By: David Beavis on October 26, 2022
A crucial decision was before me. The stakes were high. A poor decision would affect the lives of others, not just me. The pressure was on. But everything happened so fast that I did not even realize the pressure was on. In fact, I didn’t have time to think about what would happen if I…
By: Jenny Steinbrenner Hale on October 25, 2022
In Thinking, Fast and Slow, author and Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman brings together decades of his research, along with discoveries of other psychologists and economists, to present his findings on how human beings think. In particular, he highlights his idea that the human brain utilizes two systems in our thinking processes that affect our…
By: Laura Fleetwood on October 23, 2022
Is there a formula for the human experience? Author and professor, Joseph Campbell believed that there was and he described it in his 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In this work, Campbell combined his extensive knowledge of world-wide mythology with modern (at the time) psychology to theorize and describe a monomyth that all…
By: Daron George on October 22, 2022
In his book Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell writes about how there is a monomyth or a hero’s journey motif in all of mythology. The hero’s journey is a cycle “that begins and ends in the hero’s ordinary world but the quest pasts through an unfamiliar special world[1]“. Along this journey, there are some…
By: Audrey Robinson on October 22, 2022
I graduated high school as an agnostic, believing God’s existence could not be proved or disproved. During my last year of high school and throughout my years in undergraduate school, I buried myself in mythology. As an English Literature major in undergraduate school, I enjoyed reading the Odyssey, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Dante’s Inferno as…
By: Michael O'Neill on October 22, 2022
Prior to completing Joseph Campbell’s, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, I experienced an epiphany. I felt as if I had read this book many times. I knew I had been here before somehow though it was my first time through this book. Why did it feel so familiar? Was this a spiritual reaction? A…
By: Becca Hald on October 21, 2022
What is a hero? In his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell writes, “The hero, therefore, is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations to the generally valid, normally human forms.”[1] The hero is one who faces challenges and transforms in the…
By: Chad McSwain on October 21, 2022
It would nearly impossible to unravel the influence of The Hero with a Thousand Faces on modern pop culture. Any fan of Star Wars or Marvel movies is familiar with observations of Joseph Campbell and the way that story shapes our lives. By analyzing mythology through the lens of psychoanalysis [1], Campbell lifts the familiar…
By: Greg McMullen on October 21, 2022
Leading out of Who You Are by Simon Walker provides many different perspectives that depending on past characteristics and learned behavior is most likely how their leadership styles will reflect in their organizations. Often we wear or present a mask to people in public and behind what the public sees, often in wearing these masks, we…
By: Jenny Steinbrenner Hale on October 20, 2022
Some heroes slay dragons, some heroes save lives. Still other heroes invest their days in supporting their families, making sure there is food in the fridge, paying the bills on time. There are a thousand ways in which people answer the call to heroine and hero. And yet, according to Joseph Campbell, there is…
By: Tonette Kellett on October 20, 2022
In Joseph Campbell’s book, Hero with a Thousand Faces, I am reminded that those things that I strive for in the area of fulfillment and satisfaction in life will nearly always lie outside of my comfort zone. Campbell cleverly uses mythology to walk the reader through three life stages common to all “heroes” – and…
By: Jean de Dieu Ndahiriwe on October 20, 2022
Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces is a fantastic book; this is an excellent story and a journey that relates to everyone regardless of location or background. It is true what Brian says on PNTV; “This is his classic seminal text that’s influenced people like George Lucas, every aspiring film student because every hero’s…
By: Caleb Lu on October 20, 2022
Why does it feel like I go out on what Joseph Campbell calls the “adventure of the hero” every time I try to write my blog for the week? Instead of facing the great wilderness or some mysterious realm that I travel to, I find myself navigating the readings we’re assigned and at times lost…
By: David Beavis on October 20, 2022
The life of Stephen Hawking, as displayed in the movie The Theory of Everything, was largely marked by a search for a single, unifying theory that explains how everything works. When it comes to story-telling across history and societies, Joseph Campbell provides a unifying motif, known as the “hero’s journey.” One can argue that The…
By: Greg McMullen on October 18, 2022
I enjoyed Campbell’s book on a Hero with a Thousand Voices. Campbell challenges his audience to move from a fixed mindset and cross the threshold of adventure in how we communicate to others. An invitation to leaders to leave what is comfortable and come into transformation. Campbell, took a different approach in his studies of…
By: Sara Taylor Lattimore on October 17, 2022
“Failure of Nerve” a key leadership book that identifies leadership through a different lens. Friedman in his book notes that Leadership is not really about skill, technique, or knowledge that it is actually about decrement regarding the emotional and relational context. In order for a leader to understand these and to actively participate in discernment…
By: Becca Hald on October 16, 2022
It was “Back to School Night” in 2011 and my first opportunity to address the parents as the President of the Parent Faculty Association (PFA). I shared about my hopes for the school year and read the Parable of the Stonemasons an analogy about teaching Sunday School that I felt translated well to serving the…
By: Laura Fleetwood on October 15, 2022
A Failure of Nerve by Edwin Friedman is a thought-provoking leadership book that is just as relevant today as when it was first published privately more than 20 years ago. Friedman asserts that leaders (whether in families, organizations or society-at-large) must differentiate themselves and not fall prey to the anxious characteristics of our times. Specifically,…
By: Daron George on October 15, 2022
Leadership over the past few years has been in the spotlight from leaders in the home, public office, churches and schools (to name a few) because of our unique challenges in an ever-changing landscape. One thing is for sure there will always be challenges in leadership. In fact, Kouzes and Posner in their book “The…
By: Audrey Robinson on October 14, 2022
When I started reading Failure of Nerve, I was very excited about the basic premise of leadership plaguing our organizations and families. The author, Friedman, argues that leadership is in a rut. Whenever the organization or family is in a state of anxiety, there will always be a nerve failure.[1] According to Friedman, the primary…
