When the Noise Stops: How Stillness in the Mountains Restored My Leadership and My Life

This is the story of how a Summitwise retreat helped one leader rebuild from burnout.

Far from Wi-Fi and noise, he rediscovered discipline, health, and grace through stillness and mountain challenge. It’s a reminder that true leadership begins by leading yourself—and that sometimes, silence is the loudest teacher.

There’s a kind of clarity that only comes when the noise stops. When you’re far enough off the grid that your phone has no reception, the meetings can’t reach you, and the only agenda is stillness, sweat, and the sound of wind moving through pines. That’s what Summitwise created for me—a rare space to step out of the constant motion of leading and remember why I lead in the first place.

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When I came to that first retreat, I was at a low point—successful by every external metric, but internally running on fumes. I’d spent ten years building businesses and a family but had slowly let myself go in the process. I was seventy pounds overweight, exhausted, and disconnected from my own body and spirit. I told myself I was sacrificing for others, but really, I’d abandoned the first circle of influence: myself.

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That first Summitwise trip hit me harder than I expected. The hike was brutally difficult, yes, but it wasn’t the climb that did the work—it was the space between. The long pauses by the fire, the conversations with other men who were willing to tell the truth about their struggles, the quiet mornings with no signal and no noise. It was realizing I wasn’t the only one who’d lost the plot for a while. There was something powerful about being among other leaders who had the courage to strip away the polish and talk about what was real.

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That experience became the catalyst for everything that followed. I went home and started rebuilding from the inside out. Two years later, when I came back, I wasn’t the same man. I’d lost the weight, yes, but more importantly, I’d regained integrity with myself. The discipline, the energy, the edge I used to have as a Marine—it was back. And with it came something gentler too: grace.

A mentor once taught me that leadership starts in five concentric circles—self, family, team, organization, and community—and that you can’t lead the next circle well if you’ve neglected the one before it. Summitwise helped me reorder those circles. Taking care of myself first allowed me to lead my family better. My daughter saw the change and wanted in; now she’s climbing 14ers with me every summer. My team at work saw a steadier, more grounded version of me, and that presence rippled outward into how we serve others.

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Summiting a 14er was just the metaphor. The real transformation came around the fire—in the laughter, the silence, and the hard conversations that reshaped what leadership means to me. Out there, you remember that leading isn’t about holding it all together—it’s about showing up whole.

If you’ve been stuck on autopilot, chasing achievement at the cost of clarity, I can tell you this: you don’t need a mountaintop to wake up, but it helps to go where you can’t hide. Because when the noise finally stops, you start to remember who you were meant to be. And in that stillness, I found grace—grace for myself first, then grace for others. And that’s where real leadership begins.

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