About Us

Our vision is for a world where everyone can achieve and share their full human potential.  In a complex and confusing world, we recognise the deep need as human beings to connect inwardly and contribute outwardly.

Our mission is to provide the human and physical resources that enable people to engage with their authentic selves and thereby reveal their unique purpose, talents and contribution to the world.

We develop global partnerships with organisations and individuals who bring unique resources and opportunities to the Quest experience.  These may include inspirational thinkers, doers and leaders, funding bodies, philanthropists, pop-up campus operators, volunteer organisations, travel and adventure companies, and other organisations with specific expertise or resources.

We call this global network of people and facilities the Quest Communiversity. It brings together a community of people from all cultures, religions, and socio-economic experiences to develop the skills, abilities and knowledge to thrive in a world that is changing at incredible speed.  We believe the ability to navigate the changes now facing the world will require creativity, flexibility, entrepreneurship and deep self-knowledge. The Quest Communiversity challenges traditional modes of tertiary education.

The diversity and challenge of Quest experiences will enable participants to find a way forward that will not only give meaning and purpose to their lives, but enable them to contribute their individual talents and experience, plus a profound understanding of their common humanity, to the larger global community.

To achieve our goals for the Quest Communiversity, our community can be disruptive, adventurous, vulnerable, challenging, playful, caring and wise. Yes Quest International is more than a business; it is a culture that permeates all of our internal and external processes and relationships.

We provide creative and challenging programs in interesting and unusual locations around the world that include both ‘outer’ and ‘inner’ journeys.

The ‘outer’ experience can be a wilderness experience, a challenging physical journey, meeting and learning about the cultures of other peoples or starting an enterprise or personal project.

The ‘inner’ journey is all about creating spaces for participants who are invited to explore themselves, their history, innate talents, strengths, self-sabotaging behaviours, passions, loves and fears to enable them to identify their ideal future and move towards it with confidence.

Using creative processes including embodied movement, family constellations, art-based exploration, guided visualisations and play, participants are able to connect to their current reality, to allow them to clearly identify their future goals and to identify and overcome the barriers they may face in moving forward.

The program takes participants on a journey in three stages:

1. Current Reality: You have to know where you have come from before you can know where you are going. What makes you who you are? Using a wide variety of creative processes, you will explore your history, family, talents, beliefs and aspirations.
2. Envisioned Future: You have to know where you are going before you can work out how to get there. What does your ideal life look like? This is not a pipe dream, but a realistic vision of what you want your life to be – the opportunity to envisage a rich and meaningful life where you can make your unique contribution to the world.
3. The Bridge: If you don’t know how to get there, you might never start your journey! What actions are needed and what self-sabotaging behaviours do you need to be aware of to start the journey to your envisioned future?

Self-Knowledge: Perhaps the most ancient basis of our work is the Greek aphorism “Know Thyself” that was carved into the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. It was encouraged by Socrates, then Plato, and generations of thinkers until the present day. We believe knowledge of self is the key to enabling people to adapt to, and flourish in, a fast-changing world. Daniel Goleman (1995) also points out that self-knowledge is a key component of emotional intelligence.

Creating a Space: We create a sacred space to facilitate the appropriate outcome for participants. We know that a planned program and expert facilitators are not enough. The mysterious process of close human interaction, good will, and an intention to create an opening for the Divine are also necessary. Rogers (1959) has pointed out that for a person to grow, they need an environment that provides them with “genuineness” (openness and self-disclosure), “acceptance” (being seen with unconditional positive regard), and “empathy” (being listened to and understood).

Rites of Passage: Rites of passage have existed in all societies. They mark transitions from one status, role or life-stage to another e.g. birth, maturity, reproduction, or death. They usually include learning sacred information, some form of trial, and a celebration. Rites of passage principles have influenced the practices of Quest facilitators because transition points are the focus of Quest programs. Traditional rites of passage were brought together in Joseph Campbell’s (1949) depiction of the hero’s journey, and this too is a lens through which Quest programs are developed.

Person-centred Learning: Rogers (1951) has written: “As no one else can know how we perceive; we are the best experts on ourselves.” Zucconi (2015) has summarised the aims of the person-centred approach as: “to protect and promote a person’s innate creative capacities of learning from their experiences, to promote wholeness and integration in the individual by focusing on their personal growth, and develop them into creative and competent members of the society who can contribute effectively to their community.”

Congruence: We believe that having a functional and understood inner map and relationship with self and one’s values enables a person to be congruent and effective. Carl Rogers believed that for a person to achieve self-actualization, a term borrowed from Maslow (1943), they must be in a state of congruence. According to Rogers (1959), “we want to feel, experience and behave in ways which are consistent with our self-image and which reflect what we would like to be like, our ideal-self. The closer our self-image and ideal-self are to each other, the more consistent or congruent we are and the higher our sense of self-worth.” Recent management research has shown that this also enhances performance.

Talents Are the Key: We each have unique talents that we can contribute to the world and that can bring us enormous personal satisfaction. Ken Robinson (2009) has fostered a revolutionary approach to learning that focuses on identifying talents and valuing diversity, curiosity, creativity, and that challenges conformity, compliance, standardisation and command and control systems of education.

Disruption: Ken Robinson (2010) has written: “We have to go from what is essentially an industrial model of education, a manufacturing model, which is based on linearity and conformity and batching people. We have to move to a model that is based more on principles of agriculture. We have to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process; it’s an organic process. And you cannot predict the outcome of human development. All you can do, like a farmer, is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.” The Quest is disruptive in challenging existing modes of thought and social expectations.

We are living in a world in desperate need of new solutions.

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