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Have you been forwarded the DARE High Performance newsletter? You can sign up here to receive your own copy in the future.

This Week’s DARE At A Glance:

Partnership with SelectSoftware Reviews - Find the right HR Software without the headaches or guesswork.

Tale as old as time: What Star Wars can teach us about transformation.

Simple Versus Easy: Change is not complex. But simple does not mean easy.

Book of the Week: The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler.

My Week: More filming, but from the skies this week.

 “‘The goal of the Hero’s Journey is yourself, finding yourself”

 Joseph Campbell.

The two writers that have most influenced my career and work are Viktor Frankl and Joseph Campbell. They taught me how to change.

When Lucas read Campbell, he was so struck, he created Star Wars using Campbell’s work. So, as it is Star Wars Day…

Tale as old as time; true as it can be…

Change is in the air, but s/he has doubt and doesn’t act.

Then a big event (and often a mentor) knocks our hero out of believing they can stay comfortable. They move into a new world and begin to meet discomfort and change.

There follows a series of tests and challenges, new allies, new enemies, shapeshifters and an enormous moment of self-doubt which they must be overcome to grow and fulfil their promise.

Only then can they proceed to the final challenge and their triumph and growth.

This is the story of Star Wars, Beauty and the Beast, Moana, The Lion King, The Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter, Paddington in Peru, The Day of the Jackal.  I could go on...

This is Siddartha’s journey to becoming the Buddha. It is Christ’s journey from John the Baptist heralding change to the ultimate triumph, over death itself. I could go on…

When I speak well, people say I ‘spoke directly to them’,  ‘spoke specifically about their own personal and private fears’ or it was ‘like you were reading my mind’.

That is quite intentional. I am using this same story structure – but making the audience members the hero. It is their story, in their heads. Their self-doubt at their bold action, change and discomfort.

It’s the same structure that I use with senior leaders when together we  want to inspire their people across the world to enter the fear of uncertainty and build transformation and performance.

You can use it too. To help you transform or to help your partner or team move forward.

It is simple. It is enormously empowering. But it is not easy.

Simple Versus Easy

Simple things are not easy things. 

Tenured teachers at business schools with little experience of transformation are paid vast sums for talking about change.

Why? They make it complex. They tell us it is slow and resisted and will likely fail: they let us off the hook.

But our children understand change. It is not complex.  But it is not easy.

They go through it brutally every September and so they empathise with Luke Skywalker and Moana instinctively and in a way adults tend not to (because we are let off the hook!).

The academic’s change curve is easy and it makes us victims (of circumstance and of our uncontrollable emotions).

The Hero’s Journey is hard, uncomfortable, and extremely simple: it empowers us to DECIDE, ACT, get a RESULT and then EVALUATE how we did with daring honesty. To act with courage for a purpose and to own and face our fear of vulnerability as we do so.

May The Fourth Be With You!

Book Jim To Speak

Book Of The Week

My pick is not Campbell’s ‘Hero with a Thousand Faces’ ( the basis of Star Wars et al). It is magnificent, but a very demanding read and probably not a newsletter pick.

A lighter way in is Christopher Vogler’s distillation of Campbell’s work.  Absolutely masterful and now a classic in its own right. Given Vogler is a Hollywood script advisor, it is also hugely practical and it is peppered with delights from the movies that you will recognise many of, and that will bring the Hero’s Journey alive for you.

So if you want to understand the tale as old as time, and use it to navigate change or to inspire it in others, this is a great starting point.

My Week

CONGRATULATIONS to all my Strava friends on your wonderful work this week!

You all inspire me every single day to be the best I can. To those of you who ran the marathon: DOUBLE congrats! With ‘DARE: to speak’ written and filmed, my own training is coming back up close to target again. Thanks for all your encouragement.

I am a helicopter pilot and took to the blue skies over Cheltenham on Friday with a film crew to film a new advert for ‘DARE:to speak’ which will go live on Linkedin and Instagram this week – keep a look out for it and be sure to follow me, if you haven’t already, to see the work!

I spoke on High Performance at outstanding events in central London and at Horwood House in the beautiful English countryside. We even had the chance to practice some freedive yoga together to go deeper into understanding the journey of change and passing our (assumed) limits.

Then on to the leadership team of one of the UK’s truly loved brands to create a High Performing Team contract. One of my very favourite pastimes – although it is very challenging and tiring for both the team members and the facilitator! Emotions run high and change is laid out and committed to – in a signed contract detailing new behaviours.

Thank you to all my partners this week who invited me to be with them. It is never taken for granted from my side – and you were all  truly inspiring to work with!

Write your story 🖋️

Jim