Ep #12: Hero’s Journey Series 9 of 11: The Road Back

Welcome, my friends, to this week’s episode of The Storied Life Coaching Podcast.  

I’m very excited to talk to you about this part of the journey because so many people think that the last part we talked about: getting the reward seizing the sword, getting the result that you wanted, that’s the end of the journey, right? Now we can all just go home and it just ends. But there’s actually several more steps of the journey that will help you multiply the results that you get from your results and so, if you know how to unlock these next few phases, you will get multiple effects of your result for yourself as well as for other people. And I want to tell you more about how to do that, especially if you’re a leader, or you’re building a business or you already are starting to think about what you might want to apply this result to. I want to give you the gift of perspective. 

And that’s really what this stage is about: the road back. Think about if you’ve ever gone on a long hike, or you have gone on a climb of some sorts. I know that several years ago, myself and a group of friends went and did Mount St. Helens in Washington State, and this is a active volcano. So there’s that many of you may have remembered when it exploded in the past. That was a very big news newsworthy event, but we climbed to this and it’s really hard to climb, especially the last part of it. The last part of it is absolutely that going and slaying the dragon because it is an ash field and so this means that for every step that you take in this ash, you kind of sink down, and you actually, every step, you come back at least a half a step. So the last like fifth of it, it takes another two hours. And you can see the top. It’s right there. But it’s that much harder to get to the top.  

But that hard part at the very end, just like we’ve talked about with anything that you might be going through in your own life personally or professionally, that last bit before you slay your dragon before you get your reward can be the hardest part, right? That’s the final push. Now, that’s not the end, though. Like I was talking about, I remember summiting that volcano and getting to see clear over the edge and see the Caldera, and see that there was some steam coming up from it. It was so cool to look down and into that. But what was even more amazing was turning around and looking back down the path that I had traveled that entire day in order to get there.  

What I was experiencing was the gift of perspective. And I was able to reflect back on how hard it had been and all those moments where I wanted to stop or it would have been so easy to turn around just like you and your adventure and what you’re trying to accomplish. And that perspective is the multiplication effect that I’m talking about today. Having perspective on your road back, road back to the ordinary world. You have now gone through something that has transformed you outside that other people can see and inside, maybe even more importantly, you know that you can do a hard thing that you’d maybe didn’t think you could do before. So on your road back down, back down the mountain as it were, what pieces of experience, what enemies did you slay? Maybe they were your own doubts and fears. What things could you bring back to the ordinary world and not keep it, selfishly, this knowledge to yourself? How could that information serve you, others professionally? Now that you have obtained something that is an accomplishment—it could be a raise, it could be a different role, a different title, it could be you now have a team underneath you—how are you able to serve at a deeper level and lead, now that you have this knowledge, now can you share this with other people? This is what I want you to think about: that perspective. And bonus: how could you use that perspective, not just for others, but also to help you by sharing with other people and lifting them up and helping show them where the shortcuts were or the hard-earned lessons where? He went the wrong direction and how to turn around and come back as some like false trailer switchback, how could you keep others from having to go through that pain that you did? How can you help them maybe be successful even more quickly than you? You were so many times, especially in corporate culture, I will see people gain something and then hoard that knowledge. The impulse is: I had to do this on my own, and I’m not going to share it with other people because then they would have a leg up against me. And that sense of competition, in corporate culture, I’m seeing the winds start to shift. There were kindnesses. People realize that it’s not only a nice thing to do to lift other people up. It actually benefits you, it benefits you more. It multiplies your effective success because when you’re raising up other people and showing them how to be successful, what’s happening is your esteem is going up and your team members minds. You are becoming a leader, you are becoming one of those thought leaders, one of those people that people look to as an example of what’s possible and that you don’t hoard knowledge. You share it.  

This is what the roadmap can mean. Don’t dismiss, now that you have gotten the reward, that you’ve gotten the thing that you want, the full reason that you crossed the threshold and went on your call to adventure. This is the best part. Reflect on and refine how, if you were going to show your best friend, how to do what you had, the hard thing you had to do the hard way. How could you help them to make it less hard or to support them and cheer them on so that they can get a similar result? And how could you, like I was saying, apply what you have just learned from this adventure to another adventure that you want to go on? Or to another area of your life that you might want to improve in a similar way? Maybe it’s your personal life. How could learning how to do something in your professional life influence the way that you interact in the ordinary world now that you are you’ve gone on this adventure? You’re—the hero is reentering the ordinary world. How can you serve others? And how can you look at your adventure as a way to serve yourself for even greater success, for the next adventure that you go on? 

These are the things that I want you to think about. That is the road back. So don’t think about just what happened and “I got the reward.” Think about, “Now that I’ve gotten the reward, how can I use this experience and the knowledge and the wisdom that I have now to be that mentor for someone else, to be that Gandalf for somebody else, to be that wise person that can help them to get a similar or an even better results?” This sort of kindness, bringing that fire back to the village to share it with others, that is what real leaders do.  

That’s what I want you to do for yourself, for your families, for your professional teams, for the business you’re trying to build as an entrepreneur. Bring back the fire to the to the others, to the others in the village. Help them to be successful as well. Don’t hoard that knowledge, share it. So you’ve changed, you’ve gotten that reward. Now that you have the perspective, you can share it. We have a couple more places, stops on our journey, on our Hero’s Journey. But we are nearing the end of this. But this is the multiplication effect. If you can think about and reflect on now that you’ve gotten the reward, how you can help others, it will multiply the results that you are getting in your own life. It’s like magic. So try this out, this is kind of a short episode. But really think about how you can serve yourself and others on the road back home.  

That’s it for now. Have a good week. I’ll talk to you soon.