I’ve lost count of how many ropes courses I’ve completed in my lifetime. As a kid, I whizzed down zip lines at camp. As a young adult, I tested my mettle walking tightropes strung up high in the towering redwoods. As a coach, I’ve lead teams as they navigated across swinging, bouncing tires suspended from tree branches.

It was 4 am, the wind was howling, and I was in a tent pitched somewhere in the rugged plains of Bhutan. I needed to pee. Clambering out of my nylon shelter to find some bushes, I heard peals of high-pitched laughter. I looked around in the dim pre-dawn light and could just make out a man dressed in a traditional tunic, leading a yak. A little girl—his daughter, I later learned—was perched on the yak’s bony back. The wind threatened to blow her to the ground, and she couldn’t stop giggling.

Two years ago, my husband Matt and I took a five-month road trip in our RV, which we call Freedom. Shortly into the adventure, we started keeping a list of people and places we encountered that went above and beyond in some way, like serving melt-in-your-mouth pancakes, offering an extra-friendly smile, or sharing directions for a “locals-only” shortcut.

It’s a new year, so people all over the world have been busy making resolutions, promises, pledges, and solemn oaths so they can somehow do better—and be better—in 2021.

I’ve got nothing against the age-old tradition of making resolutions that start on January 1st (and, ahem, are usually forgotten around the 15th …). And I’m all for creating “guardrails” to keep us on track and help us reach our personal and professional goals. Yet I recently heard something that made me think there’s might be a simpler approach.

I just got back from leading a three-day retreat on Mt. Tamalpais in beautiful Marin County, CA. As the fog swallowed the peaks and valleys each evening and peeled back slowly each morning, I had the honor of peeking into the inner workings of a leading-tech-company team. Before gathering on our mountain perch, this diverse group of remote workers, who ranged in age from 23 to 60, had never met in person. During our 72 hours together, we had four goals:

With fierce competition for top talent, forward-thinking companies must be intentional about creating their workplace culture. Studies show that 30% of job seekers leave their jobs within the first 90 days citing culture issues. Losing an employee is incredibly costly and disruptive (just ask Uber). When your very own corporate culture is at least partly to blame, it’s time to start thinking hard about the workplace you want to create so your employees—and your business—can thrive.