What the Deer Taught Me
At 17, I was dropped into the wilderness with a tarp, a sleeping bag, and the illusion that I was independent.
I wasn’t.
I was terrified.
It was 1979. No cell phones. No GPS. No contact with the outside world.
I was part of a survival course — a graduation requirement for my small alternative college prep school — that dropped us solo in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. No fire. No food. Just three days of silence and solitude. A journal. An empty canteen. A small high mountain lake to drink from. And a haunting sense that I had something to prove.
I thought I was there to learn how to survive in the wilderness, to learn my strength. I was with a few of the most popular kids who were a year older. I often felt excluded or invisible, making the real survival about feeling alone even when I was with my patrol.
What I am now just beginning to understand — through hunger, fear, boredom, and the sudden, astonishing clarity that only silence can bring — was this:
The first, most important friend I had to make was myself.
Not a Role. A Reckoning.
We are taught that leadership is about being in charge. Speaking up. Getting results.
But real leadership — the kind that transforms families, communities, and inner landscapes — doesn’t come from title or posture.
It comes from the places inside us we don’t want to go.
It’s one thing to be confident when the world is watching.
To stay in the silence.
To stay with the fear.
To stay with yourself.
That’s the beginning of leadership.
That’s the beginning of trust.
It begins with friendship with yourself.
Self-trust grows from the smallest acts of presence — the moments you choose not to abandon yourself. The ability to lead, I've come to understand, is rooted in the ability to stay with yourself in discomfort, to soothe your own fear, to listen inward.
True leadership is born from that deep, enduring friendship.
And Then the Deer Came
I was above the timberline.
As I sat on a warm slab of granite, without trees, I could see everything.
And everything could see me.
I’d grown afraid as clouds gathered in the distance.
Rain could mean that I’d get wet — without technical fabrics.
Wet could lead to hypothermia, one of the biggest killers in the wilderness.
And just like that, my mind — and very thin body — went to the possibility of death.
So I began to rock back and forth, my arms wrapped around my bony knees,
saying a little comforting Winnie-the-Pooh-like poem to myself.
That’s when the deer appeared.
They came from the ravine below, where the trees hushed in the wind.
The deer approached slowly, deliberately: a buck, a doe, and a fawn.
We all froze for a moment.
I held my breath — and as the doe met my eyes with her liquid brown, all-seeing gaze, I imagined she held hers.
Then I remembered:
They came when I was rocking and speaking quietly, comfortingly to myself.
They came — as if I had called them.
So, I began to rock again, and they began to graze,
becoming my living, comforting poetry — wild, and deeply gentle in their quiet power.
They stayed, as if I had become part of the landscape.
Undomesticated deer don’t make mistakes.
They can smell whether a mountain lion a mile away is hungry or not.
They trusted me.
And in their trust, something opened in me.
I began to trust myself — not because I was fearless, but because I had stayed.
That moment showed me something I’ve never forgotten:
When you stay with yourself — when you don’t abandon your post — life shows up to meet you.
Inner Leadership Is the Deepest Form of Self-Care
The world praises hustle. Confidence. Output.
But the leaders I trust — the ones who change the atmosphere when they walk in the room — they’ve done the quieter work:
They’ve faced themselves in the dark.
They’ve listened instead of performing.
They’ve told the truth — not for applause, but because it was time.
Self-leadership is saying:
I will not abandon myself — not when I’m scared, not when I’m lost, not when I’m unsure.
This is what I learned on that mountain.
And it changed everything.
An Invitation to You
If you want to be brave — in your work, in your relationships, in your art — start here:
Spend time alone, without distraction.
Ask yourself not, “What should I do?” but “What do I know that I’m avoiding?”
Listen.
Lead yourself through it.
Not with pressure. With presence.
Not with force. With faith.
And when the voices of doubt rise — as they will — answer them with the most radical self-care you can offer:
I’m here. I’m listening. I’ve got you.
That’s leadership.
That’s power.
That’s the kind of brave the world needs more of.
📘 From the Book
This reflection comes from Chapter 2: Discovering the Leader Within
in my book Prioritize Your Self-Care: Reclaiming Your Path to an Extraordinary Life.
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