The Guides
Age Does Not Make
You a Guide.
Scars do.
A guide is not a title. It's not an age. It's not a credential on a wall. It's someone whose experience has earned them the right to speak into another person's life. Someone who has walked a road most of us can't imagine and came back with something worth saying.
Every retreat will have a minimum of three guides and up to five. We don't script our guides. We don't assign them topics or tell them what to say. There are so many extraordinary people with extraordinary stories that we'd rather have too many than too few. The mix will vary — and that's by design. What matters is that every guide has lived something worth hearing.
And here's what most people don't understand about the guides: some of them need this just as much — if not more — than many of the attendees. That's the point. This isn't a gig. It's not a performance. It's a man who has carried something heavy for a long time, sitting across from other men who are ready to hear it. For many guides, being heard is the thing they've been missing.
How Guides Experience the Weekend
You start the same. Guides ride the bus on Friday with the blindfold on, just like everyone else. No one knows who you are. No one knows your role. You are indistinguishable from every other man in that room. You eat at the same table. You carry the same wood. You sit in the same silence. For the entire first day, you are simply a man who showed up.
You end the same. Friday night at The Fire Ceremony, you step into the light and speak your name and who you are — same as everyone. Sunday, you ride the bus home together. No separation. No distinction. You are part of the group, 100%.
In between, there is flexibility. During Saturday's breakout sessions, you have a role — but how you fill it is entirely up to you. You mentor in whatever way you see fit. You share as much or as little as you're comfortable with. If you're someone who has experienced deep pain and you want to just facilitate for the first session or two before opening up, that's your call. There are no scripts. No rigid guidelines. Just men talking to men.
Saturday will be hard. For everyone — but especially the guides. You're not observing from the outside. You're in it. That's what makes this different from a speaking engagement. This weekend will ask something of you, too.
What It Costs You
Nothing. This is a voluntary role, and it is not paid — but I do not believe a single dollar should come out of your pocket. This project would be nowhere without the right people, and I refuse to let generosity cost you money.
Travel expenses are covered. If you need a plane ticket, I'll buy it. Once you arrive, you have a place to stay. You have food to eat — the same meals the private chef prepares for the group. You have access to the sauna, the lake, everything. No charge. No strings.
The payment you receive isn't money. I hope it's something else entirely — the experience of being heard, of watching a younger man's face change when your words land, of sitting by a fire at 1 AM knowing that what you carried all those years just helped someone else put theirs down.
And this isn't a one-way street. Moving forward, many of the men who attend as participants may be offered the opportunity to come back as guides. Everyone can contribute at some point and in some capacity. The man who sits in that chair and listens in June might be the one standing by the fire telling his story in September.
This is intentional. Because I don't want anyone walking in with preconceived notions about who holds authority and who doesn't. I don't want a man sitting across the table from a guide thinking “that's the guy who's supposed to teach me something.” And just as importantly — the guides need time to warm up. They carry the burden of sharing things most people never say out loud, and they may need time to prepare themselves before they're ready to speak. The anonymity gives them that space.
I want every man at that table to just talk to another man — no pedestals, no hierarchy, no pressure to perform before you're ready. If you know someone here, you promise not to reveal them. Everyone arrives equal. Everyone earns their place at the fire the same way: by showing up and being honest.
A Man Who Ran Out of Time
Maybe he confronted his own mortality. Maybe he lost someone because he was too proud, too angry, too afraid, too busy. He doesn't lecture. He just tells the truth about what he wishes he'd done differently while there was still time. Every retreat will have at least one man like this.
A Man Who Rebuilt From Nothing
Maybe he lost everything — to addiction, to crime, to his own destruction — and built a life from the wreckage. He knows what rock bottom smells like. He knows what it costs to climb back. His message isn't "I'm fixed." It's: "I'm still in the fight, and so are you."
A Man Who Holds the Space
Someone who has done their own deep work. Who leads not from behind credentials but from humanity. Who will share his own story first, then open the room with a question that sneaks in the side door and cracks something open that talking alone can't reach.
A Voice You Weren't Expecting
Saturday afternoon, before The Silence begins, a voice speaks — a woman, or an adult child — about what it was like to live on the other side of a man's unchecked pain. The rage. The addiction. The silence. The absence. Not to accuse. To witness. To hold up a mirror most men have never looked into. Then: silence.
The One Who Feeds You
A chef who understands that food is care. That a meal served family-style at one long table is an act of love. That men whose defenses are down need to be nourished — not with camp food, but with the kind of meal that says: you matter, you're worth this. The chef eats with the group. Always.
As guides and participants are confirmed, anonymous bios will appear here — their stories, in their own words, with no names and no faces. Some may share everything. Some may share nothing. You'll read their words before you ever meet them. You just won't know which man at the table wrote them.
Are You a Guide?
If you've walked a road that gave you something worth saying — not advice, not a motivational speech, just the truth about what you lived — we want to hear from you. This is not a speaking gig. There is no stage. There is no audience. It is person to person.
Guide slots available — apply below.
Apply as a GuideThe Guides
Anonymous Bios
No names. No faces. Just their stories, in their own words.
Guide 1
Confirmed
“A man the founder has known for a long time — someone he's always admired, even after they lost touch for years. This project brought them back together, and they realized they share a bond neither fully understood until now. His story is both tragic and triumphant. He's never done anything like this before. He's going to have a hard time sharing it. But he wants to. He's not walking in with a speech. He's walking in with the truth about what he's carried — because he's decided he's done carrying it alone.”
Their words will go here.
Their words will go here.
Their words will go here.
Their words will go here.
Their words will go here.
As guides are confirmed, their anonymous bios will appear here — their stories, in their own words, with no names and no faces. Some may share everything. Some may share nothing. You'll read their words before you ever meet them. You just won't know which man at the table wrote them. All others remain anonymous until Friday night of The Fire Ceremony — but any guide may choose to share details on their own terms.
Think You're One of Them?
Guides don't pay a dime — travel, lodging and food are covered. You'd be there as part of the group, not outside it.