Rewilding Business

Rewilding Business is for entrepreneurs, and/or people who are in some sort of leadership role in their lives who:

• Sense that who they are and how they lead are the same question

• Have some kind of spiritual inclination — a felt relationship with something larger than profit and productivity

• Are genuinely curious about their own psyche and its impact on the people around them

• Want to do impact the world and sense they are not fully living that yet

• Are willing to be changed by the process — not just made more effective

• Can sit with the reality that this work offers no guarantees and may lead somewhere unexpected

This is not a service for people who want to optimize their business for growth. It is not about:

• Becoming a better manager through behavioral techniques

• Building a stronger brand or scaling your operations

• Improving systems and processes

• Financial, legal, or HR consulting

Though some of those things may happen as a natural consequence of the work — these are not what drives the work.

This is not mental health diagnosis or treatment of any kind

• Psychiatric medication management or prescription

• Crisis service

• A quick fix, a hack, or an optimization

• Psychotherapy or clinical intervention

  • Psychotherapy is designed to treat a mental health diagnosis — to reduce symptoms and ease suffering within a clinical framework. Earth-based depth coaching operates from an entirely different paradigm. It isn't treating a condition. Its aim is not to relieve your symptoms but to transform who you are.

Rewilding Business was birthed from the observation that a leader’s psyche directly impacts their business: what they are building, who they are leading, and the quality of impact their work has on the world.

Just as the old understanding goes: a kingdom can only prosper if the king is in good health, leading with wisdom. If the king is weak or wounded, the kingdom suffers. The same is true today, especially if we look below the surface. If those at the top are not whole, those beneath them will have an extremely difficult time being whole themselves.

Thankfully, the opposite is also true. When authority figures are mature, whole adults, it becomes significantly easier — and more likely — that those who are impacted by their leadership will grow into their own maturity as well (the parent of a child is a great example).

This work involves rethinking what success is. Shifting from sales stats, the bottom line, and customer satisfaction to measuring success based on the authentic expression of life-force energy moving through you and rippling out through your business. This raises a deeper question about what you are offering: is it encouraging the healing and maturing of those you serve? Does your work serve the earth? Is it what your Muse is genuinely asking of you?

This redefining of success is a complete paradigm shift, but it’s only the beginning. Rewilding Business is for those that are ready to take steps towards making that shift.

It is also for those who would probably say they enjoy their job or even love it. For those who are successful and probably very good at what they do. It is my perspective that even most of these people are acting primarily from their subpersonalities. Thus, they are operating at a fraction of their potential, even if they would be viewed as “successful” in the traditional sense of the word.

The most common wound underneath those in leadership is this: not feeling good enough. The Inner Critic who says , “I need to do more, be more. People need to like me, respect me, admire what I have built.” We live in a world where success, whether measured in wealth, status, or even a caring profession like teaching or social work, offers social capital that makes a person feel temporarily like they are enough. This is why so many people identify with their jobs, because it gives them meaning, albeit socially-sanctioned, fragile meaning. But who lives underneath these titles and identities? Who are you really?

The problem is that when what you do is unconsciously motivated by deeper wounds, no amount of “success” will ever be enough. This results in mediocre leadership at best, and harm to others at worst.

For example: Imagine a person whose father was harsh, withholding, and never expressed his love. This wound became the engine for their ambition. They became a business owner and are "successful" by every conventional measure — money, recognition, influence. From the outside they’ll be sure to make it look great, except underneath it all it's never enough because the original wound festers and nothing external can ever heal it. But boy, do they keep trying! This creates a restlessness and a grasping quality to everything they do. They enjoy being in power over others because it gives them the validation their father never gave.

Ask yourself: what would it be like simply to be in the presence of someone who is like this? What would it feel like to be a customer of the business that this person runs? What about an employee?

Now imagine a different business owner: this person has done sufficient inner work. They are connected to their wholeness and to the wild energy of the earth. They aren't creating to impress anyone, to fill a childhood wound, or to silence their Inner Critic. They are creating because they have something of real value to offer, and it overflows from them.

What would it feel like to engage with that leader?

That’s the type of leader you were meant to be.

Most people don't enjoy their work.

That sentence might sound obvious, but the scale of it is worth sitting with. A Gallup study, the “World's Largest Ongoing Study of the Employee Experience” found that globally, only 20% of employees are engaged in their work. 64% are not engaged. 16% are actively disengaged.

Gallup defines those who are not engaged as “sleepwalking through their workday, putting in time - but not energy or passion - into their work.” Those who are actively disengaged “aren't just unhappy at work; they're busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day, these workers undermine what their engaged co-workers accomplish…Actively disengaged employees are more or less out to damage their company.” So, yeah, it’s pretty bad.

There are many reasons these numbers are as bleak as they are — economic oppression, political dysfunction, low wages, the corrupt and hierarchical nature of much of our society. All of that is real, and needs to be acknowledged. But those in leadership positions are most responsible, not because they are worse than anyone else, but because they are the most influential. They are the ones calling the shots. In most cases, maturity unfortunately is not a requirement for leadership. The requirement is usually being dominant or being favorited by other people already in power.

However, underneath all of it, something else is going on. Something that has less to do with policy or economics and more to do with the interior life of the people who hold power in our organizations.

When leaders operate from unexamined wounds, the effects ripple outward — and not always in obvious ways. It is my perspective that the bar of acceptable human behavior has been set so low that most of us don’t even notice the impacts. In the most benign cases, it looks like a business that is “fine.” Competent for the most part, functional, forgettable. The people running it are doing their jobs but wish they were somewhere else. There is no real aliveness to it, because the people working there are barely alive.

In more corrosive and unfortunately all too common cases, the wound drives something harder to name but easy to feel. The salesperson who knows how to put pressure on the customer to manipulate them just enough to close the deal. The service provider who is warm and attentive until payment clears, then becomes distant and unreliable. The group meeting where its not safe to express genuine thoughts, ideas, and feelings for fear of the repercussions from the leaders. These patterns are all too familiar.

In the worst cases, businesses outright exploit people, customers and employees. They lie about their product or service, and cut corners. This may sound dramatic, but don’t think its not common. How often has the product or service you received, not been what you expected it to be, or were led to believe it would be? Scamming has unfortunately come to be normal and expected.

This is the state of things. None of this is inevitable. Far from it. We can choose another way. Rewilding Business hopes to make another way feel more possible and accessible.

From a young age, I have been an ardent observer and critic of those in leadership. Nearly every form of leadership I have encountered has been mediocre or outright harmful — mature leadership is vanishingly rare. I now see this as a direct reflection of the lack of wholeness in the world and in those who lead it.

My years of study and life experience have convinced me that a better world depends on two things: more people achieving psychological wholeness, and more of those mature individuals rising into leadership. Without this, the state of the world is unlikely to improve.

We all have to make money to survive. We can debate whether that's ideal, but it is simply the reality — so we may as well make it more meaningful. I long for business to be more rooted in the wild earth, and that is only possible when the people leading those businesses become more rooted in it themselves.

Transforming the way we do business with one another may be the most accessible and efficient path to transforming society as a whole. It might seem like a long shot at scale, but it beats waiting for politicians or billionaires to save us.

It’s important to state that these topics involve a lot of nuance that cannot possibly all be addressed here. I did my best to communicate the heart of the matter while recognizing that much is left out. I trust that I have shared enough for the you to determine if this offering speaks to you or not.

Additionally, I want to acknowledge a tension in this offering. I do not know what will happen if you start inviting in your archetypes of wholeness more into your life—especially your Dark Muse/Beloved*.‍ ‍

Because of the nature of entering into the depths of the psyche while listening to the earth, there is a possibility that this work leads you to the conclusion that you are not meant to continue in the work/position you are currently in. If you are not open to this reality, this work is not for you. Not because this is the goal, but because it acknowledges that you are open to risking it all.

This work does not guarantee any business outcome. It may, in fact, result in you making decisions that reduce financial performance in favor of greater authenticity, meaning, and alignment. I cannot tell you where this work will go.

Welcome to the wild.

*Bill Plotkin’s term:

• You would describe yourself as committed to some form of a Spiritual path

• You desire to connect more deeply with yourself and the earth

• You are willing and realistically have the time, energy, and money to invest in this journey right now. 

• You are willing to risk everything to become more whole of a person

  • If you can’t say truthfully that you are willing to risk everything (understandably, most people can’t). If that’s the case you can at least say that you would like to move in the direction of being able to say that truthfully.

• You are emotionally and psychologically in a relatively stable state, and are able to take care of yourself in times of stress (my primary role is not to offer emotional support). 

Before working with me, I require a 25 minute phone call to see if we might be a good fit.  If you would like to do this click on ‘Book an Exploratory call' below, which will take you to my booking page.  You will be asked to fill out some basic information, request the time slot you would like, and then fill out the “Rewilding Self Application Form,” for Rewilding Self applicants, and the “Rewilding Business Application Form” for the Rewilding Business applicants. 

Please note: if your employer/organization is funding this work, nothing about what happens in our work together will be shared with your employer (unless you consent otherwise).

I ask some personal and specific questions about your life and history.  This is necessary to help me determine if this work is appropriate for you and whether we might be a good fit.  Please note that this is a request for a discovery call.  I will get back to you within one week from the time of your appointment request as to whether or not I think we might be a good fit.

Book an Exploratory call here.

Thank you for your time and your interest in embarking on this epic journey into the wild.