Step toward meaningful connection: A guide to your Hero’s Journey

I’ve faced the darkness of loneliness - and found a way through it.

This guide shows how I started my hero’s journey and how you can take your first steps from emptiness to meaningful connection today.

Welcome to the first article on the HUMANS:CONNECTING blog for 2026. It’s great to be back with you. We’re looking forward to another year of serving, supporting, challenging and inspiring you.

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A single step moves you towards connection

Hello, my friend

I remember the moment I faced my loneliness. It was the darkness within me.

For years, I had tried everything to avoid it and steer away from it. But I’d run out of options.

So I crawled to the edge of the darkness and looked in.

There was nothing. Infinite emptiness.

I knew that I’d be lost forever if I fell into it. No one would hear me scream. No one could rescue me.

But something within me said, very clearly, very resolutely and with determination: No. We’re worthy of something different.

That was the moment when my worthiness struck back.

Image: canva.com

I decided that after peering into the abyss, I needed to retreat from the edge, get back on my feet and forge a new path. Intuitively, I knew that I could not go back to the same paths that I’d walked previously. They led to the darkness.

I needed to create a new path. One that was guided by that voice, the feeling, within me which defiantly said no.

There’s a direct path between me creating that new pathway in 2016 and you reading these words now.

These words are for you if you have also looked into the abyss within and something within you has said that defiant no, we’re worthy of something different. 

The start of my Hero’s Journey

You may already be familiar with the concept of ‘The Hero’s Journey’. If not, watch this short video.

My decision to forge a new path was the first step to living a life of meaningful connection. And, soon after making the decision to accept the invitation that life was giving me and to do something different, the mentor appeared to help guide me on my journey.

For me, that mentor was Mike Campbell and his Everyday Legends Academy coaching program. He shares his light with me as I forge new paths.

I’m here to be your mentor

I’m here for you once you’ve heard that defiant no. I know from life — not a textbook — what it’s like to be outwardly successful but feel hollow. I know a way through loneliness into meaningful connection.

Image: canva.com

This is wisdom driving knowledge and understanding.

Wisdom is earned. Knowledge is learned. We humans know the difference between when someone speaks and acts from a place of knowledge – and not experience – and when they speak and act from wisdom.

And this wisdom is what guides all we do at HUMANS:CONNECTING, especially in how we serve, support, challenge and inspire you through our mentoring services.

What it’s like to work with me

Working with me is not about fixing you, because you’re not broken.

It is about walking beside you as you step away from the edge of the darkness and begin forging a new path, one grounded in experiencing connection that’s meaningful for you.

It's always about walking beside you

I start by listening.

Deeply. Carefully. I don’t rush you to insight or action. Your story matters, because it shaped you.

I’ll meet you where you are, not where you think you should be [more on how 'should' gets in the way of meaningful connection in this article].

It doesn’t matter if you’re lost, exhausted, successful-but-empty, angry, ashamed, hopeful, or all of the above. You’re seen just as you are.

I bring curiosity and compassion first, before advice, challenge, or strategy.

And then - when the time is right - I will challenge you.

Not harshly, but honestly. I’ll question the beliefs you’ve inherited about yourself, your worth, and what connection should look like.

I’ll help you run connection experiments.

Small, human, doable actions that help you experience connection and take steps beyond the seductive, comfortable misery of loneliness.

I’ll name the wins you overlook, because those small steps toward connection are important.

I’ll walk with you through the paradoxes.

The fact that growth can be uncomfortable and life-giving.

That connection can feel risky and necessary.

That you can be strong and vulnerable at the same time.

And yes, if you’re stuck in your head or avoiding the next step, I may gently (or not-so-gently) kick you in the pants. Always in service of your growth. Never to belittle or shame.

I don’t walk ahead of you pretending to have all the answers.

I walk beside you, sharing my light with you. It’s what I’ve gained from lived experience and from working in human connection for almost a decade — from my own cycles of descent, defiance, and rebuilding.

When you work with me, you haven’t enlisted a fixer or a guru.

You’ve chosen a companion, a guide, and a challenger. You’ve chosen someone who believes, deeply, that you are worthy of something different.

After all, this is the service I wish had existed when I needed support as I backed away from the abyss.

My wisdom and knowledge come from living life

I know my values.

I live my values most of the time.

I’m a Dad (after navigating a wrenching infertility journey).

I’m a country boy with a city education.

I love words and language.

I’ve had a career in the Australian Public Service – including in diplomacy.

That career was consistently in a highly-competitive, high-stress, high-visibility, low-tolerance-for-risk environment.

I’m a social entrepreneur who started this social enterprise in my 40s. 

I’ve been married.

I’ve been divorced.  

I’ve wrestled with my sexuality for close to 30 years.

I’ve come out of the closet as gay.

I’m navigating life with Jeff - my amazing partner - by my side.

I’ve lived and worked in five countries. 

I speak seven languages (some more competently and comfortably than others).

I’ve moved house more times than I can remember.

I’ve navigated money worries, homelessness and a parent who chose to break contact with me.

I’ve a wicked sense of humour.

I’m a plane nerd.

I love to write and reflect.

I love to sweat and move my body. 

I’m intensely curious.

I’m me. 

I’ve served, supported, challenged and inspired hundreds of humans directly and hundreds of thousands have heard my story. 

Image: canva.com

There are testimonials about how I’ve changed lives and helped humans along their path towards experiencing the meaningful connection that they seek and are worthy of.

If you want, you can read them. They’re on this page and throughout the HUMANS:CONNECTING website. But if you’re reading to this point in the article now, you know that I know.

I’m speaking to the defiant voice – the knowing – within you.

It isn’t accidental that you’re still reading this. Something in you recognised itself in these words.

You can close this page and keep going as you are. Most people do. But I know you’ve stood at the edge of your own darkness, and you know where that path leads.

The question isn’t whether you’re worthy of meaningful connection. You already know somewhere deep inside that you are. The question is whether you’re willing to choose it.

It’s not about taking steps once you’re ready. You’ll always find ways to convince yourself that you’re not ready. But you’re reading these words at the end of a long article. You’re ready enough.

Choosing meaningful connection isn’t always easy. It requires courage. It requires honesty. And sometimes, it even requires a little kick in the pants.

But here’s the truth: stepping forward now is the first real step away from emptiness and toward the connection you seek, and the one you deserve.

You're worthy of deep connections

Here’s how you can start today

1. Build your new path with the 6-module Connection Starter Course. We'll find what connection is meaningful for you and devise your Connection Plan to make it happen.

   
   

2. Explore 1:1 mentoring for personalised guidance, support, and challenge.

   
   

3. Other ways to engage: Connection Inspiration videos, this blog, and our podcast.

Subscribing to our mailing list means that you won’t miss any of our content. You’ll get an email from me each week or when there’s something new for you. And you can unsubscribe any time if you’re not feeling it anymore: we’ll still think you’re amazing.  

Finally

I have been on a few cycles of my Hero’s Journey since 2016. I’m still forging new paths in my own life.

This is your invitation. The signal you've been waiting for. Your Hero’s Journey awaits.

Let’s get you the meaningful connection that awaits you.

Until next time, be awesomely you.

~ Phil  

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Important:

All views expressed above are the author’s and are intended to inform, support, challenge and inspire you to consider the issue of loneliness and increase awareness of the need for authentic connection with your self, with those most important to you and your communities as an antidote to loneliness. Unless otherwise declared, the author is not a licensed mental health professional and these words are not intended to be crisis support. If you’re in crisis, this page has some links for immediate support for where you may be in the world. 

If you’re in crisis, please don’t wait. Get support now.