience. It's kind of a 20— it's a one-page kind of business plan. And for everyone, that's going to be in the episode notes that you can get and download. Um, will you talk briefly about what that is and then, um, we'll wrap up?

Yeah. I've been doing goal setting since my older brother and I was sitting on a bus in Turkey in 1984, and he asked me what my goals were for the next 5 years, and I wrote them down and I achieved half of them, which was crazy, uh, just by the pure fact of writing them down. So now what I do with all of my clients and anybody who's interested is I just developed a very simple one-page plan which includes personal health and wellness and business with your top 3 goals for the year. When I check in with all of my clients, with all of my members, it's just some— it's a really simple tool that I've been using for many, many years. And people can just access that by going to my website, which is quite simply chrishardwickinc.com, as opposed to Chris Hardwick the comedian. I'm not that guy. I'm Chris Hardwick the adventurer. The adventurer. And so, yeah, chrishardwickinc.com. There's blogs, there's interviews, there's podcasts, there's all kinds of stuff on there, and there's tools. And so that's just a really simple tool for people to use. And I always offer to be their accountability partner if they want someone to check in with or review it to make sure they've got, you know, SMART goals in there instead of just wishes. There's a big difference between a wish and a goal. So I, yeah, I've worked with a lot of people just to help them out and move the needle in terms of their own life.

Thank you.

I'm all about creating transformative experiences in people's lives.

Great. Well, thank you for sharing that tool with the audience. I have looked at it, obviously, and I think it's a great one-page visual to have and can be very useful in another way.

I've got them all over the wall behind my computer here for all the different years since I've been doing it. And it's just awesome to see how the needle moves.

It is. It is. Absolutely. Well, Chris, thank you so much for sharing your insight about just the immersive retreat and just another type for everyone to think about as you progress and have groups progress to higher and higher levels of interaction. Right. And you sharing that is, I know, just going to help so many people out there. And I appreciate you spending time with us today. So with all of— absolutely. And of course, for everyone, everything is going to be in the episode show notes, not only how to get a hold of Chris, how to download that great resource. And again, as you guys go throughout the week, make it happen, and we will talk to you next Tuesday.

Go get it.

Hey, moderators of groups, thank you so much for listening to today's podcast. To get access to today's show notes and exclusive content and resources, visit TinaCornerStolz.com/podcast or LXcounsel.com, where you can also become part of an exclusive online community, attend our academy, or get free resources, templates, checklists, and more. And you can even contact me there as well. So if this episode resonated with you and you know someone who can also benefit from listening, please share with them by taking a screenshot and even posting on your social media. I also love reviews and appreciate hearing from each of you, those actually doing this wonderful work. Please tune in next week for another episode of Mastermind Mastery. And I'll close by sharing something my mentor did after every learning moment. He shared a shiny pebble from his pocket with anyone he passed knowledge to and ask them to forward that pebble knowledge on. So now I encourage you to go pass on a pebble, the takeaways you learned today, to either your existing groups or fellow peers. Now go make it a great one.