From safari guide to business retreat founder : Mike Calder's Journey with Ethical Retreats
- Neil Betts
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
From safari guide to business retreat founder
What do you do when the path you planned disappears? If you're Mike Calder, you build a better one.
Mike's story "From safari guide to business retreat founder" is one of those journeys that reminds you why we ask every Vision to Venture student the same question at the start: What problem made you stop and think — someone needs to fix this? For Mike, the answer didn't come in a boardroom. It came from years in the wild.
A Passion That Started Long Before Business
Mike trained as a safari guide in South Africa. He had a clear picture of where his life was heading, out in nature, surrounded by wildlife, doing the work he loved. But when a visa route didn't work out, that path closed almost overnight.
It would have been easy to see that as a failure. Most people would. But as Mike reflects now, that period of frustration was actually the beginning of something forming beneath the surface, even if he couldn't see it at the time.
"Looking back, I can see that every closed door was pointing me somewhere else. I just didn't know it yet."
That's a lesson that maps perfectly onto what we teach in the Vision to Venture programme: the problems we experience most deeply are often the very problems we're best placed to solve.
Building an Audience Without a Business to Back It Up
Like many early-stage founders, Mike threw himself into building an online presence before he had a clear business model. He was creating content, growing an audience, sharing his passion for wildlife and nature, and people were paying attention.
But attention isn't a business. And COVID made that painfully clear.
When the pandemic hit, it exposed the cracks in what Mike had built. The audience was real, but the foundations weren't solid enough to weather the storm. It's a hard lesson — and one that far too many founders learn the same way.
"COVID didn't break my business. It broke the illusion of a business I didn't really have yet."
What he took from that period still shapes how he thinks today. Not bitterness — clarity. The kind of clarity you can only earn by going through something difficult and choosing to learn from it rather than walk away.
The Real Cost of the Journey: Loneliness and Self-Doubt
Here's what Mike was willing to say out loud that many founders keep private: building something from scratch is lonely. Self-doubt isn't a sign you're doing it wrong, it's part of the process.
Day to day, that can look like second-guessing every decision. Wondering if you're cut out for this. Questioning whether the idea is actually good or whether you've just convinced yourself it is.
What helped Mike push through wasn't some sudden burst of confidence. It was finding the right rooms and the right communities — people who got it, who were in it too, and who could offer honest perspective without judgment.
That's something we talk about a lot at Go True North. The work you do on your business matters. But so does the environment you do it in.
So What Is Ethical Retreats?
Mike's venture brings together the two things he cares about most: the natural world and the business of building something meaningful. Ethical Retreats combines immersive nature and wildlife experiences with mastermind-style business retreats.
It's not a gimmick. The connection is intentional. When you step out of your normal environment, away from the screens, the meetings, the noise something shifts. You think differently. You see differently. The problems that felt impossible become approachable.
And the people you do that alongside? They become more than connections. They become community.
"I want people to leave with more than a strategy. I want them to leave changed."
That's the problem Mike is really solving — not just 'where should I go for a retreat?' but 'how do I get out of my own head long enough to think clearly about what I'm building?'
What This Means for You
Mike's journey is a masterclass in the Vision to Venture framework, not because it was smooth, but because of what he did when it wasn't:
He identified a real problem rooted in lived experience.
He learned from what didn't work, rather than repeating it.
He found the communities that helped him move forward.
He built a venture that only he could have built — because it came from who he is.
If you're in the middle of your own journey right now — wondering whether to keep going, whether the idea is good enough, whether you're good enough — Mike's story is worth sitting with.
The answer to those questions rarely comes from more research or another late night at the laptop. It usually comes from the right conversation, in the right room, with the right people around you.
Ready to take your idea from vision to venture? Join the Vision to Venture programme and start building something worth building. Visit visiontoventure.uk to find out more.
Watch Mike's full interview at youtu.be/v_cl4xuV9r4 it's 25 minutes well spent.
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