The Mythology and Psychology of Adventure: Reading Recommendations from Jeff Salz

On yesterday’s episode of Smashing the Plateau, Jeff Salz discussed what leaders can learn from adventurers—or from adventures of their own. Here, he provides a list of those people who have inspired his own journeys:

1. Alan Watts (www.AlanWatts.com)

Jeff describes Watts’ writing as a “brilliant East/West synthesis.” Watts is best known for The Way of Zen (1957), Psychotherapy East and West (1961), “The New Alchemy” (1958), and The Joyous Cosmology (1962).

2. Joseph Campbell (www.jcf.org)

Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) outlines a common “hero’s journey” among a range of cultural mythologies.

3. Edward Abbey (http://www.abbeyweb.net)

Praising Abbey’s environmentalism, Jeff notes that “Radicalism in defense of nature is no vice.”

4. Viktor Frankl (http://www.viktorfrankl.org/)

Frankl developed logotherapy, a form of psychotherapy focused on finding the meaning of one’s life. Jeff describes this as “the ultimate meaning of service.”

5. Eric Shipton (http://climbing.about.com/od/Mount-Everest/ss/The-5-Greatest-Mount-Everest-Climbers_5.htm)

Jeff writes that Shipton’s “love of the mountains and curiosity for life inspired me since a chance meeting in Patagonia in 1973.”