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- Whoever said you can't buy happiness, has never visited me in Steamboat Springs.
Whoever said you can't buy happiness, has never visited me in Steamboat Springs.
Nick Kennedy
November 05, 2023
The Good Entrepreneur Newsletter extends Nick Kennedy’s best-selling book and gives an insider's guide to building a principled business and a powerful personal legacy. If you were forwarded this email and liked it, get the next issue delivered to your inbox.
My latest essay, Well, If We Had Known That We Wouldn’t Have Invited You, hit some nerves. Thank you for your responses and vulnerability by sharing your stories with me. In doing so, you have given me the gift of community, for which I am thankful. I reply to every response and question, so keep them coming!
As you may have noticed, I changed the name of this newsletter from Zippy Turtle to The Good Entrepreneur Newsletter. It is the same name as my first book, and while not quite as zesty of a name, I am reminded of one of the smartest marketers I know who says, “You have to be clear before you can be cute.”
Today, I am sharing with you the power of being in nature and how that must be a regular practice for leaders.
Read Time: 5 Minutes
As I write this essay, I sit in the Bud Werner Memorial Library in Steamboat Springs, Co. My chair overlooks the Yampa River and, beyond that, Emerald Mountain. On the opposite side of the river, a moose is chewing yellow aspen tree leaves, daring onlookers to approach him.
I do some of my best writing here. It is quiet and invites contemplation. Surrounded by millions of pages of collected wisdom, I am challenged by dead authors as I attempt to join them in these shelves.
I can’t see them from here, but virile rainbow trout tussle below the surface. I know this because I spent many afternoons diving with my kids, scavenging for discarded sunglasses, water bottles, and the occasional iPhone deposited by tubers flipped by the rapids.
I write indoors, but I conceive of ideas outdoors. While hiking, wading in my favorite fishing hole, or finishing a grueling prep ride for SBT GRVL, the ideas come at me faster than I can catalog them.
Sometimes, I hike up to the gondola. The 2,224 feet of elevation gain depletes my lungs but fills my mind. Overlooking the Sleeping Giant, I jot down thoughts to share with clients, essay ideas, and reminders or core beliefs that keep me pointed toward my meaningful mission.
There is a flow in nature that demands the best out of me.
A bald eagle flying in the sky, the changing of the seasons, bears that become more aggressive as the night turns cold, looking for any last calories to put in their bodies before they begin their long slumber.
As I began my journey as a coach, nature became necessary for my practice. For every hour I spend with a client, I spend 3-4 hours preparing for our time together. I am paid for wisdom, and I can more easily access wisdom if I practice solitude and contemplation.
My journeys outdoors often culminate over Zoom or at my client’s offices, but sometimes, we get an opportunity to contemplate together in nature.
When we do, the internal protector relaxes, the synapses fire, and the past-due confession unlocks the answer to the previously unknowable question.
I started bringing clients up here to experience this flow. KLP Legacy groups bring their spouses for a fall relationship retreat, and Platinum clients come throughout the year. The conversations are deeper and more meaningful. A morning of deep work followed by a dozen runs on champagne powder allows us to regroup at dinner and renew commitments to ideas rendered earlier.
The only consistent complaint is that they wished the experience was longer.
Until now, a long-term commitment to coaching was required to join me in the mountains. However, that has changed as of today. I am thrilled to announce the Kennedy Adventure Experiences.
These two-night and three-day experiences are designed to pick you up, turn you inside out, and leave you changed forever.
Here’s how the Kennedy Adventure Experiences work:
Kick-Off Session: Before we meet in Steamboat Springs, we‘ll have a quick kick-off call to discuss your desired outcomes, current state, and additional logistics.
When you arrive in Steamboat Springs, we'll set our intentions for our time together and dive into your custom experience.
Experience: We'll spend time doing deep work focused on any of the following topics:
Life Audit
Creating a Life Operating System
Fix executive conflict for the long term
Creating a meaningful mission for your life
Moving your business to the next level with specific actions
Identify root causes for conflict in your personal and business life
and more
While interspersed with any of the following:
Hiking
Biking
Timber sledding
Skiing/Snowboarding
Floating the Yampa River
Fly fishing in my favorite spot
and more
Post-adventure: After your adventure experience, we'll create a cadence of check-ins to ensure your decisions take root in your life and your new path becomes your only path.
If this sounds like something you would be interested in, let’s chat.
Like the rest of my practice, I limit who I partner with as a client to a select few, so there will only be a few of these adventures available, so get yours booked before they’re gone.
In conclusion
Touch Grass.
Get outside.
Watch a sunset.
Better yet, watch a sunrise.
Even better, watch a moon rise.
You don’t need to come and spend time with me to access this flow. It can be done right where you are, right now.
With a walk instead of opening Instagram. With a 15-minute meditation outside instead of doom-scrolling. Getting out of your regular habits and into the outdoors can reveal previously unseen truths.
Give yourself the gift of experiencing the flow of nature this week. When you do, please reply to this email telling me what you did. I’d love to hear about your experience.
Resources for your journey:
1) Create your personal board
Annie F. Downs is doing a series on her podcast called Build Your Board. It doesn’t matter whether you are 80 years young or 20 years old; having a personal board of directors is an incredible ROI.
2) A book for understanding why you struggle to focus:
c
“Creativity is not [where you create] some new thing that's emerged from your brain," Nathan told me. "It's a new association between two things that were already there." Mind-wandering allows "more extended trains of thought to unfold, which allows for more associations to be made.”
3) An essay from one of my favorite writers to remind you of the value of all humans regardless of how they seem.
“Before moving to New York, I often imagined myself living in a sparsely furnished loft space, breaking bread with the Young Turks I regularly saw pictured in the Sunday Times. These were the mavericks who made their own rules and looked, as was the current fashion, as though they'd just been yanked feetfirst through a narrow pipe. I myself was not particularly young or Turkish and had no reason to believe that such people might seek me out. Still, though, these were the expectations that preceded a life in Manhattan. If success was too much to ask for, I was willing to accept a two-bedroom apartment and a couple of talented pen pals. When it became clear that even this was beyond my grasp, I settled for a cluttered one-bedroom and a seventy-five-year-old Italian woman, who ungraciously settled for me in return.”
I provide audacious coaching for courageous leaders. When you are ready, there are a few ways I can help you grow:
Connect with me on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter, or reply to this email if you have questions or want to continue the discussion.
Check out Nick’s Good Books for a free list of books to help you create a new lens in your life.
Online courses through The Good Entrepreneur Institute (Including the newly published 7-Day Audacity Challenge.)
Group coaching through the Kennedy Leadership Program (Applications are now open for the January 2024 cohort.)
Private coaching as a Platinum Coaching Client.
The Kennedy Adventure Experiences. Give me 72 hours, and we’ll upgrade your life.
Listen to my audiobook on The Good Entrepreneur Podcast. Subscribe now to get new chapters every Tuesday.
Talk soon,
