Adventure, awe, and adversity. The antidote to life on algorithmic autopilot.

Josh Burris leads wilderness experiences that help people reclaim their own story, and a narrative strategy firm that helps the world's biggest brands tell theirs. Based in the Wasatch Range near Park City, Utah.

We can't change course while autopilot is still on.

I've lived this. You probably have too. The most capable people I know — myself included — have slowly handed over control of their own lives without noticing. Mornings belong to the inbox. Attention gets trained by the feed. Ambition narrows to inherited goals. It's gradual. It's the default. This drift leaves a residue: a hollowness, a sense that your life is productive and respected yet not quite yours. And nothing in the day makes room for the question: Whose life am I living?

You've felt it. Driving home from work. The last day of a trip you didn't want to end. A flash of clarity about the distance between where you are and where you meant to be. Then the inputs rush back in. The feeling fades. Autopilot reengages. The system keeps flying.

I don't have all the answers to this. But I've found that something shifts when you step away from the default — the inbox, the feed, the incentives — physically, completely, long enough for the noise to stop. We've always known this, somewhere in our bodies. Connection with the natural world makes us feel alive and human in a way nothing else quite does. That's why this work is built around wilderness. Real terrain. Real weather. Real silence. And often, real conversation — with the land, with each other, and with yourself.

Adventure, awe, and adversity aren't a philosophy. They're what happens when you make contact with something real. Adventure is choosing uncertainty on purpose. Awe is the moment your carefully managed life stops feeling like the whole world. Adversity is the point where the script runs out and you find out what you actually trust. Put them together — in wild places, with honest company — and you hear something true. You feel something you can't fake.

You carry your own pack. You sleep on the ground. You get tired, cold, and quiet in a way you haven't been in years. Sometimes the work is solo. Sometimes it's shared — around a fire, on a ridge, in the kind of conversation that only happens when people stop performing. Community and inquiry are part of everything I do. I don't think anyone figures this out alone. The best I can offer is good questions, honest company, and a place where the truth gets loud enough to hear. What you do with that is yours.

The ground is shifting. AI is compressing timelines, reorganizing what's valuable, and quietly making a lot of professional identities feel less stable than they did two years ago. If your life has been organized around a role, a title, or a set of incentives you didn't fully choose — the next wave isn't going to wait for you to sort that out.

This isn't a reason to panic. It's a reason to get clear. To come together, ask honest questions, and know what's actually yours before the context changes around it.

Thinking Out Loud — Notes from the Trail

Essays, trail notes, and the occasional provocation on wilderness, attention, leadership, and the stories shaping the outdoor industry. Coming soon.