This is the third part of a 3 part blog post on the common traits of innovators and survivors. After my husband and I lived 7 years off the land and way off grid, we realized how much human survival is tied to innovation. My adventure of survival and being an entrepreneur had many parallels.

The Innovator and Survivor Mindset have 3 critical traits in common.

1. Awareness – highly observant and empathetic to the reality around and within you. (Part 1)

2. Adaptable – includes openness to new information and the ability to adjust to different conditions and transform to meet the situation. (Part 2)

3. Courageous – recognize the edge, and despite uncertainty, having optimism and faith in yourself and your team, to make calculated decisions and take action.

Courage has been described by Brenė Brown as our willingness to be vulnerable. The other definitions include our ability to do something that frightens us, and strength in the face of pain and difficult emotions. All of these definitions are relevant for innovation and survival situations.

The unknown creates fear. Courage is the ability to take action despite the fear.

Dave and I walked away from everything familiar and comfortable, to live and survive as our ancestors did, as hunter-gatherers. What I realized is that fear and discomfort is always greatest right before you do something new. Courage is needed to step into a new experience because the journey and outcome are unknown. The unknown means once you take the step you have exposed yourself to potential failure, pain, embarrassment, or death. You have made yourself vulnerable. Courage is about action. Calculated action despite uncertainty and the incredible emotions you are experiencing.

In our 7 year journey living off the land there were constant ‘new’ experiences and it was a series of fears and courageous moments’ right before taking action. The first and greatest moment of fear, was right before I told my business partners I was leaving. Why? Because that was the moment the steps toward leaving would begin, our ‘dream’ would be a public commitment, and it was the moment I felt I couldn’t turn back. This is the same moment right before an entrepreneur quits their job or the corporate innovator announces ‘we are launching this idea today’. That moment is terrifying, and once the action is taken, it starts a series of new experiences that each require moments of courage.

Being ‘lost’ in the wilderness alone for the first time was a series of moments of fear, courage, and action on fast forward and slow motion all at the same time. I was no more than a couple hours walk from ‘home’. I’d been gathering berries and scouting animal trails for future reference, when I realized I’d lost track of direction. I had no familiar landmarks. I was surrounded by bush.

That moment was sheer panic, gut wrenching fear, which quickly turned into disbelief. “There’s no way I can be lost, this can’t be right, I know what I’m doing, I’m a wilderness girl…” Then crying and begging for it not to be true, repeating no, no, no, and pleading with myself to see something different - with frantic searching, rushing around randomly searching for a clue, with all the possible scenarios flying through my mind. Then…

I froze, complete stillness, deep breaths, gathering control, calming myself. Within the pause, a wave of acceptance of my situation rolled over me. Reality hit. This is real, no one knows where I am. I’m surrounded by hundreds of kilometers of uninhabited bush. Dave won’t know where to search. I’m alone and I have to save myself. Then I started to focus, think, assess my resources, plan and take action.

These phases of panic, disbelief, crying, frantic behavior, calmness, acceptance, reality, reassessment, hope and action, I repeated over and over again for 22 hours before I found home. Twenty two hours alone, most of them unsure I was headed in the right direction, uncertain about weather, shelter, water, bears, wolves and my endurance. These four elements of courage helped me through.

1. What was I afraid of? I knew how to survive, I had the skills to build a shelter and fire, I had berries, and I knew I could find water. If I had to walk for days, I knew I would eventually find something familiar or a trail that would take me to people. What does it matter if I’m cold, hungry, blistered feet, sore, dirty and uncomfortable? I knew what I could do. Do whatever is necessary, be determined, have the will and know your skills.

2. What was the worst case scenario? An accident or animal attack with a painful, slow death. Yeah, that is an awful reality, but the only thing I could do about it was to be aware, cautious, and safety focused in all my actions. I knew the edge, the danger, the uncertainty. I sang, I yelled lines from commercials, I had my knife in hand, and I moved with caution and purpose. Acknowledge reality, surrender to it, let go of your fear, put away the pain, and take action anyway.

3. What does lost mean? Was I lost or on an extended adventure? Yes, Dave would be worried when the sunset, but I couldn’t change that. I loved the wilderness, what was the problem, the only thing that changed was I didn’t know which direction to go for a period of time. I needed to believe I was on a hiking and camping trip, I could do this. Never give up, let nothing break your spirit. Believe you will succeed. Develop a deep conviction that you’ll live.

4. What are my options? What do I know about the situation? I had an image of the terrain in my mind, two parallel rivers on each side of me, a large lake to the west, and an old forest fire zone to the north. If I could find any of these, I could navigate from there. I used the sun to head west, and I stopped walking at dusk, still without a familiar landmark. I built a tiny shelter and fire for the night. I didn’t sleep much, but I rested in between moments of panic and self-pity. The next morning I found a creek and followed it down stream until it reached a lake. Was this the lake I needed? Constant self doubt! Never ending questions with no answers. I was a long way from home, but if it was the right lake, I knew which direction to go so I chose to do that. I used the moss on the north side of the trees for my new guide. Hours of uncertainty, and then I recognized trees, swamps and boulders. I now moved with confidence, and then I was home, hugging Dave and crying all over again. Think and then act. Calculated Risk. Small attainable goals. Take decisive action.

My journey from lost to found wasn’t as smooth as I’ve described. The roller coaster of emotion, the crisis of faith, the discomfort, and moments of doubt and frustration were overwhelming at times. My worry about Dave and my family kept me persevering. I couldn’t let them down this way. I couldn’t leave them wondering and searching. I had to survive. The emotional cycle of change (photo below) is real for survivors and innovators. I cycled through the first five emotions hundreds of times while I was lost, and only when things were familiar did the steady upward feeling of informed optimism occur (‘integration’ in the graph below).

Thanks to Pink Elephant for this version of the Emotional Cycle of Change. (There are multiple ways to say this same journey) Thankfully I never went down the give up / quit path, which I added to the image. That is failure or death!

Laurence Gonzales, in his book Deep Survival, talks about true survival being “a balancing act of apparent paradoxes”, and that is where the innovator and survivor mindsets align. You have to have both caution and courage, face reality and have the capacity for deluding yourself, the willingness to build skills and prepare, but approach everything with a beginner’s mind. To be deeply in touch with one’s emotions and able to observe and set them aside at the same time. Innovators and survivors don’t ignore that they might fail or die, but neither do they let that awareness hold them back. They do for themselves, while always focusing their intention on the well-being and needs of others, whether they are present or not. They are determined to reach a goal, and break it down into tiny steps and easily pivot when they need to. They persevere even when repeated failure occurs or the action doesn’t seem to be working, and they also respond to situations as they present themselves, and change direction quickly.

Innovators and survivors face new situations, feel the fear and use courage to take action.

Innovator and Survivor Mindset, Part 3 Courage