He Left Silicon Valley to Run a Retreat in the Andes

He traded Silicon Valley for the Andes and built a life around a completely different definition of leadership. In this episode, I talk with Terry Cumes, CEO of Wilkatika Resorts in Peru's Sacred Valley and author of the new book Special Guests which explores leaving a career in education technology to run his family's wellness retreat full time. We dig into cross-cultural leadership, building community far from home, and why executive coaching and hospitality have more in common than people think.

Key takeaways:

Why Terry unlearned much of his business school training to lead a Quechua-speaking teamWhat actually motivates loyalty in a multi-generational family businessHow a strong sense of place supports deep personal workThe difference between clarity, authenticity, and vulnerability in leadershipWhy "less efforting" can be a more powerful leadership tool than problem-solvingHow intuition and analysis work together in high-stakes decisionsWhat it takes to build community after a major relocationConnect with Jason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonbaumgarten/

Email the show here: jason@fithappens.fm

00:00 Intro to Fit Happens

00:18 Meet Terry Cumes, CEO of Wilkatika

00:46 Leaving Silicon Valley for Peru

02:32 Discovering his hospitality superpower

03:39 Leading a very different workforce

04:22 Unlearning business school lessons

05:13 What translated universally: loyalty

06:49 Building community far from home