Reconnecting with nature and awe to survive the stress of leadership

Executive overview

Leadership demands constant output while personal crises accumulate silently. The pressure to perform without showing vulnerability isolates founders and executives at exactly the moments they most need grounding.

Stacy Bare — veteran, adventurer, and founder of Adventure Not War — argues that time outdoors and moments of awe are not luxuries but necessities. His work with the Greater Good Science Center at Cal Berkeley produced early evidence-based findings confirming what humans have known for millennia: nature restores.

Joy is a moral imperative — even in pain, seeking beauty is not escapism but preparation for meaningful action.

The case for awe in daily life

• Constant negative news creates a chronic sense of threat that erodes wellbeing.
• Awe triggers pro-social emotions: curiosity, openness, willingness to connect with strangers.
• Research links more forested counties to lower Medicare costs — the health case is documented.
• Even a 5–10 minute walk counts. The resource is available to almost everyone.
• Finding beauty in difficult places — refineries, concrete, conflict zones — requires effort but is possible.
• Willa Cather: "Anybody can love the mountains. It takes a soul to love the prairie."

What awe is not

• Not avoidance. Not another drink, risky behaviour, or distraction.
• The distinction: reconnecting to reality and humanity, not escaping it.
• Sacred texts across traditions show spiritual leaders seeking solitude outdoors before systemic action — not as retreat but as preparation.
• Guilt about rest and recreation is a cultural distortion; busyness conflated with success is not the same thing.

Adventure Not War: taking back the narrative

• After returning from Iraq, Bare struggled with post-traumatic stress, depression, suicidal ideation, and substance abuse.
• Rock climbing in Boulder broke the cycle. A solo surf trip to South Africa had earlier provided initial stability.
• The Adventure Not War project started ~2012–13: return to conflict zones not as soldier but as adventurer.
• 2017: first recorded ski ascent and descent of Mount Helgird, the tallest peak in Iraq (Kurdish region).
• 2019: skied in Afghanistan (Koh-e Baba range).
• Goal: create regional cooperation and international tourism in Central Asia through shared outdoor experience.
• Next: Silk Road Freeride Tour, modelled on the Worldwide Freeride Tour, covering Central Asia and the Middle East.
• Also planned: Abkhazia (Georgia), Bosnia, and South Dakota — applying the same lens to America's own unresolved post-war histories.

Human connection as a byproduct of awe

• Shared awe dissolves social distance instantly — strangers become warm over a double rainbow in a strip-mall parking lot.
• A Pakistani airport: a smile over a shared phone charger pole turned an anxious standoff into easy human connection.
• River trips taught Bare to look at strangers and ask: "What would this person be like on a four-day raft trip?" — a reframe that defuses social anxiety in any crowd.
• Taking off sunglasses and making eye contact can create connection even in a conflict zone.
• Afghan mountains and Utah mountains inspire the same love — shared beauty reveals shared humanity.
• Afghanistan's minister of tourism to Bare: "Would you go to Disney World? Because there was that shooting in Orlando."

Implications for founders and leaders

• Leaders often cannot show what they are carrying — which compounds isolation.
• Stress, financial collapse, relationship breakdown, even suicide among peers: all are part of the leadership landscape.
• Reconnecting to something larger than yourself shifts perspective in a way that no amount of working harder can.
• The most committed entrepreneurs find ways to integrate moments of beauty and awe alongside the hard work — they are not separate.
• Recess matters. Restoration is not a reward for performance; it is a precondition for it.
• "Put on your own oxygen mask first" is not self-indulgence — it is the only way to remain capable of leading others.