What Adventure Reveals About Who We Are

Angie Good Monday morning, everybody, and welcome to No More Mondays, the podcast where we believe that humans still matter, mediocrity is expensive, but ownership will change everything. As always, I am your host, Angie Callen, and today I am joined by the one and only Spencer Jones. He is a speaker, author, adventurer, and founder of Jones and Four, a company all about living life to the max. So that should tell you pretty much everything you need to know about why I love this guy and why we get along so well. He is quite possibly the owner of more ridiculous printed shirts and sport coats than any other human on the planet. The first time I encountered Spencer, he was playing the piano as part of his speaking intro on a virtual conference where he and I were both speakers. Talk about memorable. Shortly after that, that virtual encounter turned into an in-real-life one when he and I stumbled into the same actual room together. We got to know each other and found out that we share a love of the outdoors and, more specifically, a fascination with what it can teach us about ourselves. Spencer’s entire philosophy is about helping people live that life to the max, and he doesn’t just talk about adventure, he creates experiences to get people out of their normal environments and into some pretty incredible spaces. So today we’re going to talk about what happens when you change your environment, why adventure on any level can show you new things about yourself that everyday life can’t, and most importantly, what you can bring home with you when the adventure ends. Spencer, welcome to No More Mondays.

Spencer Oh my gosh, thank you so, so, so much for having me. I love the connection we have outdoors and just living, loving life, and helping others do the same. Thank you so much for having me here, I’m honored.

Angie In 20 seconds of Spencer talking, I just feel happier, and that’s in general part of just who you are. The coats probably don’t hurt, but you do some big adventure retreats and things with leaders that I think is super cool, and in a low-key way I’ve got some parallels too. I love that you and I share this real fascination with what happens when we physically remove ourselves from a normal environment. I find this so interesting, I literally wrote an entire chapter of my book about it. It’s via the lens of type two fun, but it’s there. So on a serious note, I want to talk about what this changing stimulus really does, what a changing environment does to help us see things we may not while we’re in the middle of everyday life. From your perspective, tell me a little bit about what you’ve seen happen when people take themselves out of the everyday and put themselves into adventure or a changing scene.

Spencer Yeah, great question. Let me give a little backstory to me and what we do and how I see all of this. At Jones and Four, generally we help leaders reduce that overwhelm and stress so they can think clearly and be calm, grow their capacity, expand their bandwidth, so they can handle those pressure situations. And what happens when you go outside, when you’re outdoors doing something different? The first thing that comes to mind is it’s a break. I get a chance to breathe. I get to leave the office at the office, the home at home, the stressors of kids, family issues, work, whatever, and I can just go out and hike, or go out and fish. For me, I’m a big kayak fisherman. I love getting out in my kayak. I had a mini-series a number of years ago where I traveled the country filming fun adventures, hiking, and all those other things. But the thing about being outdoors is that you know what you’re getting into, and there’s also a chance of unexpected things happening, meeting someone randomly, a tire blowing on your car, your kayak flipping over. You get out of the norm, so you get a chance to fill your cup, a little reprieve, but it can go so much deeper. It can teach you how you handle those unexpected situations. It can help you ground yourself. We can go full woo and talk that side of it, or we can give you the science side of why being outdoors is healthy and beneficial, or we can just say it’s healthy for you. Get outside, go walk, go breathe in that fresh air, and see what it teaches you. For me, I feel calmer, I feel grounded, present in the moment, my worries seem less, and I do some intentional things to help make that happen. Because there are times I’ve gone kayak fishing after a stressful day, thinking it’s going to help, and my mind just keeps replaying that stressful situation, and I’m not really present in the moment. I come back just as stressed, thinking I could have gotten more stuff done if I hadn’t gone out fishing.

Angie Yeah, and what you just talked about is literally what getting outdoors does for us. I love that you brought up scientific and woo, because I fully believe in both sides of that equation. As a former engineer who loves people, I always love some data to back something up, but we also know how it really does feel. There’s quite the scientific aspect of fresh air and freaking vitamin D, which a lot of us are deficient in, and that creates a vicious cycle of dropping your mood, because vitamin D is part of that serotonin and satisfaction system. You actually do need it, and if you live in a place like where I grew up in Pittsburgh, you only get it 80 days a year, so go out and find some sun, says the girl from Pittsburgh who lives in Colorado now. So there are scientific aspects to it, but part of the woo or mindset aspect is that it’s almost where we originated, so it takes us back to something. And the big thing is we usually have to disconnect when we’re outdoors, especially if we’re adventuring, because you can’t do the thing while the phone’s in your hand. And I didn’t know we were both fisher people, by the way. We are avid fly fishers in this house.

Spencer Nice, love it. Love fly fishing.

Angie It is. Some people call fishing boring, but it’s kind of meditative, because you end up only thinking about, okay, cast, am I going to catch a fish, ooh, was that a strike, recast, where do I want to put it? It almost becomes a little bit of therapy in your mind. So that’s a low-key adventure. Now let’s talk about the next level. We get ourselves outside, now let’s go do something physically challenging. Talk to me about how that shows up in your work, why you incorporated it, and what you’ve seen it do.

Spencer Yeah. We like being challenged, generally, as a human species. We like being challenged so we can overcome. Now, some of them seem insurmountable, and don’t get me wrong, there are times we love to just rest and take it easy and not do anything, and that’s okay too. But the challenge, if we can take it, okay, I’m going to go for this hike, or I’m going to fish this new area or this new species I’ve never done before, it’s a challenge. So now you get to learn and grow. What do I need to do? Do I need to hike a certain way, have these poles, climb it this way, what’s the tackle for this fish? You get to learn and grow to help you overcome that obstacle, that hardship, the thing you’re taking on. A quick example: my wife Katie and I went to Romania for the first time, seven years ago at this point, and we loved it. It’s our favorite place to go internationally, and we climbed the Carpathian Mountains. We’d climbed mountains before here in the states, nothing too crazy, but enough, so we were like, okay, we should be good. But we also didn’t have the right climbing shoes or anything, so we got kind of frank beforehand, like, how’s this going to go? So we hired guides to help us, and they pointed out, oh, let’s take this route, let’s take breaks here, let’s talk to these people, and told us, yes, you need this gear, here are the things to do. We could prep ourselves walking more locally here in Wisconsin, but then make sure we had the best rate of success out in the field. And can’t we do the same thing in our personal lives as well? There are parallels. Maybe I do this outdoors, something more quote-unquote fun than work, but we can hire guides, we can hire mentors, people to support us, or not even hire them, just a friend who can mentor and support us. Here’s this challenge at work that we get to overcome, and it allows us to learn a different skill, or a skill in a different way, that transfers into our personal and work lives.

Angie You bring up such a good point, because it’s almost like a forced change in perspective, not just because you’re putting yourself somewhere new, but because you have to bring someone in to help you learn. In the known worlds we create for ourselves, we don’t do that intentionally a lot of the time, and subconsciously we don’t, because it’s a known system and there’s no impetus for it. Yet you say, hey, I’m going to go climb a fourteener, I need to figure out if this is a class one or a class three, and whether I need ropes and a helmet, and you go get the experience and expertise of mentors when you’re preparing to do something new. I love that parallel.

Spencer And there are different levels of that. We bring people into our lives to speak into us and guide us in a variety of ways. Sometimes it’s as direct as hiring a guide or a mentor, or asking a friend, a physical person I’m interacting with. Other times, what do we do? We search Google, we ask AI, we watch videos on YouTube or wherever. Well, guess what? They’re still mentors, supporting you in a certain way, you’re just picking and choosing which ones, and you can pick and choose people too. But it’s so much easier, you can digest much more, using AI, Google, YouTube, whatever, to get your guidance and support. There’s always somebody, somewhere, something, at least speaking into you and helping and guiding you at some point in our life.

Angie And then there’s the actual experience itself. One of the things I’ve found, and this is the chapter of Scary Good on type two fun, is that doing things in the outdoors just beyond your tolerance and comfort helped me realize I am capable of doing new things. As humans we are curious, learning creatures, but it becomes easy to stagnate because of the comfort zone, and to me that physical experience of challenge and overcoming it really helped build a confidence cycle. If I can go learn how to mountain bike at age 42.8, I can go do all of these other things with my brain. There’s an interesting rewiring that happens. I’m curious what you’ve seen on that front.

Spencer I’ve seen that as well. When you accomplish something new, something just outside your comfort zone, or even greatly past it, but let’s say just right, so it’s an easier, quicker win, you’re rewiring your brain, you’re setting new belief systems, oh, I am capable of doing that. Very quick example: Katie and I were out in California hiking up a mountain a friend was taking us up. He and I ran up at first and came back down. Katie was walking it. I met up with Katie and we walked the rest of the way back up. Part of this was a short vertical climb, maybe a 10-foot section of rocks, not hard, like a scramble, nothing crazy, but enough. When I was running it, I’m like, oh hell, how am I going to do this? I’ve never done something quite like this. I have a ninja course in my backyard, but it’s not actual rocks. So I’m watching my friend go up, watching where he places his hands, and I’m scared the whole time, but I did it. Then I got down, and Katie’s looking at it, and she’s like, oh no, no, no, no, she’s convinced in her head she can’t do it. I said, let’s take our time, let’s breathe, here are the things to hold and where to go, I’ll be down here to catch you and show you where to go, because I’d had at least one experience going up, so I had one more rep than she did. And she did it, she made it to the top and felt so proud of herself, and I was incredibly proud of her. She could now check that off the list, put that peg in, and go, I did that, I’m capable of climbing this rock wall, and where else can she do things she doesn’t think she can? So it gives you that extra boost in all aspects of your life. Now, you can do the same thing in reverse. Where are you stepping outside your comfort zone in the office? Maybe you’re a person who doesn’t like to speak out at meetings or share your thoughts, so you step outside your comfort zone and share your thought there. Cool, you just did that, that’s a huge accomplishment. Remember that trail you didn’t want to turn left on because it was longer or harder? Why don’t you turn left and try it this time? If you did that, you could do this too.

Angie That back-and-forth correlation between the two is incredible. And no offense to you, Spencer, I’m glad you brought Katie into this story, because I’m going to say to all the ladies listening, the physical stuff is amazing for our tend-to-overthink, anxious, keep-ourselves-small, think-we’re-less-capable brains. It is amazing what quite literally scrambling up a 10-foot cliff that you’re really intimidated by can do. So I’m curious, either about Katie specifically or in general, what do you feel like she got out of and learned from a situation that was unusual, at the boundary of her comfort zone? What did that do in the long run, or what did you see in that moment?

Spencer I saw her gain a lot of confidence in that moment. Celebration, of course, enjoying topping it and getting to the top, but then confidence in her abilities and herself, because, let me do the math, six months or so before that, she broke one of her wrists and fractured the other, and she still climbed up that thing. She had to be careful, of course, but it was like, oh, I can do that, my body is capable of doing these things. And to see that then go into other aspects of life, we were doing this whole ninja-type event out there anyway, so it was, okay, well, let me climb that rope, let me go do these things, because if I could do that, I could do this. Or at least be slightly more comfortable saying, well, I did that, I can give this a try. To see that continue on in her life has been really cool.

Angie You said a word I think is really important to call out, even the try. Even if she had only made it six feet up the 10 feet, there’s still this element of trying. I’m going to maybe ask a loaded question, because what this makes me think of is that we’ve gotten really comfortable with comfort zones, and I’m curious if you feel like we’ve done ourselves a disservice, and have we gotten a little too good at removing discomfort from our lives?

Spencer We have all of these things in our life that make life easier and more convenient for us. We’ve got cell phones that let us message people, do math super quick, whatever. Immediate.

Angie Immediate gratification of almost everything.

Spencer Immediate, yeah, of so many things, which is incredible, you’re right. But we’ve also become conditioned to that instant gratification, to our comfort zone, and not necessarily wanting to leave it, because it’s scary, it’s hard. Now, it’s not everyone in all situations, but overall, I’ve noticed that, and I’ve experienced it myself personally, I just want to be in my comfort zone. We have to intentionally choose to step outside of it. People talk about the comfort zone, and comfort zone’s great, I’m not dissing it, we need our comfort zone, because that’s where we heal, that’s where we rest, restore, fill our cup. So we need it, it has its place. But when you want to grow, when you want to expand your horizons, your capabilities, your bandwidth, you have to step outside your comfort zone to do that. It doesn’t happen within it, it happens outside of it. Now, you can choose how far outside you want to go. If you’ve never climbed a mountain and now you’re like, I’m going to climb a 14er, that’s okay, that’s taking on a big thing right away.

Angie You’re hiking for a mile first.

Spencer Yeah, right. It’s not impossible, but it’s going to take maybe more practice and effort, and it might not feel as great as if it was a small step outside your comfort zone. I’m not saying you have to jump all the way, although you can. Take one small step outside your comfort zone, whatever that is, then another small one after you get comfortable, recover, next one, next one, or go for the big one if you want to. And regardless, whether it works out or it doesn’t, as you said, if Katie climbs six feet and not all 10, it’s still a massive success, it’s a learning opportunity. Everything is a learning opportunity. How can we learn and grow from this? Hey, I learned I can do it, I’m capable, I didn’t quite make it all the way, okay, cool, what could I do differently, how could I change, what could I improve if I did that again? Every single thing in life is a learning opportunity if we choose to see it that way.

Angie See it that way. Life can happen for you if you let it. One of my favorite cliches, and by the way, cliches are cliches for a reason, prove one wrong, is that growth doesn’t happen in the comfort zone. If all you do is stay within those boundaries, you’re really going to limit yourself and your potential. As somebody who thrives on engineering human potential, it drives me nuts to see people put themselves in that box. But it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to jump out of the box entirely. You can start pushing against the walls, and you grow, grow, grow, the next comfort zone boundary is bigger, and then bigger. Sorry, mom, I hucked myself off some stuff on a bike that I never thought I would look at three years ago when I decided to learn how to mountain bike, and it’s amazing how your perspective changes. I want to bring this into something you’ve mentioned a couple times, that there’s a season to everything, turn, turn, turn. There’s a time for rest, a time for adventure, a time for just a vacation. So in your mind, what are the differences between simply taking a vacation and putting yourself somewhere that challenges you in that comfort zone, and how do we know what’s the right thing at any given time?

Spencer Hmm, that’s a really good question. I’m not sure I have a great answer for it, except what’s aligned with you and with what you want or feel you need in that moment, and only you can know what that is. The way I explain it to our clients is, you have this cup, and we’re told, fill your cup, fill your cup, take time, self-care, take the vacation, so that fills your cup, which is great. But we all have holes in our cup, through no fault of our own, so what we do is help people recognize where those holes are and repair them. Some of those holes could be beliefs: I can’t climb a 14er, I’m bad at this, I can’t do these things. That’s a hole in your cup, so anytime you pour into it, the I-can’t-do-that drains it a little bit more. How can we face it? What belief is it, where does it stem from, what do we need to change to get rid of that hole, to patch it, to heal it, so you can fill your cup and let it overflow? So, do I just want to take a vacation? A vacation’s great, I love taking vacations, going on cruises, or just going out in nature and disconnecting and being in the moment, that’s a great way to fill my cup. But if my holes aren’t repaired, I could come back and within a week I’m back in the crap again, because I didn’t actually take care of those leaks. If I want to, and I love adventure retreats, we’ve done stuff all around the world personally and with our business, then let me go challenge myself and push myself outside my comfort zone. Sure, maybe I’m spilling out the cup a little at times because I’m shaking it up a bit, but I also know it’s pouring even more into me at that time, and maybe I’m recognizing, oh, there’s a belief I didn’t realize, there’s a leak I didn’t recognize before, because now I’ve stepped outside the comfort zone enough that it shined a light on it. And I can choose to address it or not, which I usually choose to address, because I’d rather not have them. Not sure if that fully answered the question, but I hope it helps.

Angie That was better than you might think, because how I’ll frame it is this idea that just taking a vacation, if we’re not careful, can oftentimes be a band-aid slapped onto a gushing hole, versus things that not only fill our cup but permanently plug the holes. The reason that’s such a perfect example is that one of the things I find really interesting is, literally, what do we bring home from these experiences, and how do we use them as hole-pluggers and cup-fillers? In other words, what makes an adventure or an experience, or even a vacation, actually help us move forward instead of just slapping on a not-very-sticky band-aid or becoming just a great story later? How do we use these experiences to actually change us, instead of coming home and sliding right back into the same habits?

Spencer Thank you for reframing that, it was perfectly said. I’m going to tie it back to something you said about fishing and fly fishing. Like you said, it’s a meditation at times, okay, next cast, how am I going to catch fish, was that a bite? I’ve gotten into meditation for, I don’t know, 10 years or so now, love it, teach it, lead it. I struggle with it at times, because it’s a practice, after all. When I’m fishing, I find myself getting annoyed, like, why am I not catching fish, and I start raging a bit, and I go, hold it.

Angie It can be just as meditative as it can be patience-testing, let’s be real.

Spencer Right. And then it’s like, wait, hold on, let’s enjoy being out here, I’m in nature, who cares if I catch? Yes, I want to, but all right, do I need to switch baits and lures? Let’s try to adjust, but just enjoy being in the moment. I need to reframe that often enough. Some days are better than others, but I get to experience it and be present and have those memories, as opposed to just being pissed off and angry. So how can we choose things that fill our cup and address those holes, and how can a vacation or whatever come back with those stories and things that help? It’s how you choose to look at it, how you choose to view your trip, your vacation, your adventure. If you’re on it just to get through it, because your spouse or whoever wanted to, well, that’s what you’re going to take away, I have to do this thing, and it’s not going to be as enjoyable. Or, if you’re open, hey, this could be a lot of fun, I could learn something new, oh, this is scary, okay, address it. My wife Katie and I love going on cruises, and sometimes we’re just there to relax, but then we’ll take adventures. Even if we just went to relax, which is very rare for us, well, cool, what can I take away from this? I get to relax, I get to talk to people, I get to breathe and meditate and be present. Usually for me it becomes a really reflective time, not in a bad way, but in a way that goes, okay, cool, I can release these things, I can bring these things in. One of the things I love to do is take three-ish-day CEO retreats, where it’s just me. I go up to a cabin, usually on the water, and I’ll go fishing and other things there. Each of my CEO retreats has a different purpose. Some are dreaming, big vision stuff, some are more let’s look at the business and see what’s working, what’s not working, get rid of stuff, whether that’s business or personal life, these things serve me, these things don’t. It’s a chance to reflect, but I do it in a place where I can disconnect, be present with myself, be fishing, enjoy life, pour into my cup, but also have the time to reflect on what’s next for the business or life, what’s working, what’s not, what I need to get rid of, what I want to keep or double down on. It’s a place that’s totally peaceful and calm for me, and that could be a city for you, it could be the country, a river, a cruise, it doesn’t matter, but take that time for you. It all comes down to your perspective. How are you choosing to view it? Even if my intention is just to chill and let this fill my cup, okay, cool, I’m going to savor this as much as I can. Or I’m going to have this crazy adventure and do wild things, awesome, I’m going to enjoy this as much as I can. And what stories am I choosing to remember and take away?

Angie It seems both so simple and so contrived to say life is kind of what you make of it and how you look at it. I love that you said the idea of I have to do this versus I get to do this, because everything in life is a choice, and whether you go along willingly or fighting is probably going to dictate the perspective and what you get out of it. I love what you said about how we’ve become really bad, not only at putting ourselves outside the comfort zone, but also at spending time with ourselves to get that spiritual replenishment and to know ourselves. We just don’t like that anymore, because we’re constantly connected. And I love what you said about the idea that you don’t have to go to Romania and climb a mountain to challenge your self-limiting beliefs. There are ways to access it close to home, even if you live on the 54th floor of a high-rise in the Upper West Side. Go find the patch of grass, go find what peaceful means to you, and spend time in it with yourself, because that’s where the great ideas come from. They’re not going to come when we’re constantly tuned in and turned on. That was a perfect way to bring together why the outdoors changes us, and also that the outdoors gets to have some sort of meaning and interpretation to you as an individual, we just want to encourage you to leverage it for your own growth.

Spencer Well, I invite everybody to think about, what outdoors thing do you want to do? What have you liked before, and if you’ve done it before, what would you like to try? If you’ve never done it, take some of the ideas we’ve thrown out, whether it’s fishing or going for a walk or a hike or biking or whatever, and just pick something. Hey, that seems like it could be fun, try it. If you love it, awesome. If you don’t, cool, then you know you don’t care for it, and you try something else. You don’t have to do exactly what we’re saying or what we’ve done, find the things that work for you, and some will take some testing. You might go too far with one and go, ah, I don’t like doing that much, but I like it down here, awesome. And as far as that quiet space goes, you can do that anywhere. As you said, it could be on the 75th floor of a high-rise, that doesn’t matter, you can find a quiet space on a rooftop. For me, I live in the suburbs, so it’s my fire pit and backyard. I’ll meditate out there, we have a quiet area where we live anyway, but I’ll have a fire back there, and it can just be my time to zone out and be. Or I’ll go for a hike in the park or the woods. You could do it anywhere, so just take the time for you and intentionally choose what you want to do. Like you said, life is what you make of it, and how you choose to see it. It sounds easy because it is easy, but it’s also not easy to remember to do, and it makes all the difference.

Angie It sounds easy because it is easy, we just complicate it and get in our own way. What Spencer and I are out to do, whether it’s coaching leaders to have more intention, I don’t love the phrase work-life balance, or just getting you all out into new experiences, is really helping you live life to the max. Engineer your human potential, live life to the max, those are two different phrases that mean the very same purpose, which is why I knew this conversation was going to be amazing. Just giving everybody a little food for thought out there, like you said, Spencer, you don’t have to go climb a mountain or book a massive adventure, but changing your surroundings will definitely change what you see and how you relate to yourself, and that can lead to some pretty incredible things. So as we wrap, Spencer, what’s your next adventure? What are you excited about that’s coming up?

Spencer Oh, I’ll say this, an unintentional plug, but I’ll say it. You could do all those things yourself, which is great, or with your family, amazing. But if you get a chance to experience it with other leaders, other like-minded people, you get to make friends and connections and have this cool experience, and I love the conversations that happen. I know that because we lead international adventure retreats. We were in Romania, we were in the Philippines. The next big trip we have, which answers the question, is an Eastern Mediterranean cruise. We’re doing Greece, Egypt, and Cyprus. There are no speakers, we sit down and have breakfast and dinners together and chat and get to know each other, and then we have different excursions and trips. You can do some on your own, we’ll do some as a group, and we all get to have these cool experiences connecting. Regardless of where we’ve been in the world, I love it, because there are new things for me and new things for other people, some of them have done things I haven’t, and vice versa. It’s an incredible way to connect and learn and grow and have fun with new friends who become family.

Angie Shared experience is one of the most incredible things you can have with other humans on this planet, and that is the start of an entirely new episode that maybe we’ll have to do one day. In the meantime, you can find out more about Spencer at nomoremondays.info, where we’ll have the show notes. We’ll link to Jones and Four and that super cool upcoming adventure you might want to go on, and generally find links to all of his good stuff on how to live life to the max. But before we officially close, I’ve got one more question for you. I want you to tell me what being outside has taught you that work never could.

Spencer Being outdoors has taught me that I can be much more self-reliant than I ever thought or anticipated, and that I’m smarter than I give myself credit for.

Angie Those are two good lessons. You are smarter and more capable, but the aligned piece is that’s the choice, that’s the agency, and the outdoors can help you understand what that should look like for you, so you can go seek it. And if you need help, I’ll shamelessly plug both of us, call Spencer. There you go.

Spencer Love it. Thank you, thank you, thank you, everyone. Remember, you are amazing, worthy, and enough. Go outside, go have some fun.

Angie I have loved this conversation about adventure, perspective, and what we can discover when we just change our environment. Spencer Jones, thank you so much for joining us today. And all of you out there, like Spencer said, don’t forget to get outside. If this conversation resonated, we welcome you to share it with somebody, maybe even leave us a rating, because that’s cool for overall No More Mondays performance. If you’ve got somebody out there who might need a good excuse to change their perspective, maybe this conversation can help them too. As always, Spencer, thank you, and thank all of you out there for being part of the No More Mondays community. Until next time, here’s to fewer Sunday scaries and no more Mondays. I’ll see you next week.