When Alex Honnold successfully climbed El Capitan without a rope in 2017, he instantly became world famous. The reaction to his achievement was mixed – some people thought it was one of the most amazing things ever achieved by a human being, while others (sometimes the same people!) thought he was a fool with a deathwish encouraging people to risk their lives.
My own relationship to this story falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. I have spent my life going on adventures, big and small. And I have learned so much about myself through those adventures. I’ve learned exactly where my limit is, I’ve learned how much I can push my limit, and I’ve learned that I have way more strength, resilience and determination than I ever thought possible. While I can’t imagine being there myself, I know that when Alex Honnold stepped onto that wall, he was 100% certain that he would successfully complete the climb. 100% certain that he knew every move, every hold, every inch of that route inside out. And I knew that the process he went through to be ready for this climb was deep, intense, and thorough.
I know that Alex was a child who had such severe anxiety that it was less scary for him to scale rockfaces, alone and without a rope, than it was to talk to someone else who might belay him. I know that as a child growing up, I also felt unsafe. An ear infection at the age of 4 made me completely deaf, but no-one realised anything was wrong for several months, and at the same time my family moved from London to Saudi Arabia, and my world was turned upside down. This was the beginning of my story of not fitting in, which continued through boarding school, where I was bullied mercilessly for my homesickness by the other kids. And when my parents divorced at 12, I found myself with no sense of home. I bounced around from school, to one parent and then to another. Between the ages of 9 and 20 I was never in the same country for more than three consecutive months. I had no idea what the word ‘home’ meant.
Now this is not to say that my parents didn’t love me, or that I ever wanted for anything in my early life. My parents are wonderful people who only wanted the best for me. They were doing the best they could in the situation they found themselves in, and I loved the school holidays, going on trips, learning to drive in the desert, more or less living at the waterskiing club in Dubai…I had a wonderful childhood. But underneath it all was an underlying sense that I didn’t fit in, that I didn’t have a home, and fundamentally that I didn’t feel safe.
All of this began to change for me when I discovered adventure. To this day, when I visit the Llanberis Pass in Snowdonia, North Wales, my shoulders drop, and I truly feel that sense of “I’m home”. It was through adventure that I found my people, that I was able to create safety for myself and those around me, safety in unsafe places. It was in the wild that I expanded my edge, discovered how much I was capable of, and how much stronger I was than I thought I could ever be. Like Alex, I found my place in the world through adventure.
The Adventure Effect – How Adventure Acts as a Gateway to the Soul?
Curtis and I are beyond excited to be able to offer to you some of the lessons that the wilderness has taught us over the years.
We live in a world of risk management, but we want to have a conversation about comfort management instead. What are the benefits of stepping out of our comfort zone and who do we become when we do it regularly?
Over the course of three days, we will be guiding a conversation around what we learn about ourselves and the world around us by expanding our horizons physically, emotionally and spiritually, and how we can integrate these lessons into our lives as entrepreneurs.
Some concepts we will discuss over the weekend
Adventure consciousness: Adventure strips away the layers we have spent a lifetime applying – child, daughter, student, accountant, husband, employee, boss…and reveals to us who we really are. Who do you become when you strip away all the masks?
Comfort Management: We live in such a safe, sterile world that we have forgotten what it means to take risks. There are entire careers dedicated to reducing and eliminating risk. We have got too comfortable. We are going to turn the concept of risk management on its head – what do we gain by introducing more risk into our lives and managing the level of comfort that we experience each day?
Enrich Humanity: There is so much talk of changing the world – everybody wants to change the world. But this implies that the world is broken and needs fixing, which can be overwhelming and daunting for people who want to make a difference. Enriching the conversation is a different story – while it is virtually impossible to measure ‘change’ in the world, it is very easy to see how an individual has enriched humanity, and for others to take inspiration from that.
Email [email protected] to find out more about the Adventure effect. We would love your voice to be a part of the conversation!