1769 – The Impact of Team Building Exercises with Tim Walther

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0:58with us right now tim walter tim you are the president and founder of grand dynamics international you're found on the web at granddynamics.com tim over 25 years in business congratulations on your longevity and the impact you've had in the world thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me, Josh. Super excited about our conversation today. And it's been great to connect with you a little bit and hear about some of your most recent adventures and our connections in business as well, too. So I'm looking forward to this. Yeah, for sure. So let's just kind of start going and explain, by the way, to our friend that's listening, go to granddynamics.com so you can kind of follow along, see the photos, you can kind of see in real life exactly the work that Tim and his team do.

1:46But Tim, I'll let you explain how you work with organizations and individuals. Yeah, thanks so much, Josh. So Grand Dynamics, yes, as you mentioned, we've been in business for 25 years, and we are based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the heart of the Grand Teton National Park and near Yellowstone. So a lot of outdoor adventure-based opportunities for retreats and team-building events. We deliver these types of programs all over the U.S. and globally as well. And the essence is we offer a variety of experiences for corporate business teams, whether that's the form of a team building event, a larger scale corporate event that could be indoors or outdoors.

2:28We do upwards of a thousand person events at conferences and things like that. Also multi-day executive retreats. So that's also one of our specialties, the C-suite executive team, getting them out and into a really, really amazing destination and doing some high-level strategic work with some unique experiences to forge people together that way. So all those things, the team building events, the corporate experiences, the multi-day executive retreats, and also keynote speakers as well to really enhance the value of meetings. So that's the essence of what we deliver. And it comes in a lot of different forms, a lot of different forms.

3:06And our specialty really is creating unique experiences for business teams. Why is that so important? Well, at the foundation of everything, it's all about relationships and business, right? And so there's lots of different ways to create those relationships and to forge them. And that's our specialty in creating experiences that are very unique and then connecting those experiences to how people work together. Also, including a variety of different tools and models and methods around psychology and business and team and leadership development. So that's the essence of it. We're going to talk about your book as well, all in Adventure Stories, The Bold Pursuit of Your Potential.

3:47But I want to maybe just talk a little bit more fundamentally. I think we've all seen, or maybe I'm sure many of us have participated in team outings. We've got maybe out on a ropes course, maybe we've got some team building stuff that we've participated in that. What can you say in terms of short and long-term impact of team building exercises like this? Well, there's a scale just like most things. There's companies and experiences that add a certain amount of value depending on how well the practitioner is delivering the experience and how engaged the participants are and how well the experience is designed and delivered, right?

4:27So the impact on something, it's like motivation is like taking a bath, right? You need to take a bath fairly often to have it work, right? So you can have a team building experience for a one-off type thing, and it can generate awareness and forge some greater relationships, but it's how well those relationships are to be developed when people get back in the workplace and extended and whatnot. But the more unique and more creative and the more well-designed it is, the bigger the impact you're going to have. So, you know, while ropes courses and things like, you know, kind of the old school, you know, team initiative and things like that, you know, can be useful.

5:02They're just, they're very familiar with people now, right? So how can you do something for people that has never been done before? And that's what we really look at. And we're constantly evolving the experiences that we create for businesses and teams to create the novelty and the uniqueness. So what comes with that? Well, you get emotional engagement and connection, right? And when you have the emotional engagement and connection, then that opens up the doors to having a deeper connection in the relationships that people are creating when they go through these experiences. So a lot of different levels that you can look at the value and benefit of a team building experience.

5:42And, you know, we have various different white papers and whatnot on the different levels of team building that, you know, people can contact us to hear, you know, dive deeper into exactly that question as well, too. So what's going on psychologically that adventure and challenge per se would foster emotional connection and relationship within a group? That's a great question. And it's one we could talk about for a long time. But, you know, imagine the experiences in your life that have been on the more challenging side. Right. And when you reflect on that, you can think about different experiences you've had individually or even, you know, shared as a team.

6:22And when you get to a certain stage, if you're just going through life, well, if it's not challenging, there's going to be an element of boredom. Right. It's just going to be kind of doing the routine sort of thing. And people don't feel like they're fully tapping into their potential, right? As soon as you get people feeling like they're doing something that is challenging their ability, well, then there's more purpose and there's more value and there's more engagement. So as you get into these experiences, like the conversation we had about climbing a mountain, the classic metaphor of climbing a mountain, there's a point where people get and they're saying, okay, it's just, I don't know if I can go on.

6:58I don't know if I can keep climbing up this mountain. And there's something that we tap into that is a deeper level, like a spiritual connection, a motivational element that allows us to go further. And oftentimes it's the relationships with the people that are helping us to reframe the experience and to move beyond what the perceived limitations are. And that's what great team and teammates do for each other. They continue to reframe the experience that allow their other teammates to excel and move beyond the perceived limitations. So the adventure experience provides the mechanism for people to have an experience that literally is a demonstrated example of moving beyond what limitations we have.

7:41And when you can do that and share an experience like that, well, what else can you do, right? And you start to think about things differently. You start to creatively look at other opportunities in business and what might be possible that way, too. So it's one of my favorite things to do is taking the adventure experience and creating that for people. And there's a sweet spot, right? Because people have different ability levels. So your book, All In Adventure Stories, The Bold Pursuit of Your Potential. Talk about the book. By the way, congratulations on the release. It's got some great reviews.

8:15It's over 43 five-star reviews on Amazon, 58 five-star reviews on Amazon. So congratulations on the launch of your book. Tell me about the book. Who should be reading this and what is the transformation that you would expect? Okay, great. Yeah, the concept is, so All in Adventure Stories is a compilation of 18 true stories that I experienced over the last 30 years. and the stories are comprised of various different adventure sports so extreme skiing in jackson hole as an example for the foundation of things ultra running endurance swimming like one story has a story of a mission that i created to swim 20 miles of lakes at the base of grand teton national park over a weekend and then ultimately to get that into a one day experience of going 20 miles on foot in between.

9:09So there's a variety of these different types of adventure stories, whitewater rafting, free diving and spearfishing, stand up paddle boarding, again, the ultra running. So all these different stories are examples of missions, right? Personal missions that I've created, which my goal really is to inspire people to create and have more adventure in their life. And then to couple that with the personal growth that people can benefit from, right? So when you have a mission, like it's kind of like the concept of a misogi, right? An annual challenge, an adventure challenge. Well, we can create these types of adventure experiences that allow us to see what's really capable of ourselves when we're willing to go beyond what we think is possible, right?

9:55And the adventure experience is what that does. So these are examples that people can read and then think to themselves, all right, how can I have a little more adventure in my life? And what are the steps to do it and part of the book is i delivered this all in adventure method which is a seven step process for people to create and live and debrief adventure experiences so they can have more adventure in their life and that to me it's just so important to you know it provides a healthy way of living a vibrant way of living another way to just explore the world on a deeper level and a bonding experience that is very very unique for individuals and families and teams and everything in between so yeah all in adventure stories it's on you know as you mentioned it's on amazon and and we're doing a whole variety of difference in the new year in 2024 we got open enrollment retreats where people can come and experience some adventure experiences fire walking cold immersion mountaineering all sorts of different cool stuff and then we're doing a whole series of interviews with experts in various different realms from free diving and mountaineering and stuff like that.

11:05So lots of awesome free stuff. If you go to allinadventurestories.com and sign up for that newsletter, then I'm wanting to offer this stuff that we've been doing for 25 years to the public, right? I've been doing business stuff with private entities for the last 25 years, and we're still gonna keep doing that. But I'm also bringing the adventure concept to the public and making it more available. So I'm super excited about that. And that's really what the book is about. Nice. Awesome. All right, good. Good. So again, your website, granddynamics.com, and someone's been listening to our conversation.

11:37What would you recommend they do next? Well, if you are an event planner, you're someone that works in a business that, you know, there's an annual offsite or there's a retreat or there's any sort of team or leadership development experience that you're thinking about planning in the next year or two, then you can go to granddynamics.com and put your information in there. And then we can just schedule a call and talk with you about the different options and possibilities. You can see what the primary things that we offer on our website. But if you go in and you join that newsletter list, then we'll provide some information for you about lots of different unique experiences, very unique experiences, corporate events.

12:16And then if you're interested in the adventure, having a little more adventure in your life, you can check out All in Adventure Stories on Amazon, get the book there. You can sign up for our information on allinadventurestories.com. and then you'll get all sorts of invitations and free stuff there to invite you. I mean, if you want to come climb the Grand Teton with our group, if you want to come to Jackson Hole for a weekend in May, that's going to be an endurance adventure race and cold immersion and firewalking. We're going to do that all in 2024. So live events, virtual events, all offering a variety of different experiences to help people build relationships and have a little more excitement and adventure in their life.

12:57It's great. Awesome. All right. Again, Tim Walter, founder, president of Grand Dynamics, a website, granddynamics.com. Tim, it's been great having you again. Congratulations on the publication of your book as well. All In, Adventure Stories, The Bold Pursuit of Your Potential. Right now, you can get it on Kindle, paperback, hardbound, all available. Thank you so much, Tim, for the great conversation. Thank you, Josh.

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