Speaker: 0:01

Welcome to The Heart-Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love. Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second. From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism. So buckle up and let your heart guide your business journey.

Tom Jackobs: 0:36

Well, ladies and gentlemen, adventurers and dreamers alike, strap on your explorer hats as we get ready for a heart pumping journey with the extraordinary, Mike Brcic, a serial entrepreneur with a soul as big as a great outdoors. Mike is the genius behind Wayfinders where he helps fellow trailblazers live purposefully through community and adventure. And not only that, but he also has an amazing podcast, A Wayfinders Guide to Life. And today we'll dive into his heart-led business and discover how he's crafting connections in some of the wildest corners of the world. So Mike, welcome to the show.

Mike Brcic: 1:15

Tom, I've been looking forward to this for a while, so I'm thrilled about this chat.

Tom Jackobs: 1:18

I am too. And ever since we were introduced by another podcaster, Jordan Harbinger. I've been listening to your podcast as well, and like I said, in the pre-show it's so good and just talks directly to people like me and probably a lot of the rest of your audience. So really well done on that and really getting into my heart. So thank you for that.

Mike Brcic: 1:41

Thank you.

Tom Jackobs: 1:41

But of course our first question out of the bag always is what's your definition of a heart-led business?

Mike Brcic: 1:48

Yeah, thanks. I might widen this definition of heart-led to include this concept of the soul. I think, obviously ties in with heart, but it is something that I've written extensively about. It's something that I've been exploring on a personal level for several years now. I'm currently rereading a book by James Hollis, who is a amazing Jungian analyst and writer. He was recently on the Huberman podcast. I was thrilled to see him, get the recognition he deserves. And he talks about the shift from moving from the first half of our life, which is generally, spent living according to the scripts that were laid out to us by others, our parents, our teachers, society, whatever. We fulfill expectations and obligations. And then at some point that starts to lose its sheen. Maybe we have haunted midlife crisis, so to speak, and we get woken up and then our task is to discover what is our life to live, who am I at my core and how can I live life from that place instead of the messages that I've been taught. And he uses the word soul as shorthand for that place. That who we are at our core, which I think is the same, as being heart-led and being soul at. Really tapping into who we are at our core and living life from that place. To me, a definition of a heart-led business or a soul-led business is one where it springs forth from a really true, honest, authentic aspect of ourselves and one in which we are expressing our gifts. In the world and our passions, and that we are generally living from a place of service rather than validation or achievement or financial. The financial piece is obviously important, but financial goals at the expense of anything to do with the heart or the soul ultimately are going to leave one hollow. I've walked this path with hundreds of entrepreneurs over the last 8 years and prior to that, and it's amazing to me, how people will pursue that path and they'll reach the next milestone. Maybe it's a million or maybe it's 10 million or whatever, and they'll think that's the pot of gold at the rainbow. And when I get there, everything will be great. Problems will go away. I'll feel fulfillment at my core and peace. And then they get there and it's oh, the view's no different from this mountain but maybe I haven't climbed a high enough mountain, so maybe now I need to get to a hundred million or a billion or, whatever the next one may be. And then at some point, after many years or maybe decades of chasing. They realize the ultimate futility of it, and they start to ask themselves, what is my life to live? What is my business to lead? So that is my answer to your question.

Tom Jackobs: 4:14

I love that and connecting the soul in with the heart. It totally makes sense because you always say it's the heart and the soul of the business. That's great. I love what you said about leading with service versus leading for validation. Could you unpack that for us just a little bit?

Mike Brcic: 4:32

Sure I'll tell you a personal story. My previous company we've chatted about this, it was called Sacred Rides, still operates to this day. I sold it seven years ago, six years ago. We led high-end mountain bike trips around the world and by 2013, I'd already been leading it for 16 or 17 years, and it been going steadily, but I was impatient with that growth and I wanted to put some gas on the fire and I was fully bought in to that world. It's like scale, hustle, grow, all that kinda stuff. I was fully bought in, believed that was the path to Nirvana. And so in 2013, that was the first time I raised money from investors. And then I did it again in 2014. And then again in 2016, I took on more debt. I hired the team. We grew all over the world in 2016, I set a goal of, the big hairy audacious goal. It's this term from the world of business and I set this BHAG of by 2021, wanna be operating in 150 countries. I look back at this now laughably, but I wanted to be on the cover of Entrepreneur magazine and I developed the business strategy to help us get there. Basically launched a whole new side of the business. This software platform. It's kinda like Airbnb for mountain bike guides around the world. We expanded to 45 new countries in the span of 6 months. From the outside, it looked like this was, just an incredible success. We were getting media attention. We were well on pace to hit our goal. Obviously at some point it slows down a little bit. It's hard to run, mountain bike troops in Sierra Leone but we were pushing on, and then, it came with a significant measure of stress. There was still the core business to run, but I was taking on responsibility for this new side of the business and managing it all. And I also had three young kids at the time. It really compromised a lot of things in my life, but I felt at the time that the cost was worth it. And then two things happened that radically shifted my course. One was, I read the book, Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday. He's a fantastic,

Tom Jackobs: 6:24

Great book.

Mike Brcic: 6:25

writer who writes in the stoic tradition. And it was, like you've said about my podcast, I felt about that book like he was writing directly to me and I could see myself in the pages of that book and just how much of everything I was doing was driven by my ego and this crazy quest. And the other was attending a workshop with my friend, Philip McKernan. Actually, this was the first time I met him, that workshop. And he's now since become a friend and it's soon to be a collaborator. But in that workshop he asked a question, where are you seeking validation in your life and why? And It was somebody pulled back the veil and I realized. What I was doing with my business was this really hungry quest for validation, and it was validation that I hadn't received as a child, not enough from my parents or from my peers or teachers or whatever it was. I really want the world to validate me, to tell me I'm okay, to tell me that I'm valuable and this is how I'll do it. Those two things, I woke up and just realized they were not gonna satisfy that need. And I had to go on an inner quest instead of this, outer quest that I was on for validation and get at the core of that. And that shifted everything. And within a couple of months, I'd made the decision to sell my business. And that was a process in itself that took a couple of years. But it also, along the way inspired the shift to what has now become wayfinders and, and there was a period there for a couple years where I was running both businesses at the same time. But ultimately realized that I found so much more fulfillment in this current company and meaning and joy than I did with the previous one. And in my early days, when I was young and I'd started to take a rides I enjoyed the heck out of it, but I outgrown it and I was chasing different dreams for not necessarily psychologically healthy goals or reasons.

Tom Jackobs: 8:05

Did it shift because of your interest or the business shift and migrate over because of the validation that you were seeking in terms of that growth and all that?

Mike Brcic: 8:14

I want to be clear. I may have worded that like I transmuted sacred rides into Wayfinders. They're two completely businesses. And I was running them concurrently for a bit, but I realized that I was no longer fulfilled by my previous company. I was becoming really burned out. The goals I had set in hindsight after those kind of seismic events of introspection really felt hollow and meaningless and it was also a period of some deep inner work. Working with different guides, therapists, different means of exploration, getting at some of these core wounds that were driving that quest for validation. And the more I began to work with and heal from and release some of these old patterns, the more that need for validation just magically disappeared. I was like I don't need validation from the external world. I can get plenty of it from within. And that's enough for me. And so then the question is what does that mean if you're not using your business to chase validation? Because that had been my pattern for over 20 years. I'd accepted, not consciously, but unconsciously, that was what I do with business. And I approached Wayfinders from a very different perspective. Some of them were very tactical. I decided I don't want to have any staff. I don't love managing people. I want to focus on profit and cash flow over revenue. I don't need lots of revenue. I just need enough to earn a comfortable living. And I want to do stuff that aligns with my passions and my gifts. And so how do I do that? And so then I reverse engineered the business model. And the business model, at that time looked like I'm gonna run two events. There'll be, longer, deeper events. I'm gonna charge a premium for this thing. I'll take 20 to 24 people. And at the end of the day that, creates a very comfortable living for me. I don't have to work like a dog to get there. And then, and I can pour my heart and soul into these two events. And the people that attend. And now that my kids are a little bit older. They don't require as much of my time. I'm slowly shifting that model. This year I'll do three events. Next year I'll do four and I have, a full-time assistant, I have a marketing person or whatever. But I'm doing it very carefully. Avoid making the mistakes of the past.

Tom Jackobs: 10:20

Yeah. Yeah. That's always the challenge is to not go back to the old ways of once we've made a shift in our values. You were talking about the, you know, the profit and kinda the work life balance. That's what I was hearing anyway. What's your order? Of importance of those different items when you started Wayfinders. Where was profit, where was service, all that in your value stack.

Mike Brcic: 10:46

Yeah as I reverse engineered the business model I said to myself, okay, this is what I would like to earn. It's a comfortable amount. It pays my expenses. I can save, I can have a few things. I don't need sports cars or anything like that, but I do want to go on a few vacations and take my kids to some interesting places. And I came up with a number and that of course required further research. Like what is my actual budget? What do I need in order to achieve these things? So that was the number at the end of the day, and if you're ever been familiar with the Profit First model. So it was using that and saying, okay, this is how much I want to take home at the end of the day and this business, very simple. Not a lot of operating expenses other than my salary. A few software tools, whatever. And then how do I reverse engineer? If I'm gonna run two events a year because, each of these is two week commitment and then I have to do some scouting or whatever, and that's the max that I want to be away from family, then what does that look like? How many people prevent, what do I need to charge? What are the margins, I need to achieve? So I've adhered to that very tightly have very specific margin targets for event and and whatnot. And what that does, it allows me to just put my heart and soul into these things without having to work like crazy in order to get there. And so that was the starting point. And then the secondary point is what value do I need to provide in order to justify what I'm charging? And who are the people that I wanna serve, who are looking for that solution to and what is the problem that they're looking to a solution for? And so I realized I wanted to focus on entrepreneurs because I've been an entrepreneur for most of my life, most of the people in my peer network are entrepreneurs. And entrepreneurs tend to be, in my experience, more growth-minded.

Tom Jackobs: 12:19

Yes.

Mike Brcic: 12:19

Than the average person. And part of that is by necessity, because if you don't grow, if you don't invest in your personal growth you will hit ceilings in terms of where you go with your business because it requires you to grow over time. And I certainly, would not be able to run wayfinders with the same level of consciousness and awareness as when I was 24 and started my first business. Business model, who are the people I wanna serve? How do I wanna serve them? And how can I then develop a product or service that is going to justify the cost that is gonna provide that level of value? And so I've always approached it from the standpoint whatever business or project is, who do I want to serve? Get a deep understanding of the problem, and then provide exceptional value. And if I focus on that, if I provide enough value, people will want to pay that, right?

Tom Jackobs: 13:05

Yeah.

Mike Brcic: 13:05

Business is somebody's paying you because they expect value in return and the what they'll pay you is commensurate to the amount of value they expect to receive. And so the orientation has been around how do I continue to provide that value to people? And I haven't always gotten it right, but I continue to ask the right questions to get there and I have an incredible advisory board and anybody who's out there. And my advisory board is made up of five of my best and most loyal customers, people who've done 3, 5, 6 events with me. And we meet quarterly for a couple of hours. And I'm saying this for your listeners and I did this with my previous business as well in which my advisory board was made up of my investors and customers, but all of my investors were customers as well. And what I've done with this advisory board is I've created an environment and an invitation to them to be just completely, radically honest with me. And I've communicated through my words and my actions and my reactions that I'm okay with that level of difficult, sometimes difficult, sometimes tough to take feedback. And the result is that I get incredible information that almost nobody else would share with me from my actual customers who tell me things because I'm not certainly not getting it perfect all the time. And, my actions have consequences in the world, and they experience those actions and those consequences. So when I create that environment for them to share with me, it's just absolute gold. And it lets me know where I need to step up, what I need to let go of, what I need to embrace. And so that keeps orienting me around that idea of value of providing value to my customers.

Tom Jackobs: 14:33

That process that you described about reverse engineering what's my goal in terms of revenue and what do I need to do to get there? And I actually did that with my fitness business as well. I just didn't do the last part, which is probably the most important part, is finding the problem and solving the problem and creating the value. For the ultimate customers. And I think that's a part where I really want the listeners to really get into and maybe do a rewind and listen to Mike again about the process that he went through to reverse engineer and create a program that not only provides you with what you want, but also provides your customers with what they want as well.

Mike Brcic: 15:17

If I can offer one more thing, is that, I do this a little bit more informally now in my current business, but it was a very sort of formalized thing in my previous business, which was continually connecting with my customers

Tom Jackobs: 15:29

Yeah.

Mike Brcic: 15:30

I wanted an insight into their worlds. Their lives, their hopes, their dreams their, the things that keep they're the things that keep them up at night. And it was, it was pretty simple, had a calendar, set up with a, booking link. And I had slots throughout my week for people to book a call. And so when somebody signed up for one of our trips, they would get a welcome video from me thrilled that you're here. And it was a personalized video. I had to record it every time and said, Hey, I'm super thrilled you're joining us for a trip. I can't wait to welcome you into the Sacred Rides fold. I'd love to connect with you just for 15 minutes. If your game, here's a link to my calendar. And so I had, five slots open per week. For this, and, some weeks I would only talk to one or two people. Some weeks I would talk to five people, but it would ha I would get a it accomplished a number of goals. Number one, I would connect with them as human beings, and they were quite impressed that they could connect with the CEO and the owner. Number two, I would get a really good insight into their world and who they are their hopes, dreams, all the kind of stuff I mentioned. And number three, it would give me insight right at or right after the moment of purchase as to why they signed up, why did they purchase my product or service? And and that would, that call would happen typically within a week or two of when they signed up. So it's fresh in their memory and the answers were quite surprising. What we were ostensibly selling was mountain bike trips. But the, what those conversations revealed was that it, it was so much deeper and I'd get, answers like my wife of 23 years just died and, we used to mountain bike together. Twice a week and this is my way of just honoring her memory and stuff like that. Or I'm going through a divorce and this is just a present for me or something like these really deep, meaningful things. And it just made me realize that what we weren't selling was what wasn't a mountain bike trip. It was, it was an emotional experience that people were looking for. And so you can imagine when you have a deeper understanding of that, how that might impact your messaging and your marketing. And what you're selling. And there's a reason that the company was called Sacred Rides because it used to be back in the day when I started, there was this little company in Ferny, British Columbia, and it was called Fernie Fat Tire Adventures. But then once we started expanding around the world, that name, number one was not appropriate, but it also didn't really hint at what, what we are trying to do, which was create like a sacred, travel experience on a mountain bike.

Tom Jackobs: 17:48

Yeah.

Mike Brcic: 17:49

All of that we're talking about being led from the heart.

Tom Jackobs: 17:52

Yeah.

Mike Brcic: 17:52

This is come back to this idea of this business being led from the heart, right? We're you're not just selling a piece of software or a mountain bike trip or whatever. It's like you're selling a window into somebody's hopes and dreams and a doorway for them to pass through.

Tom Jackobs: 18:04

That's right. Putting the customer first, understanding their hope, their dreams, and what they value as well. That's absolute gold for any business to understand. And I think a lot of definitely profit led businesses don't go that far into the, they're in love with their product. They're not in love with their customers. And Tony Robbins says that all the time, fall in love with your customers, not your product. And I love that having advisory board. You said you had that with the Sacred Rides as well. Yeah. I think that's a amazing concept and I think a lot of entrepreneurs can shy away from having a board that feels, to me, that feels very corporate-y. But how do you balance having that advisory board and keeping it live and more organic than a, like a formal board?

Mike Brcic: 18:53

Yeah. My business is, unique in that I, I lead every event that I run, they're quite immersive. They're an experience, they're a journey that I take people through. I connect with, a lot of the people who attend on a pretty profound level, many of them have become close friends. And our board meetings and the five people that are on my board have all traveled together with me and developed these deep friendships. And so when we get together, it feels like a reunion of friends more more so than a board meeting. And they tell me, I will usually get, after those advisory board meetings, I'll get three or four messages from these five people saying, thank you so much for that. It was such a heartwarming, couple hours to spend together. So it's not just, I'm not just asking, I'm not asking them for marketing tips or whatever. It's not very corporate at all.

Tom Jackobs: 19:46

Okay. Good.

Mike Brcic: 19:47

I'm trying to get insights into, why do they keep coming back to Wayfinders? And what is the transformation that it's creating for them and what, what hits really deeply and what's missing the mark? And how do I show up best as a leader and how, in what ways do I still need to grow as a leader? It's not just one way. I just pose a question and they share feedback. It's a dialogue and they, some of these questions, meaningful dialogue for them to explore these same questions. So it's like equal parts friend reunion advisory board and therapy session all rolled up in one. But it's extremely valuable. That's my particular context. But I'd say we're people really miss the mark with whether it's a formal board meeting or an advisory board. If we're talking about a formal board if you have a public company, you're probably not gonna run a me meeting like that.

Tom Jackobs: 20:35

Exactly.

Mike Brcic: 20:36

But an advisory board and just, for anybody can set up an advisory board, it's an informal thing. An actual formal board of directors is a different thing. Where people miss the market is they focus on some very narrow aspects of business. I need help with my marketing, or I need help, with financial strategy or whatever. That, that's really useful. But you have an opportunity, particularly if these are, some of your best customers of going deeper. And if you have that. And maybe you don't have that, intimate relationship with your customers the way I do. And you can't, if you're selling a piece of software, whatever, you probably ask people to give you insight into your leader leadership style'cause they've never really interacted with you in that way. But maybe you can. But, I encourage people to try and go a level deeper than just the tactical questions because my experience has been the success of my businesses is directly tied to my willingness to grow as a leader and the more I can grow as a leader. And a lot of that growth is just confronting the baggage that operates below the surface in the subconscious that compromises our ability to show up. And I'll give you a specific example to bring that home and then we can move on. Back when I used to do one-on-one consulting, I was consulting with this guy who led a software firm, had about 40 or 50 employees and, he was talking about how toxic the culture at his company had become and asked him some questions. We started digging a little bit deeper and what emerged was this culture where nobody really talked about anything. And everybody was afraid to confront things, but then everybody just got really resentful and angry and that they would snipe at each other behind backs or private slack chats or whatever. Instead of ever actually confronting the problem. And so I just asked him like, Hey, tell me a little bit about. You're home growing up. What was that like? And what revealed was this picture of a extremely chaotic household, and it was one in which he spent a lot of time hiding from the conflict, the constant conflict and yelling and screaming between his parents. And so he became extremely conflict averse, and he did it terrified him to ever confront issues directly. And so he would have, meetings with his senior team or whatever and he was just afraid to like ever, speak truth and everything. And he was always like walking around with kid gloves. You can imagine how that would filter through the office. And everybody's just walking around with kid gloves and being super passive aggressive. And so that's just an example when you don't, when you don't have anyone to point out those things, it just perpetuates for years. And then you're scratching your head as like, why are things like that? Your company is a reflection of you, and there's some work to be done.

Tom Jackobs: 23:13

A hundred percent. I think that's gold right there. Like the company is a reflection of you and to do that in your work to correct whatever might be going on in that company. Yeah. That's amazing. And your journey as well is absolutely amazing. Also, I can't believe this time has gone by the way it has. But Mike, tell us how we can learn more about you and Wayfinders and what you have coming up.

Mike Brcic: 23:37

Yeah, thanks, so the website is way-finders.com. I'll tell you a quick funny story, but that,

Tom Jackobs: 23:43

Yeah.

Mike Brcic: 23:44

That dash is that I looked into way-finders.com. And it wasn't being used and for whatever and hadn't been used in years. And for whatever reason, the owner wants$25,000 for that URL. I, and I was like, there's no way I'm paying$25,000 to remove a dash from my URL. If I was getting if incoming traffic was a big traffic source then,

Tom Jackobs: 24:03

Yeah.

Mike Brcic: 24:03

Or lead source, then maybe. But it's not important for me at all. Anyway way-finders.com you can explore our upcoming adventures. My podcast is on there.

Tom Jackobs: 24:13

Nice.

Mike Brcic: 24:13

Season one of the podcast is really about looking at midlife through the lens of the hero's journey. Very useful way to to look at and contextualize the struggle, the typical struggles of midlife.

Tom Jackobs: 24:25

Yeah.

Mike Brcic: 24:25

That will give you a bit of a window into my world and how I see things. And that's probably a good starting point.

Tom Jackobs: 24:32

Yeah. Awesome. Obviously we met and I'm gonna be joining you guys in Egypt and really excited about that. Why don't you give the audience just a little highlight of what Cairo or Egypt is gonna be like for everybody.

Mike Brcic: 24:44

Yeah. When you operate in the places where I do around the world. My most recent event, it was a very remote part of Papua New Guinea. In a month I'm heading to Western Mongolia. And so I'm operating these pretty wild places around the world, and there's a reason for that. It's because I believe it creates an emotional journey. The context for a really profound emotional and psychological and spiritual journey. And so when you operate in places like that, it's not like running a retreat in Costa Rica where everything's, pretty standard and contracts and whatever. Shifting sense. So that event originally began as we were going to start in the Neum Desert of Saudi Arabia, which is a spectacular, profound, desert and then head over to the Sinai Peninsula. And then the Saudi government started making that very difficult. And then we shifted to an event that was gonna take place in the Sinai. I'm just a sort of a couple weeks into this process now, when we finally figure all of that logistical stuff out, so that we're actually going back to NEOM and then cross red Sea over to Sinai. And it's a little bit of surprising news there but that was the original vision for it. And I'm excited that we can go back there. Just to paint a picture, the NEOM Desert is this vast mountainous desert in northern Saudi Arabia and very empty. There's no people that live there, but it's one of the quietest, most spectacular places I've been to. I think the new Dune 2 was parts of it were filmed there, so it might look familiar if you've been there. And we're gonna be using that backdrop for sort of this idea of getting quiet so that we can listen to what's going on below and listen to the soul. And then we cross the Red Sea, and then we're joining the Bedouins of the Sinai Peninsula, and we are trekking on a remote part of the Sinai Trail. Over five days up to the summit of Mount St. Catherine, which is Egypt's highest peak, and it's right next to Mount Sinai of 10 Commandments fame.

Tom Jackobs: 26:24

Yeah.

Mike Brcic: 26:25

And that is a region that is just really rich with history. It's important to the 3 major religions there and we're gonna dive in a little bit into history and this idea of pilgrimages and, what are the pilgrimages my life is calling me to? And I've tried, over the years to explain what it is that I do, and it's difficult. But the shorthand I've developed is the ACT model, which is adventure, community, and transformation. That's really the heart of the experience. Like a profound deep adventure and experience of really inner deep belonging and community. And then if you embrace it, it's up to the participants If they wanna embrace that journey. I can't lead them through it, but I create a context for transformation. It looks like a travel experience, but that's just the delivery mechanism.

Tom Jackobs: 27:06

Yeah. Yeah. And from what I've gathered too, in conversations that I've had with others, just the transformation alone is gonna be just the true value of the program. I'm really looking forward to it. A lot of that deep work that you've already done. I'm due for that. I've been doing that for a couple years now. But I'm really excited about the adventure.

Mike Brcic: 27:24

I'm looking forward to our time together and being together in person'cause we've only had pixelated.

Tom Jackobs: 27:29

Exactly. So when we do cross the Red Sea do you need me to part it or,

Mike Brcic: 27:34

Yeah. If you have that skill, it'd be very helpful.'cause then we don't have to bother with a boat we can just drive across.

Tom Jackobs: 27:39

That's right. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's my heritage is in that region. My grandparents immigrated from Syria, so I'm really excited.

Mike Brcic: 27:48

I remembered you saying that. Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 27:50

But Mike thank you again for being on the show today and taking your time. I really appreciate it a lot.

Mike Brcic: 27:55

I appreciate you. Thank you for the conversation.

Tom Jackobs: 27:58

Absolutely. And thank you Show listeners for tuning in for today's episode. Hope you got a lot out of it, and definitely check out what Mike's doing down in the show notes. We're gonna link, Wayfinders up in there if you're interested in having an adventure. And contact Mike to see how to apply to be a part of that. And If you could do me a great favor, and that's to give the show a rating and review, I'd certainly appreciate that. It definitely gives the word out about the heart-led business show and helping other people realize that you can have heart and you can have a business, and you can make profit at the same time. So until next time, lead with your heart.

Speaker 2: 28:31

You've been listening to The Heart-Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs. Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.