I’ve always had this fantasy

of going away — off on an adventure — with the purpose of growth & mastery.

To return as a better me. The best version of me. Which I would describe as

Someone who is brilliant and insightful +

Someone well-connected and excellence at communication +

Someone strong and VIBRANT; Fun to be around +

Someone who experiences fear, yet defeats it back every time +

Someone reliable and successful +

Someone who does rather than says.

Excellence. Mastery. Capable.

You could say this fantasy is what Joseph Campbell calls,

the Hero’s Journey —

‘When a hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural, to be reborn and come back with wisdom and knowledge for their fellow humans’

I’m all for adventure, (I mean, I’ve even created an adventure clothing brand for Josh sakes!) but real growth — the hero’s journey — happes within our every day.

Real Growth happens within each day, in our normal lives +

Real Growth is in the trenches +

The true hero’s journey is being able to face your own life — with its challenges, problems, fears and trials — and to grow into your own, day in and day out.

Real Growth is how we spend each day — it’s the incremental steps towards excellence +

I believe adventure adds to our lives, but our training needs to be integrated into our every, normal day.

Think of it like this —

Say you go off on an adventure into the woods. Without being able to use your phone, at first you feel anxious about it. ‘what if someone needs to get a hold of me?’ ‘I might miss something important’… After a while, this feeling goes away, and not having to be always on feels fantastic!

But when you come back to civilization, everyone is using there phone — multiple times a day. Leaning down and scrolling, even when you’re trying to talking to them!

You can resist it at first, but eventually you’ll be drawn back to it, looking down at your phone, scrolling just the same.

I’m not dogging phones. I use mine all the time, for connecting and my businesses. 

But we need to be able to live without them.

To experience nature and live with technology in a moderate, non-obsessive, healthy way — without FOMO. We must practice this technological mindset without our normal lives, for it to have an effect.

It has to be integrated, not detached.

Remember real growth is made by how we spend each day.

Excellence, Mastery, and Capability come with consistent action every day, integrated within our lives.

#KeepPursing, Josh Waggoner

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related wisdom

“Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.” —Napoleon Hill

“If you want to grow a giant redwood, you need to make sure the seeds are ok, nurture the sapling, and work out what might potentially stop it from growing all the way along. Anything that breaks it at any point stops that growth.”  —Elon Musk

“All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.” — Calvin Coolidge

“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing.” — William Butler Yeats