The Hero’s Journey Part I

Here are the first 5 steps of the “Hero's Journey Course” that I’ve been teaching on my online course, to the members of Tribe 215.

Read it, print it and keep it close because if you do it right, it will work just like a GPS and a map does. It can not only help you locate where you are in your life’s journey(GPS), but it can also show you where to go next (Map), as well as how to get there (Map & GPS).

As you read, you’ll likely notice that you are on multiple “Hero Journeys’”. You’ll see the journeys’ show up in any pursuit that is taking beyond your current self or situation. It can show up in an effort or desire to change your job, body, financial situation and even relationships.

But for this test to work, you’ll want to measure yourself against what I consider the greatest deed of them all. Which is to risk it all to discover and live out your God given purpose in a way that allows you to inspire others to do the same.

The Hero’s Journey (Stages 1 - 5)

1: Ordinary World

This is where our hero resides. This is a place that our heroes don’t even realize they are in until they’ve seen others, who aren’t too different from them, living a life far beyond the life they’re living.

But that’s not enough. They also need to see others, who are not too different from them, deploying strategies, structures and tactics that are giving them the edge that is allowing them to live such lives.

Here our heroes need to feel just enough dissatisfaction and hope to allow themselves to see the gap between the life they are living and the one they were supposed to be living.

This produces the opening that is required for them to hear...

2: The Call To Adventure

Some people call it the universe and some people call it God, but eventually something will stoke the fire and awaken the hero.

To receive the call means that a high stakes cause, concern or condition has been revealed. One that once we know about will not allow us to responsibly remain in our ordinary world.

But this alone doesn’t throw us into action yet. Our psychological propensity to resist change and follow the herd causes us to...

3: Refuse The Call

Be it fear, uncertainty, laziness, apathy, life fatigue or just a personal willingness to sit in our own suffering, we tend to resist any real life adventures that would take us beyond a simple and safe vacation.

Here’s where we dig in our heels, make up excuses, blame our inaction on a lack of confidence and craft stories that release us from the obligation to leave our ordinary world. Many of us team up with other “Call Refusers” in our places of work, churches, towns, neighborhoods and homes. We lock arms with others to either prevent them from leaving our ordinary world or we lock arms with them to protect ourselves from taking any real risk. This is where we find the bulk of the population.

But. A few lucky ones are able to move past this stage because they either sought out or stumbled upon some sort of a...

4: Mentor

A mentor is a person, book our even a discourse and tribe like the one we have HERE. It’s someone or something that elevates our hope and confidence just high enough to move us forward.

Now it’s my belief that the reason so many of us get stuck in the previous stage is because of “false mentors”. They are the people, programs and business models that have us believe that we’ve connected with something that will produce our success. These are the people selling the perception of success rather than the actual strategies, structures and tactics of success.

These false mentors are dangerous not because they sell hope disguised as opportunity. They’re dangerous because once they’re done with us we tend to feel as if things didn’t work because there was a problem with us. They’re dangerous because we’ll eventually start to believe that we just don’t have what it takes to live the kind of life they promised. Few people realize that their lack of progress is really coming from these false mentors' inability to train us.

But once we do find someone or something that we can trust again we’ll absolutely break out of our refusal and...

5: Cross the First Threshold

Here is where we “throw our hat over the wall”. We commit in a way that burns the bridges behind us. We enter and remain in a new world until the mission is complete.

What makes this crossing so challenging is that you have to commit to a new and unknown way of life and submit to a new and unknown set of rules and values that you've never seen before. You need to commit to a journey of which you’re uncertain of its destination. You have to go all in before you even know if you have what it takes to make it. You have to go against the grain, advice and will of all the “Call Refusers” that surround you.

It’s scary and feels lonely because you are indeed leaving that world, and those “Call Refusers” are often really good people. They’re your friends and family. But! It is on this side of the wall where the people and adventures you’ve been seeking reside. This is where “The family you would choose” is living.

Next...

…It will pick up at the next stage “Test, allies and enemies”. The stage that leads us into the life that most people only ever dream of.

Eric