Okay so I used to be part of the underground world of “Blogging”.
When I first started doing it- most people thought it was something only done in Europe like train spotting. I can’t tell you how many times I watched some late adopter roll their eyes when they heard about somebody’s “Blog”.
I’m an outdoor guy who would rather be on a mountain bike racing down the trails, diving the North Atlantic on some shipwreck, or shooting paintballs at my buddies–anything but sitting here pecking at a keyboard. But I have found blogging, like the other tools I use (podcasting, Youtube, Twitter) to be a way to share my ideas with others. Social media before the word was coined and well before it was so common.
If you have stumbled on to the site–welcome. The idea of Adventure Intelligence or AIQ is not new. It’s not a turn-key solution or off-the-shelf leadership development program. It is my passion. Its tuning into your environment and using the small adventures in life as preparation for the big adventures in life. Here you will find a collection of my studies about corporate climate change, leaders who prevail when the chips are down, and surviving when bad things happen to good people. I will discuss the ways we can use outdoor adventure to learn how to cope with the larger adventures in life, how accessible adventure really is to all of us, and specifically how to prepare yourself to take on life’s challenges- whether its a corporate climate or accent to the largest mountain peak in your state.
Starting in 1987 I began seeing connections between teams that were successful and the outdoor adventure experiences they had dealt with. I was also becoming increasingly frustrated at many of the corporate “team-building” and outdoor adventure workshops that were being conducted. Though there are several reputable programs, I found the industry bastardized and true “team-building” to be watered down events with no real outcomes. I also became highly frustrated with the elitist attitude taken by Gen-X outdoor athletes and baby-boomer eco-junkies of not practicing an environment of inclusion. A majority of us who excel in the outdoors do so because we were not the star athlete in our growing years and turned to outdoor adventure because we had been turned away from other groups and teams. I wanted inclusiveness to be a part of AIQ theory and practice and the lessons of outdoor activities to be accessible to all.
Enjoy!
Adventure IQ 