How The Adventure Mindset Can Help You Overcome the Impossible
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If you have a goal or dream that you think, or have been told, is impossible, then read this blog to shift your perception and to start taking action towards achieving your goal or dream.
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Late last year I joined Toastmasters, an international organisation with clubs scattered all over the world, which helps you to improve your speaking and leadership skills and meet other like-minded people.
I joined the Guildford Toastmasters and I’ve been surprised by just how much fun it is! I love hearing about a great range of topics by different members and I really enjoy speaking in front of everyone - whether it’s 1-2 minutes about a random topic I’ve been given or my own talk!
The other week, was my chance to do my Icebreaker - the first speech of many! You have a pathway focused on a theme that you follow, such as leadership or motivational strategies, and in order to progress, you have to complete a project, from talking and evaluating to presenting and holding online meetings! You are evaluated on different things in each project, from variety of voice to challenging your audience to achieve higher levels of success.
The Icebreaker is your first speech, it’s just 4-6 minutes long and your objective is to begin speaking before an audience, discovering the speaking skills you have and where you need to improve.
For my Icebreaker, I decided to try out a talk I’ve been thinking of doing called How the mindset of Adventure helps you overcome the seemingly impossible.
When I walked into the room, there was a great buzz of energy, and it was choc-a-block of people, I’ve never seen it so busy!
After the introductions to members and guests and the speaking warm up were completed, it was time for me to do my Icebreaker, which you are going to here in a moment!
I recorded it live AND I won best prepared speech of the evening!
You can listen or read it below, whichever you prefer! Let me know what stood out for you in my speech and what inspired you the most, by sending me a message via my red bot!
My Winning Speech: How The Adventure Mindset Can Help You Overcome The Impossible
Mr toastmaster, members and guests, good evening, tonight I’m going to talk to you about how the mindset of adventure helps you overcome the seemingly impossible.
How many of you have been on an adventure? Could you raise your hands.
Amazing, so for those of you who raised your hand, I’m intrigued to see how my talk this evening will resonate with you, and for those who didn’t, I believe you will have changed your mind by the end!
For me, the importance of adventure didn’t enter my life until, ironically, I couldn’t go on an adventure! It wasn’t because I couldn’t afford it, or that I was working or studying full-time, it was because I was very sick.
I suffered for 4 years with severe Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and a few other conditions too, which made my life very challenging.
The only thing I can relate it to, although I have not done it, is climbing Mount Everest, because when you hear and see people who have stood on top on the world, they have overcome monumental challenges and have used up enormous amounts of energy. And for me, everyday was like climbing Mount Everest. Somedays getting up to brush my teeth, was like climbing Mount Everest.
It was around this time, that I also became very fascinated with polar explorations, I was especially fascinated and enthralled by the heroic tales of Scott, Shackleton, Amundsen and Frank Wild.
Frank Wild is the unsung hero of polar exploration and it was his quote, that I heard at the Royal Geographical Society, which really struck a chord with me and that I share with you now:
Wild was right, I couldn’t escape the little voices.I was lying in bed everyday and I heard the little voices all of the time, adventure was calling to me and so was the wild.
Listen to Frank Wild’s autobiographer talk about his life on The Wild Show Season 1 Episode 9
However, the doctors had other plans, they said I couldn’t recover, that it was impossible and my health would most likely deteriorate.
Whereas I had a different plan….
I fully recovered during my 4th year of suffering with CFS - in just 3 days. In a 3 day seminar called The Lightning Process, I learnt how to re-wire my brain and it’s the closest thing to magic that I have come across. In 3 days I got my energy back and the very first thing I did was plan an adventure!
I always thought adventure was something you had to buy or experience, but actually through my own adventures and having now interviewed more than 20 experts in this field, I’ve come to realise that it’s a state of mind.
From Season 1 and 2 of The Adelaide Podcast, I’ve discovered that there are three key elements to the adventure mindset:
1. Resilience
Resilience means being able to influence your mind, feelings, emotions and physiology in a positive and useful way, independent of your environment.
My favourite way to explain resilience is to use Marathon Des Sable Finisher (also known as the toughest footrace on earth) and my friend, Sarah Williams’ mantra: Be The Egg.
If you put a potato and an egg in boiling water, over time the potato will become soft and disintegrate. However, the egg will become harder, it will become stronger, despite how hot that water gets, it’s going to become powerful.
The egg represents your mind. Despite what’s going on in your environment, you have the power to influence your body and mind to become strong, hard and powerful.
Listen to Sarah on The Wild Show Season 1 Episode 1 here.
2. Intuition
Intuition is that feeling you get when an opportunity arises or when you have to make a decision, you might feel uneasy or feel that fire in your belly.
It’s your internal guidance system that you can use to make decisions and follow your life’s path.
My friend, audio producer and host of podcast Inspirational Creatives, Rob Lawrence, loves using the Hell Yes practice when he has to make a decision.
If Rob feels unsure about something, then he says no to the request or opportunity; however, he feels that fire in the belly, that surge of energy through his body that makes him want to say Hell Yes! - even though logically he wouldn’t normally make that decision, then he says yes! (or hell yes!)
Listen to Rob on The Wild Show Season 1 Episode 3 here.
3. Chunking
Chunking is when you have a massive goal and you might be feeling overwhelmed by it or paralysed with fear, because there is just so much to do, you don’t know what to do first, you have that internal chatter of self-doubt, failure and fear.
So instead of thinking about how to go from 1 to 10, think about how you can go from 1 to 2. What is the smallest, the most tiny action you can take that will move you forward towards achieving your goals and dreams?
Wrapping Up
These are the 3 elements of the mindset of adventure have really stood out to me in Season 1 and Season 2 of The Adelaide Podcast, as I interview experts across an eclectic background, from adventurers to entrepreneurs and TV presenters.
Adventure isn’t something you can buy, an experience or one-off holiday.
Adventure is a state of being, it’s a mindset, and if you can live by these 3 key elements and practice the habits, beliefs, values and behaviours that make them up, then you are well on your way to living in the state of adventure.
And by living in the state of adventure, you can turn the seemingly impossible into the possible.
You are capable of greatness by living in the mindset of adventure.
