Startup millionaire to Monastic Living to Rancher - The Leo Widrich (Mo Wildman) Story

 

One of those people early on in my startup journey was Leo Widrich, one of the founders of the social media company Buffer. At one point, Buffer was a darling in startup land with their great product, prolific blog and a culture of transparency that gained them lots of notoriety.

I remember reading about their co-founder split and kind of never heard much about Leo again. I’m not exactly sure how, but somehow I found myself on his website 6 months ago and learned that he’s been on a similar journey of inner discovery. After “making it in startup world” Leo went to live in a Buddhist monastery for a few years. In this conversation, we talk about his experience going from the frenetic world of startups to living a monastic lifestyle. He shares a lot about the experience of facing his unconscious inner material which I related to immensely. Post monastery life, he found himself coaching startup founders who were experiencing similar challenges and dissonance that he had gone through. This article on lessons learned coaching 101+ startup founders resonates immensely. One of the things Leo recognized is how company building was actually an unconscious way he was trying to experience community. We talk about this recent revelation and his newest adventure which is building his intentional co-living community Wild Life Ranch in Colorado. If you’re craving an intentional co-living community experience, you might want to check it out! Other interesting talking points:

• What living in a monastery is actually like

• The impact of somatic therapy on his life

• Why fear is such a valuable experience and how we can meet it when relating to others

• His vision and motivation for the ranch

• The meditation experience that caused him to change his name from Leo to Mo Wildman

 

For full show notes: https://blog.scottbritton.me/s/evolutionfm-podcast