The 72-Hour Identity Reset™
This is a repeatable design process for the most important project yet: yourself.
surfacE the stories running on autopilot, build a new identity & MAKE it STICK WITH science-backed behavior modification, for less than the cost of an hour of coaching.
Specifically for Execs, Leaders and Founders in Transition
You've been a great operator. Now be a great architect — of yourself.
Over 3-days, you'll complete a life and identity rearchitecture. The online program gives you a playbook and results to craft a meaningful identity appropriate for what's next.
What you’ll gain...
Over just 72 hours, I’ll guide you step-by-step through the trusted strategies and practical tools I’ve spent decades teaching to hundreds of leaders, entrepreneurs, and creators around the world.
Here’s what you’ll walk away with:
- Pragmatic tools to surface blocking stories and then align your most purposeful stories with the highest vision of yourself.
- Real-world expertise and practical ways to connect theory to behavior from decades of product, service and identity design.
- Timeless exercises that can be applied to all part os of your life and tailored for you so that you can use again and again.
Decades of transformation work has shown me that it isn't sexy. It requires clarity and commitment. A clear story combined with small repeatable steps are the only thing that truly works.
How I redesigned my life—using proven strategies.
Hi, I'm Richard.
I know what it feels like when the things stop working.
At 51, within the span of months, I lost my wife to cancer, shut down her business, and sell the business I'd been leading for 15 years. Everything I had used to define myself was gone. What I did next was instinctive: I applied the same design methodology I'd used to build world-class products to my own identity. I mapped my stories, ran small experiments, tested new versions of myself, and rebuilt — not the old life, but something relevant and meaningful. I've now taught this process to hundreds of executives, founders, and leaders navigating their own inflection points. The methodology works because it treats identity the way great designers treat a hard problem: with curiosity, structure, and a tolerance for iteration. This is the most important design work you'll ever do.
I've been where you are. I've spent over two decades in the room with founders, CEOs, and senior leaders. As a former CEO of a top product design firm and bestselling leadership author, I know the challenges first-hand. I've raised money, built and sold companies, led hundreds of high-stakes product launches, and navigated every kind of transition you can imagine.
Give me 3 days to see the stories that have been running your life, and then redesign your operating system for clarity and peace.
Does this sound like you?
You spent decades building. But nobody prepares you for what's next.
Research on executive transitions is clear: while you can plan for your business, you can't answer the question, "who am I?" without inserting a work related title or a role. You've become your title.
You know how to be a CEO. You know how to be a founder. You know how to run the board meeting, close the deal, lead the team through the storm. But when the role ended, whether you chose it or it arrived unexpectedly, your identity ended too.
The calendar cleared. The phone stopped pinging. And the question you've been too busy to ask for twenty years finally surfaced: "Who am I without all of this?" That question isn't a sign something is wrong with you. It's a sign you're paying attention. Congratulations, you're asking the right question.
The 72-Hour Reset™ is designed for exactly this tension: honoring what got you here but reshaping your wisdom, experience and skills for the next chapter of your life.
You probably don’t need to blow everything up and buy a camper van, a sportscar or get a divorce (well maybe the van). What you really need is a simple, structured, low-risk way to begin living differently—while still honoring the responsibilities you have.
The 72-Hour Reset™ schedule
The 72-Hour Reset™ runs over 3 days. You'll need 1 to 2 hours a day over the 3 days to complete the exercises that change your mind and behavior. Within that hour or so each day, there will be some reading, a few short videos, and about 30-40 minutes a day of focused writing work.
Before We Begin
Prep (30 minutes)
Quick intake: Where are you now? What feels “off”?
- An explanation of how this rearchitecture works
- A simple reflection exercise: “What’s the story I’ve been living?”
- Who am I without the traditional roles, labels and titles?
Day 1
See Your Stories (30-40 minutes)
Theme: Becoming aware of the stories that are running on autopilot.
- Short introductory via email
- Exercise 1: Identify and map your current "stories"
- Exercise 2: Rewrite your stories through a fresh lens
- Short practice: Observing thoughts vs. being thoughts
- Exercise 3: Considering your "lived questions" for Day 2
Day 2
mapping your nervous system (40 mins)
Theme: Embodiment and integration of new stories and patterns.
- Short introductory via email
- Exercise 1: Mapping your feeling-state to your mind's awareness
- Exercise 2: Define your emotional GPS
- Exercise 3: Authoring your "lived questions"
- Short reflection: Integration prompts and shaping new behaviors
Day 3
Design A thin-slice experiment (1 hour)
Theme: Small low-risk experiments that change your immediate and long-term experience and give you answers to your big questions.
- Short introductory via email.
- Exercise 1: Write your own change in action statement
- Exercise 2: Design your thin-slice experiment
- Exercise 3: Run the experiment and integrate into long-term habits, routines and behavior.
- Optional integration with 100 day Make It Stick plan (select this at checkout)
Ready to run your first thin-slice experiment?
What you'll have after 72 hours
By the end of the 72-Hour Reset™, you’ll have:
A rewritten core story
You'll map the identity narratives that were built for a role that no longer exists — and replace them with a story that accurately reflects who you are and who you're building now.
A personal
emotional GPS
You'll define the felt-state that guides your next chapter — not metrics, not titles, not performance reviews. A personal self-aligning compass.
A thin-slice experiment
A structured, low-risk experiment designed like a product test with feedback loops. The same methodology that builds great companies, applied to building what's next for you.
A simple,
repeatable framework
A design process for identity transitions that can run again every time you're at an inflection point. Ideal for your ever-evolving roles.
What you'll get inside the 72-Hour Reset™
- 3 days of guided curriculum
Short, focused lessons designed to fit into a busy and full life - Optional live calls with Richard (pricing options below) A kickoff session and a closing integration session (both recorded)
- Daily reflection prompts & worksheets
Simple, actionable prompts to immediately help you shift your identity - Thin-Slice Experiment Planner
A repeatable template to design and run your short experiments - Optional peer accountability
Light-touch partner or small pod matching so you’re not doing this alone - Invitation into the Second Harvest ecosystem
First access to future 100-Day Make It Stick cohorts and upcoming retreats
Want to turn this reset into a sustainable shift?
The 100-Day Make It Stick program is a structured, guided journey to embed your new identity, habits and emotional GPS into real life. With regular check-ins and supportive accountability from me and your cohort. See below for support options and pricing.
Meet Your Facilitator
Richard Banfield
I’ve spent more than two decades helping teams and leaders design high-stakes products, brands, and experiences. As the former CEO of a top product design firm and the coauthor of best-selling books like Product Leadership and Design Leadership, I’ve led hundreds of workshops and transformations for organizations around the world.
After losing my wife to cancer, burning out, and rebuilding my life from the ground up, I co-founded Second Harvest alongside Devon to help others navigate their own second chapters with more courage, creativity, and humanity. Helping others find their true purpose and identity is my true calling.
Scientific research and behavioral studies support the idea that early, tangible progress (especially repeatable small steps) increases the likelihood of sticking with a behavior change over time. In this course I’ve combined the best of the science-based methodologies with my practical experience teaching transformation to executives, founders and entrepreneurs.
At Second Harvest, we help our participants become aware of their internal narratives, understand how they are influencing their decisions, and rewrite their stories so they can develop a better relationship with themselves, others, money and their life plans.
Don't just take my word for it. See what others have to say about this program below.
What people are saying...
Get started on your reset now
Once you register and pay, you'll receive a series of emails with instructions and exercises.
A single session with an executive coach costs $400–$750. Get a complete identity design system plus a repeatable framework you can use at again and again for $339.
The 72-Hour Reset plus 100 days of integration — so the change becomes permanent, not just felt.
No subscription. No recurring charges. Just a focused, structured container to do the most important design work of your career.
FAQs
Scientific research and behavioral studies support the idea that early, tangible progress (even if small) increases the likelihood of sticking with a behavior change over time, and this is one of the core design insights behind many successful habit-formation programs. Decades of experience has shown me that participants gain immediate momentum and wisdom from combination of small changes (thin slice experiments) and the feedback the experiments provide.
It’s rarely the specific experiment that matters. What’s most impactful is reframing change as something small, reversible, and low-risk. When people shift from “I need to make a big life change” to “I’m just running a small experiment,” their nervous system relaxes. That shift creates permission to be imperfect, to start before they’re ready, and to learn without the pressure of getting it right the first time.
It's both. It’s gotten much easier to notice the stories I’m telling myself and to course-correct when they show up. But each time that gets easier, another layer reveals itself, with new challenges underneath. What’s improved the most is speed. The gap between recognizing my own domestic propaganda and taking a different action has collapsed to seconds. As they say in professional cycling: it doesn’t get easier—you just get faster.
Both. The 72-Hour Reset works at any stage of an executive transition. Whether you're 6 months out and feeling the identity vacuum, or 6 months away and want to enter the next chapter with intention. Many participants use it as a planning tool before they step down; others come after the exit when the gravity of the shift has hit. Either way, you'll leave with a clearer picture of who you are — and who you're building next.
Most executive coaching is role-based. It helps you perform better in the job you have. The 72-Hour Reset is identity-based. It helps you understand who you are beyond the job. This isn't about optimizing your performance in a role. It's about redesigning your sense of self when the roles you used to inhabit are no longer available. It's a different kind of work, and it uses design methodology rather than a coaching framework.
Perfect. This program was built for people who resist self-help. It's grounded in design methodology, behavioral science, and systems thinking — the same intellectual frameworks that build products and organizations. Self-help prioritizes insights, we focus on practical steps that map to real-world behaviors. There are frameworks, exercises, and experiments. If you can run a post-mortem, you can do this.
No. It's Nobel-prize winning design methodology applied to identity. If you can run a retrospective, you can do this.
No. The program is designed to be done privately. Community is optional, never required.
Around 30-60 minutes for the lessons and reflection. Some participants find themselves coming back to their notes and editing or adding to the exercises so you might want to make time for that too.
Sharing is encouraged but never forced. Part participants have preferred to share their stories to get peer feedback but you can do the work privately and still get significant value.
No. The 72-Hour Reset™ is a structured learning experience. We’re not therapists, and this isn’t a replacement for mental health care. It’s a practical framework for people who are ready to take ownership of their next chapter. Scientific research and behavioral studies support the idea that early, tangible progress (even if small) increases the likelihood of sticking with a behavior change over time. This is one of the core design insights behind many successful habit-formation programs.
Calls are optional, and require you register for the Make It Stick option. You’ll still be able to follow the program at your own pace within the 72-hour window.
No. This course stands alone. For retreat alumni, it’s a powerful integration tool. For new folks, it’s a great first step into Second Harvest.
The 100-Day Make It Stick adds:
- Regular bi-weekly or monthly integration prompts
- Accountability check-ins (solo or with peers)
- A container to embed your “thin-slice experiment” into real life