For years, my own "leadership development" looked like everyone else's:

a hotel ballroom, a lanyard, a slide deck, and a stack of credits to prove I'd sat there.

 

I'd leave drained, having learned plenty and changed nothing.

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And I watched it happen to women far more capable than the system gave them credit for. Physicians and leaders carrying impossible loads, being handed another talk on resilience while they quietly burned out. Told to have every answer. Told to manage the decision fatigue without ever letting it show.

 

The moment it clicked was at a yoga and mindfulness retreat. Beautiful surroundings, daily sessions, a wonderful coach. But something was missing for me: hard, physical movement. So I added it myself. Early one morning, before the group gathered, I laced up my running shoes and headed up a hill alone.

 

The terrain was steep, and it demanded everything. I was short of breath, watching every step so I wouldn't trip and go down. There was no room left for rumination, no replaying the last conflict at work. For once, the only place I could be was right there, with myself.

 

Catching my breath at the top, it surfaced. The thing I'd been carrying a long time and never let myself look at: I'd been letting everyone else lead my life, instead of leading it myself.

It was emotional. It was personal. And the climb gave me the one place I could finally set it down, and decide what came next.

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Then, I started taking colleagues and clients on these types of hikes, and what I kept noticing in these environments was the exact opposite of that ballroom: people opened up, thought clearly, said what was truly on their minds - because they were moving outside with no slides or round tables to hide behind. The insight stuck because their whole body was in it.

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I searched for a retreat that would fit this bill for me, but couldn't find it.

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I stopped waiting for someone else to build it, and decided to make a retreat that accomplishes what the conference room never could.

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Here's the part that matters for you: I haven't led in just one kind of room. I've sat in the exam room, the boardroom, and the budget meeting where the numbers didn't work. Most of the seats you sit in, I've sat in too. 

 

So the coaching doesn't come from a textbook; it comes from having actually been there.

 

Whatever room you lead in, I've probably stood in one like it.

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I'm a physician by training, a coach by practice, and ask anyone who's traveled with me and they'll tell you I'm also the person who organizes the trip everyone still talks about years later. NAVIGATE is that trip, with intention behind every mile.

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If something here is calling you, that's worth paying attention to. Come see it.