Understanding Adventure
An adventure is an experience that has an element of risk or adversity that ends well. If an experience has an element of risk and adversity and it does not go well, it becomes a misadventure.
The only way for us to grow personally, professionally, physically and emotionally is to push our limits through adventure. When we are exposed to adversity – this includes challenge, suffering and danger – and we succeed, we become stronger, better and more interesting.
While adventures are often thought of as outdoor sports or exotic travel experiences, for most people their adventures are hiding in plain sight. Anytime you undertake something new, something that has an element of risk or uncertainty, or something that pushes your limits, you have started down their path of adventure. What will determine whether you achieve an adventure or not will depend on how the experience is remembered afterwards.
An adventure is an experience that has an element of risk or adversity – that is remembered as being positive after the fact. If an experience has an element of risk or adversity, and it does not end well and it is not remembered afterwards as being positive, it become a misadventure.
Our lives are defined by the adventures we take, how they are managed and how they are remembered. Delivering adventure requires that we have the right skills, we understand what goes into delivering adventure experiences and at times an element of luck.
Every adventure that we have has an element of risk and uncertainty. Managing these two factors in a way that gives us the best chance of success is the key to delivering adventure while reducing the chance of misadventure.
Adventure Tools
To help everyone to accomplish this, we have developed four tools. These are the Elements of Adventure, The Chain of Delivery, the concept of Performance Zones and the Adventure Matrix.
