For some people it seems unfathomable to invest such an amount on a one-year membership to an online personal growth program. Seriously… you should see some of the reactions people are having to the Facebook and Instagram ads I’ve been running for the past few days to promote the launch. Those ads are actually doing well, and we’ve gained many great members in the past few days, but sharing such an invitation with a wide audience sure does unearth a plethora of limiting beliefs and irrational assumptions. So I’d like to address that since I know the price is a sticking point for many people.

Of course the exterior perspective looking in is often very different than the interior perspective looking out. I actually see my past self in a lot of those limiting beliefs, back when I had no clue about what such groups were really like on the inside.

I’ve personally been a paid member of private groups that range in cost from $2K to $30K per year, and all of them have been worthwhile. The first one I joined was in 2009, and as you might imagine, it was a stretch experience to spend that kind of money. But having done this multiple times now, I always felt like I got my money’s worth and then some.

These experiences helped inspire me to create and launch Conscious Growth Club, which has been going since April 2017. We have more than 100 paying members, so there are indeed plenty of people who like the idea enough to join, more than enough to make the group viable, sustainable, and abundant on the inside. (You can see the current member count at the top of the invitation page if you’d like. It increases whenever someone joins.)

Let me share a bit of the interior perspective, in the simple form of a bullet list. By the time you read to the bottom, you should have a better idea of why people actually do this sort of thing, including me.

Why would 100+ people pay $2K per year to join Conscious Growth Club?

• For accessible connections with other people willing to do the same (which is an unusual group of people)
• To immediately immerse yourself in a strong peer group
• Filling your social circle with smart, fascinating, wickedly creative people
• For the energy, excitement, and enthusiasm
• Because it stretches you as a person
• It changes your self-image, makes you think more is possible
• Because the payoff from such an investment is worth it, often hugely so
• Getting results you otherwise wouldn’t have gotten
• Getting results faster
• For the increased accountability of putting your money where your mouth is
• Feeling fully committed to growth and change
• Feeling certain that you’re going to move forward and make progress
• To shatter your old limitations
• It’s highly motivating and stimulating
• It gets you taking action in a way nothing else will
• Becoming more ambitious and goal-oriented
• Feeling compelled to step up to the level of peers you respect and admire
• Being surrounded by people who take lots of action and getting swept up in their energy
• Because it will turn out to be one of the best decisions of your life
• Having tons of fun playfully achieving your goals
• Channeling your powerful heart energy instead of being stuck in your head
• Going after bigger goals that you wouldn’t dare to pursue before
• Having to redefine how you relate to yourself because you’ve blown through so many limitations
• Because initially you think you can’t afford it, and then you somehow observe yourself joining anyway
• Because you’re at your best when you do things you don’t feel ready for
• Because you like speed
• Because you like pausing now and then to appreciate the opposite of speed
• Because you want to be fully present
• Because you realize that this is an invitation from your simulation
• Because you can’t stop thinking about the possibility
• Because you want to explore what’s on the other side of “What if?”
• Because achieving big goals can be so much more fun if you share the journey with good friends
• Because lots of people have to stretch their possibility space to join, and befriending people who can and will achieve their stretch goals is inspiring
• Because it upgrades your relationship with reality
• Because the alternative is to say yes to a limiting belief instead
• Because you’re done taking the blue pill
• To keep inviting you to refocus on action steps towards your goals when you might otherwise have a tendency to drift
• Finally letting that unapologetic genius inside you come out and play
• Getting more clarity about what you want than you ever had before
• Seeing your spiritual side being fully expressed into the world
• Bearing witness to positive ripples you’re creating
• Feeding and fueling the very best parts of you
• Surrounding yourself with “Yes, and…” people
• Enjoying the company of health-conscious friends who don’t need alcohol to socialize playfully
• Staying consistent as you make progress
• Getting used to a faster rate of growth and change
• Future-proofing your career path
• Feeling that your life is finally aligned
• Really discovering what your best looks like instead of knowing that you could be doing better
• Watching your social circle sculpt and chisel you into your best self
• Observing that you’re finally becoming the powerful person you’ve always dreamed of being
• Belonging to a caring and generous tribe that supports you in being your best
• Waking up each morning feeling excited by the progress you’re making
• Working, living, and connecting in the space of deep meaning
• Looking back on the past year and thinking, “Wow… how did I do all of that?”
• Feeling super secure because you always have smart, caring friends who’ve got your back
• Having smart people you can immediately turn to for help and advice
• Finding the best creative flow of your life
• Receiving some of the best invitations of your life, which flow through your frictionless social network
• Meeting an outstanding relationship partner and falling in love
• Solving long-term problems you’ve been stuck with for years
• Actually having those experiences you almost gave up on
• Having friends who will raise you up
• Having close friends that you respect, admire, and find inspiring
• Deeply appreciating what you have
• Expecting your life to keep getting better year after year
• Seeing clear evidence that your life really is getting better
• Leveraging your social abundance to upgrade your financial abundance
• Easily affording experiences that were previously out of reach
• Knowing what it feels like to live in abundance
• Tackling meaningful creative projects and finally getting them done and published
• Proving your critics wrong and making them lose all their hair and cry
• Creating a new normal for yourself
• Because that $2K will soon seem ridiculously small to you

The exterior perspective is that you’d have to be crazy to do this. The interior perspective is that you’d have to be crazy not to. That’s basically why the border is hard to cross. The first time is the hardest, and after that it’s a lot easier because then you know what it’s like.

It’s not the price that matters per se. It’s the value derived from belonging to such a group, and that value can be tremendous.

What’s really interesting is that the objections to being in such a group are usually irrational. They’ll seem like rational objections at first, but it’s really your emotional brain fooling you.

Many people see the investment as an unfathomably big expense, yet they actually could afford it if they wanted to. And even if they couldn’t do so right away, the challenge of coming up with an extra $2K is an interesting one. It’s a solvable problem. It may take some creativity, but even children have been able to solve that type of problem if they’re motivated enough. If a highly motivated child could do it, why not an intelligent adult? In some ways it’s harder for the adult because their mental baggage makes it harder than necessary. It probably won’t surprise you to know that on the inside of such a group, you’ll find a lot of people who are willing to let go of their mental baggage and start blowing past their previous limitations. That’s how they were able to get themselves to join.

I share this from personal experience because I had much the same limiting beliefs about these types of experiences as anyone else. I had my financial comfort zone, and I stayed within its boundaries. But then I started getting some invitations that challenged me to question those boundaries.

People see that price tag as a big, scary risk. It feels unsafe. And yeah, it is a bit of a risk, but there’s an even bigger risk to assess. Considering the full breadth and depth of benefits that can (rather predictably) arise from belonging to a motivated and committed group of people, isn’t it a much bigger long-term risk to never test this? Wouldn’t it be wise to test it at least a few times, just to be sure? That’s how I framed it – what if a group like this is even more amazing and beneficial than I imagine on the inside, and I never allowed myself to have that experience in my entire life? I figured that if I took the risk and it didn’t pan out, oh well, I could always earn more money. It would be a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of my life. But what if it did pan out? What if the potential gain turned out to be one of the best bets and biggest wins of my whole life?

After all, it’s fairly predictable that if you were to join a group like this, you’re going to get lots of value out of it. And that’s because you’ll do your part to make damned well sure that you do. You wouldn’t let yourself waste that kind of money. You’ll push yourself to extract the value, if only because you don’t want to look like an idiot for making a bad decision. So you’re going to do what it takes to get your money’s worth. That’s always been true for me when I’ve joined such groups. I realized that if I’m going to do this, I’d better be all-in with it and do what it takes to extract the value. Otherwise I’m going to look really foolish. Believe it or not, this is actually good motivation for getting the value. We’ll often work harder to avoid looking like a fool than we will to look like a genius. In this case the risk of loss is your friend, as weird as that may seem.

I almost didn’t join an amazing group a few years ago because I thought it wouldn’t be good timing for me. But that was actually another irrational objection, as I soon realized after pondering it more deeply. When I was invited to join, the timing wasn’t great because I had a lot of things going on at the time, but beyond that the timing was actually decent because I could always dive into it when I was ready, and I could still get plenty of value from the one-year membership even if I was only going to get 10-11 months worth. I’m really glad I didn’t miss out on that whole year just because I wasn’t going to be as available for the first month.

When is the timing ever going to feel right when you’re making the decision to create a major discontinuity in your path? Joining a group like this can feel like taking a hard turn – most likely an amazingly beneficial one – but where on your calendar have you made space for such a thing? In other to really think about this rationally, you must recognize and accept that the timing for a decision of this nature is most likely never going to feel like it fits all that well. If it does fit perfectly into your life, that’s unusual. Most people have to do whatever it takes to make it fit, as opposed to having it feel like a natural fit as soon as the invitation comes up.

In terms of making the decision to join Conscious Growth Club, I encourage you to think about the decision rationally, especially when it comes to the cost-benefit calculation. For many people, the price really isn’t such a big deal as they initially make it out to be. It feels like a big deal emotionally at first – I get that – but how does it look when you consider the big picture from a more rational perspective? Is it really such a huge expense relative to the potential gains you’ll invite into your life? Could the value be worth it to you?

That’s how I made the decision to start buying into such groups. Initially my emotional brain exploded with objections, and I almost got stuck there. Then I actually wrote down those objections and began analyzing them with my best logical thinking. I realized that if I was in a group of 100+ people who’d all paid the same amount, it was highly likely I’d get my money’s worth and then some. I knew I’d participate and make an effort, and so would the other members most likely. I knew I’d be in a group of smart people who were willing to risk some cash for the chance to team up and help each other make real progress. We’d all be on the same side, all wanting to help each other get the value we were paying for. We’d be so committed that we’d co-create the experience. Even if the program itself was only so-so, the kinds of motivated people it attracted would step up and help each other get results. The math added up. And really when I joined and reached the other side, my calculations were validated. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised that I’d vastly underestimated the full range of benefits. Hence the bullet list I shared above, which covers a lot but not even all of them.

So I encourage you to do the same. This isn’t really an emotional choice. There’s actually a very rational assessment to be made in order to make an intelligent decision. And because of the rationality it takes to join this kind of group, what you’ll find on the inside of such a group are lots of very grounded, rationally minded people. They’re enthusiastic and motivated of course, but they’re also sharp, intelligent, and down-to-earth.

You see… the $2K price for Conscious Growth Club is actually something of a rationality filter. People who can’t get past their emotional blocks aren’t going to join. They’ll get hung up on some reflexive objection like I can’t afford it or it’s not good timing. But those who can calm themselves and look at the big picture are more likely to determine that joining a group like this is a good bet with a positive expected value.

Just look around at other forms of social media these days. Haven’t you noticed that there’s been a brain drain from these services since you first joined them?

I remember when Google+ first launched some years ago. I was an early adopter and signed up right away. I actually liked it because the people I encountered there seemed very bright, especially compared to what I saw on Facebook and Twitter. But the Google+ community gradually died off, and Google finally shut it down. In the rest of the social media world, it’s been feeling like we’re stuck in a race to the bottom. They’re good places for interacting in quantity, but are there lots of quality interactions focused on making real progress towards full self-actualization? Not so much…

More and more, what I’ve found is that the smart, successful, and ambitious people are flowing into paid, private communities to connect with each other away from the constant noise and drama of social media. It’s in these private communities that people genuinely help each other to make intelligent progress. Such communities favor quality over quantity, and this is perhaps the main reason they pay off so well.

I’m not saying there aren’t good free communities out there – we hosted a large one several years ago – but they seem increasingly rare these days. By pushing for quantity over quality, these services just don’t provide very good value for smart, ambitious, growth-oriented people. They’re more likely to distract you from focusing on your goals and making real progress. This is partly why I’ve been seen paid community participation on the rise – and also why I created one.

Conscious Growth Club can’t compete with what Facebook and Instagram provides in terms of quantity, but we can and do absolutely, positively blow them away in terms of quality. Seriously, even our cat pics are better. 😉

When I ask most reasonably intelligent people, “Do you still see yourself being active on Facebook 5 years from now?” I can never seem to get a yes. Well, those who use it for business will often say yes, but not those who use it on the personal side. If you’d rather not be on Facebook for the rest of your life, then what other doors are open to you. I can think of one…

Join us or don’t join us. There are no fence sitters inside the group.

Our enrollment period for 2019 ends at midnight Pacific time on May 1st, so if you’re going to join us, please do so soon. There’s something of a welcoming party for all the new members happening inside the group right now. 🙂