Written by Everyone can benefit from a little more exercise, a little more human connection, and a little more time unplugged. Missions and Madness gives anyone that chance in a single comprehensive exciting game experience. Missions and Madness is a fun outdoor adventure game that’s part scavenger hunt, part Dungeons and Dragons, and part bootcamp. It started as my personal passion and is now a burgeoning business poised to change the world.
I initially designed Missions and Madness to spice-up my grueling training sessions for high-level endurance events. Even back then, all my training buddies started telling me that Missions and Madness was more fun, fulfilling, and skill-building than the events we were preparing for. Over the years I continued polishing the game with input from fitness professionals, Special Forces officers, and advanced martial artists. Today, Missions and Madness is much more than a fitness game; it’s a tool for personal and community empowerment.
The best feeling in the world is to witness lives improved by something you have created. Everytime I conduct a game of Missions and Madness, I see firsthand as it forges unified teams from groups of strangers, and raises leaders from the timid. Most gratifying for me personally is to watch people who have grown oblivious to their surroundings come alive as they learn to observe the details of the world around them. That’s because better than any other training method, Missions and Madness teaches situational awareness, a fundamental skill that lays the foundation for all other personal skill advancement.
There are surprisingly few opportunities to experience and practice the skill of cooperation in today’s world; yet it is key to all great human endeavors. Cooperation is the bedrock of civilization. Everything from governance to building bridges, and creating happy families relies on a person’s aptitude in the skill of cooperation. Missions and Madness provides a safe and effective space to experience and practice cooperation. Competence in cooperation has the potential to heal all society’s wounds.
Practical fitness is the component of Missions and Madness that ties everything together. By working through the steps of the game, players get a mild workout without even realizing it. The engagement of imagination, the problem-solving, and the camaraderie distract the team from the few pushups, squats, and jumping jacks that everyone has to do during the game.
A key feature of Missions and Madness is that it is “unplugged.” It’s not an app, players cannot use their GPS to navigate, and phones are not allowed. We live in an over-connected world that ironically distracts us from each other. It is human connection that is the biggest lesson of Missions and Madness: both in the playing of the game and in its development. I would not have been able to create or live this amazing experience and business without working face-to-face and shoulder-to-shoulder with real people with real-world skills. Missions and Madness is the full expression of what is great about humans and our interconnected experience.
