Episode 91: Why Adventure Matters

Hey, when was the last time that you felt fully alive? Not entertained, not distracted, not comfortable, but actually alive. Maybe it was standing on a summit after grinding your way uphill for hours. Maybe, you know, like last night for me, going underwater, dropping down, getting cold, having it get dark. And all you hear is the sound of your own breathing. Maybe it's halfway through a backpacking trip when you realize that everything that you needed was strapped to you, or picking your way through technical terrain on a mountain bike where you have to have your full attention and hesitation can actually get you hurt. I've done long-distance off-road motorcycle trips, hundreds of miles You're hundreds of miles from home. You're dirty. You're tired. And you're completely dependent on your ability to keep moving forward and take care of issues as they come up. Or maybe it's sitting around a fire at the end of a long day, realizing that you're exhausted, but you're absolutely content. Because you don't remember the ordinary days that you sat at your desk or you sat on the couch. Or every night that you spent staring, doom-scrolling on a screen, but you remember the moments that demand something from you, the ones that required strength, judgment, courage, patience, problem-solving, sometimes a little bit of grit. You remember the moments when you had to pay attention because those are the moments that remind you that you're alive. And you know, the problem isn't that our lives are too difficult. Maybe, you know, just maybe some of us, our lives are so predictable, they're too comfortable, they're controlled, that we've moved many of the experiences that once demanded our full attention, our full participation. And somewhere underneath all that responsibility, somewhere underneath the routine and the comfort, There's still just a little bit of wildness in our hearts. You see, adventure has a way of waking it up, not because adventure allows you to escape yourself, but because adventure introduces you to yourself. Hey, welcome to The Stand. Welcome to the Life Coaching Podcast. I'm Rob Anderson, and I think of my life in 3 chapters. The first one, my service in the military in some of the most challenging environments of my entire life. The second chapter, 25 years of designing and delivering leadership development in both Fortune 500 and mid-sized companies. And now I'm in my third chapter as a full-time life and leadership coach where I help people who feel stuck to rediscover Who they are, transform how they live, and move forward with purpose. And that's what this podcast is all about. Welcome to Stan Schurer Coaching. Hey, today we're talking about why adventure matters. And when I say adventure, you know, for me, a lot of my life lately has been around scuba diving, but that's not where— I mean, that's not everything. I love archery hunting. And I hunt with a longbow and wooden arrows. And yes, with scuba diving, I've spent thousands of hours underwater. And diving is, you know, it certainly has shaped how I see challenge and preparation and risk and staying calm. But I've also spent a lot of time hiking, backpacking, traveling long distance on back roads with either my Jeep or my motorcycle, getting into places where Comfort and convenience, they're just not guaranteed. And I've been in places where there wasn't a quick solution available, hiding out in a cove on a lake as a tornado went through. Places where weather mattered, preparation mattered, where judgment mattered, and where quitting just, you know, honestly quitting is not an option. There's no way to quit. And those experiences, they taught me something. Adventure doesn't just come about by accident. It has to happen on a trail. It has to happen underwater, on a mountain, on a motorcycle, on a rock face, or anywhere else that puts you into a meaningful relationship with challenge, uncertainty, and adventure. And discovery. And no, you don't have to go climb Everest. No, you don't have to go and do North Atlantic shipwrecks. You don't need to climb a rock face or ride a motorcycle across the backcountry. Adventure is personal. It's challenge by choice. But with that, I believe most of us need something in our lives That occasionally takes us beyond the predictable, something that requires preparation and courage and your complete attention, because adventure wakes up part of us that everyday life just slowly puts to sleep. And today we're going to look at what psychology tells us about challenge and flow. We're going to talk about why spending time in nature can affect the way we think and the way that we feel. We're going to discuss about that wildness in our hearts and why I believe that we need to protect it. And most importantly, we're going to talk about how the lessons that are learned on a mountain, on a trail, underwater, 2 wheels or 4 wheels, can help us live more abundantly. When we come back home. And at the end, I'm gonna tell you about one simple way that we can continue that conversation together. So let's get into it. One of the things that I love living from a wild heart is whether it's on a motorcycle or backpacking, being on mountains, trails, underwater, those are times and places where the normal noise of life just disappears. There's no meetings, there's no inbox, There's no notifications popping up on your screen. Sometimes there's no cell service. It's just you. It's you, the environment, the preparation that you made, and whatever happens next. And here's what those experiences have taught me and can teach you. Adventure doesn't necessarily change who you are. Adventure reveals who you are. Who you are. I want to say it one more time. Adventure doesn't change who you are. Adventure reveals who you are. Because comfort can hide a lot of things. You know, sitting on the couch doom scrolling, eating a bag of chips, watching Game of Thrones or Ozarks or whatever reality show that you're watching. Comfort hides a lot of things. Adventure exposes them. Get tired enough and you'll learn something about yourself. Get cold enough, you're going to learn something about yourself. You're going to get lost, you're going to learn something about yourself. Have equipment fail, get caught up in bad weather, start finding yourself staring at another 10 miles on a trail when your body wants to stop. You're going to learn something about yourself. When things that are unexpected happen, whether it's underwater or on a trail or your bike breaking down or your Jeep breaking down, how do you respond when the original plan disappears? Do you panic? Do you get angry? Do you blame somebody? Do you freeze? Do you stop? I remember being out hunting on a Thanksgiving morning. I was up in the Danskin Mountains and my truck kept sliding off the road. Finally, I hit a point where I was like, okay, I'm just, I'm just going to stop right here. And I remember being really mad at God, of all things, because I was— we were in a situation where I had to put meat in the freezer. I was tired of not feeling like I was providing for my family. Things economically were really, really tough, and I needed to put meat in the freezer. And my truck kept getting stuck. I couldn't get up to the spot that I needed to get to. I just could not get past that little section of the road, so I get out of my truck. I am mad. I'm yelling at the top of my voice. As I'm trying to get my bow out, I drop my bow. So then I get mad, I throw my arrow quiver. So a few minutes later, I'm picking up all my stuff. I'm like, okay, God, I don't know why you're doing this to me. As I step into the brush, one of the biggest bucks I have ever seen runs off. He sat there the entire time watching my temper tantrum. Man, I learned a lot about myself that day. When something unexpected happens, you definitely learn things about yourself. And again, do you panic? Do you blame somebody? Do you freeze up, not make a decision? Or do you stop and assess the situation, make a decision, adapt, move? That's not just adventure, that's life. At some point on this podcast, I'm going to tell a story about— or 2 stories I'll tell you. One is about being stranded in the desert for 3 days without water. The other one I want to tell you about is getting pinned in a place called Mike's Hole on the Payette River. And being pinned so long, I started to pass out. Again, that's not just adventure, that's life. And by the way, those are some bad stories. I've got some great stories too. Psychology gives us one explanation for why these experiences can become so powerful, and it's called flow. Flow occurs when the challenge in front of you is demanding enough To rewire your abilities because they require your abilities without completely overwhelming them. You see, what happens is that your attention narrows. You become deeply engaged in what you're doing, and something remarkable happens. You start building a neural pathway around that. In that situation, the noise starts disappearing. You're not thinking about an argument from yesterday. You're not worried about the bills that you need to pay. You're not worried about next Thursday. You're not checking your phone every 30 seconds. You are there in that moment right now doing that thing. For those of you who do mountain biking, you're going through technical terrain. You're looking at the line. You're reading the terrain. You're managing your speed. You're positioning your body. You're anticipating what's coming next. Maybe it's in rock climbing. Your attention becomes incredibly specific— your hands, your feet, your balance, your breathing, that next hold. You know, when I'm underwater, I'm watching my depth, how much air I have, my buoyancy. My buddy, the environment, navigating, and I'm breathing right there, right now. Be where your feet are. That's a cool thing about adventure that adventure teaches you. Be where your feet are, whether it's your fins or your tires, your climbing shoes, Your hiking shoes. Be here, because so much of modern life trains us to do the opposite. We're physically in one place while mentally living somewhere else. You could be sitting in an airport and you're doom-scrolling through TikTok or Facebook or other social media, and you're not in that airport. We're physically in one place while mentally living somewhere else. We're eating dinner, we're thinking about work. We're working while thinking about home. We're talking to somebody while looking at a screen. Our bodies are here, our minds are elsewhere. Adventure has a way of bringing those 2 things back together. And then, and then there's just nature itself. Research has shown us again and again and again that associated time in natural environments— When we're out there, when we're in nature, they've shown improvements in mood, attention, perceived stress, psychological well-being. But as, you know, as I study this, and I've been studying this part for 25 years, my whole thing around Adventure IQ, it started around survival psychology. And that's where I was pursuing my PhD in, was understanding that part of our lives and how adventure has huge impacts, how adventure and nature have huge impacts on our well-being. But the part that really interests me is perspective. You see, you get far enough away from your normal environment And things start looking really different. A problem that seemed really big for you, that seemed enormous on Wednesday afternoon, can feel a little different when you're standing on the side of a mountain on Saturday morning. You go out and you spend several days traveling by Jeep or by motorcycle with everything that you need packed into a very small space, and you start reconsidering how much stuff do you actually need. With backpacking, multi-day backpacking trips, you carry everything on your back for a few days and you quickly learn the difference between something you want and something that you're willing to carry uphill. Adventure strips things down, and sometimes that's exactly what we need. But I believe that there's something else happening out there, and it's this: adventure reconnects us with the wildness in our hearts. I want to say that again. Write this down, please. Adventure reconnects us with the wildness in our hearts. And when I say wildness, I don't mean recklessness. I don't mean being irresponsible. I don't mean abandoning your family, career obligations so you can disappear in the mountains like Jeremiah Johnson. I'm talking about something much deeper. The part of you that still wants to explore, to discover, to test yourself, to stand somewhere that you've never stood before, to find out what's over the next ridge, to make marks in the snow because no one else has walked there, to throw a pack on your back and disappear down a trail. There's a wildness in the human heart that doesn't always fit neatly into calendars or conference rooms. Or emails or commutes and couple routines. And I think that we can slowly lose contact with it because we become responsible. Then we get busy, we build careers, we pay mortgages, we raise families, we meet deadlines, we take care of everybody and everything that needs us. And none of those things are bad. They're part of building a meaningful life. But somewhere along the way— It's possible to become so focused on maintaining life that we forget to live it. That's where adventure can call something back out of us. And I felt it underwater. I felt it in the mountains. I, I felt it carrying a pack down a trail or going long distances. It's that feeling that says there is still more out there. And maybe more importantly, there's still more in me. And that's what I mean when I talk about living more abundantly. I'm not talking about accumulating more stuff or making your life busier, and I'm not talking about chasing one adrenaline rush after another. Living abundantly means we're being fully engaged with the life that we've been given. Being present enough to experience it, courageous enough to explore it, strong enough to endure the difficult parts, curious enough to keep discovering, and maybe intentional enough not to just sleepwalk through it. It's the difference between living and just existing. Adventure reminds us that Merely existing and fully living are not the same thing. You can have a comfortable life and still feel something inside of you that's starving. You can have the house, the job, the retirement account, the schedule, the routine, everything can look fine from the outside and still somewhere deep inside you there's a voice that's saying, there has to be more than this. Sometimes I think the wildness in our hearts is screaming out. It's telling us, you know, don't destroy the life that we've built. It's telling us to wake up inside of it. And that's an important distinction. The goal isn't to run away from ordinary life. The goal is to live our ordinary lives much more abundant. And that's where the lesson from adventure really matters, because the outdoors isn't the destination, it's the classroom. I do that with my coaching. Where I'm working with my clients in the aquatic environment. The water isn't the destination. The trip, going to Bonaire or Roatan or Cozumel, that's not the destination. That's the classroom. The trail teaches resilience. Then you bring resilience home. Mountaineering teaches preparation and respect for conditions that you can't control. Then you bring that judgment into your decisions at home and at work. Diving teaches you that resources like air are finite. And you bring it back home. Sometimes you just need to find the next good hold if you're scaling the face of a cliff, then the next one, then the next one, then the next one. Sometimes that's exactly how we move through difficult seasons in life. Man, scuba diving has taught me so much about remaining calm underwater. And when something isn't right, panic isn't the answer. That's why I teach all of my clients, as long as you have air, you are all right. Slow down, breathe, assess, respond, and then bring that same discipline home. Because if adventure only changes you while you're Outside or underwater, you've missed the lesson. Adventure isn't the life. Adventure teaches us how to live the life. The goal isn't to become a different person for the weekend or when you're off on that trip. I've got an offer coming up that is a full coaching experience. Down in Bonaire. And the goal is to discover something about yourself while we're there that you can bring back to everyday life. More courage, more resilience, more patience, more confidence, more resourcefulness, more life. And that's what living abundantly looks like. Because confidence isn't built by sitting around telling yourself that you're confident. Confidence needs evidence. You face something difficult, you move toward it, you struggle, you adjust, you continue, and eventually you look back and realize, I did that. Man, at some point the campfire goes out. You come back from a dive trip, you come back from an adventure, Monday morning comes, and that's where the real test begins. Did the adventure just give you another story, or did it give you something that you can use? You bring it home. Bring the wildness into your work. Bring that curiosity into your relationships. Bring that courage into the decisions that you've been avoiding Bring that resilience into the difficult season that you're walking through. Because the wildness in your heart isn't calling you away from your life. Maybe it's calling you deeper into it to explore, to risk, to grow, to notice. And maybe that's the greatest purpose of adventure. Not to find life somewhere else, but to remember how we want to live that life. And that life is already waiting for us. All right, I promised you I'd make an offer at the end. If there's something in this episode that hit you because you know that there's a part of yourself that's been asleep, don't ignore that. Maybe you've been successful on paper, but you know that there's something missing. Maybe life's become too predictable. I work with a lot of leaders and executives, and for them, they're bored because life is so predictable. They're comfortable, but they're not fulfilled. And just like them, maybe, maybe you spent years taking care of responsibilities and somewhere along the way you stopped asking what you actually want the next chapter of your life to look like. Maybe that wildness in your heart's gotten a lot quieter, not because it's gone, it's because you stopped listening to it. Or maybe you just simply know there's another level. That you haven't stepped into yet. And that's the kind of work I do with my clients. Coaching isn't about me handing you a map and telling you which mountain to climb. It's about helping you determine where you want to go, understanding what's keeping you where you are, and discovering who you need to become to make that journey. Because your next adventure might happen on a mountain. It might happen underwater. It might happen on 2 or 4 wheels. Your greatest adventure may have nothing to do with the outdoors. It may be starting a business, changing careers, following a passion, repairing a relationship, taking control of your finances, rebuilding your fitness. That's living more abundantly. It's not more stuff. It's not more noise. It's more life. And if you're ready to explore what that could look like for you, set up a discovery call. Let's get some time to chat. Let's talk about where you are, where you want to go. And if it's a good fit, man, I'd be excited to take you there. Not take you there, be excited to walk with you there. So I want to make sure I put a link down in the show notes for a discovery call. But in the meantime, just go find some— go find some wildness. Hike a trail, climb a mountain, load up a pack, ride the bike, get underwater. Find something that demands something from you, not because you're trying to escape life, but because every once in a while you need to remember what it feels like Hey, if today's episode helped you think differently, do me a quick favor. Give it a 5-star rating on Apple Podcasts or whatever app that you are using to listen to the show. Share this episode with a friend. And if you're ready to go beyond listening and it's a real transformation, visit me out on stanshirtcoaching.com to explore my current offerings. Would love to just book a discovery call with you and see how we can work together.