Meet Kurt Smith, the Visionary Founder of the Wild Divine Project

“The Wild Divine Project is the company I’ve been gearing towards all my life, amassing the experience and resources to do it,” says founder Kurt R. Smith. “The question that motivated me was, ‘How can we provide integrative healing tools and services to people in an effective way?’ The answer, I knew, could not be found by taking it through the medical industry, which I’d worked in up until now.”

Smith, a Ph.D. scientist, specializing in biomedical engineering, had created several companies in the medical industry. Two of these are owned now by Medtronic, Inc., the largest medical technology company in the world, which provides about 60-65 percent of all the cardiac devices that go into people’s bodies.

“Near the end of my tenure with Medtronic, I was doing a study which led me to explore alternative, integrative and complementary medical care. Many of these centers were popping up in the U.S., and I became friends with many of the people running them. I saw they were struggling because it was very difficult for them to evolve financially within the medical system. I said to myself, “Okay, let’s peel off and do another start up company.” It would be his sixth.

The Beginnings

That’s when Kurt began looking at various entertainment-based channels to make integrative healing tools and services available to people. Coincidentally, at the same time, he started rock climbing with a Boulder, Colorado neighbor, Corwin Bell. Corwin told Kurt about an idea he’d always had to combine a computer game with biofeedback in order to help people get in tune with themselves and transform their lives.

“Wow, I thought. Here’s an entertainment-based model that can benefit people by providing both preventative and integrative care,” said Kurt. Corwin joined forces with Kurt’s new company and put together a team to work on the program.

The result was The Journey to Wild Divine, a beautifully, interactive program that uses biofeedback to create an enlightening experience of wellness.

The Scope

As an umbrella for all of the new products Kurt's vision entailed, they chose the name, The Wild Divine Project. "The Wild Divine is more than innovative products. It’s a community that exists to help people build a sense of connection in the world,” says Kurt. “It’s a way to get them to say, ‘Wait a minute, I can do something. Give me the tools that I need in order to express myself the way I want to, and to figure out how to live an active, mindful and fulfilling life.’"

“Each of us possess a certain wildness, an untamed creative energy that flows through us. But we also possess a quiet, steady voice that’s always striving to create or recreate a delicious state of perfection, it is our unique and personal divine nature. And we fluctuate back and forth between the two, pushing and pulling all the time. When we achieve balance between these two sides of ourselves, then we have wholeness – we are Wild and Divine – and that’s how we create health and happiness.”

“And to be clear, I am not referring to any religion or organized community when I use the word - divine. My reference is to that place of clarity and wholeness that we all need to find and hear within ourselves. To some that may be found through organized religion, but to many others it is through meditation, or yoga and to some it is even through a belief in a system of chaos, but to be whole, each of us must have something that we believe to be true, some place to go that gives us strength.”

The Journey to Wild Divine

Not surprising then that the “inner active” multi-media adventure is called The Journey to Wild Divine. “The journey that Corwin Bell is developing is very profound,” said Kurt. “All his life, he’s been churning on it and working on it. Corwin has been studying biofeedback for years and also practices a wide variety of meditative techniques into his daily life. When you combine this with his graphics capabilities, the artistry is unparalleled.”

Corwin and Kurt have also brought in some leaders in the field of mindfulness to collaborate on other elements of the project. These include Jean Houston, a pioneer researcher in human development and extending human capacities, and Nawang Khechog, a former Buddhist monk, who’s studied with the Dalai Lama and is one of Tibet’s foremost world music composers and musicians. From the start, Liana Mattulich, a highly experienced biofeedback expert in Denver, has been helping Corwin move The Journey from concept to reality.

Healing Rhythms

Healing Rhythms is the company's newest introduction. Smith goes on to say,"Did you know that over 80 percent of workers say that they feel stress on the job, and nearly half of them say that they need help in learning how to manage it. And according to the AMA, nearly 90 percent of doctor visits today are stress-related."

"This is perfectly in line with what I've been saying and a problem that I know we can help solve. So, together with three of the most renowned leaders in mind-body health, Andrew Weil, M.D., Deepak Chopra, M.D., and Dean Ornish, M.D., we've created Healing Rhythms, a 15 Step Guided Training Program that teaches people to manage stress, improve their mind-body health and achieve a more balanced life."

"We're so excited about the direction of our company right now and the reception Healing Rhythms has had in major hospitals, wellness centers, spas and most importantly, with the end-user. It's all coming together so beautifully and we're really starting to see the impact this is having on people's lives."