Answer the Call
🤔 Reframing your challenges and frustrations
“Preparing yourself with a philosophy enables you to change the meaning of a negative event. With a specific philosophy, you can aggressively change your perception of events.”
- Phil Stutz (Therapist)
It’s all in how you frame it.
The other day, I introduced a group of leaders to The Hero’s Journey, a framework identified by Professor Joseph Campbell, who uncovered a typical pattern in almost every myth, ancient story, modern tale, and film.
We meet the hero in their familiar environment (The Ordinary World). Pretty quickly, the rug is pulled out from under them, and they’re nudged—or shoved—into unfamiliar territory (The Call to Adventure). The hero always resists this transition because it’s scary, uncomfortable, inconvenient, dangerous, etc. (The Refusal of the Call)
The pattern continues. I encourage you to lay your favorite story onto this framework and see if it lines up. (It will.)
But for our purposes today, I want to focus on one element of The Hero’s Journey: The Call to Adventure.
Adventure is a sexy word. But in stories, it often feels anything but—Liam Neeson’s character in Taken finding out his daughter has been kidnapped, Simba losing his father and being chased from his home by his uncle, Katniss Everdeen taking her sister’s place on a deadly televised competition.
These are scary situations, so we tune in to see what happens next. We invest in the story to see the hero face their fears and overcome challenges.
What if you saw your life as a Hero’s Journey? What if you framed your fears and challenges as Calls to Adventure?
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” - Joseph Campbell
Your discomfort is an invitation. The shakeup that pulls you out of your familiar routine is a call to a journey of growth and transformation.
Answer it.
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