My goal is to be pushing people in various domains, whether

it's physical, emotional, spiritual, whatever, outta that comfort zone.

Because too much time in that comfort zone is just very stagnating.

And life will contract if you spend too much time there.

Tim Winders (4): The life of an entrepreneur can often be solo and lonely.

How can that journey transform from a path of isolation to one of deep

connection and shared discovery?

Welcome to Seek, go, create.

where today we're joined by Mike Burch, the founder and chief explorer at

Wayfinders, a community dedicated to redefining the entrepreneurial experience

through connection and exploration.

With a rich background spanning 27 years in entrepreneurship from

running high-end mountain bike trips around the world to a stints.

As a journalist and social enterprise leader, Mike's life is a testament to the

power of community and authentic living.

He's here to share his insights on how connecting with others

ourselves and our natural world can lead to a more fulfilling,

entrepreneurial or just life journey.

Mike, welcome to Seat Go Create.

Mike Brcic (4): Yeah.

Happy to be here, Tim.

Tim Winders (4): I'm glad you're here too.

First thing I'd like to ask, let's just pretend we meet each other,

or if somebody just bumps into you, you're at something with your kids or

on a plane and they ask you what you do, what do you usually tell people?

Mike Brcic (4): Yeah.

If I wanted to talk about work,

I would tell people, the way I describe it, my shorthand for it is

I take entrepreneurs to the wildest places on Earth and I make them cry

Tim Winders (4): So it's like a and then you stop.

Is there anything else after that or you just

stop

Mike Brcic (4): usually, I usually,

Tim Winders (4): response you get?

Mike Brcic (4): I usually just leave it hanging at that point, just to

peak their curiosity a little bit.

So I'm gonna leave it hanging right here.

Yeah.

Tim Winders (4): So you take 'em to the farthest parts of

the world and you make them cry.

There's multiple things in there that either excite me or bother me,

depending on which position I'm in.

But, how do people respond?

Usually nothing.

Or they just go, huh, and move

Mike Brcic (4): Well, the, the

Tim Winders (4): that sounds like a question that one might

respond to when you might be trying to get rid of somebody.

Am I correct in that or is that, are you really trying to engage with them?

Mike Brcic (4): And no, I'm just trying to peak their curiosity.

partly it's because what I do is very unique, right?

And so to give you the long answer, I host, I host adventure.

I guess you could call it a retreat.

I call it a journey, um, in really wild, remote, spectacular places, on Earth.

So a couple months ago I was in Western Mongolia leading a group of

27 entrepreneurs, in a very remote part of one of the most remote

and Empty Mongolia is the least densely populated country on earth.

And I led them on a nine day journey.

We accompanied a local nomad family on their fall migration.

And that was, that's the adventure part of it.

But it's also a journey.

And I'm tongue trying to take people on a transformational journey.

And it's a journey of, self-discovery.

It's a journey of community with other souls along the journey.

It's a journey of confrontation where you might confront, certain aspects of

yourself, and that could be coming up against a physical limit, emotional,

spiritual, whatever that may be.

Um, it's all part of the mix of what I do, which is try and create a meaningful

journey and hopefully the person who comes out on the other side isn't the same as

the person who went in and that person has a deeper sense of connection, to themself.

Also to others.

Also, you touched on it to this, this beautiful landscape and this

beautiful setting of earth that we live in and and maybe a deeper sense

of connection to a calling as well.

Tim Winders (4): So when I hear that, Mike, that there's two

things that pop in my head.

One is, here's a guy that's got it figured out, or here's a guy that's

really trying to figure it out.

Is it one or the other for you?

Mike Brcic (4): Uh, it's definitely the latter.

I think, you know, I've been on, a journey of self-discovery

as, as long as I can remember.

Uh.

I like to think I have a pretty high degree of self-awareness

at this point in my life.

I'm 52.

I've put in a lot of the reps I've put in the work.

I also think I'm just scratching the surface and it's a big

onion with many layers to it.

And really, one of my, one of my members, one of the people

who's with me in Mongolia.

said it.

She said, she said, you are going on a beautiful journey and you're

bringing, you're just bringing all of us along for the ride.

And that's really what it is.

I don't, I never pretend that I've got anything figured

out or I'm some sort of guru.

I'm not interested in being that person.

Some people might be, but, um, if anything, if I've discovered anything,

it's maybe a process and a commitment.

And a commitment to my own Process of self-discovery, a commitment to

my growth because I understand that there's so many layers to that.

There's so much work involved.

If I wanna live a life that is congruent with who I am, at my core and at my soul,

then I need to understand myself better.

And I find that when I take myself to these wild places and I spend time

in the company of other people, or if I spend time in complete silence and

stillness like nowhere else on earth.

I come to a deeper understanding of myself, and of course I don't

have to go to Mongolia to do that.

I have practices that I do at home, but really I'm just going

on a journey and inviting people to join me because it's more

fun to walk that journey, you know, with others.

Tim Winders (4): when you were, when you were talking about going

to those places, my thought.

Which is when I've been looking at some of the things you've done and

reading your substack and things like that, that we'll talk about later.

I've been going through this process of do you have to go away to a far off place?

For this process to work, to take hold, whatever term we wanna use.

Can it be done locally?

Can it do, can it be done in the comforts of my own home, in the comforts of my

current life, whatever that might be.

And I'm guessing, based on where you've landed, you have some thoughts on that.

But contrast those two.

Going through a transformation or going through a seeking of yourself, being more

self-aware, why go literally to the other side of the earth for that to happen?

Mike Brcic (4): Mm-Hmm.

Well, if I were, you know, if I were the head of PR for my

company, I would say yes, you have to go to Mongolian to do that.

Uh, but speaking more seriously, of course you don't have to.

Um.

What, what I do is I create a journey that's so far out of the regular realm of

experience when we're in Western Mongolia, again, we're in an extremely remote place.

There's nothing else around.

It was just us, our small camp crew and this, nomadic family walking through

this massive, massive landscape.

We didn't run into a single other person for nine days and.

That has an effect on you.

It makes the job easier when you have, access to these incredible landscapes

and stillness and just completely, it's very easy when you're in your home

environment to just get sucked into the minutia of your day-to-Day, to the

Distractions, all that kinda stuff.

You have to be much more intentional.

If I take you and rip you outta that and put you in Western Mongolia,

you are going to have a meaningful experience unless you're completely

cl closed off to the world around you.

Yes, it helps and it helps to have a facilitator like me who

is guiding you on that journey.

And it helps to have people around you who are interested in that journey.

But you can do that at home.

I have a daily practice every morning, um, that helps me, undertake that

process of self-awareness and discovery.

I have a, I have a daily journaling practice that, I just write

for 10, 15 minutes on whatever topic happens to be top of mind.

And.

I'm essentially just giving free reign to my subconscious to speak to me,

and that's a very valuable practice.

I also meditate and do breath work and all these other practices that I do from the

comfort of my living room, surrounded by my computer and my tv and my phone, and

all these other things that distract me.

And I have to work hard against them, but I do it.

So, uh, it's a both end situation and if you find it hard to commit to a

regular practice, then sometimes it's useful to have a reboot and just go

Go to Mongolia or walk the Camino, or just go to, go drive outta the city and

go find some wilderness and sit there for three hours and see what happens.

Tim Winders (4): And I like that you brought up distractions because

to, to me, that's one of the biggest values of getting away.

and I'll give you an extremely granular.

Petty example.

I was, I was spending my quiet time this morning that I do, and journaling

and prayer and things like that.

And then I was moving into my time of pre prepping to have this conversation

with you where I wanna be intentional and focused and all of that.

And we're sitting here in the small space of our rv and I kept

seeing trash sitting right there.

The trash bag, from last night that still there this morning.

And I kept thinking to myself.

So I, so this was the mental pinging pong, got this conversation with

Mike, talking about traveling the world, doing all the things he does.

Adventure and working with entrepreneurs.

I.

and the bag of trash . That was what was the distraction

that was going on in my head.

And of course now we've got devices and everything like that.

it seems as if one of the things you're able to do is

sort of take people outside of.

I don't know if comfort, I don't know if it's the, distractions or outside of

themselves maybe, and people around them.

And, what do you observe as being the most valuable thing that you bring people

out of to take them to places like that?

Mike Brcic (4): first thing I will say is that there will always be trash.

Right.

There Will

Tim Winders (4): Even in Mongolia?

Did y'all had trash there

Mike Brcic (4): yeah, more, more metaphorical maybe.

But

there'll always be those things that distract us.

And then the work is not to eliminate those distractions, but learn how

to live with them and how to be present and all of those things.

But getting to your question, my My goal is to try and bring them to a

place, and I'm speaking metaphorically, not literally bring them to a place

where their armor and their normal defense mechanisms come down.

Because we have all, a lot of this armor gets built up in our

earliest childhood experiences and.

Unless we bring awareness to them, unless we bring intentionality,

unless we bring, hard work to them.

those defenses and those systems tend to remain in place.

And they served us as children.

They kept us safe.

They, you know, whatever they did.

But as adults, they they compromised the quality of our lives.

And so my job is to try and Bring them to a place where they can

become aware of those things.

And sometimes that can be done through, facilitate and exercise.

Sometimes it's done simply by virtue of taking people up, a really

steep mountain and and forcing them to confront their physical

limits, which tends to strip them.

And they will, they'll hopefully learn something about themselves.

In the process.

But if I do my job they, they will encounter all sorts of limits over the

course of their time with me, whether it's physical or emotional or mental.

And if I frame that they will learn something about themselves in the process.

They will learn something about their habitual patterns

of interacting with the world.

And then they have a conscious choice of whether they want to continue.

Those strategies are not.

But the first step is the awareness, right?

And, um.

Taking them to a place like Mongolia just happens to be a ripe

environment for that type of work.

More so than if I were doing it, in a boardroom at the

Cleveland Convention Center,

Tim Winders (4): Right.

I, I like that you brought up the physical because I, I've observed

with myself, I'm, I look at myself as spirit, soul, mind will, and

emotions, and then body and physical.

And there was a time back in, it's been years ago, I was working

with the leadership institute of a large corporation and we would

do these, what I call a bit dated now, team building exercises.

We'd take people up to the North Georgia Mountains, put 'em in.

Pseudo situations like you're talking about.

These were corporate teams, though a little bit different than leaders.

I'll ask you a little bit about the difference between, you know, what

you see with fixed teams and then also with leaders and entrepreneurs.

But I did notice a few dynamics that occurred when we would

bring in physical challenge.

There was a certain group of people that it really . Had what I would call positive

impact, where it really created something in them where it shut down some things

for them where they maybe had confidence in their physical ability, but yet

they realized they were being stretched and it forced them to a new place.

And then there were some people, and it's one of the reasons why I started

moving away from those team building.

Sometimes they were the higher ropes courses or at least medium type ropes

courses, things like that was that I recognized there were some people.

That it put them in a situation that I didn't like.

It almost set them back a little bit.

They just weren't . Comfortable enough, or, I don't even know how

to exactly say this, but I'm kind of framing it for you to say a

little bit more about the physical challenge, maybe the pro and the con.

have you seen people that think they want to go, you know, climb a

19,000 foot peak in, south America, but then yet it sets them back?

talk, I guess talk a little bit more, putting yourself in a physical,

demanding situation and what that can do for us as far as our growth,

Mike Brcic (4): Yeah, so I, I have this model, and it's concentric

circles, and in the middle of that circle is our comfort zone.

And that's where we tend to spend the majority of our time.

And not a lot happens in the comfort zone.

We stay a little bit stagnant there.

Life will proceed, as it has, for years or life will even contract.

And just beyond that is our stretch zone or our growth zone.

And that's where the growth happens when we push ourselves outta that comfort zone.

But then beyond that.

You have the panic zone and if you push too far, or if I push somebody

too far or somebody pushes somebody too far, then they get outta that

stretch zone and into their panic zone, and that's when they contract.

And you have the opposite of the intended effect.

And so for me, you know, as a facilitator and as a designer, you know.

Designer of events, whatever.

My goal is to be pushing people in various domains, whether

it's physical, emotional, spiritual, whatever, outta that comfort zone.

Because too much time in that comfort zone is just very stagnating.

And life will contract if you spend too much time there.

Mike Brcic (4): And I wanna push them into that stretch zone, and I don't wanna

push them outta that, that panic zone.

Now the trick is if we're talking, sim simply in the physical realm, everybody

brings different physical capabilities.

To that.

Now, my, my experience, and the science will back me up on this,

is that one's actual physiology is actually a smaller part of the

equation than the mental makeup, right?

and and so somebody who's, already comes to an event, quite

fit in whatever, they'll have an easier time up that mountain.

But if they lack the mental capability to push through barriers they might have

just as hard a time as somebody who's Kind of outta shape, but I also have

to, you know, mitigate that, somewhat.

And so everybody's stretch zone looks a little bit, looks a little bit different.

So I have to tailor that somewhat.

Mind you, in the case of, you mentioned, 19,000 foot.

Mountain in South America.

So we're heading to Ecuador at the end of February.

We're gonna attempt to summit, uh, I think it's like 19,400

feet or something like that.

Mount Epoxy.

And it's a big undertaking.

It's a mountaineering undertaking.

We'll have, we'll have tools and we'll have crampons and all that kind of stuff.

Um, I've, I have urged everybody and most of the people are already

training so far for that experience.

But I know that when we get on that mountain and it's, um, You

know, we leave, we, we drive about halfway up the mountain.

We stay at a refuge.

we leave the refuge around 1230 in the morning, just after midnight.

And it's about a seven, eight hour ordeal to get up to the summit.

Uh, for sunrise and then, and then back down.

it's a 12 hour day.

Um, I know that everybody there is going to encounter their limit at some point.

Some people will encounter it sooner.

Some people will encounter it harder.

And so a lot of it is the train that, that mental training, we have to do

the physical training beforehand or we're doing, we're doing breath work

and all these different things to deal with the altitude and physi, but the

mental training is part of it too.

And just what is.

It's learning how to deal with the voice that comes up in your head

and it says, this is too hard.

stop walking.

This is ridiculous.

This is insane.

That voice is gonna come up, when you're at 19,000 feet.

And so that's the training and that's the stretch zone, right?

It's learning how to deal with that voice.

'cause most of us hear that voice.

Whether it's something physical or whether it's just, life we need to

get better at tackling that voice and speaking to it compassionately but

firmly and just saying, Hey, I know you're just trying to keep me safe, but

I got this, I'm gonna push through this.

And I've seen this time and time again.

when we were in, in Morocco last year, uh, trying to climb Mount Tube call,

which is, I think around 14, 15,000 feet, highest peak in North Africa.

Um.

There were a number of people there that were, ready to pull the plug,

but they just, they dealt with that voice and they pushed through it.

And, you know, one guy in particular, we're now a year later, a year past

that event, and he's told me just that one experience of pushing up that

mountain and pushing through that voice.

He recognized how much of that voice Dictated his life and how that voice

would come and say, you're a failure.

You're worthless.

You can't do this, whatever.

And just that act of pushing through and making it up to that summit has

been so powerful for him because he knows that he now has, he now has the

tools and the wherewithal to speak back to that voice and push through it.

Tim Winders (4): Yeah, I think there, there's power in that voice

and knowing limitations, knowing when to stretch, and I think I'm

becoming even more aware of that.

I.

As I, I won't say, get older and as I mature of what I can do physically

and recovery time and things like that, it seems as if, going back with

I, I know you had a company that did adventure trips with mountain bikes

and all that, but it seems as if.

I think a lot of us in life we're, we've been prepared all our lives for what we're

doing right now and, and as I've just kinda looked at some of the things you're

doing and read some things you've done and things like that, it seems as if that

Mike has been prepared for this almost, I.

All your life.

I, I wanna circle back to your process and see what some of our

leaders that are listening in can gain from what you've learned.

But let's back up a little bit and whatever you wanna share.

what has prepared you either positive or negative, by the way, too.

We're, we're re we redefine success here.

This is, we don't back away from what some might call failure, because I

actually think there's more power in . Things that don't look successful in

the world's structure, but, but what's prepared you for what you're doing now?

Just a couple of high points.

Maybe a low point or two.

Mike Brcic (4): I, I mean, I think being an entrepreneur for as many

years as I've been an entrepreneur, 26, 27, I don't know what it is, 27 now.

there's no job security that comes with being an entrepreneur, right?

You create

your own, you create your own job security, and.

you learn.

I learned very, I don't wanna speak for everybody, but I learned very

on that in order for me to have successes, I need to have failures.

I need to take risks.

And that was in fact, one of, one of our core guiding principles at my

previous company was, was take risks.

And I knew that if, operating in a very competitive industry,

we needed to take risks.

We needed to do things differently.

Otherwise we would just get we we would just be bland and we'd

just be like the competition and eventually we'd go at a business.

And so, you know, I've, over the course of that entrepreneurial career,

I've come within a hair's breadth of going bankrupt three separate times.

And, and I, and I've now gotten better at understanding the

mechanics of how that happens.

And, the financial mechanics and my current company is far better poised

to To withstand something like that.

or just not have that happen in the first place.

'cause I just manage it better.

But it, the same principle of taking risks and doing things differently applies.

and I know that's going to lead to a lot of failures, but it's also gonna lead to a

lot of successes on the way along the way.

And, so I guess, you know, in some ways I've become a little

bit, uh, inured to failure.

And that I just understand that as a learning opportunity, right?

It's just, if you want to, if you wanna do great things, you have to be prepared.

they're just not all gonna work out, right?

If I take a hundred swings, they're, you know, they're not gonna work.

If you look at Aaron Judge, you know, uh, best Home run hitter in baseball

over the last few years, that guy strikes out an incredible amount,

because that's what he's gotta do.

He's gotta swing big.

And, I think that's really prepared me for understanding the value of risk

and that, as you said, it's been a lifetime thing and when, if I look back

at, maybe the 24-year-old me, he took a lot of stupid risks without, without

really putting a lot of planning or thought or risk mitigation into place.

And now Now I still take, you know, probably just as many risks, if not more,

but I'm far more planned, uh, about it.

I mitigate it.

A lot of it is mitigating catastrophic risk.

I would do things in my twenties where the risk that I'm taking

actually could be my life.

Um, whereas now I'm not gonna put myself in a situation, especially with three

children where I'm risking my life.

I might risk a broken bone, something like that.

Or maybe a, Maybe end up in a wheelchair.

I don't really tend to push it that hard anymore, but I'm mitigating

against worst case scenarios and that the same applies to my business.

I might take, a big risk and a new product, a new service or whatever,

but I'm not gonna do it to the extent where it's gonna risk taking

down the entire company with it.

so it's being just more measured with my risks and wiser.

About it, but still maintaining that ethos of just continually pushing and

pushing and taking risks, hopefully to be spending as much time as possible

in that stretch zone and not getting into that panic zone where everything

gets overwhelming and shuts down.

Tim Winders (4): One of the reasons really for what.

We are even doing here is that for many years I was really bothered by how

culture . Defines that word success.

it.

And in fact, it still bothers me.

It bothers me

what I see out there that we call success and failure.

In fact, by the way, and I've tried to come up with different words or

ways to describe it, and I don't think I've done a great job of it,

but it seems as if that's a little bit of the business that you're in.

Would that be accurate?

Mike Brcic (4): Well, so for me personally, I define success as living

a life that is true to nature, my soul, my, deep, deepest authenticity.

If I'm living a life that's authentic to who I am, then

that, to me is a successful life.

And there, there's two ingredients to that.

One is understanding Who the heck you are.

and going through a process of self-inquiry and self-awareness because

it's very easy to bullshit ourselves.

And the second part of it, after you've gotten clear on that or not after, it's

a concurrent process and it's an ongoing process, is the actions and the decisions

that move you in into greater authenticity and away from more bullshitting.

Um, and most of what we define as conventional success, doesn't

actually align with that, right?

most people, I know a lot of financially, very successful people,

who live lives of utter mis misery.

And it, because it's not in line with who they are or what they want.

And, and some often it's because they haven't taken the time to define who

they are and what it is they really want.

It's like that saying, it's if you're gonna climb the ladder of success, make

sure it's leaning on the right building.

And so you gotta understand which is your building.

Tim Winders (4): Have you, uh, this is a little bit of a trick question.

Have you always been.

In that mode.

I'm sure it's been a process, I guess go backwards.

I did a search this morning because I was trying to remember how we were connected,

and so I went to my Gmail and put your name in, which is a nice, unique name.

So it pulls up and I realized that I subscribed to some email list

you had back in 2016 and I got the seven steps to do this or that or

whatever.

I've got it.

If . I've got it.

If you wanted to be, would you be excited if I brought that up and

we discussed it or would you go, Ooh, let's not, let's move along.

What would , I'm just curious.

Mike Brcic (4): Sure.

it's all part of the evolution.

it's probably, probably had wince a little bit at it, but, but to answer

your question, was I always this way?

Certainly not.

I would say, I went through life rather blindly until I was 34.

And then when I was, and my life, I kind of did what people expected of me.

You know, I went to university, got my degree, and there was

some aspects of rebellion.

Like I took a year off and I went and traveled through Southeast Asia

for six months and but then I moved to a little ski town in the Rockies.

And then life, those 10 years I spent at West were really about me and

my hedonistic desires, skiing and mountain biking and playing in a band.

And it wasn't like, it wasn't like I was a selfish, ARS asshole, but, it,

I certainly wasn't thinking much more.

much more expansively than beyond myself.

And it wasn't until I was 34 that the universe delivered a nice cosmic

upper cut to the face in the form of a very deep and painful depression

it was, which I'm so grateful for.

And it was such a, as painful as it was such a transformative experience

of opening my eyes up to, a totally different experience of the world

and and that kicked off several years of like really deep self-inquiry and

therapy and, became a yoga teacher and meditation, all these different

things that I discovered along the way.

And it's been kind of a.

You know, it's been a bit of a sine wave.

I had three kids along the way and it's, sometimes I get a little bit, too

focused on, supporting the family and my business and the family and whatever.

And I forget that, hey, invest in yourself as well and continue this process.

Um, so it's always there.

It's a constant thread moving through all that.

I'm just, I'm just a naturally very curious person and I try to

extend that curiosity to myself.

Tim Winders (4): Y you brought up something there that I did, I wanted

to discuss if it came up and it did.

And that's the whole aspect of money when we start talking about

business people, entrepreneurs, and, the world we're in today.

And one of the things that I think I saw, and I don't know where this was, that

your previous company, sacred Rides, where y'all did mountain bike trips, adventure

type, mountain bike trips all over.

It sounded as if that journey was, I'm gonna simplify it

and you could correct me.

it was awesome until there was a decision for growth.

I.

That was involved with bringing outside funding in and I, you could go into

more detail there if you want to.

'cause I think we have listeners that could learn from the process of

being addicted to growth or thinking that they need to grow and then

thinking they need to go down a path.

But what I really would like to talk more about is that aspect of what money does to

. Us when we're in this arena that we're in.

So just I'm, I think I gave you hopefully a little softball pitch to talk

about pros and cons of money.

Either or, how, however you want to.

So money, that's the topic.

Mike Brcic (4): Yeah.

people much smarter than me have said that money is an amplifier, right?

It amplifies what is already going on in your life, your feelings, your beliefs.

And so, um, you know, the common saying is if you're, if you're an ars, then a

lot of money is probably gonna make you an even bigger, um, I would say With my

previous company there prior to bringing on investors, and I did that three times.

There was a real, there was a real striving, I was looking for something

from my business that it, that it couldn't necessarily deliver.

And that was, that was a real sense of validation.

Uh, I discovered it could give me all the shiny trappings of

validation, awards and, uh.

Magazine covers and I didn't get any on any magazine covers, but I was

certainly featured in a lot of them.

it could give you all those trap, but it couldn't give you real deep

sense of validation and self-worth.

And once I started bringing on money outside investors, debt, all these other

forms of money and there's quite a bit of it coming in, it just amplified that.

And it made that quest for validation even more frenetic and more frantic,

and hiring more people, more expansion, more programs, more you

know, more building more of that.

I took what was a, up until that point, was a really nice lifestyle business.

where, I still got to travel and on my mountain bike and have fun.

And I turned it into this big unwieldy beast where I spent a lot of my time,

you know, reviewing bank documents and reviewing shareholder agreements and

writing shareholder updates and managing a big team of staff and all this stuff.

I remember waking up one day, it's this is not the company I set out to build.

What have I done?

And and then the next few years we're just backpedaling from all of that.

And, it was, it was nice for a couple years while all that money was coming in

to not have to worry whether I'm gonna make payroll or not, and I can pay myself

a decent salary and all that kinda stuff.

But that quickly ran out and, had I instead spent the time like really,

really .Understanding, really taking the time to discover what it was

that I wanted from this business.

I could have, I, I could have spent that time engineering and developing

and creating that company instead of the company that it became, which, um, ended

up just stressing out a lot of people.

Myself,

Tim Winders (4): Yeah, I've observed, I've been in the coaching arena, I

guess is one thing I would call it, and facilitation and things, which you've got

similar things on your resume and I've observed that many people in this arena.

Have an addiction and I'm gonna use that word because I think it's appropriate

and it's an addiction to growth or an addiction to more, I interviewed

someone recently, they said they had an addiction to tomorrow, and you had

that company, and it sounds like that growth and you thought you needed

to grow it and things like that.

And then all of a sudden you kinda like had a reset.

and almost started chunking down to some base level things.

If you can, I wanna move into some things you've learned

in the current iteration of.

Mike, you know, Mike, I don't know if it's 2.0, 3.0.

I don't know where you are in your iterations, but, but wherever you are now,

I want to get some lessons learned there.

But that transition from where you were, 15, 16, 17, 2015,

1617, to where you are now.

Talk briefly about the transition and what occurred and how you moved

from where you were to heading in the direction that you are now.

Mike Brcic (4): Yeah.

if there's, one thing I've discovered is that transitions are generally difficult,

both for myself and my life and the people that you know in my community.

I help them navigate transition , um, transitions.

Usually painful because it forces us to let go of something.

And as humans, we don't like to let go of things we don't

like, we don't like change.

Our brains are not wired for change.

And that transition me, you know, I was, I was letting go of a company that

I'd been running for over 20 years this was, I started this company very quickly

out of university and it become an it'd become an extricable part of my identity.

And, and this, and this is so common in the entrepreneurial

world where, the founder and his or her company become inseparable.

And that's kind of a dangerous thing because the company can

come and go in an instant, right?

And so I.

The job, our job is to not let our companies define us.

And we can be passionate about our work, but when it becomes enmeshed in

our identity, that's a dangerous thing.

And that's, was blessed and I was fortunate that I, I was winding

my way out of that company.

I was starting this company, so there was about a two year overlap there and.

And so when I sold the company and I was out, I had made it very turnkey.

and so I was outta the company within five, six weeks, which is extremely rapid.

and I've, I know a lot of people, I have a lot of friends who've sold companies and

some people who've had, extremely large exits and you think, you know, somebody

sells their company for $25 million, you think, oh, they've got it made.

I would say more often than not far, more often than not, I would even

venture to say those people end up really miserable after, you know, for

the first year or two, after the sale.

Because this thing that they've tied their identity in and all these people

that you know work for them and all these things that gave them validation and gave

them a sense of purpose or whatever, it's suddenly gone overnight and they have

all this money, this thing is missing.

So I was fortunate that I had this other thing I could focus on that

I was quite passionate about, but I remember, I was early on in that process.

I think I had just sold the company a few weeks before and I had my

monthly meeting with my forum.

This is a group of five, uh, five guys, fellow entrepreneurs.

We met monthly and it was my turn to present.

To the group and I said, I've just sold my company.

Um, I've got this, I've got this, you know, new thing that I'm kind of starting,

but it won't take up all of my time.

I'll still have lots of time left over and here, and then I think I outlined

five or six different projects that I'd been that were on the side burner.

And I said, and I walked them through it and I said, which of these do you

think I should, you know, I want to turn one of these into a company,

or I wanna do something with them.

thank God for that group because every one of them said to me, why on earth do

you need to rush into the next thing?

You know you've got another company that you can put your time to that, but

you've got this amazing opportunity.

Just like slow down, spend time with your family.

You know, it was spring, we were heading into summer.

And just enjoy that time and so I'm so grateful.

they said that I ended up, spending a lot of time with my family.

I ended up spending a lot of time just, being quiet and being still,

and getting to know myself and I.

So that, that transition was actually relatively relatively s smooth.

there were aspects of it that were painful.

Um, but part of it too is I'd been running that previous company for so

long, it was a little bit burnt out, even though my identity was so wrapped up

in it, I was burnt out and I was happy.

It felt like it, it felt like it belonged to another chapter of my life

and that I'd hung onto it for too long.

And, So I'm super proud of what I built with that company, and I'm glad the

new owner is doing great things with it, but I was also happy to let it go.

a lot of what I think about these days is how can we more elegantly navigate

transition and how can we more elegantly navigate that letting go process?

Because often the what makes the transition so difficult and so hard

to move on because we won't let go of the thing we're supposed to let go of.

And so it's hard to move on when you're still holding on for dear life to

something that just needs to be let go of.

And that's a question I ru ruminate on often, what needs to be let go of.

Tim Winders (4): And I guess somewhere along the way, I think one of the initial

names that you had for your current company, Wayfinders, was Mastermind.

Mastermind Adventures or something, which I've, going way back years

mastermind's, word that's thrown around.

I'm not even sure if a lot of people even know what it means.

now at its root.

But I've always enjoyed most of those type environments.

I've enjoyed running them and things like that, but, and then I heard

somewhere or saw somewhere that you really decided during covid to up your,

what we'll call facilitation game.

Mike Brcic (4): Mm-Hmm.

Tim Winders (4): And I remember the first facilitation training I went through

in the late eighties, shortly after I came out of university at Georgia Tech.

And I remember I, I thought to myself the philosophy of facilitation is

probably as important as the technique I.

I, I'd love for you, just maybe briefly contrast the differences between maybe

coaching Mastermind and that word that I think is more powerful than just

a technique of holding a marker and standing in front of a group, which

is facilitation that it seems as if is a craft that you're really immersing

yourself in is the ability to facilitate.

Mike Brcic (4): Mm-Hmm.

Well, coaching a lot of coaches Approach that That technique from a standpoint

of giving people advice and telling them what they should do, which doesn't

really resonate with me because unless I'm spending, 10 hours a day with you for

six months, I never really get the full sum total of who you are as a person and.

My experience may not be relevant to yours.

now more evolved coaches might take a different approach where it's

more about questioning and that's where it ventures into facilitation.

And so for, and then just briefly, mastermind is this term that

came up to denote like, you know, people get in together for a shared

purpose and to, shared brain and thinking and stuff like that.

I the reason I changed the company name, I got so sick of it, the term, 'cause

it just, it was popping up everywhere, as you said, facilitation for me.

and I've taken a number of different trainings.

It's really about a process of helping, for me, it's about helping people unlock

their own wisdom and create, and my job is simply to create the context and

create the stage for that to happen.

And one of the things I learned about facilitation is that in order for me

to do my job well, I have to, I have to try and be as present as I possibly

can to the people that I'm with.

And so there's one training I took where.

so most of the training was just learning how to be in presence.

not just with what's going on in the room and with the other people,

but what's going on within yourself and learning to navigate those

dynamics of, you know, this person.

Uh, and then what's happening in the, what's happening in that person,

what's happening in the group, what's happening in myself, and the complex

Interdynamics of all of that's going on, and how does that inform how I show

up as a facilitator and if I do that job well, that that primary ingredient

is presence and being presence to all of that stuff, uh, simultaneously.

Tim Winders (4): I talked to someone who was a coach and

they said one of the things that coaches will often do is project

themselves, their issues, whatever.

I've been around facilitators that do that.

Also, it's, I don't even know if neutrality is the right word.

But I love your description of it because I do think there's a certain degree of

healthiness that one has to have to do it, and I think our world would be a little

bit different right now if we had more people that adopted political leaders

and leaders in situations adopted that.

I'm, I'm not the expert, I'm just here to help.

Pull out whatever greatness is there.

And so I love that you, in your role, get to be around and

with some great deal of time.

This group of people, we'll call entrepreneurs 20 to 30 at a time.

Just what is some of the best, coolest things about

being around entrepreneurs and

What's one or two things that might suck about being around entrepreneurs?

I mean, there, I mean, there, it's a, it's an odd group and in

fact I'm, I think sometimes we're overusing the word entrepreneur.

I think we're throwing that around in an odd way, but just the good

and the bad of entrepreneurs.

Mike Brcic (4): Mm-Hmm.

uh, I would, you know, in terms of the good, what I, the reason

I serve entrepreneurs and, and they're my customers, is that I

mean, I could, you know, I could do what I do with, for anybody.

But the reason I continue to focus on entrepreneurs is they tend to be, they

tend to be very growth minded, and most of them, not all of them, but I think

You discover very early on that your company will only go so far as you will

go as a person, and if you don't invest in yourself and your growth and your

awareness, that's going to come back and really bite you in the ass in terms of

how your company runs and who you are.

all the, all that stuff, all that baggage, whatever shows up in your company.

And so you have to develop a level of self-awareness.

And entrepreneurs tend to be.

More growth-minded and more curious, I find than the average person.

Now the bad part of it, and this is something I play with a lot at my events,

is that they tend to really want control.

They're used to, they're used to creating the company and the life that they want

because they can, they have the means to, to create what is it they want, and

then they start to fool themselves into thinking that they can control everything.

One of the ways I play with that is I reveal very little about my.

My events, you'll get a packing list when you go to, Ecuador or Papua New Guinea

or whatever, some of these places I'm heading to in the future, you'll get a

packing list and a few things to prepare, but beyond that, you have no idea what

you're in for and nor will you know on any given day other than you should wear this

and you should put this in your backpack.

And one of the reasons I do that, I do it for two reasons.

One, because surprises are cool.

Secondly because it plays around with, their sense of control.

my my customers, and they learn to surrender and just trust.

And if they can do that in the rest of their lives, just surrender a little

bit more and trust a little bit more.

It tends to have good results.

Tim Winders (4): Yeah, that trust is powerful.

Another thing that I see you talk about and just maybe a

brief statement on this, is the importance of being still and quiet.

We've talked about that a good bit here.

It comes up often, but in the world we're in today with so much coming outta, so

many distractions, so much going on.

What is a tip or two you have about, and maybe the importance of just being

still, it sounded like that helped, sounded like that helped you through

your transition that you went through.

Mike Brcic (4): For sure.

as I'm fond of saying, if you don't become still, you can't listen to your heart and

you can't speak to your soul, and these are ne nebulous, ethereal terms, but I.

That term soul for me really is just who are we at our core?

And we can't find that out on when we're drowning in a world

of distractions and noise.

And so we need to find stillness, And again, you don't have to go

to Western Mongolia, do that.

You can do that in your living room.

Just be quiet, and meditate and, or just sit there for 10 minutes.

And if you can go out into the woods and find a little patch of willingness,

leave everything behind and just sit there for an hour or three hours or

overnight and just see what happens.

And, it's a very, it can be a very powerful, it's just the

simplest thing in the world.

Just go sit somewhere quietly.

And it's amazing how transformative, it's how transformative it is, and

it's amazing how people avoid it.

Tim Winders (4): I, I think that's where people gain the clarity of what their

journey is supposed to be versus me trying to copy Mike's journey, which is

what a lot of people are doing.

Hey, Mike, where can people find you?

Where do I know?

I know . It was powerful.

You said we're booked.

we don't have spots available for anybody, but where can people go if

they just wanna connect or follow some of the things you're doing?

Mike Brcic (4): Yeah.

Wey finders.com.

WAY finders.com.

Uh, yeah, my next available adventure isn't until October, 2025.

But I also have, we have our community membership model.

I have a really cool business coaching program starting in January, 2024.

So there's other ways to get involved.

Tim Winders (4): Cool.

So people can check that out.

Mike, we're seek, go create those three words.

I'm gonna allow you as my last question to pick one of those that

means more than the other two and why, and then we'll be finished.

Mike Brcic (4): Hmm, I'm gonna go with Seek 'cause in the process of seeking, I

have to go and I probably have to create something along the way so I get to cheat.

But no, really, I think, I.

like I, I touched on curiosity is one of my biggest values

and curiosity about the world.

Curiosity about other people, but especially curiosity

about myself is a huge value.

And that's obviously a process of seeking.

And I just love being a lifelong seeker and I look forward to doing it.

You know, I don't expect to find all the answers, but I just like

the questions along the way.

Tim Winders (4): Thank you Mike for joining us.

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