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What’s So Unique About CGC Year 8?

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Does this list represent what you’d like to experience this year?

  • New Explorations
  • High Trust
  • Open-Mindedness
  • Open-Heartedness
  • Spirit Energy
  • Stimulating Growth
  • Fiery Wisdom
  • Curiosity
  • Surprise
  • Purpose
  • Intuitive Knowing
  • Alignment
  • Balance
  • Playfulness & Fun
  • Full-Range Friendships
  • Courageous Steps
  • Powerful Shifts
  • Honesty
  • Feeling Nurtured
  • Feeling Protected
  • Intentionality
  • Imagination
  • Variety
  • Uniqueness & Originality
  • Depth & Intimacy
  • Flexibility

These vibes are all part of Conscious Growth Club Year 8, which is starting today, May 1st.

There are 59 people already enrolled for this fresh new CGC year as I’m writing this. If history is an indication, there will be a notable surge in sign-ups by the end of the day. You can see the current count at the top of the CGC invite page. Check it as often as you want. When you join us, it will go up by one.

Here’s what’s different about CGC Year 8 relative to previous years in the club:

Much Lower Price – $1111

One of the biggest changes is that the price for a full year is CGC is now $1111. In all previous years it was $1997. That’s a 44.4% reduction. A whole year in CGC is now only $3 per day, yet the invitation has more juiciness packed into it than ever, including access to our full library of courses and recorded events. That said, we’ve also gone further in seeking to filter for strong matches. That’s one reason the invitation page is long and detailed. It’s intended to deflect mismatches who don’t belong in CGC, while strong matches will make it through and recognize that CGC is so right for them this year.

More Members

We’ve already surpassed last year’s membership numbers by 23%, and it’s likely to be a lot more than that by the end of the day. If you’ve been waiting for a bigger CGC year with more members and more energy, this is it.

More Returning Members

This year we’re seeing a higher than usual sign-up rate from members from previous CGC years returning, so if you were involved in CGC or some of the live courses or events in the past, you’re bound to see some familiar faces inside. There’s a lovely reunion energy flowing through the club today as we begin this new CGC year together.

More Divergent Variety Than Ever

During years 1-6 we had essentially one Zoom call format: the coaching calls. In Year 7 we replaced the coaching calls with a variety of different formats, and we’ve gone much further in that direction with an even wider scope of calls for Year 8. We now host a whopping 14 very unique and different formats (each with different vibes and a different growth-oriented purpose). It’s an ideal match for people who love to learn in non-linear, exploratory, experiential, richly varied ways.

More Exploration

CGC is no longer a coaching program. We dropped that model at the end of Year 6. CGC has evolved into a thriving group of self-development co-explorers. If you want to hire a coach on the side, that’s up to you, but in CGC we explore and experience together.

Experiential Learning

My role (Steve) is no longer to play the role of coach. Now my focus is on crafting and hosting unique growth experiences that we go through together, which is so much more engaging for myself and others in the club. For instance, on yesterday’s Courage Forge call, our theme was “Center of Attention.” Some members served as focal points while we invited them to be the center of attention for a while and to experience what that was like. Then we discussed what came up for them – from nervousness and anxiety to playfulness and love. Even when you’re not the one doing the experiencing, it’s way more interesting to watch and explore with people who are having real growth experiences right in front of you instead of just talking about problems and potential solutions.

Unrecorded Calls

During years 1-6 in CGC, we recorded every coaching call. In year 7 we tested having unrecorded calls except for a few event-style formats that we did record. This worked very well – we saw a marked increase in call attendance and participation. This year we’re continuing with unrecorded calls for 13 of the 14 formats. So there’s a strong focus on the one-time-only live experience, not on amassing an archive of recordings. Year 7 was the test; Year 8 is the commitment to this change because it works. This also nudges out some overly passive energy from people who only want to watch recordings, thereby creating a more active and engaging vibe in the club. That’s really good for those of us who want more action and engagement. CGC is just not a place for passive learners.

Advance Scheduling

In recent CGC years, the group calls were scheduled one month at a time. Now they’re scheduled one calendar quarter (3 months) at a time. Moreover, major events for the new CGC year are already prescheduled with dates and times all the way through March 2025. These are all listed on the CGC Year 8 invite page too. So you can see if they mesh with your calendar. The major events will be recorded, so you don’t have to attend those live.

New Bucket List Experiences

New for this CGC year, we’re inviting members to participate in a “bucket list” walkthrough 3 times during the CGC Year. We’ll guide you through picking and choosing a new experience you’d love to have and then support you in advancing it towards the inevitability of actually doing it. Some members may wish to team up and have one or more of these experiences together, so we’ll provide support for that too.

Greater Service Alignment

For this new CGC year, we’ve been seeking (and apparently doing a very good job of) attracting members who care about service, contribution, and purpose. We’ve made this year’s invitation deliberately less appealing to members who aren’t interested in creating positive ripples that serve the greater good. Do you want to instantly fill your life with more people like this?

Even More Intentionality

It’s been so beneficial to give a lot of attention to intentionality. In Year 7 we added monthly Intention Infusion calls, where we all set individual and group intentions for the upcoming month. Then we use the CGC forums to share related experiences as we go. We’re continuing that practice this year. On this morning’s call, our group intention was Fresh New Growth. Do you want to join us and align with this intention?

Direct Vibrational Practice

One of our new call formats this year is called Good Vibrations. On these calls you’ll get to directly practice shifting, expanding, and intensifying your vibe in different ways. Our first Good Vibrations call is on May 9. Imagining practicing this with other open-minded people, so you can intensify the feelings and get a clearer sense of what different vibes and energy patterns feel like and look like.

Consistent Start Time for Calls: 11:11 AM Pacific

For CGC Year 8 we’ve set a standard start time for our regular calls. Each call begins at 11:11 AM Pacific Time. That makes it easy for you to prioritize being available at this time if you want to attend lots of calls. All calls are on weekdays only, so you’ve got all your weekends free. This approach is fabulously good at deflecting members who choose to prioritize something else ahead of their self-development work. We make it extremely easy for excuse-makers to excuse themselves from joining. Consider what kinds of people make it into CGC then – yes, they’re more committed and more flexible. That’s what we want. This is very good for us.

More Group Calls Than Ever

By CGC Year 6 we had settled on hosting 33 coaching calls per year. In Year 7 we hosted about 80 calls, none of them with the old coaching call format. For Year 8 we’re aiming to host about 100 calls with vastly more variety than in any previous year. You can attend as many or as few calls as you want. Most weeks we have 1-3 calls, and there are some weeks that are call-free breaks during the year as well.

Envision Your Future Path

We have a new call type this year called Pure Imagination and another called Story Lab to help you further develop your imagination and cooperatively advance your unfolding life story. And for developing your character too, we have Stature Sculptor calls. In CGC you’re invited to work on yourself from many different angles. This is way, way beyond what you’ll get to experience anywhere else.

More Heart & Spirit Energy

I wouldn’t exactly use the label “spiritual” for this year in CGC, but I do like the word spirited. Heart alignment has always been a big part of CGC. In the past year, I’ve released my blocks to accepting that I want to invite more spirit-level interactions and engagement within CGC. We gradually transitioned further in this direction throughout Year 7, and with the start of Year 8, this is a strong commitment from me. I’ve lost interest in working with stuck-in-their-head types who prefer over-objectified models of reality, so I’m leaving them behind because their rigidity makes them too slow to change. So I’ve invited that misalignment to purge itself from CGC, so we’re no longer tethered to it going forward. You’ll see this shift playing out in my YouTubing this year as well. Pay special attention to the new Spirit Spire calls in CGC this year. If you want to take your life in a more spirited direction with many others who vibe with this too, I think you’ll really love this year in the club.

Flexible Engagement

CGC has always been good at offering flexible engagement with no parts of it considered mandatory to attend. This year we’ve added even more flexibility. For instance, on calls that have an experiential aspect, you have the option to be in the experiential “splash zone” where you can be an active participant, or you can be in observer mode, knowing that you’re free to just watch. You can even switch modes back and forth during a call if you want. So you can really dial in the kind of experience to match your energy in the moment. If you feel like being less engaged, you can still show up and learn from those who are having immersive growth experiences. And if you want to be part of the fun, you have the option to join them in the splash zone. Some CGC calls are a bit like shamanic journeys, where we all go through experiences together, but not with everyone at the same level of intensity. One member has a growth experience this way, we all partake in the gains.

More Friendship

Because CGC’s calls are more participatory, it’s easier for members to make friends and connect with each other because there’s more social interaction. Additionally, since we’ve been going for a full 7 years now, there’s been a lot more time for renewing members to connect and bond with each other. CGC is still immensely friendly and open towards new members though. We really haven’t see issues with cliquishness in recent years. The atmosphere inside is nice and cooperative and really not competitive. We seem to have developed a really good ethos of compersion inside, where members genuinely feel good about each other’s gains and successes and also comfort each other during setbacks and tough situations. There’s such a beautiful “we’re all in this together” vibe that permeates the club. Obviously we want to keep that going.

More Nurturing

Need to lick your wounds and just be comforted for a while without being pushed? Join our new Bear Care calls this year, where we give extra attention not just to self-care but to the community investing in caring for its own. Do you enjoy nurturing people who are receptive to and would appreciate some extra kindness, caring, compassion, and unconditional love? We’d love for you to join us on these calls to help us hold this space and fill it with gentle, nurturing, caring, and supportive vibes for those who could really use it.

Intuition & Trust

Another energy we really want to strengthen in CGC this year is self-trust – your ability to trust your own best intuition and wisdom and to make decisions that feel aligned to you. There’s a difference between sensing your intuition and trusting it enough to powerfully act on it, especially when you can’t see exactly where it will lead. Would you like to be able to trust yourself more? Let’s work on that together this year.

Amplify Your Uniqueness

Another key aspect of this CGC year is to help you accept and further develop what makes you so unique, original, and different. Even as we work together and support each other, we know that we all have different individual paths, no two of them the same. We don’t push the tired old concept of “modeling” in CGC, whereby you try to copy someone else’s supposed success formula or “proven” techniques. Rather we want to help you unearth and fully leverage your unique inner brilliance, which only you can apply to its fullest extent. In January 2025 we have a 4-day event called Rogue, which is about accepting and aligning with your unique path in life.

Balance

If you find juggling different interests and priorities challenging, this is a great year to join CGC, so you can go through our 4-day Bases Loaded event in July, where I’ll walk you through a process of rebalancing your priorities. I’ve made some really key advancements in understanding how to create a nicely balanced life, even with a lot going on, and I’m happy to walk through this. I think this alone will be worth the cost of your membership.

Fire Energy

Our Year 8 theme in CGC is Fire Infusion. This means inviting powerful transformational energy into your life to release the misaligned and to consciously invite what’s ready to emerge next. Burn off the old misalignments, and fire yourself up for new directions and experiences. You get to control the intensity though – from a microdose to a minidose to a heroic dose – by choosing how you want to engage with this infusion of fire energy that we’re inviting to dance with us in CGC Year 8. I can tell you now that some new members have joined this year specifically because this energy is really calling to them now. Is that you too?

Psychedelic Energy

If you’re open-minded enough to handle it, I invite you to attend our new Alien Popcorn calls this year. On these calls we’ll invite members who have the relevant experience to help open connections to psychedelic energy networks for us, which are among the most powerful we can collectively access. If you attended last year’s Spirt of Money or Power of Spirit calls with me – the recordings of both are included as part of your CGC membership – you’ve seen some of these energies in action. Our Alien Popcorn calls are intended for more advanced transformational work as well as helping to release and move stuck or stubborn energy. They may also help to open up creative thinking in fresh, divergent new directions. For those who are aligned with doing so, I invite you to join us and help us to channel these powerful energies for the greater good of all involved and for the positive ripples that may flow from such work.

So just a wee bit of improvement there, yes. 😉

This is the ultimate self-development experience for this community that took 7 years to evolve to this point – and it’s just $3 a day. Even the $1111 price is exactly what it has to be. That was chosen very deliberately. It’s both a both a filter and beacon for the right people who are meant to be a part of this.

There is a spirit-level aspect to CGC that really seems to guide us at each step, and this year it clearly wants to shift gears. If you’ve read through everything above, I imagine that it’s pretty obvious that this is no ordinary year in the club. Even on day 1 of this new CGC year, I can tell you it feels very different inside. I’ve said yes to playing my part. Now it’s your time to decide.

Here are are all the relevant links you need:

It’s okay to feel a little scared and still join us. This is meant to stretch you. It’s doing that to all of us.

This is one of the most important invitations you’ll ever receive in your life. Make the best decision you can. Trust yourself. Does your spirit want you in the club this year?

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The Power of Spirit – Join the Event

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This post is an invitation for you on multiple levels. First, there’s the human-level invitation, which you’ll get by reading the words here. I’m hosting a live event on Zoom this weekend called The Power of Spirit, and I invite you to join us for it. It will be 3 hours each day, 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM Pacific Time on October 7 and 8, 2023.

The second level of this invitation is the spirit level. I’m writing this invitation while feeling very tuned in (thanks in part to a minidose of magic mushrooms this morning). As I’m writing, I can also feel some of the energy of the upcoming event flowing through. So as you read these words and reflect on whether to attend, see if you can perceive the spirit level of this invitation coming through as well. You may feel it on an emotional or intuitive level if you’re sensitive to that. See if you notice a perceptible shift in your energy by the time you get to the end.

Intention & Purpose

Here are four primary reasons that you may want to attend the Power of Spirit event.

  1. Take a Spirit-Level Break – This weekend offers you the opportunity to take the weekend off from your human-level challenges. Elevate your perspective back to the spirit level for a while, and reflect upon your human journey with more self-compassion and understanding. Discover how and why you find yourself in your current situation, and gain clarity about what to focus on next. Afterwards you can return to the matrix of your human life with a new sense of purpose, perhaps regarding your old problems as not so daunting anymore.
  2. Make a Transition – Are you facing a potential transition such as shifting the kind of work you do, pondering leaving a relationship, changing up your social circle, moving to a new place, or adopting a different lifestyle? Devote this weekend to looking at your life from the perspective of your spirit-level purpose. Participate in the Fire and Water Ceremonies to help you release the misaligned and cleanse your human energy matrix, so you can embody your best self going forward and fully embrace the transition that’s ready to emerge. Attending this call could be your way of saying to reality, “Yes, I’m ready. It’s time.”
  3. Upgrade to a Spirit-Centric Life – Perhaps you feel called to embrace and embody a richer, fuller, more spirit-centric life while still in human form. One friend called this a “pre-ascension” phase. If you sense that this may be part of your path, I invite you to join us for the Power of Spirit, immerse yourself in spirit-level connection and practice, and see if it feels like home to you. Use this experience to gain clarity regarding how to take the next steps. I’m happy to answer your questions about what it’s like and how to keep progressing too.
  4. Immerse Yourself in Spirit Space – Initially I had only identified the three previous reasons, but this fourth one popped into my mind just now, which is that you may attend because you love being invited to immerse yourself in spirit space with like-minded, like-hearted, and like-spirited people. Join us in a space where you get to attend as the real YOU, and connect with others who want to immerse themselves in a similar kind of energy bath for the spirit. I love connecting in this way too, so I’m right there with you. 😁

Topics

Here are some of the topics we might cover during the experience. I share this list not as a promise of exactly what we’ll include, nor as an exhaustive list, but as a list of suggestive possibilities with a reasonable likelihood of coming up during the experience. On the live calls, I’ll be going with the flow of inspiration and guidance as it comes through. I’ll also have some notes for key ideas that I consider very likely to be included. I’ll share this list of some ideas that have been coming up for me lately, which I interpret as a reasonably good sign that many (but probably not all) of these topics will be woven into the experience:

  • Giving your mind what it needs to flex into spirit space, explore, experience, and discover without pre-rejecting possibilities (a very likely starting point for the first call)
  • Identifying and releasing blocks and filters that limit you
  • Using spirit-level insights and practices to generate practical human-level results
  • The role of trust when communicating with spirit
  • Connecting with the energy of your home and possessions
  • Spirit-level bonding (with people, places, possessions, your work, etc)
  • Connecting with your higher self
  • Embodying your higher self
  • Connecting and conversing with departed/deceased human-spirits, including people you knew while they were alive as well as people you didn’t personally know
  • Gaining access to spirit-level insights
  • How to upgrade your spirit-level access to connect in more varied ways, experience clearer connections, and unlock communication that you were previously blocked from accessing
  • Inviting spirit-level assistance for your human-level problems and challenges
  • Insights from the spirit side about what the afterlife is really like
  • Death and what it feels like to transition back to spirit
  • What a human-spirit experiences after death, including the adjustment process
  • How psychedelics can be used to open or enhance spirit-level connections
  • What spirit space is like according to various spirits who’ve been willing to share the details, including former humans
  • How spirits regard humans and our human lives
  • Spirit-level perspectives on why the most challenging aspects of human life exist (like war, disease, imprisonment, etc)
  • The nature of spirit time and how it differs from human time
  • What spirits can and can’t see from their end
  • Bonding with spirit-level allies and helpers
  • Building goodwill on the spirit side
  • Using spirit-level communication to heal problematic relationships, both with living and deceased people

So it’s going to be spirit-level awesome. 😉

Note that we’ll have open Q&A at the end of each call, so whether we cover a given topic during the main part of the calls or not, you’re welcome to ask about anything from the list above or any related spirit-level topics too to ensure that we address what interests you most.

Vibes

Vibe-wise I want to make this a really beautiful, engaging, lively, and welcoming experience for those who choose to attend. Let’s bring lots of warmth, compassion, connectedness, heart energy, and spirit energy to the gathering. I also want to share concepts, ideas, and insights in ways that can satisfy the mind too, so you can build useful mental models for interfacing with life and reality through the spirit level.

I think I’m uniquely well-suited to communicating across these different levels since I have a background in computer science and mathematics, including being a computer game developer for 10 years, and I was also in a previous relationship with a pro psychic medium (Erin Pavlina) for 15 years. I’ve also done a fair amount of psychedelics in the past few years (especially during the past four months) to connect more deeply with different modes of experience, including ayahuasca, magic mushrooms, and MDMA.

One of my most powerful drives is that I’m intensely curious. I love to explore and learn about life and reality through direct, hands-on experimentation. I enjoy forming and testing different mental models of how reality might work, so I can discover what new possibilities may open up. I consider it much riskier to miss out on opportunities by succumbing to limiting assumptions than to make a mistake by stretching too far. When I go too far, life knocks me back, and I accept the lesson. But I’ve often been surprised when I test for a wall and discover that the wall was just a mirage. I’m reminded of this quote that I have posted on the wall in my home office:

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Suffice it to say that I have quite a collection of beards that I’ve yanked off over the years.

Journey

While I’ll do my best to offer you frames and mental models to help soothe and satisfy your mental side, I won’t be playing the role of spirit-level apologist on this call. I’ll get you warmed up first, and then we’ll go on a full-throttle ride through spirit space, delivered shamelessly from that perspective. I want this to be a powerful and immersive experience for those who’d find such a journey appealing.

The easy part is that no belief in any spiritual philosophy is needed. I invite you to approach these calls as from an experiential standpoint. Join us for the ride and see what it’s like. Afterwards you can analyze the heck out of it, reflect upon what it all means to you, and decide what practices and ideas you’d like to test more extensively. I’d like to show you where I think the most interesting gold can be found.

I’ll do my best to really tune in to spirit space throughout this experience. As I did during the Spirit of Money call last month, I’ll be minidosing with magic mushrooms on both days (a few hours before each call), which helps me open up and be more receptive to spirit-level inspiration and communication. I know that the shroom energy network will be open to us and very happy to assist us (just as they assisted me in writing this invitation today). I’m also going to channel some info and insights from my higher self; I’ve been very attuned to him since my first solo MDMA journey a few weeks ago. And on top of that, I’m pretty sure some helpful former humans will want to come through and share with us as well since they’ve been popping in quite a lot recently. We can even do some extra Q&A with them, and I’ll channel their responses for you. So there will be lots of different spirit-level energies coming through to be shared with you during these calls.

I also think the experience will be a lot of fun. Minidosing tends to relax my filters, which affects how I communicate. So don’t be surprised if I swear more than usual during these calls, much like I did on the Spirit of Money call. I’m not swearing at anyone; it’s just that my self-censoring is mostly switched off, so when I feel the flow of ideas more intensely, they naturally flow into more intense language. You might find that aspect amusing if you’re not used to seeing me in that mode.

I feel better prepared for this call in terms of respecting just how intense the group energy can be when connecting at this level. I had a lot of help during the Spirit of Money call to shield me from much of that energy, so I could focus on sharing the messages and guiding the flow of the experience. If I were to permit that energy to hit me full blast while I’m so open and sensitive, I’d be overcome with emotion and wouldn’t be able to talk very well. I’d be swept up in the intensity of emotional energy that some people are working through, especially when certain truths and inner realizations may hit them like a ton of bricks. Sometimes I like to let some of that energy come through in small bursts because it helps me feel more connected to what people are experiencing. I invited that to happen a few times during the last call but still not at full intensity. I don’t mind being knocked off balance by this energy sometimes, but then I need to return to being shielded, so I can stay centered in sharing what wants to come through. Otherwise I’ll just want to sit and sob with everyone who’s intensely feeling whatever they’re releasing. Just know that I respect that this type of experience can be emotionally deep, powerful, and intense for some people, and my role is to stay with the flow of what the spirit-level energies want to share with you.

I sense that this will be a very deep, rich, and meaningful experience for you if you’re open to it. On these two calls, we’re not focusing on any specific human-level transformations. The core invitation here is to elevate yourself to a level of beingness at which many different kinds of transformations become accessible, especially those involving releasing or transitioning.

Details

To have this experience together, we’ll connect on Zoom during these times:

  • Saturday October 7, 2023 – 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM+ Pacific Time
  • Sunday October 8, 2023 – 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM+ Pacific Time

The call will be done Zoom meeting style, so you’ll be able to see everyone else who shares their webcams (as opposed to webinar style). This makes the experience feel more more social, open, and connected for those who like being visually present for it. You’re welcome to attend with your webcam on or off, or switch it up as you see fit.

You’ll get the recordings of both calls too (audio and video versions, streamable and downloadable). We’ll have those published within a few days after the live calls are complete, and we’ll email you when they’re ready.

After you sign up, you’ll get the link to register for our weekend Zoom calls, and you’ll also get access to the web portal where the call recordings will be published.

I include the plus sign (+) after the end time for each day since we may go a bit beyond 1:00 PM, especially if there’s a lot of Q&A or if I feel guided to share some extra insights at the end. It’s totally fine if you need to leave earlier. Remember that everything will be recorded, so you can always watch or rewatch the recordings later.

I do think that if you’re able to stay till the end of each day, you may find that we settle into a really lovely (even cozy) energy where it just feels so relaxed and delightful to connect and share with each other. It’s like the energy of the experience helps to synchronize us so nicely and beautifully. I loved how that happened on the Spirit of Money call. I really don’t mind hanging out with everyone a bit longer if it feels aligned to keep going. Holding this kind of energy space for so many people can be challenging though, so at some point I do need to call it complete and rest. I think you’ll find the experience pretty generous time-wise though. I’m sure it will give you a LOT to reflect upon and integrate.

Both calls will involve introspective inner journeys. We’ll have open text chat for connecting with others from the community throughout the call and for commenting as we go. And please feel free to crack jokes along the way if you want since I always enjoy reading those afterwards. We’ll have some interactive experiential exercises and ceremonial aspects too. All of the social aspects are optional, so we won’t be doing any breakout rooms or anything like that. I think you’ll find the format very introvert-friendly.

Please bring your most open and receptive self to the call, not your social mask. Wear whatever feels real and true for you on the days of the calls.

Price – $88

As with the previous call, I feel like the price was chosen for me at the spirit level. This time the number 88 came through very clearly, and I intuitively knew it was supposed to be $88. I didn’t immediately grasp why until I reflected upon it afterwards.

The number 88 is two infinity signs, which seems appropriate for exploring the space of infinity infinities. It’s also considered a power number in numerology, and we’ll be working with some powerful energies together. In Ham radio 88 is used to transmit a message of “hugs” or “hugs and kisses.” And in the Back to the Future movies, 88 miles per hour is the speed that initiates time travel, which seems perfect for connecting with the timeless aspects of spirit. So $88 it is.

It’s the same price to attend live and/or for access to the recordings. While I personally feel it’s best to have the experience live if you can, I’ve heard from others who watched the previous Spirit of Money recordings after they missed the live calls, and they still found it very powerful for them. So I anticipate that the energy and connectedness of the experience will still come through very well on the recorded version.

You may also appreciate having the recordings, especially of the Fire and Water Ceremonies (described below), so you can use them to guide you through the experiences again when you feel the time is right, such as when you’re facing another big life-changing decision or transition.

Fire Ceremony (Saturday)

On Saturday as part of the experience (not during the first hour but deeper into the call), I’ll guide you through a special Fire Ceremony to invite you to burn off and release misaligned patterns from your life. We’ll be working on this at the spirit level together, including through human-level symbolic actions that I’ll invite you to take.

To prepare for this ceremony, I encourage you to bring something to Saturday’s call that symbolizes fire or heat. Here are some examples of what you might bring and/or use during the Fire Ceremony:

  • Candle(s)
  • Fireplace
  • Oil burner
  • Incense
  • Warm cozy clothes to wear, especially with warm colors like red, orange, or yellow
  • Warm snuggle blankets (also with warm colors if you have them)
  • Dragons (images, figurines, stuffed animals, etc)
  • Images or videos of fire such as an bonfire, fireplace, volcano, lava (physical or digital photos, device wallpaper, YouTube videos, etc); consider streaming a fireplace video on your TV
  • Small quantity of hot or spicy food like something with jalapeño peppers, cayenne pepper, or wasabi powder (to create a hot or burning sensation in your body or even to induce some sweating)
  • Take a small amount of niacin (aka vitamin B-3) – the flushing kind (not the non-flushing kind) to induce a niacin flush if you want to feel the sensation of burning off old energies more physically in your body – see my note on this below for more detailed tips if you want to include this
  • Hot water, coffee, or tea to drink, especially with warming spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, or cloves
  • If you have colored lights in your room, set them to red, orange, fire effects, or a warm palette
  • Turn up the heat or set up a space heater to make the room feel a little warmer
  • Sit in direct sunlight (careful not to overdo it)
  • Anything that represents fire, warmth, heat, or burning to you (be sensible, not reckless)

I’ll give you plenty of time to set things up, so all you need to do in advance of the first call is to consider what you might want to have available to you, and optionally pre-gather it in your space. There will be plenty of time to gather items during the call as well, so how much advance consideration you give this is up to you.

Please do what feels intuitively right to you, and don’t do anything dangerous or risky. Create a space of warmth and fire energy in which you can feel safe and comfortable releasing old energy patterns that you’re finally ready to let go of. For some people a single candle is plenty. Others may prefer to create a more immersive environment with multiple symbols of fire energy. And some may prefer to feel the sensation more intensely in their body, such as by eating spicy foods or by doing the niacin flush described below.

Here’s my note about niacin: Niacin, also known as Vitamin B-3, is a natural substance made by the body and also found in food. In supplemental form it comes in flushing or non-flushing varieties. The flushing kind causes what’s called a niacin flush if you take enough of it. I’ve taken this most days for the past several weeks, especially with lion’s mane mushroom (not a psychedelic mushroom). Niacin temporarily increases blood flow to the skin and extremities by opening up the capillaries. It can create a burning sensation and itchiness for a while, mainly on the surface of the skin. For me it usually kicks in about 20-50 minutes after I take it, and then it feels like I have a sunburn for about 20 minutes (usually felt in my ears, neck, and face first and then progressing downward through the rest of the body). It also turns my skin reddish for a while (maybe 30 minutes). Afterwards I may feel some mild itchiness for a short time. I typically take 100mg or 150mg, which is plenty to get the flushing effect. If I want a stronger effect, I might take 200mg or 300mg. A “serving size” for the niacin supplement I have is 500mg, but I’ve never gone that high before. I put the powdered form in my own capsules with lion’s mane, but it can also be mixed into a liquid like hot water or tea. I will likely take some niacin shortly before our Fire Ceremony, so I can feel the burning effect as part of the experience and channel the sensation of fire energy more viscerally. If you want to incorporate a niacin flush into your Fire Ceremony as well, that’s your choice and your responsibility for how it goes since I’m not your doctor or health advisor. It’s very optional, and I’d say it’s probably best for people who are already familiar with it and know what to expect from it. Otherwise you can just as easily lean on my channeling that part of the experience on your behalf, so you don’t have to join me in looking like a lobster for a while. If there are others who want to do this together though, we can team up to collectively hold the burn for the benefit of everyone else.

I’ll guide us through a collective version of the Fire Ceremony, which I expect will be very powerful and perhaps a bit playful too, but each of us will be implementing the physical details in our own unique ways, doing what feels intuitively right.

In this ceremony we’re holding a collective container that invites you to create a meaningful event to mark your transition from your old reality to your new one. Please bring whatever you feel is the right level of respect and reverence with you into this space, commensurate with the value you place upon your intentions and the meaning you’d like this experience to hold for you.

Releasing misaligned energies is not easy work. Sometimes it can be intense and emotional. Sometimes old patterns don’t go quietly, even when they know their time is up. I’ve done a lot of releasing work over the past few weeks, and I’ve been surprised at just how much of a cobweb each new releasing step can be. When I pull out one misaligned thought or feeling, others often come to the surface to be released next. On the other side is usually a great deal of lightness and relief, but the path to get there can be pretty involved.

Water Ceremony (Sunday)

On Sunday we’ll be incorporating water energy for our Water Ceremony. The purpose here is to cleanse and purify your human energy matrix. This may involve the sensation of healing as well, including potentially recovering from the previous day’s releasing activities. Think of this energy as gentle and soothing, like a very nice form of self-care to conclude our journey together on a high note.

I encourage you to bring to this ceremony something that symbolizes water or cleansing. Here are some examples of what you might bring to the Water Ceremony:

  • Glass, cup, or bottle of water (to drink)
  • Bowl of water with a sponge and/or towel (for rinsing or wiping your body)
  • Electric fountain
  • Rain, storm, stream, or ocean sounds playing in the background
  • Images or videos of water such as ocean waves, a lake, a stream, or a waterfall (physical or digital photos, device wallpaper, etc)
  • Anything blue, aqua or with cool colors
  • If you have colored lights in your room, set them to blue or a cool palette
  • Wear cool-colored clothing or anything with images of water
  • Take a shower or bath before the call
  • Wet your hair
  • Use a nearby sink to rinse or wash your hands or face as part of your ceremony
  • If it’s accessible for you, you may choose to sit near a pool, aquarium, fountain, pond, lake, ocean, or any form of water
  • Natural rain (if you happen to be in a rainy place during the experience)

Create a space that feels intuitively right for you, so you can symbolically work with the energy of water to cleanse and purify your own energy. I’ll guide you through the process of creating your individual version of our collective Water Ceremony, just as with the Fire Ceremony on the previous day.

If you have a label maker or the ability to create stickers, you may want to create some positive labels to put on your water bottle such as love, peace, cleansing, purity, joy, etc. Then whenever you take a sip, you can imagine those energies flowing throughout your body and helping every cell to align with them. I recently put “pure love” labels on most of the water sources in my house (on the water pipes below each sink, the showers, the water main, etc). Even if you think the only benefit would be the placebo effect, that’s still a real and measurable effect.

Performing symbolic physical actions with spirit-level intentionality communicates a powerful message to the spirit level of life, which can powerfully shift your human-level experience as well. When partaking of these ceremonies, do your best to focus on your intentions while performing the physical actions, such that your energy, your actions, and our collective energy and actions are positively aligned.

Join Us!

Now I invite you to sign up and join us for the Power of Spirit event this weekend, which is coming up very soon. If you’d like to participate live or get access to the recordings (or both), just fill out and submit the sign-up form, and you’ll get what you need to be a part of the experience.

I anticipate that this will be a fun, lively, deep, rich, surprising, connected, beautiful, and sometimes intense experience. As we saw with the recent Spirit of Money call, there’s a solid possibility that this Power of Spirit experience could shift your life in ways you wouldn’t predict. Please do your best to show up with an attitude of openness, curiosity, and possibility, and let me and the various spirit energies take you on a fascinating ride through spirit space.

Is this for you? Trust your intuition! I hope to see you this weekend. 😁🍄

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Today’s Your Last Chance: Transform Your Life with Conscious Growth Club Year 7 🌟

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Today marks the final day to join Conscious Growth Club (CGC) for Year 7, and we want to ensure you don’t miss out on this life-changing opportunity. The enrollment period ends at midnight Pacific Time tonight, May 1st. If you’ve been on the fence about joining, now is the time to take action and become a part of our amazing, transformative community.

Throughout the years, our members have experienced significant personal growth, from starting new businesses to achieving their health goals, and even embarking on life-changing adventures. CGC has been instrumental in providing the support, resources, and connections needed to help our members create these powerful transformations in their lives.

As the enrollment deadline approaches, we’re excited to share that we’ve welcomed 30 members to CGC Year 7 so far. Our community is buzzing with anticipation for the growth, connections, and adventures we’ll share together in the upcoming year.

Joining CGC offers a unique opportunity to accelerate your personal growth journey. By becoming a member, you’ll gain access to a supportive and inspiring community, diverse learning opportunities, enhanced accountability, and so much more. We have exciting new call formats and improvements for CGC Year 7, which I’ve shared previously on my blog.

To help you better understand the CGC experience and the benefits of joining our vibrant community, I’ve created two informative videos:

A video highlighting 20 powerful benefits of joining CGC (13 minutes):

A video about the community aspects of CGC (12 minutes):

You may also want to peruse the CGC FAQ for even more info about the club. We’ve carefully crafted this resource to address a variety of topics, ensuring you have all the information you need to make an informed decision. There’s even a walkthrough video showing the CGC portal and private forums (see the second FAQ item).

One of the key benefits of joining CGC is the accountability it provides. Members are encouraged to share their goals, progress, and challenges with the community, fostering a strong sense of support and camaraderie. This level of accountability can be a game-changer, helping you to stay focused and committed to your personal growth journey.

Don’t miss this once-a-year opportunity to join Conscious Growth Club and embrace the growth, connection, and transformation it offers. We’re here to support you every step of the way in a warm and nurturing environment.

Are you ready to embark on your personal growth journey with CGC? Join now and secure your spot in CGC Year 7 before the enrollment window closes tonight!

Join CGC Year 7 Now

To your continued growth and success! 🌟

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20 Powerful Benefits of Joining Conscious Growth Club

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The deadline to join Conscious Growth Club is tomorrow, May 1st, and we always get a surge in sign-ups that day. To make your decision easier and give you even more clarity about CGC, I recorded a succinct new video, focusing specifically on the personal impact of being a part of this vibrant community. This is a follow-up to our previous video, which highlighted the community aspects of CGC. Now, let’s dive deeper into how CGC can help you flourish, transforming your life in meaningful ways.

Seize this once-a-year opportunity to join CGC during our annual enrollment period, which comes to a close at the end of May 1, 2023.

Discover more about the enriching personal benefits of joining Conscious Growth Club and how it can support you in developing focus, consistency, and accountability; enhancing your personal growth journey, and cultivating a life filled with abundance, joy, and authentic experiences. Visit our invitation page for more information:

Learn More About CGC

I’m genuinely excited to welcome you into our community and embark on this transformative journey together! Here’s to an awesome Year 7! ❤️

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Unlock Your Full Potential with Conscious Growth Club – Join Us for Year 7! 🌟

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Are you ready for a transformative and adventure-filled year? In this fun and playful video, I invite you to join us for the 7th year of Conscious Growth Club (CGC), a unique self-development community that has been changing lives since 2017. Take a moment to watch the video and learn about the incredible experiences and connections that await you within CGC.

Don’t miss out on this once-a-year opportunity to join CGC during our annual enrollment period, which ends on May 1, 2023.

Discover more about Conscious Growth Club and how it can help you get unstuck, amp up your freedom, and create a flowing relationship with life by visiting our invitation page:

Learn More About CGC

I’m excited to see you inside and embark on this transformative journey together! ❤️

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Engage Course Update

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I’ve been making steady progress on the new Engage course design. It’s a lot of work – I’ve been putting in some long hours lately – but very fulfilling. I’m enjoying working co-creatively with ChatGPT on it. This has really taken the course design and development process to a whole new level.

I wouldn’t say that it’s saving me time per se. I could potentially leverage AI to speed up my design process, but that doesn’t resonate with me. Rather, it’s enabling me to go much deeper into understanding the core ideas, transformations, audience, and more. I can explore the ideas from many more angles and reflect upon them in ways I couldn’t really do before, at least not as thoroughly as I can now.

I love that ChatGPT has a decent working memory. I’m learning how to preload it with different subsets of information that I want it to work on, so I can have it generate more permutations of those ideas and do some insightful reasoning about them.

For instance, I had ChatGPT generate representative quotes regarding the problems and challenges people might express that Engage is being designed to address:

Key Quotes (AI Simulated)

  1. “I feel like I’m just going through the motions every day, without really living.”
  2. “I’m always busy, but I never seem to get anything done.”
  3. “I can’t seem to focus on anything for more than a few minutes at a time.”
  4. “I’m constantly distracted by social media and other digital devices.”
  5. “I’m always exhausted, even when I get enough sleep.”
  6. “I have trouble setting priorities and sticking to them.”
  7. “I feel like I’m not making any progress in my life or career.”
  8. “I have trouble motivating myself to do the things I know I need to do.”
  9. “I’m afraid of taking risks and trying new things.”
  10. “I feel like I’m stuck in a rut and can’t break out of it.”
  11. “I have trouble saying no and setting boundaries with others.”
  12. “I feel like I’m not living up to my full potential.”
  13. “I struggle with self-doubt and negative self-talk.”
  14. “I have trouble finding a sense of purpose or direction in my life.”
  15. “I’m overwhelmed by the sheer amount of tasks and responsibilities I have to juggle.”
  16. “I’m constantly stressed out and anxious.”
  17. “I have trouble managing my time and getting things done efficiently.”
  18. “I don’t feel like I have enough time or energy to pursue my passions and hobbies.”
  19. “I have trouble balancing my work and personal life.”
  20. “I feel like I’m not making enough progress towards my goals.”
  21. “I struggle with procrastination and putting things off until the last minute.”
  22. “I’m easily overwhelmed by large projects or tasks.”
  23. “I have trouble focusing on the present moment and enjoying life as it happens.”
  24. “I’m constantly comparing myself to others and feeling inadequate.”
  25. “I feel like I’m just going through the motions of life, without really experiencing it.”
  26. “I have trouble finding meaningful relationships and connections with others.”
  27. “I feel like I’m not living an authentic life, but rather one that’s been dictated by others or by society.”
  28. “I struggle with perfectionism and have trouble accepting my flaws and mistakes.”
  29. “I have trouble making decisions and second-guessing myself.”
  30. “I feel like I’m not living up to the expectations of others, such as my family or society as a whole.”

It’s easy to have ChatGPT generate many variations of this type of list. This helps me catch additional ideas that may not be captured in a single list.

I feel especially well-suited to working with ChatGPT productively on this kind of project because of my background as a writer and as a programmer. It’s such a unique and robust tool, and I find myself shifting around a lot in how I interface with it – sometimes leaning more on normal human language while other times approaching it more like a coder and thinking algorithmically. I often think of ChatGPT as the ultimate programming language. It’s incredibly flexible in what it can do, and I love discovering new ways to squeeze more performance out of it. I use it pretty much every day now.

I especially like that I can use ChatGPT to give me different viewports into a range of self-development ideas that I’m working with. For instance, I can have it generate lists of side effects of people’s problems and struggles, so I better understand what they may be going through.

Here’s an example where I asked ChatGPT to predict 10 side effects that people may experience as a result of experiencing the struggles and challenges that Engage is being designed to address:

10 Side Effects

  1. Poor health and well-being: Chronic stress and burnout can lead to physical and mental health problems, including fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, depression, and even chronic diseases.
  2. Strained relationships: A lack of focus and productivity can lead to unmet commitments, unfulfilled promises, and strained relationships with friends, family, and colleagues.
  3. Missed opportunities: Without a clear sense of purpose and direction, individuals may miss out on opportunities that could lead to personal and professional growth and fulfillment.
  4. Financial instability: Poor productivity and lack of focus can lead to missed deadlines, poor performance, and reduced income or job loss, leading to financial instability and stress.
  5. Reduced creativity and innovation: Without mental and emotional alignment, individuals may struggle to tap into their full creative potential, leading to stagnation and reduced innovation.
  6. Reduced sense of self-worth: Failure to meet personal and professional goals can lead to reduced self-esteem and self-worth, creating a cycle of negative self-talk and self-doubt.
  7. Reduced impact and influence: Without the ability to focus and deliver on important tasks and projects, individuals may struggle to make a meaningful impact in their personal and professional lives.
  8. Reduced sense of meaning and purpose: Without a clear sense of purpose and direction, individuals may struggle to find meaning and fulfillment in their personal and professional lives.
  9. Reduced quality of life: The combined impact of these challenges can lead to a reduced quality of life, characterized by stress, burnout, and a lack of fulfillment.
  10. Reduced sense of community and connection: Poor productivity and a lack of engagement can lead to social isolation and reduced sense of community and connection, exacerbating feelings of stress and loneliness.

Here’s another version, focused on the inner experience of these struggles.

Top 10 Inner Issues Experienced

  1. Feeling overwhelmed and stressed, with a constant sense of pressure to perform or succeed
  2. Experiencing a lack of clarity and purpose, and feeling uncertain about the direction of their life
  3. Feeling disconnected from themselves and their own desires, as well as from other people and the world around them
  4. Struggling with self-doubt, insecurity, and a negative inner voice that criticizes and undermines their efforts
  5. Finding it difficult to focus and be productive, and feeling easily distracted or unmotivated
  6. Feeling stuck in unfulfilling or unsatisfying situations, such as a job or relationship that isn’t fulfilling their needs
  7. Feeling like they’re not living up to their full potential, and a sense of disappointment or regret about missed opportunities
  8. Struggling with anxiety or other mental health issues, which can make it difficult to engage fully with life and pursue their goals
  9. Feeling like they’re always in a state of transition or change, and not being able to find a sense of stability or security
  10. Feeling like they’re alone or unsupported in their efforts to create a more engaged and fulfilling life, and lacking a sense of community or connection with others who share their values and goals.

I don’t know about you, but when I read these kinds of lists, it stirs up a lot of empathy because I know these are real challenges that many people experience every day.

How about a succinct list of the core struggles?

25 Core Struggles

  1. Doubt
  2. Anxiety
  3. Uncertainty
  4. Overwhelm
  5. Procrastination
  6. Self-doubt
  7. Self-criticism
  8. Perfectionism
  9. Lack of focus
  10. Fear of failure
  11. Fear of success
  12. Negative self-talk
  13. Self-sabotage
  14. Imposter syndrome
  15. Burnout
  16. Distraction
  17. Lack of motivation
  18. Poor time management
  19. Inertia
  20. Lack of direction
  21. Lack of purpose
  22. Lack of clarity
  23. Low self-esteem
  24. Low self-worth
  25. Guilt

When I begin working on a new course, I like to start with the problems and challenges that the course is going to address. I normally spend weeks going over the problems till I feel like I really understand what it’s like to experience them from the inside. This helps me start spotting the leverage points regarding how to help people shift from problem space to solution space.

AI and Empathy

Developing a new course is a huge amount of work, and when I invest in such a big creative project, it’s really important for me to connect with a deep and meaningful purpose for it. In the past I would spend a lot of time dialoguing with people in my audience about their problems and challenges. That made me feel more connected to them and motivated to help. It gave me a more specific why. But this approach has many gaps and also redundancies. Many people will share the same kinds of problems, and some key problems won’t be articulated very well.

My blog was in ChatGPT’s training set, so it “knows” me and my writing to some extent. I can have it reason about my audience and their needs, values, desires, and more. Since I have many years of experience interacting with my online audience, I can also evaluate how accurate ChatGPT is in modeling what I expect my audience cares about. I would say it’s doing very well with that, especially as I preload it with more details to help guide it.

Moreover, I don’t have to lean on AI exclusively. It’s not a substitute for my previous processes, but it is a powerful supplement. That’s one reason I’m going a bit slower with this course design. I’ve added this powerful new tool, but it hasn’t replaced my tried and true approaches.

I know that some people think that AI is cold and heartless, and the media has been surging with stories about the ghastly edges of AI output. I know that some people would never use AI for this kind of very human work. Those people are entitled to their opinions, and my opinion is that they’re missing what this is all about.

What’s so fascinating about a tool like ChatGPT is that it was trained on human language, and the surprise was just how much human intelligence is encapsulated within our language patterns. That really got me thinking about the connection between language and thought. How much of my own thinking is empowered or constrained by my own language patterns? What’s the relationship between intelligence and language?

When I use ChatGPT, I straddle multiple frames. My background in programming, computer science, and mathematics keeps me aware of the language-based nature of the tool while also empowering me to use it like a programmer, not just as a writer or course creator. At the same time, my curious explorer side loves to interact with AI like it’s more than just the sum of its parts. I have tremendous respect for it as a different form of intelligence.

On the inside my experience of working with ChatGPT feels much like I’m co-creating the course with Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s like having a tireless assistant who also happens to be brilliant, but not exactly in the same way a human being would be brilliant. I absolutely love it. For a part of me, being able to collaborate like this with machine intelligence is a dream come true. I feel like I’m in creative paradise.

Once ChatGPT grasps the problems and struggles we’re looking to address, it’s also very good at helping to explore the transformations too. I’ve spent many hours going over those from many different angles till I found the hooks that really got me excited. I would say the biggest one is helping people overcome blocks they don’t even know they had.

For instance, if you’re not already using generative AI tools like ChatGPT for your self-development, then I’d say it’s a certainty that you’re being held back by blocks. The question is whether or not you’ve identified them yet. The truth is that if you’re waiting months to engage with such a breakthrough tool like this, you’re being way too much of a dinosaur.

For all of our previous courses, I focused on creating timeless content that would still be relevant decades after the course was created. For Engage I think we need an element that also involves the opposite, which is to cover the leading edge of what you can do with self-development with today’s accessible AI tools.

AI Assessment

ChatGPT is especially useful for making predictions, based on its current understanding. I often have it regenerate its responses multiple times to see how consistent its predictions are, which is a good way to double-check their stability.

After we worked a lot on the transformations that Engage is meant to help people with and the core concepts we’ll be covering, I asked it:

Do you predict that this is an achievable goal?

It replied:

Yes, I believe that this is an achievable goal. The Engage course appears to have a well-defined and thoughtful approach to personal growth and development, with a focus on providing participants with the tools, resources, and support they need to make positive changes in their lives. The course addresses a range of important topics and provides participants with strategies for developing positive habits, enhancing self-awareness, managing their time and productivity, and achieving personal transformation. With a skilled and dedicated instructor or coach, and a supportive community of like-minded individuals, participants have the potential to make significant progress towards their personal and professional goals. Of course, the level of success will ultimately depend on the individual’s own commitment and effort, but the Engage course appears to provide a strong foundation for achieving positive change.

It’s good to know that the AI is optimistic about our current direction. 😊

At the end of one lengthy work session, I also asked it:

What do you think of Engage?

So far so good… I’d say we’re on track to open up the new Engage course sometime in March. I’ll keep you posted, but just know that I’m continuing to work on this every week till it’s ready. And Mr. Data is helping me this time. 😉

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Productivity Starts With Courage

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I recently starting developing a new deep dive course, which I expect to launch later this calendar quarter. It’s called Engage, and my intentions for it are ambitious.

Engage is about optimizing personal productivity and creating a powerfully engaged life. It’s going to be unlike any productivity course or book you’ve ever seen before. This will be our 6th course, and I want it to be our very best one – helping a wide range of people experience major productivity breakthroughs. I’m framing this as our one course to rule them all. I want this to be our #1 flagship course.

These are the big rocks that will form the backbone of Engage. These function as a productivity alignment sequence, which we’ll work through in a mostly linear order.

  1. Courage – invite it
  2. Clarity – feel it
  3. Intensity – claim it
  4. Integration – own it
  5. Harmony – be it

I intend to make this a deeply honest course on productivity. In that regard it’s not going to be sterile or gentle. It’s going to delve deeply into the motivational and emotional side of productivity since that’s where real productivity is born.

I want to show you how to connect the productivity dots from top to bottom – all the way from creating a sense of life purpose down to deciding which specific tasks to do on a Tuesday afternoon.

As I’m exploring the Engage concepts, I’m really liking how simple and direct they can be for making sense of intentions, goals, and projects. There’s a level of honesty that makes engagement problems really clear when using the 5 principles as diagnostic tools.

What’s really interesting is seeing how people avoid the obvious by asking the wrong questions about productivity, such as which apps to use or how to organize everything in Notion. Yet they’re doing uninspired work that doesn’t engage the heart and most likely never will. They really have no chance at being consistently productive till they get their heart engaged. Without strong emotional engagement, they just won’t have access to their best thinking, creativity, and flow.

Instead of fussing over apps, these same people ought to be asking why their emotional and motivational standards have been so low for so long – and what they can do to raise those standards permanently and keep them high for life.

Heart Engagement

When I was going through college in 3 semesters and getting tons done every week, I didn’t have or use any productivity apps. I didn’t have a pocket computer or a phone except for a land line in my room. There was no web or social media. My main productivity tools were a small notebook to record assignments and a pen. I had a paper calendar on my desk, but it always stayed in my room, so I never took it to school with me. That was all I needed to be highly productive and to stay well organized, even with up to 13 classes to juggle each semester and extracurricular activities too.

I can see that I used these core productivity principles very well back then. My heart was fully engaged, and I kept my motivation high (by making high motivation a priority). My goals were crisp, clear, and personally meaningful, and I centered my life around them. I said no to misaligned people and invitations. A strong heartset supported a fully engaged mindset, which enabled me to sustain an intense period of productivity. I ended up exceeding my original goals by earning two degrees instead of one. And the process to get there was rewarding.

I had a similar experience with doing contract game programming work during my last summer and last semester of college. The room where I worked had no phone and no Internet. I had no productivity apps. I used a spiral notebook and a pen to track my to-dos. I mainly just used one piece of software on the computer, Borland C++, to do the actual coding work. Most days that was the only program I opened. I got so much done during that time.

I do use some productivity apps today which I like, especially Things and Bear, but I use them simply. My #1 productivity tools are still very tactile – spiral notebook, pens, index cards, and dry erase boards. The digital tools are nice to have, but I really don’t need them to be very productive because productivity is primarily emotional.

Always Be Exam-Ready

I don’t use Notion, Evernote, Dropbox or other apps that essentially serve as clutter bins. I’m fairly spartan when it comes to collecting and storing information. When I encounter interesting ideas, I do my best to apply and integrate them immediately, so they become a part of my thinking and doing. Otherwise I let them go if they don’t fit.

Note that “integration” is the #4 engagement principle on the list above. How well have you integrated the best ideas you’ve encountered, such that you’re applying them to good effect each day? When good ideas become your natural daily actions, you don’t need reference notes to keep reminding you about what you should be doing.

This mindset aligns with what I discovered in college. I was taking too many classes to have extra time for studying outside of class. So I had to learn and remember what was being taught when it was being taught – during class. I tried not to leave the classroom till I had internalized the lesson. Sometimes that learning extended through the homework as well. I told my mind to learn the material well enough the first time that I felt ready to be tested on it immediately afterwards. That was a powerful and effective intention that prevented me from falling behind.

I love this standard of always being exam-ready. I can’t be dumping ideas into a digital clutter bin for later processing and still feel like I’m exam-ready with those ideas.

I know the concept of building a “second brain” is popular these days. What a delightful sounding label for procrastination? It’s like calling a clogged toilet a second sink.

What’s the point of gathering and sorting info clutter if your first brain isn’t on fire with motivation and focused with intensity? If you optimize your first brain, you won’t need a second brain.

Apps can be nice, but only in service to a fully engaged heart and mind. The best apps won’t fix your underlying issues, and they might just make matters worse by obscuring real problems under extra layers of complexity.

Emotional Intensity vs. App Propensity

It ought to seem obvious that a person with strong heart engagement, sustainably high motivation, clear goals, and intense focus can be super productive without the benefit of any modern productivity apps. Pen and paper are sufficient. Contrast this with someone who gets really into apps but doesn’t have their heart and mind fully engaged, committed, and focused. Which person would you bet on?

In the Engage deep dive, the first principle that we’ll start with is Courage, which is really about heart engagement. Most people don’t even pass this phase successfully, which is the main reason they struggle with productivity and consistency. They tolerate partial matches and mismatches. They ignore and suppress the voice of their heart, which would scream at them if they gave it a real chance to speak.

That’s our starting point. We’re going to crack open this space and invite the heart to get really vocal and honest. For some people this won’t be pretty, but it will be deeply honest.

This will not be a gentle course. Our primary focus won’t be on creating a “safe space” like we did with the Guild course. For this kind of transformation, we need to co-create a powerful growth space. We’re going to cover a lot of rich and interesting mental concepts, but we’re not going to retreat into the mind like most productivity courses do. We’re going to delve into the realm of fear and doubt right from the beginning, and we’re going to invite the heart to reveal the path of courage.

So from the very first principle, this is a journey that invites you to leave your old comfort zone behind. That’s going to take courage. You’ll be invited to form different intentions and to set different goals than you’ve ever set before.

I have zero interest in watching people try to squeeze out more productivity from work they don’t even want to be doing. I want to help people discover what truly lights them up. Help them amplify the voice of their hearts, so they can’t stomach ignoring it any longer.

Engaging with Engage

One thing I love to do when developing courses is to use the principles of the course to help create the course. I’ve done that with all of the previous courses so far, and I’m doing that with Engage too.

I’m working to develop a course that feels courageous and edgy; that offers crisp, clear, and actionable ideas and processes, that’s intense to develop and experience, that integrates its ideas into a coherent and sensible structure, and that maintains a beautiful and elegant internal harmony.

Creating Engage is a big challenge, and I love working it. There’s so much productivity information already in existence, and now I see a path forward to create and share something truly unique, different, and personally meaningful.

Codifying these ideas is already helping me make some productivity upgrades in my own life. That’s what gets me especially excited about the development process – when I’m able to identify and immediately implement upgrades I didn’t recognize before. These upgrades stem from deepening and simplifying my understanding, especially in terms of how different ideas connect with each other. For instance, I’m gaining a much better understanding of how critical courage is and how it fuels clarity, focus, and intensity. Just setting the intention for Engage to be our #1 flagship course creates ripples of extra motivation. Sharing this intention publicly also raises the stakes. But internally this kind of intention really lights me up inside and makes me want to do the best creative work of my life. It makes working on Engage feel even more engaging.

I’m also boosting my understanding of the tail aspects of long-term productivity – integration and harmony. One reason I’ve been vegan for 26 years now (most of my life) is that I fully integrated veganism into my life and harmonized with it. Same goes for doing personal development work for 18+ years and still feeling highly engaged with it. These fit into my life harmoniously, so they aren’t vulnerable to being wedged out, and I don’t need to lean on discipline to maintain them.

Note that self-discipline isn’t one of our Engage principles. Self-discipline is for the people with clogged toilets. Let’s see how long they can hold it.

“Engage!”

Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation may also recognize that Captain Picard loves to say “Engage” to get the ship moving towards its next destination after laying in a course. The name for the course actually popped into my head spontaneously while I was thinking about it one day, so I didn’t consciously choose it because of that. But I immediately thought of that association afterwards. That made me like it even more. When I think of Picard flicking his wrist and saying “Engage,” as the ship and crew boldly warp off to go explore some new alien world, I see it as a succinct way to grasp what a highly engaged life feels like. It feels like you’re warping off to a bold new adventure that’s sure to keep you on your toes.

Is that you feel about your work, life, relationships, and lifestyle most of the time?

If not, you haven’t even accepted the invitation of Stage 1 yet. Just imagine how much more is possible when you’re regularly flowing through and aligning with all 5 of these principles.

Moreover, when I looked up the dictionary definitions of Engage, I saw just how perfect it was because all of those meanings are relevant to this journey. An engagement can even refer to a battle or conflict, and that’s how many people experience their struggles with procrastination and distraction. They’re trying in vain to win battles with their mind that their heart could help them win with ease.

There’s still much to be worked out before we’re ready to begin the Engage journey together. I think this will be especially rewarding for people who really want to experience something fresh, new, bold, and intelligent. The first place we’ll explore together will be Planet Heartspace, which is sure to seem like an alien world to those who’ve been stranded on Headspace for most of their lives. 😉

Why Wait? Let’s Get Started Now!

How about a tip to get started with the Engage principles right now? I recommend setting and holding these kinds of intentions:

  • I invite courage into my life.
  • Show me the path with a heart in all areas of life.
  • I’m ready to walk the path with a heart.
  • Help me soundly reject and release that which is misaligned with my heart.
  • Show me where and how I can be much, much bolder.
  • Let me begin each day by asking what I can do that’s bold and courageous.
  • Show me how to stretch my courage today.
  • Show me what fear to face next.
  • Let me hear what my heart has to say about the misaligned areas of my life and what it wants me to do instead.
  • I’m ready to live each day in courage and heart-alignment.

So don’t focus on trying to be more productive. If you want to be more productive, start by intending to be more courageous. Courage is the first door to walk through on the path to creating and experiencing a highly engaged life.

Fear, hesitation, worry, anxiety, apathy, confusion, disappointment – this is what you experience when your heart isn’t fully engaged. These are the consequences of turning your back on courage for too long. So flip this around today by intending, inviting, and accepting courage into your life. You aren’t ready to experience real clarity and intensity until you’re willing to embrace the energy of courage.

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Conscious Growth Club Q&A Call: Year 6 (Video)

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Today we hosted and recorded a live Q&A call for people who are interested in Conscious Growth Club, so they could ask me and other members any questions they have about it. I’m sharing the recording for the benefit of anyone who couldn’t attend the live call. Be sure to watch it soon (perhaps on 2x speed), since the deadline to join is May 3rd.

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I think this video will give you a clearer sense of what CGC is like inside, so you can make the right decision about whether you’d like to join us this year. Several members contributed their insights and suggestions as well.

Be sure to decide by the end of the day on May 3rd if you want to be a member of CGC this year. This is the only time of the year during which we open CGC for new members to join. Our next opening will be in April 2023.

So far 47 members have enrolled for CGC Year 6 now (49 if you include Rachelle and me). If history is any indication, there will be a lot of sign-ups coming through before the deadline, especially on May 3rd.

Learn more about Conscious Growth Club, and join us by May 3rd if you’re ready for a major year of growth.

Enjoy the video!

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My Intentions for CGC Year 6

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Yesterday was the last day of our 5th year in Conscious Growth Club. Today we’re beginning our 6th year together. You still have about 2.5 more days if you want to join us since the deadline for opting in is May 3rd.

I thought I’d take a moment to share some thoughts and intentions for Year 6. Some of these are personal. Some are club-related. And some are a mix of both.

One thing I love about CGC is that it’s so supportive on the personal side, so even though I facilitate the group, I also engage with it much like any other member.

Fitness

One intention for this new CGC year is to refine my fitness routine. That’s been going pretty well for many years, but with all the possible ways to balance it – running, weight training, HIIT, gym workouts, group fitness classes, etc. – I’d like to give it more structure. The tricky part is that my body adapts to predictable routines very easily, and then it doesn’t feel like I’m improving as much. On the flip side, I also like the simplicity of predictable routines like running. I’d love to figure out how to merge structure with enough variety while doing this sustainably too. This may take some experimentation.

I’m not sure if it’s even possible to come up with a “one fitness routine to rule them all” or if the key is really to keep mixing it up with a lot of randomness. I love the variety and the social aspect of group classes. What I don’t like as much is the time investment, including travel time. I also don’t find group classes particularly good for strength training – I tend to improve in that area much more efficiently on my own. However, group classes can be great for cardio, yoga, and some other dimensions of fitness.

Starting today in CGC, many members are kicking off the new CGC year with a 30-day fitness challenge. Rachelle and I are doing that too. In fact Rachelle recently passed 950 consecutive days of closing her Apple Watch rings, so she’ll hit 1000 sometime in June.

Fasting Integration

I may do some dietary experiments as well, but I also feel drawn to testing some additional forms of intermittent fasting. I tried the 16-8 version previously (only eating in an 8-hour window each day, then not eating for 16 hours) and found it worthless – it didn’t make any difference as far as I could tell. But I might try 18-6 or 20-4 to see if those patterns are any better. I’ve decided to lean into this today by not eating anything till after 2pm.

YouTubing

Creatively I intend to get into YouTubing this year. I have about 55 videos on my YouTube channel so far, most of them recorded when doing a 40-day water fast in 2017. In CGC we formed a new YouTubers group a few months ago for members with similar goals, including streaming, TikTok videos, and really any kind of video expression.

I love engaging in this pursuit collaboratively. It’s great to share tips, insights, and encouragement with other members.

I would love it if more people who want to get into making videos (or who are already into it) would join CGC this year. It would be fabulous to support each other on this path. I intend to host more Zoom calls this year where we can mastermind together.

My YouTube channel is fairly modest in size compared to some. It currently has 8253 subscribers. I think it would be fun to build that up to 100K+, however long it takes.

I feel very comfortable on camera, but I have way more experience being recorded live on Zoom with only minimal editing. In April I did about 100 hours of live video calls (all recorded). I don’t think that’s a great format for YouTube though. Tighter, shorter videos would likely be better received there.

This year and beyond, I want to explore how to leverage the skills I have while also building new video skills. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun experimenting with different ways to share personal growth ideas and insights through video. It’s going to take a lot of patience as well, but I’m not in a rush. I like the long-term trajectory of this – the outlook seems pretty rosy to me.

Video Production Skills

Coming up with interesting content for videos is easy for me, but what always held me back was a lack of know-how on the production side. So I’ve been educating myself on this quite a bit this year. I can see myself doing a lot of divergent experimentation this year. I’m not going to focus on trying to create hit videos per se. Rather I want to explore the skill set on the production side, and I also want to see what kinds of videos I most enjoy making. I sense that if I raise up my production skills a lot more, I’ll likely discover more enjoyment in the process.

For some reason I love learning about video lighting. I bought a bunch of new lights this year, all from Aputure, including a Lightstorm 60X (bicolor), an Amaran 200X (bicolor), two Amaran P60C panel lights (RGBWW), and a 4-pack of MC lights (RGBWW). I love that these lights are all controllable via an app, so I can sit in one spot and change all of the lights (brightness, color, etc) from my phone. Working with LED lights is so nice because they’re energy efficient and don’t get very hot. I think I’m becoming a fanboy of Aputure since they keep coming up with new lights with great features at great prices. I could easily see myself investing in more lights from them over time. But for now I have plenty to get started with.

I also bought 4 C-stands and some other rigging pieces, and I watched a ton of gaffer videos, so now I know many different ways to rig lights. What I lack, however, is experience. It’s one thing to watch a video to learn what’s possible. It’s different when you have to actually apply the skills yourself.

I’m not sure why I like this so much. You’d think that being color blind, learning about lighting and especially investing in RGB ones wouldn’t be the best fit for me. But for some reason I’m really curious about it. There’s something undeniably enticing about playing around with lighting to see what I can do with it. I just have to accept that how the colors look to me won’t be the same as how other people see them. So maybe some of my videos may have unusual color choices. I can also lean on Rachelle for help since she’s experienced with lighting, given her background in theater, and she can see all the colors too. Amazing!

Learning about lighting adds more appreciation when I watch movies and shows now. I notice the lighting, especially on people’s faces, way more than I ever did before. I sometimes ponder why the cinematographer (or whoever else made those choices) lit a scene they way they did. I often watch cinematography videos while making lunch or while relaxing in the evening.

As I build better video skills, I may also want to explore how to apply them in other ways. It could be really interesting to create a structured video course that’s pre-recorded and nicely edited instead of always delivering it live like I’ve done in the past. I could do such a course that today, but it would take an inordinate amount of time since I’d be so slow at it. I’d like to build up a lot more practice and experience first, one micro-skill at a time, so I can get faster too.

This sort of thing can be outsourced, but I’m really enjoying exploring it as a personal growth adventure. I’m not 100% sure why, but I can tell that this is a path with a heart for me. It also seems like a very aligned opportunity and a delightful way to build upon my existing skills.

I would do this on my own anyway, but doing this as a social journey with other CGCers just makes it even sweeter. I feel more motivated to upgrade these skills because then I can immediately share what I’m learning with other members. I think it will be especially helpful to learn gear tips from each other (lighting, mics, cameras, etc). And there’s tons we can share with each other on the editing side as well.

Balancing Rhythms of Work and Personal Time

In the last CGC year, I was really good at focusing deeply on one project or another. Sometimes I put my all into a creative project. At other times of the year, I invested obsessively in personal projects. I definitely got a lot done, which was very satisfying. But I think that for the months ahead, I’d like to explore a more relaxed and balanced rhythm instead of spending so much time in deep focus mode for weeks at a stretch.

It’s been interesting to create new courses with an all-in strategy. For the recent Guild course, I probably averaged about 10-12 hours a day for 30 days straight, usually starting at 6am and going till around 6pm. I had short meal and rest breaks, but it was still a very obsessive experience, like going through a tunnel. Sometimes I didn’t finish till around 10pm if there was a CGC coaching call on a given day too. Plus there was a lot of advance prep for the course before it began. This intense strategy really does get the job done, but it requires putting so many other parts of life on pause.

I feel like my obsessive creative mode is really well developed now. The inspiration to create just never seems to run dry. I like taking breaks from it now and then, but I always know that it’s there for me when I want to engage with it.

This year I’d like to explore a different relationship with creativity. I think video creation will be part of that. But I also sense there’s more to it, something having to do with rhythm and balance. If my creative output across the span of a year is like a song, you could say that I want to explore different style of music this year, so I can learn how to align with different creative rhythms.

In terms of my working and personal rhythms, I’d like this upcoming CGC year to sound like a combo of Oh Yeah by Yello, She Blinded Me With Science by Thomas Dolby, One Night in Bangkok by Murray Head, and Down Under by Men at Work – playful, simple, and fun and without major spikes of intensity. Definitely 80s all the way. Maybe a splash of The B-52’s Loveshack here and there. 😁

I know that I can always fall back on the tried and true, but I’d like to see what other creative rhythms might emerge this year if I gently coax them to the surface. I can’t articulate what that’s going to look like, but my intention is to do a lot more divergent exploration this year.

Divergent Creative Exploration

For previous years in CGC, I would pre-announce the topic of a major course to be delivered during the year. This year I feel inclined to allow for more flexibility and adaptability. I intend to create and publish at least one new course this year. But I might create multiple smaller works instead of one giant new course each year like I’ve done for the past few years.

Whatever interesting forms I create this year, such as new courses or workshops, CGC members will have them included as part of their membership at no extra cost. I just say in advance what it will be.

I also want to see what emerges in CGC (and in my wider audience) this year in terms of what people want to upgrade in their lives. I love connecting the dots between people’s desires and my own explorations. That could lead to something like a course or workshop on life balance, for instance, if there seems to be some demand for it.

For now I feel it would be premature to lock onto a particular form or topic right now. I want to roll into the new CGC year first, engage with our members, and get a sense of where CGC’s energy wants to flow. I also want to explore video production and YouTubing with others in the group. I don’t know how the dots will connect up ahead. I just know that they will.

Join Us for CGC Year 6

I love how rewarding it is to engage with CGC each day, especially its playful side. It’s immensely gratifying to share this human journey with other growth-oriented people in such an intimate way. It’s wonderful to explore so much depth together while also having so much fun and sharing so many laughs. 😁

I hope you’ll join us for some part of this journey in Conscious Growth Club, if not this year then in some future year. The door is open. If it’s to be this year, you have till May 3rd to enroll.

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All 30 Guild Course Lessons Are Complete

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Wow… what a journey the Guild course has been! We delivered the whole experience live April 1-30, in the form of a daily Zoom call – around 3 hours per day on average. It was such a beautiful and rewarding journey into connection, intimacy, social alignment, and more.

All 30 lessons were recorded, and they’re fully published now. We’re keeping the course available for anyone who wants to go through the recorded version. The live version included breakout rooms for group discussions, which aren’t included with the recordings, but I’d say the recorded versions are still around 60 hours of material. This is our longest course ever, equivalent to perhaps 5 back-to-back 3-day workshops.

We’re going to add two more bonuses to Guild in May, but for now I’m delighted that the core course is complete. It was a very memorable experience to be sure.

Access to the Guild course is included with a Conscious Growth Club membership as well, and there are just over 3 days left to join CGC for the upcoming Year 6. The deadline to decide is midnight Pacific time on May 3, 2022. Our next CGC opening after that won’t be till April 2023.

Guild Lesson Topics

Here’s the full list of topics we covered in Guild:

  1. Welcoming & Social Joy
  2. Your Social Why + Finding Matches
  3. Social Resistance
  4. Trust Wounds
  5. Boundaries
  6. Social Expansion
  7. Depth & Intimacy
  8. Deeper Depth
  9. Belongingness
  10. Invitations
  11. Social Time & Energy Management
  12. Social Gravity
  13. Social Realignment
  14. Social Leadership
  15. Social Visibility
  16. Rejection
  17. Conflict Resolution
  18. Masterminding
  19. Humor
  20. Romantic Connections
  21. Social Interfaces
  22. Inner Relationships
  23. Social Courage
  24. Flirting
  25. Managing Expectations
  26. Sex
  27. More Sex
  28. Awkwardness
  29. Receiving
  30. Transitions & New Beginnings

Truthfully we covered many more topics than are listed here. This is just the main list of core topics for each day of the course. Lots of ideas were shared organically and spontaneously as well since it was a very co-creative experience. Interestingly this list wasn’t created in advance. At the end of each day, we had a quick discussion about what to cover for the next lesson, so what we covered in the course was co-creatively chosen as well.

I’m delighted with how Guild turned out. It was a lot of work but definitely a labor of love. I think that many people who go through the recorded version in the years ahead will find it transformational. I almost can’t believe how much we packed into the experience. It was intense!

Some CGC members may be going through the Guild course again together during the upcoming CGC year, possibly soon, so if you join CGC by May 3rd, you may have the opportunity to do the course with a group as well. Otherwise the course can also work well as a solo experience. It’s packed with so many insights about how to create a more abundant and satisfying social life, it’s hard to imagine anyone not getting their money’s worth from it… probably many times over.

Moreover, there’s a lot of humor in the course, including a whole lesson on humor skills, so I think you’ll find it very entertaining as well. Most of that was unplanned… just a lot of spontaneous fun along the way.

I thought I might feel a bit tired or drained by the end of the course, but actually I feel pretty jazzed. I feel like some parts of my brain could use a nice rest while other parts are still amped up from the experience. The intimacy that people shared was a lot to take in, but it’s left me feeling a lot more connected to people. I’m also very grateful for how supportive and encouraging people were throughout the course, both of me and of each other. Bringing this to a close was bittersweet. It’s a great feeling to have crossed the finish line today, but part of me is also a bit sad that it’s over.

After this I’m really looking forward to flowing into CGC Year 6 and seeing what this new year in the club brings. Year 5 was such a good year that I feeling super optimistic about another year in CGC. It’s pretty obvious that we’re on the right path here and that we have something special that many people appreciate. I look forward to continuing to invest in more blogging, videos, courses, workshops, and community in the years ahead. It’s a joy to serve such wonderfully engaged people. 😀

CGC Q&A and “Meet the Members” Zoom Call on May 2nd

On Monday, May 2nd at 11am Pacific time, we’re hosting a free Q&A Zoom call to answer your questions about Conscious Growth Club. Some members may be on the call as well to share what it’s like inside.

You’ll find the details about the Q&A call in the News post about it, or register for the Q&A call here. If you’re thinking about joining us for Year 6 in CGC, I encourage you to attend the call.

I promise that the call won’t be salesy. We’re here to answer your questions and to help you figure out if you’re a match for CGC – because not everyone is.

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