Why Bigger Goals Can Be Easier to Achieve

Posted on 07/02/2022 by Boris Clair

I originally shared this post on January 6 in Conscious Growth Club’s member forums, as a follow-up to our quarterly goal planning process. I thought it would be nice to share it here as well. Many CGCers found it helpful.

Let me share an unusual insight about why it’s often easier to achieve goals that seem bigger than anything you’ve done before.

This builds upon the Chapter 1 vs Chapter 2 idea shared on yesterday’s review call, but I don’t think you need to have heard that part to understand this.

[The idea I shared on the review call was based on a common piece of advice for new fiction writers – that you should delete whatever you wrote for Chapter 1 and begin your book with Chapter 2. This is because your original Chapter 1 will typically include too much backstory and exposition, and it’s frequently better to get into the juicy parts of your story sooner. I used this as an analogy for setting goals, suggesting that people ought to skip past the Chapter 1 version of their goals (which often involve overly mental or numbers-based framing – boring!) and get into the juicy parts of Chapter 2 and beyond by focusing on the meaning, ripples, and emotional journey.]

Acknowledging Your Old Story

When I was in my scarcity phase of life, I was very sensitive to prices. Since money was tight, I saw anything free as so much better than anything paid. If something cost $5, that would feel sooooo different than free. Even $1 vs free was a big deal. If I would buy a veggie sandwich at Subway, I would skip the avocado for $1 extra, even though I loved avocado. Would that $1 difference really matter? It felt like it mattered.

There’s still a part of my mind that thinks this way today because I conditioned it to think that way in the past. But it’s also linked up with relatively low-cost expenses because that was my training data set at the time.

As my income increased, I formed different associations to more expensive items. So part of my mind still wants to run extra assessment cycles over the difference between a $5 and $10 option, but when I think about a $500 vs $1000 expense, those land in my abundance training data set, so that seems easy because I don’t have major negative associations to those kinds of expenses. Consequently, it feels like $500 expenses are cheaper than $5 ones because I have less resistance to spending an extra $500 than I do to spending $5.

Same thing goes for taxes. Paying a $50K tax bill seems easy. Paying a $1K tax bill seems more painful. Those two tax bills are associated with different training sets and different chapters of my life.

Even today I will often think more about whether a $5 expense is worth it, but I can spend $500 like it’s just free money.

This also applies to the income side. It feels difficult to try to earn an extra $100. But earning an extra $20K or $50K is easy, and earning an extra $100K just seems fun and flowing. And I think that’s because with respect to those numbers, I’m not struggling with past associations getting in my way.

So that’s an interesting oddity about moving into a fresh Chapter 2 reality. It gives you a chance to break through your old associations and write a new story for your character.

Stretching Your Intentionality

Trying to fight or overcome my character’s pre-trained tendencies keeps me stuck in Chapter 1. But if I skip ahead to Chapter 2 in my imagination, there’s a blank page where I can write something new, if I’m willing to take the leap into unexplored territory.

This is one reason it’s so important and useful to stretch your intentionality further forward. Stretch beyond the story that’s already been written by your past, and extend your mind and goals into open spaces. You can often make much faster progress that way.

This requires the willingness to stretch your character and identity. Can you start seeing yourself as a different person? It helps if you’re able to stretch your character into some unexplored territory where you can begin writing some fresh story, so you can bypass some constraints of your past story.

It’s a bit like moving to a new city or going to a new school. If no one in the new territory knows you as your past self, you have more freedom to write a fresh story. I felt like I became a different person each time I had a significant move or school change. Same goes for getting into a new social circle.

It’s extra crucial to connect with a social group that gives you room to grow and that won’t keep associating you with your Chapter 1 self. It’s best to loosen up those connections that will resist your efforts to write some fresh story for your character. I think we do a good job of this in CGC by fostering a culture that encourages exploration and change, not tying anyone to stick with their past selves. You probably won’t find many members here who’d try to talk you out of writing a fresh chapter of your life story, but I know that some members struggle with other social connections that resist those kinds of changes.

Keep in mind (and in heart) that when you break free and begin writing your Chapter 2 story, you encourage others to do the same, even if they may initially resist what you’re doing. You’re not really serving anyone by clinging to Chapter 1.

The Power of Unwritten Story

One pattern I see frequently in people who have some great transformational breakthroughs is that they stop focusing their attention where the resistance is, and they head for fresh territory. They start writing their new story where the story hasn’t been written yet.

Chapter 1 is the story of the old reality. That’s where all the problems and difficulties are. It’s so tempting to focus your attention there by saying, “I need to clear all of this out, and then I can begin writing Chapter 2.” But that will almost always keep you stuck in Chapter 1, which will just keep generating more of the same kinds of problems to anchor you there. You’ll probably never make it to Chapter 2 with that approach. Usually life doesn’t reward this approach very well either. You probably won’t get much cooperation, so you’ll have to self-power your way through every little problem and project, which becomes exhausting after a while. I really don’t recommend this.

It seems like a cheat to start writing Chapter 2 before you’ve finished Chapter 1, but is it really? If you were writing a novel or a movie script, would your best inspiration and motivation come from writing about the old reality? Do you think George Lucas got inspired to write Star Wars by thinking about a farmer boy with some droids? Did he finish writing Chapter 1 before giving much thought to what would come next? Seriously… who finds the inspiration for great story from anything in Chapter 1? You may begin writing there, but the inspiration for the story comes from much further along.

When people focus on Chapter 1 goals – the telltale signs being that the goals are super objective (often numbers-based), lack motivational fire, and don’t involve any meaningful character or identity shifts – they usually don’t get very far with them. And they often wonder what’s the point. And they’re right. There’s little point in working on such goals. It’s like watching Luke Skywalker setting quarterly goals to optimize the farm.

You’re munching on your popcorn watching Luke on the screen, and your mind is wondering when the real story will begin because you know that you’re just seeing the pre-transformational backstory during the first several minutes.

And oddly it’s easier for Luke to become a Jedi than it would be for him to optimize the farm. When he leaves Tatooine, he’s free to write fresh story. While his new reality may seem more daunting, it’s also 100X more motivating, and that makes all the difference in the galaxy.

He still, however, takes his (newest) farm droids with him on his new journey, so he doesn’t entirely break free from his past. But that doesn’t matter because he’s writing such a completely different story that the droids can’t offer any meaningful resistance. They get swept up in his new story too and become helpful allies. C3PO’s whining serves as humor and to remind us how much Luke has grown, but C3PO is powerless to derail Luke’s new story.

I find that to be the case in real life as well. When writing fresh story, I still carry elements of the past with me, but they no longer serve as anchors to resistance. The new story gives those old story elements new meaning. For instance, fretting over a $5 expense serves as a reminder to appreciate abundance and not to take it for granted, and that actually sweetens the experience. It also makes it easy to relate to people who struggle with finances because that mode of thinking is still with me. I wrote some extra script after that part of my story, but scarcity thinking is still part of my story. The scarcity mindset plays a different role now, anchoring to gratitude and compassion instead of to resistance and frustration. Sometimes I think of it as cute, much as you could see R2D2 in that way.

Finding Your Best Motivational Fuel

Chapter 1 doesn’t provide the motivational fuel to get through Chapter 1. That fuel comes from hooking your body, mind, heart, and spirit into Chapter 2 and beyond. Once you anchor your intentions into your new reality and your new identity, your perspective on Chapter 1 will shift. How this plays out is different for everyone, but it generally involves finding shortcuts that speed you through Chapter 1 and/or realizing that some of the old problems don’t even need to be solved or dealt with anymore.

Did Luke ever go back to Tatooine and wrap up his affairs with the farm? Did he inherit the place from his uncle and aunt after they died? Did the Empire seize it for unpaid taxes? Did he turn it into a rebel burner commune? Does it matter?

It’s hard to find people who regret getting into their Chapter 2 story, even when the transition out of Chapter 1 is messy and inelegant (which it usually is). The #1 regret is that people wish they’d done it sooner, often many years sooner. People regret spending so much time figuring out, optimizing, and trying to advance their Chapter 1 story. In retrospect, they look back and wonder why it took them so long to progress to the juiciest and most engaging parts of their story arc. In many cases they waited until life kicked them out of Chapter 1, and they were forced by circumstances to finally get into Chapter 2, but then it wasn’t the Chapter 2 experience they’d have chosen if they’d done it more consciously and deliberately.

Look at your goals and ask yourself if you’re drawing motivation, inspiration, and story progression from Chapter 2 and beyond… or if you’re still trying to optimize the farm. You can tinker on the farm – that’s your choice – but life won’t likely open up the floodgates of support and synchronous aid till you make a more interesting story pitch.

Your own body is unlikely to cooperate much with a Chapter 1 story pitch either. It probably won’t fill your heart with the best motivation and your mind with the best idea flow until you give it a compelling reason to amp up the energy flow. That compelling reason won’t be found in Chapter 1.

Timing Your Passion

Posted on 13/10/2021 by Boris Clair

When some aspect of life feels forced, and you have to push through with a lot of discipline to make progress, it might mean that the timing is wrong for you. If you feel like putting it off, maybe do exactly that.

Other people may tell you that you need to advance some area of life now, but is that absolutely necessary?

When I was in high school, I loved math and invested lots of extra time in it, so I improved at math more quickly than in other subjects. I got A+’s in my math classes, but that still wasn’t enough for me. I befriended the school’s best math teachers and did extra projects with them. I was eager to learn anything else they could introduce me to, so I learned a lot more than the standard curriculum.

Following my passion helped me become a stand-out student, and that was instrumental in my becoming Captain of our school’s first Academic Decathlon team and President of the Math Club. More opportunities fell into my lap with little resistance as I simply pursued what I enjoyed. I received glowing letters of recommendation for college with phrases like “best student in my career” and “this kid is a heavyweight.”

I didn’t invest extra time and energy in math because I was outcome-focused. I did it because I enjoyed the discovery process. Learning more about math connected with my interest in computer programming, so every bit of extra math I learned gave me an excuse to dabble in more coding experiments. The more math I learned, the more I could do coding-wise. So this was really fueled by the joy of the exploration.

Contrast this with history classes, which I found boring and tedious. I still got A’s in those classes, but I did the minimum to achieve that. Studying history at that time felt forced, effortful, and pointless. I cared more about the grades for those classes than the knowledge. I framed those classes as “nap time” or “snooze fests.” I especially dreaded being assigned history papers to write. I didn’t like reading about dead people and their past problems, and I certainly didn’t care to write about them. Everything I did for this subject felt like a waste of time.

And I was generally right about that. It was a relative waste of time for me to study history at that particular time in my life. It mostly just slowed me down from investing even more in what I genuinely cared about. History was a drag that added friction to my learning experience. I think I would have enjoyed and appreciated the educational experience a lot more without it.

Procrastination vs. Flow

When I got home from school, I usually did my math homework first. If I had long-term assignments in math, I’d typically do them the first day they were assigned, and I’d turn them in early. I never seemed to procrastinate on math.

With history it was the opposite. I put off assignments till the last minute, often having to stay up late to finish them (or to finally start them) the night before they were due. That was stressful, but I couldn’t get myself to even look at those assignments any earlier than necessary. I felt such tremendous resistance towards them.

So what was the point in doing those history assignments with that mindset? In reality it was pretty pointless. I did the assignments to satisfy other people’s expectations and to avoid getting in trouble. My brain quickly forgot whatever I was supposed to be learning, considering it useless info and unworthy of retention or integration. The A’s I got in history classes were hollow accomplishments; they were more like receipts for enduring punishments.

If you dread working on something, how productive are you really? What if instead of forcing yourself to attempt the dreadful path, you flowed your energy towards something that truly inspired you? Note that what inspires you may not even seem like work at all. It will probably seem a lot more like play, which may initially trigger some feelings of guilt, like you’re playing too much and not being productive.

I find it much better to let other people resist my playful approach to productivity, since I can still be productive while they’re being skeptical. It’s much harder to be productive while I’m feeling resistance to the task at hand. So I’ve learned to prioritize my relationship with my work above my relationship with other people’s approval of my approach.

Shifting Passions

Over the decades since high school, I experienced shifts in my passions, as many people do. Subjects I once hated eventually seduced me, including history and public speaking. When I was in high school, I didn’t anticipate that. I didn’t imagine that I’d ever enjoy studying history or giving speeches.

These days I like learning about history, and I do so voluntarily. I read new history books often, and I make a concerted effort to fill in gaps in my knowledge regarding how different parts of the world have been evolving over time. I care about this subject because I have a different context for it today. In high school studying history seemed like a waste of time, and it was. But today I can connect the dots between what I learn about history with my personal development work. I have places to slot this knowledge that I didn’t have before, so the learning experience today is a lot richer.

I also have the freedom to skip the dreadful parts of learning and focus on the parts I enjoy. I don’t have to write pointless papers on subtopics I don’t care about, just so someone else can grade me. Instead I can go for a walk and ponder the ideas in my own way. I can journal about them. Sometimes I will integrate what I learn about history into new articles or course lessons. Whereas studying history was impractical in high school, today I can study it in a much more meaningful way.

Moreover, I can also visit places in person. Last month I stood inside Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were debated and signed. I walked the streets where Ben Franklin and George Washington used to walk. I thought about what it might have been like to live during the 1700s and face the problems and challenges they faced. That gave me a different perspective than I’d ever get from a book. I also gained a different perspective on democracy, and why it’s coming under such strain today.

So I’ve learned that ruling out an area of investment doesn’t rule it out for life. I can circle back to it if and when I’m ready. What may feel like a nagging “should” for many years may feel like a delightful gift further down the road. If I invest at the wrong time, I’m probably just going to waste a lot of energy.

Favoring the Choicest Investments

When I invest in a genuine passion or interest, I can advance more quickly and easily. The experience is more fun and engaging and less stressful. I experience less fatigue, and I have more endurance. My brain absorbs and retains knowledge more readily, eager to connect the dots with my existing knowledge base. I’m happier, I’m more productive, and I feel more satisfied with the flow of my life.

So what’s the point in forcing advancement in a more sluggish and painful way? I don’t see a good reason to do that, except to appease others, so I try to live my life in such a way as to remove (or at least to savagely curtail) such obligations and expectations. I’m fine with committing myself to certain paths, including those that involve significant obligations, and long as I’m choosing what to offer and to whom, so I can ensure that my commitments align with my genuine interests.

Instead of developing a stronger tolerance for feelings of dread and anxiety, I think I’ve become more sensitive to such feelings, and I choose to honor them instead of trying to repress them.

Sometime I wonder how people are able to show up for jobs they dislike day after day. Perhaps they have other outlets for their passions, so it doesn’t feel so bad, just as I had my enjoyment of math to balance my resistance to history classes. Do we really need that kind of balance though?

I’m not saying we need to be perfect, but I think a healthy minimum standard for one’s career path would be to make it at least 50% passion work, so at least half of your time is spent doing activities you like and appreciate. I think that’s a fairly low standard though, so personally I prefer to aim for 90%+ in a typical week. I’d say that this month I’ve been pretty close to 100% so far.

I also know that what seems unappealing or even dreadful at one time in my life may become a lot more interesting at some future point. That which I once dreaded I may come to enjoy. A non-passion can transform into a passion. I’ve seen that happen repeatedly.

Passions too, can eventually burn out, and then fresh invitations arise to take their place. This is one reason I deliberately designed my career path with a huge amount of freedom and flexibility instead of boxing myself into some tiny niche. Some people thought that was a bad idea and said that I should “niche down,” but I’ve noticed that I seem to be a lot happier and more fulfilled than those who offer such unimaginative advice. How many times have I seen someone like that dreading their work after just a couple of years, whereas I still love and enjoy the richness and variety of my work in this field after 17+ years? I credit my past self with recognizing that I would eventually outgrow an overly narrow niche, and I’m glad he was wise enough to see that flexibility was essential for my long-term happiness.

Keeping Passion Fresh

Sometimes the way we do things grows stale, and we need to freshen up the approach to keep it interesting.

My latest project is designing a new online workshop that I’ll deliver on October 29-31, so a little over two weeks from now. I shared back in April that we’d be doing an online workshop on these days, and now I’m going through the design process to create it. This will be our first 100% online workshop, after having done 16 in-person workshops from 2009 to 2016. So that aspect alone helps to freshen up the experience, at least on the delivery side.

However, I’m also approaching the design process in a fresh and inspiring way. I’m using several AI creative tools (based on the GPT-3 language model) to help me design the workshop. The AI isn’t writing content for me. Instead I’m using it to explore the idea space more thoroughly than I otherwise would. I’ve been sharing updates about this in Conscious Growth Club for the past several weeks. I’m really enjoying this because it’s such a unique and modern experience. I like discovering where the AI is weak and where it’s strong, so I can combine its intelligence with my own to create an even better workshop. I’m well into the design process, and I really like how it’s shaping up. I’m also way ahead of schedule, much like I experienced with math classes back in the day.

What’s especially interesting about GPT-3, at least from my perspective, is that it was trained on about 10% of the Internet, including my blog, so it knows a lot about me, my past ideas, and my writing style. Hence I can even invite it to generate extra ideas that it thinks I might conceive of. Since I love to explore new approaches, I’m really enjoying this experience, and I find it super motivating to work on this project each day. I think it’s going to be very beneficial for the attendees as well. It’s a truly unique experience to work with an AI that was partly trained on my own creative work.

Consider how an AI like can look further ahead than humans in a game like Chess or Go (see the AlphaGo documentary on YouTube to learn more about this, which I highly recommend). On the one hand, some people may see this as dehumanizing or threatening, but that’s a weak and disempowering frame to use. A better frame is to realize that humans can collaborate with AI to become better players. They can discover new insights about a domain by using such AI as an exploration tool. For instance, in the game of Go, AlphaGo discovered new strategies and tactics that humans missed, including the most masterful Go players on earth. So this is a beautiful new mode of human-machine collaboration. Something similar happened in the Chess world.

If you’re entirely outcome-focused, then such an AI may seem like a threat, especially if it has the ability to beat you in achieving your desired outcome.

But if you’re more process-oriented, then you can leverage AI to enjoy the learning and discovery process even more. The AI will happily assist you in becoming a better player. I feel fortunate to have access to AI tools that have been trained in domains that interest me. GPT-3 is technically a language model, but as many people are discovering, that’s an oversimplification of its capabilities. I regard it as a fascinating tool for creative exploration within the space of ideas.

Instead of exploring strategies for the game of Go, I’m using AI tools to explore fresh ways to frame, structure, and present ideas for the upcoming workshop. The AI doesn’t help me work faster – in fact, my design process is a lot slower with it, which is why I’m giving myself lots of extra time for this project. But the AI helps me go a lot deeper. So I’m using it to create a better quality experience, and this aligns very nicely with savoring the creative journey.

With the AI’s help, I can generate and consider dozens of permutations of related ideas. I can explore how those ideas link together in many more ways. I can look further around the edges of ideas for related concepts that I might otherwise miss. I can leverage this type of AI to become better at my work. And in all honesty, I’m loving the experience, which I’ve been exploring for about six weeks now.

So I suppose that if you attend the October workshop – and I’ll share more details about that soon – you’ll be attending one of the first-ever personal growth events co-created with human and machine intelligence working together collaboratively. It’s going to be a unique experience, and since the AI has been trained on a vast amount of human knowledge, I think you’ll find it surprisingly human in terms of its depth.

So that’s an example of how I’ve been freshening up my passion. Much as I covered in the Amplify course earlier this year, I find it crucial to keep my creative processes fresh, interesting, and growth-oriented. To me this is inseparable from doing quality work. If I really enjoy the creative journey, the work turns out better, and this yields a better experience for those who partake of it.

Incidentally, if you want to get the details for the upcoming workshop via email, just make sure you’re signed up for my email list, and I’ll surely notify you and let you know how to sign up.

Choosing Enjoyment

Why try to force progress with painful lurching when you could invest in enjoyable and motivated flow instead? You’ll get better results from processes you enjoy instead of trying to use processes you resist. When you catch yourself dreading the tasks on your plate, question why you’re doing them at all. Would you still opt to do them if no one else cared whether you did them or not? Are you doing them to appease others? To avoid trouble? How much longer do you want to live your life that way?

When I work creatively with the AI tools, they never tell me what I should do. They don’t nag me to do something boring or tedious. They voice no expectations of me. They just show up and co-create with me, and they always let me lead, so I can relax and enjoy the flow of exploration and discovery. Why not develop this kind of relationship with life and work overall? If following other people isn’t working for you, you can lead yourself to a happier life. For many people that’s the only approach that works.

A good place to start is to set your intention. Many years ago I decided to do work that I enjoyed. I decided to run my business in a sustainably enjoyable way. A huge part of that included refusing to work with anyone I didn’t like working with. When life offered me the opposite, which it often did, I rejected those offers. I realized that I couldn’t be tempted by them if I wanted to be happy and fulfilled.

Back in high school, if I had felt as free to choose my path as I do now, I would have told my history teachers that I was declining their offer. I would have trusted and honored my feelings a lot more. At least today I can be grateful for how those lessons, among many others, helped me discover a lighter and more playful path forward.

Now please excuse me while I load up some alien intelligence to flow into some fun and lively design work. And stay tuned for more details on the upcoming workshop…

Units of Meaning

Posted on 06/10/2021 by Boris Clair

On Monday’s live quarterly planning review call in Conscious Growth Club – which spanned more than 5 hours – I shared some tips about thinking in units of meaning rather than units of time.

Many years ago I tried a system of writing 4 hours per day. I did it for 30 days straight but really didn’t like it. It didn’t help me create the kind of relationship that I wanted to have with writing, and it took daily discipline to keep going with it. I felt relieved when I stopped. That might be a fine system for someone else, but it wasn’t a good fit for me.

Each day I filled the 4 hours with writing and editing, and I would stop shortly after I hit that time. The writing I produced during that time was stunted and uninspired.

A better system for me is that when I start writing a piece, I begin with an inspired idea and then do my best to finish, edit, and publish a meaningful piece the same day. It doesn’t matter whether it takes 45 minutes or 5 hours. I like to forget about the time, enter a timeless state, and enjoy the flow of ideas and energy and the feelings of connection and centeredness. Thinking about the passage of time or trying to hit a time quota or word count is entirely the wrong framing for me to do my best writing. It’s much better for me to focus on one article (or one course lesson) as a unit of meaning. It takes as long as it takes, and I prefer not to stop till it’s fully done and published.

Trying to write for 4 hours fatigues me. But writing and publishing an article energizes me, even if it takes 4+ hours. The framing I use has a huge impact on my motivation, energy flow, and enjoyment of the experience.

The Most Meaningful Step

The act of publishing is the most meaningful step in this process. When an article gets published, other people can read it, and I can also mentally let go of that piece of work. Then I can take a break and move on to something else.

Last year I published something new to my blog every single day, and it was relatively easy. If I had tried to write for an hour per day or to write 1000 words per day, I think it would have been a miserable year, but by focusing on units of meaning (i.e. daily published articles or videos), I actually enjoyed the experience.

This also aligns with what I shared in the previous post about finding your best motivational fuel. When you spend a day at Disneyland, are thinking about what you can accomplish within the span of an hour? Probably not. You’re probably just deciding what ride to go on next. Time isn’t a unit of meaning at Disneyland. Units of meaning include going on rides, seeing shows, watching parades, having a meal, taking a cool photo, and so on. A day at Disneyland is about racking up meaningful experiences. And the peak experiences will often matter more than the overall quantity of experiences.

Do you fill your days with blocks or time or with units of meaning? Which do you find more naturally motivating? Which do you find more satisfying afterwards?

If all I do in a day is publish a new article or do a CGC coaching call, that makes the day feel pretty satisfying. But if I put in 10 hours and don’t accomplish any real units of meaning because I just picked away at a bunch of minor items, the day doesn’t feel nearly as satisfying.

Having satisfying experiences is good for motivation and momentum. Putting in a lot of hours, by itself, is not. If there aren’t enough satisfying units of meaning in those hours, the hours can become draining.

Sustainable Motivational

October 1st was the 17-year anniversary of my blog, so I’m now gliding into my 18th year of continuous blogging. I still enjoy it and intend to continue.

How many other bloggers have lasted this long – especially without leaning on guest posting? I receive almost daily requests from would-be guest posters, which I just delete (sometimes in bulk). Some time ago I asked my readers if they wanted guest posts, and they were almost unanimously opposed to it. And working with guest posters feels less meaningful to me than simply writing.

I still don’t write on a set schedule. I have no weekly or monthly quota for new material. I just write and publish something new when an inspired idea strikes me, and I sense it would be worth sharing. This attitude has yielded a happy, healthy, and sustainable relationship with blogging.

One thing that keeps my motivation strong and sustainable is that I primarily work in units of meaning, not time.

When I complete a unit of work that feels meaningful to me, it means I’ve reached a good stopping point where I feel satisfied with what I’ve done. My brain is able to relax and let go of certain items because the thought energy of those items has run its course.

If I write part of an article and stop for the day, my mind is stuck with an open loop. This is neither satisfying nor restful. If I did this regularly, it would add stress and tension to my life. So almost every article, video, and audio that I’ve published was conceived, written, recorded (if necessary), edited, and published all in the same day, usually in one continuous flow of action. For longer pieces I may have taken some breaks along the way, but I generally prefer no breaks or only very short breaks. Once I start a piece, I like to stick with it till it’s 100% done and published.

Meaningful Units of Coaching

I realize that I prefer a similar frame for our group coaching calls.

It’s not a great unit of meaning to try to stop at a certain fixed time for each person or for the whole call, so we don’t really have a set time limit. I’ve tried to lean in that direction sometimes, and it never quite felt right.

It feels more natural when we reach what feels like a reasonable transition point. Maybe we didn’t get to address every possible angle, but at least we can discuss and process what feels like a healthy unit of meaning for each person. We don’t have to stop mid-thought just because we hit a certain time.

This approach is actually more energizing and less fatiguing for me than if we are leaving too many open thought loops unresolved.

Fairness is an important value, and I consider whether fairness ought to be based on time or on units of meaning. Is it fair if I talk to one person for 15 minutes and another for 30 minutes? From a time perspective, that may seem unfair. But it takes a variable amount of time to reach a good unit of meaning for each person. One person may have a straightforward challenge that takes less time to address, which another person may desire some help unraveling a more complex, multi-faceted issue.

I like to think of fairness as doing my best to offer everyone who does the live coaching a healthy unit of meaning. I like for each person to feel satisfied with what we’ve covered. I still pay attention to the time because while I’m coaching one person, other people are watching and waiting – and also sharing their own comments as we go. So I’m aware of the passage of time, but I try not to be too aware of it. I find it best to stay in tune with the meaning and purpose of what we’re doing.

If someone brings up a really thorny or emotional issue on a call, it wouldn’t feel good to stop prematurely. I want to help them take a step forward, and sometimes that takes extra time for certain kinds of problems. What happens if we’ve been talking for 20 minutes already, and now the tears start flowing? Am I really going to say, “Uh well, I feel for you, but your time is up, so let’s bring up the next person”? No, we’re not going to do that.

Even when I did one-on-one coaching, I would charge a certain amount per phone call, but there was no set time limit for the call. We only ended the call when the other person was satisfied. I was never the one to end it. We would usually talk continuously for a few hours. If we needed to, we would take a bathroom break and keep right on going. I think this was a much better way of aligning our units of meaning than if we only talked for a fixed length of time.

Ignoring the Clock

Being too mindful of the clock can ruin otherwise good experiences. Trying to hit a certain time target can you off before you cross the threshold into a great unit of meaning. I made some big mistakes there when I younger, especially when trying to wrangle my creative projects to hit arbitrary deadlines.

In Conscious Growth Club, some of our group coaching calls have been going really long lately, at least by the standards you might see in other groups. The durations of our last 4 calls were: 5:34, 4:08, 4:47, and 5:05. During each call I might coach about a dozen people.

This is a continuous flow of “work” for me, usually with zero breaks. I think maybe twice I’ve taken a quick bathroom break partway through, and then we kept right on going.

What seems to surprise some people is that my energy, focus, and enthusiasm stay high throughout these calls.

I’m sure it helps that I eat plants, exercise regularly, and sleep restfully. But I think it’s also important that I do this coaching in a way that feels motivating and not overly draining. Sometimes I do feel a bit tired after the calls, but normally that only hits me when I stop; then some parts of my brain feel like they’re going into rest mode. While I’m doing the coaching, however, I normally feel super engaged with it. Even after a 4-5 hour call, I sometimes don’t want to close Zoom and log off.

I think a key reason for this is that during the call, we rack up so many units of meaning that the experience feels very purposeful, intimate, and energizing. I also really love the mutually supportive vibe that we’ve created in the group as we help people solve problems, figure out tricky decisions, and take their desired next steps. I think I’m boosted by the positive, compassionate, and often playful energy that we create together on these calls.

We started doing these group coaching calls in 2017, and I enjoy them even more today than I did during the first year or two. Even though the calls have gotten considerably longer, the experience has somehow felt increasingly timeless, as if time matters a lot less than I originally thought it should. Meaning and purpose matter so much more than time.

On Monday we did a 5+ hour quarterly review call, which is a process we do once per quarter. This was our longest one ever. And oddly I found this call the least fatiguing one of all. In the past I would watch the clock more when preparing the reviews and also when sharing them, and this time I relaxed more regarding the time. This allowed me to share even more than usual.

I shared my commentary on the goals of 21 CGC members on the call, and my notes for the call (which took days to prepare) were more than 21,000 words. I used those notes to talk about members’ goals for 5 hours continuously with zero breaks. Even as we got to the end, my energy was still good, and I was still very much enjoying it. The main limitation was my voice’s ability to hold up for that long, and Rachelle graciously helped by bringing me some ginger tea with lemon to sip.

We have another regular coaching call this afternoon in CGC, and I’m looking forward to that as well. Interestingly it seems that the more I relax about the time and just go with the flow of the experience, transitioning based on units of meaning, that seems to yield the best motivation and enthusiasm and the least fatigue. So it’s really the same pattern I discovered with writing by applied to coaching. Ignore the clock as much as possible, and stay present to the flow of the moment.

It’s fascinating that by ignoring the clock, several hours of continuous work can feel motivating and energizing, but even one hour may feel draining if you’re stuck dwelling on the time too much.

When you’ve experienced some of the best flow of your life, feeling energized instead of drained, how much were you watching the clock?

As you flow through more activities and experiences, consider thinking in units of meaning instead of units of time. Instead of constraining your life based on days and times, allow yourself to flow through units of meaning, sticking with each one long enough until you reach a satisfying and natural transition point. Seek to discover the units of meaning that energize you instead of remaining loyal to units that deplete you.

What Is Better Motivational Fuel Than Stress or Anxiety?

Posted on 29/09/2021 by Boris Clair

If you don’t want to use stress or anxiety as your primary motivational fuel, what kind of fuel would you like to use instead? What can you say about your desired fuel source for taking action and getting results?

I like to think of spending a day at an amusement park as a good analogy for my ideal type of work motivation.

When Rachelle and I spend a few days together at Disneyland, we always take a lot of action and have days full of fun together.

We don’t need anxiety, fear, or worry to motivate us to act.

We virtually never go for just one day. We typically go for 3-4 days in a row. This eliminates any feelings of scarcity since whatever we miss one day, we could easily do on a different day. Especially when we go on weekdays, this gives a sense of time abundance, so we can go at a relaxed pacing and not feel stressed or pressured.

Our intentions are simple: Enjoy the day. Have experiences we’ll appreciate. Spend time outside. Walk a lot. Enjoy tasty vegan food. Play together. Be silly. Create beautiful memories. Help others have good experiences too.

I’ve probably spent close to 100 days of my life at Disneyland. I’ve been going there every decade since the 1970s. Not once have I ever just sat there and procrastinated. I always took lots of action. I always put many miles on my shoes. I always felt pleasantly motivated to keep taking action and having different experiences all day long.

That made me super curious. Why is it that Disneyland is so good at motivating me to take action – all day, every day… even for 30 days in a row without a day off and not feeling like I need a break?

As I looked more closely at pre-existing sources of motivation that I liked, I generalized and abstracted the patterns from them. Then I injected more of those successful patterns into other areas of life, like my creative projects. This included strengthening qualities like curiosity, exploration, immersion, playfulness, variety, stimulation, making projects social, etc. I gradually discarded the fuel sources that didn’t work well, such as old patterns I learned from school that involved dull assignments, time pressure, and a huge disconnection from meaning and purpose.

Have you ever had a day where you found yourself taking lots of action with ease? Have you ever encountered a source of motivation that felt very aligned and pleasant? If so, study the heck out of that. See if you can have similar experiences again, and observe those experiences from the inside. Discover why that works so well for you, even if such experiences have been rare in your life so far. Then do your best to abstract and transplant similar qualities into your approach to work and other parts of life.

In other words, instead of trying to force yourself to run on a misaligned fuel source, identify the best fuel sources you’ve found so far, and inject them into your life on a much grander scale. Isn’t this what we’d like the planet to do as well – to replace nasty and stinky fuel with green and clean fuel?

When I was a kid, there was a huge contrast between a day at school and a day at Disneyland. School was dreadfully boring but also fun. Disneyland days were fun but scarce. If I could have made a free choice back then, there’s no way I’d ever have chosen a day of school if I could have chosen Disneyland instead. Back then I didn’t have that option, but today I can discover and use whatever motivational fuel suits me best. I don’t have to settle for boring work days. I can do my work in a way that’s fun and engaging for me.

When I’m at Disneyland, I have no boss, so in my work life, I don’t have a boss either. It’s more fun and rewarding to make my own decisions about what to do next. Then I can follow my natural motivational flow wherever it takes me, just like I’d always do at Disneyland.

At Disneyland there’s no fixed schedule (except for some optional shows and parades). So I schedule very few items on my calendar. Most days my calendar is blank. I appreciate having most of my days free of any appointments.

At Disneyland I’m surrounded by a field of perpetual invitations. There are always plenty of interesting things to explore. So I like having a work life rich in interesting experiences to explore. I want to feel like there are plenty of good invitations present at all times.

At Disneyland I’m surrounded by playful people who are enjoying themselves. Is that so hard to create in one’s work life too? It starts by saying no to the opposite.

At Disneyland I get to make tons of micro-choices, most of which will turn out well no matter which direction I go. These kinds of conditions can be recreated in business too, starting at the level of intention.

Today I would often rather work than go to Disneyland or go on vacation. I enjoy a work life that includes lots of exploration and stimulating creative work. I get to engage with growth-oriented people in Conscious Growth Club every day. I work at a pacing that feels good to me, speeding up when I want to go faster and slowing down when I prefer a more relaxed pacing. That didn’t happen by itself, and I didn’t begin my entrepreneurial journey with this mindset. Mostly I learned this the hard way, eventually concluding that trying to get myself to work productively based on my initial default approach was just awful.

Discovering better motivational fuel required leaning away from what I learned about work and life when I was younger. I had to discard the expectations and assumptions that had taught me to motivate myself with stress, worry, anxiety, time pressure, fear, competition, satisfying others’ expectations, money, etc. That was not easy because a part of me was conditioned to think it was irresponsible or impossible to expect work to be interesting, engaging, and highly motivating most of the time. It was only by delving deeper into that zone of trouble and dropping the unnecessary shame and guilt about it that I found much better and longer lasting motivational fuel.

Does any of this ring true for you as well? Have you been socially conditioned to steer away from your best sources of motivation, so you can be controlled more easily?

Do you ever worry that if you really leaned into your best motivational fuel, it might create some negative social consequences for you? Have you ever thought about simply letting those consequences play out?

One question that really got to me was: What kind of life will I live if I regularly – instead of rarely – use the power of my sparkiest motivational fuel?

I find that there’s a certain wildness to my best motivational fuel. I don’t have full control of it. I can’t just lock it into a set of fixed rules. Sometimes it will cooperate with structure, but other times it will rebel against too much structure because it loves to go with the flow, wherever that leads.

Working with your most powerful motivational fuel takes practice and patience, and your ability to understand and predict its behavior will improve over time. Initially you may not trust it, worrying that it may be too wild, too reckless, or too irresponsible and that it might get you into trouble. And initially that may indeed seem to be true. But the more you dance with this fuel source, the more you may come to trust it.

I felt like I had to go through a transitional phase first where this fuel source pulled me well out of my comfort zone to get me further away from my old assumptions and habits. It crushed the parts of my life that weren’t working well anyway, even though I resisted such purging at the time.

This powerful fuel showed me glimpses of what life could be like through peak experiences, and that left me with an even bigger contrast when I tried to lean back on old fuel sources that were far less stimulating.

Do you have to do this perfectly to improve your results? Nope. Even making small tweaks to your motivational fuel can make a meaningful difference. But imagine what could happen if the easygoing flow of inspired action became your everyday experience?

While it may seem indulgent to delve into experiences that motivate you with ease, I highly recommend it. I had some insightful breakthroughs by doing more of what I found naturally fun and motivating – and learning to do that guilt-free. This enabled me to keep improving other aspects of life, such that there isn’t such a huge contrast between work days and fun days anymore. Now I tend to enjoy both about equally well, just in different ways. And I don’t have to lean on stress or anxiety to self-motivate.

When you get in tune with the flow of your best motivational fuel, life is much easier and more enjoyable. Long-standing problems finally get solved as if they were no big deal to begin with. Scarcity leaves, and abundance becomes your new reality.

Remember that more is possible. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been stuck with weak motivational fuel. You can always switch to a different fuel source. Instead of using money as fuel, you could try meaning and purpose. Instead of using obligation, you could try heart-aligned service. Instead of using stress and worry, you could try fun and playfulness.

This is a deeply personal exploration. What fuels me may not fuel you. So don’t just assume you can copy my fuel sources and expect them to work for you equally well. Don’t look to Disneyland for motivational clues if you hate Disneyland. Look into your own past for the clues that life is giving you. Be grateful for the gift of those clues, and follow them to your own best sources of motivation.

Upgrading My Hardware Tools

Posted on 14/08/2021 by Boris Clair

As part of my garage decluttering project this summer, I refactored and upgraded my hardware tools. I thought some readers might enjoy seeing the before and after pics of this part of the project, especially since it’s easy to see the changes visually.

I hadn’t personally selected or bought most of my old tools. They were almost entirely hand-me-downs from my dad and grandfather, most of them decades old. A few items I picked up at swap meets last century. The overall collection was a mishmash of ugly items with some redundancy, consisting of odds and ends that other people no longer wanted.

While most of these tools were technically functional (if I lower my standards for defining the word functional), my inner relationship with this assortment of tools was pretty blah. I typically saw this collection as ugly and disorderly baggage from the past.

Did these tools spark joy? That’s an easy no. Actually it’s an easy hell no. With few exceptions this felt like someone else’s tool collection, not really my own. So I saw an opportunity to remake this part of my life in a more deliberate way.

When I began sorting through these tools, I learned that I had 17 different hex wrenches (aka Allen wrenches) but only in 6 different sizes. I had two 10″ adjustable wrenches and two 8″ adjustable wrenches, none of which were good at holding their positions when used, so I had to keep my thumb on the adjuster when using them. I had a bunch of crusty wood chisels that I’ve never used in my life. In a long line of male relatives, apparently I’m the first who isn’t into making his own furniture.

Many items were coated in substances that were last seen in Voldemort’s rez pot… if you were to remove baby V and simmer the soupy remains into a thick sludge, smear it on tools, and then bake at 450º F for 35-45 minutes.

It’s possible that some of these tools might violate California’s Prop 65 if they were sold today, not necessarily from what they were originally made of but from whatever has coated them over the years.

Old Tools

Here are some pics of the old collection. Welcome to the Island of Misfit Toys!

I remember using these small screwdrivers (below) when I built my own PC in 2004.

This old power drill’s battery keeps its charge for just a few minutes, and it’s so slow that I can only use it on drywall… maybe particle board on a good day. If I ever want to use it, I always have to charge the battery first since the battery won’t hold a charge in storage.

I’d normally feel a mild sense of dread whenever I had to use this drill, so sometimes I’d prefer to use an ancient hand-crank drill instead. That hand drill wasn’t a great choice either since it was designed for right-handers, and I’m a leftie, so I either have to use it right-handed or turn the drill in a way that feels unnatural for me. That isn’t so good for safety reasons.

Here are some old flashlights, an etcher that I’ve never used, and a plug-in drill that only takes tiny bits.

Remember when Maglites were cool? Yes – the 80s. Admittedly I bought those myself… couldn’t resist the 2-pack. And I did at least use them a lot.

I had 2 old socket wrench sets, neither of which I liked. One had a broken extender – the small metal ball bearing fell out of it, so it wouldn’t stay in place.

At the bottom of this toolbox was a gooey substance I couldn’t identify – I think that substance may have moved by itself one time, and I’m pretty sure it would emit light on Tuesdays.

I didn’t love these old metal toolboxes, but at least they were functional. My dad is from Indiana, so I’m sure the Indy 500 toolbox was something he bought.

Almost all of the old items have been sorted and donated (and cleaned to the extent possible without resorting to magic). Hopefully they’ll be appreciated by someone somewhere.

Starting Fresh

I decided to start fresh by building a tool collection that I would like, based on the kinds of projects I typically do around the house and garage. I spent a good bit of time researching the latest tools and decided what would be a good fit.

I’m not an auto mechanic or a carpenter, so I don’t need the most amazing or durable items, but I didn’t want dirt cheap items that were likely to disappoint me. I wanted tools that I would like and appreciate, both when I saw them and when I used them. So I used appreciation as my main standard for making selections. I kept asking, “Am I likely to appreciate this?”

I wanted to compile a set of tools that would feel abundant and empowering but not excessive for my needs. I appreciate abundance but not to the point of ridiculous excess. I didn’t replace some items with equivalent tools if I sensed that I would probably never need those types of tools (such as wood chisels). If I felt I would later regret a purchase, I avoided it.

I made a few mistakes and did some returns / exchanges, but overall I’ve been pleased with my initial picks. I’ve only had a chance to test some of these tools so far, but I look forward to a healthy relationship with them for many years to come.

I got most of these items via Amazon, and some I picked up locally at Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Costco.

New Tools

Here are some pics of the new tools I gradually acquired. After decades of used tools, I wanted to start with fresh energy.

I got new 3 new tape measures (two 16’ and one 12’), all self-locking. I tend to use these a lot, so I got one for my home office, one for the garage (toolbox), and one for upstairs.

Why aren’t all tape measures self-locking? When do you ever want to pull it out and have it immediately slide back into the housing? When I pull mine out, I want it to stay long and strong by default… till I’m ready to release it.

There are two new 12-piece ratcheting wrench sets (SAE and metric) and a new Dewalt socket wrench set (with SAE and metric sockets in a nice case). Between those is a universal socket – I tried it out, and it works surprisingly well. I love these wrench sets. This might be a tad overkill for my needs, but it’s really nice to have the perfect size for any job instead of having to over-rely on an adjustable wrench that might slip.

I got two sets of Allen wrenches (SAE and standard) that include nice rubbery holding cases to keep them organized by size. I like tools that self-organize with some sense of order or symmetry – they just seem smarter to me.

I got a new 16 oz mallet, which is nice for situations when a steel hammer might be too harsh.

I added new eye protection goggles (to replace the old ones that looked like something I used in high school chemistry). These fit nicely with or without glasses, and they’re anti-fogging.

I got two good utility knives – okay, just one knife is new, and the other I had bought previously. I liked the previous one so much that I decided to add another, so I could keep one in the house and one in the garage. I tend to use these a lot.

I got 9″ and 16″ levels, both magnetic. The smaller one has a built-in ruler. The larger one is nice for marking off spots for hanging a painting or poster. I considered getting a 24″ one, but that seemed like overkill, and I like that the 16″ one still fits in the toolbox.

In the back left, there are two LED flashlights. both of which are WAY brighter and much smaller and lighter than my old flashlights. They use AAA batteries instead of the D batteries in the Maglites, so they’re more energy efficient too. These flashlights lights have 3 brightness settings, and the beams can tighten or widen just by twisting the top. I actually got 4 of these since a 2-pack was only $10. I keep one in the garage, one in the car, and two in the house. They feel very solid, made of “military grade” aluminum (whatever that means).

There are also 2 rechargeable LED work lights (picked up at Costco on sale for $10 off the pair). These are nice and bright, and they have built in stands, hooks, and strong magnets, so they’re very versatile to position. Each light also has a built-in USB charger, so it can be used as a battery to charge a phone or other USB device as well – I don’t need that feature while at home, but it could be handy on a camping trip.

I got two new screwdriver sets, each with 57 pieces and their own storage cases. The left one is a precision set for working with small screws like on electronics or eye glasses. It has many different kinds of bits. I like that each bit has a long shaft, and the handle has a built-in extender as well, which is good for screwing in deep holes. I will never use all of these bits, but it feels nice to have such a good collection in a compact space – an excellent replacement for my old set.

The set on the right has nice grippy handles, and I like that it sorts the screwdrivers by type and size. It also includes many other assorted bits at the top of the case (which can be used with a power drill as well).

Both kits come with a magnetizer / demagnetizer, so you can magnetize or demagnetize the tips.

I love this set of pliers and wrenches. It comes with a strong cloth carrying case with pouches for each tool, and it easily rolls up and has elastic straps to secure it into a nice bundle. I prefer to put the tools in a toolbox though for faster access. Unlike my old adjustable wrenches, the adjustable wrench in this set is very good at holding its position.

I also added a new wire stripper, which is capable of cutting screws too.

This new Dewalt power drill / driver is so nice. It comes with 2 rechargeable batteries, each of which should last for hours. Apparently these batteries can hold their charge for 18 months when not in use, so I can simply pop in a battery and use this drill without having to charge it first. Two batteries is overkill for my needs, but that’s what the set came with.

I also picked up a set of 14 titanium drill bits, which seem way nicer than the few sad drill bits I previously had.

This drill comes with a nice carrying bag that fits everything shown with room to spare.

This small 30-drawer cabinet is great for storing odds and ends like nails, screws, washers, zip ties, etc. No more mega jar with everything mixed together.

I replaced two crusty wood-handle hammers (both of which had tops that were coming loose) with these fiberglass-handle hammers: a 20-oz hammer, a 16-oz hammer, and a small stubby hammer.

In the same drawer is a 7″ folding hand saw (useful for trimming small branches). I’ve never needed a power saw or chainsaw.

Here’s my new toolbox. I got one larger one to replace the three smaller boxes I had previously. It has a top area and 3 drawers. I added some padded drawer liners to it, so the drawers are lined with a soft but durable material. It’s like all of the tools now rest on a thin yoga mat.

Somehow it feels like giving the tools a nice home with cushy padding is a nice way to show them respect and appreciation. This is surely better than how I treated my old tools. I even talked to the new tools to welcome them into my home. In my journal this week, I wrote a private letter saying goodbye to my old tools, releasing their energy back to the simulator.

This is what the toolbox looks like when closed. It’s about 12″ tall. Not bad for $50. The drawers open and close very smoothly too. I don’t intend to carry it around, so this is its permanent home on a shelf in my garage.

I also got this painting set, which I keep elsewhere in the garage. It’s currently $15 at Costco.

I bought two new fire extinguishers, one for the house and one for the garage as a backup. I had some old ones in my house that apparently expired in 1999 (seriously). The new ones say they’ll last for a good 12 years, so I wonder if the old ones were from the 80s – that is possible.

We’ve been making some other upgrades too this summer to help keep the house in better shape. Here’s a new Dyson V15 Detect vacuum that I got in June. I like it so far and picked up an extra battery for it. It’s the first Dyson I’ve ever owned, and I dare say that it’s even fun to use. Previously I was using a Roomba, but it’s not nearly as powerful as the Dyson. I like that the transparent bin easily shows what’s being sucked out of the carpet. This fairly recent model also has a display that shows the particle count of what it’s picking up (actually 3 different counts for different particle sizes). That feature seems like mostly a gimmick, but I still find it very satisfying to see the numbers go up, especially when it passes 1 billion. Having a vacuum that provides this extra visual feedback makes other vacuums seems a lot dumber… like what are they trying to hide by not sharing their performance data?

At least I now know for sure that Roomba is shit… at least as far as actual cleanliness goes.

On the floor there’s a new Hoover Smartwash+ carpet cleaner – I’ve tested it on one room so far, and it worked really well. I like that it automatically washes when I push it forward and dries when I pull it back, so there’s no need to hold down a trigger. It’s very easy to use. This combo of the new vacuum and carpet cleaner is nicely transforming the floors in my house.

This is the kind of project that I always could have put off by telling myself that there are more important things to do. But it felt good to finally do it.

I like and appreciate the new tools. I like that I no longer have to deal with the old misaligned mess of tools that I had before. I like that I took my time with this project and did it patiently, without rushing, and free of deadlines.

I especially like that I got the framing right before I started, so I was able to take action with ease. I felt nicely motivated the whole way through and even had fun with it. While doing the tools research, I learned some things I didn’t know before, so it was educational as well.

I framed this as an upgrade project – an invitation to completely transform my old tool collection into a new collection that I would henceforth appreciate. Purge the energy of disgust and irritation, and replace it with gratitude.

So there was an inner journey from having a poor relationship with my tool collection to discovering how to create a positive and healthy relationship. This permanently changes how I feel towards a small (but not insignificant) slice of my reality. Now every time I enter the garage and notice the different toolbox and tools, I feel differently. There’s a newfound sense of ease and even a little excitement. And admittedly there’s a little bit of discomfort since I’m still getting to know the new tools, but I imagine that will pass in time.

This also changes how I relate to home maintenance projects going forward. Now those projects seem a little more attractive because I look forward to using the nice new tools. Yesterday I noticed a loose screw on a towel hangar in the laundry room, and I happily grabbed one of the new screwdrivers to fix it, which felt more rewarding than I expected.

One key that I found is the importance of maintaining the right pacing. I can’t rush because that just makes such a project feel stressful, and I will doubt my decisions if I try to decide too quickly. It’s best to do the research patiently and then let my mind incubate some options till I have a strong sense of clarity. I held off on buying items when I was in doubt about what to get.

On the other hand, I can’t go too slowly either since then the energy of the project will die on me. I have to keep nudging it forward day by day to maintain a sense of progress. On a single day, I might figure out one or two items, like which screwdriver set to get. But over the course of a few weeks, all of those little decisions add up to a bigger transformation.

Think about some area of life where you’ve been tolerating misalignments. Could you undertake a complete transformation of that part of life, gradually chipping away at the misalignments one by one and upgrading or replacing them with changes that you’d appreciate?

What if you allowed such a project to take as long as it needs to take with no deadlines or time pressure? Could you approach it as an exploration and a learning experience, doing whatever you need to do to make reasonably good decisions at each step, so day by day you’re advancing towards a bigger transformation that you’ll really appreciate?

Remember that you don’t have to make perfect decisions in order to create significant improvement. I can’t say that I have the perfect tool set for me, but it’s a clear improvement over what I was dealing with before, and that’s good enough to call it done.

Decluttering Tips

Posted on 21/07/2021 by Boris Clair

I’ve been decluttering my garage for the past few weeks, so here are some decluttering tips I’ve figured out for processing, purging, and organizing, especially if you have a lot of old tech clutter to deal with.

Approach Decluttering with Patience

Just chip away at the project one item at a time, not worrying about how long it will take. It’s wise to approach such a project with great patience, allowing it to take as long as it wants to take without feeling any need to rush.

I put this project off for years because I could never squeeze it into any kind of schedule. I only made significant progress when I gave this project a totally open-ended schedule with no deadline, opting to do it right instead of trying to rush through it. Surrendering to the unpredictable duration of the project helped tremendously.

Switch Fully into Personal Mode

I could never make headway with this project when I was in work mode by default. I could only get it done by making it a priority, which meant that I also had to take a slice out of my year to prioritize my personal life above my business goals. That’s a hard thing for me to do, but I viewed and approached it as a personal growth exploration to see what it would be like to put my work life on the back burner and to elevate my personal goals for a while.

While working on this project, I haven’t written any articles, for instance. My last blog post was written 47 days ago, so that’s almost 7 weeks off from writing.

And actually it’s been wonderful. I feel like I should take a significant slice out of every year and do this sort of thing. I’ve been able to slide into non-work mode while traveling, but since I work from home, I found it hard to fully shift into personal mode while at home. Consequently, a lot of home-related and personal projects lingered near the bottom of my to-do list, starved for attention.

Mentally I could always say that I should be able to chip away at these projects on weekends and evenings, but that approach never got the job done. It’s been so much more effective to fully load in the context of doing such a personal project by treating it as my #1 priority for weeks on end. This really is a whole brain task, and by giving it my full attention, not merely my after-work attention, I’m finally getting it done in a way that feels good to me.

Focus on Relationships with Items

For each item, ask questions like these:

What do I want my relationship with this item to be?
Is it still meaningful to keep it?
How would I feel if I let this item go?
If I want to let it go, what’s an intelligent and regret-free way to process and release it?

I find the regret-free standard especially helpful.

Question Every Item

Invite each item to justify its worth and value to you. Don’t assume that you “should” keep anything just because you’ve held onto it for so long.

I finally let go of some items I’ve had since the 80s or 90s, such as an old tennis racket from high school. It felt good to finally release them, even though I’d previously assumed that I should always keep them.

Challenge some old rules about what you think you must keep. See if those rules still seem valid to you today. Don’t let old rules slide into your default thinking; reassess them anew.

I find it helpful to ask: What rule says I should keep this item?

I had a rule that said I should always keep old trophies and awards. But is that a necessity? No, it’s just a rule I inherited when I was in school. This time I finally purged some awards (like plaques) that weren’t particularly meaningful for me anymore, like from Toastmasters’ speech contests more than 15 years ago.

Process and Recycle Old Electronics

Do the proper research to figure out your best strategy for recycling old electronics. Once you have a process for handling these items, it’s much easier to face electronics clutter.

I learned that Best Buy stores are great for recycling old electronics since they’ve made a commitment to do a lot of tech recycling. They will accept a wide variety of items including old desktops, laptops, cables, mice, keyboards, hard drives, routers, printers, speakers, cameras, VCRs, video game systems, and more – and they’ll take almost everything for free. For details see: bestbuy.com/recycling

Amazon and Best Buy will both give you store credit for certain kinds of tech trade-ins. I traded in a 9-year old iPad (so old that it was limited to iOS 9 – we’re at iOS 14.7 today) and two old Apple TV boxes for some store credit at Best Buy. I traded in an old Sonos speaker and some wireless networking hardware for Amazon credit. Amazon will even pay for the shipping. You may get more money from using eBay, but this is super convenient if you just want to move some items out.

Amazon is a great place to find convenient interfaces for old tech if you want to transfer old data to new devices. For $15-25 you can get a USB interface adapter that can connect directly to 2.5″ and 3.5″ IDE and SATA drives, CD/DVD drives, and floppy disk drives. I had 6 old hard drives from PCs and laptops that I used from 2002 to 2007, and surprisingly all 6 drives still worked, even though most of the computers that housed them had long since died. It’s a simple matter to remove an old drive and connect it to a modern computer, normally requiring only a screwdriver.

Wipe Your Data

I read an article sharing that most people who resell old smart speakers (like Amazon Echo devices) don’t even factory reset their devices. At least do a factory reset before passing on a device, which is relatively easy to do. You can easily look up how to do that for any device with a simple online search.

Mac OS makes it really easy to wipe old hard drives securely by overwriting old data with 3 or even 7 passes to render the drive’s data irrecoverable. Just connect your drive, run “Disk Utility”, select the drive you want to erase, click “Erase”, select the desired security option, and go from there. The old drives I erased ranged from 20GB to 160GB, and it typically took a few hours to throughly erase each one.

Best Buy and other tech recycling places also have arrangements with companies that will destroy the drives for you. This is free at Best Buy while other places may charge a nominal amount. But it’s still a good idea to erase the drives before handing them in.

Alternatively, you can physically destroy an old drive yourself. There are instructions on how to do that in various ways, such as by hammering nails through the platters of old hard drives. Just be sure to wear good eye protection. Personally I think it’s better to let a tech recycling place handle this more professionally with the proper equipment.

Donate to Charity

If there’s a drop-off location near you for charitable donations, that can be a nice way to let go of items. There’s one just a few minutes from me, so I’ve dropped off a lot of items there.

Some charities will also come to your house and pick up items for free. In the past I’ve even donated two old cars this way. The cars wouldn’t even start, but an animal rights charity came by to tow each one away. The charity can still resell the car for some value, and they saved me the trouble of having to deal with it, so that’s a nice win-win.

I don’t like using eBay, so I didn’t use it for any part of this project, but that’s always an option if you like using the service.

Replace Items with Photos

If you want the memory of an item but would prefer to eliminate the clutter, take a photo of it (or several photos) before you let it go. See if it feels good enough to just keep the photo and release the physical item.

I’ve release a number of mildly sentimental items when I realized that a photo would be good enough to retain the memory.

Create the Emotional Vision for the Space

Framing a project as just decluttering can make it seem boring or tedious, so consider more appealing or inspiring frames. A good framing that helped me move my garage project forward was to think about transforming the space into a place in my home that I felt good about – a storage area that’s neat, clean, and nicely organized and that makes me feel relaxed and soothed when I’m there.

Another frame that works very well for me in general is to treat any project as some kind of upgrade. I’m very good at completing projects that I frame this way. So I’m not decluttering the garage; I’m upgrading it from a cluttered space to a well-organized part of my home. The entire project can also be framed as a series of small upgrades. I just find projects more motivating when I frame them as upgrades.

Thinking about how I wanted to emotionally feel inside the space was really helpful, and I think it led to better decisions regarding how to organize it. I could assess how I was doing by how I felt, and I kept taking small steps to align the space with better feelings.

As you make progress, keep asking questions like:

What part of this space still creates tension for me?
What part of this space evokes positive feelings in me?

Such questions can be very helpful for deciding which parts to process and upgrade next.

We actually spend a lot of time working on reframes in Conscious Growth Club each year because this is such a powerful and effective method for getting stuck energy moving again. A lot of people think they need to push themselves more to get certain projects done, but that isn’t necessary if you reframe your projects to better align with your natural motivation patterns.

Choose Storage Options That Feel Good to You

My garage didn’t have good storage for the items I wanted to store there, such as camping gear and workshop supplies. Consequently, many items were just lying on the floor of the garage when I began. Partway through the project, I browsed for storage options that would fit my needs and evoke the emotional response I was looking for.

I learned that Costco is a great place to find flexible storage solutions at reasonable prices. I got two sets of these metal shelves for $90 each in the local Costco store on sale. I like that they’re on wheels, which enabled me to commit to using them to organize some items (like camping gear) before I fully decided where I wanted the shelves to end up.

I found it especially helpful to set up these shelves earlier in the project than I initially expected because it allowed me to fully transform one portion of the garage into a nicely organized space. Even though other parts of the garage were still cluttered, upgrading one corner of it to be just how I wanted helped me really lock onto the vibe for how I wanted the whole space to feel. It was very encouraging to have part of the space feel like it was already done, even though other areas still had a ways to go.

Clean It

Cleaning and decluttering go hand-in-hand. Cleaning a space gives it a whole different feeling, like you’ve raised the standard for how that space is to be treated.

I’ve been giving the garage a thorough cleaning as I’ve been going along, including vacuuming up lots of dust and clearing out cobwebs, dead bugs, and leaves. It’s not pristine – it’s a garage after all – but the cleanliness upgrade definitely improves how I feel about the space.

Never Say “Should”

Keep asking:

What kind of relationship do I ultimately want to have with this space?
What next action would improve that relationship?

These questions can help you figure out what to do next. Never ask: What should I do next? There are no shoulds… just invitations and possibilities.

Embrace the Mental and Emotional Journey

Processing old possessions isn’t just a physical experience. It can be very mental and emotional. So many items can bring up memories and past associations.

I recommend letting yourself dwell in those thoughts and feelings, giving ample time to process them. You may think that this will slow you down, but it can have a very positive transformational effect as well.

I often felt like I was reconnecting with and reintegrating my past selves through this process. Somehow I feel more internally integrated as a result… and more grateful for the many experiences I’ve had. Processing old physical items helped me process old memories and some stuck energy, which gave me increased feelings of inner peace.

I hope these tips help someone who’s facing a similar decluttering (or upgrading) project.

This project has been going very well by the way. I’d say that I’m 80-90% done now. The garage has a whole different vibe – way better than when I first began. It’s been a surprisingly rewarding project, and it feels so good to reclaim that space for a better purpose than a graveyard of old stuff. Every time I donated or recycled something, I felt a sense of relief and a fresh vibe of possibility, like I’d freed up some energy that had been stuck for years.

Subjectively speaking, I also like to frame the purging of old items as releasing energy back to the Simulator, so that energy can be repurposed to simulate something more interesting. Why require the Simulator to waste cycles rendering old patterns that are no longer needed?

Aligned Solutions

Posted on 24/05/2021 by Boris Clair

Aligning your life can be very challenging. By alignment I’m referring to harmonious interactions among your:

thoughts
feelings
frames / perspectives
lifestyle
living situation
relationships
values
desires
goals
intentions
work
finances
health
body
family
friendships
social life
personality

We all have misalignments to deal with in one of more areas of life. Are you actively engaged in correcting those misalignments to create greater harmony? Or do you let misalignments fester?

Misalignments have a tendency to multiply. They’re like clutter. Once we start tolerating a little bit, pretty soon we have a lot more to deal with. Letting this happen can make your life feel very burdensome after a while.

Fixing Misalignments

Sometimes I feel like the majority of my personal growth work (on the personal side, not the professional side) has been mainly about correcting misalignments in my life. Notice what areas of life aren’t working for me, and really fix them. A big step here is to define what a genuine fix looks like.

This began with misalignments like being raised Catholic and finding that totally wrong for me. It was a long journey to figure out my own philosophy of life that was honest and real for me – and that made me much happier.

I had to deal with a lot of misalignments between my desires and the kinds of results I was getting. I had to keep trying different frames and approaches to figure out how to connect the dots. The biggest challenge here was finding ways to take action that really fit my personality and natural motivations. This took me in some interesting directions. For instance, I initially thought that success would be a good motivator for me, but it really wasn’t. I actually get more motivational juice from caring, compassion, playfulness, fun, and creativity. I ended up experiencing more success when I gave myself permission to approach life and business with a lighter, more open, and more playful heart.

I was pretty bad at trying to earn money as a goal unto itself. I could never get my emotions to be that excited about it. I learned to be happy when I was broke, so I know that having more money won’t make me meaningfully happier. Hence it’s very hard to get myself to emotionally care about making more money. But I was able to increase my income by approaching this more like a game, whereby I focused on the creativity, the fun, the connection, and the playfulness.

Finding and Reducing Friction

I’d say that the heart is really the key to alignment. My biggest alignment mistakes happened when I tried to use my brain to go against my feelings. If my feelings aren’t aligned with what I’m trying to do, that kills my plans dead. Doing anything interesting in life requires sustainable motivation. So figuring out what gives you the most sustainable motivational juice can point you in the direction of increasing alignment too.

Life can easily fill up with friction that drains motivation. Many people in this field will advise you to push through that friction. Be tough. Discipline yourself. I used to think that way too, but not anymore. Discipline can be an okay short-term tool, but it’s not very sustainable. Pushing through friction is like repeatedly running a machine that’s making a grinding sound that isn’t supposed to be there. If you keep pushing through, you’ll cause some kind of damage. A better approach is to find what’s causing that friction, and solve that problem. Then run the machine smoothly and sustainably. Keep it well-maintained.

I’ve spent many years of my life looking at the friction in my life, which can be hard to face. I had friction in my relationships, my family life, my business, my income streams, and more. I think one of the best personal growth skills I’ve developed over the past few decades has been the willingness to look for friction and to really resolve it, even if it takes many years to do so.

I look at areas where my life isn’t working as well as I think it could. Then I start looking for sources of friction. What’s stopping me from experiencing the aligned flow I’d really like to experience in this part of life?

Just a machine with a friction problem may create excess heat or noise, you’re body will do something similar when you experience alignment problems. You won’t feel so good emotionally. Your heart will squawk at you.

Negative emotions are great pointers to sources of friction. Wherever you find negative feelings, you’ll find friction that’s getting in the way of greater alignment. That friction is also an invitation to solve a bigger problem.

Building Motivational Energy

I think the reason we’re so often hesitant to look in these places is that when we see the truth, it’s really hard to unsee it, and then we have to admit that we have a lot of work to do to fix these problems. But that attitude itself is a further symptom of being too tolerant of misalignments. It means we’ve let those misalignments drain us way too much, so now we lack the motivation and willingness to identify and fix problems that can be fixed. Just looking at our problems seems like it takes too much energy.

It’s not that the problems are so difficult. It’s that you’ve weakened yourself by letting the presence of these problems grind you down, like metal scraping on metal for too long inside a machine. So you aren’t functioning at your best, and that makes it harder to do repairs on your life.

I’ve noticed that as I correct major misalignments, I feel more motivated to fix even more of them. I feel more willing to look for resistance and to delve into the misalignments that cause friction. It is a lot of work to fix them sometimes, but it’s just so worth it. The more problems you fix, the more capable you become of solving even more problems.

There were times when I felt tremendously buried under a big pile of misalignments, and it took me a long time to dig my way out of them. It’s especially hard when the misalignments are sapping your motivation to want to deal with them. Sometimes you just have to chip away at them little by little with whatever motivation you do have. The key in those situations is to stop making the situation worse by allowing even more misalignments to pile up. And then start working on the most accessible problems that could free up some stuck energy when resolved. The more energy you can free up, the more you can leverage that extra energy to fix more misalignments.

The benefit of resolving misalignments is that then you have even more energy to create some wonderful alignments instead. It’s easier to pursue and create what you want when you aren’t so overburdened with sources of friction. It’s hard to take consistent forward action when you have so much energy bottled up in misalignments.

Lightening Up

Solving alignment problems can create a wonderful feeling of lightness.

My heart feels very light, open, and free-flowing these days. I don’t feel clogged with heaviness. Emotionally I feel like my life has been the equivalent of a gentle smile this year – pretty calm and peaceful but also content, happy, satisfied, and appreciative.

From this emotional state, it’s easy to be very productive too. I really enjoy the work I get to do. I like and appreciate the people I get to work with, especially in Conscious Growth Club. I like my business model, which feels very heart-aligned to me. I get paid for creating courses, coaching, and otherwise helping people improve their lives. It feels very win-win, very fair, and very abundant. But I had to say no to a lot of partial matches to reach this point, and partial matches can be very seductive sometimes.

I love and appreciate my relationship with Rachelle. It’s wonderful to spend so much time with a woman who’s my lover and my best friend. It’s nice to be in a relationship that includes an abundance of daily laughter, physical affection, and emotional support. Perhaps we have an unusual relationship, but it works for us.

I love being vegan since that works for me too. I must have eaten about 200 salads so far this year since I’m doing a year of raw, but somehow I haven’t gotten bored with them. I seem to have fallen in love with salads and look forward to at least one each day. I think that eating lighter foods has helped me feel emotionally lighter as well, but this way of eating also makes it extra difficult to tolerate misalignments. It’s very hard to feel good emotionally while eating raw if misalignments are allowed to fester because the emotional sensitivity is increased.

Unlearning Misaligned Solutions

A big part of this path has involved unloading from my mind the many misaligned ideas that I learned from other people.

A misaligned idea is a solution of sorts, but it’s not a very good solution. Misaligned solutions create negative side effects. Aligned solutions tend to create positive side effects.

I was taught that certain religious ideas are true, and then I discovered that they were neither true nor effective. Religion attempts to solve some problems, but it creates a lot of negative side effects as well. It’s a misaligned solution. It took some years, but I eventually replaced those ideas when a more truth-aligned and heart-aligned approach to life, the universe, and everything. And I don’t need to go to Church and sit through boring masses. I don’t need to kneel and eat wafers. I don’t need to turn frames into beliefs and wrap them into my identity.

I was taught that humans are superior to animals and therefore it’s okay to treat animal as products. We’re entitled to their bodies. We can just take their eggs and milk if we want. We can cage them, rape them, take their lives, and eat their flesh. It’s okay because we’re smarter and stronger. We’re special; they’re not. This is just how it’s supposed to be. Animals and meant to be sold at supermarkets and restaurants. Their flesh, milk, and eggs are part of our economy, just like any other commercial goods. We own them. They’re born as products, and they die as products.

Just typing those words regarding my old misaligned relationship with animals makes me feel nauseous. That way of thinking looks utterly wrong and ridiculous when I type it up, but how many people bother to type up these misalignments and take a real look at them? If you relate to animals as products – which you clearly do if you pay for their body parts, milk, or eggs – how does that sit with you? How does that mesh with your self-image and values? Does this feel aligned to you? Do you feel good about this relationship? Or is there friction in it?

I had so much trapped energy in that messed up relationship with animals in the past, but I wasn’t willing to look at it till I flowed towards a more aligned relationship with animals. I feel sad for how I treated them in the past. I was much too violent and too willfully ignorant, but I pretended I wasn’t. When I stopped relating to animals as products, I grew to appreciate them in a much more aligned way.

I grew up with the expectation that I was supposed to have a job and be loyal to some corporation. A boss was supposed to tell me what to do most days. I could have the weekends to recover and do some personal stuff. My obedience would be rewarded. I could never stomach going in that direction though – way too much friction. I still had to work through a lot of friction to go the independent creator path, but I saw a light at the end of that tunnel, and now I get to bask in that light on a daily basis. I didn’t see a light at the end of the corporate path other than eventually escaping from it to do something more free-flowing and creative.

It’s interesting that society gives us so many ready-made solutions – that suck. The pursuit of alignment is really about finding solutions that don’t suck. A misaligned solution sucks away your energy, your motivation, and your happiness. Aligned solutions give you energy, motivation, and happiness. Aligned solutions give you access to cleaner and more sustainable fuel sources, so they’re less expensive in the long run.

Choosing Alignment

To choose alignment it’s important to stop choosing misalignment. Stop going for the partial match; don’t be so easily seduced by it. Set your standards higher on the full match. Stop tolerating the sound of metal grinding on metal as the gears of your life are turning. When you hear that grinding sound, learn to stop immediately, find the source of the problem, and do what it takes to fix it. Then flip the switch back on.

It’s not enough to say that you’re choosing alignment while you’re still wallowing in partial matches. You can intend and ask for alignment all you want, but life is keen to observe when you’re still tolerating partial matches. Showing up to partial matches is a powerful expression of your intention too, and life hears that loud and clear, perhaps even more loudly than your stated intentions to outgrow those patterns.

You don’t just intend with your mind, your heart, and your spirit. You intend with your body as well. Whatever you show up to is part of your intention as well. If you really want to express a different intention in an aligned way, put your body into it as well. This means withdrawing your body’s presence from partial matches. Otherwise if your body keeps showing up for partial matches, it will drag your mind, heart, and spirit right along with it.

If you’re gonna say no to a partial match, make it a 4D no. Decline the partial match with your body, mind, heart, and spirit. That’s a real no – an aligned no. Any less than this, and you’re still saying yes to a partial match. Note that a 1D, 2D, or 3D no is equivalent to a 3D, 2D, or 1D yes, respectively.

You can’t fool or fake alignment. Either you’re saying a 4D yes to it, or you’re remaining in partial match land.

Your Relationship With Your Alarm Clock

Posted on 19/05/2021 by Boris Clair

If you use an alarm clock to wake up in the morning, think about relationship you’d like to create with your alarm clock. What would be the healthiest and happiest version of that relationship for you?

If you were an alarm clock, what kind of relationship would you want to have with your human?

For instance, maybe your alarm clock would appreciate it if you’d pat it on the head now and then and say, “Thanks for waking me up today. I appreciate you!”

How would your alarm clock feel about being put across the room and kept at a distance from you? How would it feel if you groaned when it sounded off?

How would your alarm clock feel if you kept using the snooze feature? Would it potentially lose respect for you?

Have you ever thought about the kind of relationship you’d like to have with your alarm clock? How would you like to feel towards it, and how would you like to imagine that it feels towards you?

I normally use an alarm clock to wake up in the morning, set for 5am. I never use the snooze alarm since that wouldn’t help me experience the kind of relationships I want to have – with my alarm clock, with myself, and with the start of my day.

I like relating to my alarm clock on the basis of mutual trust and mutual respect. My alarm clock is my buddy who helps me start the day at the time of my choosing. It’s very reliable. I like knowing that I can trust it to sound off when I tell it.

If my intention was to get up at a certain time, and I didn’t just leave the alarm set by mistake, then it’s important to get up to honor that relationship. If I can trust that my alarm will sound off, I also want my alarm to trust me too – to trust that I’ll get up when I intended to get up.

While it may sound odd to have a relationship with an inanimate object, you’re already doing that anyway. Some patch of neurons in your brain is already storing your associations to your alarm clock. Like it or not, that relationship exists in your mind, and it will continue to exist. So you already have some stored thoughts and feelings towards your alarm clock. Do those thoughts and feelings serve you well? Or could you modify how you’re framing that relationship make it better?

If you’re going to have a relationship with your alarm clock in your mind anyway, why not make it what you want it to be? Make it a relationship that serves you well. Make it a relationship that helps you get the results you want.

If your relationship with your alarm clock is dysfunctional, do you really think that will help you create and maintain highly functional habits? How is that going to be good for your day’s startup routine?

For me a good relationship with any device involves trust, respect, and appreciation. I don’t want to use devices that I don’t trust, respect, and appreciate. Especially if it’s the first device that connects me with my day, I really want that to be a positive and uplifting relationship. If the very first sound I hear to begin my day immediately links me with a negative emotion, a downer thought, or a corrupted relationship, well… that’s a stupid relationship then, isn’t it? How is that possibly going to do me any good, especially if I let that relationship wallow unfixed for years?

If you have a messed up relationship with your alarm clock – or with however you like to begin your day – I invite you to fix that relationship. Start by making a real decision about what kind of relationship you’d like to have. Then go have a little talk with your alarm clock to share your thoughts and feelings about the kind of relationship you’d like to create with it. Imagine that it’s listening to you attentively, and then listen internally for what it wants to see from you.

Imagine creating a truly win-win relationship here. Consider what kind of relationship your alarm clock would love to have with you. What does it want from you? What kinds of behaviors would it like to see from you? How would it like to be treated? You might think that this is taking the idea a bit far, but I encourage you to think along these lines anyway since it can help you get clarity about the right kind of relationship for you.

I have a very positive relationship with my alarm clock. I can get up right away when it goes off and leverage it for a good start to my day. I’ve never put it across the room. I’ve never used the snooze alarm. I like and respect my alarm clock. I honor its purpose in my life. I appreciate what it does for me. I don’t have to burden myself with a negative relationship that I might drag forward into all of my future years. This relationship is all in my mind anyway, so it’s my choice what to make of it. Why not assert your freedom of choice here as well?

If it helps you get up feeling a little happier and a little more enthusiastic to imagine that your alarm clock is proud of you… or to imagine that your alarm clock likes being appreciated by you… that’s all good. Feeling appreciation is wonderful, so why not give yourself any reason to begin your day with that sort of feeling? Use your imagination to help you here. Don’t let a lack of imagination cage you in a negative relationship.

What is your version of a golden relationship with your alarm clock? What would that look like? What thoughts and feelings would you like to bring to this relationship? Whatever it is, you can create that relationship. But it sure helps tremendously if you take a moment to consciously decide what that relationship is going to be.

Join Conscious Growth Club by May 1st

Posted on 25/04/2021 by Boris Clair

Conscious Growth Club is now open for you to join, from now through May 1, 2021. First started in 2017, this is our most comprehensive personal growth program and support group.

We’re about to start our 5th year together, and you’re invited to join this week. This is the only week you can join CGC in 2021.

What Is Conscious Growth Club?

Conscious Growth Club is a private online club and coaching program to help you make faster and more consistent progress. It turns personal growth into a team game.

The essential purpose of the group is simple: We help each other grow into smarter, stronger human beings, whatever it takes.

CGC is an annual membership that includes:

A private member forum – Our forum is active every day (87,000 posts so far). It’s ad-free, spam-free, and troll-free. Members share intentions and goals, update progress, help each other solve problems, and encourage the heck out of each other.
A 24/7 video chat channel – Imagine a continuous group video call that never ends. Any member can connect immediately to talk live with other members at any time. Meaningful conversations with conscious, growth-oriented friends are always available.
Member progress logs – A popular feature for support and accountability, members can maintain progress logs to share their actions and results. I also record progress logs for my own creative projects such as the deep dive courses, so you can see how they’re developed. This is great for people who love seeing how goals are accomplished behind the scenes.
Group video coaching calls – We do live group coaching calls 33 times per year – on different days and times to accommodate all timezones. I happily provide personal help and guidance to any members who want it.
Quarterly planning sessions – Every quarter we invite members to participate in a structured 5-day process to assess recent progress, refresh 90-day goals, define action steps, and build momentum going into each new quarter. These quarterly beats will help you stay on track towards your goals, as you align yourself with the ambitious energy of people who are committed to improvement.
Course library – Members get access to all deep dive courses past, present, and future, including Deep Abundance Integration, Submersion, Stature, Amplify, and a new self-development course to be co-created with our members in early 2022.
Monthly challenges – Similar to my well-known 30-day trial experiments, we invite members to do 12 different challenges (any or all) per year for exploration, skill building, and habit improvement. We all support and encourage each other as we go.
Club emails – We send a few emails per month to remind members of upcoming coaching calls, share forum highlights, and to keep everyone in the loop on upcoming happenings.
Many extra bonuses – CGC includes lots of extra support material, including a 10-day creative challenge mini-course.

New for 2021: A 3-Day Halloween Online Workshop

This year we’re adding an all new CGC benefit: a 3-day online personal growth workshop for October 29-31, 2021 (Fri-Sun).

This workshop will be content-rich and will include plenty of interactive fun and connection with other members. The structure will be similar to one of our live in-person events but adapted for Zoom. This workshop will be recorded, and you’ll get the recordings too.

I will deliver most, if not all of the workshop content, but it’s possible that we may invite some CGCers to contribute too if there’s interest in that and if any CGCers want to stretch themselves.

Since the last day of the workshop lands on Halloween, we’ll invite everyone to wear costumes that day (totally optional, your choice) to make it even more fun and lively. 😃

Consistency Is Key

Conscious Growth Club is a unique program that was carefully designed and tested to help growth-oriented people support and encourage each other to keep improving their lives. I know of nothing else like this anywhere.

This group serves a powerful need that many of my blog readers have expressed – the need for a strong, stable, conscious, and ambitious peer group to support and encourage them every day. People especially need help staying focused and making consistent progress. I realized that this was a problem I could realistically help people solve – a significant yet achievable goal. Hence Conscious Growth Club was created to serve this need.

I’ve done the heavy lifting for you, so you can instantly add a growth-oriented social circle to your life simply by joining us. Rachelle and I will become a regular part of your social circle too since we’re active in the group every day.

Learn More and Join CGC

Here’s a web page to learn all about Conscious Growth Club, so you can decide if you’re a match for joining us.:

Enrollment Is Open Through May 1st

We’re opening enrollment for a 7-day window only, from now through Saturday, May 1st. This will be our only enrollment period for 2021. So if you want to join this year, now is the time. Visit the Conscious Growth Club page to learn the details.

The reason for opening just once for the year is so we can welcome new members all at once. Then we can focus on serving them well for the rest of the year.

I invite you to join us. It’s fun inside. 😃

Spiritual Marketing

Posted on 16/03/2021 by Boris Clair

In January I deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts, so I launched the new Amplify course without social media and with no advertising. I did share the invitation video on YouTube, but it only had a few hundred views there.

I felt attracted to the idea of pulling my business focus inward. Instead of reaching out to people on other sites and platforms, I wanted to just focus on the community that’s closest to my central online world – namely my blog readers, email subscribers, course customers, and CGC members.

I really don’t need social media or advertising to run a sustainable business and have a good life, and the closer I stick to the core audience, the more I seem to enjoy the experience. That’s good for my motivation too.

One of the key themes I’ve been sharing in the Amplify course is how important it is to focus on your relationship with your creative flow. Be wary of anything that potentially weakens or damages this relationship.

I like to practice what I preach, and every time I develop a new course, it makes me think more deeply about how to apply the ideas to my own life and work. I always make some improvements because of that.

I think this launch would have been a bit higher if I’d spent thousands of dollars on Facebook ads like I did with the Submersion and Stature launches. The ads were profitable in the past. But that requires having a Facebook account, and I like not having one right now. So I willingly let that extra revenue go. Being Facebook-free is worth it.

I’ve also found that when I focus on alignment, motivation, and positive relationships instead of income as a top priority, my income always seems to be just fine. Plenty of support flows my way with relative ease.

Moreover, I also find that when I let go of misaligned ideas, it frees up my mind to receive much better ideas. For instance, when I let go of advertising revenue, the following year I started doing live workshops, and I met my wife Rachelle at the very first one. I’d much rather have her in my life than the ad revenue. And my income is better today than it was with the ads anyway, even though my web traffic isn’t nearly as high as it was back then. Plus I feel a lot more aligned and motivated by my current income streams. I didn’t want to be in the business of selling ads.

There is one very weird thing that I do marketing-wise though. I do it because it only takes a few minutes, and it somehow seems to work. I don’t enitrely know why it works, but I keep seeing evidence that it’s having a positive effect.

Whenever I launch a new course, I put out a certain type of spiritual request. In my mind’s eye, I gather a bunch of spirit guides together and ask them to find people who’d be a good match for the course and to nudge them to join, such as by giving them encouraging signs or synchronicities. I picture myself chatting with the guides to tell them about the course and what it will do for people. Then I ask that if they know any humans who’d benefit, to please direct their human clients to the course. I let them figure out how to do that.

To me this is just a frame. No belief in spirit guides is required since it’s just an action. It’s quick and easy, and I figure it can’t hurt. And it does seem to work. I always hear stories of interesting synchronicities and signs that people experience that nudged them in the direction of the course. This encourages me to keep doing it. In fact, I actually have this as a to-do item on my course launch checklist now, so I remember to do it each time.

Would you be surprised to know that I’m not the only creative pro who assigns tasks to spirit guides like this? I know some other people who use a similar method, and they seem to find it effective too. And again, it’s just an action, so you don’t have to believe in spirit guides to do it.

I think tools are more useful than beliefs – a belief is just a tool that you’ve glued to your palm (or your eyeballs).

I wouldn’t rely only on this one spiritual marketing idea, but it’s a good example of an aligned action that I feel no resistance to doing. Hence it seems like a better tool to keep in my toolbox than being on Facebook, which I do feel some resistance to doing.

Sometimes moving away from resistance and towards new areas of flow takes you in unusual directions. I like it because it adds some spice and variety to life, and it keeps my creative work from feeling too boring or predictable.

I think a lot of people fear that if they let go of a tool or opportunity that’s a partial match, they won’t find anything better to replace it with. Maybe it will just hurt their business. I prefer to have more trust in my intuition and to place more value on my happiness. That makes me feel more resourceful, and I eventually come up with better ideas that feel more aligned and which are actually more effective.