The Milestones We Don’t Plan: Five Years of Adventure Partner

I almost missed the anniversary again.

Every year, November 2nd shows up on my calendar with a small reminder: Celebrate the business.

And every year, something in me wants to mark the moment properly — to gather the people who have supported me, to sit around a fire, to speak gratitude out loud.

And yet, life fills in. Client work intensifies. Retreats stack up. The “right” time to celebrate never quite arrives.

This year was supposed to be different. Five years feels significant — a milestone worth slowing down for. I imagined an event, a gathering, something that matched the depth of appreciation I feel for the people who have made Adventure Partner possible.

But when the week arrived, my schedule was fuller than ever. No event. No gathering. Just a full calendar and a familiar twinge of “I should have done more.”

And then I realized something important — something I see in the leaders I coach all the time: celebration doesn’t always look the way we plan it. Sometimes it shows up in the work itself.

The first celebration happened thousands of kilometers from home. I flew to the U.S. to help deliver a retreat for VCs, and the work took me through places I had never touched before: the rugged coastline of Big Sur, the ridgelines above Santa Barbara, and terrain inside myself that only opened during my second guided medicine journey.

There was a moment — standing in the quiet of those mountains — when it struck me that Adventure Partner had grown into work that moves me as much as it serves others. That, in itself, felt like a marker of five years.

Then I came back to Japan and went straight into two consecutive offsites for two very different companies. The season had shifted while I was gone — cool mornings, the first hints of color in the trees — and that familiar autumn energy met me right away.

Two very different cultures, two very different organizational contexts, and yet the same thread of transformation running through both. What landed for me wasn’t just the impact on the teams. It was noticing my own edges expanding. Noticing how naturally collaboration flowed with my new partners and co-facilitators, Lana and Monika. Noticing that designing and delivering this kind of work feels less like effort and more like alignment.

Another milestone I hadn’t planned.

And then, maybe the biggest celebration of all: the near-yearlong process of rebuilding my website. Quiet, steady work in partnership with two people who know me deeply — including one of my best friends in Japan.

It reminded me of the way the seasons move in Minakami: slow, intentional, always pointing toward the next expression of life. This wasn’t just about aesthetics or messaging. It was about naming what Adventure Partner has become, and choosing what I want the next five years to be centered around: retreat-based leadership development for individuals and teams that weaves in my local Minakami community as well as the surrounding nature, which is always such a powerful co-facilitator.

As I look back on these past five years, what strikes me most is how easily we overlook our own milestones. Leaders — especially those working across Asia’s demanding landscapes — are often moving too fast to notice the ground they’ve already covered. The next meeting, the next initiative, the next quarter always seems to matter more than what’s already been built.

But celebration, I’m learning, isn’t a luxury. It’s a leadership practice.

When we pause long enough to honor the work, the people, the risks taken, and the small but real shifts in who we’ve become, something inside settles. A kind of clarity returns. We remember why we chose this path in the first place. And from that place, the next chapter becomes less about striving and more about intention.

So this website — this new expression of Adventure Partner — is part of my celebration. It’s my way of saying thank you to everyone who has walked with me, partnered with me, trusted me, and believed in this work.

And if you’ve read this far, I’d love to hear from you:

What kind of celebration would you want to participate in with me?

What could we co-create — an event, an adventure, a program, a gathering around the fire…

or something I can’t even imagine yet?

I’m open to what wants to emerge next.

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