What do Luke Skywalker from “Star Wars,” Katniss Everdeen from “The Hunger Games,” and Simba from “The Lion King” have in common?
They all participate in “The Hero’s Journey,” a term coined by Joseph Campbell in his landmark book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces.
Understanding The Structure
Campbell asserts that the Hero’s Journey is a specific narrative path that has been told and traveled repeatedly throughout history, codified in the following 12 steps.
The Call To Adventure: The hero, once living an ordinary life, is called upon to embark on a grand adventure
The Refusal Of The Call: The hero at first refuses to embark on the journey due to fear or apprehension
Meeting The Guide (Sage): They meet a guide (or a sage) who has traveled a similar path before who gives them support and wisdom to help them
Crossing The Threshold: They leave behind their known world and step into the vast unknown
Tests, Allies, & Enemies: Along the way, they encounter sets of trials and tribulations, often supported by allies and confronted by enemies
Approach To The Innermost Cave: The hero approaches their greatest fears and obstacles as the stakes become more dire
The Ordeal: This is the pivotal primary conflict in which they must face the antagonist to continue on their journey
The Reward: The hero earns a reward, often in the form of knowledge, wisdom, or a powerful object
The Road Back: The hero makes their way back home, often encountering new obstacles
The Resurrection: The hero experiences a moment of death and rebirth, often in the form of a literal or metaphorical transformation
The Return: The hero returns home, transformed and changed by their experiences, armed with new insights that they can use to benefit others
The Freedom To Live: The hero achieves a state of freedom and enlightenment, often living happily ever after
The Role Of A Sage
When it comes to your duty as a founder to pass on your original genius, understanding the difference between a sage and a mentor or coach is imperative.
Many founders who seek to pass on their experience do so as mentors or coaches, often organizing their genius in their content as a “thought leader” to those who look up to them.
If a leader is a coach or a mentor, they’re invested in the person they’re mentoring. For them to feel validated, they need to see the recipient of their mentoring do it the way they did it.
The sage, on the other hand, passes on wisdom without judgment with the expectation that the beneficiary will use it the way they choose to use it—possibly putting it to even better use than the Sage might have envisioned.
That’s the difference.
The sage is a steward.
They don’t have ownership of their wisdom. They have custodianship of it.
They know that for their wisdom to grow beyond them, it’s going to have to be used in a way differently to how they did.
This idea of stewardship is essential both to the Hero’s Journey and our roles as founders because in order to best serve ourselves, our companies, and our communities, we must take what’s being gifted to us and then return it with increase.
Insights From The Journey
If you think about the hero’s journey, the hero starts the journey and they climb the first mountain.
They get to the top of the first mountain and they celebrate accomplishing a goal, which usually comes back to personal glory or gratification.
But at the peak of the first mountain, they gain perspective.
And perspective is a huge issue because perspective is the pathway to context.
Once they get to the top of the first mountain, they can see the top of the second mountain.
This is when they realize:
“This was only the first part of the journey. There’s a bigger mountain behind it that I’ve got to climb.”
And to ascend this second mountain, the hero cannot quest for personal glory or benefit but for results and outcomes that extend beyond themselves.
What they also eventually realize is that they have to go down the other side of the mountain and climb back up the same distance for no gain other than to be on the second mountain.
This place is called the Valley Of Despair.
The Appearance Of The Sage
It is at this moment that the sage appears and says to them, “I get it. I understand you. You started out at the bottom with no real sense of what you’re going to do and climbed to a place where you’re enjoying some success, but then realized there’s something much greater in store for you.”
The sage then tells them that the fulfillment they seek is found at the peak of the second mountain but assures them not to worry, because they can build a bridge straight across the Valley of despair for the Hero to cross.
They provide the bridge but tell the hero that they have to climb the mountain themselves.
In other words, the hero has to do the work but the sage has codified what is needed to reach the top.
“I’ve taken many other people to the top of that mountain”, the sage assures them. “And I’ve codified that into a single visual model that will unpack your genius as you go. I’m going to carry the model for you so you don’t have to— I’ll just give you the pieces that you need as you climb.”
Your Role As The Sage Of Your Business
In order to best help our customers achieve their goals on their terms, we need to see them as the heroes of their own journeys.
As your customers are trying to get what they want, as the Sage (or guide), your role is to show them, as someone who has been there before:
This is why you would do it.
This is what it looks like.
And this is how it’s going to happen.
You’re also able to show them that you’ve unpacked this genius with many other people, taking them to the top of that second mountain as well.
But here’s the reality:
The longer they are on the mountain, the more tired they’ll become and the more likely they are to fall off.
So the Sage needs to empower them to climb to the top of the mountain in the shortest possible time.
Your responsibility as the Sage here becomes twofold:
1: To stop them from behaving their way off the ideal path.
2: To make sure they keep up a pace to get to the top of the mountain as quickly as possible.
How To Unleash Your Inner Sage
The truth is, often, these purveyors of original genius are already sages to their clients, but they don’t realize it yet.
Here are some of the traits they share that you might see in yourself:
Their “why” found them: Where most founders and leaders embark on a journey to find their why, for sages, their calling finds them, often where they least expect it.
They’re generous with genius: They don’t just talk about their genius; they are living embodiments of it, and their example offers certainty to everybody around them.
They hold anchoring insights: What’s the big thing that they realized? How do they simplify complexity? Sages use their insights to streamline complexity and catalyze change.
Their context is everything: Sages are context-setting machines, serving as vessels that give depth and meaning to their work and their legacy.
They’re present in their wisdom. What truly makes sages wise is not what they know but how they show up. Their presence brings powerful calm to any situation.
When it comes to your customers and those your influence reaches, ask yourself:
“Am I showing up as the hero or the sage?”
And then position yourself so that you are deeply empowering your customers in every conversation to climb their own mountains, confront their own destiny, and, eventually, embody their own inner genius.
Want to learn more about how I can help you become the sage of your organization and project your wisdom for generations to come?
Join my weekly newsletter to discover more about my Models Method or apply to work with me so we can together unearth truly legendary results.
