Are You Having a Grand Adventure?

Conversations with clients, colleagues and friends lately have led me to an interesting conclusion about how each of us experiments with just the right ingredients for a satisfying life and career, relative to risk and adventure. Here is an analogy: have you ever been reading a book and it was so predictable it became boring and you set it aside, never to be picked up again? That same book might have just the right measure of description, action and adventure for someone else, but it wasn't stimulating enough for you. Life is like that too.

We think we want stability, guarantees, predictable outcomes for our businesses and careers, especially in light of the last eighteen months or so of financial uncertainty. But do we really? Isn't the uncertainty what makes life interesting? If we were guaranteed the outcome, there would be no surprises, and thus no adventure. Wasn't there a Twilight Zone with this same theme?

I'm noticing that the very uncertainty we have about the success or failure of any initiative is what gives it zest and excitement. Perhaps we might reframe that sense of uncertainty. Maybe we could look at it as the excitement of not knowing the end of the chapter. When we are engaged in a good book, part of the thrill is eagerly anticipating what might happen next. What if we saw our own lives in the same way? We don't know what will happen next, yet we are willing to take some action to bring about the results we want. We are willing, like the characters we love, to rise above our past and call upon our courage to go a little farther out on the edge than we have before.

If you were a character in a book, would you be interesting? Would you garner admiration for acting on your convictions? Would your choices be interesting or dull? We get an opportunity for a blank page every single day. What are you going to put on yours today?