The Leap of Your Life

by Tommy Baker

  And therein lies the issue: the once-powerful vision fades into our current reality and we become overwhelmed. Your first leap habit, then, is simple: reaffirm your vision every single day.

  At least, every single day that ends with a y. This simple action is designed to get you back to your original state and set your compass for the day. Take at least five minutes to take yourself back to your vision and start your day with clarity.

  Leap Habit 2: Take One (Purposeful) Step

  Every single day, you’re going to take one step toward your vision. That’s it—one step today, and one step tomorrow. Sure, one day you may take 100 steps, but the purpose here is to drill down steady action and ensure you’re making action part of your daily routine. The key is to identify the simplest step you can take (so as long as it’s aligned with your vision) and do it before you do anything else.

  So, why every single day?

  Build conviction. Building this habit will turn your leap into who you are and build a sense of conviction. This is the underlying feeling of knowing it’s going to work out for you.

  Celebrate wins. One step every day is the bare minimum, yet no matter what happens the rest of the day, you’ve won. By doing so, you’re releasing the pressure most people put on themselves. The more you celebrate your wins, the more wins you get to celebrate.

  Create momentum. Momentum isn’t something that falls from the heavens, it’s created the moment you take the first step. This is the power of micro-goals. They delete what usually gets in the way: all the noise before we get started. It’s the warm-up to your amazing seven-mile run, it’s the 250 words you wrote that turned into 2,300, it’s picking up the book to read 5 pages and 90 minutes going by. Just start.

  Harness exponential growth. Taking a step every day leads to incremental growth, but that’s barely scratching the surface. The real power comes with enough consistency where it turns into exponential growth. I wrote about this extensively in my previous book, The 1% Rule—but the core theme is simple: on a long enough timeline, there’s a radical growth curve to those who stay consistent and take at least one step every day.

  Level up your self-esteem and confidence. Self-esteem and confidence are cultivated through action. By taking one step, you’re stacking layers of both and cementing your belief one day at a time. The biggest killer of belief is lack of action, when paralysis analysis takes over and nothing gets done.

  Leap Habit 3: Create Space to Reflect

  The third leap habit is being intentional with periods of reflection or empty space. In a nonstop world, this is rare and often avoided. You’ll need this space to connect with yourself, reflect on how far you’ve come, and get the creative juices flowing.

  In a hustle and grind world, down time comes at a premium. There’s always more to do, and another task in front of us. It’s an endless cycle that leads to burnout, frustration, or even guilt. Since you’re in this game for the long haul, we need you fresh. Using the rest of the tools in your arsenal, the demands on your mind, body, and spirit will be high.

  What does this look like? We’ve already identified several options during the Spiritual Leap chapter, but small practices throughout your day to create white space are all your need. Make it yours: walking in nature, a yoga class, journaling, meditation, or even closing your eyes for 30 seconds and taking a few deep breaths can shift you.

  Leap Habit 4: Cultivate Faith and Trust

  Conventional wisdom states we must have faith and trust and believe in the lives we want to create long before we see them coming true. And while I completely agree with most of this logic, what’s missing is not treating faith as something we do or don’t have but, rather, something we nourish and grow.

  How do you make that happen? You act as if—as if your vision has already come true—and make decisions from the state of mind of already accomplishing your wildest dreams. We’ve covered this a few times now—where your ability to make decisions as your future self brings you closer to who you are today.

  Leap Habit 5: Practice Deletion

  Remember The Closet Principle from Chapter 6? During your leap, it’s going to be easy to get distracted. It’s going to be easy to be taken off course. In order to stay focused and intentional, you’re going to have to practice deletion every single day. Deletion is simply creating physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energy in your life.

  The best way to do so is to ask yourself a set of questions before you add something to your plate, and then once every week to take inventory:

  Is this [NEW TASK, ROLE, COMMITMENT] bringing me closer to my vision—or farther away?

  Is this [NEW TASK, ROLE, COMMITMENT] absolutely essential or can I find a better option (or none at all)?

  What can I delete out of my life for this coming week to ensure I focus on what really matters and move closer to my vision?

  Leap Tip: Stop Saying Yes to Everything

  When we say yes to everything and anyone, we say no to ourselves and our dreams. Now that you have clarity and have identified your priorities, fall in love with saying no.

  The greatest marker I’ve found to make powerful decisions today includes three questions:

  If this commitment was three days from now, would I still say yes?

  If I was making my dream income right now, would I still say yes?

  Is this a true “HELL, YES!” or am I simply doing it out of obligation and/or approval?

  Use these three questions to make better decisions today for your future and create boundaries around your leap.

  Without a rock-solid foundation of personal habits and your leap habits, you won’t be able to build the confidence and clarity you’ll need with you every step of the way. Most important, you’ll be inspired not only by possibility but also by the reality coming to life right before your very own eyes. Remember, your habits add up day after day, until one day you wake up and you can’t believe what you’re seeing.

  Ask the (Right) Questions

  Questions. As a podcaster and coach, questions are the most important part of my arsenal. Used right, they create the container for possibility and transformation. Used incorrectly a conversation that could have gone somewhere magical doesn’t. A client who could have had a breakthrough stays stuck.

  And in our lives, it’s the same deal. To ensure success in this brave new world, you’re going to have to ask the right questions every single day. The right questions will shift your state of mind and allow you to focus on what you can control: your mindset, beliefs, and attitude. The way you execute. The way you show up.

  For example:

  What is the one thing I can accomplish in my business today that, even if all else fails, I’d be able to sleep at night knowing I moved forward?

  What is the one nonnegotiable in my personal life I’m committed to doing today to give me clarity and peace?

  What skill must I work on today for 30 minutes that will continue to set me apart from others in my field?

  What is one thing I can execute today to build my faith, trust, and resilience toward my leap?

  The key is to ask the right questions based on what you want. Often, we find ourselves asking questions based on fear, scarcity, and small-minded thinking. We look at the past to find familiar answers, and yet we wonder why we can’t breakthrough. The right questions will be a trusted partner to lean on during your leap.

  Bulletproof Your Leap

  Navigating your post-leap world is about one thing: ensuring you achieve the highest probability of success. But instead of simply using willpower, you’re going to use the power of automatic behaviors, environments, and decision-making to bulletproof your leap. You’ll also be asking powerful questions designed to help get you instantly clear your mind and get back on track, no matter what happens.

  Chapter 14 Key Takeaways

  Cut out the middleman for feeling motivated. Instead, execute regardless of how you feel now, to reap the rewards of feeling inspired and motivated later.<
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  Use the Five Leap Habits to create your success. These five leap habits are designed to keep you on track, with clarity, focus, and purpose. Insert these into your day and create strict boundaries around them.

  Use powerful questions to open up possibilities and to remember what matters. The higher the quality of questions we ask, the bigger and bolder the answers we create. Used wisely, you can become a master of asking yourself the right questions.

  CHAPTER 14 LEAP POWER STEP

  Using the tools in this chapter, map out how you’re going to integrate the personal habit and leap habits into your day-to-day routine. Ensure you have a strategic, intentional plan in which you come first.

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  Notes

  1 Private interview, September 2018.

  2 Private interview, September 2018.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Evolution of You

  When I was 21 years old, my sister sent me a book. Not just any book—it was called The Way of The Superior Man, by David Deida. I looked at the cover, and the subtitle was A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire. Uh, are you trying to tell me something here, sis? At that point in my life, I knew I wasn’t the master at creating powerful relationships. But still, I immediately labeled the book “not for me” and put it in a box and reminded myself to tell my sister thanks, but no thanks.

  Two years later, I’d gained (some) maturity and opened the book again. I told myself I’d give it a chance and started reading. During those years, I’d put in a lot of energy toward growing myself. Upon re-opening the book, I remember glancing at the first chapter’s headline: There Is No Completion. It Will Never End.

  WTH?! I felt depressed.

  What do you mean it will never end? What do you mean I’ll never be able to rest? Isn’t the point of life to work hard, create powerful results—and then relish in those for the time we have left?

  I know, I know. I was still immature and didn’t know what I didn’t know. But these were the questions spinning in my head as I spent the next decade plunging myself in the deepest and most intense experiences with one goal: transformation. Whether it was a spiritual quest in the Red Rocks of Sedona, or 35-mile physical crucibles, or hiring my mentor, Dr. John Demartini, I was all in.

  Today, I wake up and I read the same exact chapter: There Is No Completion. And instead of feeling dejected, or wondering what’s the point: I lean in, smile, and embrace it. No completion means you and I are constantly evolving. There’s always more to learn. There are more corners to explore, levels to experience, and chapters to write in our life’s story. There’s plenty of ink left in our pens, and we’re far from done. Between those two times I opened the book, not much changed.

  Except everything did; I learned the beauty of the journey you and I get to experience called life, and why it is never ending is a gift.

  You and I will always be evolving, and our leaps allow us to experience life with more depth and get to the next level faster. During this chapter, we’ll explore why your evolution is something to embrace, and how to integrate your leaps (and the additional micro-leaps) to ensure your long-term and constant growth during the evolution of you.

  #NotesFromTheLeap

  Seth Mattison

  Keynote Speaker, Co-Founder, Just Luminate

  What’s the boldest leap you’ve ever taken and why was this important to you?

  In 2013, it was three months before my wedding day and I had very little in the bank account. I left the company I was working for, the people who’d mentored me, and launched into the marketplace on my own. I had to exercise faith, confidence, and courage that my ideas were transformative enough to stand on their own. I bet on myself completely.

  What did you feel as you made this leap, and what happened after?

  I knew I had to do it, or else I’d live a life of regret. I was feeling called and compelled to go deeper, and it wasn’t a “should,” it was an absolute “must.” After I made the leap, I still woke up with anxiety, questions, and doubt if I would be able to pull it off. But I never questioned whether it was the right decision. The boats were burned, there was no going back. I knew the world needed this.

  Looking back, what would you tell someone else in a similar circumstance knowing what you now know?

  Do the inner work to allow the bigger forces at play to guide you so your decision isn’t about external forces. Combine this with the outer work to ensure the world needs what you have to offer, then step into a place of certainty, and go all in.

  The Oasis Is a Myth (but Life Is Still Amazing)

  The oasis. A far-off land in the future, painted by hand. The sun comes in at the perfect angle, sun-soaked in bliss. This is the future where you’ve made it. The red carpet has been rolled out for you, and there’s nothing else you have to do. You get to bask in all the glory of arriving and never have to put up with life’s challenges anymore.

  Okay, you get it. I know if you’re here, you don’t (fully) buy into this illusion, but it’s still seductive. We often believe this, even if it’s not conscious. Beneath the surface, we’re subconsciously operating under the illusion of the oasis and that someday it will all be over.

  It’s not true, and we know it. But neither is Santa Claus or the Earth being flat, but for some reason, some still believe. Often, the peak of your mountain will seem oddly anticlimactic, unless you’re winning a Super Bowl. But even then, it can seem that way. I know a few people who’ve reached the pinnacle of accomplishment, and it wasn’t what they expected.

  Initially, this may seem disempowering. It’s not.Life is still amazing even without reaching the imaginary oasis. You look at your bank accounts, and they’re fuller than you ever thought possible. Your monthly income used to be your yearly income. You live in the home of your dreams. You have a deeply connected, thriving relationship. You’re as excited about a random Tuesday as you are about the trip to Rome. Most importantly, you wake up and you’re excited about the day.

  This happens, because you were willing to take the leap. And releasing the illusion of the oasis makes you more powerful, not less, because the oasis gets boring after a while. I don’t know about you, but on the eighth straight day of having (skinny, don’t make fun) margaritas on the beach, I’m ready to move on. There’s only so much staring at palm trees we can all take. I’m ready to create, to engage in purposeful work, and do things that matter. And if you do it right, you’ll be as excited to come back to your work and life, too.

  Breakthrough Isn’t the End, It’s the Start

  Your leap is a personal breakthrough with ripple effects that will impact every part of your life. It will radically transform you. And yet, breakthrough moments, insight, and those “aha” levels of insight and clarity aren’t the end.

  They’re the start. One of the trends I’ve witnessed in a personal development, success, entrepreneurship world is an obsession with breakthrough, but not with integration. Integration is where the magic happens, where you take a riveting life experience and bring it from the clouds to the dirt.

  The dirt, of course, is our everyday lives. It’s standing in the grocery store in a line that hasn’t moved in nine minutes and keeping calm. It’s receiving the passive-aggressive email, and not listening to the voices to send back an ALL CAPS, rage-soaked email. If breakthrough is the Hollywood action movie, integration is filming that movie.

  If you’ve never experienced a film set, it’s boring. Take your favorite action flick, and it may seem like shooting it is a daily adventure of awesomeness until you realize it’s very mundane, and the same exact take has been done 19 times. And it still doesn’t work. The average Hollywood movie takes 106 days to shoot, and averages 120 minutes of screen time. Simple math says on average, that’s 76,320 minutes of film time.

  This analogy is designed to ensure you’re integrating your br
eakthroughs and not missing out on the gold each one brings to your life. Your personal evolution will have endless breakthroughs, and once you’ve taken your leap, you’ll experience them regularly.

  Early on, during my time working with clients, they experience big breakthroughs. As time passes, the breakthroughs become less and less common. One day, a client came to me concerned:

  “Tommy . . . I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve had a breakthrough. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, or what we’ve been missing.”

  I smiled and reminded him of the following: he’d grown tremendously. I gave him the example of say, a pro basketball player. When they’re in high school, they’re constantly experiencing breakthroughs. In college, they are less common as they grow and develop their skills. On the NBA circuit, they’re the rarest—a couple of times a season, yet the most impactful. The lesson is simple: as you deepen your evolution and growth, you’re going to have fewer breakthroughs. This is what we want. We will have more time in between, and yet when they do come, they’ll be much more powerful than what you’ve experienced before.

  Same goes for you.

  Always Sit in the Front of the Class of Life (Leaders Are Learners)

  All the cool kids sit in the back, right? Not here. If life is our classroom, we get to sit in front of the class every day and glean from its incredible lessons. We open our eyes and dig deep into the countless lessons life sends our way every single day.