# Why I Traded My Sydney Office for an Ayahuasca Retreat in Iquitos (And What It Taught Me About Real Leadership) **Related Articles:** - [Journey Within: Exploring the Transformative Power of Ayahuasca Ceremonies in Peru](https://abletonventures.com/journey-within-exploring-the-transformative-power-of-ayahuasca-ceremonies-in-peru/) - [Why Peru Should Be on Every Traveller's Bucket List](https://thetraveltourism.com/why-peru-should-be-on-every-travelers-bucket-list/) - [Iquitos and the Ayahuasca Gold Rush: What Nobody Tells You](https://www.travelpleasing.com/iquitos-and-the-ayahuasca-gold-rush-what-nobody-tells-you/) Three months ago, I was that bloke sitting in boardroom meetings pretending to care about quarterly projections while secretly googling "how to escape corporate hell" on my phone. Fast forward to today, and I'm writing this from my home office in Brisbane, having just returned from what can only be described as the most confronting—and necessary—business development course of my 18-year consulting career. Except it wasn't a business course at all. It was an ayahuasca retreat in the Peruvian Amazon. Now before you roll your eyes and click away thinking this is another middle-aged crisis story, hear me out. I've spent nearly two decades helping companies "optimise their human capital" (corporate speak for "make people less miserable at work"), and I thought I knew everything about leadership, team dynamics, and organisational psychology. I was wrong. Spectacularly wrong. ## The Problem with Modern Leadership Training Let's be brutally honest about the leadership development industry for a moment. It's become a $366 billion global circus of buzzwords, team-building exercises, and personality tests that somehow manage to make even the most dynamic executives sound like corporate robots reading from the same script. I should know—I was part of the problem. For years, I'd rock up to companies with my PowerPoint presentations about "authentic leadership" and "emotional intelligence," charging ridiculous day rates to teach people how to be more human at work. The irony wasn't lost on me, even then. How can you teach authenticity through a carefully scripted workshop format? But here's what really got my attention during my time in Iquitos: watching how [discovering ayahuasca retreats in Peru](https://topvacationtravel.com/discovering-ayahuasca-retreats-in-iquitos-peru/) has become a legitimate path for business leaders seeking genuine transformation, not just another tick-box exercise for their professional development portfolio. The shamans I worked with don't have MBAs. They don't use terms like "synergy" or "paradigm shift." Yet they understand human psychology and group dynamics at a level that would make most organisational psychologists weep with envy. ## What Happened in the Jungle (The Short Version) I won't bore you with every detail of my ayahuasca ceremonies—partly because some experiences genuinely can't be put into words, and partly because this isn't a travel blog. But I will share the business-relevant insights that have completely changed how I approach leadership consulting. During my second ceremony, I had what can only be described as a complete ego death. Not in a new-age, mystical sense, but in a very practical, psychological way. Every defence mechanism I'd built up over nearly two decades of corporate climbing just... dissolved. And in that space, I saw clearly for the first time how my need to be the smartest person in the room was actually making me a terrible consultant. Real talk: I'd been so focused on demonstrating my expertise that I'd stopped actually listening to my clients. I was solving the problems I wanted to solve, not the ones they actually had. ## The Leadership Lessons Nobody Teaches in Business School Here's where it gets interesting from a professional development perspective. The ayahuasca showed me three fundamental truths about leadership that I'd somehow missed in all my years of studying organisational behaviour: **Truth #1: Vulnerability is a competitive advantage.** I know, I know—you've heard this before. Brené Brown's been saying it for years. But there's a difference between intellectually understanding vulnerability and actually experiencing what it means to lead from a place of genuine openness. In the jungle, there's no hiding behind your job title or your university credentials. You're just another human being trying to navigate an intense psychological experience alongside a group of strangers. And what I discovered is that the moment I stopped trying to manage everyone else's experience and just focused on being present with my own, people naturally started looking to me for guidance. Not because I had the answers, but because I was willing to admit I didn't. **Truth #2: Most leadership problems are really ego problems.** This one stung. How many times had I seen perfectly capable executives sabotage their own teams because they couldn't handle someone else having a better idea? How many meetings had I sat through where the real issue wasn't strategy or resources, but someone's wounded pride? The plant medicine has a way of showing you your ego patterns with uncomfortable clarity. And once you see them, you can't unsee them. In my case, I realised I'd been unconsciously competing with my clients instead of genuinely serving them. **Truth #3: Authentic connection trumps everything else.** All those team-building exercises I'd facilitated over the years—the trust falls, the personality assessments, the group challenges—they pale in comparison to what happens when people are genuinely present with each other. No agenda, no performance, just honest human connection. ## Why This Matters for Australian Business Now, I'm not suggesting every CEO should book a flight to Iquitos and drink ayahuasca with a shaman. That would be ridiculous, and frankly, not everyone is cut out for that level of psychological intensity. But what I am suggesting is that our approach to leadership development in Australia is fundamentally broken. We're spending millions of dollars on programs that teach people to be better performers rather than better humans. And then we wonder why employee engagement scores are consistently dismal and why so many talented people are leaving corporate Australia in droves. The companies that are thriving right now—the ones with genuine innovation and employee loyalty—they're not the ones with the slickest training programs. They're the ones where leadership actually means something beyond hitting KPIs and managing up. Take Atlassian, for example. Mike Cannon-Brookes doesn't strike me as someone who's particularly interested in traditional executive coaching. But he's built a company culture that prioritises genuine connection and purposeful work over corporate theatre. That's not an accident. ## The Practical Applications (Because You're Probably Wondering) So how does this translate into actionable business strategy? Here's what I've been implementing with my clients since returning from Peru: Instead of starting leadership workshops with icebreakers, we start with silence. Ten minutes of it. Sounds crazy, but it's amazing what happens when you give executives permission to just be present without having to perform or produce something. I've also stopped using personality assessments altogether. Myers-Briggs, DISC, Enneagram—they're all just elaborate ways of putting people in boxes. Instead, I focus on helping leaders develop genuine curiosity about the people they work with. And perhaps most importantly, I've started being completely honest about my own limitations and failures as a consultant. Not in a self-deprecating way, but in a way that gives clients permission to be equally honest about what's really going on in their organisations. The results have been remarkable. Not because I've discovered some revolutionary new technique, but because I've finally learned to get out of my own way. ## The Unexpected Business Case for Inner Work Here's something that might surprise you: the [transformative power of ayahuasca ceremonies](https://howtotravel.org/journey-within-the-transformative-power-of-ayahuasca-retreats-in-peru/) isn't just relevant for personal development. It's increasingly becoming a legitimate consideration for executive development, particularly for leaders dealing with high-stress environments or major organisational transitions. I'm not the only business professional who's noticed this trend. A growing number of entrepreneurs and executives are quietly incorporating plant medicine experiences into their professional development journey, not as an escape from business responsibilities, but as a way to become more effective leaders. The pharmaceutical industry has taken notice too. Companies like Compass Pathways are investing hundreds of millions in psychedelic research, much of it focused on applications for workplace mental health and performance optimisation. But here's the thing that really gets me fired up: you don't need to travel to Peru to access these insights about authentic leadership. The principles are the same whether you're in a ceremony lodge in Iquitos or a conference room in Melbourne. ## What I Got Wrong (And What I'm Still Learning) I used to think that good consulting meant having all the answers. I'd show up to client meetings with detailed frameworks and step-by-step implementation plans, convinced that my job was to solve their problems for them. The ayahuasca taught me that my job is actually much simpler and much harder: to create space for my clients to discover their own solutions. That doesn't mean I've become some kind of passive facilitator who just asks questions and takes notes. I still bring expertise and perspective to every engagement. But now I hold that expertise lightly, ready to adapt or abandon it based on what actually serves the client. I'm still learning how to balance this new approach with the commercial realities of running a consulting business. Clients often want definitive answers and guaranteed outcomes, and there's something unsettling about a consultant who admits he doesn't have all the answers. But here's what I've discovered: the clients who are put off by this approach probably weren't the right fit anyway. The ones who appreciate genuine authenticity over polished presentations—those are the clients who get the best results. ## The Bottom Line (Because Someone Has to Say It) Look, I'm not going to pretend that drinking ayahuasca with Shipibo shamans is some kind of magic bullet for business success. The work of building effective teams and sustainable organisations is still difficult, complex, and often frustrating. But what the experience did give me was perspective on what really matters in leadership: genuine presence, authentic connection, and the courage to admit when you don't know something. These aren't revolutionary concepts. They're just remarkably rare in corporate Australia. If you're a business leader who's tired of the same recycled leadership advice and cookie-cutter development programs, maybe it's time to consider a different approach. You don't need to book a flight to South America, but you might need to be willing to question some fundamental assumptions about what effective leadership actually looks like. Because at the end of the day, people don't follow job titles or strategic plans. They follow humans who are willing to be genuinely human. And that's something no PowerPoint presentation can teach you.