The Hero’s Journey
Myths are clues to your potential. The clues contain the following insights...
The Call to Adventure
This is your invitation to be the hero of your own journey.
At the beginning of the story, the protagonist possess the limitless potential courage, authenticity, and excellence. The potential has not been unleashed because the protagonist is distracted by the banalities of everyday life. The protagonist has a sense of destiny or learns of a prophecy about their destiny. That sense of destiny symbolizes the your conscience; the voice that calls you to become your most courageous, most authentic, most excellent self.
Think of Neo in “The Matrix.” His call to adventure is a literal phone call from Morpheus telling Neo that he needs to escape his corporate workplace and join the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar on their quest to unleash human potential.
The questions that any hero must answer are:
Who are you? And what do you want to do about it?
When you are your most courageous, most authentic, most excellent self, are you an artist, a warrior, an engineer, an entrepreneur, a craftsperson, a healer, a leader?
What is the biggest, most important problem you can solve with your gifts and skills? And what’s your plan to solve it?”
Refusing the Call
Your life is a wrestling match between your conscience and distraction. Your conscience is the voice that calls you to unleash your potential by embodying courage, authenticity, and excellence. Your ego is the voice that invites you to sacrifice everything for acceptance. Your fear is the voice that invites you to sacrifice everything for safety
When your ego has the upper hand, you will sacrifice your potential for acceptance. When your fear has the upper hand, you will sacrifice your potential for safety. The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.
In “The Matrix,” Neo refuses the call to adventure because the path to escape is too dangerous. He sacrifices his potential for safety. Then he is taken into custody by the Agents.
Meeting the Mentor
Everyone needs someone who treats them like they have the potential to achieve excellence, someone who says “I believe in your potential, and I can’t wait to see what you become. How can I help you develop the skills you need to get the result you want?”
If you are very lucky, you were raised by parents who treated you that way, you are surrounded by friends who treat you that way, you have a spouse who treats you that way, and you have a professional mentor who treats you that way.
We need a community focused on these principles because the most important thing in life is human potential. We need a community focused on these principles because the people you know who are burdened by regret or overwhelmed by despair never had anyone who treated them this way. We need a community focused on these principles because the saddest thing in life is wasted talent, and nobody wants to live the wrong life and then die filled with regret.
Morpheus is Neo’s mentor, and he tells Neo about the Prophecy and tells Neo that he is the One.
Crossing the Threshold
When you make the decision to align your decisions and actions with your conscience, you will sacrifice acceptance and you will sacrifice safety for your potential. You will cross the threshold from the ordinary world to the path at the edge of uncertainty.
Neo takes the red pill, and leaves his world ordinary world
The Road of Trials
In order to complete the mission, the protagonist must develop the skills they need to get the result they want.
Develop authenticity by creating a plan that aligns your daily decisions and actions with your vision for your life and your career.
Develop courage by focusing your attention and effort on the achievement of a meaningful goal.
Develop strong, personal accountability by focusing on skill acquisition and high standards.
Develop discipline by reviewing your goals and priorities on a daily basis.
Sacrifice appropriately by letting go of something meaningful so you can reach for that which is most meaningful.
Master your craft so you can contribute something excellent to your community.
In movies, the Road of Trials is often depicted as a training montage. Think of “The Jump Program,” sparring with Morpheus, “The Woman in the Red Dress,” and the assault on the building where Morpheus is being held by the Agents.
The Ordeal
The ethos of the hero is: “Life is beautiful, and I love being alive, and it’s my soul that makes my life worth living. I want to enjoy my life for as long as I can, but I’d rather trade my life to save my soul than trade my soul to save my life, so I will never surrender to fear, self-doubt, or second-guessing”
The Ordeal forces the hero to confront their greatest fear, and that confrontation unleashes the hero’s true courage. This is an archetypal confrontation with mortality, and that confrontation poses a question to the hero - “Will you trade your life to save your soul, or will you trade your soul to save your life?”
This allows the hero to recognize that there is such as thing as “a fate worse than death.” If you surrender to fear of failure, fear of rejection, and fear of embarrassment, you will waste your potential. Once you realize you’ve wasted your potential, you will sink into a pit of despair, and that pit is bottomless. If you trade your soul to save your life, you will become a villain who punishes everyone around you. You will do everything you can to drag them into Hell with you because the saddest thing in life is wasted talent, and their striving will become daily reminder of your of your cowardice.
Neo stands his ground and fights Agent Smith, and this exchange happens.
“What is he doing?” - Trinity
“He’s beginning to believe.” - Morpheus
Apotheosis
Once you let go of everything, you are free to do anything. Confronting your greatest fear unleashes your greatest courage. When you free yourself from the fear of death, you are free to truly live your life. Now you are willing to sacrifice everything to embody your conscience. Now you are a hero.
That understanding truly liberates the hero from fear, self-doubt, and second guessing, and that is the moment the ordinary protagonist becomes the hero. That is the moment when they truly embody the courage and authenticity that unleashes their potential to achieve excellence. The hero achieves the state of Flow.
Thomas Anderson is killed by Smith, and Neo the One rises to defeat the big bad. Distraction gives way to Flow.
Return with the Elixir
Everyone needs someone who treats them like they have the potential to achieve excellence. Mentor others so that you may further develop your mastery by contributing to theirs. Find the others and liberate them by serving them - “I believe in your potential, and I can’t wait to see what you become. How can I help you develop the skills you need to get the results you want?”
Having defeated Smith, Neo puts the machines on notice. He knows how to escape the Matrix, and he’s going to show others what is possible…
“I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it’s going to begin. I’m going to hang up this phone, and then I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see. I’m going to show them a world without you; a world without rules or controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.”