Lead With Your Strengths For Better Results

Leading with your strengths is a good idea and delivers better results for you.  Nobody is good at everything.  When we understand our strengths and lead with them, we gain not only confidence but competence.  Sophisticated, spontaneous, competent action comes from leading with your strengths.  Let’s explore why.

Your personality style has strengths and weaknesses

Do What You Are, Discover the perfect career for you through the secrets of Personality Type by Paul D. Tieger, Barbara Barron, And Kelly Tieger help us navigate our personality type and discover what occupations we may enjoy.  We each have 4 preferences that we use to comprehend and deal with the world around us. They consist of  1) the dominant function, 2) the auxiliary function, 3) the third function, and 4) the fourth function.  “As long as your dominant and auxiliary are in command, you are functioning well.  When your third and fourth functions take over, it’s as if the kids climbed over the seat and started driving the car (with predictably disastrous results). ” (pg. 65) This is an incredible reference to identify your personality type, then to understand what careers are suitable for your strengths.  “Do what you are” is therefore about finding a career that matches your strengths, your natural abilities, your preferences in life.

Your brain works better when utilizing your strengths

Your Brain at Work by David Rock is an absolute must-read.  When your strengths are engaged, a state of arousal is created which helps create a flow state, which further creates a positive spiral.  Positive spirals are created when you are focused and energized and are the main contribution to your happiness. You need to be interested in what you are doing to achieve optimal brain performance.   The upward spiral explains why people perform better when they are happy. Doing things that are significantly new can lead to a negative spiral of decreasing dopamine levels.

Happiness involves utilizing your strengths, they are your source of personal power

In his book What Happy People Know,  Dan Baker Ph.D.  informs us that Focusing on our strengths 1) works, 2) feels better, 3) creates the energy necessary for transformation, 4) Is self-sustaining because it is full of rewards and 5) encourages us to play to win because it works better.  Interestingly, our weakness’ can be disguised as strengths.  Workaholism, perfectionism, materialistic ambition, desire for domination, and status-seeking are all derived from fears.  Our individual character, our personal power lies in utilizing our strengths.  Without a feeling of personal power, than can be no happiness.  Leading with our strengths helps us to make our own rules and own our days.   Happiness tools are all about taking action.   Dr. Baker encourages us to shift our focus from our problems and weaknesses to our possibilities and strengths.  When we use our strengths and exercise them every day, we become increasingly intelligent and can turn those strengths into careers.  We are to not confuse what we wish we were good at with what we are actually good at.

First Things – the tip of your spear

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey enlightens us about what it takes to be effective in life.  The spiritual dimension is explored in Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind, to determine what is important to you to accomplish in your lifetime.  These important things are “first things”.  Habit 3: First Things First is about prioritizing these first things over everything else.  First things are the important things, your calling, your bliss, they resonate and excite you, they are your strengths.

Follow your Bliss – follow what excites you, lead with your strengths

I equate “leading with my strengths” with “following my bliss”.  Following your bliss is a mechanism of personal development offered by Joseph Campbell through his career evaluating myths and religions of the world.  When something resonates with you, it is a major hint of where your interests and associated strengths are hidden.  Follow that feeling of bliss.  Here are some concepts that I collected over the years from Joseph Campbell’s books noted on our resources page link below.

As we love ourselves, we move toward our own bliss, our highest enthusiasm.  Following your bliss is not self-indulgent, but vital, for your whole system knows this is how to be alive in this world, and the way to give to this world the very best you have to offer. The most heroic of all acts is the courage to discover who you are and what you would like to be, to slay the savage dragon of the ego, and to follow your bliss to the truth of your life.  There is a track just waiting there for each of us, and once upon it, doors will open that were not open before and would not open for anyone else. Everything does start clicking along and mother nature herself supports the journey (flow, magic).  The lion of self-discovery is meant to kill the dragon of thou shalt. Our job is to straighten out our own lives.

Martial Arts factors

Fighting has been said to be a good analogy for life.  I happen to agree with this.  In a way, we are all seeking a way to express ourselves and your strengths are your expression.  In the combative arts, there is considerable discussion and confusion as to which side should be lead with, the dominant or the weak.  Leading with your weaker side is an attempt to hold the dominant hand in reserve, ready to deliver a knockout blow when the opportunity presents itself.  It is a home run swing.  Leading with your dominant side; the aim is to prioritize timing and speed over power.

• Jeet Kune Do (JKD):  Bruce Lee’s martial art puts your dominant side forward.  The leading weapons are the dominant hand and leg.   This allows for optimizing the priorities of a fight better:  distance, timing, speed, power.  JKD, a relatively new martial art, is the result of combining Wing Chun Kung Fu, fencing, and American boxing.  The on-guard stance of JKD is largely defined as placing your dominate side forward.
• Fencing:  You hold your weapon in your dominant hand
• Boxing:  Some famous boxers who place their dominant hand forward are Oscar De La Hoya and Victor Lomachenko.

Radiant, Prepped, and Frosty methodology:  leading with your strengths breakout

• Be Radiant
  • Your survival, happiness, and effectiveness kits are inside you.  Re-frame your life to recognize your strengths and weakness’ and to lead with your strengths.  It was how you were made, it is why you exist.
  • The spiritual dimension is where you discover self authorization to be who you are.  Do what you are.  Do what you are good at.  Lead with your strengths.
  • There is only one spiritual message:  be who you are, follow your bliss and lead with your strengths.
• Be Prepped
  • For strategic planning, your brain works better when you are doing work that interests you.
• Be Frosty
  • For tactical execution, leading with your strengths allows you to rapidly adapt to emergency stimulus in the fastest way possible.  Your strengths are how you naturally approach problems, reducing the amount of thinking required, thus increasing your reaction speed.
  • If you are leading with your strengths, you can act spontaneously without hesitation.  Leading with your strengths increases both your speed and your competency.
  • In emergency situations, where you have no time to think, you must act spontaneously.

Suggested Next Steps:

• Visit our adventure methodology page where these ideas are integrated.
• See our resources page to learn more from some authorities mentioned here.

 

 

Prepped and Frosty’s Logo Explained

Our logo is based on Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey with a core methodology at its center.  Our logo is meant to represent the “anatomy of adventure”.  What adventure looks like, how to execute adventure, and how to repeat adventuring to bring about increased awareness and happiness in our lives.  Our logo represents a paradigm and methodology that establishes a map to navigate life, allowing a sense of awe to reach you, yet keeping you firmly grounded through all stages of maturity from birth to grave.  Our logo is a map and methodology enabling you to become and then express your greatest self.

What is The Hero’s Journey?

The Hero’s Journey is also known as the monomyth.  After years of study and teaching about mythologies throughout the world, Joseph Campbell concluded that they are basically all variations of the same story.  The one-story, the monomyth, is about historical spiritual heroes and the journeys they underwent.  “The labyrinth is thoroughly known” per Joseph Campbell.  We think of The Hero’s Journey as a map and we can follow it without having to get lost in the labyrinth of life.

The Hero’s Journey is, therefore, a template of the collective spiritual messages from myths and religions around the world as to how we should conduct our lives.   The story resonates with us all because it is a manifestation of the energies that work interior to us all.   Many popular movies, such as The Matrix, Star Wars, Harry Potter and others have used or mimicked The Hero’s Journey.  The Hero’s Journey resonates with people because it is inside everyone.  When watching these movies, we resonate with them, and we feel good.

The importance of being familiar with The Hero’s Journey:

It can help you because it is a map of the treasure you are seeking in your life.  It is actively being used against you as well.   The Hero’s Journey is the one story for us all and marketing takes advantage of this by indicating you have a problem, they have a product to fix the problem, and you are going to fail without their product.  As Alan Watts once said, “If you can be fooled, you deserve to be fooled.”   It is also a bit malicious as well.  Advertising and marketing are actively working to manipulate you from becoming your greatest, best self.

Key Elements of The Hero’s Journey:

The Hero’s Journey is the total sum of key elements of all mythologies, containing universal patterns, and can be complicated, with multiple variants.  It is well documented. “…A good life is one hero journey after another.  Over and over again, you are called into the realm of adventure, you are called to new horizons…”  (Pathways to Bliss. pg 122, Collective Works of Joseph Campbell).  We like a simplified version as follows below.

• The Known World
  • There is a call to adventure: the universe taps you on the shoulder inviting you to adventure and it is time to leave the existing place behind.
    • Saying no leads to purification, a drying up of life occurs.
    • Saying yes requires courage.
  • Sometimes there is a mentor: one who is the source of the adventure.
• The Threshold Crossing
  • Two cherubs block the entrance to the unknown and are frightening, but will not stop you if you do not let them.  They are actually benign.
    • These are also known as the “clashing rocks” or the symplegades.
      • These represent the active mind that generates the world of opposites, i.e. fear and desire, right and wrong, black and white.  We have to have the courage to go past these apparent obstacles and venture into the unknown world.  We have to go beyond our comfort zone.
• The Unknown World
  • Trials and tribulations will test you.
  • Magical aid will be there to help you if you are worthy.
  • You will either:
    • be killed and resurrected
      • Motif from plant-based societies.  Group, priestly view of the world.
    • find treasure
      • Motif from Hunting based societies.  Individual, shamanistic view of the world.
  • Escape and return to the known world where you are to and integrate your treasure into everyday life and share with others.
    • Sometimes your treasure is accepted by others, sometimes rejected.

Our Logo is a simple representation of The Hero’s Journey, with a core added:

• The left triangle represents the “known world” and is brown to represent fertility.
• The two dots reflect the “clashing rocks” generated by mental thought.
• The right triangle represents the “unknown world”, is green and slightly larger than the “known world” to represent new growth.
• The red arrow through the middle represents a core that is meant to depict a sword bridge that is required to execute the adventure.  Its cross-section is our Radiant, Prepped, and Frosty methodology.  A methodology of bare essential skill set adjectives we should be able to describe ourselves with to be effective adventurers.
  • Radiant is a spiritual message that represents what is inside us all and suggests we should lead with our strengths, mitigate our weaknesses, and have confidence in who and what we are.  It is our source of energy, personal power, and courage.
  • Prepped is using your active mind to strategically plan.
  • Frosty is about taking tactical action.
• The bottom arrow represents the return of the adventure back into the known world, where the treasure found is to be integrated into a new plateau of awareness.  It also represents a smile.  It engulfs The Hero’s Journey in its entirety and hints that your happiness lies in executing this process.   Adventuring is how we bring about happiness in our lives.
• The cyclical nature of the arrows indicates we are to repeat this process over and over.

Suggested Next Steps:

• Check out our core Radiant, Prepped and Frosty methodology we use to maximize adventuring in our life.
• We have our favorite Joseph Campbell books listed on our resource page for your consideration to read.
• “Finding Joe” is a great movie explaining The Hero’s Journey.
• The Power of Myth is an excellent introduction to Joseph Campbell’s collective work. It is a is PBS interview between Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell and is available as a book, a CD set, and on YouTube.
• You can find other Joseph Campbell works at the Joseph Campbell Foundation.
• Read our review of  What Happy People Know by Dan Baker PhD.
• Read our review of  Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales.

Review of Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales

Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why by Laurence Gonzales discusses survival situations and offers some great advice to keep in mind.

Here are some key concepts from Laurence’s book:

• Twelve steps that survivors do:

1. Look, see, perceive, believe – accept the reality of the situation.
2. Stay calm – use humor or fear to focus.  Make use of fear, don’t be ruled by it.
3. Think/Analyze/Plan – Organize, setup routines, institute discipline.
4. Take correct decisive action – transform thought into action, take risks, large jobs into small tasks, do each task well, deal with what is within your power and leave the rest behind.
5. Celebrate your successes – prevents descent into hopelessness and creates motivation.
6. Count your blessings – be grateful your alive.
7. Play – Exercise your mind (play creates innovation).
8. See the beauty – opens the senses and allows you to take in more information.
9. Believe that you will succeed – fix your determination, make no mistakes, do your best.
10. Surrender – resignation without giving up.
11. Do whatever is necessary –  be coldly rational about the world.
12. Never give up – let nothing break your spirit, there is always one more thing you can do.

• Survival is a way of life:
  • Eat life or it will eat you.
  • You engage fate deliberately with your adventures.
  • Live a life of bored caution and die of cancer vs. take the adventure and minimize the risks.
  • To live life is to risk it.
  • Risk is the essence of life.
  • Close calls make you live more intensely.
• Use your limited resources wisely; be stingy with your resources.
• To approach things like they are familiar is a mistake.
• Our attention is fragmentary. The survivor must compartmentalize and set small goals (it will kill you not to).
• Some people update their mental models better than others.  They are called survivors.
• Many conditions influence what and how much you perceive.
• The more things you are working, the chance of success decreases.
• You have a choice to obey or rebel against what is happening to you.
• Trivial events begin to shape an accident long before it happens.
• Training allows your reason to overcome emotions which, on average, keeps the species alive. Elite performers train hard.
  • Don’t get comfortable, get confident.
  • Adversity anneals you.
• When you change your environment you need a new way of seeing, a new plan.
  • The world is messy and not easily explained > maps are not easy to create.
  • The real world is messy and chaotic.
  • The survivor personality allows new information to reshape their model.
  • Indifferent forces punish the inattentive and arrogant.
  • Need experience and perception not information; act quickly and correctly.
  • Disconnect between perception and reality leads to many accidents.
• Failure is easy, success is hard.  Keep things simple for greater success.
  • Initial conditions, simple inputs, simple interactions can still be wildly unstable with minor changes to initial conditions or inputs (butterfly effect).
• Hippocampus creates and updates maps, stress impairs this (no time creates stress).
• Organism maps itself, maps the environment, then keeps the two in balance.
• If the maps don’t match, the hippocampus spins its wheels and the amygdala sounds the alarm (vertigo, claustrophobia, panic, and wasted motion/energy).
• Insanity = when the mind does not match the world.
• Bewilder, bewilderment, woods shock.
• Reason fails, instincts take over; thrashing does not save a drowning victim, but it is natural.  Those who float quietly have a better chance at survival.
• Cognition is a mechanism for modulating emotional and physical responses.
• STOP:  Stop, Think, Observe, Plan
• Must take control of the situation ASAP, keep calm, think clearly, act decisively.
• Don’t want to run out of options and energy.
• Survival started before the emergency/accident.
• You must make yourself worthy of survival. Practice!
• You can’t change the world, only yourself.
• You must see and know the world and its materials.
• When the personality is ripped away, there has to be a core remaining to carry the person through.
• The more you invest, the more you have when trouble comes.
• The more you know the more resources you have to fall back on.
• Everyone has finite resources going into an emergency, manage those resources.
• Spend your life building a core.
• Practice
• Each test is in preparation for the next.
• Survival is a path that must be walked from birth to death; it is a way of life.
• Have no mortal spots.
• Fear and pain are the tools of salvation. Fear becomes sustenance, its energy feeds action
• Become familiar with pain and discomfort.
• Once fatigue sets in, it is almost impossible to recover and it becomes a spiritual collapse:
  • hallucinations can bring relief and rest
  • take your mind back to a memory/place where you were not overextended
  • pace yourself, rest frequently and hydrate
  • the struggle to survive can rapidly deplete your resources
  • nature’s forces are unlimited, yours are not
  • you should operate at 60% of your normal activity level
  • you only have so much stored energy
  • be stingy with your scarce resources
  • balance risk vs. reward
  • invest in efforts of biggest return
  • survival requires a burst of energy – move fast and get the job done
• Stages of getting lost: being lost is not a location; it is a failure of the mind.
  • Denial
  • Anger
  • Bargaining
  • Depression
  • Acceptance
• To survive, you must find yourself, and then it does not matter where you are.
• Focusing filters things that we are not concentrating out.
• Nature loves to strip the unwary of their gear.
• Leadership, order, and routine are all important elements of survival.

• Four poisons of the mind:

  1. Fear
  2. Confusion
  3. Hesitation
  4. Surprise

• Watch clear and calm, and then act decisively at the correct moment.

Suggested Next Steps:

• Visit our adventure methodology page where these ideas are integrated.
• Read “Deep Survival” by Laurence Gonzales – see our resources page.

Review of Getting Things Done by David Allen

Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen is an excellent book and concept.  I have been a fan and practitioner for years.

David Allen created a productivity system for the office based on the martial art Karate.  Beyond his book, he has many videos on YouTube that are worth watching.

Here are some of his key concepts:

• GTD is a thinking process that facilitates getting things done.
• Achieve organized, stress free, productivity.
• Be in control at all levels at all times.
• Clarify and surf the issues instead of being buried by them.
• Spin many plates at a more sophisticated level.
• In a chaotic workplace, we do not have time to optimize our environment and must react to what is on our plate.  The emphasis is on managing next actions and taking as many actions as needed until completion.
• Your environment will swamp you.  Its a matter of survival to act quickly.
• Get ahead and stay ahead.  You do not know what is coming around the corner.
• Want to get things done with as little mental and physical effort as possible.
• Your mind tries to be the system.
• Your mind is limited in its ability to manage commitments, because it is handicapped in its ability to remember and remind.
• Develop a trusted system to be your minds mind.
• Discipline is remembering.
• You don’t want to have to re-think or have the same thought twice.
• Get things out of your head for the rest of your life and into a trusted system.  Your brain is a focusing tool not a storage device.  Lose ends cause mental drag.
• The brain is a natural problem solving tool.  Tasks requiring more than two steps are projects but do not require sophisticated project management tools.
• David offers a ” Natural Planning Model” that reflects how your brain actually plans:
  • Clarify purpose and values
  • Vision of what “done” looks like
  • Brainstorm
  • Organize
  • Take next actions
  • Move: up to increase clarity, down to increase action
• Core process steps: Collect, Process, Organize, Review, Execute:
  • Collect Information:  Capture everything into the inbox of your trusted system so that you don’t have to store them in your head. Collect all potentially relevant information.  See my recommendation below for a trusted system.
  • Process the Information: Collected things need additional processing to clarify and determine if further action is needed.   Derive next action and execute on it.  Move the item from your inbox to an appropriate storage location or trash it.  If the next step can be done in 2 minutes or less, execute on it now.  Transform tasks into actions.
  • Organize the Information:  Organize and prioritize tasks for next action management.
  • Review the Information:  Review your projects frequently to keep them on your mental stage.
  • Execute Next Actions:  What is the next action needed to move this forward? Next action management is the key.
• How do I set things up so that:
  • • I don’t have to remember
    • I can find things quickly and easily
    • The least amount of effort is used; how do I define what “done” what looks like
    • I can be in control at all levels, at all times
    • I can capture things that grab my attention, then figure it out later
    • I have a reminder function so tasks cannot disappear

After years of practicing GTD, here is my evaluation:

• Pros:
  • Fighting is a great metaphor for life and GTD is based on Karate.
  • David Allen is completely right.  You cannot keep things in your head or your environment will swamp you.  Get ahead and stay ahead.
  • If you are not taking notes, you are wasting my time.  I am dismissing you as I speak because I know your brain is overloaded.
  • “Get things out of your head for the rest of your life.”  This is a brilliant concept that I use all of the time. You never know what is potentially relevant.  Taking notes helps you pay attention the first time. Your recall will dramatically improve as well.  The act of paying attention and recording helps your mental recall as well as it can be searched in your trusted system when you do not remember.

• • • • Idea > capture it in Evernote or write it down
      • Defect > capture it with a picture in Evernote to commicate broadly
      • part number > capture it, then you don’t need to ask for it later.
      • Contact info > capture it
      • anything and everything > capture it and free up your mind.

• Cons:
  • Karate is a series of katas or dances to simulate fight scenarios with multiple opponents.  It is a scripted set of rules.  GTD is a smaller set of rules that make quick action more likely.
  • GTD originally did not fully recommend a system to be your “trusted system”.
  • The Secret Weapon (TSW):  GTD was written before the explosion of modern internet tools.  At the time there was no perfect organization system for executing GTD principles.  I discovered TSW on YouTube, implemented it, and have been using it for many years now as my “GTD trusted system”.  I could not live without it and highly, highly recommend using this tool. TSW is free and involves using the Evernote application with GTD principles.  I used this tool in my Mechanical Engineering job for years and now have a premium Evernote subscription due to the megabytes of data that I process.  Capture on your phone, process on your PC after synchronizing. Those megabytes are not stored in my head. Its a true competitive advantage.  Click here to watch a video on TSW.

• Suggested Next steps:
  • Visit our adventure methodology page where these ideas are integrated.
  • Listen to David Allen on YouTube.  If you like what he is saying, read his book to get a better understanding. See our Rationale and Resources page.
  • Learn about TSW on YouTube.

Review of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey is an excellent book.  I have used it for years and found success beyond what I could have done without it.  Other great books by Mr. Covey related to this are First things First and the 8th Habit.

As a 7 Habits practitioner for many years, here is an overview:

• Effectiveness is a balance between production and production capability.
• Think of production as golden eggs and production capability as the goose.  There are no golden eggs if you do not take care of the goose.

State of Dependence: others take care of me

• Habit 1:  Be Proactive
  • It is your responsibility to make things happen; get busy and reprogram yourself.
  • You are the programmer.
  • You are never a victim, if its broke, it’s your fault.
• Habit 2:  Begin with the End in Mind
  • In the perspective of your entire life, what do you want to accomplish?  These are the wildly important things.  These are first things. These are priorities.
  • Write your program.
  • The Eisenhower Matrix is introduced and broken into 4 quadrants.
  • You are seeking to identify important but not urgent things and get to work on them.
  • To do this, you need to not work on anything unimportant.  In today’s world of work, everything is declared urgent.  Learn to say no to the unimportant.
• Habit 3:  First Things First
  • Do first things first and second things not at all.
  • Execute your program.
  • Optimize and execute around priorities.

State of Independence: private victory achieved; I take care of myself

• Habit 4:  Think Win/Win
  • Have an abundance mentality where there is enough for everybody to win.
  • Avoid win/lose and lose/win scenarios.
  • Seek win/win or no deal and move on.
• Habit 5:  First Seek to Understand, Then to be Understood
  • Listening skills go a long way towards lessening resistance to your plan.
  • Make sure you hear and understand what others are saying.  The extended team may have red herrings you need to dismiss or may have the key ingredient your plan is missing.
• Habit 6:  Synergize
  • 7 Habits calls this is the “3rd solution”, your ideas, plus ideas from others makes for the best plan possible.

State of Interdependence:  public victory achieved, we take care of each other

• Habit 7:  Sharpen the saw
  • This is the habit of renewal.  You need to renew yourself in each of the dimensions below everyday.
  • Always work with a sharp saw.  If your saw is not sharp, it will take you longer to saw down your trees.
  • This habit powers all of the others, creating an upward spiral of capability.
    • Sharpen the Saw Physically:  Take care of your physical body: Sleep, Nutrition, Exercise, Water.
      • Exercises and fortifies Habit 1:  Be Proactive
    • Sharpen the Saw Spiritually:  Cultivate your spiritual side.
      • Exercises and fortifies Habit 2:  Begin with the End in Mind
    • Sharpen the Saw Mentally:  Continual honing and expanding of the mind.
      • Exercises and fortifies Habit 3:  First Things First
    • Sharpen the Saw Socially:  Build and maintain relationships.  Maintain a positive emotional bank account with others.  Do not bankrupt the account by making too many withdrawals.
      • Exercises and fortifies Habits: 4, 5 and 6: influencing and dealing with other people.

Evaluation from personal experience:

• Pros
  • Applies in all circumstances and offers a way forward most of the time if you are stuck on something.  It gets your creative juices going and you can derive options.  Just review the habits and you can find an actionable way forward.
  • Is effective and works after substantial investment in effort to understand and practice the habits.
  • Powerful web of habits that all align in a beautiful way.
  • Habit 1 is a punch in the face: Be Proactive.  You are responsible for your own life and are not a victim.  It is your responsibility to make things happen for yourself.
• Cons
  • It is too big to load onto your mental stage all at one time.  You can’t keep it in your head.  I wrote them out everyday for years to get them to sink in.  I have them memorized, but it takes considerable time to even state them.
  • The book is a difficult read. I spent years reviewing and summarizing the concepts into a workable format for myself.  I have never met another individual who understands the entire message.
  • Upper limit: limits spontaneous action if you try to process everything on your plate with these steps.  Hence, it becomes more of a background activity and reminder rather than a front line tool.  if you have time to think, then these steps are helpful.
  • As pointed out by David Allen in Getting things Done, 7 Habits is an optimization methodology that is hard to execute on when dealing with many issues that are overwhelming you day to day.
  • Too many steps, many not needed for every situation.  It is hard to load onto your mental stage quickly and easily.
  • Not fast enough.  You cannot intellectualize every moment.  Chaos will punch you in the face if you cannot operate quickly enough.

• Suggested Next Steps
• • Visit our adventure methodology page where these ideas are integrated.
  • Buy the book and read it.  See our resources page.

Missouri River Expedition

In 2019 Scott participated in a Missouri River expedition spanning 2,341 miles in 5 months and 2 days.

Scott signed up for this life-changing canoe trip padding the entire Missouri River.  The expedition was led by Tom Elpel and partially re-traced Lewis and Clark’s journey on the Missouri River from the 1800’s.  They called themselves “The Corp of Rediscovery”.  An almost magical window opened up and Scott chose to say yes to the trip.  To participate in the 5-month trip, Scott resigned from his job of 14 years and he actually felt free!   Scott discovered Tom Elpel via his year long apprenticeship course under Doug Hill’s Gone Feral: School of Primitive & Traditional Skills which was held in the Front Range of Colorado.  Tom’s books form a substantial part of Scott’s outdoor skills library. The expedition offered Scott a perfect window of opportunity to test his own kit, identify weaknesses, and evolve to another level of competence under Tom’s leadership.

Expedition Objectives:

• 2,341 miles descending the Missouri River from its origins at Three Forks, Montana to St. Louis, Missouri.
• A conduit for exploring the land and its inhabitants.
• A wilderness skills immersion experience and nature awareness exercising botany, foraging and fishing; seeking a deeper connection with nature.
• A media-centric fundraiser to purchase land along the Jefferson River for a public campground; local media will be invited out to interview the group.

The expedition lasted 5 months and 2 days. The crew was supported along the way through various Lewis and Clark enthusiasts, the Missouri River Paddlers Association; i.e. “river angels”, earth skills community, as well as strangers.

We posted over 1,000 photos on our Prepped and Frosty Facebook page and updates were also posted by Tom Elpel.  Scott put together a presentation for public speaking and can be found below.  Tom is writing a book about the expedition and it will be available in March 2020.

Click here to order

Missouri River Presentation

Lightweight Backpacking Gear List

~ Go, Do, Share, Enable