If you’ve seen part 1, you know we were on a team retreat with the Tomahawk team and we’re about 36 hours into our fast at this point. This is right when things became a bit more intense as we went kayaking. So: No food, not much sleep – and hours in cold water. To see what happened next – check out the video.
Video Transcript
At around noon, we got another voice message to go out and go kayaking and look for the antidote on one of the rivers that flow through this valley.
And so that’s what we did. We went out got into kayaks, we had a guide, and for about four hours, we were in the water. Now after that, I think we started to feel the exhaustion a little bit. But of course, being all, all alpha males, we went back and we went into the sauna to push ourselves a little extra hard, exercised again after that and then when it was about seven or 8 pm, I could tell we were pretty tired, but we got through it and got some more work done until about 11 pm. When we all were pretty tired, pretty hungry. After half a day in the water, and no food for 36 hours, we went to bed.
Now if at least they would let us sleep, right? At 2 am, unfortunately, an alarm went off. And we had to go outside to go look for the antidote. It was said that there was a plane, crossing through our territory and dropping the antidote. And the only thing that we had to do was get to the highest point possible.
So we woke up and a big surprise: Some of us were pretty hungry, tired, and kind of worn out at that point and that’s when it started to get interesting. All right, that’s the whole idea behind why we were fasting and why we challenged ourselves because we wanted to experience how we all deal under pressure. Because if you’re entering a relationship with one another, a partnership, and build a company together for the next decade or so, you better make sure you understand how each of you works under pressure and how you can function at that point.
So we made sure everyone was fine went out and enjoyed a beautiful view at the night sky. We even saw a plane but unfortunately didn’t drop any food or the antidote. So we went back to sleep, were in bed by, I think, 4 or 4:30 am. At six, we started again, with a bit of morning exercise. This time, we went to a mountain lake, which was pretty fresh, got a core exercise done, and then we all went swimming in the lake. And that’s definitely when I started to feel the energy that was coming from this team we all held together through thick and thin, or in this case, mostly thin due to the fasting. And we had the last day ahead of us now we have been fasting for more than 48 hours. And typically my experience that’s the toughest day, especially if you’re still exercising, that’s when your body switches from simple sugars to ketosis in the way it generates and gets energy.
And so we all had a bit of a headache, we all were definitely slower than we would otherwise be, but we pulled it together. We got through the day, that evening we got another chance to get the antidote, and we went and played an escape room. And escape room for me is always like a mini stress situation. It’s a great way to experience how people act and work under the pressure. So we went and we failed. We almost made it out within 60 minutes. But we didn’t. We got stuck at the last riddle. And so with our heads hanging low, we left the room, knowing that we still hadn’t found the antidote. And there was another night of fasting ahead of us. And so that’s what we did, Tuesday night, we went home played another card game tried to keep each other motivated.
And we slept until the next morning, we worked out, we lowered the intensity: So instead of going on a run or going swimming, we just went on a walk. And at that point, we got the notification food was cleared again COVID was gone or at least reduced to what it normally is. We waited at 7am outside a supermarket. The bread never smelled as fresh and so the three of us were pretty happy, once we got in there and were able to buy some food. We then took that home and had probably one of the most enjoyable brunches we’ve ever had. We shared our excitement with the rest of the team and another team call. And at around lunch, we packed it up, we left the retreat with lots of memories, understanding one another better, lots of emotions, but also a ton of work that we had done. And also lots of to do’s that we brought home with us. That’s it. That’s what we did on our first team retreat. I’m sure there’s going to be more. I always find these incredibly fun, but also exhausting. And I think that’s what makes them so good. If you have any stories to share, any team retreats, any particular exercises that you really enjoyed, please leave them in the comments. And if you want to hear more about team building, then go check out this video here. That’s about how we do feedback in a distributed team.
And with that, Have a beautiful day stay curious and I’ll talk to you soon.
