Hero's Journey

In every story that you have ever read or watched, every single one of them, the hero has to walk both the inner and the outer journey. Let’s take Lord of the Rings as an example. If you haven't seen the films just read the analogy to understand what it is that I’m referring to when I'm talking about these two paths and specifically ask yourself these questions:

· What are my paths?

· What are my challenges?

· Am I the hero of my own story?

· And what's it going to take in order to achieve the extreme growth and the success that I want in life and my business?

Let's start with the lead character. I often use Lord of the Rings because there are so many characters and each one of them is a main character. Consequently, if you take the three films all together, at a total of more than eleven hours, every single one of the main characters gets to be the hero of their own story, each one with their own journey of success with the inner and outer paths to walk.

Let's take a look at Viggo Mortensen's character, Strider. This character starts off as Strider and develops through the films, ultimately (spoiler alert) becoming the king. Now, if you've seen the films then you're aware of the journey that he goes on. If you haven't seen them, don't worry, I'm going to take you through the salient parts right now.

When you first see Strider, he is cloaked. He's in the shadows. You can't see his eyes or his face. He's hidden inside the hood. He's literally and metaphorically hiding from the world. By the time you reach the end of the films, some eleven hours later, you see him in his robes, everybody else looking to him on bended knee, and he stands up strong and tall as he takes his place as king with the crown on his head. There are hours of film showing his personal journey, going from being in the shadows to king of all the humans and the challenges that he faces are many.

There's a physical external path that he has to walk in order to get to his destination, his own success. This includes numerous challenges. He has to lead many battles. He has to face many foes. However, he also has to face his own inner demons and challenges. He resists the call to his own destiny. In other words, he's meant to be the king, he's the rightful king, but he refuses to accept that call. And all the way through the film he's very humble, but he rejects that calling to be king, that calling to be the leader of men.

He has to confront those inner demons, those doubts in himself, what it means to step up, and at the same time continually fight the external foes and challenges, overcoming all the external obstacles. From the first moment you see him until the end, he's on a quest, he's on his own success journey and he's walking both of those paths in parallel. Sometimes the biggest challenge comes in the external world, sometimes the biggest confrontation is inside himself. But ultimately, he's consistently challenged externally and internally in order to triumph, to complete his personal journey.

Every main character in Lord of the Rings goes on a similar journey. Let's take Frodo, the hobbit. Frodo is tasked early on in the film to take the Ring and destroy it in the fires of Mordor. Again, just to illustrate this point once more, throughout the film you'll see Frodo go from absolutely not stepping up to the challenge, pushing back on the calling that is made of him by Gandalf the wizard, and rejecting the call to action, to eventually accepting the call. His quest starts first of all on the inner path.

The first part is really simple. He has to overcome himself in a similar way to Strider, but his challenges are much greater at the beginning. His first challenge is to overcome his initial resistance to this incredibly challenging objective that's been set for him. Then he goes on the adventure and very, very quickly he hits his first external obstacle. There's a point in the film where they come to a crossroads, and Samwise Gamgee, his partner in crime throughout his mission and permanent companion throughout the whole of the three films, turns around and says, "This is the furthest that I've ever been from the Shire," their home. They're standing on this path and on one side is the known and on the other side is the unknown. And of course, this adventure, this challenge, is going to take them very quickly into the unknown. They’ve only travelled a really short distance from their home and they're already into the unknown.

How does this relate to you and your business? If I were to say to you that, no matter where you are in your business, I want you to think about extreme growth - if you're doing 50-60k, I want you to think 100K plus in the next 12 months or less; if you're doing ? of a million, I want you to think ? a million in the next 12 months - your initial reaction might be the same as it was for Frodo. Remember, he resisted, rejecting the challenge. You may then overcome that, saying, right, I'm going to step up to this. After that, you might act very quickly and find external resistance. Your business may not be in the right place to double, your product range might not be ready to double, you may have external challenges you need to overcome.

It may be that very soon you are looking back and saying this is the furthest I've ever been in my business. Then, you too are faced with stepping into the unknown. With Frodo, that's really the beginning of his quest and the beginning for Samwise Gamgee and the other two hobbits that go with him. They cross that threshold and are into the unknown. They are also into the adventure. Very quickly they are threatened by the dark riders, facing almost certain death.

This is similar to the challenge which has you overcoming your inner blocks, your own limitations. You say, I will step up to this challenge, I'll go for it. Very quickly the external world pushes back at you - resisting and challenging you - and this may be your first battle in the external world. It may also be your first battle in the internal world. You might start thinking that you’re not up to this, not good enough - your business isn't good enough, your products aren't good enough.

We could go on and on with examples from Lord of the Rings, every single one of them goes on their own journey. If you look at the half-elf, Arwen, who ends up in a relationship with Strider, she's also confronted on her own inner and external path. Half-elves live for hundreds of years. While Strider also expects to live a very long life, he wouldn’t live anywhere near as long as Arwen and that confronts them with its own set of challenges. Arwen goes on adventures. You see her on horseback riding across plains, you see her life being threatened, and finally her journey takes her to the end where she does take Strider’s side and they have a baby. She's made her decision, and that's her success.

Arwen, played by Liv Tyler, had to make many sacrifices, overcoming many challenges inside herself. She also had to overcome many challenges externally in terms of her father's opinion, for example, and the expectations of her fellow elf kind. Again, in your own business you'll find similar themes. If you have taken your business to 50k, 60k, 100k, and now you want to double that, big extreme growth, you're going to have your own internal challenges, you're going to have the external challenges that the business will face in stepping up, but also you may find challenges from those around you. Your staff or the people that work alongside you may not be up for this challenge. You need to make sure, just like Frodo, that you've got the right people, the right companions on this journey for you.

You may have naysayers around you. You may have people questioning your decision, questioning your judgments. All these things are challenges that you need to overcome, both in the internal environment inside you and the external environment.

If you're not into Lord of the Rings, another film that I like, also with many lead characters, is Love Actually. In Love Actually there are about seven different love interests. If you know the film, think about any of those lead characters and the journey that they go on, the challenges that they face. Whether it's challenges to their marriage or to their social standing.

Hugh Grant plays the prime minister. You see him on the first day of taking office. That's him crossing the threshold. He comes into Number 10 and that's when he meets Natalie - he meets his love interest, played by Martine McCutcheon. Their individual adventures kick off in that moment, both of them facing these internal and external challenges, the inner and outer paths that they both have to walk to end up together in a relationship. Every single person in that film goes through something similar.

I want you to think about what the story of your journey is going to look like. What are the immediate inner challenges that you face when I say to you I want you to go for extreme growth and I challenge you to double or more in the next 12 months in your business? What are those inner demons that hold you back? Your doubts and your fears? Maybe your own personal judgments on what's right, what's wrong, what's good, what's bad? What do you need to overcome? What's the immediate threshold that you need to cross or the internal path you need to take in order to be able to take the external one?

Next, you need to start thinking about the immediate external challenges. Can your business sustain two times growth? Can your product range sustain that? And your client base? How about your marketing list? Will these things enable you to double your business in the next 12 months? If not, these are the external obstacles or challenges that you need to overcome in order to achieve your own success.

Every journey has a hero at its centre. You are the hero of your own journey. You are the hero of your own story. As such, you are also going to need to walk both of these paths.

This is an excerpt from episode 2 The Journey of Success from the podcast Levelling Up: Extreme Business Growth.

Check out the full episode https://biggerbrighterbolder.co.uk/the-journey-of-success/

Image: https://www.tokkoro.com/