Standing in that bus station at age 10, watching his family move by bus again, Ret made a decision that would define decades of his life. "I decided that I didn't want to be dragged around anymore," he explains. He got better grades, took every dog-walking and leaf-raking job he could find, and saved every penny. This was his way of "creating safety for myself and really buying my autonomy, my sovereignty as a little boy." But that wound created a pattern: if it wasn't hard, it didn't have value. He became an entrepreneur, then a competitive marathon runner, then an ultra-marathoner. "I put a lot of perverse pride in being able to out-row everybody around me," he admits. For 30 years, he believed hard work was the only way forward. It took climbing a mountain to finally see another path.

Ret spent years building a business that was extremely lucrative, working just 15 to 20 hours a week and making half a million to a million dollars annually. It should have been perfect. But the company was sending tons of used products into landfills, and "it felt very misaligned." He'd started it at 27, before he truly knew himself. "I could do this and have a very easy life," he thought, "but I envisioned myself on my deathbed feeling pretty upset with myself that that's what I spent a career doing." He was operating in his zone of excellence, great at it, profitable, but not aligned with his deeper purpose. So he walked away and started Ned, moving toward what truly mattered: helping people heal through connection to the natural world. Yet even there, he found himself "stuck in an office looking at spreadsheets for seven years." He'd missed the mark again, just slightly. The real work was calling him outdoors.

Two years ago, while climbing Denali in a massive two-week storm, Ret faced a critical choice: stay on the mountain or head down. In his sleeping bag, he had a vision that changed everything. "I envisioned myself rowing a boat up this river that I had gotten in back when I was 10 years old," he explains. He was facing forward, white-knuckling the oars, forcing his way through rocks and rapids. Then, somatically, he opened his fists and let the oars slip away. In the vision, he began drifting backward, still looking forward but trusting the river to carry him around obstacles. "The only thing that could upset that would be if I lost faith and grabbed those oars again," going back to scarcity and fear. Or if he looked over his shoulder, losing faith in the direction the universe was taking him. "Ever since then, I've been going with my flow." They left the mountain before the storm hit. He came home and told his business partner: "Dude, I'm ready to sell." The exit happened serendipitously, easily. No life-changing money, but complete alignment.

When Alessandro asked about masculine energy and rites of passage, Ret explained why this work matters now more than ever. "We've lost touch with the natural rhythms and natural processes that used to guide us," he says. Indigenous cultures had clear transitions marking boyhood to manhood, moments where elders helped young men understand their place and purpose. Modern society eliminated these. "We don't have those anymore," Ret explains. Without them, men spend decades searching, often choosing destructive paths like addiction or workaholism to fill the void. "They're looking for that transformation, that initiation." His vision quests recreate these ancient processes, taking founders into wild places, removing all distractions, and creating space for them to reconnect with themselves. The result? Seven CEOs went into the Utah desert "very serious" and almost all emerged with the same realization: "I want joy. I want ease. I don't need to do the hard thing any longer." Joy and Ease became their group motto.

After letting go of the oars, Ret made a radical choice: full alignment without a safety net. "I let go in full faith in that direction without a backstop," he explains. His hypothesis? "Great things can happen" when you move with complete authenticity and alignment. "I am truly myself in every sense of it," he says, still working to become more whole by integrating all sides of himself. The experiment is ongoing. The exit wasn't financially life-changing, which actually tests his faith more. But doors keep opening, like this conversation. "The universe has filled my sails and smoothed the way and opened doors," he says. He's showing other founders what this looks like because most people never stop to consider it. They're stuck in survival mode or just following the default path. "We're very fortunate to be able to think this broadly," he acknowledges. And he feels a responsibility to those who don't have that privilege: to live aligned so others can see it's possible.

In a fascinating detour, Ret explained why humans are so drawn to water and what it reveals about our need for safety. "When we were nomads on the savanna, we had to go from water to water and we weren't safe until we made it to the next body of fresh water," he explains. Seeing water triggered something deep: "Okay, we're safe now." This is still hardwired in us. "It's why we pay extra for a room with a view of the water." For founders, understanding these ancient patterns matters. We're operating with nervous systems designed for a completely different world. "Everything from the light we use to the food we eat to how we move," Ret says, is disconnected from our evolutionary design. Reconnecting with nature, with water, with natural rhythms isn't just nice to have. It's returning to the conditions under which we're meant to thrive. It's why his retreats happen in wild places. Nature isn't a backdrop. It's the teacher.

Guys, something crazy is happening to our society! We are living the history of a secular change of paradigm, and we cannot let ourselves fall into fear. When I started Wholegrain Wisdom, I wanted to discover the secret sauce to success and how top founders were handling this quest for themselves. Today I have but one certainty: fear, anxiety, hustle are NOT the answer. Science tells us, ancient wisdom always knew it. Top minds out there who got this are already preparing for the new paradigm. We are not going to be defined by the external work we produced. We are going to be led by the inner work we did on ourselves and/or facilitated in others. It’s not just an exponential tech revolution. It’s a consciousness revolution. Aren’t you excited???