The current COVID surge is bigger than ever by a lot, particularly in Europe and North America. The daily infections rate blew previous records away yesterday in many places.
Here are some telling graphs showing daily new cases in some countries. Note how quickly the latest spike has shot up.
United Kingdom
France
Spain
Italy
Canada
USA
COVID is especially rampant in New York and Florida right now. The current surge makes New York’s previous surges look like little speed bumps. Those two states combined added more than 114K new cases yesterday, both hitting all-time records.
New York
Florida
Nevada
My home state of Nevada is starting to surge again as well.
California
Here’s neighboring California, which has a similar pattern to Nevada, except they have almost 40M people while Nevada has about 3M.
So in many places, there’s more contagious COVID out there right now than ever, and it’s still increasing rapidly.
Vaccination
Rachelle and I got our first vaccine shots on April 10 and May 8 (basically as soon as we could), and we got the booster on December 22. All three were the Moderna version.
The first shot was the easiest. I only had a little bit of arm soreness.
The second shot was the worst, with each of us being knocked out energy-wise for about 24 hours, except that Rachelle was laid up for the first day while my worst day was the second day. Within 48 hours though, we both felt fine.
We also had some fatigue from the booster shot, but it was milder than after the second shot.
As far as we know, neither of us has gotten COVID, but a lot of people we know have gotten it, including some CGCers. Some have had pretty mild cases while others had a really rough time. Some friends have lost family members to COVID.
Why I Got Vaccinated
I like to make decisions based on looking at the objective and the subjective sides. Normally I find the most clarity on the subjective side, so I’ll share a little about how I made this decision.
The objective arguments for and against vaccination are already pretty well presented by society, so I’m sure you’ve encountered an abundance of that by now. I’m not going to rehash those arguments here, partly because I don’t find that side the most interesting to consider.
What I did consider was which of the objective stories I found to represent the most interesting invitation to explore. Since I don’t have the means to personally prove or disprove anything about vaccination – it’s not like I have a bio lab in my garage – I could frame it as a question of whom to trust. But that type of framing is still too objective and not particularly helpful. I could spend weeks investigating and still not have a clear winner. It would be exhausting to try to make every meaningful decision that way.
A better subjective framing is to consider which story invitation looks most interesting or appealing. Which potential storyline do I want to personally participate in? Where do I want to take my story next?
One story aspect that appealed to me was regarding vaccination as a form of biological education. I’d be giving my body a taste of what’s coming up, so it can prepare itself. I was curious to see what the vaccine would feel like and how my body would respond to it. I liked the idea of pre-teaching my body something about the virus. I’d rather be biologically more prepared than less prepared. I like to explore, and vaccination seemed like an interesting way to let my body explore how it wants to relate to the virus.
By contrast I found the potential unvaccinated story lines to be unappealing. I probably would have gone that route in my 20s since it would have appealed to my rebellious side back then. I’d have gladly pushed back against society’s demands. Today I feel that that the rebel part of my story has run its course, so I don’t consider that to be interesting story today. I find that kind of story pathway too boring, predictable, and cliché. These days I prefer invitation into more refined and interesting storylines. I don’t have the same story tastes that I did when I was younger.
One reason I choose vaccination is that it quickly moves me through potentially boring parts of the story, so I can focus more attention on the interesting bits. By getting vaccinated I put the vaccination question to rest quickly. There’s nothing more to decide about it since I’ve already done it. I don’t have to waste any energy on fussing over whether or not to do it. This frees up mental and emotional resources that I can invest elsewhere.
Then I can look deeper into the big picture storyline that’s playing out in the world. The simulation is making a big, disruptive move here. Why? What’s the invitation in this shift? These are questions I find fascinating and very worthy of consideration. I’ve made numerous shifts in my life by pondering them, and I’ve been seeing a great deal of cooperative flow from reality in response.
One way I like to assess how well my story is doing is by how much life seems to be cooperating with my decisions. If I’m out of sync with life, my progress gets bogged down, and it feels like I’m swimming against the current. I felt that if I went the unvaccinated route, I’d be swimming against the tide. Reality was dropping plenty of hints that this would be an invitation into a very resistance-filled story path, and we’re seeing that play out today, such as with vaccine mandates. I looked at that branch of storylines and thought, “Blech! No thanks!”
On an objective level, the world seems like it’s been going kittywampus. But I have a deep and abiding trust in the flow of life since that’s the most permanent relationship I can invest in. I know that the objective story is just the surface, and there are much deeper happenings beneath that layer. The subjective layer of life has been unfolding in some really fascinating ways lately. I love where the story flow is going there. I’m glad that I didn’t choose to thrash around with the surface story in this case. I found much juicer invitations beneath that layer.
For example, since Rachelle and I have been spending a lot of time at home, we’ve invested more social time in Conscious Growth Club. There have been CGC Zoom activities pretty much every day this month, including playing games online, watching movies, and doing various activities together.
This week we’ve just begun putting together a mastermind group of members who want to invest in building up their YouTube channels for 2022 and beyond. That aligns nicely with many members’ lifestyle and business goals.
There’s a lot of interesting story playing out socially within CGC, and it feels like we’re getting better at coordinating our growth experiences, like our stories are synchronizing more than usual.
I feel like the COVID situation has been a gift. It blocked some avenues but presented an invitation to go deeper in different directions. In order to properly invest in these other storylines, I felt it was wise to speed through the vaccination chapter, so I could get to the good parts of the story sooner.
Subjective Decisions
I find that when I give a lot of thought to the subjective aspect of life, pondering the meaning and story aspects of key decisions, the overall flow of life is so much better, and I find beauty even in chaos.
When you get hung up trying to make decisions by weighing objective factors, I recommend flipping over to the subjective side. Consider that you’re living in a simulation and that your relationship with the simulation is the most important relationship of all because it’s your #1 most enduring relationship. Hence you’ve got to do your best to keep that relationship strong and healthy no matter what happens objectively.
What binds the objective and subjective viewpoints together is the lens of story. A story has objective events, and it also includes the inner experience of the characters. So a great shortcut to making good decisions is to consider how your decisions will affect the story flow of your life.
How will your decisions affect events? How will your decisions affect your inner experience? How will your decisions affect your overall relationship with life?
I felt that if I remained unvaccinated, it would likely cause issues in my relationship with life, like it would restrict the flow. I think I made the right call there since the flow has been excellent.
If you’re in the flow too, keep doing what you’re doing because it’s obviously working for you. But if you feel that life has become stunted or restricted, that’s an invitation to reconsider how you’ve been making decisions. Look especially at which decisions have been straining your relationship with reality, and set the intention to put that relationship first in your life and to keep moving towards greater harmony and meaningful story. Lean towards invitations to trust life even more.
In November I did a 30-day challenge regarding ideation, sharing progress updates in the CGC forums as I went along. My version of the challenge was to generate 100+ divergent ideas per day for each day of November. My intention was to stimulate some thinking in new directions.
Most of the ideas I generated weren’t useful. However, some notable ideas did lead to interesting results, as I shared in CGC along the way. One I’ll share here is that I ended up diving into the rabbit hole of figuring out how to set up a decent home theater system, which is a project I’ve wanted to do for a while but always found intimidating in the past. It seems like there are endless rabbits in there with so many options and combinations to consider.
I began by watching lots of YouTube videos about home theater systems and components, starting in late November. That was quite the educational experience. There was so much I didn’t know. I learned more about speakers, amps, subwoofers, and other audio tech in the past month than I ever knew before.
Within a few weeks, I gained enough knowledge and skills to put together a very nice new 7.2.4 Dolby Atmos system that works great. This includes Focal Chora speakers, a Yamaha Aventage RX-A8A receiver / amplifier, and dual SVS PB-3000 subwoofers.
I even learned how to make speaker cables, so I made all the cables for the new system myself.
Here’s a pic of some speaker cables I made:
Here was my assembly space for the cables:
While I could have bought off-the-shelf cables, the ones I made are higher quality than most (due to using 12 gauge copper wife). This also made the experience more personally meaningful, and it’s nice to pick up an interesting new skill that I never had before. I like that I can make cables for whatever length I desire.
Inviting Reality to Fund the Project
All-in the new home theater system was about $15K. Now I could have just bought everything outright, but that would have been boring, right? So I also used the November ideation challenge to come up with an idea to fully fund the project with an extra income source.
Partly I figured that reality could set the budget based on how well that income idea worked. I wasn’t really attached to how much to spend on the home theater project, especially since just about any improvement was going to be a meaningful upgrade.
So in late November I did a little income-generating project, which brought in more than enough to cover the whole cost of the upgrade. This involved doing a Black Friday offer just for newsletter subscribers, which I’d never done before. That brought in more than $21K extra in less than a week. It’s also good to know that people liked it, so this was a very nice win-win idea.
Even though this home theater project may seem like a totally personal endeavor, I’ve so often found that when I explore these rabbit holes that are personally meaningful for me, and perhaps no one else will care about or benefit from my exploration, that is so rarely the case. Such personal pursuits pretty much always have a tendency to loop around into new insights, ideas, and inspirations that do create positive ripples for others too. That’s one reason I like to give myself a lot of leeway to do these kinds of experiments.
I must say that it felt like reality provided a generous amount of support for this endeavor. Everything I needed felt into place pretty nicely.
Along the way I realized that the home theater project is a great metaphor for being more intentional. Instead of setting monophonic intentions, this change to my home will serve as a constant reminder to set immersive “surround sound” intentions.
Here are some thoughts on how to connect the different components of a home theater system with different types of intentions.
TV
The television displays the moving picture of what you’re seeing and experiencing. This is your portal into the present reality of what’s happening right here, right now, right in front of you.
The TV reminds you to keep setting present moment intentions, even as you take action. Face and deal with what’s right in front of you, and clarify your intentions for what kind of experience you want to have.
Do your best to bring intentionality to each moment. Adjust your intentions as you act out your story scene by scene. Participate directly in the action flow of life.
Receiver / Amp
The receiver / amplifier takes source signals as input, processes and amplifies them, and transmits them to the speakers to create sound.
The receiver reminds you to tune in and receive inspiration. Invite inspiration with intentionality. Ask life or reality to send you some inspired ideas, either generally or in a specific direction.
Don’t limit yourself to plain vanilla, obvious goals. Realize that you can stream inspired ideas from a variety of sources. Check out a few different streams, and then decide which streams to explore with greater intentionality.
Do your best to stay attuned to the flow of inspiration. Keep refreshing your alignment with your favorite source signals. Don’t get caught up in watching uninspired programming.
Front Mains
The left and right front mains define the boundaries of center stage. They hold the space for the front and center action, music, and dialogue. The mains anchor the story directly in front of you.
Realize that your intentions have some width to them. You always have options for how to proceed next. Sometimes you may continue straight ahead as you expected, while other times you may need to pan a bit left or right to advance the scene.
Good mains create a wide and immersive soundstage whereby the speakers essentially disappear, and you cannot localize the sound as coming from any one speaker. Good intentions give you direction while granting access to an array of options for advancement, so you’re not overly constrained. Just as you don’t want to fixate on just one or two speakers, it’s wise to avoid fixating on only one or two ways in which your goals can manifest. Let your soundstage on intentionality open up more.
Set intentions to open an expansive field of exploration in front of you. Don’t limit yourself to a narrow, overly linear and predictable path because that would create boring (and demotivating) story. Invite advancement in a worthy direction while giving yourself plenty of opportunity to swerve left or right as needed.
Give your intentionality reasonable boundaries, so you still have a pretty clear direction even as you explore. Dive into the story that’s unfolding in front of you, but don’t give yourself so much leeway that you abandon the story altogether and lose your connection to the soundstage of motivation.
Center
This is the front-and-center part of the soundstage. A key purpose of the center channel is to provide crisp and clear dialogue.
The center channel is a reminder to interactively dialogue with life. Listen to life’s feedback, converse with life to deepen your understanding, and keep communicating your intentions and your feedback with life as you go. You always have a direct line of communication with life, so keep the dialogue channel open.
Speak your intentions aloud. Put your intentions front and center in your life. Make sure they’re always right in front of you, so you can’t lose sight of them. Make your intentions crisp, clear, and ever-present. Don’t keep your intentions locked away in some remote corner of your mind.
Side Surrounds
The side surrounds help to envelope you in a sound field from the sides. They also provide a sense of movement as sounds flow from front to back or vice versa. They help you feel aligned with the timing of a scene.
Just as sounds tend to traverse through the side fields instead of lingering there, this is a reminder to allow events and circumstances to pass through your experiential field instead of keeping them stuck. Allow whatever is misaligned to flow past you, so you can release it. Invite aligned experiences to flow towards center stage, so you can fully experience them.
Remember that the soundscape of your life is always in flux. You must release the misaligned to allow space for the aligned to flow through. Don’t be clingy with the misaligned. Keep the side channels open, and do your best to prevent and clear pile-ups of stuck energy.
The side surrounds remind you to set intentions for releasing, not just for adding. What must be shed or dropped in order to create space for the new?
The soundscape of your life is only so big. You cannot pack everything into it all at once without creating a cacophonous mess. It’s important to go with the flow of a scene, allowing some elements to recede so others can take center stage. The side surrounds remind you that in order to gain the new, you must also be willing to release the old. No scene gets to hold center stage forever.
Rear Speakers
The rear speakers provide presence from behind you. They define the back of the sound field.
The rears remind you to invite reality to back you up. Invite support from others. Invite whatever kind of backup you need or desire.
You do not have to go it alone. Life is here to support you. Invite all the support you could ever want at the level of intentionality.
Even when you begin with the most selfish intentions, also consider the framing that makes your intentions good for others and good for life. Upgrade your solo intentions into win-win intentions that create positive ripples in the world. Give life and other people worthy reasons to back you up.
Remember at the very least that whatever you gain for yourself can be turned into a win for others simply by teaching people what you’ve learned or by sharing what you’ve experienced along the way.
Overheads / Heights
Overhead or height speakers add three-dimensionality to a soundscape, like the sound of a helicopter flying above. They free you of the limits of two-dimensional sound and create the experience of being fully inside of an immersive sound bubble.
What is the upper level of your intentionality space? What intentions feel like they’re flying overhead, but you can’t necessarily grasp them right now?
The overhead speakers remind you to set high-level intentions, not just at the ground level. Reach for the sky, and stretch beyond the plane of practicality and accessibility. What aspects of your intentions are so high up that you cannot currently reach them, even if you stretch your arms as high as you can?
Don’t chain yourself to what seems realistic. Be aspirational too. Be willing to reach for the unreasonable. Remember that more is possible.
Even intentions that you cannot reach can provide value by adding to the overall immersive effect. It’s important for some part of your intentionality to reach beyond your grasp. Remember you can set intentions far beyond the plane of accessibility. Make sure that some of your intentions are high above the ground level, so you can hear what’s flying overhead.
Subwoofer
This is the deep bass of the system. It adds richness and detail to deep voices and sounds. It provides the frequencies that the other speakers cannot generate.
The subwoofer also creates the booming sounds and LFEs (low-frequency effects) like those stimulating chest-pounding pressure waves. It adds vibes of power and explosiveness. It’s the largest and heaviest speaker in the system.
A subwoofer adds liveliness and fun. It keeps you awake. It can rattle the walls and shake the house when cranked up high enough. If turned up too high, it will disturb the neighbors and generate unwanted side effects. But used in a measured way, it can add a lot of richness and extra stimulation.
The subwoofer blows up your old reality, demolishing what doesn’t belong. It thrives in the domain of the boldest and most intense action. It invites you to accept that some people will likely resist the fullest exploration of your intentionality, and you can simply let them whine while you enjoy yourself anyway. If you crank the subs up loud enough, you won’t even hear anyone banging on your door anymore.
Think of the subwoofer as infusing your intentions with raw power and explosiveness. This is a reminder to make your intentions fun, engaging, immersive, and edgy. Be willing to invite more risk, leaning into the space of potentially disturbing or upsetting other people. Invite disruption of the status quo. If you’re not particularly fond of the status quo, demolish it. Playing is safe all the time is weak.
To set a good subwoofer intention, access the part of you that feels bold, courageous, and disruptive. Access the part of you that’s ready to set the misaligned ablaze. Let go of the need to satisfy other people’s expectations, and incorporate what you find most stimulating. You can still be careful not to overdo it when a measured response seems wise, but give yourself enough room to throw caution to the wind and crank up the power when that seems like the most viable way to get the job done.
What do you think?
I still have a few more tweaks to do to the new system, such as using the Room EQ Wizard app to tweak the EQ, but I really like it so far. It’s a huge upgrade over what we had before. I love the clarity and detail of the Focal speakers, especially combined with the deep bass extension of the dual subs. The receiver provides ample power for all channels without needing any extra amps.
I’m glad we live in a house with well-insulated walls and double-paned windows. We absolutely couldn’t run this system if we were in an apartment or condo.
Our previous system was mainly just a TV and a pair of HomePods, so basically a 2.0 system. I feel like we skipped ahead several levels by advancing to a 7.2.4 Atmos setup, but I do tend to be all-in-or-nothing in many of my explorations. I find it fun to go into full immersion mode and really upgrade my knowledge and skills. I learned so much that I knew nothing about before. I spent hours just learning about the difference between ported and sealed subs, for instance.
What I found most challenging about this project was not having a good local outlet for being able to sample all the different possibilities with my ears before deciding what to get. I relied a lot on other people’s reviews and opinions. That can be pretty subjective, but when I found consistent impressions shared by different sources, that helped me make decent decisions. I also reminded myself that there’s an undo button for everything since I could return or exchange anything that didn’t work out. Now that I can hear the results, I’m pretty pleased with the specific choices I made.
I also learned something interesting about Rachelle along the way, namely that she’s quite the basshead. I had thought the dual PB-3000 subs would be a bit overkill if we cranked them up, but I wanted to have that excess headroom for really good bass detail. Rachelle, however, really enjoys the powerful bass slam that can be felt, not just heard. The Witcher’s season 2 finale was really over-the-top in that regard. With dual subs you really can’t localize the bass, so it sounds like it’s coming from all around, making it feel like there are monsters stomping and chomping in the same room with you. It’s downright scary at times.
This upgrade also showed me how much I’ve been missing. Rewatching old shows with an immersive sound field completely changes the experience. Instead of feeling like I’m watching a movie, I feel like I’m inside of it. The experience is a lot more emotional. Watching The Witcher or The Wheel of Time or The Expanse becomes is so much more intense now. Any Avengers movie is pretty awesome too.
Even more subdued shows feels more engaging too… like if a show is cozy, it feels even cozier when I can hear rainfall or birds coming from behind me and off to the sides.
I found this upgrade to be a nice reminder that reality is willing to offer us richer levels of engagement if we’re willing to reach out and invite it. A good place to begin is by setting surround sound intentions. If you’re going to invite a change, then really invite it. Don’t half-ass your intentionality with overly narrow mono or stereo versions. Open up your intentionality soundstage, and invite the full sensuality and emotionality of your desires. Intend what you need to shift right now. Intend long-term changes. Intend to release what you’ll surely need to release. Intend the support you’ll need. Intend to fully immersive yourself in a new way of living. Intend positive ripples beyond yourself.
After upgrading the home theater system, I also went a bit further by upgrading my home office sound system, including a new amp and speakers and some monitoring headphones to use for audio and video editing. I often find it wise to keep flowing with this upgrade energy while it lasts since it can be efficient to let it cascade into related upgrades as well.
Additionally, Rachelle and I sold our old couch and upgraded to a much nicer one. I’ve been sitting on it while writing this blog post, nice and cozy by the fireplace. So with all of the upgrades we did in the past 30 days, cost-wise it pretty much added up to the extra income manifested from the Black Friday idea. Needless to say, I’m really glad I did that ideation challenge – beyond what I’ve shared here, there were a bunch of other positive side effects from that challenge as well. It was a great way to break through some old mental constraints.
One tip here is that if you’ve ever gotten stuck trying to manifest money, try manifesting it in connection with a fun project, such that the money will immediately fund the project. I think reality gets bored with vanilla requests for money, such as to pay rent. See if you can make the request more playful. My experience is that reality absolutely loves playful requests. It also loves to reward exploration.
I find it especially important to pay attention to whatever forms of inspiration keep knocking on my mind, especially those ideas that I keep dismissing but which keep circling back to me, like they’re taunting me to finally give them some serious attention. This home theater project has been knocking on my mind for years, and it feels really good to have finally invested in it. I like that this project improves my relationship with a part of reality that I appreciate, such as enjoying movies with Rachelle.
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.
This is the one week during each year during which Conscious Growth Club opens for new members to join. We are open through May 1st. It’s an exciting time inside the group as current members who’ve been in the group for 1-4 years are actively welcoming new members who are just now beginning their CGC journey.
Every year at this time, some members renew for another year. Some members decide to leave or take a break from CGC. And many new members join. Also this year, some previous members who skipped Year 4 have already rejoined CGC for Year 5. I’m delighted to welcome them back.
So it’s a time of transition. Every year in CGC is a different experience because the people are different, and the group dynamics change. Year 5 is likely to be an especially creative year in the group due to many people from the Amplify course joining us. We launched Amplify on March 1st, starting with just 2 lessons, and today I’ll be publishing lesson #60. I’ve been creating and adding a new lesson every single day, 7 days a week, for the past two months. I expect we’ll close at about 62 lessons, so the main course will be complete this week, and then I’ll create some additional bonuses for it too. The feedback on this course and the interactions with the members have been deeply rewarding.
We’re having our 8th and final live group call for Amplify tomorrow (April 28th). CGC members get to attend that call too.
CGC’s Will and Consciousness
The lesson I recorded yesterday for Amplify is called “Stellar Nursery,” and one topic it covers is how big projects can take on a life of their own, as if they have their own will and consciousness. CGC is one of those star-like projects. In the beginning I felt like I had to give it tons of careful thought and nurturing, always going back to getting clear about the intention for it. Now I feel like it’s doing a good job of voicing its own intentions and summoning its own energy for where it wants to go and what it wants to explore and experience each year.
Many people have contributed their own intentions to what CGC is to become. In the past, some had conflicting views about which way CGC should go, and when the group zigged one way, they zagged and left. Others preferred to hang with the zig.
One thing I love about CGC is that it too is an explorer. There are so many explorer types like me in the group, and we’ve collectively given CGC a similar explorer consciousness. CGC has some nicely structured elements, but it has plenty of flexibility to move and dance in different directions throughout the year.
For instance, members often use the CGC Lounge (our 24/7 video hangout room, basically an open Zoom call that never ends) to mastermind together in various ways. Groups form, meet purposefully for a while, and then naturally dissolve when they energy is ready to flow somewhere else. CGC has a very wave-like nature internally, much like how I like to blog and create new courses with the flow of inspiration.
I feel there’s a part of CGC that absolutely resists being caged. It loves freedom. It loves to explore the possibility space. It does not want to be locked down into an overly rigid structure, but some structure is healthy for it as a base from which to explore. It loves to invite and encourage experimentation, spontaneity, and going with the flow of inspiration among its members.
CGC also loves abundance. It delights in inviting new people to the party, yet it’s unattached to who stays and who goes, knowing that it’s up to each individual to align or not. CGC doesn’t try to convince or chase after anyone to join. It offers no resistance when people leave. It simply basks in the energy and presence of being what it is and becoming what it wants to be. And it knows without a doubt that it’s going to be an incredible match for people who want to surf its waves and dance with it for some portion of their lives.
CGC loves compassion. It willingly accompanies people into the depths of their sorrow. It has no fear of pain or trauma. It welcomes transformational tears with love and hugs. It will stand in the Pit of Despair with members and do tequila shots with them while they’re there, occasionally pointing up at the stars.
No Advertising or Social Media This Year
Last year I spent over $6K on Facebook ads to promote CGC during its launch. This year the ad budget is zero.
This isn’t for financial reasons. The ads for previous launches were always profitable, bringing in 2-3x what was spent. But I haven’t spent a dime on advertising this whole year.
I’m not even mentioning CGC on social media this time. I deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts in January. I had thousands of followers on both services. I let that go.
Interestingly, CGC’s sign-up and renewal rates are even better than they were last time at this year. It’s still early in the launch week, so I can’t predict where we’ll land, but so far 38 people are already enrolled for Year 5 (40 if you count Rachelle and me). That’s a fantastic start. We’ll see where we end up after the May 1st deadline.
The Amplify launch was ad-free and social media-free as well, and 300+ people signed up for it during the first 2 weeks. That was a good test to verify that advertising and social media just aren’t needed.
I trust my intuition – a lot – and it tells me that it’s time to let go of some old frames, even frames that may have served me well in the past. So instead of thinking of a launch in terms of reaching out to more people, I’m focusing on alignment and depth. I’m deliberating inviting fewer people this time.
This year I’m only sharing the CGC invitation with the core community around my work, namely my blog readers, course customers, and email subscribers. It’s really this community that CGC is intended for. Reaching beyond this community just doesn’t seem necessary or wise.
I’ve noticed that a lot of CGCers don’t even have Facebook accounts anymore. CGC has become such a good and healthy online home for them, and I too see the potential to go even more all-in with this community. Facebook may have a lot of reach, but it terms of depth and intimacy, it’s nowhere close to what CGC offers. And Facebook has so many misalignments that CGC doesn’t have to deal with.
I feel like my own alignment with CGC has grown even stronger since letting go of Facebook and Instagram. I think it has something to do with letting go of the shallowness and misalignments of those services. My brain no longer has to maintain any circuitry for the Facebook-style interactions, so it can repurpose all of that mental and emotional energy for greater depth and engagement. I like how this has simplified my life too.
I especially notice that I’ve been feeling a lot more compassionate and caring towards people this year. I can really feel that as I record lessons for the Amplify course – there’s a depth of compassion there that feels very powerful to me. And I think letting go of social media misalignments helped. This kind of energy feels like it’s way more me. It’s nice that I no longer have to maladapt some part of my thinking and my energy to deal with social media interactions. It feels like my energy matrix is free to stretch into its proper dimensions now – no need to put so much energy into shielding anymore.
I’m just so used to engaging with people at great levels of depth and intimacy. It’s like being a submarine that doesn’t want to surface anymore because there’s so much beauty to explore below the surface.
Last year I was involved in other communities too, including a year-long coaching program. I wrapped all of that up in December, and I also wrapped up my 2020 daily blogging challenge. I feel that CGC is drawing me even further inward, which seems like a very aligned invitation to accept for Year 5.
Inviting Aligned Members
CGC has a very beautiful culture inside that took a while to evolve. There were some bumps along the way, which served as invitations to make clearer alignment decisions. I’ve especially loved how nicely it’s been flowing for the past several months. There’s been a core group of active members who’ve been holding a strong vibe of mutual caring and compersion. I really like how we’ve managed to merge mutual caring with goal-oriented pursuits and improving our results. Internally it feels like group has become more team-like than ever.
Compersion is a word you may not find in the dictionary. It’s adapted from non-monogamy circles. Compersion is the opposite of jealousy or envy. It means feeling happy for other people’s successes and happiness.
I’ve been flowing with a lot of compersion lately too. I really enjoy seeing people in CGC make their lives better. I like celebrating their wins with them. It’s an honor to connect with such growth-oriented people each day. I get to see how much they invest in moving their lives forward, especially when it comes to working through various misalignments. I really do feel good about their accomplishments, big and small, since I seen a lot of their journey to get there, making it feel like I’ve walked that path with them.
Same goes for connecting with people on the Amplify group calls. It’s been a joy to watch people advance their lives in so many ways.
I think one reason that I’m able to feel so much compersion for other people is that I’m really happy with my own life. The pandemic situation has made me feel luckier and more appreciative. In some ways I feel that the pandemic has been a gift. It helped me flow into a much-needed contraction phase, which helped me see how much there is to appreciate that’s right in front of me.
To help members see if they’re aligned with joining CGC, I’ve made some tweaks to the CGC Invitation Page, and I’ve also updated the CGC Frequently Asked Questions to provide even more answers and details about the club.
CGC Is a Trump-Free Zone
One specific thing I’ll share is that CGC isn’t a fit for Trump voters and supporters. This isn’t for political reasons, and it doesn’t actually matter what someone might state as their reasons for supporting Trump, such as their personal financial interests. It doesn’t matter if people made that choice out of ignorance or careful consideration. The behavior alone is enough to disqualify someone from being a match for CGC. That behavior and its effects are just too incompatible with CGC’s culture, values, and internationally diverse membership. This is stated plainly on the CGC Invitation Page too.
Additionally it would not feel good to be put in a position where I’d be expected to coach or help Trump supporters to achieve their goals, so I’m not willing to offer that service to them. That would be incompatible with my own values and ethics. If I invited such people to join, it would degrade my relationship with CGC, and I’m not willing to let that happen. It’s my intention to develop and even stronger relationship with CGC this year, and having Trump supporters in the group would be incompatible with that intention too.
For anyone who has a serious problem with this, I would ask them not to join CGC.
I think that for many people who are very well-aligned with CGC though, the fact that I’ll do my best to maintain CGC as a Trump-free zone may even bring some relief regarding what they will not have to see or deal with inside. This decision includes acknowledging how Trump supporters’ choices and behaviors negatively impact the lives of many members of this community.
Maybe there will come a time when ex-Trumpers have a place in CGC – and if so, I think it would be a very long road to get there – but this year CGC needs to stay Trump-free. If anyone doesn’t like this decision and wants to blame it on my personal shortcomings, it won’t change the decision. It’s my responsibility to make this call, and I think it’s the right call for where the energy flow is going for CGC Year 5. I’m just not seeing any kind of flow in a direction that could be compatible with having Trump supporters joining us this year. I don’t see a scenario where that could be a win-win situation, so I do think it’s wise to take that option off the table.
Public Q&A and “Meet the Members” Call for CGC
To help people who are thinking about joining CGC this year make a good decision, I’ll be hosting a Public Q&A and “Meet the Members” call this Thursday, April 29, 2021 at 11am Pacific time.
You’re welcome to attend if you’re interested in CGC, subject to the caveats I shared above. Just register for the call, and Zoom will send you the link to join.
I’ll answer people’s questions about CGC, and CGC members are also invited to join the call and share about their experiences and tips for new members. They can offer their own perspectives on what CGC is like and who’d be a good match for it.
So this is an opportunity for you to get a little more perspective on what CGC and the members are like.
We’ll record this call too, and I’ll share it on my blog afterwards, so if you can’t make the live call, you can still watch the recording.
My intention for this call isn’t to try to convince anyone to join, so it’s not going to be salesy. My intention is to help people make the right decision for themselves and for CGC. I know that each year, some people really sweat this decision. If someone really is a terrific match for CGC and would likely gain a lot from joining, then everyone is well-served by helping them to see that. And if someone really wouldn’t be a healthy match for CGC, then it’s also in everyone’s best interest that they see that too.
If you do feel aligned to join CGC already, then I invite you to visit the CGC Invitation Page and join us. The new CGC year runs through April 30, 2022, and your membership starts immediately when you join. So if you join now instead of waiting till May 1st to decide, you’ll get several extra days for your one-year membership (the rest of April 2021), and you can begin engaging with the community right away.
If you have other questions about CGC, you can also get in touch via my contact form. 😃
On a group call for the Amplify course last week, we did a two-part co-creative exercise. The first part involved connecting with our sorrow, and the second part was to see the invitation in that sorrow to discover a new place of joy. Then members co-created intentions for the world with the purpose of sharing those intentions publicly – with the hope that we may collectively inspire more positive ripples in the world.
I promised to share on my blog the intentions that people wanted to put out into the world. Every group was free to decide what medium to use to express their intentions, as long as it was something we could capture and share in a digital format.
Here are the intentions that people wanted to share with you. I hope you find this inspiring. 😃
Umbrella of Love
Respectful Co-creation Nurtured by Love and Connection, a Möbius strip, no beginning or end, Embracing both result and process. An umbrella of Love overarching, Held aloft aloft by Connection
– Group 2
Healing Ripples
Through healing ourselves and taking personal responsibility for our authentic self-expression, we create ripples that heal the world.
– Group 7
A World of Connectedness
We intend a world of connectedness where everyone feels like a part of a community. A world where there’s freedom of speech and expression. A world where people feel deep empathy, recognize each other’s common humanity and find ways to relate to each other irrespective of their backgrounds. A world where they feel safe and a sense of belonging.
– Group 3: Gianfranco, Benjamin, Sean, Christine, and Ranjana
Waking Up Abundance
To combat indifference, apathy and cruelty in the world, let go of scarcity, wake up to abundance, empathy and the power within you.
– Group 5
Feeling Deeply
Lead by example, in this moment, by being open to have our heart broken today. We’ll be able to feel connected to each other, experience profound joy and create change because we feel deeply.
When you have a powerful enough “why”, you’ll find the “how”. Leave space for infinite how’s.
Additionally, eat ice cream every day!
– Group 1: Ellie, Randy, JR, JQ, Théo, Thorsten
On behalf of Group 1, Ellie sings about being the change you want to see in the world.
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Embracing Individual Uniqueness
On behalf of Group 6, Sean shares the intention to connect based on our uniqueness rather than our sameness.
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Elevating Empathy and Compassion
Compassion…there is no “other.” We are interconnected…but what’s it like to be the other?
– Group 4
Phil elaborates on Group 4’s intention to elevate empathy and compassion.
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Welcome Home
On behalf of the Welcome Home Group (Harriet, Bri, Nessy, Darryl, Artem, and Karine), Darryl shares intentions of belonging, wholeness, nurturing, and healing, encapsulated by the words “Welcome home.”
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Celebrating Existence
On behalf of Group 9 (aka “The Dandelions”), Manuel celebrates the fact that we’re alive and that you may contribute a verse to the powerful play of life.
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Here’s the poem “O Me! O Life!” that Manuel mentioned in the video.
Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring, Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish, Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d, Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me, Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined, The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer. That you are here—that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
by Walt Whitman (from Leaves of Grass, 1892)
And by the way, Broderick… Walt Whitman isn’t the guy from Breaking Bad. 😉
Here’s an image of a dandelion growing in a sidewalk that Manuel mentioned in the video, drawn by Harriet Knight.
A Community of Higher Selves
Build a community to help us connect to our higher selves. It will require investment from participants (not necessarily money) to join.
– Group 10
On behalf of Group 10, Richad envisions a community of people who want to embrace their higher selves.
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Welcome Home – The Song
This exercise has been inspiring some further creative ripples among Amplify members. In particular, Bri Harris felt inspired to write and sing this beautiful song called “Welcome Home,” shared with her permission.
I have a dream that one day every being will feel nurtured, loved, accepted, safe and welcomed on this earth
And they will know that they are home and they belong yeah, they belong
Standing at the mirror the young girl does not compare herself to flawless images or fear judgmental stares
The voice in her own head is a kind and caring friend, it says your body is beautiful your body is your home
Welcome home welcome home you belong Oh you belong
Playing in the yard the boy falls down and cries his tears are not a weakness he ever has to hide
The feelings in his chest are openly expressed holding space for his friends, he makes them feel at home
Welcome home welcome home you belong you belong
Stepping off the plane in an unfamiliar place the woman doesn’t recognize a single face
But the people in the crowd wrap their loving arms around her and say— Welcome home!
Welcome home Welcome home You belong You belong
Walking through the doors head bowed down in shame the man is scared he won’t be forgiven for all of his mistakes
But the world is there with its heart open wide ready to heal and to welcome him home
Welcome home welcome home you belong you belong
Girl or boy he, she, they or them No matter your identity or the color of your skin
You are welcome here You always fit in You are home And you belong
I have a dream that one day every being will feel nurtured, loved, accepted, safe and welcomed on this earth
And we’ll know This is our home and we belong yeah, we belong
Final Thoughts
Even though each group did this exercise independently (in groups of 5-6 people), it’s fascinating that there’s so much commonality in the themes, especially regarding belongingness and welcoming. Several people noted this during the call as well. There was even a suggestion of getting “Welcome home” tattoos.
I wonder how universal this intention is – to create a world where everyone feels like this is truly their home and that they belong here.
It’s interesting how many spiritual beliefs suggest that there’s a better place after this one, or that we came from a better place before this one. What if we intend to make this world the most welcoming place to be, while we’re here right now?
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.
I love the feeling of making a big creative commitment, knowing that I have to lean into trust, rely on my knowledge and skills, and take lots and lots of action to follow through.
It reminds me of when I used to go cliff diving on Catalina Island when I was younger, jumping off a large rock into the ocean and hoping I landed the right way.
Once the commitment is fully made, there’s this feeling of being all-in. All doubt is shoved aside since there’s no point in entertaining such thoughts after the decision to go forward is made.
Post-commitment all of my energy flows in the same direction – towards completion. I internally switch off any modes of thinking that might create internal friction. If such thoughts try to surface, they get lasered into oblivion.
I keep a careful watch on my emotions during this time, looking for any emotional drift from solid and sustainable motivation. If I spot any issues, I move to address them immediately. I do what it takes to keep my motivation in the sweet spot for consistent creative flow.
I’m in this mode now. Today I recorded and published the 10th lesson of the Amplify course. It’s a 21-minute lesson, and it took me a good 7 hours to fully design, record, edit, and publish it, including writing a one-page summary of the course and an exercise for the Amplify Workbook. I started shortly after 5am and finished just after noon.
Daily Commitment
This will be part of my daily flow for the next 7 weeks – every day including weekends – till the course is 100% complete.
In addition to creating 60+ audio lessons, I’ll also be hosting 8 live calls for course participants, one per week, starting this Wednesday, March 10. Bringing so many creative people together to connect, share, and inspire each other will surely be a lively adventure.
Many years ago the scope and speed of a project like this would have scared me. Now I love it. It feels edgy, fun, and engaging.
This course isn’t designed in advance. I’m co-creating it with the brave souls who’ve enrolled, one lesson at a time. When I woke up this morning at 5am, I didn’t know what lesson I’d create today. By 6am I was already well immersed in designing it.
I love how this project demands that I stay focused on it for many hours each day. I have to take it one step at a time and keep driving each step forward to completion. There’s at least one new deliverable every day, and it’s not done till it’s published. I can’t just put in what feels like enough time and call it a day. I have to finish and publish, or the creative part of the day isn’t over.
With this kind of rhythm, any misaligned thoughts or feelings are not to be entertained. The mental and emotional drive can only go forward, not backwards or sideways. I find that the commitment itself takes care of that pretty well. My mind knows the daily goal.
It’s very satisfy to work in such an immersive way, to fully commit myself to one of the biggest and deepest creative projects of my life. So much stems from that commitment. By telling my mind that we are absolutely positively moving forward on this, every part of me gets on board.
This is challenging at times, but it feels like I have all the mental and emotional capacity I need. This also requires tremendous trust. I have to trust that the ideas will flow each day. I have to trust that every single day there will be abundant fresh waves of inspiration and that they’ll always be there for me.
I don’t just want to create adequate lessons for this course. I want to create lessons that are interesting, original, insightful, profound, brilliant, unique, and often playful. I want to listen to a lesson after it’s recorded and think: Damn… that was incredible… how did I do that? I want to twist and squeeze every drop of creative essence I have and pour it into this course. I want to record with great emotional energy and expressiveness. And I want to enjoy the experience, day after day. I want to be full of satisfaction and gratitude after publishing each lesson, anticipating how beautiful it will be when people get to listen to it.
Creative Courage
I feel that the key to all of this is creative courage – to finally have the guts to go all-in with a project that I feel ought to be created. This includes choosing a project that’s in my edgy zone. It’s not so easy that I already know how to do it, like plucking a piece of low-hanging fruit off a tree. It seems possible, but it’s going to require that I do my best. A half-hearted effort won’t suffice.
I feel immensely pleased with the first 10 lessons, and the feedback rolling in has been extremely positive, with some people saying they’ve already gotten their money’s worth from the course. I’m really pouring my heart and soul into this, with some lessons making me cry while I design them. This is definitely not just a mental-level experience. It’s a potent journey through creative space, and that can be emotionally intense. It’s like I’m taking all of the emotional energy that flowed through me during nearly 30 years of creative work and infusing it into this course. It’s potent!
I also like that the invitation to join the course requires creative courage to accept. This is not a course for everyone. It’s for people who hear the call to do creative work, and they have the courage to say yes to it. It takes guts to commit yourself to a major deep dive like this, knowing that you’re going to emerge from it a different person – a person who is going to create ripples in the world.
I feel like the real purpose of the Amplify course is to fill people’s hearts and minds with so much creative inspiration and motivation that they experience a major upgrade in their creative courage… and this energy must then flow forth in a powerful fountain of original creative expression.
People often ask me what drives me. While there can be many motivations for taking action, I’d say that one of my biggest drivers is curiosity. I love to learn, and I find it most valuable to learn through hands-on direct experience.
In my early years of exploring personal development, I did a combination of reading books and doing experiments on my own. I almost always found direct experimentation to be a better investment. Books were mostly good for stimulating further experimentation. It was rare that I found good ideas from books that I could apply as-is. Most ideas I picked up from books were misaligned, and they often led me astray for a while. I made the mistake of trusting other authors too much and giving them too much credibility. I mistook their confidence as as reason to presume that their ideas were flawless.
Many of my best advancements and cherished experiences started with a spark of curiosity. Then I added fuel to that spark by investing in exploration.
I went vegan 24 years ago because of curiosity. I’m eating raw this year because of curiosity. I became an entrepreneur after college because I was curious about it. I moved to Las Vegas because of curiosity.
I’m especially curious about how different experiences will affect me. I can’t always predict what I like and how I’ll feel about different situations. So my curiosity is often comprised of questions like these:
What would it be like to do X for a month?
What would that experience do to me?
How would it affect me if I permanently added the memory of doing X?
What if I could learn to do X? What then?
What will happen if I join (or quit) this group?
If I eat this way instead of that way, how will it affect me?
Here are some specific versions that I actually implemented:
What would it be like to try going vegetarian for a month?
What would it be like to exercise every day for a year?
What would happen if I blogged every day for a year?
Would I enjoy training in martial arts? How would that change me?
How would my life change if I deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts?
What would happen if Rachelle and I spent 30 days in a row going to Disneyland?
If I get an idea to travel somewhere, what if I just go there immediately?
While creating positive social ripples often factors into my decisions, the spark of curiosity is usually more personal. I like having an experientially rich life, and I’m very curious about how different experiences will affect me.
I think it’s similar to the motivation that gets people playing video games. You probably want to have fun, and you’re curious about what the game will be like. You know that some games are great, some okay, and others duds, and you’re willing to take the chance on an interesting experience. The more games you play, the more you learn about what you personally like.
In fact, my curiosity about video games when I was younger eventually drove me to become a game developer for 10 years. I wanted to know what it would be like to design and create games. Now I know. It’s a lot of work but can also be very rewarding. People still occasionally email me about games I wrote during the 1990s.
One thing I tend to do differently than most people is that I also use the lack of curiosity to turn down projects. I do my best to decline projects and invitations that don’t spark any curiosity. If the outcome is a foregone conclusion or if the experience doesn’t seem intriguing, what’s the point in having that experience?
When I’m not curious and I try to push myself to take action anyway, I usually fail. I failed at my first attempt at college because I tried to do it like everyone else. It was too predictable and boring. There was no spark of curiosity.
On my second attempt at college, I remedied that. Instead of taking four years, I graduated in three semesters with two degrees by taking about triple the normal course load. I was curious as to what my best effort would look like since I never felt driven to do my best academically up to that point. I was also lucky in finding some good teachers who were themselves curious about their subjects, which uplifted me after the dreadful dial-it-in teachers brought me down.
I learned that I could succeed nicely by following my curiosity, but it was critical to keep that spark of curiosity alive. I couldn’t allow my pursuits to become too dull or predictable. I’m too much of an explorer at heart.
One reason I’m happy in my marriage is that I married a woman that I’m intensely curious about. Even after 11 years together, I’m still rediscovering her anew. She’s very curious and growth-oriented as well, which I think is critical for keeping that spark in our relationship alive. It also helps that we have a lifestyle that keeps bringing in fresh experiences, even during COVID times. We’re both good at embracing the new, so we share a lot of new experiences together. I think we do a great job of balancing the familiar with the fresh, so we’re neither bored nor overwhelmed.
While curiosity can get me into trouble – and it certainly has in the past – I’ve learned to embrace it as a powerful and important form of inner guidance. I see areas of life that I’m not curious about as dead zones where I wouldn’t want to invest. I see areas of life that I’m curious about as being good investments of time and energy.
When I’m exploring a genuine curiosity, I feel like my life flows about 3x faster. I get way more done. I learn more. I’m happier too. I don’t always want to be in this mode 100% of the time, but it sure is fun to ride it while I can sustain that pacing. One thing I love about eating raw this year is that I have more energy to stick with these waves for longer. I don’t need as much downtime for rest and recovery. So that’s a really nice combo that I’m enjoying a lot.
The best areas of investment involve overlapping curiosities. Overlapping curiosities can greatly multiply the motivational effects. And this often adds feelings of deeper meaning and purpose. I’ve noticed that my life becomes very purposeful just by following enough curiosities.
For instance, my curiosity about blogging and personal development led me to create one of the first personal development blogs 16+ years ago, and that turned out pretty well. People come here every day to pick up new insights to help them improve their lives, so the result is very service-oriented. I also wove in many other curiosities along the way, like public speaking and travel.
For many years I’ve been living and working within the overlap of multiple curiosities of mine. I think that’s why I feel so naturally motivated most of the time. I don’t allow my work to become too boring or predictable. This is why I don’t pick a singular niche to cover. I need the flexibility to pursue my curiosity wherever it takes me. I’m also very curious about how to connect the dots throughout many different areas of life, such as how my diet affects my productive, relationships, and emotions. I’m not just curious about one particular niche. Hence my business has to provide me with enough room to explore. If I had a business that got in the way of my curiosity, that business would be in trouble.
When I get invited to new experiences, I try to maintain the standard that they must at least be interesting for me. I have to be curious about them. If I’m not curious, I know I should invest elsewhere.
Here are some specific examples.
Earlier this month I emcee’d the first day of an online event for the Transformational Leadership Council. I’ve been a member for many years, so this is a familiar space for me. I’ve never been an online emcee before, although I have done that role in person. I wanted to do something different by challenging myself to pack in lots of inside jokes about the members of the group by doing setups and punchlines that only the members themselves were likely to understand. I enjoyed playing that role and received lots of positive feedback about it. I was curious to see how that kind of humor would land on a Zoom call, especially when I would only see the people but wouldn’t be able hear any laughter. That had the potential for awkwardness and risk, which made it feel edgier to explore.
I also did a podcast interview about productivity this month. I’ve done a lot of productivity interviews before, so I thought about how to bring some fresh and unusual insights to the experience this time. Could I share some empowering frames on productivity that people aren’t likely to have heard before? With that in mind, I think it was one of my best interviews on the subject. The host and I got into a nice conversational flow about some unusual yet effective ways to be more personally productive. I can share a link to it when it’s published.
And lastly, I also switched web hosts this month and really got into researching the best host for my needs. My old host, Siteground, has been going downhill for a while, so I knew I needed to jump ship before their service and support got any worse. Now we’re up and running on a much faster server with Cloudways. You may notice that this website is speedier and more responsive than it was a few weeks ago. This improvement is especially nice for people going through the courses since the course portals load much more quickly now.
When determining the flow of projects through my life, I mostly like to follow my curiosity. In order to stick with projects and complete them instead of bouncing around too much, I need to find enough curiosity to sustain me through completion. Interesting goals really help since I tend to be more curious about pursuits that lead to worthwhile results. I get curious about the impact of those long-term results.
If I’m not curious enough but I still want a result, then I know I need to change my approach. I have to reframe or refactor the project to include more learning and discovery. Thinking bigger can make a real difference here. When a project becomes too easy and straightforward and there’s no risk involved, it’s really hard to feel motivated to do it. Thinking bigger is a great way to freshen up the risk profile. Edginess and curiosity go hand in hand.
In February we’ll launch and begin a new deep dive course on the topic of creative productivity called Amplify. If you want to be notified when we’re starting, just be sure to join my email list, and I’ll let you know when it’s open for enrollment. The point of this deep dive is to help you discover what really gets you into a sustainable flow of high-quality action. If you know how to get into that flow regularly, it can permanently transform your life for the better. This isn’t just about creating work output – it’s about creating a life you enjoy and appreciate as well.
What gets you into the flow of sustainable action? If you’d like some fresh insights to up-level your flow, I think you’ll really enjoy the Amplify experience next month. 🙂
Go ahead and rattle off your initial list – the people you know, doing a good job at work, making a positive difference in the world, etc.
Then dig deeper.
What are your high-risk cares? What do you care about internally but never share because you might be judged for it? What are your unusual cares?
Once you go beyond the the easy-breezy cares, what are the harder cares that require more investment or risk?
Here are some of mine:
I care about the long-term future of humanity and where it’s heading.
I care about politics. I respect and admire good leadership and intelligent decision making. I find the opposite deplorable.
I feel a connection with people who are feeling alone right now, not getting their needs met, wondering if they’ll ever find someone to share their life with or if they’ll even pull out of the slump they’re in. I care about helping them. I like playing the role of being a stable, positive presence in their life, someone who will keep encouraging them with limitless patience.
I care about the people who are in hospitals right now, many dying from COVID, especially those wishing they had more time to live. Sometimes I imagine what it’s like to not be able to breath.
I care about my relationship with this reality. This is a wondrous dimension of existence. I want to keep this relationship rooted in trust. I want to keep making this relationship stronger as I grow older.
I care about my wife. I want her to have a fabulous life full of delightful experiences, playful adventures, warm cuddles, sensual pleasures, inspiring challenges, and cherished memories. I love seeing her stretch herself as we grow together. I love that we are each other’s best friends.
I care about death. I want its presence to keep reminding me to live fully and not to settle for partial matches. I like that it keeps me aware of the potential pain of regret, sometimes with gentle reminders and sometimes with powerful ones.
I care about animals, especially those in the factory farming system that suffer daily in ways that would be unimaginable to humans. I would love to see humanity graduate to a more caring relationship with animals.
I care about technology. Its evolution fascinates me. I love seeing how my relationship with tech has evolved since the 1970s. It’s fun to think about how it will continue to evolve and what possibilities are just over the horizon.
I care about my character. I want to look within myself and like and appreciate what I see. I want to delve into the darkest regions of myself and replace shame, fear, and guilt with love, forgiveness, appreciation, and warmth. I want to live as a fully integrated being, not as a collection of parts arguing amongst themselves.
I care about my relationship with time. I want it to be my friend and ally, not my enemy. I want to look forward to my later years with positive anticipation and pre-appreciation, not with worry or angst. I want to look in the mirror and smile as I watch myself getting older.
Some of these cares led to major changes in how I live my life or how I run my business.
Hard cares are very motivating, but they’re difficult invitations to accept. It’s challenging to move beyond the easy-breezy cares and to admit that they just aren’t giving you enough motivational juice.
When I imagine doing things that other people seem to care about, like showing up to a corporate job each day, they just seem demotivating and pointless… like why would I want to waste my precious life on that, even for one day?
But I can easily get myself to spend days on end delving into esoteric aspects of personal growth that few people who like corporate jobs would understand or care about, but these explorations matter to me.
If I want to experience a life that flows with lots of motivational juice, I have to pursue and explore what I truly care about, not what society expects me to care about. This includes accepting that my cares are good and that they’re mine to explore and understand.
One care that’s been fascinating me a lot lately is my relationship with aging. I turn 50 in a few months, so knowing that I’m about to enter a new decade of my life is pushing this idea to the front of my mind. Society in general has a tremendously negative relationship with aging. I want to create a vastly more positive relationship with this aspect of life.
My hard cares are mostly relationships with different aspects of life. I care about making those relationships healthy, positive, and rich in appreciation. When I spot a relationship that isn’t working, I ask myself if I truly care about that relationship, and then I think about what changes I’ll need to make to invest in long-term improvement.
Investing in hard cares, especially by defining them as relationships, works very well.
I found it difficult to care about money, but I was able to care about my relationship with money. I didn’t want that relationship to be full of stress and angst. I wanted it to be full of abundance, playfulness, trust, creativity, and fun. I still don’t care much about money, but I love that I’ve been able to create this kind of relationship with money. I appreciate the relationship way more than the money itself.
I found it difficult to care about business, but I definitely care about my relationship with my business. I want this relationship to be rich in exploration, variety, connection, purpose, positive ripples, creative flow, and inspiration. I also want my relationship with my business to be light, playful, and flexible, not so heavy and controlling. I never want to feel trapped by my business. I want to feel engaged and uplifted. The desire to have this kind of relationship led to some careful decisions, including avoiding many “opportunities” that could easily turn the experience into a stressful trap. I love my business, and I want to keep that relationship happy and healthy for many more years.
I encourage you to take a hard look at the relationships with parts of your life that aren’t working so well. Describe the current relationship based on how you feel about it. Then describe how you’d like that relationship to be. Recognize that these are your hard cares, and to get aligned with them, you’ll need to make some hard decisions.
Be willing to say no to relationships that aren’t working for you. Elevate your hard cares from “nice to haves” to the level of “must haves.”
Many years ago I tolerated partial matches in my professional and personal life. I treated my hard cares as soft cares. That was very unsatisfying.
It was tough to go against the social grain and to demand better relationships from life. It was hard to admit the truth that these relationships really do matter a lot to me, and I’m not willing to sacrifice what I want to live up to someone else’s expectations.
It was hard to say, “No, I’m not just going to suck it up and suppress my feelings.”
It was hard to leave… again and again… till I got these relationships right.
In your favorite models of reality, do you include a god or gods? Have you tested models and frames that are god-free to see how well they work for you?
I grew up learning models of reality that include a god, in that case a Christian version of one. Later I went atheist, and I enjoyed the godless style of living – perhaps a little too much. It was way more fun, but it took me a few years to find my footing with it.
After that I explored some New Age models that included angels, spirit guides, Source, and so on. There are many flexible ways to include divinity in our models of reality, but one key aspect is whether or not you include any “superior” beings that are more divine than you are.
Here’s what I learned after lots of exploration and experimenting.
Perhaps the most important aspect of these explorations was to learn how mysterious, fascinating, and inherently unknowable so much of reality is. It was a special turning point when I worked through the logic and truly grasped that no matter what kind of entity I am – physical, spiritual, or otherwise – I will never ever be able to discern the true nature of reality. No god would be able to discern that either. It was really interesting to see that even an all-knowing, all-seeing god would never have the power or ability to know what’s outside of its scope.
Even if this god’s scope of knowingness is infinite, you can always put a bigger infinity around it as a container. Even if the god knows everything, there could always be a bigger everything that contains it. And no god could be certain that there wasn’t some other kind of reality beyond its scope.
A smart enough god would eventually figure this out. And it would probably be damned curious to test and probe what kind of reality it exists within, even as it accepts the unknowability of this.
So this helped me see that if there is a god, it’s never actually going to be as omniscient as a religion makes it out to be. And honest god would have to wonder about the extent of its divinity, and hence it would also have to wonder about a lot more than that.
Why does this matter? I grew up being taught a model of reality that included an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-loving god. This model is inconsistent with any sort of reality that includes conscious beings though. So if I do include such a god in my reality, I have to bump it down a few notches in terms of how I relate to it.
If there’s some other conscious entity with superior knowledge and wisdom, that could be interesting, but then I must also recognize that its knowledge and wisdom will always be limited. Since it can’t understand anything beyond the realm of reality that contains it, it can’t even know if parts of me exist beyond its understanding. There are a lot of fundamentals that it can’t know for sure, such as the nature of its power or the true depth and accuracy of its understanding. If such a god cannot access and understand its container reality, it can never really understand itself or anything else within that reality.
Since I’m a part of this god’s reality, this god also can’t actually hope to ever understand my nature, even if it thinks it created me. So an honest god would have to consider me a bit of a mystery too.
Isn’t that interesting? Even the most omniscient god cannot actually hope to understand me completely. Some aspect of my nature will always be opaque and mysterious to it.
You can flip this around as well. In the domains of life where you have the greatest control and deepest understanding, you have to admit that you’ll never reach 100%. There’s always something mysterious and unknowable if you look deeply enough.
You can never know for certain if your base reality is some kind of simulation or not. You can never know if you’re a real biological being or a simulated character with a simulated body. You can never know if your memories are real events or just programmed into you.
Any god you can possibly imagine, as well as any gods that are beyond your imagining, are subject to similar constraints. That’s just the nature of being aware. Awareness has some inherent limits we can’t hope to bypass.
Consequently, I favor the framing that any god, angel, spirit guide, or other entity that may have superior knowledge and wisdom is ultimately just as perplexed about the nature of their reality as I am. I can imagine that they see things from a different perspective, but I can never assume that their perspective is truly superior to my own personal perspective.
Same goes for any human advisors, coaches, teachers, or mentors. No matter how far advanced they may be in some area of life compared to me, I always have to take their advice with a grain of salt. I can never accept their models and understanding as 100% accurate.
One thing I wanted so desperately when I was younger was for someone or something to play the role of my ideal spiritual advisor. I wanted my own personal version of Mr. Miyagi, someone who could give me the most intelligent answers and instructions for getting better results and living a better life. Sometimes I looked for that in the human realm. Sometimes I looked for it in the spiritual realm. But however I searched, I was always disappointed. No such version of god existed, and I eventually accepted that I needed to outgrow this folly.
When I was wallowing in the depths of stuckness, I often turned to spiritual models for answers. I loved reading books about spirituality because they were so comforting. The authors seemed certain of their models, and certainty is such a tempting drug when you’re stuck. Solutions were presented as: Try this and it will always work (if you’re spiritual enough).
Of course their models felt flat when I actually tried to practice them. The results were sometimes fascinating, sometimes dreadful, and generally inconsistent. A special turning point happened when I got into public speaking and realized that behind the scenes, these teachers are just as confused as everyone else, but they’re good at marketing certainty.
Pick anyone on earth that you might label as a spiritual guru. Then consider the framing that they’re really no wiser than you are. They may have good marketing skills though.
Eventually I found that a more effective way to connect with spirituality isn’t by looking for a wiser entity with the answers I need. It’s better to recognize that uncertainty is universal, and no advice should be swallowed whole.
These days I find it more effective to use models of reality that don’t include any superior beings. I don’t need a god or gods to look up to. We’re all essentially on equal footing. No spirit guide or coach has any guaranteed superior perspective to my own, but they may offer different perspectives for me to sample and test.
This year I received much advice that I could easily have put on a pedestal due to where it came from, but then I kept getting better results when instead of acting on the advice blindly, I chewed on it for a bit, let it bounce around in my thoughts and feelings, and then I made my own independent decisions, often doing the opposite of what the advice was. I really liked the results of that.
Consider that the more faith you put in a god (or in any other spiritual being), the more powerless and helpless you become. This may be good marketing for those who want to fill that power void and insert themselves above you, but it’s not good spirituality.
I’ve also witnessed this from the other side. Sometimes when I share coaching insights or advice, the person I’m coaching will apply the ideas very differently than I expected. Or they may reject the advice and do their own thing. The coaching challenges them to go deeper into their own thinking and figure out what’s likely to work for them.
I’ve noticed that a lot of people take effective actions after coaching, but it’s best when they see the coach as a relative equal, not as someone whose advice should be taken blindly. I’ve seen other people follow a coach’s advice blindly when it’s contrary to their own best thinking. Even when the external results look good, they still seem unhappy and unsatisfied. People who seem happiest keep putting their own spin on what they learn.
We seem to get better results when we behave like co-gods who have no superior. Even if you want to include a divine god in your model, I encourage you to see that god as an equal teammate, not as any sort of superior being. At least try that model on for size if you like having a god to play with. Personally I prefer goddesses, but just the human kind.
Be cautious about adopting a model with a divine being that you presume is somehow superior to you. This type of model keeps people stuck in an immature and child-like relationship with reality. I know it can be comforting, but you can still create those feelings of comfort by relating to reality as an equal, not as some kind of lesser or more limited being.
Do we actually need a superior god in our models of reality? No, we don’t. I fail to see any areas where such models provide benefits that other models don’t surpass, unless you just want to go slower and wallow in powerlessness for a while. Maybe that’s an interesting setup experience, so you can later appreciate the contrast with better models, but I don’t recommend you remain stuck there for too long. Feel free to let go of any superior god once you feel that model has run its course for you. Drop the “levels of consciousness” nonsense too; there are no levels.
When someone suggests or demands that you believe in a superior being, look to their own self-interest, and it won’t be too hard to see why they’re promoting such a model.
Imagine living in a reality where you’re inferior to no one. You have no superiors. There are no spiritual entities that are above you in any meaningful way. There are just a lot of different perspectives.
If you still feel clingy with god-based models, just remember that there are alternatives, and you’ll probably want to explore them sooner or later. I think you’ll like being god-free once you get used to it.
