By Justin Jones
February 2019

Humans, by their nature, are creatures of habit. We fall into the same routine, the same patterns. We eat at the same restaurants, sit at the same desk, walk the same route to work and go about our jobs (and relationships) in the same, comfortable way.

It’s good…until it’s not.

When you’ve got a good thing going, it’s hard to justify taking a risk, that may result in failure. Jobs demand perfection giving little room to fail. Society expects you play it safe. Schools want you to walk the line.

This leads to stagnancy and an aversion to failure that keeps us from growing and ultimately holds businesses, workplaces, relationships and people from achieving their ultimate potential.

The answer…is a little more Adventure!

1. Adventure expands ‘normal’
It transforms us, expands our comfort zone and helps us define our own measures of success. It allows us room to grow, develop and achieve our true potential.

2. Adventure creates curiosity
It empowers the learner inside of us. It leaves us more imaginative, inspired and unlocks the creativity in us all. Adventure reconnects us all with our childlike curiosity, activates our growth mindset and reminds us of the value of play.

3. Adventure fills your cup
Being outdoors makes you sharper, improves your wellbeing, refreshes your sense and improves your focus. Research shows that being in nature helps lower cortisol, reduce stress and improves performance. By doing so helps you look at things from a distance and allows you to see things more clearly.

4. Adventure makes you radically resilient
It improves your cognitive and emotional flexibility, problem-solving skills and redefines what you are capable of. Adventure is like a muscle that needs to be exercised. The more we do it, the stronger we become.

5. Adventure buys you valuable time
In today’s overly busy, overly scheduled, digitally addicted lives, it’s even more important to create the spaces in-between, not rely on instant gratification and disconnect from time to time. Adventure forces us to slow down, empowers time-out, limits distractions, improves patience, creates space for deep thinking, creativity and ideation.

6. Adventure builds up your tribe
It is the largest level playing field on earth and enables everyone to see the world and each other in a new way. Nature draws people together and helps foster social ties, healing and unity. It builds team cohesion and emotional intelligence. Adventure doesn’t judge what clothes you wear, your gender, your age, race or color – it embraces diversity and helps build thriving teams.

7. Adventure is relative
“Adventure is an activity with an unknown outcome.”

Adventure is anything you make of it, anything that pushes you beyond your normal routine, your normal life, your normal world view. It is intensely personal, guided by your interests, skills and desires.

Any adventure is a worthwhile undertaking. What that adventure is, is up to you. You just have to embrace the unknown, ‘choose your own (micro to mammoth) adventure’ and decide to adopt an adventurous mindset.

“What is it you are going to do with your one wild and precious life?”

About the Jonesys

The Jonesys are a modern-day family of adventurers trying to settle down different and build a life of adventure. Justin, Lauren and their daughter Morgan, The Jonesys, are pioneers for settling down differently and merging an adventurous life with a family life. The family set out on an expedition to prove that adventure doesn’t have to stop where family begins. With their one-year-old daughter Morgan, Lauren and Justin walked 1800km on a self-supported expedition from the centre of Australia to the south coast proving family can not only co-exist, but thrive with adventure.

Justin is Australia’s pre-eminent Explorer, key¬note speaker, adventure thinker and storyteller. Over the past 18 years he has made a career of undertaking huge, epic, record setting expeditions around the world and sharing these on the stage and on screen. He’s kayaked across the Tasman Sea from Australia to New Zealand and become the first to ski to the South Pole and back. He currently holds two Guinness World Records and holds a place as one of Australia’s 50 Greatest Explorers of all time, all achieved before his thirties!

Lauren Jones has spent the last fifteen years climbing corporate ladders not mountains. She’s worked in executive strategy and sustainability roles in a large corporates globally. Lauren has a Bachelor of Business Administration (Accounting and Finance) from the University of Washington (USA) and a Masters in Sustainable Development from the University of New South Wales (Australia). She’s an advocate of using the power of business and adventure to solve pressing social and environmental problems.