Insanely Interesting People who Influenced Me #17 Joseph Campbell

For the rest of the year, I would like to take a moment and thank the people who have had a significant impact on me as an individual.

The way they have lived their lives and their body of work has had an outsized impact on how I think about life in general and and work, in particular.

Some of these are contemporary thinkers and some of them are just a memory. Some of them are famous in their own rights and some of them are yet to be found by others. Some of them are young and some of them are old. Some of them are business leaders, some thought leaders, some sportsmen and some coaches. Some of them are artists and some spiritual leaders.

However, if we look deeply, all of them are like you and me, ordinary people who’ve had an extra-ordinary impact on me and potentially a lot of others. And once you get to know them, may be they will have a similar impact on you as well or maybe not, only time will tell.

The reason I am putting together this list and share what I have learnt from them, to thank them publicly for being a teacher and teaching me important lessons in life and in the hope that some of you might be inspired by their company and they can impact you and your life as they have impacted mine.

So, let’s get started.

17. Joseph Campbell

Irrespective of where we come from, we all have a deep relationship with stories – whether we like them or not.

It is now well known that the very reason For the success or our race is because of our ability to make up and tell stories.

To learn from them.

To transfer them from one generation to the next.

To make meaning out of them.

Whether they are real or imagined.

Given this is the context, I was not surprised by my fascination with stories, to start with mythological stories of Hinduism, Buddhism (early in my life) and then Islamic and Christian stories (later in life). Some of them take on a life of their own and become myths.

And anyone who knows me, knows my passion for theatre and movies. Again, the fundamental building block of any play or movie is the story that it is telling us. Then comes my passion for reading fiction books, again, all about stories.

If you’ve liked The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter or Star Wars, you have seen the influence of Joseph Campbell already.

So, when I was exposed to the work of James Campbell, I was just blown away from his brilliance. His insights about stories, myths and mythology and how each one of these stories usually tracks a Hero’s journey (which is a usually a proxy for each of our own journey’s that we may or may not make) is just unbelievable.

However, since I learnt about the Hero’s Journey (from his book – The Hero with a Thousand Faces), I see this journey play out in every book I read, every movie I watch, every business I study, every biography I watch. Basically, everywhere I look.

My entire thinking about how we function as a race, my relationship with myself and every story that I ever read or watch or study has changed.

And when I think that he can’t blow my mind anymore, I stumble onto a 6 part docu-series on YouTube where he shares his understanding about myths and meaning making process of us humans and I am blown away again.

All I can say is that I am now much more aware of my own Hero’s Journey. I know where I am in the journey and what needs to happen next. So, I am prepared for what comes next.

While I have never had the opportunity to meet with him in real life, I do believe that I have met him and known him through the book he wrote and through the documentary that he was a part of.

I truly wish that everyone of you who reads this post, actually goes on and checks out the book and take the time to watch the documentary below.

If you are a leader and wish to create a culture worth belonging to, you will learn from the master himself.