Chapter 61

After being selected for one of the most elite executive training programs in the country, my team and I were thrown straight into the deep end. The sleepless nights, grueling simulations, and leadership drills designed to break people down? We ate that for breakfast. We weren’t just corporate climbers we were veterans of venture capital wars, startup chaos, and market volatility. This wasn’t our first taste of pressure. The five of us plus a few Ivy League grads who still thought a 4.0 GPA translated into leadership were sent to an exclusive retreat buried in the Colorado mountains. Branded as a “leadership bootcamp,” it was really a curated battlefield to test the best minds in business. We were expected to survive high-stakes simulations everything from hostile takeovers and public scandal responses to crisis management drills that felt uncomfortably real. There were even physical challenges: hiking with weighted vests, chopping wood for focus, tech detoxes for mental clarity. The newer recruits faltered. We thrived. Every challenge felt like a familiar negotiation table cold, calculated, and ours to dominate.