(2020-05-10) Pearson Heros Journey

Taylor Pearson on the Hero's Journey. There was a bluegrass band I used to go see when I lived in Birmingham, Alabama. The only thing I remember from the concerts is the fiddle player. She just looked like she was doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing with her life. You could feel it and it was really beautiful and amazing to watch.

We tend to notice and admire people that have accepted their own calling, whatever it may be.

Why is it that we tend to admire these people? I think it is because they have chosen to accept the call of their "Hero’s Journeys."

There is a critical stage in between the departure act and initiation act which Cambell called the "Refusal of the Call." It was follwed by the accepting of the call (often times with a mentor's help) and "Crossing the Threshold" where the hero fully steps into the unknown world.

*At any given point in life, we are all on our own "Hero's Journeys." There are risks and leaps of faith we are considering taking, but, at first, we tend to refuse the call, fearing the unknown.

Author Steven Pressfield referred to this feeling (in his wonderful book as "The Resistance." The Resistance is that voice in the back of your head that tells you that you aren't good enough, that you don't have enough time, or that it will never work.*

The Resistance is what causes the Hero to refuse the call. The Resistance is normal, indeed omnipresent. Be it losing weight, changing jobs, starting a business, or getting married, every major life decision I've ever made was accompanied by a strong dose of The Resistance.

To forever refuse the call is a terrible state. It is an admission to one's self that all I know is all that there is to know, that you are not capable of further growth.

To go battle with The Resistance, to cross the threshold into the unknown is its own victory.

Continued...

To live a life without regret means heeding the call to adventure, and being willing to strike out into the unknown. The Departure Act always precedes the transformation. That can be an external journey, changing jobs or moving cities, or and an internal one.

equally valid to think about career decisions in hero's journey terms. Your career is a hero's journey and starting a business or taking a chance is not just an economic decision but one that involves a sense of meaning and self-worth. To refuse the call is to be mired in self-loathing and discontent. To accept the call is to acknowledge the fear and to act in spite of it. To forever refuse the call is a terrible state. It is an admission to one's self that all I know is all that there is to know, that you are not capable of further growth.

Five years ago next month, I published The End of Jobs, that related both the economic logic and the meaning components I had observed in many people who took seemingly big career risks.

I looked at why starting an internet business might be a good idea and why it was widely underestimated as a career opportunity

My argument was primarily couched not just in economic terms, but also around the notion of meaning.

From my own personal experience as well as friends, colleagues and readers, I've seen that making the entrepreneurial leap can be as much an existential choice as an economic one.

I believe what matters is answering whatever your call is at this point in time

At the same time, I do think it is a correct view of the economic reality that everyone should strive to be more entrepreneurial in some way or another

Traditional educational institutions rarely, if ever, teach entrepreneurial thinking, even though it is the largest differentiator in observed career outcomes that I have seen.