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Unleashing Your Inner Warrior: Service, Strength, and Survival
The Warrior Within has become a phenomenon in leadership circles, with CEOs, military commanders, and social workers alike drawing from its timeless wisdom. When Brene Brown featured it on her podcast, downloads skyrocketed as listeners connected with its unique blend of Indigenous wisdom and practical service principles. What makes this book resonate so deeply is how it shatters conventional warrior stereotypes - those glossy, perfect heroes who never falter - and replaces them with something far more powerful: authentic human strength rooted in service to others.
D.J. Vanas discovered this truth through his own journey from an insecure, bullied child to Air Force Academy graduate to participant in the grueling Sun Dance ceremony where he learned that true warriors aren't bulletproof superheroes. They're ordinary people who keep showing up despite fear, doubt and exhaustion because they're committed to something bigger than themselves. This revelation forms the heart of a book that has transformed how thousands approach their most challenging roles.
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Own Your Warrior Spirit: Beyond Hollywood Stereotypes
One morning while serving as an Air Force captain, I woke with shingles that tormented me for six weeks. I was overextended - leading a team at the Air Force Academy, starting a family, and launching a speaking business. Working from 4am until late at night, I neglected myself while trying to make a difference. Eventually, I developed classic stress symptoms until my body broke down at just 28 years old. I learned a hard truth: We can't be warriors when we're falling apart.
The word "warrior" carries dangerous expectations and stereotypes. Media portrays warriors as chiseled, fearless, violent characters who destroy enemies for glory. These stereotypes create harmful expectations of perfection and invulnerability, putting tremendous pressure on committed servants to avoid mistakes and never ask for help. This leads to suffering in silence and burnout that damages health and relationships.
A true warrior isn't defined by gender - women have been powerful warriors throughout history, particularly after the Great Indian Wars when many men were killed or spiritually broken. Women became full warriors as they protected children, kept families intact, and preserved culture. From Autumn Peltier who told the UN to "warrior up" at age thirteen to Wilma Mankiller who became the first woman elected as Cherokee Nation chief despite threats, women have honorably fulfilled warrior roles across government, military, education, healthcare and leadership positions.
Warriors aren't in it for glory - most of your important work goes unnoticed. When we make mistakes, everyone notices, but doing great work often feels like "wetting your pants in a dark suit - warm and tingly but no one else really notices." This becomes easier when we understand we're in it for impact, not recognition.
A warrior doesn't go at it alone. A single finger can poke or point, but you need all your fingers to manipulate objects or hold someone's hand. Going solo limits our impact and quickly leads to burnout. Our warriors understood the power of a tribe and never fought alone for good reason.
A warrior isn't arrogant. When you're active, busy, and getting results, it's easy to drift into dominance, which breeds arrogance. Unchecked, this arrogance leads us to step on others to advance ourselves, weakening our ability to collaborate and serve effectively.
Most importantly, a warrior isn't bulletproof. Even legendary warriors like Tecumseh, Crazy Horse, and Chief Joseph dealt with fear, faced pain, and stumbled. They needed outside resources, encouragement, and self-care. They were human beings, not Hollywood superheroes.
So what is a warrior? A warrior is different from a fighter. A fighter leverages effort toward self-improvement - going back to school, leaving bad relationships, getting better jobs. But warriors take those hard-earned lessons and skills to serve others. Nancy Griffin exemplifies this transformation - growing up in an abusive home, she fought for herself through education and divorce, then became a warrior who helped hundreds find employment, achieving the highest success rate in Michigan for minority youth employment.
A warrior fights for something bigger than self. The Ottawa term for warrior, ogichidaa, has little to do with toughness or glory. A warrior develops talent and ability over a lifetime to become an asset to the "tribe" they serve - whether family, community, company, students, patients, clients, or citizens.
A warrior nurtures their warrior spirit. When our spirit is involved in an activity, it becomes a spiritual event answering to a higher purpose. Your warrior spirit is the driving force that helps you face challenges and develop yourself to serve others - a can-do, persistent, resilient attitude composed of grit, determination, love, focus, commitment, and accountability.
A warrior is driven by service for three reasons: First, it's our highest calling and most fulfilling endeavor - if we're not here to serve others, why are we here at all? Second, service fulfills our deepest need to feel valued and that our work matters. Third, service is our legacy - what tribal communities remember about elders isn't their possessions but who they helped, encouraged, or guided.
A warrior leads with love above all else. Fighting for anything requires energy, focus, and time - all valuable resources. If you don't love what you're fighting for, why are you fighting for it? When we love what we're fighting for, as our ancestors did for their people, we make hard choices and commit to seeing them through.
Finally, a warrior may surrender, but they never quit. When we quit, we stop trying and talk ourselves out of challenges. Surrender occurs when we've reached the end of our power - we have no leverage, our actions are ineffective, or we're doing more harm than good. There's no shame in surrender; it can be one of the bravest things we do. Victory isn't necessarily creating a spectacular outcome exactly as intended - it's defined by the quality of dedicated effort we put forth.
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Live Off the Land: Using What You Have
In 1972, LeAnn was a young pediatrics nurse who bought cupcakes at a bake sale for the Friends of Children of Viet Nam. By April 1975, she faced a high-stakes problem: smuggling $10,000 into Vietnam by impersonating Dolly Parton. She was tasked with escorting six Amerasian babies out of Vietnam, but that number quickly grew to three hundred when President Ford authorized Operation Babylift. With bombs falling on Saigon, LeAnn and volunteers created makeshift solutions - using VW vans with seats removed to transport babies like "cookies on a baking sheet," bracing babies on city buses with their limbs, and arranging infants in cardboard boxes on military aircraft. Through creativity and determination, they rescued three hundred babies before Saigon fell three weeks later.
When facing challenges, we often ask "What do I do?" but the tribal-centric warrior asks "What can I do?" with what's already available. Native tribes mastered using local resources - Ottawa creating lightweight birchbark canoes, Plains tribes utilizing every buffalo part, Pueblo peoples building adobe homes. The warrior mindset sees abundance rather than scarcity. We may never have everything we want, but we typically have what we need.
Our most critical resource is time, which is completely nonrenewable. Warriors must constantly ask: "Am I spending enough time on things that matter? Am I putting too much time into things that don't?" While money, opportunities, and even relationships can be replaced, time spent is gone forever. To make time a meaningful gift, warriors honor two principles: be truly present - not just physically there, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually engaged; and give time willingly - when we give time grudgingly, people feel small and unimportant.
Energy, like time, must be directed toward the right things rather than everything. Sleep is the most crucial way to replenish this limited resource. Studies show animals with adequate sleep have six times more immunity cells than sleep-deprived ones. Despite our busy lives, we must prioritize sleep because there's never time for anything in this world - only what we make time for.
Our personal medicine bag holds our unique gifts - natural talents, attitudes, values, work ethic, and hard-earned wisdom. We often focus on what we lack rather than appreciating what we have. What matters isn't how many gifts we possess but how we use them - just as three primary colors create masterpieces and seven musical notes compose timeless songs. Sonya Tetnowski's foresight in preparing her Indian Health Center for COVID-19 despite limited resources exemplifies this principle. "It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, or what you have. What matters is how you honor who you are and where you come from by using what you have every day."
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Prepare for Battle: Clarity of Purpose
The author's transformative four-day vision quest ceremony - a traditional Native American rite of passage involving isolation in nature without food, water or shelter - taught him that life is simple, though we complicate it, and revealed what truly matters beyond artificial needs. Vision quests highlight the sacred importance of having clarity of purpose - just as tribal warriors prepared for battle through prayer, ceremony, and war paint, we must prepare by understanding our values and what we value.
Values are the colors that paint our vision. When we know our values, life becomes simpler - we know what to say yes to and what to decline. Society constantly bombards us with messages about what to value, often promoting instant gratification and superficial pursuits. Our true values (love, service, integrity) and what we value (health, family, career) form our version of a "good life." The Anishinabek Seven Grandfather Teachings (love, honesty, truth, bravery, wisdom, respect, humility) and Navajo concept of hozho (harmony) exemplify enduring value systems that sustained tribes through immense hardship.
Once we know our values, we can create vision that sustains what's most important to us. Vision precedes all creation - just as architects see buildings in their minds before drawing blueprints. Sight is what we see with our eyes, but vision is what we see with our minds. Julie Garreau exemplifies vision in action. At 21, she started the Cheyenne River Youth Project in a decrepit bar on South Dakota's Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. Despite minimal resources and support, she persevered, guided by Lakota values. Today, CRYP spans five acres with multiple youth centers, gardens, and programs promoting Native wellness, arts, and culture.
For every vision we create, critics and challenges will emerge. Fear is the notorious vision-killer. As children, we're natural visionaries seeing endless possibilities, but criticism and doubt can shatter our dreams. John, a Chickasaw from small-town Oklahoma, dreamed of becoming an astronaut at age 8 despite mockery. After struggling in college and working on a survey crew, a mentor asked what he truly wanted. Reconnecting with his childhood vision, John became a Navy aviator and test pilot, eventually becoming America's first Native American astronaut in 1996.
Every day we trade our time, focus, and effort for something in return. We can exchange these resources for complaints and gossip, or for improved relationships and skills. Before European contact, Native communities used barter systems - my Ottawa people were such skilled traders that our name comes from the word odawa meaning "to trade." We must be selective about what we say "yes" to, or risk overwhelming ourselves. For service-oriented warriors, saying "no" can feel like betraying our commitment, but without clear boundaries, we fall into the trap of "sideways yeses" that lead to resentment and frustration.
A quick way to lose clarity happens when we "cross the streams" - being at work while ruminating about home, or being at home while obsessing about work. Just like in Ghostbusters where crossing proton pack streams causes "bad things," when we mix these life domains, we're not fully engaged or effective in either space. Our vision becomes muddled and harder to achieve. When we're at work, we should work with focus and purpose. When we're at home, we should fully engage in rest, play, and reconnection.
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Count Coup on the Enemy: Facing Your Fears
At the Air Force Academy Jump School Program, I faced my ultimate fear - leaping from a plane 4,800 feet above ground with no assistance, just ten seconds of freefall before deploying my parachute. Despite intensive training, terror gripped me at the open door with wind roaring and engines deafening. But I remembered my training, stabilized myself mid-tumble, and pulled my rip cord. This experience taught me that courage isn't the absence of fear but acting despite it. Like Native warriors who practiced "counting coup" - touching enemies with a decorated staff rather than killing them - we must face our fears directly.
Most fears we face aren't physical dangers but emotional ones - particularly the fear of failure and fear of criticism. These fears can paralyze us as we wait for perfect conditions that never arrive, causing us to miss opportunities to make an impact. We often internalize shortcomings, seeing ourselves as the mistake rather than seeing mistakes as just mistakes. Even legendary warriors like Crazy Horse faced criticism - before becoming the fearsome war leader for Sitting Bull, he was a poor, quiet outcast teased for his lighter skin and smaller stature.
An autumn legend explains why trees lose their leaves: long ago, beautiful broadleaf trees never lost their leaves and could change colors at will. They ridiculed the peaceful pines for their thin, pointed leaves, causing the pines to leak sticky sap tears. The Creator intervened, declaring that henceforth the broadleaf trees would lose their leaves each autumn as a reminder that through criticizing others, you gain nothing - you only lose part of yourself.
We don't need to eliminate fear to take action, but cultivating courage makes action more likely. The key is being a warrior, not a worrier. When facing seemingly impossible tasks, taking even small actions repeatedly builds courage. Worriers see obstacles and think nothing can be done, losing battles before they begin. Warriors take action, create plans of attack, and adapt as needed. During my struggles at the Air Force Academy, I learned to take things one day at a time when they got hard, and one hour at a time when they got really hard.
The difference between warriors and worriers is action. Warriors are action-oriented and willing to risk, while worriers are complaint-prone and stuck in fear. If we face fear but refuse to act, worry fills that void and creates paralysis. Instead, we must count coup on fear by taking action, staying solution-oriented, and changing tactics as needed.
Pain can be either beneficial or detrimental depending on how we handle it. When we push ourselves out of comfort zones, practice self-discipline, and do hard work with purpose, pain becomes growth. Traditional ceremonies incorporated suffering to trigger spiritual growth and prepare warriors for challenges. Pain without purpose keeps us stuck. Those who learn to deal with pain effectively become successful; those who embrace and subdue it become unstoppable.
Three elements stifle our ability to cultivate courage: regret wastes time since we can't change the past; anger, while useful short-term if harnessed properly, becomes draining and harmful as a long-term fuel source; and worry wastes energy since most feared outcomes never happen.
In Native tradition, warriors used war cries before battle to intimidate enemies and inspire themselves with energetic courage. Our internal dialogue often becomes our modern war cry. Create a personal war cry - a mantra, prayer, quote, activity, or something you touch, hold, or wear - that boosts your strength and determination when needed most.
Building a memory bank of strength by acknowledging times we've shown courage creates a reservoir of confidence. Too often we focus on failures rather than giving ourselves credit for moments of bravery. Whatever challenge you face now, you've likely overcome something similar or worse before.
Exercising courage includes confronting challenges, asking for help, being vulnerable, and taking the next step when struggling. Alex, a decorated Special Forces soldier with a Bronze Star, showed tremendous courage in combat but faced his greatest battle with PTSD afterward. His breaking point came when his daughter screamed "I hate you" during one of his rage episodes. He finally sought help through the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, overcoming his resistance to vulnerability - what he called being "humiliated by humility."
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Attack Again and Again: The Power of Persistence
The Kalalau Trail on Kauai becomes a brutal test of warrior spirit as the author and his friend Aaron tackle one of the world's most dangerous hikes. After nine grueling hours traversing narrow paths of crumbly lava rock hundreds of feet above jagged rocks and ocean, they reach camp exhausted. The next morning, he breaks his foot at the first river crossing but pushes through ten more miles of "pure agony" rather than being stranded without rescue options. Despite excruciating pain, he keeps putting one foot in front of the other until they finally emerge from the jungle. This harrowing experience demonstrates that sometimes the only way through seemingly insurmountable challenges is to simply keep moving forward, one painful step at a time.
When facing seemingly insurmountable tasks, there's rarely a poetic solution - you simply must gut it out until completion. Native warriors exemplified this through guerrilla warfare tactics, attacking aggressively, withdrawing, regrouping, and attacking again until defeating larger, better-equipped enemies. Taking action pops the bubble of tension, doubt, and perfection that grows in inaction. The Navajo tradition of purposefully stitching flaws into their beautiful rugs reminds us to embrace imperfection and just do the work. Rather than wishing or hoping, which gets us nowhere, we must work - the quintessence of empowerment.
While we control little beyond our thoughts, words, and actions, self-discipline is our power to harness. Discipline means doing what needs doing when it needs doing - even when we don't feel like it. By practicing a few things daily toward our goals, we prevent the overwhelm of trying to do everything at once. Like tribal warriors who voluntarily endured fasting, ice swimming, and exposure to elements to strengthen themselves, self-discipline builds resilience.
Consistent action creates momentum - the magical energy that builds confidence, courage, and results. Like kernels becoming popcorn through building heat and energy, momentum transforms our efforts into achievements. Small, consistent acts compound over time, while hesitation breeds doubt and stagnation. Dr. Karen Goodnight (Chickasaw) exemplifies this principle, building momentum through consistent action that carried her from teaching to becoming her tribe's Head Start director, then to leadership development, enterprise roles, and eventually an executive coach and tribal legislator.
Our focus shapes our reality and guides our thoughts, actions, and results. Just as warriors focused everything through the lens of serving and protecting their people, what we concentrate on becomes the filter through which we experience life. Fear-based focus can derail progress, making us catastrophize situations out of proportion. Sometimes what terrifies us is just a "dryer sheet," as I learned after watching too many horror films and panicking over nothing.
Multitasking is actually doing many things poorly at once. Our brains can only truly focus on one thing at a time, despite what we might believe. Attempting to multitask leads to mistakes, poor connections with others, and increased stress. Most activities deserve our full attention to be done properly, or sometimes shouldn't be done at all.
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Keep the Fires Lit: Sustaining Your Motivation
Just as a firekeeper maintained the sacred flame that was the beating heart of a Native village, we must tend to our inner warrior spirit with the same dedication. This internal fire fuels our drive, willingness to learn and serve, and commitment to excellence. Without careful attention, it can burn down to embers or extinguish completely. Our motivation isn't automatic - it requires purposeful cultivation. We typically begin endeavors with bright enthusiasm, but as rhythm becomes routine and routine becomes rut, we can find ourselves just "fighting to make it to the weekend."
Motivation is simply having a reason to do something and the willingness to act on it. The more compelling the reason, the stronger the motivation. There are two fundamental types: motivation by fear and motivation by joy. Fear-based motivation works temporarily - like when I frantically swam away from a shark on the Great Barrier Reef - but it requires increasingly severe threats and ultimately leads to anxiety and burnout. Joy-based motivation draws from a deeper well, focusing on what's going right, what's possible, and our own capabilities. It's sustainable because it connects to meaning.
To fuel your fire, tap into your tribe. When we stay connected to our network, we strengthen our motivation by seeing what's possible and feeding our curiosity. This connection keeps us updated on opportunities and resources that might help solve our challenges. I've been amazed how many times a quick solution to a problem emerged just by talking with friends and colleagues.
Keep challenges in perspective. We tend to catastrophize because our brains evolved to identify threats. When facing setbacks, ask yourself: "Is this a showstopper or just a speed bump?" and "Am I making this a bigger deal than it is?"
Remember your past victories. Too often we forget all the work we've done to reach our current capabilities. Recalling previous successes brings back feelings of pride and accomplishment, reminding us that we have skills, abilities, and experiences that can serve us in new challenges.
Go back to your values and follow your vision. Our motivation wavers when we forget what we're fighting to create. When fear or setbacks appear, trust the plan, not your emotions. Emotions whisper lies to protect us from disappointment, but our values and vision provide clarity.
Raise your standards. Our motivation can waver when we're not challenging ourselves. Without healthy tension, we fall into the rhythm-routine-rut dynamic. Raising our standards is something only we can do, requiring no one else's permission.
Celebrate your wins. Early in our careers, we celebrate milestones like first days and completed projects. Over time, we stop looking up and just grind forward. When we don't reward our achievements, we condition ourselves not to care about them anymore. Take time to reward yourself for jobs well done - condition yourself to care, and your motivation will grow.
Mental toughness helps us keep going when things become chaotic or overwhelming. Like the Japanese katana that incorporates both hardness (resistance to impact) and toughness (ability to absorb impact), warriors need both qualities to succeed. Mental toughness requires developing emotional capacity through humility, honesty, and vulnerability. Instead of outrunning emotions, we must shed light on them.
Foster joy - not fleeting happiness but something deeper: hope, optimism, and gratitude for what we have and what's coming. Joy insulates us from pain during hard times, like a puffy jacket repelling cold.
Practice self-care. How can you serve anyone if you're falling apart? Schedule time for activities that recharge you: sleep, exercise, meditation, reading, or whatever constitutes your personal "stay well" ingredients.
Tell yourself a better story. The narratives we tell ourselves critically affect our success, happiness, fulfillment, and performance. What happens to us is neutral, but the story we tell about what it means creates our personal narrative.
Be tenacious like the wolverine - not the Hugh Jackman character, but the actual animal. Despite their small size, wolverines are tenacious creatures with thick hide, sharp claws and powerful jaws. They travel up to fifteen miles daily, hunt prey much larger than themselves, and fearlessly scare away bears and wolf packs.
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Read the Signs and Stay Vigilant: Lifetime Learning
Warriors must continuously develop their skills and awareness to effectively fulfill their roles. Indigenous warriors submitted to lifetime development, constantly training to improve abilities, toughening their bodies, creating resilient spirits, and learning practical skills. They maintained unwavering awareness of their environment, reading signs that Europeans considered almost magical. Today, we face constant distraction and information overload, making it easy to become disengaged or let our skills grow stale.
The lynx, a superb hunter with incredible snowshoe-like feet and stealth, has declined from thousands to just hundreds in Montana. Despite its natural gifts, this predator faces extinction due to overspecialization - it hunts only snowshoe hares. Meanwhile, its adaptable cousins - mountain lions and bobcats - thrive by eating whatever prey is available. This natural lesson warns against complacency and overspecialization. We must stay flexible, diversify our skills, and maintain perspective.
To become effective lifetime learners, we need practical strategies that produce results. First, stay humble. Humility stands as both a core tribal value and the key to lifelong growth. Without it, learning stops. The "been there, done that" attitude of arrogance leads to stagnation, while humility allows us to keep asking questions like children.
Become an astute observer. Just as traditional warriors depended on vigilant awareness and reading signs to survive, we must develop this same skill to remain relevant and effective. The process is simple: reduce stimuli, slow down, and stop multitasking. When we move too quickly, worried about missing something, we paradoxically miss everything.
Have better conversations. The quality of our conversations directly impacts our learning and growth. Mundane topics like weather drain our energy, while interesting questions like "What inspires creativity?" generate valuable exchanges of knowledge. When we remain curious about the world around us through reading, staying current, and engaging with new ideas, we become more interesting people who can offer insights to others.
Be more introspective. Like feeding too many papers into a shredder at once, trying to process all our daily input leads to mental paralysis. Instead, we need dedicated time to contemplate what we've learned. Whether through discussion with colleagues, quiet walks, or journaling in a "brain book," this processing transforms mere exposure to ideas into genuine understanding.
Raise the roof. We alone determine our level of effort, which leads either to excellence or mediocrity. Like the Three Little Pigs, we build different structures against the wolf of hard times and setbacks. Some build with straw, doing the bare minimum. Others use sticks, doing just enough to avoid trouble. The wise warrior builds with brick, going above and beyond not from obligation but desire.
Be patient. In our instant-gratification world, patience remains essential for lifelong learning. Unlike Neo in The Matrix who downloads kung fu instantly, real development takes time. Understanding the world and those we serve makes us better warriors for our communities.
Find a role model. Role models aren't just for children - we need them throughout life as examples of qualities and behaviors to emulate. This isn't about becoming someone else but identifying specific values and examples that pull us toward our better selves.
Tribe up - warriors never fight alone. Traditional warriors never fought alone - their strength came from interdependence, not independence. Native philosophy teaches that we're all connected, not just to family and colleagues but to all people, plants, animals, and the universe itself. Like the Haudenosaunee Confederacy that united six nations into an unbreakable bundle of arrows, we become stronger together than apart.
Play. Warriors developed their skills through play from childhood - using toy weapons, mock battles, and games like stickball (now lacrosse), known as "the little brother of war." Play allows us to master critical skills in low-threat environments where fear of judgment or shame won't inhibit our learning. Making work playful keeps us light on our feet, resilient, creative, and quicker to find solutions when knocked sideways.
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Transform into an Elder: Creating Your Legacy
A few years ago while driving through the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa territory, I spotted an elderly woman with snow-white hair walking purposefully along Highway 13. I slowed down, thinking she might need help, but she looked up with the confidence of a warrior on a mission. We exchanged nods and I continued, not realizing I was witnessing a long-held ritual. Later that evening, I discovered she was Grandma Genny, a legendary community elder being honored on television for making a difference in her community.
Our tribal warriors never retired but evolved into elders, sharing lifetimes of experience and wisdom. While getting older happens automatically, becoming an elder requires purpose. True elders collect stories, lessons, and wisdom not to hoard but to share, empowering their tribe. In our traditions, wealth wasn't measured by possessions but by how much one could give away. Warriors-turned-elders served as the backbone of tribal communities, providing knowledge and guidance that sustained our people.
Our elders passed down knowledge through stories that stick with us like our favorite movies. Embrace everything you encounter - your struggles, fears, and mistakes - because they're creating your own epic story worth sharing. No one wants to hear about a life without adventure, passion, heartbreak, and triumph. By actively sharing our stories, we can inspire others and provide something often in short supply: hope.
Though our busy world lacks the village fires where stories were traditionally shared, we can intentionally create spaces for storytelling - through one-on-one mentoring, company newsletters, or rotating story time at meetings. We accelerate our learning when we hear others' stories and clarify our own lessons when we share ours.
Everyone who achieves greatness had someone who provided support and encouragement. Herb Clah Jr., HR director for Utah Navajo Health System, credits his mentor Max for developing his confidence by allowing him to make decisions and mistakes without fear. Similarly, my first boss, Major Donnell Smith, empowered me by simply asking "What do you think you should do?" when I sought direction.
Like wild rice that must be processed to remove its hull, our painful stories often contain the most valuable lessons. When we resist sharing due to shame, embarrassment or fear, we keep these lessons trapped. By processing these emotions and breaking through that hull, we uncover treasures of resilience, grit, and wisdom that can nourish others. The most impactful elders aren't those who only share successes, but those who vulnerably share what they learned when things went terribly wrong.
True mentorship isn't "watch what I do and do it" but rather "come over here and let's do this together." Our tribal cultures mastered this approach by observing nature - mountain lions teaching cubs to hunt, hawks mentoring chicks to fly. Everyone in Native communities both received mentorship and mentored others, ensuring vital skills and wisdom were passed down.
At every life stage, we benefit both from mentoring others and being mentored - even by those younger than ourselves. Too often pride or ego prevents us from accessing the fresh insights younger generations bring. Joyce McFarland, education director for the Nez Perce Tribe, shares wisdom from her experience: "If you want wisdom, speak to the elders. If you want the truth, listen to the children."
Every day, we leave a legacy through our service to others - displayed through the lives we touch and how we share our gifts of time, talent, and wisdom. The warrior's role is service to others throughout our lifetime, and this question should guide us: At the end of your days, who in your tribe will be grateful for your influence, time, and contribution?
