SITUATION (Why)

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Howard Thurman –

We are operating in the most…

…competitive, dynamic, and technologically advanced environment this planet has ever seen. For the untransformed, that means relentless change, stress, and persistent backsliding.

The competitive nature of our environment is not something you have to agree with, but the consequences it produces are not optional.

We can see ambitious people scrambling into hustle culture, sacrificing their personal lives and relationships in an effort to pacify the anxiety that comes from operating without a proven strategy for living a good and dignified life now, as well as through the 30 plus years of old age when one can no longer work.

The solution is neither to…

…throw our bodies at it nor to retreat into our personal versions of an abyss. And it is certainly not to submit to the strain and stress of it all.

We must step outside the physical and psychological confines of our culture, where we can witness others who have found and forged a better way.

“Only on the FRINGES of an ecosystem, those outer rings, do EVOLUTION and ADAPTATION occur at a furious pace; the inner center of the system is where the ENTRENCHED, non-adapting species die off, doomed to failure by maintaining the STATUS QUO.”

– Yvon Chouinard – Founder of Patagonia –

Let’s break that down:

The ENTRENCHED – are those who cling to familiar structures, beliefs, and capabilities, repeatedly choosing their default way of being over learning and developing new skills and mindsets. They slowly decay as change outpaces their willingness and ability to evolve.

The FRINGE – is the part of an ecosystem where there is more than enough room and resources for people to develop and thrive in ways that allow them to fulfill the purposes for which they were created.

EVOLUTION – is the act of strategically transforming ourselves into the type of people who can move powerfully and effectively by operating within their passions.

ADAPTATION – is the immediate ability to adjust behavior and judgment in response to change, allowing individuals to remain effective by operating out ahead of volatile and competitive environments.

STATUS QUO – is the choice to preserve the mindsets, actions, and intuitions that produced your current circumstances, ensuring their degradation as the environment continues to progress.

Now I’ve always liked how that…

…quote felt, but it’s when you break it down like this that you realize how operational it is, and why it could only have come from someone who has climbed, jumped, dove, or flown to the edges of the earth and beyond. An adventurist.

ADVENTURISTS – are no longer simple thrill seekers. They are capability and capacity hunters. They are people who deliberately leave the psychological comfort of the status quo to pursue experiences that produce the learning, adaptation, and mindsets that allow them to live with purpose and passion in ways that enable them to lead others to do the same. This is something that history has made unambiguously clear.

The people who repeatedly demonstrate unusual levels of self determination, initiative, judgment, and endurance are never forged in comfort or stability.

Theodore Roosevelt rebuilt himself through physical hardship, frontier living, and war before becoming a decisive and reform driven president.

Ernest Shackleton’s leadership under catastrophic uncertainty is studied in military academies and executive programs not because he succeeded in his original mission, but because failure produced prolonged exposure to the extreme conditions that forged and refined his ability to adapt, manage, and lead others through seemingly impossible situations.

Yvon Chouinard himself was a climber long before he was a businessman, and his approach to strategy, restraint, and long term thinking mirrors expedition logic rather than corporate convention.

T E Lawrence learned how to operate asymmetrically not in classrooms but through sustained movement across hostile terrain, foreign cultures, and psychological isolation.

Across disciplines, the pattern…

…holds. Psychological research on stress inoculation shows that controlled exposure to difficulty increases resilience, judgment under pressure, and emotional regulation.

Leadership research consistently finds that people developed through real stakes experiences adapt faster and operate with greater clarity than those shaped only through theory or simulation.

Even historically, elite male development systems, from tribal hunting cultures to warrior societies, required deliberate confrontation with risk and sustained responsibility under uncertainty.

That same pattern runs through elite special forces, unnamed modern capture and kill units, and veiled fraternities of extraordinary people operating at the highest levels of society.

The elite are not forged in comfort or instruction alone, but through exposure to consequence, risk, and responsibility where failure is real and growth cannot be simulated.

It is for all of these…

…reasons that we depart from our homes, families, and businesses multiple times a year to go on an excursions together.

It is our duty as ambitious professionals to go beyond the wall and bring back the ‘elixirs of life’ for those who cannot.

Excursions are not sightseeing trips, indulgences, or escapes. They are investments in our internal infrastructures.

They remodel, rehabilitate, strengthen, and reinvigorate our strategic and linguistic filters that,

…determine how we think, decide, and behave when threats reveal themselves, obligations must be held, and opportunities are to be seized.

To form and remain in a real tribe…

…Excursions must be done together. They are how we find and forge relationships with other people who are committed to the same outcomes for themselves and their families as we are.

A group that, when together, can automate, protect, and accelerate both our current and future ability to,

…use our passions to harmoniously fulfill the personal, financial, and professional purposes for which we were created for.

Your growth as a leader cannot be outsourced.

You must climb the mountain, jump from the plane, dive to the bottom of the ocean, survive the wild, and kill the bear.