This time next year…
By: Tom Lancaster
Tags: Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Adventure, Growth, Consciousness

The astute among you will have noticed an uptick in articles from me. In fact I’ve written something every day this week.

I’m testing out a new morning schedule. Trying it on for size.

You see I’ve always wanted to be a person who writes. One of those people who puts up amazing content that makes people scratch their heads and say “I wish I could write like that”

But it has always seemed impossible.

You see I’m not a writer. If you know me well, the story you hear me tell more often than not is that I have no imagination. I’m not creative. I have nothing to say.

So I decided to make the impossible, possible. I’ve made a commitment to myself that I will write every weekday, between 7 and 8am. I will publish whatever I write.

And maybe by the time 2021 starts I’ll be a writer. Who knows.

One of the reasons now is a great time for me to start writing is that Curtis and I are developing a new language around the concepts of “Adventure Consciousness”, “Comfort Management” and “Enriching Humanity”.

So for the rest of this week I thought I’d write a little something about what each of those things mean to me and why I think they are important.

I’d LOVE to know your thoughts, about anything I write, good or bad.

I’d also LOVE to hear from you what you would like me to write about — If there’s something in one of my posts you’d like me to go deeper on, or something completely unrelated that you’d be interested to hear my perspective on, let me know! And I’ll do my best to write something for you

So let’s get to it.

1. WHAT IS ADVENTURE CONSCIOUSNESS?

Before I can answer that, I ought first to define adventure.

I consider myself to be on an adventure when the following two conditions are met:

- The environment is uncontrolled

- The outcome is uncertain

When most people hear the word ‘adventure’, images of wingsuited daredevils inevitably come to mind. Adventure is something that happens far away from civilisation, requires enormous risk and something of a disdain for life.

But I look at almost all aspects of life as an adventure.

By the standards above, any relationship is an adventure, because we can never be sure what another person will show up with.

Running a business is an adventure.

Exploring a new city or country is an adventure.

Intimacy is an adventure.

A CHANGE (OF CONTEXT) IS AS GOOD AS A REST

You’re almost certainly familiar with the story of a young Isaac Newton being hit on the head with an apple. This event caused him to go on to develop his law of universal gravitation, but what if there is more to the story than that?

What was it that put young Newton in the state of mind for his genius to show up? Of all the apples that have fallen from all the trees, what was it about this young boy that caused him to think in a way that had never been done before?

His discovery happened, coincidentally, during a time of lockdown. It was the bubonic plague, and his school was closed, which was the reason he found himself in the orchard. After a lifetime of adventure we posit that the ingredients for his inspiration boil down to three factors:

He was outside of his normal environment

He was in nature

He was curious

When we step out of the known and into the unknown, we open ourselves to a world of possibility previously unavailable to us.

But why is this?

STRIPPING BACK THE LAYERS

We spend our entire life applying layer after layer to ourselves.

Child. Brother. Student. Girlfriend. Graduate. Husband. Wife. Lover. Architect. Dyslexic. Champion. Failure. Employee. Business owner. Adventurer.

When we are on an adventure, in nature, in business, or in relationship, we inevitably find ourselves in uncomfortable situations.

And in those moments, all these layers come off.

We are left with our true essence. Who we really are.

In those moments, three things happen.

1. We come face to face with all our stories, limiting beliefs, and excuses

2. We discover resources we never knew we had

3. We have to make a choice between retreating to safety or passing through the discomfort.

I’ll talk more about that in the ‘Comfort Management’ piece, but what is relevant here is that in these moments of intense struggle, when we make the choice to go through the eye of the needle, we connect with something much bigger than ourselves.

We have a spiritual experience.

And we have a direct access point to the things that hold us back in our lives, and an opportunity to work through and overcome them.

This is the magic of adventure for me.

This is adventure consciousness.

Those of you who know me well will know that I have found healing, safety, and purpose in the time I have spent in nature.

I’ve learned a lot about flow states, peak experiences, what my blocks are and how to deal with them, who I really am.

COURAGE CAN’T SEE AROUND CORNERS, BUT IT GOES AROUND THEM ANYWAY

Adventure is a step into the unknown.

It’s doing something that you don’t know you are capable of.

It is courage.

We have somewhere between 15,000 and 60,000 thoughts every day, and science has shown that 95% of those thoughts are the same thoughts we had yesterday.

The unknown is where magic happens. Where new possibilities exist. Where the impossible becomes possible.

Going on an adventure, changing your context, experiencing new things literally causes new connections to form in your brain.

If we don’t step around the corner, challenge ourselves to be better, to learn something new, to step into the unknown, then we will always stay the same.

That’s why I’m taking on this writing challenge. It’s a corner I can’t see around, but I’m going around it anyway.

Because I’m excited about who I become on the other side.

So please, help me out on this adventure. Let me know your thoughts.

And if you want to explore Adventure Consciousness and take on your impossible dreams, let’s talk. I’d love that.

Join the Adventure Conscious Entrepreneur facebook group

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