The Hero’s Journey includes three major stages: preparation, the journey and the return. During the preparation stage, we are challenged to prove our competence, our courage, our humanity and our fidelity to our story. On the journey we leave the safety of our known world and story we live and embark on a quest where we encounter destruction and love. But most important, our story is rewritten. In myth, that transformation is often symbolized by the finding of a treasure. On our return from the hero’s journey, we become Masters of our Universe, Heroes in our own Legends, which are transformed because we are changed. But we must also continually rewrite our stories, renew them or we become tyrants, clinging dogmatically to our old myths to the detriment of our life and business. Whenever we lose our sense of integrity and authenticity or begin to feel inadequate to current life and business challenges, we must embark again on the hero’s journey.

Preparation

The first four archetypes help us prepare for the journey. We begin with dreams and from the Dreamer we learn optimism and trust. When we experience ‘the fall’ we become lonely, disappointed, abandoned, betrayed by life and especially by the people who are supposed to care for us. The Independent teaches us that we need to provide for ourselves and stop relying on others to take care of us. When the Warrior comes in to our lives, we learn to set goals and develop strategies for achieving them, strategies that almost always require the development of discipline and courage. When the Caregiver becomes active, we learn to take care of others, and eventually to care for ourselves as well.
These four attributes – basic optimism the capacity to band together for support, the courage to fight for yourself and others, and compassion and care for others – together provide the basic skills for every entrepreneur.

The Journey

We begin to yearn for something beyond ourselves and become Explorers, searching for that ineffable something that will satisfy. Answering the call to adventure and embarking on the journey, we find that soon we are experiencing that the Rule Breaker takes away much that had seemed essential to our lives. Initiation by letting go is complemented by an initiation in the Lover as we find ourselves in love with people, causes, places, work. This love is so strong it requires commitment – and we are no longer free. The treasure that emerges out of the encounter with breaking with old rules and finding new love is the birth of the true self. Your true story. The Storyteller helps us to begin to express this story in the world and prepares you to return to your own world. These four abilities – to strive, to let go, to love and to create a new story – teach us the basic proces of rewriting old stories which don’t work anymore for you into new powerful stories. The process prepares us to return to our world and change our lives.

The Return

When we returen, we realize that we are the Masters of our own universe. Heroes of our own legends. At first, we may be