Tweet

Adventure Learning

Guest post by: Eric Douglas

Article Overview: One avenue to personal growth and change is adventure learning. By doing physically demanding things outside your normal comfort zone, you can go beyond your day-to-day coping mechanisms and discover what's truly important to you with great clarity.

Adventure Learning

One avenue to personal growth and change is via adventure learning. By doing physically demanding things outside your normal comfort zone, you can go beyond your day-to-day coping mechanisms and discover what's truly important to you with great clarity. Here's an example: Several years ago I joined twenty other leaders in a redwood forest in the Sierra Nevada foothills near my home in California. Strung high in the trees around us were a cobweb of woven rope lines, steel cables, and cargo nets. The instructor divided us into groups of two. I was paired with Ray, the head of a non-profit organization.

When it was our turn, Ray and I clipped belaying ropes to our climbing harnesses. We climbed up a 75-foot rope ladder to a small wood platform high in the trees. In the distance we could see the sunlight sparkling off a blue lake. Down below, our instructor shouted words of encouragement. Stretching before us, attached to the small platform, were two thick cables. Where we were standing, the gap between the cables was about three feet. Farther out, the gap was ten feet. Our task was to venture onto these cables, Ray on one, me on the other. As we walked out, we would support each other, but eventually the gap would become too great and we would fall. Our belayers would support us when we did. But still - we were destined to fall 75 feet to the ground.

Here are the notes I took on the experience:

"We're about three feet apart. Ray is facing me. We lock eyes and move slowly away from the platform. One step, then another, our feet sliding in a synchronous motion. We are enjoying the view. I take time to breathe deeply, to enjoy the view of the redwood trees and the sparkling lake beyond.

"Looking good," our belay team shouts from down below.

"Tuck your butts in," someone shouts.

As we straighten our bodies, we feel more stable. Purely from an architectural point of view, we're trying to create a triangle. Our bodies are the two sides. An imaginary line between the two cables is the base (though an ever-expanding one - which is the problem!). So long as we are stable, the base is stable. So long as our belayers are there, we are confident in our ability to take one more step outside our comfort zone.

"What are you thinking about?" I ask Ray.

"Simplicity," he says.

I get what he means immediately. Every other worry has boiled away. We have a single purpose.

"One more step," I say. We are starting to sweat. I can feel my shoulders burn. One more step and our bodies are close to a 90-degree angle, supported only by each other.

"This is good," I say. "Good and simple."

Ray grins. "Yep, we're fine so long as we relax."

We take a deep breath again, and then one more step. The pressure on my legs is growing. "I wonder if anyone's ever made it all the way across," I say.

"Only NBA players," Ray jokes.

I take one more step. The team below is cheering wildly. "You're almost horizontal," shouts one of the belayers. They urge us on. I try to lift my foot again and shake my head. "I think we can make one more step," Ray says. "Let's do it in unison." We both try to lift our feet at the same time, but the motion nearly makes us fall. "Nope, that doesn't work," I say. "You go, and then I'll go."

I slide one more small step and feel my shoulders growing numb. The belay rope tugs at my harness. Our heads are against each other and I'm looking right into his eyes.

"What do you think?" he says. "Ready to step off?"

"We could just stay here."

We laugh. Then we count out, "One, two, three," and step into the air. We fall toward the ground, there's a momentary sense of panic, and then a jerk, and a feeling of utter exhilaration as we float to the ground.

Later, when everyone's gone through the same exercise, we debrief each other on our experience. Everyone is smiling.

"Fear is the great leveler," someone says.

"I wish I could feel this good every day," says another.

"What comparable challenges do we each face?" someone asks.

We look at each other.

"Up there, we have a choice," someone says. "We can either choose to stop going. Or we can take the next step into the unknown. And every member of this team chose to keep going into the unknown."

Related Articles
  What is an Adventure Travel Agent
  A Great Adventure For Learning
  Smart Women and the Movie
  Team Building Games and Adventures
  First Step
  4 Ways to Raise Your Bottom Line by Being Adventurous in Your Business
  Remain Open to Learning and New Ideas
  A Daring Adventure
  Fear vs. Courage
  Paddles, Portages and Pings on Leadership
  Speak Up! Get out there and find an audience for what you do.
  If You Want to Succeed … Have a Plan!
  Network Marketing In The 21st Century
  The 7 Universal Laws of Learning
  Be An Adventure Capitalist
  Discover Internet Marketing Home Business Ideas
  How to Integrate Keywords Into Your Web Site Copy
  Fear can be fun.
  Evaluating E-Learning
  11 Great Ways to Be Positive About Change

Article Tags: adventure, clarity, comfort zone, coping mechanisms, learning, personal growth



Related Forum Posts
Re: My Favourite 7 Boldest Entrepreneur Moves of All Time - Hi Evan, I have a new suggestion for "Boldest Entrepreneur Moves of All Time" and a suggestion for your Learning from the Masters series: 1. Boldest Entrepreneur Moves of All Time = Christopher Columbus: "... he saw the possibility of treasure and commerce where others saw only danger. He committed so wholeheartedly to that vision that not even dozens of rejections and ongoing penury could dissuade him from pursuing a journey to Asia via the West. He built on his technical strengths as a seaman to plan a viable journey and eventually marshal an expedition." - Christopher Hoenig, 6 Essential Secrets for Thinking on a New Level I bought Hoenig's book about 10 years ago but couldn't make head or tail of it then... reading it now and finding it inspirational... 2. Nomination for Learning from the Masters video: Dee Hock, founder of VISA. (Source = Hoenig.)
Re: 3 Ways I Used Twitter To Grow My Business This Week - Hi Olivia, It seems you are working in the area of leadership area. Is Leadership = Learning? I am looking for some good books on strategy? Which one do you recommend? Thanks, Robert
What is your hit ratio? - Like most entrepreneurs I have more ideas for where I want to take my business than I can handle. I believe in the "fail early, fail often" philosophy and try to find small ways to get started on a project to see if it has any legs. I would estimate that for every 50 things I try, most of them don't have an impact for me, 10 of them have a slightly positive impact, and 1 hits it really big. Some of my big wins over the past few years have been: * Learning the ins and outs of search engine optimization to drive traffic * Putting up and optimizing Google AdSense ads to monetize the website * Deciding to be the leader in profiling famous entrepreneurs online * Recruiting outside authors to help contribute to the website content (now have over 25,000 pages) * Creating the entrepreneur forums * Bringing on staff to help cope with the daily amount of work required to keep things running smoothly What is your hit ratio and some of your big wins?
Re: September Contest Winners, New October Contest! - Hello, everybody: The prizes are great - especially since it costs nothing to participate. But the best benefit of a contest like this (whether you win a prize or not) is that it gets you motivated to do something you should already be doing regularly anyway. And that is forum participation, of course. Immersing yourself in a marketing community helps you get info, ideas, insight, inspiration, insider knowledge, encouragement, confidence, feedback and friends. Learning from others is great. Sharing your own info and insight with others is great. Networking your products and services is great. Building your online image or brand is great. The more you post, the more exposure you get. The more value you offer in your posts, the better your reputation becomes as a knowledgeable and capable service provider. It doesn't matter whether or not you win a prize ... if you are participating regularly all month long, you are already a winner! That makes you a leader and leadership has its rewards. Aim for the prize, but rejoice in the example you are setting as a leader in Evan's entrepreneur community. GT :-]
Re: 5 Skills for work at home people - Have you ever heard the saying, "Do what you do best and let others do the rest!"? I must admit that I tend to want to do it all, but I have learned that others can do a far better job so that I can really put my focus on the areas I most enjoy and tend to be best at. Marketing is one of these areas. When I don't delegate some of these things, my productivity actually goes down. Am I the only one who has realized she can't have a balanced life and still continue to do all the menial tasks?! Therefore, the skill that is missing for work at home people is: Learning to "let go" and delegating some of your tasks! It sounds like the man who built a business by outsourcing most of it had an entrepreneurial idea of what he wanted to create. We're all different and he seems more of an overseer or visionary. How great for him! I think it would be fun to really implement business ideas without having to do the things I don't enjoy so much! It also sounds like he created what they call a "true business", where he could walk away and the business would still run itself. I'm actually trying to create that with the new store I'm setting up. Once it gets going, I plan on delegating most of the work so I can continue to do the other work I love from home.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Leader's Success Secret: Celebration

Making the Most of Your Trade Show Experience

How to Write Your Articles for Better SEO

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.