“It just doesn’t matter if we win or if we lose. It just doesn’t matter!” chants Tripper Harrison as his fellow counselors hoist the Camp North Star director onto their shoulders. The movie Meatballs is set at Camp North Star, a cut-rate camp full of misfit kids and spazzy counselors. Camp North Star was competing against the 12-time Olympiad Champion, Camp Mohawk, a much wealthier and polished camp across the lake. While we can’t say that Tripper was the most expert guide, he put his ego aside in this speech before the final competition, reminding the campers that it doesn’t matter if they win or lose - they should just have fun.
Camp North Star goes on to win the Olympiad - and have the best time doing it!
While Meatballs is not the choicest example of guidecraft in many ways, the counselors continuously demonstrate what it means to focus on meeting the campers where they’re at, albeit begrudgingly at times, for the benefit of the campers.
Meatballs and the guide life cycle came up as a funny anecdote during my recent interview with Josh Morris, a coach, leader and entrepreneur based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Even after a grueling travel day, Josh entered into the space of our conversation with intentionality, focus and reflection, emanating the qualities he believes are so important in fantastic guidework. Our conversation vacillated between Josh’s support of the stunning rescue of the youth soccer team from the Tham Luang Nang Non cave, the companies he runs in Chiang Mai and his recipe for excellent guidework. He noted a crucial balance of hard skills and soft skills, communication, awareness of yourself and your surroundings and a theoretical understanding of the field.
Time and time again our conversation returned to the importance of expertise in the field in which you are serving as a guide. Josh shared that there is a certain truth to Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule, popularized in his book Outliers. As Gladwell tells it, it takes 10,000 hours of intensive practice to achieve mastery of complex skills and materials, like playing the violin or getting as good as Bill Gates at computer programming. While there are many critics of this theory, the basic idea that mentored practice leads to advanced skill sets holds true.
Using rock climbing guides as an example, Josh mused that there is no way to teach 25 years of experience in rock climbing - you just have to dedicate that time to your craft. He noted that soft skills are also included in this conversation, not just the mastery of the hard skills. “A guide hones their soft skills with each group they lead, bettering how they are teaching, caring and transforming a group. I can’t teach that kind of experience,” stated Josh.
We discussed the balance that incredible guides must strike between being experts in their field, while also putting aside their egos to ensure they are not centering themselves in the experience. “We must suppress the release of our ego and be mindful of our perception at all times. Perception does not equal truth, even if you are an expert. Share your perception but never argue the truth of someone else,” shared Josh, eloquently encapsulating the tightrope walk of guidework.
As our conversation moved towards the hour mark, I asked Josh what he felt was missing in the world of guidework and how he would be excited to contribute to filling that gap. “I keep coming back to the deep need for really experienced guides and the fact that a lot of folks can’t afford to stay in a guiding role because it is not sustainable,” stated Josh. He continued to say that he needs a trained pool of guides to pull from, but that it takes people a long time to get to that level and it is hard to retain them when they are really good.
In the field of experiential education, guides are usually seasonal employees, making minimum wage without healthcare or other benefits packages. Some companies pay their guides a “living wage,” but Josh believes that overall the field of guiding has been continuously deprofessionalized. Josh and a colleague recently viewed the iconic summer camp movie Meatballs after a successful leadership training for a client. Josh’s colleague shared that he had wanted that life - to own a camp - but it didn’t seem feasible to fight a constant battle to make money and survive.
“Experiential education lacks professionalism. We don’t need to be like lawyers and physicians, but we need to place more value on educators. Our work attracts a certain pool of people who are really dedicated and phenomenal. But we lose a lot of people who would really want to do this work but can’t afford to live this lifestyle. Organizations all over the world are feeling the negative effects of a staffing shortage right now and the professionalization of guidework is the missing piece,” summarized Josh.
To elevate experiential education and create a stronger talent pool for guides, Josh recommends improving the guide lifecycle in a few ways. First, employers should recognize that they will need to respond to changing needs of a guide as they mature in order to retain them. At age 25, guides' needs will be very different than at 35 and onwards when they are trying to start a family and become financially stable. This includes understanding that decreased discretionary giving of effort is okay in order to allow guides to be more present in their own personal lives. Second, professional training is crucial for guides to have the tools they need to be successful in the field, like personal finance management, self-care and network opportunities.
Josh closed by asking: How can we build a sustainable system so that we can get a 60-year veteran guide in the field? Salt and Clay is working on making that dream a reality, but this time “it DOES really matter!”
For experiential education organizations: Why does it become so hard to retain talented guides as their experience builds?
For guides: What does a living wage mean to you? What is your ideal scenario for building new skills while excelling in your role as a guide?
For everyone: How do we improve the guide life cycle?
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