Step 1: A Reason for Being

At the time the photo was taken, the individuals in the photo above had just completed one of our 8-week specialty courses. There are a couple unique points to make about this fact. While they aren’t necessarily best friends, they do share a unique bond. The bond is rooted in shared struggle, remarkable experiences, and spoken and unspoken vulnerability. 

This sentiment is more important than even it’s cliched explanation, because I find two things to be true:

1. We all want deeper, lasting connections. 
2. When we attempt to create them we often leave out a key component: the reason for being. 

I remember being invited to one of those men’s groups, which, if you don’t know, is often a group of men that name themselves as a “group” with the positive intent of sharing ideas, having “community”, and supporting each other. The trouble is they almost always fizzle out. The reason, of course, is there’s no reason to bring the group together other than for its own sake and, frankly, that’s often not enough of a glue to keep it all together. 

So, what happens? Things remain surface level and less sticky. The conversation is led with chatter about the weather and the air is filled with the sound of conversation, but ultimately nothing substantial is being said. 

The group pictured above, however, shares a real bond and lasting, deeper connection because for twice a week they agreed to engage in something specific that brought them together that was particularly engaging and challenging. Keep in mind, however, that it doesn’t matter what the specific thing is. It just must be a specific reason for being if you want the connection to be specifically deeper than surface level. We often just need a context for deeper connections.

I think we can venture to guess that they didn’t talk about the weather much.