Robert: One of the things I like to have you touch on a little bit is, I’ve always looked at the moments or the events that proceed, even the experience itself. And then that moment of terror or fright or insecurity when our participant realizes that they are isolated from all the day-to-day things that make them successful. Okay?
You no longer have your cell phone. You no longer have your C-suite desk. You no longer have staff. And basically stripping away all this normal comfort to get to the essence of how the person works in teams. How the person uses native intelligence to figure out whether they’re coiling the line clockwise or counter clockwise.
And I’m wondering what you think about that moment of utter and absolute vulnerability that the participant faces and how that begins to shape what follows, which becomes the experience. So, touch on that if you would for a moment.
Chad: Okay. Well, I think you’re touching on one of the very reasons we go outdoors. Seek adventure is to have these experiences that, like you said, kind of break us down to our core.
And, I’ve found that on international expeditions as well as going overseas to places that are very different culturally as well. So you can go outdoors and you can have these experiences and you could also go to another culture and be embedded into a city of 30 million people and have those same experiences as well.
And you know, it’s just a form of culture shock or you can call it nature shock where you finally realize the things that support my ego– sitting on my shoulder here– they’re gone! And that is daunting for some people. And if you’re gonna get true transformation in people, that’s the kind of thing you need.
You need something that Jack Mero used to call, he’s a transformative educator, the disorienting dilemma. And that quite often is the catalyst that can lead to change. Now you need to also know that there’s a theory out there called optimal arousal theory. Where do we push and present these opportunities, so that people can maximize their learning from it.
Because people can also quickly regress and go to places that learning’s not going to be available for them. But that’s what we’re looking for. And as facilitators, you build rapport with your people. And one of the things I like to really help focus on is the emotional awareness that’s around us.
So we focus a lot on this idea of emotional intelligence and do a lot of deep diving into intrapersonal and interpersonal skill development. And in our field, traditionally, we’ve had a lot of emphasis on technical skills. But it’s funny because if you’re going to get good technical skills, you need to first have good intra- and interpersonal skills in order to gain those.
And it’s fun to see how quickly technical skills can change, particularly in the information technology age. But intrapersonal, interpersonal skills, those are things you can develop and keep building on, over and over and over. And they are really the things that are gonna get you through this technology age that we’re living in right now.
And it’s beautiful to see that you can develop those. So get back to your question, we spend a lot of time on looking at those skills and so becoming emotionally aware is one of the things we work on a lot and. I love that you brought up the word vulnerability.
It’s something that I think has been kind of bred out of us in some ways. Particularly, sometimes in the outdoor field, there’s a kind of a machismo that comes along with it and not being in a comfortable position to reveal your weaknesses because you won’t look like the leader.
But we’re finding that vulnerability is actually a very powerful way to connect with people around you. Because people are always feeling vulnerable, but they’re trying to put that stuff to the side and hide it, and it does affect them. And it’s way more effective to create an environment where you can be more vulnerable.
And if you can, if the leader is demonstrating this and showing this aspect of them, the way it comes out from the other people that are around you. And then you can start talking about this. And what I love about vulnerability, a lot of it’s based around these ideas of fear. And fear is a construct you make up in your head.
It is something that is you projecting yourself into the future and when you can start to break that down and realize most of that stuff is 10 times worse in your head than it actually is. And also, you know, expectations can be 10 times greater in your head as well. And then you get to the reality of not being as amazing as you thought it was gonna be.
And being able to tap into those realizations, which are really based a lot around your emotions, can really help with that transformational process of having all– everything– stripped away. And boy, that’s raw, right? And I particularly love that when students or people that I’m guiding or leading, they have these new eyes and I’m always trying to show how special that is.
When you enter a new environment, you’re going to see things in a way that no one else is seeing right now. First of all, you’re seeing it through your eyes and your lens. You have a unique background and being able to look and engage and even the most minute things. Those are things that, those are details that myself, if I’ve been in this environment a lot may not notice.
And so that’s what we’re looking for are these experiences that really challenge who you are, but not to the point where you’re regressing. Being able to talk about your vulnerability, being able to talk about the emotions that come up with it, being able to reflect with it. And being able to integrate those things back into your next experience.
