What happens when the goals that once gave your life its shape stop making sense?

Sometimes you've reached them. Sometimes your circumstances shift. And sometimes, life changes so much that the plans and routines you relied on stop working altogether. When the familiar places where we learn, like school, work, community, and travel, suddenly fall away, what happens to learning?

Tune in and listen to the fifty-sixth episode of I Can Do This, Show Me How! I share what I found when the pandemic gave me time to sort through decades of books, papers, and photographs. Among them was The Hero Within by Dr. Carol S. Pearson, a book a friend gave me when I earned my first degree from community college and one I later used in my developmental writing classes. Reading it again, years later, showed me that being the hero of your own story doesn't mean living inside one story forever. I also talk about the moment I stopped waiting for someone else's permission to move forward, and explain why learning in adulthood can mean building enough confidence to act on what we already know.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• [0:14] Three ways the goals that organize our lives can lose their clarity
• [5:08] How the pandemic disrupted the structures adults learn through, and what that did to our sense of agency
• [6:30] Why rediscovering The Hero Within became a learning experience with no syllabus, no professor, and no grade
• [8:40] What Carl Rogers meant by "always becoming" and how it changes the hero's story
• [10:30] How Bandura's work on self-efficacy turns into one simple question: What can I do next?
• [12:25] Why no one else can give you certainty, and what changed when I started trusting myself
• [14:53] How learning can help us meet the next version of ourselves

Resources

• The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By by Carol S. Pearson

Let's connect!

• My Email: ldroseconsulting@gmail.com
• Mentor International: www.mentorfoundationusa.org
• Mentor: www.mentoring.org

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A theater major who studied mime in Paris. A would-be French professor who found 300 applications on file for a single job opening. Two layoffs, a cross-country move, and nearly fifty years in publishing later, Rick Benzel has a clear view of how one door leads to the next. His path never ran in a straight line, and that's what makes his story worth hearing.

In today's guest episode, I talk with writer, editor, and publisher Rick Benzel about his life as seen through Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. Rick traces his calling from the stage to French literature to the publishing business, where he has worked since the late 1970s. He describes the moment he realized a career in academia was a dead end, the corporate mergers that cost him two jobs, and the move to Los Angeles that brought him into trade publishing.

Tune in and listen to the fifty-fifth episode of I Can Do This, Show Me How! Picture walking into a house that looks like a single room, then finding several doors inside. Open one, and a new room appears that wasn't there before. Rick and I use this imagery to talk about career changes, the people who shape our choices, stand-up comedy classes, and the "serendipity days" Rick builds into every trip.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• [03:54] Travel is a learning experience for Rick. He plans his own trips and talks to strangers wherever he goes.
• [06:50] In 1975, Rick found 300 applications for one faculty opening. That was the challenge that changed his direction.
• [11:54] Young adults are pulled by emotions as well as career goals. Serious reflection and flexibility both matter.
• [18:40] How a second corporate acquisition in 1992 pushed Rick to go freelance for good.
• [28:40] Two years of stand-up comedy classes taught Rick that hobbies matter, even when they don't become careers.
• [32:19] Rick explains the adjacent possible. You don't know what's in the next room until you walk into it.
• [34:55] Dr. Linda reflects on bravery and on how the pandemic pushed many people to ask, "Why am I doing this now?"
• [40:48] Serendipity requires letting go of expectations. There is no wrong direction.

Resources

• Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey
• Why Couples Drive Each Other Crazy and How to Fix It by Ricky Arenson, MD

Connect with Rick Benzel

• Rick's author page
• LinkedIn

Let's connect!

• My Email: ldroseconsulting@gmail.com
• Mentor International: www.mentorfoundationusa.org
• Mentor: www.mentoring.org

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if the story you tell about yourself is already out of date?

In today's solo episode, I explore the psychology of awe and why it might be the key to staying curious for a lifetime. I share memories from my teaching career, a childhood thunderstorm in Alabama, and watching my four-year-old grandsons encounter the world for the first time, all as ways of asking: what still has the power to make your world feel larger?

Tune in and listen to the fifty-fourth episode of I Can Do This, Show Me How! I trace my own path from adult community college student to English professor and how that journey reshaped the way I understood myself. Drawing on a 2003 article by psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt, I explore two ideas that changed how I think about growth: vastness, the sense that the world is bigger than we assumed, and the need for accommodation: the moment our old self-concept can no longer hold what we've become.

Learning Points

• [02:39] Reaching financial and personal stability, but noticing a new sense of alignment between work and sense of self.
• [05:02] Keltner and Haidt's 2003 article on awe and its two core concepts: vastness and the need for accommodation.
• [09:50] The idea of self-expansion: the moment your own evidence no longer supports the old story you told about yourself.
• [12:15] Awe isn't always comfortable. It can be beautiful and frightening at once.
• [17:06] The word "yet" and how it keeps us open to not knowing.
• [21:52] How other people's stories can expand our understanding, and how comfort with uncertainty becomes a source of energy rather than fear.
• [28:59] Sit with the question: what still has the ability to make your world feel larger?

Resources

• The Science of Happiness

Let's Connect!

• My Email: ldroseconsulting@gmail.com
• Mentor International: www.mentorfoundationusa.org
• Mentor: www.mentoring.org
• Ashoka Changemakers: www.ashoka.org

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.