I posted very little over the seven weeks while Linda and I were traveling in Uruguay and Argentina. Because we were based outside of Montevideo, our internet connection was inconsistent and weaker than we’d been told it would be. Posting photos and videos proved to be quite a challenge. But that also helped us stay focused on our objectives.
We set out on the trip with one very specific goal – to shake ourselves out of the routine of our lives to help us create a framework and next steps for where we’re headed.
Even though we had a strong sense of some changes that needed to take place in our lives, when we mentioned to a few people that we were going to be out of the country for an extended period, we both found it difficult to explain exactly why we were going and what we were planning to do.
With all of the focus on the need for play and re-creation that I see in my social media feeds, it was difficult for me to acknowledge that my reasons for travel have little to do with having fun or getting rest – and almost everything to do with self-development and personal growth.
Our relatively abrupt trip to Uruguay was set in motion by the opportunity to do a house-sit near the capital city of Montevideo. We had decided some months back to use housesitting as a means of visiting several countries in South America. When the house-sit opportunity in Uruguay appeared in our email box, we had to move quickly to put multiple pieces in place to make it happen. There was very little time to brush off our very dusty Spanish lessons, so we set out with better intentions to use our skills than abilities to do so.
We’ve had a goal for a few years to put in place several new initiatives – all of them involving or supporting more travel – and had decided that 2019 was to be the launch year. One of our desires is to invest several months each year living outside of the US as a means of stretching ourselves, learning about the daily lives of other cultures, and gaining some more objective insights about the current political and cultural environment within the US.
In most of our previous international trips, the travel was geared to shooting photographs for specific projects and our days were entirely driven by working on those assignments. There was little down time or thinking time in the mix.
The guiding intention of this trip, however, was mostly focused on honing our ability to do more deep thinking and writing work in an unfamiliar environment.
Because of my ADD-type tendencies, doing deep focus work outside of my routine structures is a real struggle. I call the practice of maintaining my focus, “Caging the Squirrels.”
My propensity is towards doing something, anything – shooting photos, splitting firewood, cutting grass, cleaning my desk, reading a book, posting on FB – other than facing a blank page and staying with it through the ‘suck’ of writing. And since we were taking on the maintenance work for a house during the summer months in South America, we had a lot of chores to work on and potentially call out to me when I was struggling with focus.
In addition to working to establish our thinking/writing routines within a house-sitting environment – within another culture – we also pushed ourselves to film several interviews to build on a couple of ongoing projects.
I was also able to facilitate a Mastermind group call via Zoom in spite of having some serious internet connectivity issues. I ended up spending far more time and emotional energy negotiating for a place with a good internet connection to host the meeting than I could have anticipated. But that too was part of our discovery process.
By the end we were physically exhausted but came home mentally and emotionally charged up from exceeding our hopes and expectations of what we thought would be possible. Every day we found ourselves dissecting the stories we live in every day, ones that we often don’t question because of the routine of our daily lives. Breaking routines can open cracks in our stories.
It’s critical to examine the narratives we live in, because the stories we tell ourselves create the reality that we live out.
The last few years we’ve found ourselves settling into some stories that were limiting our opportunities and our capacity to create and deliver more impactful work. This trip has launched a new chapter in our story.
In his book, “The Big Leap,” Gay Hendricks lays out four zones in which the work activities we engage in are performed – incompetence, competence, excellence, and genius.
Most of our work gets done within our zone of competence. It’s what we do every day with very little taxing of our minds. As the name implies, our zone of excellence challenges us to up our game to do the work that sets us apart from others because we do that particular work so very well. But resting in our groove of “excellence” can also become a rut, because it’s a place that allows us to get comfortable as well.
Stepping into our potential zone of genius makes most of us feel queasy. It’s the zone that causes us to push the boundaries of our abilities way past what we believed we’re capable of achieving. It’s the place that friends and family members often question us for considering. But it’s the work that you are, through your life experience and abilities, uniquely qualified to do.
An enormous question that we needed to answer for ourselves on this trip was: “Are we willing to step into our zone of genius in the work that is before us, or are we going to settle for what we’ve established as the work we’re known for consistently delivering?”
This adventure pushed us forward towards some answers. More to come….