While I was sitting at the banks of the Tons river in 2003, while working with a bunch of kids, I was looking at the eddy line and suddenly it dawned on me that the human mind can be compared to the hydrology of the river. The way the Rapids are formed, the boils, whirlpools; the human mind has it all. This little piece of wisdom has fascinated me time and time again.

Then I saw the Nyami Nyami locket around a friends neck. I love collecting these little lockets etc. So I asked him how I can own one. I was told that the only way a person deserves to wear the Nyami Nyami locket is to earn it. My next question was obviously asking what I had to do to earn the locket. “Raft the Zambezi”, is what I was told. “Done” is what I said. I had never seen a single video of the Zambezi at that time. I didn’t know about the crocs, the hippos, the crazy rapids…nothing. It was a larger than me commitment.

And once I saw what the mighty Zambezi was all about, my knees weakened. You couldn’t raft the Zambezi as a novice. You needed to know and you needed not to know. You had to have a few rivers under your belt before you decided to hop on to a raft and sing your way down the rapids.

So thats what I have been doing. Rafting on various rivers in India and Nepal. Its not enough but after I survived being sucked in a rapid on the Trisuli river in Nepal, and after I questioned my PLAN, and requestioned it, I felt I was ready to go earn my Nyami Nyami.

The Zambezi will be the precursor to the mighty Siang/ Brahmaputra (India) and Colorado (USA) and Futa (Chile) and Zanskar (Ladakh) and many more.

A lesson I learned which was a life saver, “Irrespective of whether people accompany you or not, you must go ahead and do your thing”. A lot of us are looking for company, sometimes to fill the void within ourselves. I realised that void will only get filled when you keep walking. I did the Sun kosi alone, Trisuli and Marsyandgi alone. The pleasure of meeting wonderful people on the river from various cultures is immense and a learning. No one shows their degrees, their certificates, their achievements. Its about adrenaline and responsibility. Its about safety and the rush that engulfs your body. Its about humility and strength.

But this time, two friends have decided to join me in this crazy adventure to earn the Nyami Nyami. With a couple of days at the National Parks to 3 days on the river, it will be a trip to remember…..

Thank you to all those who inspired me to do this…. for myself. My endeavour is to put to use the Hero’s Journey- a monomyth written by Joseph Campbell in the 30’s. He spoke of a 12 step transformational process which bridges the gap between the ordinary and the special world. I adopted the monomyth for one of my river programs called Current. Now to undertake my own Hero’s Journey…yet again.

One of the lessons that I have learned while persevering towards this dream is NEVER STOP DREAMING. The day we stop to dream and stop visioning our life the way WE want it to be, we would rather be dead.

Vikram Badhwar, CEO, Syngrity, is a communications coach, an experiential educator, and an artist trying to bridge the gap between the creative and the analytical side of our brain. He consults individuals and teams in the space of learning & development to enable transformations at a personal, professional and organizational level.

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I like to travel into the wild to spend time with myself and also to regain my focus on things that are important, personally and also work wise. One of the “side-effects” of following the Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey is that the difference between the “ordinary world” and the “special world” diminishes or dulls. Every time I have returned from the wild, my mind has been full of ideas to execute. Whilst I was following Campbell’s 12-step monomyth, it also has a lot to do with being in isolated places where very few human beings have been. The quiet and the stillness amongst the raging waters, while rafting rivers, or the expansive desolate spaces in Central Asia pushes your mind to settle and your heart to awaken. The ego is slowly pushed out, the demarcation between the person and the persona increases and perspectives become clearer and it leaves a sense of stillness and silence – both, the highest forms of movement and communication, respectively.

As an experiential educator and leadership facilitator I have had the privilege of addressing and sitting through countless trainings that talk about teamwork. A lot of them have been very valid and give a deeper understanding of the group dynamics whilst others have been a lot of jibber jabber.

One of the basic rules of adventure travel is to trust the people you are travelling with. There is no “I”, only “Us”. Your team members are the ones who come to your rescue if you fall into a rapid on one of the fiercest rivers in the world, or tear your shoulder and forearm ligament in 24 hours, in Africa, or if your legs stop moving and you cant breathe due to Altitude Mountain Sickness (AMS) at 14000 ft. above sea level in an extremely inhospitable terrain in Central Asia. They don’t desert you. They are the ones who take care of you. While I was in Central Asia in the middle of the Pamir mountains, I fell sick. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t breathe. I had forgotten to eat the medicine for AMS before I left. My team massaged my legs to get the blood running again after giving me emergency medicine. While I was rafting the Zambezi river in Zimbabwe, I tore my first shoulder ligament in the first 20 minutes of being on the river. My team members helped me manage the pain. When I tore the second ligament on day 2, my team members were there again. I wouldn’t have managed to complete the whole rafting section without them.

Another learning that has been engrained is to “Trust your leader, your guide, your expedition head”. Without them, your experience will be rudely cut short. They are the experts at what they do and putting your trust in them will only make the journey and the adventure worth its while. They are the guides for a particular reason. I have noticed something about the many guides I have travelled or worked with. They don’t show off. They don’t dominate their team. They don’t shout. They allow you spaces where the experience is manifested into beautiful memories. They are calm. They don’t panic. They are your pillars. They inspire.

There is no space for ego in the wilderness. As soon as ego starts playing havoc in the head, you will falter and when you are in the outdoors, every fault could be fatal. When the ego disappears or fades away, it gives clarity; clarity to say NO. I have seen a lot of macho men and women who, because they cant say a no, end up suffering and hurting themselves. As a traveller, you need to know your boundaries, your fitness levels, your commitment and your abilities. And sometimes it is wiser to say No and back out.

Talking about inspiration, I attended a talk a couple of years back called Leadership – the Shackleton way. Ernest Shackelton was an Irish sailor who made three trips to Antarctica. In 1914, his third trip was on a ship called “Endurance” planning to cross Antarctica via the South Pole. Early in 1915, ‘Endurance’ became trapped in the ice, and ten months later sank. Shackleton’s crew had already abandoned the ship to live on the floating ice. In April 1916, they set off in three small boats, eventually reaching Elephant Island. Taking five crew members, Shackleton went to find help. In a small boat, the six men spent 16 days crossing 1,300 km of ocean to reach South Georgia and then trekked across the island to a whaling station. The remaining men from the ‘Endurance’ were rescued in August 1916. Not one member of the expedition died.

When I attended this talk, I got intrigued and inspired. Also the speaker, in his late 60’s or early 70’s had returned from Antarctica. I was thrilled. Plus all the questions: You don’t want to be stranded in Antarctica. Especially in 1915 when the facilities to remain warm were far lesser than what we have now. How did he manage it? Why did his team trust him? Did the six crew members desert the others? All these questions have been answered in “South” – an account of Shackleton’s Endurance expedition. This story motivated me start planning my own Antarctica trip, hopefully in 2019. It is an expensive affair and requires a lot of preparation. I guess, we all need to find the Shackleton within ourselves. And we push our boundaries to find our own inner Hero, all over again.

 
Vikram Badhwar, CEO, Syngrity, is a communications coach, an experiential educator, and an artist trying to bridge the gap between the creative and the analytical side of our brain. He consults global teams in the space of learning behavioural patterns and implementing new techniques to reach Max Q potential.

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A lot of times, people commit to being in auto pilot. It’s like taking the same route to work everyday. Once you know the route inside out, the common thing to do is to put the mind into auto pilot. It’s a comfort space.

By being in auto pilot, we also enter the space of complacency because ‘it works’. The space to reflect and improve is no longer an open space. Unless we break out of the auto pilot mode and work on being aware, it may be difficult to get out of the constructs of our own mind. Lack of awareness makes patterns that much more difficult to change later.

Awareness of how you are breathing, how equally your weight is displaced on your feet and how is your spine is, are examples of body awareness or body schema.

Being aware of yourself In a given space is spatial awareness. It is an organised knowledge of objects in relation to yourself in a given space, moving or not.

Being aware of how you are feeling and how it is affecting your muscle movement is body-emotive awareness.

These are a few examples.

Vikram Badhwar, CEO, Syngrity, is a communications coach, an experiential educator, and an artist trying to bridge the gap between the creative and the analytical side of our brain. He consults individuals and teams in the space of learning & development to enable transformations at a personal, professional and organizational level.

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The warrior is a traveller.

Vikram Badhwar, CEO, Syngrity, is a communications coach, an experiential educator, and an artist trying to bridge the gap between the creative and the analytical side of our brain. He consults individuals and teams in the space of learning & development to enable transformations at a personal, professional and organizational level.

The post The travelling warrior appeared first on Syngrity Transformation Solutions.

Vikram Badhwar, CEO, Syngrity, is a communications coach, an experiential educator, and an artist trying to bridge the gap between the creative and the analytical side of our brain. He consults individuals and teams in the space of learning & development to enable transformations at a personal, professional and organizational level.

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