This year, like every year for the past few years, I’ve taken a trip to Kentucky with my dad to hunt deer. It’s cold. It’s quiet. It’s plant-based. What!? Yeah, I’m exploring a vegan diet after watching Game Changers (check it out!) and so far it’s been… well… a game changer. I feel lighter, faster, have more energy, have lost a few pounds, and generally feel more alive! And, it’s kind of funny to be a vegan at deer camp, but going along with the crowd has never really been my thing.

Going out to Kentucky every year is a cool experience for many reasons. Exploring a vegan lifestyle while at a hunting camp, for one! But also spending one-on-one time with family really allows you to dig in and hear stories that you’ve never heard before. It gives you time to ask those deep questions about your parents. What was your greatest fear as a child? What did you regret in life if anything? What have you learned that has changed you the most? Who do you want to become? If you died today would you be scared? And most importantly, it gives you a chance to tell them that you’re proud of them. That you appreciate them for all they did knowing it was the best they could do!

Being in nature for an entire week, largely unplugged, also offers a certain simplicity that you just don’t get anymore unless you’re intentional about it. What draws me to hunting is the stillness. The ability to just be and not make any decisions for a few days (except for which camo hat to wear or which flavor of hummus to eat). The ease of being in nature and on nature’s terms is really incredible. Sitting in a tree stand for ten hours a day gives me a lot of time to think – without any outside influences or perspectives – and allows for a whole lot of clarity. The time to reflect is amazing!

This year while sitting in that tree stand for hours a day, I found myself looking out into nature at… you guessed it… trees. I couldn’t help but think about how connected and immense nature truly is. It’s funny… language has taught us that everything is separate. For instance, if you look at a tree, you see leaves, branches, a trunk, bark, etc. And language tells us the tree grows by it taking root in soil, getting rain, and receiving sunlight – all seemingly separate things and processes.

But what happens when we look at the tree with naming any part of it? Without naming all the different reasons for its being there? It’s a powerful experience! Suddenly that tree is so much more than just a trunk, branches and leaves. It’s this incredibly complex living thing with far more life in it than our basic labels communicate. Sitting there, I realized that language – this tool we created to communicate effectively with each other – has really limited our ability to experience the world in its incredible fullness.

Next time you’re in the woods or even just your front yard I highly suggest looking out and stopping yourself from labeling everything. Just look! Just observe! Just witness what you’re seeing without trying to fit it into the teeny tiny boxes of words.

So I know what you’re thinking, “Okay, Adam. Trees and nature -– both are pretty amazing. But we can’t sit in tree stands all day. I have a business to run!”

Well here’s the takeaway for how this applies to the “real” world: When you are working and a problem inevitably comes up (as they always do!), remember you are not your thoughts. Yes, we’ve heard that a hundred times. But did you really hear it? Instead of storing that intellect on a shelf – hear it.

Thoughts are merely a series of words and labels flowing up through our minds. Language has separated us so much from what’s actually happening in front of us. Instead of first trying to work out the situation in your mind (the language hub!), get behind the language and you will actually start to see what is truly taking place in front of you.

Whether you want to label a client as being difficult or an employee as being careless, sit back, look at what’s going on from behind the labels and you’ll start to get a much deeper understanding of the full picture, and it’s often incredibly more rich than you first thought.

Maybe that “difficult” client is actually pushing you to grow outside of your comfort zone (a good thing!). Maybe that “careless” employee is actually making mistakes because they care so deeply about the work your team is doing but is overcommitted (also a good problem to have!).

When we commit ourselves to getting behind our thoughts and dropping the labels we so often think in, then a world of possibility opens up. Problems aren’t problems anymore. They become puzzles to solve and even portals into seeing our world – and our business – more fully. From there, you have much more clarity, can make much better decisions, and can execute much more efficiently.

And when you really get behind the words and thoughts that pop into your head, then you begin to realize that you are definitely not those thoughts and you aren’t the labels you assign to yourself either. This week, I realized that being a vegan at a deer camp wasn’t really the oxymoron it sounded like. I was a human being, experimenting with food that makes me feel more alive, unplugged in nature, sitting in a tree stand, and simply taking in the magnificence of life. Like spirituality and business – there’s so much more to our experience if we can get beyond the words.

Which reminds me, if you haven’t downloaded our first 10 episodes of Business Meets Spirituality on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts, make sure you do! We’ll be dropping a new episode on Tuesday, and I can’t wait to share it with you!