AOA 050 | 50 Shades Of Adventure: The Best Ideas From The First 50 Episodes

Derek Loudermilk Art of Adventure 50th

Written by root

March 30, 2015

It is time for a celebration! We made it to 50 episodes of The Art of Adventure Podcast! Thank you for listening! I really appreciate all your emails, iTunes reviews, and comments. This project is such a blast, and I am energized to knock it out of the park for our next 50 shows!

Today is a special episode, only my second solo round. I went through the first 50 episodes and collected the common themes and ideas that popped up repeatedly. Then I filtered the list for the most useful and impactful ideas. Episode 50 is a collection of a dozen themes that stood out in the AOA universe, complete with stories and episode references where you can go back and listen to the original thoughts from the guests.

Derek Loudermilk Art of Adventure 50th

Here are the dozen most impactful themes, in no particular order of importance, from the first 50 episodes of the Art of Adventure!

Feedback: The best way to accelerate your skills and career. You can gather feedback by asking people to evaluate you or simply listening carefully. For personal skills like body language and vocal tics, you can record yourself and watch and listen to yourself.
Best illustration of this idea: AOA 046 | Linda Rottenberg | Crazy Is A Compliment: High Impact Entrepreneurship

Mindset: Having a growth mindset allows you to make mistakes and have that experience help you learn rather than throw in the towel. The right mindset leads you to take the actions you want and need to take in your life.
Best illustration of this idea: AOA 016 | Fostering Grit And Joyful Learning With Tom Hoerr, Ph.D.
AOA 017 | The Mindset Of Building A Six Figure Acupuncture Practice With Alyssa Dazet

Authenticity: Don’t cover your true personality and bring less than your full self (doing so will cost you money)! People want to hear the real you. Talk about your struggles and have strong opinions about what you really love!
Best illustration of this idea: AOA004: How To Commit To Creative Authenticity with Zio Ziegler
AOA 040 | Erica Dhawan | Get Big Things Done With Connectional Intelligence

Commitment: Commit to your path and know that you will have to do the hard work up front. Most people seem to take three years to get to 6 figure incomes, and five years to get to Millionaire status. “To finish first, first you must finish”.
Best illustration of this idea:
AOA 029 | Adam Stanecki | Helping Fitness Professionals Help More People

Focus on your strengths! Should you shore up your weaknesses or play to your strengths? Most guests have said go with your strengths, because you can hire, collaborate, or delegate the other stuff that you aren’t as good at!
Best illustration of this idea:AOA 039 | Jesse Krieger | Focus On Your Area Of Genius

Connecting ideas: If you want to be valuable and solve any problem, have the best ideas! You can do this by connecting ideas from different areas, or shifting your perspective when you brainstorm (Ask yourself “How would Einstein, Yoda, or a 10 year old solve this problem?”).
Best illustration of this idea: AOA 031 | Shane Snow | Smartcuts and Storytelling

Connecting with people: Forming strong relationship with the right people is the best thing you can do for your career and sense of belonging. This is one of the most explored topics on AOA, here are some of the recurring skills mentioned – begin a relationship by offering help (the 5 minute favor), stay in regular contact (so they know you are thinking of them), plan for the long game with relationships (lifelong friendships), introduce people in your network (make yourself the hub).
Best illustration of this idea:AOA 036| Judy Robinett | How To Be A Power Connector
AOA 045 | Pam Ross | Building Trust Through Digital Fluency

Mentorship: Mentorship can be formal or informal. Having a mentor or coach is the best way to steepen you learning curve in any pursuit.
Best illustration of this idea: AOA 047 | Geoff Woods | Finding The Ideal Mentors

Completion is king: People take notice and talk much more about what you have finished rather than what you are starting or working on. Because of this, I make it a goal to do three hours a day of work on getting final products out the door (what Seth Godin calls shipping).
Best illustration of this idea: AOA 023 | Scott Young | Accelerated Learning and Big Ideas

Meditation: One of the best ways to stay resilient as an entrepreneur or athlete is a regular meditation (can be short! just 6 min/day) practice. Quiet the mind or stop being afraid to be alone with your thoughts – either way you won’t need to numb out with overworking yourself or drinking too much.
Best illustration of this idea: AOA005: Emotional Resilience and Meditation With Matt Elliott

Plan tomorrow today: Many entrepreneurs talk about planning and goals setting, one recurring theme was to figure out the 1-3 most important activities for the upcoming day each night, so that you can wake up an begin on them without being distracted.
Best illustration of this idea: AOA008: Personal Branding and Expanding Your Reach With Navid Moazzez

Build Valuable Skills: Deconstruct superstars in your field and learn their most rare and valuable skills. What will set you apart? Having these skills gives you much more freedom to direct your career path.
Best illustration of this idea: AOA 042 | Cal Newport | Be So Good They Can’t Ignore Youthe hard work

Get outside your comfort zone:! Have an adventure! My final question in most episodes is “what is your definition of adventure?” I know that for most people, adventure involves something that is a little scary and exciting and they find themselves a better person afterwards. Whatever feels challenging, that is where growth is, so lean in to the discomfort!

The award for the most popular episode, based on download numbers (probably unfairly weighted towards the earlier episodes) was AOA 012: Don’t Settle! Create The Life You Can Be Proud Of With Molly King

Mentioned in this episode:

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

Tim Ferriss on self promotion

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Did to enjoy this episode?
Leave a comment or send me a quick shout on Twitter and tell me which one of these ideas was most valuable for you! Now go out there and be adventurous!

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