31. Personal development through ADVENTURE with Glenn Azar!

So this weeks podcast is a little different… We won’t be talking about famous ballets, differences in technique training or the importance of research and development when it comes to pre-school or adult ballet classes. No, you’ll be hearing from my now friend Glenn Azar - Founder and Director of Adventure Professionals, Project 180 and his very own podcast, The Building Better Humans Project. About a month ago now, I travelled to Canberra to do what Glenn calls the ‘Aussie 10 Peaks Challenge’. The weekend was supposed to be ‘Type 1’ fun, a difficult but relatively enjoyable hike around Australia’s highest peaks. Instead, we were only able to accomplish 5/10 of the peaks due to some pretty fierce weather. As Glenn described it, the worst weather he’s seen on Australian soil in over over ten years… We experienced ‘Type 2’ fun. Whats ‘Type 2’ fun? It’s the kind of fun that absolutely sucks in the moment but in retrospect becomes one of the highlights of your life. On a side note; I think ballet actually provides this kind of fun from time to time… On this particular weekend Aussie 10 Peaks with Adventure Professionals certainly slapped us in the face with some Type 2 fun which served us a big fat plate of internal work. What do I mean by that? Well… when I was embarking on this adventure, my friends in the (I guess you could call them hiking and adventure) world kept making fun of the ‘easy’ hike I was going on. Compared to other mountains I've climbed like Kilimanjaro, everyone (in good faith) was making fun of my little walk in the park. So when we didn’t make 5 of the 10 peaks, I was shattered. I've also been working incredibly hard this year and the trip (the only weekend away I've taken all year!) was supposed to lift me up and instead I was feeling very sorry for myself. Standing by the buses at Lake Crackenback Resort saying our goodbyes to the team, Glenn (our team leader) said, “Well team I truly believe that adventure is the best form of personal development out there and you certainly received some of that this weekend…” In that moment, I thought two things… firstly, YOU’RE SO RIGHT and secondly, I need to get this guy on my podcast. So here’s to adventure. Here’s to experiencing adventure however it unfolds. Except in the case of ‘Type 3’ fun which is James Franco cutting his arm off in 27 hours… no one wants to experience that kind of fun. In this conversation, Glenn and I chat about the trip, it’s difficulties and my own personal reactions. We also talk about the importance of failure and letting go of the outcome and learning to love the journey. We also discuss his four pillars; mindset, planning, fitness, recovery. Look, Glenn and I come from very different worlds… but as I pointed out to him, I think we’re in the same business - the business of creating and building better humans. Enjoy… www.balancedballerinas.com IG @balancedballerinas & @thebalancedballerina