The Way of Adventure - Overcoming Adventure
Deficit Disorder
By:
Jeff Salz
 Its
symptoms are feelings of chronic anxiety, hopelessness, irritability
and impatience. Sufferers tend to experience work as a burden and
everyday existence as hollow. We trudge, half-awake through the
daily life, deriving our big thrills from the small screens at the
local multiplex and freeway accident narrowly avoided. No matter
where we are, we are haunted by the sneaking suspicion that the real
party is elsewhere. No matter what we buy, eat or drive, happiness
seems to elude us. Our lives seem lackluster. No matter how many
projects, meetings and details we complete, the sum total of our
days still feels less than significant. We are stricken with a
dreaded malaise that affects the vast majority of the Western world
today: A.D.D. Adventure Deficit Disorder.
Anthropologically speaking, the predominance of such a syndrome is
no surprise. This is not the life for which evolution prepared us.
Human beings have lived one hundred times longer as hunters and
gatherers than we have as "civilized" creatures. We are wired for
the hunt. For fight or flight. Our bodies are built to lope through
the tall grasses of the African savanna - not crawl through traffic
in the suburbs of Savannah, Georgia. Our eyes were made to survey
the open landscape in search of predator and prey, not to squint for
hours at computer screens in flickering florescent light. Our limbs
were formed to stretch toward the sky, not to bend over steering
wheels and keyboards. Our souls were constructed to celebrate...not
calibrate. Our minds were built to ponder the vastness of space and
stars ...not P&L statements and performance reviews. Homo sapiens
were designed with greater things in mind.
Life
is exciting. How is it that we so seldom feel it? My one year old,
even now at 5:00 in the morning, the sky still unlit, begins to
stir, unable to await the dawn, excited by the day. How do we, as
adults, maintain this innate sense of joy, the vision of the world
as an opportunity for endless challenge, satisfaction and discovery?
Adventure, as a daily practice, recharges us with the elemental
energies necessary to sustain life. In place of the chronic,
debilitating low-level buzz of subliminal stress, it substitutes the
vitalizing influence of immediate challenges, tangible victories and
instances of ecstasy. The human psyche thrives on a diet that
includes occasional moments of complete triumph, devoid of ambiguity
and worry. Mental health requires action, large goals successfully
reached and recast toward the next horizon. In philosophic terms, we
need once again to find the thread of our lives among the stars,
seeing our personal sagas written large as heroic quests, not
miniaturized for convenient download into our Handsprings and Palm
Pilots. Personal adventure uploads our existence, elevating us once
again to "the top"- the top of our game, the top of our chosen
vocation, the top of our own list of personal heroes. Each day has
the potential to become its own peak experience as we again glimpse
just how incredibly good it is to be alive.
The Way of Adventure
The way of adventure is a six-step process. Limited to no
specific geography, it reminds us that an invigorating sense of
excitement and possibility awaits not just in the wilds, but in the
place we regularly reside - daily life. The steps are:
1) Leap Before You look
2) Aim Higher than Everest
3) Give It All You've Got
4) Work Some Magic
5) Keep on Your Bearing
6) Enjoy the View
Leap Before You Look
Successful individuals and organizations innovate. Radically
successful individuals and organizations innovate radically. Or, as
GE's Jack Welch, has succinctly put it, "When the world outside your
organization changes faster than the world inside your organization,
you lose." The first step, leap before you look, requires a
commitment to action, not theory. It is the willingness to define
yourself, not through words and theories alone, but also through
action. In a world of unprecedented economic, social and
technological change, the only thing about which we can be certain
is that yesterday's certainties are no longer valid. The methodology
of leaping before you look overcomes the paralysis through analysis
and facilitates the rapid response that success in an accelerating
world demands.
The risk of leaping is failure. But failure is not necessarily a bad
thing. As Dr. Bob Ballard, discoverer of the Titanic and one of the
truly great explorers, scientists and entrepreneurs of our time,
said to me in a recent conversation, "Success is not a measure of
having avoided failure. Success is processing failure. You must pass
through failure to get to success." Success tends to make us smug,
failure tends to make us smart. Having learned what doesn't work,
where not to look, we carry on, better informed and more likely to
succeed than before. After all, Bob Ballard did not find the Titanic
on a lot more days than he did.
Like a sense of adventure, leaping carries within it is its own
reward: a sense of aliveness that is ours the moment we spring to
action and engage life on its own terms.
Aim Higher than Everest
Too often failure comes not because we have set our expectations
at too elevated a height but because we have placed them at
distances too easily accessible. Mediocre goals bring forth our
mediocrity; great ones bring out our greatness. The second step, aim
higher than Everest, instructs us to set unrealistic objectives and
then to move steadfastly in their direction.
The long ridge looms before us, steeper than anything we have yet
tackled. From within we summon strengths we did not know we
possessed. Our spirit grows stronger as the task before us
magnifies. As we rise to the challenge, we come to find that peak
experiences are ours whenever we labor in the direction of our
dreams. The reward for aiming high is less the fleeting moment of
victory than the ongoing discovery of our capacity for greatness.
Give It All You've Got
We define our living by what we get. The measure of our life,
however, is how much we give. Giving is the best guarantee of
success. When you commit to the third step and give it all you've
got, you immediately 'up the ante' of what is possible in your life
and work. Successful salespeople, spouses and super-athletes share
the same secret: when we give our all, the universe responds in
surprising and exciting ways. No accomplishment of magnitude,
business venture, enduring relationship or Polar traverse - was ever
achieved by individuals giving anything less than their all.
Giving all we've got has a parallel meaning: giving up. Not giving
up as in capitulating, but giving up as in surrendering:
surrendering outdated methods, patterns and fears. In times of
change it is far easier to take on new habits than to let go of the
old. Yet nothing is more essential for our continued success than
freeing up a few gigabytes of random access memory on our internal
hard drive in order to allow space for new capabilities. Traveling
light - giving up excess baggage in order to be able to move easily
over, rugged, unfamiliar landscapes - breeds exhilaration.
Work Some Magic
As a cultural anthropologist with many years experience in the most
remote corners of the planet I have gained a healthy respect for
what is often referred to as 'magic'. I have, on a regular basis,
witnessed miracles performed by traditional healers. While I do not
believe in the supernatural, I have gained a healthy respect for the
inexplicable - things that exist, yet cannot be explained by our
current scientific models of reality. Problems occur whenever we
grow overly protective of currently popular models of reality. Work
some magic is the step that reminds us not to believe everything we
think. This step invites us to question everything, aggressively
locating boxes to actively 'think-outside-of'. Today's magic is
tomorrow's hard science. Wireless internet, global cell phones, and
infra-red info swapping - there is not one component of today's
cutting edge technology that was not 'just another wild idea' less
than a decade ago.
Remember: a frog's reality extends only as far as his tongue. That's
as far as he needs to see in order to catch all the flies he needs
to make a living. Like frogs, what is 'real' for humans tends to
extend only as far as what is necessary to insure survival. When
what is necessary for your survival is expanding by the nanosecond,
so must our willingness to re-define reality. Get magic-minded
today. Move in that direction and the adventure has begun.
Keep On Your Bearing
Long ago, while riding my horse across the pampas of Argentina,
a lone gaucho shared his philosophy of existence. "There is nowhere
to go, and nothing to do," he told me, "Except to be of service".
Years later I have come to recognize that, the tougher the territory
the more essential are these instructions. The psychologist and
concentration camp survivor Victor Frankl coined the term
logotherapy to describe the staying-power derived from a life of
meaning, a life of connection to others, in short, a life of
service.
The step of keep on your bearing reminds us of our connection to
others, the importance of the work we do - not just for ourselves
but for others. It has been noted throughout history that whether an
endeavor is in the world of invention, commerce or exploration, our
greatest capacities unfold when we are in service of others.
Enjoy the View
The mountaintop experience affords vistas like no other. The
world down below that we inhabit on a regular basis is clearly
visible from a lofty perspective. If our houses appear that
miniscule, we ask ourselves, how big could our house payments
possibly be? If office buildings are the size of pinheads, how large
can our inter-cubicle conflicts and career-track woes really be?
Though the summit is a location we cannot long remain, it is a place
we can refocus, re-prioritize and gather the view by which to
navigate when we return to the lower regions. The mountain-top is a
place to honor our victories and fill our hearts with gratitude. It
is in these celebratory moments that we grab the gusto that keeps us
going - and giving.
And Finally - Cultivate the Crunch
Adventure is the balance of challenge, mastery and anxiety that
keep us coming back for more. One day, flying back from a speaking
engagement in Orlando, I found myself seated next to the
self-proclaimed tortilla chip guru of the world. As the gentleman in
5A shared his wisdom from years of experience as head of research
and development for the most successful tortilla chip in history, I
discovered that he was actually elucidating fundamental principles
of the universe.
"Have you ever found myself wondering why?" queried the Guru, "That,
no matter how many tortilla chips you had already consumed and how
dry your mouth was - even when you could hardly swallow and your
brain cried out for liquid - why was there always a tiny, yet
infinitely persuasive voice with another plan? A voice that always
seemed to overpower every other desire, whispering, 'how about just
one more chip?'" "Yes," I admitted. I knew that voice. "It's the
crunch," he said. "You just can't help yourself. You've got to have
another!" This was not the answer I had anticipated. I had expected
some twenty-lettered multi-syllabic chemical compound. But this was
not the case.
"It's not additives. It isn't even the flavor," he reiterated,
looking me straight in the eye. "It's the crunch. Too much crunch?
Well, that's kind of like work, isn't it? Who wants to work when
they eat a chip? Nobody. But, not enough crunch and you know what?
There is nothing. It melts in your mouth sure, but there is no
experience. That is the secret of it all," confided the Tortilla
Chip Guru. "Just the right crunch. "
The heavens parted, I knew I had just glimpsed one of the greatest
truths of a lifetime. It was time to stow and lock our tray table
and put our seat backs into a full and upright position. But I would
never be the same.
The crunch is adventure. The cure for the symptoms of Adventure
Deficit Disorder is cultivation of the crunch. Without the
occasional challenge, touch of risk, high drama and uncertainty,
life becomes a drab and colorless trudge. Too much, and we are
anxious. With just the right crunch we can't wait to help ourselves
to one more day of life.
Adventure 101 is not an elective, it is a requirement for a
successful and satisfying life. "I can't say I love danger, but I
love a life of risk. I want life to demand of me, at every moment,
all my courage, all my happiness and all my health", wrote Andre
Gide. To rekindle our love affair with life and work means that when
faced with uncertainty, hardship and doubt we opt for the positive
perspective of adventure. Our greatest happiness comes not from
accomplishment but from the process itself, finding the balance
point appropriate to our unique personality on that continuum
between the poles of the thundering adrenaline of wild dare-deviltry
and equally deadly inertia of a sedentary life on easy street. When
navigated skillfully, there is indeed nowhere to go and nothing to
do. Simply living life everyday with caring and daring becomes the
greatest adventure of all.
.
Jeff Salz, PhD
creates the foundation for adventurous thinking in any organization
by presenting a unique perspective on taking risks. It's not the
adventure that only occurs at rarefied air that he talks about -
it's the adventure that occurs everywhere, everyday.
Copyright © 2008 by Jeff Salz. All Rights Reserved.
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