by Tommy Baker
Vallant notes that the 58 men who scored highest on the measurements of “warm relationships” (WR) earned an average of $141,000 a year more during their peak salaries (between ages 55–60) than the 31 men who scored the lowest in WR. The seventy-five years and twenty million dollars expended on the Grant Study points to a straightforward five-word conclusion: Happiness is love. Full stop.
So, not only do our connections provide fulfillment, they make us more profit and bleed into other areas of our lives. I don’t know about you, but creating a powerful intimate relationship has been my best business breakthrough.
The connection leap is about remembering what matters: those closest to us. Sometimes, it’s about letting go or taking a radical chance on love. It can mean facing ultimate rejection and putting every part of your soul on the line. Or it can be about nourishing your closest relationships and re-committing in a bold way.
Who It’s For
We’ve all experienced an incredible connection in our lives, and the flip side—the missed opportunity. A chance encounter, the person we felt deeply connected to, and yet we let our heads win and made excuses about why it wouldn’t work. Somehow, we talked ourselves out of it.
Relationships are both the place where we experience the beauty of life and where we’re pushed to our edge. There’s no better place to discover the entire spectrum of what makes you and I who we are. And there no better place to experience love, passion, and a sense of being with the right person at the right time.
So, who is the connection leap for?
If you’re ready to take a bold chance on love, this is for you.
If you’ve been feeling disconnected in your relationship, this is for you.
If you’ve felt alone and lacking a partner in crime, this is for you.
If you know you’re finding yourself in the wrong movie with the wrong person, this is for you.
If you know there’s someone out there who’s going to light your soul on fire, this is for you.
If you’ve gotten lost in the day to day of life and forgotten what a deep relationship feels like, this is for you.
If you’ve neglected your relationship with yourself and looked for others to fill this void only to be disappointed, this is for you.
Waking Up Alone
I was crushed. I’d just told my girlfriend of three years the vision deep in my heart, and she wasn’t buying it. I’d declared exactly what was going to happen with creating and growing a fitness business of my own, helping people achieve incredible transformation. I was on fire when I said it, and then it all came crashing down as she said to me:
“Yeah, right. That’s never going to happen.”
The truth is, I’d been holding on to something long past the expiration date. I already knew this. Yet, like many of us, I was terrified to let go. Instead, the Universe decided to make me let go in an entirely different manner, I’d encouraged her to start a new fitness program, and she cheated on me with her new trainer.
The Universe will always take the wheel when you don’t. Yet again, I learned my lesson. When the chaos ended, I woke up alone. And while the pain was real, it was also magical and served as a reminder: before I step into a relationship with someone else, I must step into a powerful relationship with myself. The rejection I felt didn’t come from someone else; it came from rejecting myself and seeking to fill the void through someone else.
The next two-and-a-half years, I barely dated. I said no to opportunities and chose to focus on me. I wanted to discover myself and, most important, I wanted to figure out what my standard was in a partner and be willing to wait it out until it came to life. Through this process, I learned to love being completely alone, in solitude. I forged a power-couple relationship with the person in the mirror: his flaws, weirdness, and greatness.
This was one of the many connection leaps I’ve taken over the years. I chose this one to illustrate that sometimes, much like Rachel Hollis, this leap can involve discomfort. But on the other side is a connection you can’t imagine. Someone with you on every level: mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual.
Someone who has your back, no matter what. But like anything else in life, it starts with you.
Self-Love Is the New Black
Take a moment and reflect on some of the most vital relationships in your life. Start with yourself, and what your connection to you looks and feels like. Think about how you feel spending long periods of time by yourself. Think about what it feels like to look in the mirror:
What do you see? How do you feel? What’s missing? Where do you place your focus?
For many, these moments tend to be fleeting. They can’t get out fast enough, because we’re wired to focus on what isn’t working.
You’re not fit enough.
You’re missing something.
You’re not worthy or capable.
Self-love is the new black. All roads lead back to the same place: the level of appreciation you have for yourself. You can make all the cash, you can launch the dream business, you can even have a powerful significant other, and amazing kids. But without self-love, and the ability to look in the mirror and own your greatness, none of it feels quite right. I’ve always said, without self-love, your failure and success can crumble you equally.
I get what you’re thinking: you’re a guy talking about self-love? I am, and I’m proud of it: I’ve had to endure pain, questioning, and tears to get to this place. I don’t care if you’re a CFO, an eight-figure entrepreneur, mother of three, or a world class athlete, without focusing on yourself, your fulfillment will be held hostage and your results will be fleeting.
Leap Tip: Date Yourself
Every Wednesday afternoon, I have a block of time scheduled out—“ME TIME.” My clients do, too: a weekly, nonnegotiable date with number one.
Yes, you’re going to date yourself. What you do on this date is up to you, and some of my favorites are a massage, a haircut, going to a movie alone, walking in nature, and so on.
You’ll not only be reinvigorated, you’ll continue to deepen the connection with yourself. Spending time in solitude is magical for your heart and soul.
The Benefits
Your connection leap will be an incredible source of inspiration and will fuel every part of your life. It will keep you grounded when you’re lacking clarity. It will demand you become the greatest version of yourself. It’ll help you raise your standards.
I could have settled along the way. It wasn’t until I woke up through a painful break up and cultivated a powerful relationship with myself in which I raised my standards. I decided I wouldn’t settle, even if it meant years or a decade to find my match. I’d be so comfortable alone that I didn’t need anyone to fill me.
And when the universe provided me a 15-second window of opportunity on a random Tuesday, I was able to step into it fully. I was able to embrace it and take a momentary risk for a lifetime of rewards.
Your connection leap can and will provide you:
A deep connection to fuel you. There is nothing like the feeling of being connected. We crave it, and it is hard wired into our hearts and minds to seek it, create and nourish it. On the path of life, a feeling of disconnection leads to chaos and uncertainty.
A powerful presence and clarity. Have you ever experienced an issue in your relationship, been somewhere else and couldn’t focus on anything except the issue? Yeah, we’ve all been there. When our relationships are out of alignment, it impacts every area of our lives. We wake up thinking about it and go to sleep the same way – keeping us stuck and clouded.
An unmistakable sense of belonging. We all want to belong. We want to be heard, valued and appreciated. Our core relationships provide this sense of worthiness and belonging. Both are crucial to our mindset and emotional stability as we navigate life.
Provide an unbreakable foundation. Our relationships become our safe harbor as we navigate the complexities of our lives. They are a place where we can let our guards down and
truly express ourselves. If done right, they provide an unbreakable foundation.
Types of Connection Leaps
There are all types of connection leaps available to you: sometimes with yourself— your most intimate relationship—or taking the lead on organizing the trip with the close friends you haven’t seen in years. What matters is the depth of the leap, to ensure a radical shift in perspective and meaning. Let’s explore some common options available to you.
Connection Leap 1: Turning to You
“I don’t know if I can keep going, man. This is hard.”
I’m sitting three-quarters of the way into my favorite hike in Phoenix, one I’ve done 117 times in less than three years. My client flew in from Los Angeles for a one-day intensive hike to create a game plan for every part of his business and life.
But I don’t start in a conference room at my office. Instead, we’re on the mountain and it’s a brisk 103 degrees. It’s July. Steve is 44 years old. He made $200,000 in personal income last year. He’s got three kids. And he’s here with me in the sweltering heat, carrying an enormous rock on his shoulders. It hurts. And oh yeah, he paid me to do this.
“You’re focusing on the pain, and that’s why it hurts. Start identifying what the rock means to you, and why you’re carrying it. Let’s go, you’re playing small.”
And the path continues. He grimaces every step of the way. The rock is uncomfortable by design: no matter how one carries it, it restricts breathing. The mountain is hard enough; the rock makes it harsher.
Although I won’t reveal every part of this experience, it culminates in a moment at the top when we express gratitude for the rock and the lessons it brought us. The rock, as you may have guessed, represents the baggage you and I carry. It’s not only the roadblock to clarity, growth, business production, and so on; it’s what’s in the way of fully appreciating who we are. We finish with letting go of the rock, and feeling the freedom, joy, and fun of not holding on to it anymore. Once this happens, everything is possible.
The first connection leap is about you. What this looks and feels like is up to you: an entire day alone, a trip by yourself, an experience designed to reconnect with the person in the mirror.
Connection Leap 2: The Reconnection
None of us wakes up and declares we want to feel disconnected and a lack of intimacy in our relationships. At least that I know of. And yet, how do we wind up there time and time again? I don’t need to tell you the latest stats: relationships are fading faster than ever. The numbers are abysmal.
The second connection leap is about reconnection and pouring back into the most important relationship in your life. It’s about recognizing you’re responsible for allowing the magic to fade, and you stopped doing the little things: the date nights, the notes of affirmation, the flirting from the early days. Committing to reconnecting in your relationship or marriage can be one of the boldest leaps you can take.
Connection Leap 3: Letting Go (the Release)
We always know. Much like my earlier story about being cheated on, we always know when the expiration date on a relationship has come and gone. And yet, we hold on, using our heads to find the reason to stay. Except, because we know the truth, it doesn’t work. Worse off, we wind up resenting ourselves.
Break ups are hard. We all have experienced one. But sometimes, the greatest gift we can give ourselves (and someone else) else is moving on. Through this process, we find a deeper part of ourselves we had forgotten and create space for something and someone new to come to us.
Clinging to a relationship that isn’t for us has countless consequences. First, the emotional rollercoaster it brings us can be devastating. Second, there’s the opportunity cost—knowing every day we stay in our current reality, we’re missing out on potential chances.
Am I saying to march over to your significant other right now and end it? No. But if you’ve grown apart, if your paths are going in completely different directions, if you’ve done everything you can to reconnect, it may be time to let go. However painful, there lies a new possibility on the other side.
Remember: no matter who comes in and out of your life, there will always be one common denominator: you.
Connection Leap 4: Going All In
It’s never the right time to go all in. Often, we live by societal rules and external pressure for timelines in our relationships. We feel we must do something bold, and yet we sit and wait until the time is right.
The time will never be right until you choose to make it so. Going all in may look like finally proposing to your special someone. It may look like choosing to ditch the long-distance relationship and moving in together. It may be like taking the trip of a lifetime before you feel ready. It may be taking the next bold step.
Last year, during a meditation, I experienced a vision in which I proposed to my now fiancée in my favorite city in the world. The timing didn’t make sense, and my head wanted to wait, but that evening, I booked our flights. At the time, I hadn’t budgeted for a ring, and business was intense. On the surface, it didn’t seem to make sense.
And yet, because of this leap I was able to ask my soul mate to marry me overlooking the beautiful beach of this Basque town in Spain and experienced one of the most incredible days of my life.
Going all in is about taking a chance, doing what you feel called to now and making a bold decision on love and connection.
#NotesFromTheLeap
Nick Matiash
Teacher and Men’s Life Coach
What’s the boldest leap you’ve ever taken and why was this important to you?
My wife shook up my world. I met her at a time when I was recently single (after 4.5 years of dating my ex), living an hour-and-a-half from her, and wasn’t really all that interested in a relationship. Then we went on a couple dates, I fell hard, and moved my life to her, proposed, and now my life’s incredible.
What did you feel as you made this leap, and what happened after?
I honestly didn’t have a lot of rational reasons to pursue it, it just felt like it was right. Logic didn’t make sense, but I was emotionally all in. Excited, nervous, and optimistic all wrapped in one. Now I’m in an incredible marriage, experiencing fatherhood, and in an environment that allowed me to become the man that I am now.
Looking back, what would you tell someone else in a similar circumstance knowing what you now know?
TRUST YOUR GUT! And then the process.
What Gets in the Way
We know what to do yet can’t make ourselves follow through. We feel a pull in our hearts, take out a notepad, and talk ourselves out of it. Often, the same patterns and themes get in the way of our connection leap, including:
The ego. Our egos always get in the way of love and connection. Why? Because the ultimate fear of the ego is being exposed and hurt, and it will do anything to protect us. In relationships, it always wants to be right. When we want to share something deep and vulnerable, it stops us. During arguments, it doesn’t want to show empathy and understand the other side. There is no better place to dissolve the ego and learn to connect than in our relationships.
Our baggage. We all have baggage, and we bring this baggage into our relationships. Often, they become someone else’s burden. It doesn’t matter if you had a picturesque childhood or suffered trauma, we have emotional blocks that keep us from fully stepping into our power in relationships.
Fear of rejection. This fear is constant, and we’ve all felt what it tastes like to be rejected by someone else: it hurts. So, we can be more guarded and less open in an effort to avoid this feeling once again. But this is missing out. Your connection leap will force you to face rejection head on and carry on anyway.
Complacency. Why do relationships that were once thriving and full of life now seem distant and cold? As we mentioned earlier, complacency is an easy trap to fall into and we forget how special our connection really is. We forget to be curious and to recognize the human in front of us for what they are—a mira
cle. We normalize amazing with the people closest to us and pay a heavy price.
The nonessential. As we step into complacency in relationships, we can lose focus on the what truly matters. In chasing business success, we can forget the small details that provide deep connection with others: date nights, special messages, notes, and even flirting. Your leap will require you to never lose the spark in your connection and remember to put it as a constant priority in life.
Be the Leader with Vulnerability
Dr. Brené Brown, researcher at the University of Houston and bestselling author, is an expert in what creates lasting social connection. During her years of conducting thousands of interviews and studies she found one common bond between the strongest of connections—vulnerability.2
What exactly is vulnerability? Simple: being open and letting our guards down. I keep it simple: it’s about being human, and letting others see and feel our humanness. And yet, so often we’re waiting for someone to give us permission to do so. We wait until others share their truth, and then we do.
Instead, take the lead and put yourself out there in all types of connections. Most people are waiting for someone to be the leader, and they can finally exhale. No, it’s not easy; it’s not supposed to be. But taking an emotional risk leads to endless rewards in life, career, and business.
When I meet someone for the first time, I never talk about the places I’m on fire with my life. Why? Because I want to connect and share some of the challenges I’m wrestling with. In turn, they do the same. Instead of our conversation being a one-way monologue where we each share our ego-filled highlight reel, we leave empowered. If done right, we both are able to express our challenges (which is naturally therapeutic) and go one level deeper than usual.
