Episode 66: Anatomy of a Road Trip

Hey, welcome to the podcast. Deco and I are out on a road trip today. We actually just got up this morning. I felt like I needed to get out, need to get out with my pup. And we headed to an area that I used to hunt. And it wasn't— that wasn't really the destination. It was more about just getting out. And I wasn't really sure what was calling me out. I felt very called out today to get out into the outdoors a little bit. Hey, welcome to the podcast. My name is Rob Anderson. And today, we're going to talk about journeys. We're going to talk about road trips. So, a little bit about me. I've got over 2 decades working in Fortune 500 companies, working with leadership development, working with individual contributors, working with high performers, working with people who are stuck. People— I'm working with people just like you. I spent 8 years coaching veterans. Through Aquatic Adventures. And I average about 300 hours a year doing life coaching, leadership coaching, and performance coaching. And welcome to the Stand Sure Podcast. Hey, today's preframe is pretty simple. If you're waiting on clarity before you move, this episode is going to challenge you. We're talking about adventure, not the reckless kind, But the disciplined kind, the kind that builds identity, the kind that turns confusion into direction. I'll break down why movement creates clarity, how literal road trips mirror psychological growth, and I'll give you 3 practical ways to apply this immediately, including journaling and how coaching accelerates the journey. So let's go ahead and get into this. You know, there is just, there's something about loading up the vehicle And hitting the road. You know it, you feel it. And you know, you may not have the entire trip memorized, you may not even have a destination. And man, some on the weekends, those are some of the best road trips. You just might have a general direction you're heading to, and that's what we were kind of doing today. But the moment you merge onto that highway and then start hitting the back roads, right? I do a lot of back road and a lot of dirt road travel. For me, man, once I hit those— Once I hit that highway and then I'm merging off onto those smaller roads, there inside me, something shifts internally. And I know that you have felt that. And when that happens, man, your perspective widens, especially that first part, right? You're headed up, you got everything loaded up. Maybe you grab a coffee for on the way out of town, might grab a quick breakfast or something. You got snacks loaded up, got your drinks loaded up, got the dog loaded up, whatever it is that you're taking, right? And man, once you get out of the house and you hit that freeway or that main road, your perspective widens and you stop obsessing over what's behind you and you focus on what's unfolding ahead. And here's the metaphor: life works the same way. So I'm going to speak specifically to men that I coach because that's— being a guy, I relate to that. And this is where I've seen a lot of that come out. But most men that I coach, they're waiting for certainty before they move. They want the 5-year plan. They want the guaranteed return on investment. They want emotional reassurance that the next step is going to work. But you know what, guys? Growth doesn't happen in the driveway. It happens in motion. Joseph Campbell's hero journey framework shows up across cultures for a reason. The hero always leaves home. There's always a threshold. There's always uncertainty. And then identity is forged and challenged, not in comfort. You don't become who you're capable of being by being parked in the driveway, by sitting at the kitchen table with a map. And psychology backs it up. James Marcia's work on identity development. It shows that exploration is required before commitment. In simple terms, you don't discover who you are by thinking harder. You discover who you are by testing, by acting, by trying, by adjusting. Behavior has to come before clarity. And when we look at neuroscience, it just adds another layer. This is why during the 1990s and early 2000s, when you would go and do experiential training, like high ropes courses, low ropes courses, and outdoor adventure, and I was part of that industry where we would do leadership courses and leadership workshops in the outdoors. In fact, I actually ran a leadership workshop that was all based around scuba. Novelty stimulates dopamine pathways and enhances neuroplasticity, and that's your brain's ability to build new connections. New environments, new challenges, new experiences literally reshape neural networks. And adventure isn't just for fun. It's not just poetic, but it's biological. And that period of time, I mean, we were really, really onto something. I am grateful every single day that I had a chance to work around people like Dr. John Johnson from Team Leadership in San Antonio, Texas. It taught me a lot of this stuff, man. That was back 1999 to 2005. It's the same reason why road trips feel clarifying. It's a reason why— and again, I'm going to talk to the men here— that's why us as guys, we have to get out and we have to adventure. Sometimes that adventure is just taking a road trip. It's just driving around for the day. I am blessed where I live, man. I'm 30, 45 minutes from being in the backcountry. But even if it's those long highways, you know, long highways, they teach us patience. You know, you're driving along, unexpected traffic builds up, and as it's doing that, it's building adaptability. If you miss an exit, and I've had that experience, they create problem solving. Scenic overlooks, man, coming out today. High chances that, that Dico and I, we pull off to the side of the road right along the Black Canyon Reservoir. And those scenic overlooks, they reset perspective. And when you arrive, man, we came out to a place today that I used to, I used to do a lot of bird hunting. It's not even bird season. And we're limited in the areas that we can go. But man, I gotta tell you, when I, when I got out here, I realized something. The destination matters, but who I became on the way out here, that mattered even more. And life milestones operate the same way, whether it's the next promotion, the next relationship, the next version of you, the next version of your relationship. The next level of discipline—they don't show up fully informed right there in your driveway. They reveal themselves because you moved. Way too many people are stuck because they're trying to see the whole map before they turn the key. You don't need the whole map. What you need is. So let's take this now. Let's take this and make it very practical. I'm going to give you 3 hot tips. Number 1, journal the journey, not just the goals. Stop journaling about outcomes. Start journaling about movement. That's a great point. I am big on adventure journaling for my divers. So, in scuba diving, we don't do dive logs. We do dive journaling because it's the person that you find who you are on that dive trip or during the dive. And if you're not a diver, that's cool. Journal anyway. I'm sitting right here. My notes for this podcast are in my journal. My podcasts come out of, directly out of things that I put in my journal, and they're usually pretty timely. And what happens is I'll be sitting there going through my journal and I might put a picture of that day or put a picture of the The place we went to, or if it's Brooks and I out diving together or adventuring together, I'll put in pictures of that. Maybe receipts if I had to buy something, maybe a postcard. Stop journaling about the outcome. Start journaling about the movement. At the end of each day, at the end of each journaling session or during the journaling session, there's 3 questions I want you to ask yourself. Number 1. What risk did I take today? And it may be small. My risk today is I wanted to make sure I didn't wake up my wife. I wanted to let her sleep in. Number 2, what discomfort did I lean into? And number 3, what did I learn about myself? 3 questions. By the way, I'll make sure these are in the notes. And it's great if you and I can actually connect and you and I can go through those and we can use road trips as part of our coaching strategy that we go through. Research from psychologists On expressive writing shows that structured reflection improves emotional processing. And when you document movement, you reinforce progress. You stop feeling lost because you can see growth unfolding in real time. Again, talk to other guys. Most men underestimate this. They think journaling is soft. Guys don't journal. Guys don't write dear diaries. And again, I mean, I purposely don't call it a diary. It's a journal. Specifically, it's an adventure journal. It's not soft. Think about it like this. It's data collection on your own evolution. All right. Hot tip number 2. Build intentional micro-adventures. By the way, this is great for relationships. If you can get your partner to go out with you, get up early. But if it's just solo, sometimes— again, talking to men here— as men, there are times we just need to get out. For me, I'll be straight up about this, I used to get out just so I could hear the voice of God. And that's what today is about. Build intentional micro-adventures. You don't need a plane ticket to build adventure. You don't have to go climb a crazy mountain. It doesn't have to be huge. Build intentional micro-adventures. Hey, if you're super busy, take a different route to work. Be intentional about taking a different route to work because you are going to see Things that you haven't seen before. And you're going to notice things that you haven't noticed before. And just, it, it, it fuels your brain. I purposely take a different route to work about every 2 or 3 weeks. But you don't need a plane ticket. Again, take a different route to work. Start the hard conversation. Sign up for a class. Lift a little heavier. Introduce controlled novelty into your life. Research on psychological flexibility, which is a key predictor of resilience and performance, it shows that exposure to new experiences increases your adaptability and your stress tolerance. Because when you stretch yourself on a volunteer basis, life stretches you less violently. And I show this a lot in a— I've got a couple of videos out there, but in just a chalkboard exercise, I'll draw 3 circles. The very inner circle is that comfort zone. The very, very outward part is the panic zone. Well, in between there, you've got the learning zone. What happens is, as you go from your comfort zone into that learning zone, pretty soon the comfort zone begins to expand. Then you step out a little bit more and it expands. That's why when I'm teaching scuba diving, you don't just jump into the deep end of the pool and you figure it out. We start in the shallow end. And it starts out with not even putting your head in the water, but breathing through the regulator. And then when you're ready, you gently put your face in the water and you breathe bubbles. And then we keep moving through that, and pretty soon, within maybe an hour, we're in the deep end of the pool. When I was teaching rappelling, I did the same thing. We wouldn't just come off the side of a 60-foot or 50-foot or even a 40-foot rappel at a 90-degree angle. We started out at 60-degree angles and working our way backwards. Actually, I used to start out at a 40-degree angle, then move to 60. They moved to 80. So it was a steep incline, and they moved someone to 90. It should— you know, when you stretch yourself on a voluntary basis, life stretches you less violently. All those small adventures, they compound. Small courage compounds. Small movement compounds. All right. Hot tip number 3, stop doing this alone. Stop navigating alone. This is where coaching comes in. Every serious expedition has structure. It has maps. It has checkpoints. It has accountability. Coaching does that for your life. I don't care if it's me. That's great. I would love to walk in this journey. If not, Find a coach that you can work with. Not every coach-client relationship works. I've got people that we've decided it's just not going to work, but I found a lot that I do find it works well. Coaching accelerates insight. It turns vague restlessness into measurable direction. It challenges your blind spots and forces clarity through disciplined conversations. Hey guys, I was just as guilty of this. What happens is, as guys, we delay coaching because we think that we should be able to figure this out for ourselves. I was that guy. But what happens is isolation slows your growth. Once I got a coach and my clients that come to me, now that they have a coach, that structure speeds things up. You see, when you're on a long road trip and you're not sure about the route, you don't keep guessing for 5 hours. Even if you're just out being a nomad wandering around, You still have check-ins. You check the map, you recalibrate, and you move in that direction. And that's what coaching does. Coach is recalibration. And here's the bigger truth. Adventure is not about chaos. It's about intentional exploration. It's about deciding that stagnation is more dangerous than uncertainty. When I was in the military and someone would refuse to take an action when they needed to take an action, we called it DIP— die in place. And I got to tell you, there are so many men out there today, that's exactly what they're doing, is that they're dying in place. They're quietly dying in place. Not just physically. Emotionally, spiritually. Some of you listening right now, you're parked in your driveway. You're capable, you're intelligent, you're disciplined, but you're waiting. You're waiting on perfect timing. You're waiting for full confidence. You're waiting for that external validation. No one's coming to rescue you. You've got to reach out. You see, identity is built in tangible acts, in early mornings and hard conversations, in risks that are taken quietly, and miles driven before sunrise. You don't discover yourself by overthinking. You discover yourself by moving. So here's the question. I want you to really think about this. What's the next mile for you? Not the next 5 years, not the perfect roadmap, just the next mile. Start right there. Get in your rig, turn the key, merge into traffic, adjust as you go. And if you want structured support while you're building that momentum, if you're ready to stop circling and start progressing, Reach out. Book the session. Let's build your roadmap with intention. Hey, if this resonated with you, I desperately want to work with you. I've been there. I've been stuck. And occasionally I get stuck again. I think I was stuck until this weekend. I would love to be on that road trip with you or to help you set up your own road trip. Discover who you are. All right. The website is standsurecoaching.com. When you go on there, book a free discovery call. Let's get on there. Let's talk. Let's begin moving forward. That's all I got for this episode. I want you to have a blessed day. Thank you, Stan. Blessed day. And let's go do a road trip.