Adventure Is In Our DNA

Advenir (Latin): to come towards.

Aventure (old French): chance, fate, risk.

Adventure: to move towards something new.

Lessons From Leaders On Adventure

“Most decisions in life are two-way doors. You pick the door, walk through it and you can always turn round and walk back through it if you don’t like what’s on the other side.” 

Jeff Bezos. 

“It is in our nature to explore, to reach out into the unknown.”

Ernest Shackleton. 

"As you begin to walk on the way, the way appears." 

Rumi.

“Fill your days with more life, rather than your life with more days.”

Ben Fogle.

We Are All Some Version Of Space Faring Astronauts.

Since the dawn of human time, we have been adventurers and explorers. Hominid beings didn’t miraculously pop up in Africa, the Americas and Eurasia all at once. Our ancient ancestors started in Africa, battled, ate, fought, walked, forded rivers, climbed mountains, hugged coastlines, and sailed into the unknown, all in the hope of a better life. As tribes grew, climates shifted and food sources changed, humans walked their way around the world.

We are adventurers at our heart. It is in our DNA. Humans that couldn’t hack the journeys, weren’t socially smart to help the tribe, weren’t able to buy into a vision of something better – well, they were left behind, along with their DNA. 

In the millennia to come, humans moved across oceans and continents. We still do. I am sitting on my balcony in Bangkok writing this. Days like today, I sit here and write and think my life is incredible. Adventure is at my heart. It is at your heart too. 

Perhaps you have forgotten? 

As a child we didn’t dress up as office workers, lobbyists and computer coders. We dressed up as frontier busting cowboys, space faring astronauts, faraway-land princesses, scary savannah animals – adventurers. Our childlike wonder is wrapped up in the excitement and fear of the unknown. 

We are adventurers at our heart. It is in our DNA.

As children we are obsessed with Harry Potter, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and other universe stretching movies. We are meant to explore and be uncomfortable. Why do so many young adults travel and explore the world? It’s certainly not for fame and fortune. We have an in-built desire to adventure.

Adventure is filled with emotion: inspiration, wonder, danger, risk. When we have adventures, we are inspired to take positive actions we wouldn’t have dreamed of in the first place. 

Adventure can not only come from travel, but also from new experiences. New experiences that evoke emotion. Watching Wilding by Isabelle Tree, I was inspired by the positive actions that this couple have taken over the last 25 years to regenerate a part of the UK from depleted farmland to wilderness. It inspired me to see two people so in love with what they do, so risk taking to do something so different. 

The constant oscillation between movement and stopping, between adventure and rest, is what brings inspiration.

My friend Pete has an in-built compass for adventure. He joined us on our annual leadership retreat in Thailand. He grew up in a working-class family in the UK and followed all the usual routes, watching his parents work incredibly hard throughout his childhood before applying for an apprenticeship to learn a trade. At the same time, he was born into a UK system of schooling where everybody was encouraged to apply to university. He was not offered an apprenticeship. He was offered a place at university. Neither his parents nor his two sisters had been to university. It wasn’t a route well travelled. 

His Dad gave him some great advice, ‘Pete, you aren’t going to sit around playing PlayStation. If you don’t have an apprenticeship, go to university.’ So off Pete went, and the rest is history. Now he is in Dubai, another kind of adventure, working for an incredible legal. His parents and sisters could not be prouder of him. 

I continue to write this at 30,000 feet, enroute to Bergen. The past few days have been a whirlwind – landing in London from Bangkok on Sunday night, delivering a workshop for a brilliant B-Corp on Monday, coaching Next Gen leaders in Birmingham on Tuesday, and catching up with friends and old colleagues back in London on Wednesday.

By adventuring from one thing to the next, you build a catalogue of experiences but a debt of rest. The brain needs time to recover. 

It was fast paced, but it was my pace. I get inspired when I jump from café, to train, to park run, to meeting, to lunch with a friend. I get inspired when my pace speeds up. I get reflective when my pace slows down, such as now, on the plane. This constant oscillation between movement and stopping, between adventure and rest, is what brings inspiration. Adventure to be inspired, rest to decompress, process and learn. 

By adventuring from one thing to the next, you build a catalogue of experiences but a debt of rest. The brain needs time to recover. Adventure + Rest = Growth. Without the rest it becomes a slippery slope to burnout. When we double down on adventure we need to double down on the brakes.

Adventure for you doesn’t need to mean being on a flight from one continent to the next. It can mean reading a new book, exploring a new part of town, being inspired by a documentary. 

Ben Fogle, the British adventurer, talked about how he had a mental health ‘blip’ in 2023. A blip in the course of his life, but a fierce storm at the time. This was a perfect storm built up from many different factors, none more so than his constant rush from adventure to adventure. His privilege was his curse. Privileged to be invited to climb Mount Everest one month, traverse rural Japan the next, and run a marathon the week after. All lifetime achievements for most, but an ordinary week for him. Ordinary, but no less consuming. And when you consume that much adventure, there is a necessity to slow down. He had to pump the brakes for a few months to recover from his debt of rest. Now he is fortunately through to the other side and has a much healthier relationship with adventure and rest. Even for someone whose identity is shaped by exploration, the body and mind eventually demand stillness.

Adventure is at the core of my life, it is something I value deeply. Being able to travel the world, meet new people, work with amazing clients and share it all over again creates an amazing feedback loop of inspiration for me. Adventure for you doesn’t need to mean being on a flight from one continent to the next. It can mean reading a new book, exploring a new part of town, being inspired by a documentary. Adventure is a tool to bring emotional inspiration.

The best leaders are adventurers. Not because they climb mountains, but because they step toward uncertainty. They choose growth over comfort. And they rest, not because they’re tired, but because they know growth depends on it. Ask yourself, what adventure can you have today?

Deepen Your Curiosity

My favourite learnings on adventure and exploration:

1. A History of the World by Andrew Marr.

2. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.

3. The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo. 

4. Walking the Nile by Levison Wood. 

5. Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson.

6. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. 

7. Podcast - Ben Fogle on High Performance Podcast.