When this year started, I knew I had to make drastic changes… because my phone had taken over my life.
Screen time had skyrocketed. Humour circled around TikTok reactions. I found myself scrolling through waves of news horrors and memes before I was fully awake each day.
Enter the Brick, which has emerged as the go-to app for people looking to reset their relationships with their phones.
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“Bricking” your phone has now become a verb for people to share the news that they are logging off and to tell others. I actually learned about “bricking” and “unbricking” myself through the loud declarations of other writers and influencers.
I was skeptical at first about whether an app blocker that costs over $50 could be worth it. But I had tried free ways of deleting social media apps and blocking them from my phone through features like Apple’s Screen Time or Android Digital Wellbeing, and they hadn’t worked because they are easy to bypass.
However, the Brick is a little square device that pairs with an app you download on your phone through a QR code. Once you connect your phone to your Brick, you can select which apps you need to block and for which hours of the day.
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Then, the real test begins. You tap the physical Brick device with your phone to activate its app-blocking features – you need to touch the Brick again if you want to regain access to your blocked apps.
I was struck by how hard it was to leave the house for a whole day with a bricked phone. I even delayed using it at first because of this anxiety, which only strengthened my resolve that I probably needed to go through with this experiment.
So, after a day of too much scrolling, I put myself to the test and put my Brick on my fridge. Now, I would have to get up from the couch or get back home from work if I wanted to access that tantalising Reddit post.
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I am happy to report that after more than a month of use, my brain feels different. I expected the strict enforcement of a Brick to change me – but even I was surprised by how much it did.
What you should know before you try a Brick
I stuck my Brick device on my fridge. Needing to walk 10 steps from my couch to unlock Instagram has curbed my scrolling habits.
The Brick, available for iOS and Android, lets you set modes for “deep work” and “family time” hours, so bricking automatically happens during the natural rhythm of your day. It also keeps a running tally of how many hours you have been bricked each day, and on average, presumably to encourage you to stay strong and go a little longer without unbricking.
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If you forget to use the Brick on your phone in your rush out the door, you can also Brick your device by pressing the Brick icon on the app’s homepage from where you are, but you will still need to go back to where your actual Brick is to unlock what you want to unlock.
What I loved about it
The first week I used it, I was surprised and embarrassed by how often my fingers would automatically tap the social media apps my Brick blocked me from accessing. My Brick bouncer would gently scold me whenever I tried to instinctively check Instagram or TikTok.
The app gives you five “emergency” unbricking workarounds if you really need to access an app you have blocked and you’re not near your Brick device, but I have yet to use one. Needing to use “emergency” unbricking to make an Instagram story about the Galentine’s party I attended really put into perspective what exactly I was doing with my one precious life.
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The Brick challenged my belief that real-time social media feedback was necessary to stay connected with my friends or to be good at my job. In my opinion, this forced reflection is the Brick’s best benefit. I’ve missed a few direct messages from my friends, I’m not seeing as many funny TikTok memes anymore, and I’m out of the loop on some social media trends, but I feel more in control of what I am consuming. At the very least, I am paying more attention to how I spend my time on my phone.
What I think could be better — and why I’m sticking with my Brick
The Brick costs around $59 for one device. Though I find this little plastic box to be prohibitively expensive for what it is, I like that more than one person can use the same Brick, so you could theoretically get your roommate or partner to split the costs, too. I also like that once you buy it, you don’t need to pay a subscription fee to keep using it, unlike many other apps.
However, bricking yourself is not going to transform you completely.
Catherine Pearlman, a licensed clinical social worker and author of First Phone: A Child’s Guide to Digital Responsibility, Safety, and Etiquette, said the Brick is “a wonderful device,” but can’t be a long-term solution to endless social media scrolling on its own.
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“Once you’re home [where your Brick is], the impulse still exists,” she told me. “So it doesn’t actually teach you how to work through that impulse to say…‘How do I really want to spend my time? How do I work through this emotion that I’m trying to avoid by scrolling?’”
Answering those questions is a bigger journey only you can answer. For Pearlman, it meant finding other ways to use her screen-free time.
“I knew I wasn’t going to stop using my phone, but I wanted to have an alternative,” she said as an example. “And then when the newspapers got too upsetting, I went to Kindle. So now I just read books in my Kindle, and I read eight books in January.”
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If you want to get serious about blocking social media not just on your phone but on your computer as well (which your Brick cannot access), Pearlman suggested the free website blocker Cold Turkey.
As for me, I’m continuing to brick myself in the evenings, so that I can learn a new screen-free hobby of crochet. Just this past week, my phone screen time dropped 62% compared to the week before. Making loops of crochet rows with my hands feels more satisfying than the loops of TikToks I watched each night, but I don’t think I would have stuck with my new hobby without the Brick’s admonishments.
I’ve gone from my high of nine hours of daily screen time to a more reasonable five or six hours during a workday. I still have lapses where I will go a night without Bricking, but I feel much calmer when I do. When my head is not cluttered with the pulls of social media notifications and enticing Reels, I have time to figure out what I really want to do. And that’s a gift that I think is worth keeping.
Lesson 21 of the free Engage course invites you to question the idea that personal time must be earned through work. Explore how limiting work hours and choosing abundant personal time can lead to greater clarity, motivation, and a more satisfying life.
You’ll find the rest of the Engage course videos in the Video section.
Lesson 19 explores how to finish what you start without killing your creative spark. You’ll learn how to work with different energy phases – inspiration, staging, and completion – so projects flow forward naturally instead of stalling or burning out.
This approach helps you move projects across the finish line while preserving enthusiasm, clarity, and momentum, so you can enjoy a richer and more consistent flow of completed projects and treasured experiences in your life.
You’ll find the rest of the Engage course videos in the Video section.
Lesson 18 of the free Engage course explores how stretch goals can serve as catalysts for inner growth rather than pressure-filled achievements. You’ll learn how to approach ambitious goals by expanding your identity, working through internal limitations, and becoming someone who can step into those experiences with confidence and ease.
You’ll find the rest of the Engage course videos in the Video section.
This week I began exploring a yin-based approach to my days. First I journaled about how I might differentiate yin productivity from yang productivity. I figured yang was mainly about deciding, controlling, and directing the flow of action whereas yin would be more about sensing and allowing action to flow through very flexibly. I also figured that yang would be more outcome-oriented whereas yin might be more experience-oriented.
It’s been a very interesting experience to deliberately lean in a yin direction so far, especially yesterday when I opted to use this approach all day. I did my best to release any attachment to getting any particular task done or advancing any specific project. I focused more on sensing what energies wanted to flow through and be part of my day. All throughout the day, I was more attuned to the energy flows and my inner sensing than I was to objective results.
The flow of action was light and breezy. I felt very relaxed and chill. It was like being carried by currents of energy all through the day. I felt like I wasn’t working particularly hard or doing very much. Yet at the end of the day, I reviewed all that I got done, and it was quite a lot.
I got up at 5am, went for a run, and then met Rachelle in the park to go for a walk together. I started listening to a new audiobook (James Fadiman’s Microdosing book) while running. I read some more of Ram Dass’ Be Here Now and also began reading Alexander Shulgin’s PIHKAL book. So I felt inspired to engage with three different books, yet that didn’t feel like too much because all the books had strong energy ties among them. They cover similar ground from different perspectives. What I read from each book seemed to have a synchronous relationship to the flow of the day. If my thinking had been more objective or yang-like, I’d have likely stuck with one book till it was done. It actually felt nicer to float through a few books.
I made clear, crisp decisions in some areas that were a bit stuck and then advanced them with a variety of easy actions. I sensed it was the right timing for those decisions to flow through, like they were finally ready to emerge and resolve themselves. I also did some journaling to further advance some ideas I’d been working on, and that went very smoothly too. Overall I got my life much better aligned with some long-term avenues that have been unfolding.
I also went out twice to run errands, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. On an objective level, that might seem less efficient than batching the errands. However, the second errand wasn’t really on my radar when I followed my inner nudge to go out to do the first one, even though both were related. I felt like perhaps I needed to advance and complete the first errand for the second to energetically arise.
I liked how both trips infused my day with more variety. These errands were short and easy, and I enjoyed doing them very much as part of the day. They got me away from my desk and out and around other people in the city for a bit. I felt like I was keeping the energy swirling and in positive motion. It was toasty outside (105ºF outside during the second errand – that’s about 41ºC), and the sun’s warmth felt so nice to me too. I’m used to the sunny Vegas summers.
When some ideas came to mind about potential actions to take, I wrote some of them down but only one or two at a time. That was mainly to get them out of my head, so I wouldn’t dwell upon them and could mentally relax more, not with the intention of compiling a to-do list like I might have done in yang mode. I ended up eventually doing all of the items I’d written down, yet I only did them if and when I felt their energy inviting me to go in that direction and feeling good motivation to engage. I did them out of sequence from the order I wrote them yet with no feeling of pressure to do them or not. I felt more of a sense of curiosity about them when I wrote them down, not really sure if they’d come through. They were just options and possibilities, not decisions or commitments. Writing these ideas down was a bit like saying, “I see you. Let me know if you want to flow into action later.”
There was a strangeness to the day as well. I felt like I was attuned to a deeper sense of cooperation and coordination with life. I didn’t feel that I was making decisions as much as I was accepting energy-level invitations that I was sensing. I didn’t feel that those invitations were arising from within me (like from my subconscious) as much as I was picking up on signals being broadcast on a more spirity level of reality. Those signals were very present-moment, always shifting as the day progressed. They were often subtle, more like whispers or hints of possible energy flows. Nothing ever felt demanding or mandatory.
Sometimes I felt a more yang-like idea emerge, in which case I acknowledged it as yang energy and declined it. I could feel that some directions would require more force to advance them. I went with options that felt light and breezy, doing my best to flow into action with them as those invites came through – without hesitation or delay. There was no rushing or pressing. It just felt easier to glide into action once I had a clear enough sense of where the flow was inviting me to go.
I feel my inner senses have become even louder and clearer this year, so this was a great way to practice listening to them more closely, especially when the communication is subtle. I don’t feel this would have worked if my mind was cluttered or pre-occupied with predetermined to-dos. The action flow was great, and I actually felt that the day turned out better, both experientially and in terms of what outcomes got advanced, than if I’d tried to control and direct it based on individual goals. The flow of action also felt very well-synched to my mood and energy levels.
I want to float with this approach all throughout this week as best I can. I’m enjoying it immensely so far. Overall I’d say that yesterday’s flow felt marvelous yet also a bit mysterious.
I’m continuing this process today, and writing and sharing this little blog post happened because it showed up as a very yin-feeling invite this morning. I had no goal or even intention to write or publish anything today. I actually wrote and shared this as a personal update in my exploration log in the CGC forums a few hours prior, following a breezy nudge after breakfast. Then later in the morning, I felt the invite to add a bit more detail and publish it here, sensing that others might appreciate it. Perhaps someone would find this idea timely and synchronous relative to their own explorations. So if this does seem synchronous for you, perhaps this is a special invite flowing through for you to give this yin productivity approach a little test in your own life. Please let me know if you do that and how it goes. It’s nice to compare notes on this sort of thing.
Today (May 1st) is the final day to decide to join us for Year 9 in Conscious Growth Club, and I felt inspired to share some insights about where I see the club flowing in Year 9 and beyond.
Every year the club evolves. This transition from Year 8 to Year 9 is a big advancement with some very powerful shifts opening up.
Leadership Dojo
Many members in CGC have been evolving in the direction of leadership. This has been showing up differently for everyone, but it’s fair to say that it’s not the stale old corporate or hierarchical version of leadership. It’s a much more personal and internal form of leadership. At least that’s where it begins.
This is about leading from within – knowing yourself, standing strong in your core essence, and radiating your light into the world around you, like I shared in this video several months ago: Fill Your Reality With Your Light.
When you step up and take charge of your own life powerful, other people are likely to notice. Those who appreciate similar values to yours will likely feel drawn to you. They’ll be attracted to your centeredness, your resolve, your clarity, and your sense of ease, lightness, and flow. You may end up attracting some sort of following without really trying.
For some members this shows up as a desire to build communities or their own, online or offline. A lot of members have been going through meaningful transformations of their social lives. They no longer feel in tune with their old circles, and it’s important to them to draw more people into their lives who really align with who they are now and who they’re becoming.
One reason this happens is that CGC itself is a model for this kind of social alignment. It’s a community centered around growth, self-development, and truly embodying our best selves. People who value this will find lots of like-minded people inside to connect with. Once they experience how delightful it is to make and have so many friends like this in one place, it can reveal a difficult contrast with their other social circles, which may not feel adequate anymore. Thus begins the journey into assuming more autonomy over one’s social life, and this eventually flows into some kind of leadership experience.
Seeing this aspect of CGC emerging over time has encouraged me to give it more attention and to invite new members into the club who see themselves flowing into an emerging leadership role. So this year I made that a key part of the invite.
That’s yet another reason we don’t invite Trump supporters to join us in CGC. That’s been our policy for years. Trump supporters carry follower vibes by definition. That’s the opposite of our direction in CGC.
There are lots of ways to step into leadership. In CGC we really focus on the inner journey, which involves getting clear about what we want to create and then advancing it into being.
Note that at the beginning of 2017, CGC was just an idea. I began sharing about the idea on my blog back then, inviting people to comment on it and share their feedback. Later that year we opened the doors with an early access phase while we were developing it. Today we’re starting our 9th year together, the club is thriving inside, and we clearly have a bright future together as we continue to advance together. This all began with a decision to step up and make it happen. Many hundreds of other decisions followed – and are still following – as the club continues to evolve.
Relating to People as Their Strong Selves
Since I have a lot of experience watching people grow and seeing how they evolve over time, I often pick up patterns in what’s unfolding for people before they see what’s emerging within themselves. I like to meet people where they are, but I also love to relate to them based on where they appear to be heading.
The better I get to know someone who’s very growth-oriented, the more I can help to hold the vision and the vibes of the stronger and more capable version of them that’s emerging.
For instance, I may interact with someone who’s a bit camera shy, but I can also see that they’re working on it, which may help me see that they’ll eventually get past it altogether. So I can start relating to them as the person they’re becoming, not who they’ve been.
Or I may be talking with a very head-based person, but I can also see they’re making good progress in developing their intuitive side and opening their heart, so I can meet in the the land of emotional expressiveness and keep relating to them as their emerging future self.
Sometimes this surprises people because they’ve never had anyone treat them as the person they’re becoming. Others have usually been treating them as who they’ve been in the past (or some skewed version of that).
I love doing this for people, but it’s definitely best when I get to know someone, so I gain a more specific understanding of where they’re heading.
Holding stronger visions of each other – and for each other – is becoming woven into the fabric of CGC. As more members bear witness to each other’s growth, they’re helping hold those new visions of themselves. That’s really lovely to see.
If you’ve never been in a social circle that holds you in high regard and begins treating you as your stronger and more capable future self, I sense you’d really love and appreciate this aspect of CGC.
Don’t think it’s easy though. The old parts of you may rise up to reject your new self-image – at first – so it can take some time to work through those old limits and release them.
Feeding and Fueling Our Strong Selves
As members have continued to invest in CGC, they’re clearly gotten stronger and more capable. More possibilities are opening up for them. There’s a sense of strength and stability in the core of the club, which is fertile soil for encouraging even more to emerge.
Back in 2018 when I first created the Deep Abundance Integration course, my motivation was largely driven by compassion for people who were struggling with scarcity. I wanted to provide a helpful resource to immerse people in abundance vibes, so they could really lock onto it and transition over, much like I learned to do back in 1999 (the year I went bankrupt).
In the early years of CGC, there was a lot of this helping-people-who-were-struggling mentality in the club too. That fit with the old coaching model, and many coaching calls involved helping people with various forms of stuckness. Today we are way beyond that old mindset and old approach.
Struggles can be endless and cyclical, especially if people keep recreating the same conditions that lead to struggle. Now we’re better at stepping back and inviting those weaker energies to depart, so something stronger and more engaging can emerge.
When this kind of powerful energy surges, many old struggles vanish. Either they become easy to solve because we become stronger, or they’re no longer seen as problems, or we stop creating the conditions that give rise to them. One way or another, CGCers learn to opt out of living in perpetual crisis mode.
Today’s CGC isn’t a good match for people who are mired in distracting problems. It’s a much better fit for people who want to engage with their lives from their core – their strong selves. Then keep building from there.
I like to think of this stronger part of me as my higher self. That’s the version of me that’s fearless, wise, caring, kind, creative, generous, and more. These days my own path of self-development is mainly about coming into greater alignment with this core version of me. I do my best to channel my deepest wellspring of insight and energy into my decisions and actions. That’s been working really well.
Even when I have mundane problems to deal with, I find that I can easily shred them when I’m attuned to my core strengths. Then I can be as patient, methodical, rational, and courageous as needed to solve problems definitively. These kinds of solutions are very satisfying, both during the solution process and afterwards. I know I did my best, so there are no regrets.
This kind of energy is emerging very strongly in the club now. I sense it will be a big part of Year 9 and beyond.
One specific way we’re supporting this energy is with the new Sense & Solve call format that we’re introducing this CGC year. We’re running it the first time on May 15.
High Trust and Intimate Teamwork
CGC is a very kind, intimate, caring group inside. It took some work to get there though, and I’m very protective of this aspect of our culture. In our early years, we attracted some members who were only into self-development for themselves – some prima donna types if you know what I mean. They came to CGC for the content and for their own gains and didn’t participate much in the community aspects, except for their own validation now and then.
We still did our best to serve those members, but I soon realized that we were better off without them. What we do in CGC really is a team effort, and we grow stronger by attracting good team players. So I’ve deliberately positioned the club to make it less palatable to people who aren’t interested in the team aspect.
We’ve come a long way since then, really focusing on attracting more genuine team players and serving them well. CGC has become a space where the givers tend to gain the most. Those who show up and participate and share their growth journeys surely learn a lot more and make bigger strides.
I see us investing even further in this teamwork direction in Year 9 and beyond. That includes involving other members in the live event we’ll be co-creating for April 2026.
All of our calls for Year 9 involve some form of interaction. They’re really not content-based. They’re all designed as group experiences that we share in and create together.
This morning, for example, we had our monthly Intention Infusion call. The call was very well-attended, with lots of members sharing all throughout. This included sharing our individual intentions for the month and also co-creating a group intention. The group intention we chose was limitless vitality, so we’re all pooling our collective intentional energy to intend limitless vitality for each other. This has been a normal rhythm in CGC for the past two years now. Every month we all hold positive intentions for each other’s well-being and advancement.
The core of this community is trust. When people open up and trust more, they tend to thrive in CGC. It’s not like sharing about your life on social media and wondering who will judge you for it.
It usually takes a bit of time for people to get used to a community like this. They come in with their well-developed masks from years of social media engagement. Then they gradually drop those old facades and let us see more of their real selves. That’s where they’re met with so much love, understanding, and connection.
Life really is different when you learn and grow as part of a kind and caring community that has your back. If you don’t get that from CGC, please find some place to get it – a space where you can fully open up and show all parts of the real you and be seen and acknowledged as the beautiful being you are. This includes letting others see your beauty even when you’re not seeing it yet yourself.
This kind of work really lights me up inside. Even after 8 years of serving CGC, I’m still abundantly enthusiastic about it. As I’ve said many times before, this is my forever project. That’s something I learned from Walt Disney because Disneyland was his forever project. The benefit of a forever project is that you have lots of time to keep improving it and optimizing it. You know to be extra thoughtful in making each decision because you’re thinking about how it might ripple out over decades.
Playfulness
I love that we’re so playful in CGC. I really resonate with making self-development lively and fun. I feel we’re landed in a really good range there. We take self-development seriously, and we have serious fun working on it together.
We often crack jokes on the live calls, but we also do our best to keep them light. I really think we bond very well through shared humor. Some members are really great at anchoring humor vibes into the club, and I would love to see even more people like this join us inside because we so appreciate what they bring to the experience.
We already have some great abundance in this area, but I say let’s keep going. Why limit ourselves? Good-natured humor folds really well into our group energy and values.
I sense that this light-hearted playfulness that so many of us share in CGC will be infused into our April 2026 gathering as well, which makes me look forward to it even more.
Range and Variety
I know of no other self-development group that covers as much range and variety as CGC does. We really do cover all aspects of self-development and more.
Take a look at our call types for Year 9. We have 18 different formats now, up from 14 last CGC year. And even within a given format, no two calls are the same. Each call is a unique experience.
In Bear Care we work on boundaries and self-care. In Contribution Café we focus on purpose and service. In Story Lab we use the lens of story to fuse the objective and subjective aspects of our lives into a cohesive plot that’s unfolding. Courage Forge’s theme ought to be pretty obvious. Same goes with Pure Imagination. Mating Call is a new format we’ve added this year to improve our sex lives. And Moonglow is all about receiving and allowing (and not blocking life’s gifts).
I actually drew a significant amount of inspiration from theme parks, particularly Disneyland itself, in designing and evolving CGC’s core structure. I’ve personally spent at least 100 days of my life at Disneyland, including going there with Rachelle for 30 days in a row, six months before we opened CGC. So you can definitely think of CGC as being like a self-development theme park. While our core focus is on self-development, the calls are all designed to be lively, entertaining, and enjoyable as well. I never want the experience for our members to become stale or boring.
The vast majority of our live calls are unrecorded too (only Reflections & Revelations is recorded), so that helps people open up and be more candid as well. I really noticed a positive shift in participation when we shifted from recorded to unrecorded calls a while back. I love that we have so many years to keep tinkering and fine-tuning to discover what works best for our members.
Learning From Each Other’s Growth Journeys
With the CGC forums as part of the experience, there’s even more variety because members can share and discuss anything of interest to them.
I especially love that our discussions and explorations are so focused on helping each other advance. There really isn’t much debating in CGC for the sake of debating. Politics and current events don’t have a big presence in the group. That’s all fair game for discussion, but most CGCers would rather not discuss that sort of thing, especially since they can do that elsewhere on social media all day long if they want.
In CGC the conversations are mainly about personal experiences and explorations as well as how members are figuring out solutions. People discuss their goals, action steps, and their progress a lot. They share the emotional side too, like how life is going and how they’re being affected.
Because we have our own private, members-only spaces, members are a lot more candid, and the shares are often deeper and more detailed than what you’d find elsewhere on the Internet. People share a certain depth in CGC that they wouldn’t trust to Instagram, Facebook, etc.
This is true for me too. While I’ve been very open about my life from 20+ years of blogging and also YouTubing, I share even more depth and detail in CGC. Most of what I share about my ongoing explorations these days is posted in CGC, not outside of it. I just feel drawn to share certain details more with the people I’ve come to know and trust very well. I’m still into sharing openly outside of the group, but with CGC as such a huge part of my life, I don’t feel drawn to share as much outside the club.
I maintain a progress log in the club myself and update it often. It looks like this in the forums and has hundreds of posts. It’s very interactive too since members can ask me anything about the various explorations I’m doing at any given time. Usually I update it multiple times per week. There is so much I’ve shared there that I haven’t shared outside of CGC, such as details about the 3-night ayahuasca ceremony I did in March and how it affected me – it was very powerful.
One experience that’s coming up this month is my first-ever San Pedro ceremony. I’ve never done it before and have been wanting to sit with it for years. I probably won’t blog about it, but I’ll surely share about what it was like in CGC.
Other members maintain progress logs in the club too, and this has consistently been a great way for us to keep tabs on what we’re all doing and how we’re progressing.
A High-Vibe Approach to Self-Development
When I first got into self-development many years ago, my mindset was very objective. I focused on productivity and time management a lot. I thought very algorithmically much of the time, always looking for useful processes and step-by-step approaches. Some of my favorite authors were Brian Tracy and David Allen – both very deliberate and methodical but also immensely head-based.
That was interesting and helpful for some years, but I soon ran into limits with that approach, especially with respect to certain types of goals and lifestyle desires. Some goals just would not budge.
I was able to use that old mindset to have some cool achievements though, such as running a marathon. That was all about showing up, putting in the training time, and being very methodical and tenacious till I crossed the finish line and got my finisher’s medal – done and checked off my bucket list.
But my most interesting breakthroughs did not arise from that type of programmer mindset. For that I really needed to stretch myself to explore more limitless ways of relating to life and reality. I documented that alternative approach very well in the Submersion course, which is based on relating to life far more subjectively. Since then I’ve layered in even more robust and expansive approaches to keep advancing in ways where an overly objective approach falls flat.
I’d say my #1 favorite gift from opening up and pursuing a different self-development path is my relationship with Rachelle. We’ve been together for 15+ years now, married for more than 7 years. She and I host the CGC calls together. I adore her deeply, and I love the life we share together. I also really love that she and I get to serve and support CGC together. We attracted each other from different countries (she’s Canadian) and flowed into a beautiful yet unconventional relationship. I don’t see anyway a relationship like this could have flowed into my life if I’d been stuck in an overly objective mindset. That old limit had to go, so I could open myself to new forms of allowing, inviting, and surrendering.
This type of energy is strongly infused into CGC. I’ve stopped being an apologist about it, and I’ve really gone all-in with a vibrational-first approach – because it works! It takes time for some people to warm up to it, but what keeps them engaged is that this gets results, especially in areas where an objective approach just isn’t moving the needle much.
The objective aspects of life are still important, and objective problem-solving tools are still useful, so we haven’t thrown that out. We do a tremendous amount of fusion in CGC, and that YES-AND approach woven into many of our group calls as well. Our problem-solving methods are part vibrational, part physical. They involve getting into harmony with the solution space and feeling our way into it to ramp up motivation and inspiration. Then we devise practical action steps and flow into them with greater ease.
In recent months I’ve been sharing in the club about using this approach to do various DIY plumbing and electrical projects around the house. I got clear about how I wanted to solve each problem on a vibrational level first, including how I wanted to feel throughout the experience and afterwards. As I locked onto those feelings, I flowing through a compelling action sequence that included watching how-to videos on YouTube, acquiring the needed parts and tools, and doing all the steps to get to completion.
This really taught me a lot about my own best pathways through problems I might otherwise put off. I didn’t want to deal with certain problems because I didn’t understand them well enough, and I didn’t feel very trusting about the prospect of hiring someone to do those projects for me. So I went to the vibe level first and crafted the solution there. For instance, I knew that education could solve the understanding problem, so I resolved to educate myself thoroughly first. I also saw solutions to the trust issue, so I worked through how to find a contractor I could genuinely trust, and I found and hired a fabulous plumber to do some bigger jobs. It all flowed beautifully at the action level once I solved these problems first at the vibrational level.
I can tell this kind of vibrational-physical fusion will be a big part of CGC Year 9 and beyond – again because it works. Problems are much easier to solve when we engage not just our minds but our hearts and spirits as well.
Lightness & Happiness
The energy in some earlier CGC years felt heavier to me. Today it’s a lot lighter feeling inside. There’s more happiness and optimism inside the club these days – and some genuine excitement too, especially since we’re starting a whole new year together starting today.
Years ago, some people were initially drawn to approach CGC like a therapy container – a space for working through unresolved trauma.
I gave it a lot of thought and took concrete steps to move the club well away from that direction. I know this bothered some people, but I’m certain that it was the correct decision. Even back then I knew we needed to move away from that.
I’m not a therapist, and I don’t intend to become one. I really don’t want to meet people in their misery and delve into the ache with them.
I know some great people who do work in the space of trauma, healing, PTSD, etc. Most of them work with plant medicines because that really moves the needle when nothing else will. I’ve seen a tremendous amount of positive changes unfolding for people who need to process and release old trauma.
But that isn’t my path. I know this. I’m not here to serve people while they’re still enmeshed in their trauma. I’m meant to work and live in limitless land. That’s very clear to me.
I’ve done multiple plant medicine journeys where I’ve looked into that space – with ayahuasca, mushrooms, and more – and they all tell me the same thing. I’m not traumatized and never have been, and I’m not here to help people with their trauma. One journey revealed a fun way of framing this, revealing that when I incarnated as a human in this life, I looked at the box to select my trauma for my human character, and I wrote in “Fuck no!” And so that wish was granted.
I’ve had plenty of challenges to deal with in this life, but none have ever traumatized me. That isn’t what I’m here to experience. And it isn’t how I aim to serve.
I am the opposite of traumatized. I’m ridiculously happy, and I thrive when working with other people who are at least pretty happy with their lives, and they want to unfold even more richness.
I work best with people who want to let go of old limits and stretch themselves. They want to grow stronger and become even more capable. They may not be traumatized, but letting go of old limits is still a great challenge, and this is where I most enjoy serving people.
This has also become a big aspect of CGC as well. We’re not here to meet you in your pain. We’re here to help you advance beyond old limits. If you have a lot of unresolved pain to work through first that’s holding you back from even focusing on richer and more expansive forms of self-development, I feel for you, but there are much better teachers and communities that focus on that. I have tremendous respect for them, and I’m friends with some great people in that space, but I definitely don’t aspire to be one of them. I’ve found where I belong and what I’m good at, and I do sense that this is a limit I want to keep because it serves me well, and it opens into a beautiful outlet for serving others very well too.
CGC’s energy is much lighter than what you’d find in trauma-informed spaces. The energy inside is typically very positive, encouraging, optimistic, and expansive. Members are usually very engaged with interesting projects and working on stretching themselves in various ways.
Even when someone is going through a major challenge, they’re met with positive support, not commiseration. This helps people remember their strong selves, which they can use to meet any problem.
Stepping Into Your Limitless Self
Hopefully this run-through gives you a clearer picture of what CGC is like inside now and how we’re continuing to evolve.
I’d say that our limitless vitality intention for May is a good container for our upcoming year in the club as well. This month we’re inviting more energy to flow through our bodies and our lives, so we can enjoy more capacity to investing in what we find most engaging.
If CGC appeals to you, I invite you to join us. There’s still time to come aboard and join us for Year 9 if you sign up today. Otherwise you’ll have to wait till April 2026 for another chance.
I’d recommend perusing the CGC FAQ, and then read through the CGC invite page as you reflect upon the decision (sign-up button is at the bottom of that page.
Lastly, feel free to drop me a message via my contact form if you have any further questions. We always see a lot of people join on the last day – even in the final hours – so I’m used to that!
Here’s an easy-going video about Conscious Growth Club Year 9 to give you a sense of the vibes and direction of the club and to invite you to join us inside. It’s only about 12 minutes, so please give it a watch now because I’m taking it offline when the enrollment ends.
CGC is our core inner self-development circle. It began in 2017 and has been going strong and evolving beautifully ever since. We only open for new members to join us during one short interval each year, always during the last week of April, and this is it! So please check it out and make the correct decision for you by midnight Pacific Time on May 1st. This is our only enrollment period for 2025, so our next opening won’t be till April 2026.
After you watch the video, read through the Conscious Growth Club invite page to see if you’re a match. It’s definitely not for everyone, but for the right people, CGC is a powerful long-term source of growth fuel and support. It transforms self-development from a solo effort to a team effort.
This is a fabulous year to join CGC because we’re having our first-ever CGC in-person gathering during this new CGC year, so we’ll all get to connect in person together for 4 days in Las Vegas in April 2026. I’m really looking forward to that!
Lesson 10 of the free Engage course covers how to change the tempo of your life by identifying and taking control of your life beats – those activities and experiences that give you a sense of pacing. This includes practical advice on how to defend your best tempo from inner and outer disruptions, so you can sustain an exhilarating flow that’s perfect for you.
You’ll find the rest of the Engage course videos in the Video section.
This Tuesday through Friday, January 28-31, I’m hosting a series of four Zoom calls (one per day, 2 hours per call), and I invite you to join me.
It’s called Go Rogue, and the purpose is to help you honor and strengthen your relationship with your inner rogue – those parts of you that tend to be rebellious, resistant, and uncooperative with your other goals, plans, and desires.
Instead of trying to suppress your inner rogue, I invite you to discover a new way of relating to these aspects of yourself – so you can recapture the energy within and enjoy greater harmony and flow in your life.
Come join us and forge an empowering new relationship with your inner rogue. Reclaim, re-harmonize, and re-integrate this powerful source of motivation, drive, and energy within you.
This is a one-of-kind event, and you’ll get the recordings too. I’ll see you inside!
