Conscious Leadership at Critical Turning Points

Before choosing what comes next —

create enough space
to hear your own answer.

The Threshold Program is a six-day passage in the forests of Finland for young adults (roughly 18–28) ready to find more of their own direction. May 8–13, 2027 · Finland · a small group of four to ten — Founding Group 2027.

What Doesn't Show Up Anywhere

The question no
transcript answers.

You've done what was asked of you, and probably more. A degree, a first job, a title, a promotion, a life that looks right from the outside. And underneath it, a question nobody actually asked out loud: is this actually yours? Not the version that fit the expectations around you — the one you'd choose again, alone, with no one watching.

School taught you how to pass. Not how to choose.
The feed never stops offering a next thing to want, a next person to measure yourself against. Most young adults describe the same quiet feeling once the structure of school or study falls away:

"I did everything right, and I still don't know what I'm walking toward."

That's not a failure. It's a threshold. And it's exactly the point where real guidance changes something.
You have more options than any generation before you. That's exactly the problem.
A gap year, three half-started degrees, a dozen open tabs, a feed that never runs out of people who seem to have already figured it out. More options were supposed to make this easier. Mostly, they make it louder.

"Everyone has an opinion about my future. I don't actually know what mine is."

You're not lacking ambition. You have too much external orientation — and not enough space to hear which parts of it are actually yours.

Don't be a consumer of your own life.
Be its creator.

That's not a slogan here. It's what six days in Finland are built to practice — building a direction instead of scrolling past somebody else's.

The Craft

The edge where the old stops working, and the new hasn't taken shape yet.

There's a name for this place: the threshold. The old way of moving through the world doesn't carry you anymore, and the new one hasn't found its form. Six days won't make that discomfort disappear. They give it a shape you can work with — through a craft we call the creative dialogues, four movements that structure everything that happens in Finland.

01
Letting Go
Make space.
What are you still carrying that was never actually yours?
Silence. Distance from screens and feeds. A conscious release of noise, old habits, and the version of yourself that was built for other people's approval.
02
Connecting
Return to yourself.
Who are you when no one is asking anything of you?
Reconnection with yourself first — body, breath, quiet. Then real encounter with the others in the group, without performance or comparison.
03
Recognizing
Discover what is truly yours.
What do you actually bring that no one else does?
Your own strengths and the true state of things, seen clearly — through honest reflection and listening, not through comparison.
04
Creating
Turn clarity into action.
What will you build from what you now know?
A living vision, translated into a concrete next step, and a plan to carry it into ordinary life, not just into memory.

When the noise falls away, something else becomes possible: you begin to notice the space between what happens and how you respond. That space is where choice begins.

Why This Combination

Modern leadership science.
Old ways of finding clarity.

Most programs pick one side: structure and evidence, or depth and presence. This one runs on both, because a real threshold asks for both.

25 Years
Leadership development across more than 20,000 leaders in over 25 countries, including research-based work with Gallup's strengths science.
30 Years
Consciousness work: ontological coaching at the level of body, emotion and language — plus personal vision quests, not borrowed theory.
The Combination
Structure that holds the process. Depth that makes it real. Neither one alone gets a person across a threshold.
The Craft
The creative dialogues and its four movements, refined across years of individual and group work, not designed for this brochure.

Clarity isn't a mood. It's a practice — and like a language or a muscle, it's trainable.

Nobody gets across a threshold
entirely alone.

The solo days are solo. Everything around them isn't. A small group of four to ten young adults holds the container together — people who see each other more clearly than the feed ever does.

How The Six Days Unfold

The Threshold Program,
day by day.

The program starts before you arrive and continues after you leave. What happens in Finland is the center of it, not all of it.

Before Arrival
Kickoff Call
Online, weeks ahead
  • Logistics and practical questions settled
  • The frame of the six days set together
  • A first real conversation, one to one
Day 1–2
Arrival
May 8–9
  • Settling into place, pace, and quiet
  • Building the container together as a group
  • An honest stocktaking: where you actually stand
Day 2–3
The Launch
May 9–10
  • Naming what you're stepping out of
  • Setting a concrete development focus
  • Preparing for two days alone
Day 3–5
Initiation
Guided solo time, in nature
  • Two days of guided solo time within a defined area, including a period of fasting
  • A clear safety system, with support reachable whenever needed
  • Less input, less distraction — time to listen deeply, to the forest and to yourself
Day 5–6
Return
May 12–13
  • Telling your story back in the circle
  • Being seen and mirrored by the group
  • Shaping a concrete plan for what comes next
After Finland
Integration Phase
6 weeks, remote
  • A peer group support system for following through on commitments
  • Regular meetings
  • Peer consultation
  • Check-ins
  • A joint celebration call
After The Sprint
Celebrating Successes
Together, to close
  • Naming what actually changed, concretely
  • Recognizing commitments kept, as a group
  • Deciding what comes next, on your own terms
The Investment

Founding Group 2027.

This is the first Threshold group — the beginning of something new. Join now, and you become part of that beginning.

Founding Group · 2027
May 8–13, 2027 · Finland
The Threshold Program
For young adults navigating the passage out of school or study — done searching outward, ready to find their own direction. Group of 4–10.
€990
per person · travel to Finland at your own cost
  • Six days and five nights at a secluded former farmhouse in Finland
  • Sauna, private lake access, and a private forest, fully secluded
  • All meals outside the planned fasting period are included; food is available if fasting needs to be interrupted for any reason
  • Full facilitation by David Liebnau throughout
  • A pre-program kickoff call and a 6-week integration sprint afterward
Getting There

Fly into Helsinki; public transport covers the rest of the way. Exact routing follows once your place is confirmed.

Applying

Places aren't filled in the order applications arrive. Every application starts with a short, honest conversation with David — to see whether this is the right threshold for you, and you for the group.

Start the conversation →

If Money Is A Barrier

A limited number of scholarships and reduced places are available. If finances would otherwise prevent you from joining, simply raise it openly in the conversation.

What Changes

Six days. A different relationship with your own next step.

This isn't about becoming someone new. It's about hearing, clearly enough to act on it, who you already are.

Before The Threshold
Busy, capable, and quietly unsure why.
A full calendar, real achievements, and a low hum of "is this actually it?" underneath most of it. Comparison runs as the default setting — against peers, against a feed, against the version of you that's supposedly further along.
After The Threshold
Clear on your strengths, and on what you're for.
Not a five-year plan carved in stone — a direction you actually recognize as yours, and a concrete first stretch of path to walk it. The comparison gets quieter, because you're finally listening to something more reliable: yourself.
What You Leave With

What you leave with.

Six days won't hand you a finished life plan. Here's what you can expect to walk away with.

The forest doesn't perform. It doesn't compare itself with the next tree. Six days give that experience enough depth to become something you can remember when everyday life gets loud again.

Finland · May 2027
For Parents

Why parents trust
this program.

Trust needs good reasons. Here are four of them.

A Tested Arc
Six days follow a structure developed and refined over years, not improvised on-site. Every phase has a clear purpose and a clear person responsible for it.
Real Credentials
25 years in leadership development, more than 20,000 leaders across 25-plus countries, and 30 years of consciousness work. This isn't David's first group in the woods.
Clear Boundaries
This isn't therapy, and we say so plainly. If a participant needs clinical support, we recognize that line and act on it rather than working around it.
A Clear Safety System
Solo doesn't mean unsupported. Each participant stays within a defined area, receives a full safety briefing, and remains connected through a simple check-in and message system. David stays nearby and can be reached whenever support is needed.

We don't give young adults answers. We create the conditions in which they can discover and test their own.

You raised someone capable of asking their own questions. This is a place that takes that seriously.

Who's Leading This

Facilitated by
David Liebnau.

David Liebnau
David Liebnau
Leadership Development & Ontological Coaching

David's professional path began in experiential nature education, where he led nature-based and survival groups before moving deeper into leadership development and coaching.

He has since spent 25 years in leadership development, working with more than 20,000 leaders across 25-plus countries, including research-based work with Gallup's strengths science. One of the leadership development programs he designed and led won the HR Excellence Award. In parallel, he has spent 30 years in consciousness work: ontological coaching at the level of body, emotion and language, and his own vision quests in wild places.

The Threshold Program is where all of that meets — the structure and evidence of modern leadership development, the depth of old ways of finding clarity, and the nature-based roots he started from. He designed it after meeting the same edge again and again, in people twenty-three and fifty-three alike: a need to stop moving long enough to hear themselves.

He also brings a more personal vantage point: he's the father of two young adults in their mid-twenties, and has watched up close what it takes for young people to unfold more of who they already are and bring their potential into the world — not only through his own path, but through raising and mentoring young people through theirs.

Award-Winning Development Expertise
Gallup Strengths
Ontological Coaching
Modern Leadership Science and Ancient Wisdom Practically Applied
What People Say After Working With David

Drawn from years of
leadership and coaching work.

The Threshold Program is new. The craft behind it isn't.

"I have got to know David as a fantastic facilitator, with a unique strength and authenticity when it comes to the topic of leading oneself. His guidance has been invaluable in helping newly appointed leaders build core leadership skills and navigate uncertain times."
Viktor SzücsSenior Director Leadership Development & Cultural Transformation, Lufthansa Group
"David is one of the strongest learning and development professionals I have had the pleasure of working with. His sharp mind and refreshing perspective have real impact on senior leaders and their organizations."
Pa M.K. SinyanRegional Managing Partner EMEA, Gallup
„Du vermittelst mit besonderer Gabe, festgetrampelte Pfade, Sackgassen und Hamsterräder zu verlassen, und mit neuer Energie und Motivation die Dinge zu verfolgen, auf die es ankommt. Mit Hilfe deiner Methoden konnte ich meinen inneren Antrieb nicht nur wiederentdecken, sondern nachhaltig auf ein höheres Level heben."
Peter KochDeputy Head of Sales Digital Media EMEA, Felix Schoeller
„Ich habe David in prozessorientierten Workshops erlebt. Jedes Mal war ich beeindruckt von der Leichtigkeit, mit der er die Teilnehmenden durch diese Formate geführt hat. Wie ein warmes Messer durch Butter: immer wieder eine zielführende Frage oder inspirierende Geschichte zur Hand. Er macht die Erkundung des Ungewissen zu einem wundervollen Erlebnis."
Martin BraunLeadership Coach & Consultant
Partnering With Threshold

In an age of AI, knowing what your unique contribution is matters more, not less.

As more routine capability becomes automated, the distinctly human question grows more important, not less: what can this person contribute that isn't simply a copy of what already exists? Threshold helps young adults develop deeper self-knowledge, clearer awareness of their strengths, and greater capacity to act from their own ground when the path isn't predefined. That's not a soft add-on to a young person's development. It's becoming core infrastructure for a resilient generation, and for the organizations that will depend on it.

Self-Knowledge
Clarity about one's own strengths, worked out directly rather than assessed once and filed away.
Innovation From Clarity
People who've located their own ground move differently under pressure. They build instead of freezing.
Capacity In Uncertainty
The ability to take a real step without waiting for the next instruction — the opposite of what a machine does.

Supporting this founding group is an investment in that resilience, at exactly the point in a young person's life when six focused days can influence choices that shape years.

Ways To Partner
Scholarship Partner
Fund one or more places for young adults who couldn't otherwise take part. Your support is acknowledged directly to the people you help send, and — with their consent — you receive a short written reflection on what the six days changed.
Impact Partner
Get access to anonymized before/after reflections and outcome notes from each cohort. Built for foundations and institutions tracking what actually builds resilience in young people, not just what claims to.
Employer & Talent Partner
Send your own early-career talent or leaders in transition, introduced internally as an investment in their development. People who return from a real threshold tend to know, concretely, what they're for.
Founding Partner
This is the first Threshold group. Partners who join now are named as founding partners of the Threshold Program, with visibility in future materials and first access to the next groups and formats.
Questions Worth Asking Before You Apply

A few things worth knowing.

Is this therapy?
No. This doesn't treat a problem — it accompanies a transition. If you're in the middle of an acute mental health crisis, this isn't the right container for you, and we'll say so plainly during the application conversation.
I've never spent time alone outdoors. Is that a problem?
No experience is required. The solo two days do include a period of fasting, built into the quiet rather than into any test of endurance — it's there to reduce input and distraction, not to prove toughness. Food is available if fasting needs to be interrupted for any reason. The location stays close enough to base that support is always reachable, with a clear safety briefing beforehand.
How do you keep participants safe during the solo time?
Guided solo time doesn't mean unsupported. Every participant gets a full safety briefing before going out alone, stays within a defined and known area close to the farmhouse, and remains connected through a simple check-in and message system throughout. David stays nearby and can be reached whenever support is needed, and the solo time can be interrupted if it should be.
What happens to my plan once I'm back home?
You leave Finland with a concrete plan and a six-week rhythm of check-ins, so the work doesn't stay behind on the lake.
What if I need to cancel?
Cancellation and rebooking terms are covered directly in your application conversation, before you commit.

Start your creative dialogue
with David.

Send me a short email. We'll have a conversation and find out together whether Threshold is the right next step for you. Applications are open now for Founding Group 2027 — up to ten places, one conversation at a time.

Start The Conversation → Partnering With Threshold

Both buttons open an email to dl@light-creators.com — write directly if your email app doesn't open automatically.

No pressure, no upsell — just an honest conversation about whether this is your threshold.