JLooney.com

17 years ago this month I took the first step on a journey that has impacted my life more profoundly than any other single decision I have ever made, and it all started when I asked a girl for her phone number.

What are you doing Tuesday night?

It was November of 1992, and I’d been home for about 6 months after serving a two-year LDS mission in Argentina. I had met a girl and gotten engaged  shortly after returning, but we’d broken up in late September after she went away to school. I felt like I was recovering from the whole break-up thing pretty well, in spite of how painful it had been. I mean, this was the first girl I ever kissed, and I had asked her to marry me and she’d said yes. Anyway, I was ready to get back into the dating scene. So when My friend Kirk and I pulled into the Hires car-hop bay and the girl was cute, I asked for her phone number.

“What are you doing Tuesday night?” She asked me.

Hell, I ask for her phone number and she’s already planning a date? I am SO in!

At least that’s what I thought.

Happy camp

I called her the next day and she told me to meet her at an address near 2100 South and 300 west in Salt Lake City on Tuesday at 7:30. I showed up and was a little put off by what I found there. It wasn’t her house, and I’d been pretty certain of that when she gave me the address. It was a brick office building and there were dozens of people milling about outside, hugging and greeting each other very warmly, and they all seemed to be really happy. Like unnaturally happy. Like church happy.

Shit. She’s gonna try and convert me to her bible-study group or something. Well, she was cute, so I might as well play along for another few minutes. I parked my car and headed for the building. She met me halfway to the door, grabbed my hand and dragged me inside “Let’s get you registered, they’re about to start!” she said as we hustled inside. I wrote my name, address and phone number on a clipboard and was given a name tag that read “Hello, my name is J”, which she stuck on my shirt as she dragged me down a hallway through throngs of people hugging and excitedly chattering away. She hurried me through two sets of double doors and into a very large and beautiful room with marble columns and drapes hanging from all four walls. There were chairs set for about two-hundred people, and just about every one of them was full. A woman walked to the stage at the far end of the room and everyone fell silent.

After introducing herself, she gave a 30 minute lecture on comfort zones, how each one of us live within our own, and why we have constructed this reality of walls and limiting self beliefs that supposedly protects us from the pain of the outside world. It made a lot of sense to me, and I listened intently. When she had finished talking, she asked us to partner up with someone we hadn’t come with and didn’t know – a risk, she said, an opportunity to stretch our comfort zone in a safe environment. I found myself seated across from a girl named Jennilynn. The presenter proceeded to ask several questions, and Jennilynn and I shared openly and honestly, getting to know each other and enjoying the process.

OK, so it wasn’t church, but exactly what was this place?

After going back and forth answering the presenters questions for about an hour, she again took the stage and explained that we had just experienced a little taste of the training that they offered there. She asked us to close our eyes while she played a piece of music. It was “Hero” by Mariah Carey. It was the first time I’d ever heard it.  I listened to the words, and knew that I wanted to know more about this place. After the song, the presenter explained that the first part of the three-part course cost $495 and started the next day. I knew that I wanted to do this, but I didn’t know if I could get the time off work or if I could afford it. The girl who brought me, Jaime, said she’d call me the next day if I had any questions, and to offer assisatnce and suport in finding solutions for these two problems.

Mariah Carey gives me a sign

I went to work the next day very uncertain of what to do. I had the money in the bank, but it would mean not paying some of my bills and I didn’t know if I was willing to do that. I was off work by 3:00 each day, so the 4:00pm start time on Wednesday and Thursday wouldn’t be a problem, but I’d need Friday off.  At 2:30, after we had closed and I was cleaning up, when “Hero” came on the radio. I took it as a sign. I went to my manager and told him I needed to take a personal day on Friday. He agreed without asking any questions. I ran to the bank and pulled out $500 dollars on my way to the office building I’d been to the previous night. I called Jaime before I left and told her I’d be there. She said she’d meet me there.

I pulled up to the building around 3:45. Jaime was standing outside waiting very impatiently for me to arrive. She met me at my car this time and immediately grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the building, which seemed to have three times as many people now as it did the night before. Once inside the doors we wiggled our way through the tightly packed crowd of people to a registration desk. I hastily filled out several pages of release forms and contact information, and received another name badge, this time one of the plastic ones that you slide a card into with a pin on the back. I struggled to pin it on as Jaime wormed her way through the crowd with me in tow. We went down the hallway to the same room we’d been in last night, only the doors were closed.

“DOORS ARE OPEN!”

At 4:00 PM sharp two men opened the doors and bellowed what I would come to recognize as a standard greeting and the start of something amazing. The crowd went wild with cheering and clapping. I followed the rest of the uninitiated into the room, wondering what all the cheering was about.

And so my journey began.

The longest journey begins with a single step

In the first four days I learned how valuable integrity and accountability are to me and my success. I learned that whatever I choose this life to be is entirely up to me, and I started to see possibilities for what lay before me. I was the author of my own adventure, and it started NOW. This all sounds very cliche, and I’d heard it before, but through this experience, I felt it for the first time.

Two weeks later I returned for the second part of my training – four more days of very intense training with a silver-haired lady with wire rimmed glasses named Eleanor who scared the bejeezus out of me the first time I saw her and whom I love and am grateful for to this very day, even though I’ve never seen her again. I learned to risk, and stretch WAY beyond my comfort zone. I learned WHO I AM –  a loving, compassionate, beautiful man. I learned why I am here, and how to actively create the world that I want.

Two weeks after that, I began the third part of my training where I learned how to work with all the tools I’d learned in the first two parts. I had a coach that I made regular phone calls to. She asked me hard questions, and supported me in being accountable for what I had created and worked with me to see new possibilities – lovingly holding my hand and gently guiding me to my own realizations, break-throughs, and “A-Ha!” moments.

She chooses to be on this journey with me

Three years later, I met an amazing woman whose life was full of pain. I could see the joy, sweet tenderness, loving, and intuitive woman inside, but she wasn’t sure of any of those things. Just as Jaime had said to me 3 years earlier, I asked her what she was doing Tuesday night. The next day, Megan began her training.

It’s been 17 years since I went through a life-changing training. My sweet wife is now the executive director of the company that offers this training – The Great Life Foundation. Her and I have been involved with this company to varying degrees throughout the years. It’s been instrumental in building our marriage and has influenced thousands upon thousands of people. I continue to work with The Great Life Foundation because it so profoundly changed the way I view the world and who I am. I have formed lifelong friendships with some of the most amazing and inspiring people in the world – people who actively and consciously use the tools they’ve discovered through the training working to make this world a better place.

I have no idea where this journey will lead, but I know that above all else, I’m in good company.