The Adventure Imperative
Life is an adventure.
Leadership should be.
I love hearing people talk about bringing a sense of adventure to their life. And maybe even more so to their work, because it’s less common.
While we typically associate the word adventure with rafting down a river, climbing a mountain, or flying off to exotic places, being adventurous is most essentially just that—a way of being—an openness and strength of heart—that lies beneath the particulars of our doing.
In everyday life and work, when we turn a problem into an opportunity, we are being adventurous. When we turn conflict or an elephant in the room into an opening to build trust, create understanding, and solve problems, we are being adventurous. When we push for a new way of thinking, or for trying something new, we are being adventurous.
This adventurous way of being is essential to fully living and truly leading. We can manage people and projects without it. But we can’t truly inspire people, evoke creative contribution, uncover new possibilities, and unleash hidden potential in others without being adventurous.
Being adventurous is a choice to:
Face discomfort.
Adventure happens most often at the edges of our comfort zones—in the moments when a conversation feels too heated or too intimate, we feel vulnerable, or our confidence is challenged. These are moments that our more-timid selves want to avoid, but our adventurous selves are willing and grateful to face because we know they will lead to expanded capabilities and experience of life.
Take risk.
Lean into life and leadership. Which doesn’t mean we’re not afraid. It means we face the possibility of failure or disappointment as part of life. It means we venture into life, including what feels risky, rather than hide out from it. It means we listen to our fears for the wisdom they may hold, rather than allow them to derail us.
Embrace change.
Life is unpredictable and ever changing. We can resist this, or embrace it. While that might sound a bit cliché, the real power of embracing change lies in how actively we welcome it—with a sense of gratitude and positive anticipation—versus passively accept it. To actively embrace change creates the possibility of it being a positive creative force in our lives, versus something we simply survive.
Questions to ponder, and if you have a journaling practice, to write about…
What is one area of your life you are ready to be more adventurous in?
Recall a time when you took a risk, and faced the fear or discomfort that came with it. What was the outcome of that experience? How did it change you?
More in the Power Pathways Series…
The Adventure Imperative is the eighth in a series of posts exploring a wheel of twelve “power pathways”—avenues for expressing our power to be the creators and authors of our lives. Read the whole series here →
Here’s the full wheel, connected conceptually and practically to radical responsibility and the four cardinal disciplines of conscious leadership – inspiration, integrity, courage, and clarity.
