Rick Foerster spent 12 years at a healthcare startup, from early employee to public company exec managing hundreds of people. He built the network. He accumulated the war chest. He had 100+ company ideas ready to go. He was standing at the starting line of what he thought was his entrepreneurial dream.

Then he “went dark”.

What was supposed to be a three-month sabbatical turned into two years of what Rick calls "the wilderness phase". No networking, no building. Rick wanted to figure out who he was when he wasn't on the hook to do anything.

Now he’s writing post-apocalyptic fiction, has a completely different relationship with work, and believes most of us need to get lost before we can actually find anything worth doing.

We talk about why his executive coach told him to disappear, what led him to writing about his experiences on Substack, the trap of suppressing existential questions with productivity, the "first mountain vs. second mountain" framework, and why following weird creative interests matters more than having a plan.

Resources mentioned:

• Rick's Substack: https://www.thewayofwork.com/
• Book: Working Identity by Herminia Ibarra
• Book: The Second Mountain by David Brooks
• Book: Transitions by William Bridges

Connect with Rick:

• https://www.thewayofwork.com/
• https://substack.com/@rickfoerster

More from Imperfect Creatives:

• Newsletter: https://newsletter.imperfect.club/
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• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-carruthers/