It all begins with an invitation.
Though it might seem unlikely, you invite her onto a road-trip.
The purpose of the invitation is not that she joins you, but that the idea, the seed, is planted. That the possibility of it flowers in her mind.
An invitation—free of persuasion, free of coercion—is a gift.
But when I say road-trip here, it’s only a metaphor. The real adventure is a conversation where a deeper truth is spoken. Where your true self is revealed, thus inviting hers. It’s a place where you don’t judge or flinch or run away from the underlying dynamic between the two of you. I kinda like you… and I’d kinda like you to like me. In intimacy, you’re curious about her truth; about how she really feels about you.
If you’re ready—if you can hold the structure for it—you can turn virtually any friendship in your life into an adventure of radical honesty, mutual growth, and transformative love. Between you and women; between you and your fellow men.
So lay out the invitation with a wink and a smile. You never know,
the sands might be shifting beneath her feet. Your invitation may breathe with lips of urgency.
The invitation to a more honest conversation was the move that propelled the fastest phase of personal growth for me. Once I received the invitation, I then invited those around me into deeper levels of honesty. Poor souls! We would no longer pass our Friday nights talking about things—you know, sports and music and the weather—but we’d talk about our feelings and secret thoughts about each other… we’d give feedback… in the sheer service of truth: for truth is an explosion of life.
Thus began the process of uncovering my blindspots… which would, eventually, unwind into all kinds of troubling emotions… and then into mystical truth. It was a journey through a landscape like no other.
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In-Cahoots, Thick-as-Thieves, Transformational.
A relationship in which you dare to speak the truth, much like traveling with a close friend, is the fast-track to discovering your blindspots: the things that everyone knows about you, but that you’re the last person to perceive. Imagine if you had that self-awareness! Sometimes, four or five days on the road is all you need.
- This happened 12 years ago, but I feel the impact like it was yesterday. A fellow Amorati saw me through a 4-day car crash of an approach I made of an Italian girl. I was so proud, driving her around Zanzibar on the back of my bike. But a couple of days into our stay, she started pulling away from me, and towards him.
My buddy listed something like 13 needy, cloying things he saw me do that drove this girl away. Every part of me wanted to run away—I know the greatest fear of many of you is simply to be seen as you try to seduce. But I didn’t flee the feedback: I got out my voice recorder and burned in what he told me. A week or so after swallowing these truths about myself, I had the greatest run of dating success imaginable.
- A year later, while traveling across the US with three Amorati, we were invited to a group process—a circle of radical honesty. I’m not sure if you’ve ever felt this, but when everyone around you is really listening, really present, you end up sharing all kinds of secrets… and feeling all kinds of strange things. It’s a kind of torture that in wartime you’d inflict on foreign spies.
Without knowing how I got there, I ended up sharing with my friends a whole host of things that happened in my early life—things I thought that if I ever share these with anyone, they would never be friends with me again. The agonising part of this process was that, to my utter disbelief, everyone leaned in and came closer. Burning in the fire of personal shame, everyone leaned in and gave me love.
- I once had the most intense relationship of a lifetime. The rule was, in every moment, Truth. It lasted 16 days, we must have lived the gamet of the human experience, including breaking up and getting back together, then including just breaking up. I guess there’s a limit to how much you push things, because just after I moved to the far side of the world, just to let be, to relax. When it came to the adventure of authenticity, our dial was stuck at 10.
Today in my relationship things are different. There is truth, there is letting be. I sense it’s wise for honesty to come between waves of relaxed acceptance—we’re a crucible and sanctuary, as a mentor once said to me—but things can always turn on a dime.
What about you?
— Who do you have in your life that constantly challenges and grows you?
— Is your conversation with women such that you invite her full, supportive (or ego-destroying) feedback?
— What would you need in order to deepen that? To reorient all your relationships… so that they became transformational?
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Wanderlust for the Self
This is the work we’re beginning this week:
First, cultivating a brotherhood of compassion, honesty, and challenge with each other…
… Then, heading out to discover the blindspots, the invisible obvious that keeps your life at a lower speed than what you really want to drive.
My aim, over the next four months, is that you deepen the transformative impact you have on the ones you love, for the rest of your life.
The car is well-stocked, and we’re heading for the city limits. But we’ll wait for you, if you’re quick, and you’re ready to jump in.
~ Jordan
P.S. if you’d like to avoid the group conversation and get to the heart of what matters most to you, I have availability for private coaching this winter.
To work through your blindspots privately, and create the next chapter of your relationship life with confidence, book 1:1 coaching with me here.
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