Our Call to Adventure Awaits!

Are the adventures over? Is the second half of life one of slowing down, sitting back, and soaking in the memories and fruits of the adventures of our youth?

For most? Yes. For you? Not a chance. You can feel it - that restlessness deep inside, crying out for more than the status quo, beckoning us onward to poet Robert Service's Land of Beyond. We're not done yet! We know there is more to uniquely contribute, unexplored mountains to climb, and new dragons to slay. But where do we start? How do we distinguish between that still, small voice inside each of us and the veritable onslaught of messaging coming at us from all directions the moment we slide out of bed each morning? 

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Transcript

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Are the adventures over? Is the second half of life one of slowing down, sitting back, and soaking in the memories and fruits of the adventures of our youth? For most? Sure. For you, not a chance. You can feel it. That restlessness deep inside, crying out for more than the status quo, beckoning us onward to Poet Robert Service's land of beyond. We're not done yet. We know there's more to uniquely contribute, unexplored mountains to climb and new dragons to slay. But where do we start? How do we distinguish between that still small voice inside each of us and the veritable onslaught of messaging coming at us from all directions the moment we slide out of bed each morning? Welcome back to the Not Done Yet podcast, where we focus on purpose and possibilities through life's second half. I'm Dr. Brad Cooper of Catalyst Coaching, and I'm grateful to have you join me on this journey. I don't have the answers. I don't pretend to be the expert. I'm merely a fellow traveler who's a pretty good funnel, gathering, applying, and then sharing the insights of others. Maybe together we can light the unique path that awaits every single one of us. And speaking of those experts, let's return to this land of beyond with this little section from Mr. Service's poem. Have you ever heard of the land of beyond the dreams at the gates of the day? Alluring it lies at the skirts of the skies and ever so far away. Ah yes. Ever so far away. It can feel like that sometimes, can't it? And yet, in so many ways, our call to adventure, the entry point into this land of beyond, it's it's sitting there waiting for us beneath the rush and noise of everyday life. So what do you say we take a little closer look at this thing called the call to adventure? It really started with a 1949 book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces that Joseph Campbell wrote. And he brought forth this concept of the monomyth. Now he wasn't the first to talk about that or even write about it, but he really brought it to the forefront. And I want to walk you through it. Essentially, he said there were these commonalities across narratives of all cultures, from ancient stories to the Marvel movie that maybe you watched last week. And he created this template. And if you haven't seen it, it it might be worth Googling. I'm gonna walk you through it, but it's nice to see the visual, so it may be worth pulling up. Basically, it starts off you're in the known world. Everything's fine. You're just kind of going along, doing your thing. Doo doo doo doo doo. Yeah, life is good. I don't have any big stuff going on. And so it's this known world, he calls it. I call it the fine world. Everything's fine. It's not great, it's not terrible, but it's fine. And then the call to adventure comes in. Or more accurately, we sense it, we hear it, we tune into it, and then we have a decision to make. Do we answer that call? Do we cross over the threshold? And that threshold in his diagram, that's the big key step. As long as we don't cross over that threshold, everything's fine. We're just going about our day and doing our thing. As soon as we cross over that threshold, things happen. That's where the challenges kick in, the temptations are there. But in the midst of that, that's where transformation begins. That's where we meet our helpers. That's where mentors come out of nowhere. And that's where we're stepping into this call to adventure. Now, a couple of things here. One is the idea of dragons. And dragons aren't necessarily the fire-breathing type. They might be a Marvel version of that. It might be the bad guy in some other show. The dragon is the one that when we see it, we go, oh no, what are we gonna do? We gotta escape. And the point of the call to adventure is the dragon is where the goal is. When we see dragons, when we experience a dragon, whatever your dragon might be, that means you're on to something. And don't forget that. Because anytime we step out of our known world, we are going to face dragons, these challenges, these temptations, these struggles, these seemingly stuff that we can't handle. And we want to get away from it. But the point is that's where the gold is. So we go through these challenges and temptations, we become transformed as a result, and then, and then, and this is key, we return to the regular world, the known world, whatever you want to call it, with the elixir, with the new education, the new knowledge, the new experience, the new whatever it is. We're not doing this to simply grow our bank account or have a bigger car. It's to benefit those in our community, in our family, in our organization. So we're coming back with something to benefit others. One other point about this diagram and the movies and stories you've read. If you've ever read or watched anything about the Knights of the Round Table, what it what are they always going out to do? They're searching for the Holy Grail, right? Let's go out and find the Holy Grail. Woo, yeah, Holy Grail, let's do it. Do you ever hear about the Holy Grail again? No. You really don't. It's the thing that brings you out onto the adventure, and then the real adventure occurs. And I think that's a really valuable concept to keep in mind. I even laughed, I do a personal vision every year, and we'll talk about that process at some point in these episodes. But I even laughed at this year's because as I put it together, I'm super excited about a few things that I felt like were the call to adventure, the the holy grail, if you will. And I kind of chuckled as I was finalizing it, thinking, I know these aren't the real. I know there's something else. These are the things that are getting me out there, but the the real adventure is going to appear as I step into it. And I think that's really important to remember. Now, the depths of the insights, they they provide a great way to look at our own development. But it's interesting, it's been used other places too. And one that you're probably very familiar with, a guy named Christopher Vogler, he worked for Disney, and he tapped into Joseph Campbell's work and just mind-blowing for him. And so he initially created this internal memo about it at Disney, and it was supposed to be a guide for writers. It soon became required reading at Disney and led to what they now call the Disney Renaissance, that period from 1989 to 1999 when movies like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast came about. So this is valuable stuff for us personally, and we see it happening out in other places as well. Now, a lot of potential applications for this model. And yes, I selected this as an early episode because you're going to hear me come back to it over and over and over. And I want to be able to say, remember that call to adventure and for your mind to immediately say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's where you start in the the world is uh just kind of cruising along and doing your thing, and then you step across the threshold, and then you have the challenges and the dragons appear. So my hope is that by covering this early, when we reference it later, when we talk about it later, when we when we use the phraseology of the call to adventure, you'll uh your brain will immediately go, Oh yeah, I remember that. But for now, I want you to see it as our launch point. So let me give you a few considerations before we set sail on this call to adventure. The first thing is the call is the necessary step forward. No call, no journey. That's step one. And when I say no call, it's it the call's always there, folks. It's it's more like, do I hear the call? Am I willing to listen for that call? Am I tuning in? You get the idea? Am I lowering the noise enough so that I can actually hear that call? So, number one, the call is the necessary first step forward. No call, no journey. Number two, it's a call, not a demand. It's an opportunity, not a requirement. You're gonna look around at your peers and you're gonna say, Oh, none of them are doing any of this call stuff. What is it? It's not for them. You're different. You're not done yet. You get it. It's a call, not a demand. It's an opportunity, not a requirement. We must first hear the call, which obviously requires listening, and then we've got to choose to answer it. And that's where you're different from the crowd. Number three, the call occurs while we're living in the everyday ordinary world. Think of maybe Luke Skywalker in his home on the desert planet, for example. He's he's just going about his work day and all of a sudden oh. And you see that in practically every movie. And number four, it's an upward aim, a challenge that moves us, stretches us beyond what we may believe is possible. If you're like, oh yeah, that sounds good, I could do that. Probably not the call. Doesn't mean not to do it, but that's probably not the call. The call is an upward-aiming challenge that moves us, stretches us, pulls us beyond what we believe is possible. So again, kind of back to the dragon, kind of back to that, ooh, this feels out of my element. That's it. That's it. The call to adventure exists on a higher plane. It's a deeper dimension. It's not the low-hanging fruit, it's not simply clicking on an exciting-looking advertisement that shows up in our social media feeds. It's also not simply or or necessarily the next logical step, in quotes. As I said a minute ago, I just want to reinforce, it's a calling that takes us outside of and beyond our current path. Is it it isn't just, oh yeah, one more step forward. Now, I'm all for the let's take one more step forward. That's great. That's it's critical. We'll talk about that. But the call to adventure is different. It takes us outside of, it takes us beyond our current path. Now, again, I'm not an expert in this area, but my sense is there are three guardrails that are very valuable in this process as we talk through, as we live into this call to adventure. So, number one, it's a calling, not a should. Wise cancel, super important. Valuable every time we face a crossroad. And garnering feedback as you sense a call, as you hear a call, as you begin to answer a call, getting feedback from others, that's great. That's valuable, that's important. But, but this is not a time to simply do what your mentor, your spouse, your parent, or whomever is saying you should do. This is not a should, it's a calling. That's number one. Number two, the call does not involve putting loved ones, our valued relationships, nor our health at risk. I guess what I'm saying is don't make the mistake of replacing the potential for adventure with some ego-driven idiocy. And then speaking of idiocy, number three is this is not a selfish hedonistic pursuit. It's not the classic sex, drugs, rock and roll. The midlife crisis. Oh, I'm I'm supposed to do this thing. Are you, or is that just you? The hero's journey stretches us personally and benefits others. Let me say that again. The hero's journey stretches us personally and it benefits others. The call to adventure isn't simply a passive escape from our boring lives. It's a calling to bring forth a better version of ourselves for the greater good. With that said, adventures are they're not one size fits all. I can't give you a list of here are the five most popular calls to adventure. Like that's not a thing. They come in all shapes, sizes, they come from multiple directions. Their dimensionality is defined for all of us based on our history, our support systems, our margins that we have available. As I was writing about this topic in a different setting, I came up with three overlapping buckets that I thought might be helpful to our discussion here. So these are these are three different dimensions of advent of calls to adventure or adventures that you might want to ponder as you're looking at this and see where you're looking first or where one might lead to another. So the three different buckets, if you will, are microadventures, macro adventures, and transformational adventures. Let me give you a quick example of each. The microadventures involve moving outside our daily settings, our daily routines, our daily rhythms, and taking on an isolated challenge. Example. Maybe sign up for your first 5K or first 5K in a long time. Maybe visit a new city, try a new hobby. Try something that stretches you, but it's a one-time thing. Susanna recently did this great example in her own life. She hesitantly but actively and purposefully stepped into an opportunity to swim around sharks in spite of a significant lifelong fear of doing so. So that was a big stretch for her, but it was a microadventure. It was a one-time thing that she actively, intentionally stepped into and then moved forward. So that's a microadventure. A macro adventure, this adds an element of time to the above. As compared to the one-time or limited pursuit, like the microadventure, this has a more extended timeline or maybe a broader base challenge. Example for me, when I went back to pursue a PhD at the age of 50, that was an example of a macro adventure in my own life. It constantly pulled me outside my comfort zone. The research, the academic writing, the politics, the traveling and speaking in Europe that was part of that. All those things, each one of those revealed new potential doors of challenge and opportunity and impact that I had no idea I was stepping into. So that's that's a macro adventure example. And then the transformational adventure, that is what it sounds like. It's transformational. Now the others can be. That microadventure that Susanna stepped into, that changed her. The macroadventure of the PhD, that changed me. But the transformational ones, they're even bigger. When Susanna and I launched one of the first health and wellness coaching organizations in 2007, it shifted everything in our life. It clearly wasn't the next logical step for a couple entering midlife with three young children and had grown pretty accustomed to that regular paycheck and benefits. But when we did that, it was life-changing for our family and for us. And it allowed us to serve 100,000 plus employees, coaches, students in the process. Microadventures, macroadventures, and transformational adventures. I just want to give you some different things because the ones that you hear, the ones you step into, might be very, very different than your best friend, your spouse, your mentor. We're all unique. And that's the point I want to make here. Different levels, different styles, different backgrounds, different. We're all unique in terms of all these things: backgrounds, personality, support systems, perspectives, risk tolerance, all those things. What one person sees as, oh, just another day, may be considered transformational for others. I can't say this enough. Our call to adventure is our call to adventure. It's not a competition. You're not being great on a curve. But there's no doubt our willingness to answer our unique calling will change us. It'll grow us. It'll engage our hearts. And it'll benefit others in the process. Let's tie a ribbon on this initial exploration with a few questions. I want to try to do this regularly, where I give you a couple things to ponder as we for well, for those who are thinking, yeah, this is something I want to think about a little bit more. This hopefully will get you started. So two things: one about past, one about present. Past. What adventures, regardless of what happened in the end, that's the key. Remember when I said my little vision for this year, I knew going in that what I thought it was going to be was just the holy grail. It was just what got me out started, that I knew something else was going to develop. That's you too. So, regardless of your outcomes, what adventures have you leaned into in the past? What opened you up to their calling? How did they stretch you? Why did you decide to move forward with those when maybe you didn't with others? So think about that in terms of the past. And then present, what whispers are you currently sensing from that still small voice? What potential call have you been hearing in the distance? Or maybe even as I'm talking here, are you beginning to sense? The phrase that ship has sailed is a common deflection. I hear this all the time. It's utilized by those in life's second half who prefer security and certainty over possibility and wonder. But you're different. That ship may indeed be sailing, but you're on board. You're ready to explore all that awaits over the horizon. Because you are not done yet.