Issue #77: Trust, Surrender, and the Gifts of Challenge: Lessons from HUNT & GATHER

I Thought I Might Die.

Legitimately.

My brain went, “This is the last time I’ll even think about Kaia, let alone see her. She will never see her dad again. Nards knows where my life insurance info is, doesn't she?”

My arsehole was clenched.

Not the line you expect at the beginning of an email, maybe one about a gun.

But this had nothing to do with a gun and everything to do with the weather and the resultant dicey driving conditions in the back country of New Zealand’s Central Otago.

Why did I think I might die?

You might recall that I recently wrote about hosting a new leadership experience, HUNT & GATHER, with a colleague.

It was fucking great!

Well, apart from the near-death bit.

Some things are simply outside of our control. The moment I had my version of life flashing before me, it was one we couldn’t have prepared for. It was a moment of total aliveness, where I reached my limits, and one of our participants stepped up in a way that brought out the best in him. So much calm, depth, power.

With the beauty of hindsight, it was the perfect moment of expansion for him.

As a facilitator and leader, sometimes I create the challenge. Sometimes I hold space for it. Other times, I’m the vessel for it. This incident was the latter. I got to sit in the passenger seat and let someone else take the lead and shine.

And shine he did.

Let People Reveal Themselves

The key learning for me? A reminder to let people reveal themselves.

I’ve known this guy for a few years, but this moment was revealing.

He got to access a new depth, and the opportunity for him to step in and take the lead from me was a huge moment of growth for him. He got to show us what he is made of.

In that moment, while he was invited into one overt form of leadership, I was invited into a more subtle and often harder one to spot: stepping back and letting him have the exact moment he needed.

As the host and the person ultimately responsible for everyone’s safety, at the time, I would rather that specific moment wasn’t happening. But it did. I had to ask a participant if he was willing to do something that I was not.

A big call.

A decision I weighed heavily.

He didn't have to say yes. He was invited, with ample opportunity to say ‘no’—a beautiful test for him, as it is for so many reforming Nice Guys: to honour your needs, values, and capacity despite the risk of upsetting others.

You might share that difficulty.

However, he answered the call. He backed himself. And I backed him. My role in what came next was to be a calm, supportive space holder for him to perform in the way the situation needed him to.

And he excelled.

For you, this might apply to simply letting silence hang. Let people's needs and wants come out of them.

Let their intentions or insecurities present themselves. Give people an opportunity to reveal themselves.

The Gift we don't see

Sometimes the worst thing we can do to help someone is take over. We think we have to step in and remove their challenge or discomfort.

When we do this, we rob them of the opportunity to grow. The gift that awaits them is on the other side of that confrontation.

If we step in, we risk removing that entirely.

In moments where growth is required, we meet ourselves and are confronted with all our bullshit. That’s where we truly see what we are made of.

I could have enforced a safer decision. I could have second-guessed my decision and doubted him.

But I would have robbed this man of the exact piece he needed to reach a new level within himself. That moment needed him to rise and for me to step out of the way and support the shit out of him as he did it.

My job was to trust him, to instil belief. And to let him grab what was there for him.

Despite how tightly my anus was squeezing.

This was one of my key takeaways from the trip—trust, letting go in the right moments, and instilling belief in the guys in wildly new ways..

All are incredibly valuable to me as a facilitator and leader.

Unexpected Surrender and Profound Rest

The trip was full of moments of beauty, challenge, discomfort, and awareness. Some stark. Some slow burn.

Not all were about near-death or crisis.

For one guy, the biggest moment of realisation—a slap around the face of total surrender—was having a two-hour nap in the hut as we took a break from the rain over lunch.

A moment of “total safety, unlike anything he had ever experienced before”.

He couldn’t go anywhere. His business couldn’t get to him. He was exactly where he needed to be. He was safe. He could relax. Fully. And he did. He had a deep nap.

Again, this was a moment my co-host Mark or I could have judged and got in the way of with some, "Maybe we shouldn’t let him just lounge around, this is supposed to be hard.”

If we did that, we would have missed that lying on that couch and letting himself fully surrender was the first time he had done that in his entire life.

I never would have guessed that such a profound experience would have come via a nap.

But it did. Because we created the container, he allowed himself to surrender, and then we got the fuck out of the way so it could happen.

How dare we rob him of that priceless moment?

The Weight of His Own Battle

Finally, for another participant, the moment came in what we were ostensibly there for: hunting.

As the first night was starting to arrive, just before sunset, he shot and killed a red deer. What followed was a two-hour stint of him meeting himself at more edges than he knew he had.

This is a man who has historically disliked mess, germs, and getting his hands dirty.

Before he could really think, he was given a knife and walked through slicing open the animal, removing its shit and guts, and cutting off its head.

First, he dry heaved. Then soon he had that animal on his shoulders and started the walk back to the hut—a 3km trek in the dark, with only our head torches guiding the way, covering at least 10 river/creek crossings and one hell of a hill.

Mark guided him in gutting the animal, but to do all of it for him would have robbed him of such a potent edge. So, he let him do most of it despite his obvious discomfort and retching.

As we walked back, tired and with wet boots, I observed.

No one offered to help him carry the roughly 30kg carcass.

You could think, “This is a perfect moment to step in and support their brother. Share the burden.” It might have been a nice bonding moment.

However, what became innately evident to everyone was that this was his battle.

This was precisely what he needed. It held everything for him to face, confront, and overcome.

Everyone started to silently understand that while it would be nice to help him, it would be inappropriate to deprive him of the gifts the moment had for him.

And so, he lugged it all the way back, wet, dripping in guts and shit and blood. Exhausted.

And deeply fucking alive.

I often talk in my work about the gift wrapped in shit. This is a perfect example of this. Kind of literally.

Would he line up to repeat that exact portion of the trip on a regular daily basis? I doubt it.

Nor would any of us really, when it comes to the immense challenge and discomfort that growth asks us to confront.

However, we must remember that it is only through those moments that we can gain the treasure on the other side.

What challenge/s are you needing to move through right now?

Your Chance

This hunt, and the ones to come, hold so much for men who carry a lot in their day-to-day lives, who make decisions and carry responsibility for themselves, their families and their businesses..

Sometimes it's the more obvious moments. Sometimes they’re more subtle. My job is to be aware of them all and lead where needed: more forceful in one moment and silent in the next.

The presence of others guiding you through an environment where all previous agreements and old bullshit stories get stripped away is what makes for the deepest, most transformational moments.

Our 2026 dates for HUNT & GATHER are planned. If you want to find out more and join us, send me an email today—take the step that might terrify you, it might excite you, but you know will hold depth and power and a fucking good time in great nature with epic people.

Mike

P.S. Got Questions about this experience? Fire away.

Happy to answer what I can and what is appropriate based on the confidentiality required for the participants.