Who is a guide and what is an
adventure?
You are a guide if you find yourself leading
your kids, spouse, friends or clients during activities. If those activities involve
risk, you are guiding an adventure.
We are all guides at some
point in our lives. If you are a parent, your kids see you
as a guide. When you are seen to be more experienced or
knowledgeable your friends and even your partner may see you
as a guide. If you become an expert at what you do you might
earn a living guiding other people. Guides can be volunteers
or professionals. They can be implied, can be hired or they
can simply step forward and take control.
The traditional term of
"guide" often conjures up images of people leading
dangerous outdoor activities like climbing and rafting.
However a guide is really anyone who is leading, or showing
the way, to others. Under this context there are many
different labels for "guides" in our society
including; parent, teacher, instructor, advisor, consultant,
coach and manager.
As an outdoor adventure guide
I have just as much in common teaching skiing as a soccer
coach, a high school teacher, a mountain guide, a financial
advisor or a parent teaching their child how to drive. All
those positions are trying to manage the experience in a way that
enables the people we are teaching/leading to achieve things
they may not feel they can achieve. All of these roles
involve teaching the right skills, building confidence,
building connections with others and the environment they are
working in, and balancing risk. The last one is what sets an
adventure apart from an experience.
Life is full of adventures.
Adventure can be defined in many ways but I believe it is
best summed up this way; an "adventure" is an experience that
has an element of risk, and ends in success. This risk can be
real or imagined while success is defined as an adventure
worth doing again. On the other hand an experience that does
not have a level of risk is simply an
"experience". Adventures that end unsuccessfully
are referred to as "misadventures".
Traditional adventures
include things like cycling, climbing and skiing. However
any of life's experiences that involve an element of risk
and ends successfully is an adventure. Adventures can be
things like; learning to drive, playing basketball, going
somewhere new, even going for dinner. An adventure is any
activity that involves a degree of risk and ends successfully.
Guiding Adventure has been
set up to act as a resource to help guides who lead
adventure.
The main tool of this website
is the Guide’s Guide. The Guide's Guide is a simple model
that outlines all the elements that need to be present to
achieve adventure. The Guide's Guide is
the "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs" for guided
adventures. It lays out all the elements, their order and
how they relate to each other.
The Guide's Guide acts as a
framework that less experienced guides can draw upon and a
reminder for more experienced guides.
The Guide’s Guide is built
from the perspective of the guide, with participation and
the guide themselves forming the foundation of the
experience. The guide's role is to manage the experience in
a way that allows the people they are leading the best
chance to achieve adventure. This means balancing risk,
building relationships, teaching the right skills and
leading others. What the guide cannot do is to force people
to buy into the experience. Participants have to experience
the adventure for themselves.
This website has been created
from the viewpoint of outdoor adventure guides, however the
Guide's Guide model and all of the information in it
directly relate to many of the situations we all find
ourselves in on a daily basis.
Those of us who guide
professionally have all benefited from help along the way.
This website is a way to give back and to help other guides
deliver great experiences that allow those they are guiding
to achieve adventure.
If you feel that you have
something that you would like to contribute please contact
us.
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