We caught up with the brilliant and insightful David Bernstein a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

David, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

There have been so many defining moments throughout my professional trajectory that it’s hard to highlight just one. Our work is where our creative expression meets the world, and is the ideal landscape for life lessons to occur.

My initial experience of the dominant corporate paradigm (which is slowly evolving) was that success was a metric that could only be accomplished by power moves, intellectual/analytical problem solving, and standardized approaches to work in general. Not having answers, learning through trial-and-error or from community, and honoring gut instincts were not the modus operandi in the finance world I come from. However, I reached a point in my life when my marriage was failing, my work felt empty, and the economy was fractured (during the 2008 financial crisis) and I simply surrendered into not knowing.

I’ll never forget the feeling of empowerment when I was able to look the executives at my investment firm in the eye and say, “I don’t know” and, “I made a mistake, I’m sorry.” There was no explanation or accommodation made. Just simply standing in my power, being wrong, not knowing the answers, and being human amongst all things.

Some might call this “the art of not giving a f*ck” or being in the flow, but for me, it was an exodus from the lens that I had to be something I wasn’t in order to appease the powers that be in my office, industry, and dominant culture. It was a call to trust my own ideas, creative instincts, and ultimately my inner compass. This compass ended up leading me into an entirely different career, which has been the most rewarding decision of my life. It has taught me that the most important measure of success and value is meaning, and we don’t find that by assimilating, but by surrendering!

David, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Authenticity is a buzz word that is perhaps overused these days, so I am going to begin to answer this question with a similar, yet distinct word: lived experience. This is what I believe sets me apart from others in my space, what I know to be an invaluable tool when supporting others, and what is fundamental to the unique “signal” we all put out into the world.

Direct experiences have made me who I am today and have informed a practice that I share with my clients. Through a series of mind-set trainings, we explore ways to practice, embody, and ultimately transmit our purpose to the world. Everything I share with those I mentor is from my direct experiences — there are no gimmicks or dogmatic agendas in my work — simply authentic connection and sharing. I lead global retreats and offer two bespoke trips annually to clients and community. I also have an intimate group of one-on-one clients whom I mentor virtually. Soon, I will be offering mind-set workshops and live events at a new property I am developing with my life partner in the foothills of Colorado.

I am grateful that I followed my heart and soul on what many would consider to be the road less-traveled. My lived experiences have made me the mentor, teacher, and leader I am today. They have shaped each and every iteration of my work and have become an invaluable tool in my life and business pursuits.

My journey began in 2008, with a sudden and unexpected blow of the financial crisis, coupled with the end to my marriage of 10 years. With nowhere to go but inward, I chose to surrender to life’s process, and to seek out inspiration in places far and away from the seductive lifestyle, status, and money of my finance career at the time. I learned about mindfulness, spirituality, and love from teachers who magically appeared in my life at the perfect moment. I disappeared and lived abroad for three years, experiencing the joy of solitude while lost on the wild coastlines and cityscapes of Latin America. I made lots of mistakes and learned from them. I gyrated between the draws of the financial world and my path toward purpose and personal growth. I harnessed the life force that is abundant and available to us all and flowed into my thirties with a profound sense of meaning and direction. I sought out purpose in my everyday life and have lived a life of purpose as a result. Ultimately, I wanted to share these lived experiences. After four years of doing lots of personal work, living abroad, and powerful lifelong lessons, I launched my first wellness business, Life Force Project. Life Force Project took its humble first steps into the yoga retreat space in 2013. It has evolved to become a full-scale international wellness travel firm with a dynamic and expert team of healers, an exceptional group of corporate partners, a consulting arm, and a treasure chest of stories and experiences that make up some of the funnest years of my life. Life Force Project redefined what success meant for me. It was fueled by passion, guided by my soul’s deepest desire to share lived experiences, and organized around a different set of principles than what corporate America expects.

Today, I enjoy sharing my personal story as a public speaker, mentor and global retreat leader. I work with established and aspiring leaders of all types, be it executives and business owners, creatives, athletes, mothers, fathers, and even students, on purpose-driven life design.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I love this question because I believe that anyone who is relevant in the business world has to continuously pivot, or “reiterate,” as I like to say.

2019 was a peak year for Life Force Project, and by all my metrics, one of the best years since its inception. Then came COVID-19 — perhaps the worst possible global disaster imaginable for the travel and event space.

I found myself quarantined in a cabin in a small Colorado mountain town, grateful to be alive, healthy and able to have a sweet and safe space to reflect on where my life and the trajectory of my business was going. I also happened to be turning 40 years old during that summer of 2020, and had auspiciously been feeling that a change was on the horizon for both my business and myself.

I have lived by the mantra of “opportunity in the midst of crisis,” and COVID-19 turned out to be just that. Had it not happened that way, despite the fact that I was intuiting a change in my work, I may have continued with our global retreats, partnerships, and consulting services, and may not have ended up where I am today. 2019 was a strong year and I could have kept a good thing going. But COVID, time in solitude, a new framework on life, purpose and impact and honesty, a new world reality all together, helped shaped my choice to reiterate and focus on applying my life experience to mentorship and purpose-driven design. I look back and feel that trusting the process, despite a global environment that changed the landscape of my industry at the time, was the right choice. I didn’t make hasty decisions, close the doors to my company, or jump into new ventures right away. I came back to my practice, cultivated trust, surrendered, and found opportunity in the midst of crisis.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I was fortunate that my business came online during some of the peak years of Facebook when algorithms were conducive to free marketing and posting on your feed could be utilized to effectively promote and sell. I have an MBA and background in finance and sales, so I was fully capable of putting together a sales and marketing strategy for social media and other channels. I chose to simply share authentic messaging instead. As Instagram took off, and influencers, travel accounts, and other market trends expanded the pie of marketshare and opportunity, I avoided pay-to-play schemes and advertising investments on social media. I simply shared my authentic experience, and people connected with what I had to say. To this day, I don’t have 100K followers — I have a consistent and loyal community of individuals whom I have either traveled with, known socially or through business, are word-of-mouth or friends of friends, or people who are inspired by my messaging. It has been that simple. I’m so grateful I chose not to compete with the noise that my industry was producing across social media or use superficial means to gain exposure or engagement. I can honestly say that reputation is something sacred and asks that we walk the walk and do it with integrity.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lifeforceproject.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeforceproject/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/david.bernstein.75/
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/david-bernstein-b589663