Spain Leadership Retreat

A Leader's Reflection: One Week After Our Spain Leadership Retreat

I recently had the privilege of delivering a one-day workshop to Harry Wyndham's Vistage group in Spain. What followed was this — a participant's reflection, shared a week later. It says more about the depth of this work than I ever could.

“Bill. It was important to my barriers to have you deliver the messages you steered us through. The chatter of doubt as to the intent of the guide was silent and I opened heart and mind. I’ve started putting my thoughts into a diary after meditation each morning , I married them to some images that were meaningful in the last week and the below is the note that rounded it up

These images feel like more than a record of a retreat. They read almost as a visual map of the themes that have been appearing in your reflections.

Week One – Belonging to Something Larger

The vast sky and moving clouds brought an awareness of constant change and of my small place within it. There was relief in seeing that life continues without my control or intervention. Nature did not need my management; it simply unfolded. Beneath the great trees, sitting in a circle with other men, I experienced another kind of belonging. The ancient branches stretched overhead like a shelter older and wiser than any of us. We gathered in conversation, each carrying our own story, yet sharing the same shade, the same silence, the same landscape. Individual lives seemed less separate there.

The photographs of the empty circle remain particularly powerful. When filled, the chairs held voices, laughter, vulnerability and friendship. When empty, they revealed something deeper: the space itself remained. The circle existed before us and would remain after we left. We were temporary occupants of something enduring.

I noticed the ants crossing the dry earth, each following its path with certainty and purpose. They reminded me that life moves forward without needing grand significance. Small actions, repeated faithfully, create their own order.

The gardens and pool reflected another lesson. Human care and cultivation working alongside nature rather than against it. Beauty emerging not from control but from attention. Growth guided, not forced.

The green Porsche standing above the stone steps became an unexpected symbol. A reminder that ambition, achievement and the things I value in my worldly life are not separate from meditation. They belong to the same life. The difference is that, viewed from this quieter perspective, they take their proper place. Important, perhaps, but not defining.

Looking back over this first week, the strongest thread is not withdrawal from life but perspective. Again and again nature, friendship, silence and reflection pointed towards the same truth: I am neither the centre of the story nor separate from it. I am one participant in a much larger unfolding.

And in recognising that, I found both humility and freedom”

Interested in bringing this work to your leadership team or Vistage group? Let's talk.