A man outdoors with a backpack, wearing a cap, jacket, and t-shirt, in a natural setting with trees and hills in the background.

Ret’s Personal Journey

For most of my life, I chased success the way I thought I was supposed to — building, striving, pushing harder.

I’ve been an entrepreneur for more than twenty years and have led companies I founded through the best of times and the worst. From the outside, it looked like I had reached the top of the first mountain — the one society tells us to climb. But when I got there, I realized something was missing.

Success wasn’t everything.
What I truly wanted wasn’t more achievement. It was alignment.

That truth found me during one of the hardest chapters of my life. My company, Ned — a natural wellness brand I co-founded — hit a wall after years of rapid growth. When everything we’d built suddenly felt uncertain, I was forced to face what I’d been avoiding: I had lost connection to myself.

That realization eventually led me to Denali. On that mountain, in the silence and vastness of Alaska, something inside me shifted. I saw clearly that the struggle I’d been fighting wasn’t happening to me — it was happening for me. I had been rowing against the current of my own life, and when I finally stopped — when I surrendered and let the river carry me — everything began to flow again.

Since then, I’ve dedicated my life to this path: doing what I feel called to do — guiding others through their own moments of awakening.

Today, I help leaders, founders, and seekers step away from the noise and return to what’s real — to remember who they are beneath the titles, goals, and grind. We do this through nature, alignment, and deep inner work — modern rites of passage inspired by ancient wisdom.

Because somewhere along the way, we forgot what our ancestors knew so well: that without meaningful thresholds — without initiation — we drift through life unanchored. I know that feeling. It’s what set me on this path, and it’s why I now help others find their own way home.

I’ve learned to celebrate both the wins and the losses — neither defines us; both refine us. That wasn’t easy to do in the moment, but it’s what taught me faith.

Today, I follow that faith fully. I would do this work for free — and often do, serving on several boards that help others reconnect with the natural world and themselves.

This work isn’t just what I do; it’s who I am. It’s how I serve, how I stay awake, and how I show my daughter what it looks like to follow one’s joy — and make a life doing it.

When I surrender to that calling, life fills my sails.
The wind always comes when it’s time.

Connect with Ret
Two men in a white off-road vehicle with a sign on the door reading 'Ned' are smiling and sitting in the car on snow-covered terrain with snowy hills in the background.
Two men standing outdoors on rocky terrain, making peace signs. Behind them is a large beige tent with the letters 'US' visible on it, and a clear blue sky.
A man standing in front of a red tent on snow in a cold, snowy environment with more tents and equipment in the background.

What I Know to Be True

~

What I Know to Be True ~

  • The answers we seek live in silence, not noise.

  • Nature holds the medicine we’ve forgotten.

  • Real strength is the courage to be honest with ourselves.

  • Alignment isn’t something we find — it’s something we remember.

  • When we stop forcing and start listening, the current begins to carry us.

A PERSONAL NOTE

I believe we all reach a point when the life we’ve built no longer feels like the life we’re meant to live. That’s where real transformation begins — not in adding more, but in returning to what’s already within us.

This work is my calling and my joy. It’s how I serve, how I stay awake, and how I help others come home to themselves.

If you feel that quiet pull — to reconnect, to realign, or simply to remember who you are — I’d be honored to walk beside you.

- Ret Taylor

Contact Ret