Lesson 21 of the free Engage course invites you to question the idea that personal time must be earned through work. Explore how limiting work hours and choosing abundant personal time can lead to greater clarity, motivation, and a more satisfying life.
You’ll find the rest of the Engage course videos in the Video section.
I know there are many people who now feel the world (and especially the USA) are going backwards and sliding into darkness. They’re largely right. The USA in particular is backsliding greatly.
Remember that this wasn’t an accident. Lots of people chose this.
This backsliding phase is spiritually purposeful and meaningful, like a giant cleanse that’s happening. I don’t mean a cleanse of people but rather of ideas. Old stupidities are rising to the surface and being processed.
We’re going to be in this phase for a while. Can you accept that? Can you surrender to it? Or would you rather pretend that it’s not happening or hope it all goes away?
You may recognize that some of these stupidities are very old indeed. You may have even thought that humans surely must be done with this foolishness by now. Nope, that was a mistake on your part if you assumed that we’d already called a wrap. Humanity clearly isn’t done with what it’s currently processing. It has a long way to go still. A lot of people need to experience what’s happening now – perhaps a lot more than you’d have ever assumed would need to go through something like this.
It’s important to let this play out. You don’t need to actively participate in it unless you feel wrapped up in the karma of it. And if you do feel karmically engaged, then allow yourself to engage. See what comes out of you during these times. Do your own processing of whatever surfaces. Are you surprised by what comes out of you when you’re squeezed? Delighted? Disappointed?
It’s good to let people discover for themselves where all this leads since many clearly want and need to experience it firsthand for themselves. They won’t heed and don’t understand the warnings about it. They’ll learn more by diving deeper into the darkness and soaking in it a while longer. They’ll come out when they’re ready, not before. Just leave the light on for them if you’d prefer not to join them.
This time period is also a powerful invitation for conscious, growth-oriented people to test their mettle. As Bruce Lee said, “Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.” Let’s see just how good you are at keeping yourself light-aligned while so many others do their dark dives. You don’t have to join them.
From a certain perspective, this is indeed a test. Will you allow yourself to be dragged down by it? How strong and resilient are you? Will you give in to fear, hatred, vengefulness, anxiety, hopelessness, helplessness, or despair? Are you really going to be beaten down by these energies swirling around you?
How much compassion and patience do you have? This is a good time to find out. When others’ actions affect you personally, can you still give them space to explore and process what they need to experience? You get to experience the ripples their actions create within you. See how quickly and easily you can return to stillness.
May these times show you what you’re made of, and if you don’t like what you see in yourself, then you have a clear invitation for additional steps on your own path of growth. Do you want to repeatedly get goaded into reactive mode? Or can you remain centered and choose your response to events consciously?
This beast of darkness taunts you ceaselessly, trying to bait you into reacting to it, doesn’t it? It wants you to engage from your weakness, so it can suck you into the range where it’s apparently powerful and you’re presumably weak. How many times will you fall for this trick before you accept what the beast is trying to teach you?
As odd as it may sound, the beast is actually on your side. It’s here to help you grow. It’s not actually here to beat you down. Its invitation is for you to choose a powerful and honest response to it, and then to see if your choice is really right for you.
Even while this beast continues to jump, snort, and throw daily tantrums, you do not have to play its silly games at that level.
Pause and notice just how silly, dumb, and ridiculous it truly is. It is not rational, thoughtful, or brilliant. It is emotional, reactive, needy, and self-destructive. It tries to convince you that it’s powerful, but it isn’t. Its game is to see if it can trick you into giving your power away to it by enticing you to fear it. It will keep offering to play this game with you till you find your own way out.
See if you can reach the point of being able to laugh at the beast. Laugh too at your own vestiges of fear and anxiety about it. Stand in the strength of your spirity side, and laugh at your silly human weaknesses – the very same weaknesses that this beast embodies.
This beast is asking you if these weaknesses are really you and if you’re going to keep embodying them. Or are you really ready to let those weaknesses go and proceed without them?
You may even perceive that so many other people appear to be embodying these weaknesses. Will you be swept up in that? That’s yet another trick of the beast. It’s checking to see if you’re a conformist too. If going along with the herd mentality still matters to you, then you aren’t yet ready to embody the full freedom of a conscious being yet.
Remember: you can choose which energies to embody. If not fear, worry, anxiety, and so on, what will you choose instead? This is indeed a choice when you recognize that it is.
If you don’t want to be repeatedly sucked in by the illusions created by a sense of disconnection, then your invitation is to reconnect. If you’re not going to be sucked in by fear energy, then where will you stand?
You’ll need to find your own answer to that. If you are not fear energy, then what are you? When you are most connected, where are you standing? Where is your home base? Which energies are truly you?
My own answer is to stand in the stable field of energies that feel most aligned with my true self. Those include curiosity, exploration, enthusiasm, intimacy, sharing, kindness, fun, trust, courage, intelligence, simplicity, harmony, and inspiration.
If I were to condense my list to my two favorite energies right now, I would choose wonder (for the active yang side) and delight (for the receptive yin side). I love to explore what I genuinely wonder about, and I delight in the ever-unfolding process of exploration and discovery.
I especially love to keep exploring with others who value wonder and delight, and this year especially, my life seems to be growing richer in such people locally here in Vegas. I’ve been chipping away at exploring more socially and experiencing more moments of shared delight. For instance, this past Saturday I attended a holotropic breathwork ceremony and had a beautiful and peaceful inner journey. The more the outer beast rampages, the more I regard its various tantrums as invitations to commit more deeply to my favorite energies.
I choose to let the beast run its course. My inner senses tell me that it’s been collectively summoned to fulfill a worthwhile purpose, so deep down I feel supportive of it. It’s doing what it needs to do.
I do not ignore the beast. I watch it attentively because it’s clearly very active in my reality, and I want to be sure that I receive and integrate its lessons for me. I took its presence as an invitation to do more growth work in certain directions. Energetically this has been like learning to stand in the eye of a storm.
As this year has progressed, I’ve been feeling ever more centered, grounded, stable, and indeed delighted by life. This is even with the knowing that if the beast really wanted to, it could demolish many aspects of my life and business. Yet it cannot threaten what I care about most, such as wonder and delight, so deep down I don’t find it particularly threatening. The beast serves to remind me of what I hold most dear. It reminds me of who I am at my core.
And Beast, I’m still laughing at you. You really are fucking ridiculous. Thanks for doing what you came here to do. I can see that you’re needed, and I appreciate what you’re doing. Here… have a Scooby snack.
Lesson 16 of the free Engage course explores how to shift your reality from needing, striving, and wanting to already being inside the life you truly wish to embody.
You’ll find the rest of the Engage course videos in the Video section.
Here’s an update on our ongoing 100 days of sex experiment, which is now up to 108 days and still going. At this point I’ve figured out that if Rachelle and I spend time in the same room together during the course of a day, it’s going to be a sex day.
Sex has become such a breezy experience for us now that it feels like we’ve made a long-term change to this aspect of our lives. It’s hard to imagine returning to our pre-experiment reality. It feels like we’ve left that old reality pretty far behind.
I can feel the difference in my body. Just being close to her now makes my cells buzz with electricity in anticipation. We don’t really have to try to make anything happen deliberately. Our bodies, minds, feelings, and energy will just naturally flow in that direction at least once a day. It would take more effort to prevent ourselves from going there.
I remember that’s how I’d feel during the early years of our long-distance relationship when we’d reconnect after being apart for 2-3 months. Now that feeling of intense attraction is our daily reality. It’s like this experiment invited and encouraged our bodies to love each other even more, so the feelings of love and intimacy are more embodied now. They’re not just in the mind and heart – it’s like these feelings are in the cells too now. So the physical chemistry that was already good is now way higher. This benefit has been a pleasant surprise.
By doing this for so many days in a row, we’ve chipped away at any forms of friction or deflection. Whatever reasons we might have previously had for skipping a day have been replaced by patterns of engagement. All the nos and maybes have been replaced by yeses. The yeses are pretty powerful now and easily breeze past any previous deflection points. It’s like we’ve recoded our minds to keep reminding us of the good reasons for saying yes to sex and giving us a more awareness of the long-term benefits.
I don’t feel this mental recoding is unique to sex. Imagine a writer writing for 100+ days in a row and also committing to making the writing experience smoother each time. Pretty much any form of resistance or procrastination will surface during that time, and the writer will have a chance to meet and resolve each instance. After 100+ days, you might figure that just about all resistance would have been addressed. At that point it may be harder not to write, especially if the writing is enjoyable or rewarding.
We’ve also created a greater variety of pathways into sex. So if we just go through our normal days together, they include multiple easy transition points that our bodies now predict could lead to sex. This is becoming a bit silly for us actually. Now if we just cuddle each other, our bodies can start getting riled up sexually, and pretty soon we’re kissing and more.
This is a pretty interesting place to be in our relationship. It’s different, yet we aren’t finding anything problematic about it. It makes us feel super close and connected with each other, and I feel it’s up-leveled our kindness and communication as well. It’s been a major deep dive into increased intimacy together. We’ve both been immensely loving towards each other all throughout this shared adventure. Having sex feels like an expression of kindness and caring for each other. We’re both generously going way beyond meeting each other’s needs here.
We keep checking in with each other to ask ourselves if it’s too much. And we keep concluding that it’s definitely not too much. It’s actually very nice to connect like this every day.
This is a puzzling experience to integrate. I’ve never done anything like this before, and I feel that I’ve crossed in a different kind of reality somewhere along the way. It feels like it’s still evolving and shifting too, although not as much as during the first three months.
It feels like my reality has been wrapped in a blanket of love, and now the blanket is there to stay. It feels easy to maintain, and I don’t see any reason to remove the blanket. It’s a really nice blanket, and I appreciate its presence.
One impact this is having is that it’s making me question where else in my life I might explore something similar. Like what other area of life is already good, and I could wrap that area in an extra blanket of love as well? I feel I’ve already chipped away at some of this in my relationship with my home, especially by resolving some areas of friction with it and figuring out how to enjoy maintenance and upgrade projects. I’m also advancing with a more yin, relaxed, casual style of blogging, which will soon open up into making more videos. Another interesting candidate would be my relationship with money, which has been healthy and supportive for 26 years now. I might even do something more expansive and weave multiple areas together since it’s all vibrational work at the core anyway. Even better would be to take this to a social level and engage with people who want to explore similar upgrades in their lives.
I feel that this sex experiment has been a gateway into a different vibrational reality. My inner senses have been buzzing with a lot of energy lately. I really can’t see this energy that we’ve stirred up remaining solely within our relationship. It’s a lot of energy, and I feel that it’s still increasing. Channeling it into physical sex is very yummy, yet I feel there’s more than enough to flow into other directions too, like writing, videos, social connections, and more. I have this sense that I’m entering a phase of opening in all directions at once. Actually I’d say that I’m well into it now. That feels really good to me at this time. I feel very ready and very energetically resourced for this.
One reflection that came through in the past few days was that I gained an even stronger appreciation for the role that exploration plays in my life and work. This sex experiment was one of many explorations I’ve done where the purpose was discovery, not to obtain some specific result. My intentions were rooted in curiosity and wonder… also to explore connection, love, and intimacy.
Exploring has paid off so very well for me in so many areas of life. The more I explore, the better my life becomes. Exploration is the key that unlocks so many doors, especially when I explore in directions where part of me is hesitant to commit myself. Many explorations have led to permanent changes that I’ve integrated very well into my life. I sense that if I really want to wrap more areas of life in an even bigger blanket of love, I’ll want to open myself to even more exploring. And the real key to exploring, at least for me, has been to make specific exploration-based commitments, such as a 30-day challenge (or in this case a 100-day challenge).
Today (May 1st) is the final day to decide to join us for Year 9 in Conscious Growth Club, and I felt inspired to share some insights about where I see the club flowing in Year 9 and beyond.
Every year the club evolves. This transition from Year 8 to Year 9 is a big advancement with some very powerful shifts opening up.
Leadership Dojo
Many members in CGC have been evolving in the direction of leadership. This has been showing up differently for everyone, but it’s fair to say that it’s not the stale old corporate or hierarchical version of leadership. It’s a much more personal and internal form of leadership. At least that’s where it begins.
This is about leading from within – knowing yourself, standing strong in your core essence, and radiating your light into the world around you, like I shared in this video several months ago: Fill Your Reality With Your Light.
When you step up and take charge of your own life powerful, other people are likely to notice. Those who appreciate similar values to yours will likely feel drawn to you. They’ll be attracted to your centeredness, your resolve, your clarity, and your sense of ease, lightness, and flow. You may end up attracting some sort of following without really trying.
For some members this shows up as a desire to build communities or their own, online or offline. A lot of members have been going through meaningful transformations of their social lives. They no longer feel in tune with their old circles, and it’s important to them to draw more people into their lives who really align with who they are now and who they’re becoming.
One reason this happens is that CGC itself is a model for this kind of social alignment. It’s a community centered around growth, self-development, and truly embodying our best selves. People who value this will find lots of like-minded people inside to connect with. Once they experience how delightful it is to make and have so many friends like this in one place, it can reveal a difficult contrast with their other social circles, which may not feel adequate anymore. Thus begins the journey into assuming more autonomy over one’s social life, and this eventually flows into some kind of leadership experience.
Seeing this aspect of CGC emerging over time has encouraged me to give it more attention and to invite new members into the club who see themselves flowing into an emerging leadership role. So this year I made that a key part of the invite.
That’s yet another reason we don’t invite Trump supporters to join us in CGC. That’s been our policy for years. Trump supporters carry follower vibes by definition. That’s the opposite of our direction in CGC.
There are lots of ways to step into leadership. In CGC we really focus on the inner journey, which involves getting clear about what we want to create and then advancing it into being.
Note that at the beginning of 2017, CGC was just an idea. I began sharing about the idea on my blog back then, inviting people to comment on it and share their feedback. Later that year we opened the doors with an early access phase while we were developing it. Today we’re starting our 9th year together, the club is thriving inside, and we clearly have a bright future together as we continue to advance together. This all began with a decision to step up and make it happen. Many hundreds of other decisions followed – and are still following – as the club continues to evolve.
Relating to People as Their Strong Selves
Since I have a lot of experience watching people grow and seeing how they evolve over time, I often pick up patterns in what’s unfolding for people before they see what’s emerging within themselves. I like to meet people where they are, but I also love to relate to them based on where they appear to be heading.
The better I get to know someone who’s very growth-oriented, the more I can help to hold the vision and the vibes of the stronger and more capable version of them that’s emerging.
For instance, I may interact with someone who’s a bit camera shy, but I can also see that they’re working on it, which may help me see that they’ll eventually get past it altogether. So I can start relating to them as the person they’re becoming, not who they’ve been.
Or I may be talking with a very head-based person, but I can also see they’re making good progress in developing their intuitive side and opening their heart, so I can meet in the the land of emotional expressiveness and keep relating to them as their emerging future self.
Sometimes this surprises people because they’ve never had anyone treat them as the person they’re becoming. Others have usually been treating them as who they’ve been in the past (or some skewed version of that).
I love doing this for people, but it’s definitely best when I get to know someone, so I gain a more specific understanding of where they’re heading.
Holding stronger visions of each other – and for each other – is becoming woven into the fabric of CGC. As more members bear witness to each other’s growth, they’re helping hold those new visions of themselves. That’s really lovely to see.
If you’ve never been in a social circle that holds you in high regard and begins treating you as your stronger and more capable future self, I sense you’d really love and appreciate this aspect of CGC.
Don’t think it’s easy though. The old parts of you may rise up to reject your new self-image – at first – so it can take some time to work through those old limits and release them.
Feeding and Fueling Our Strong Selves
As members have continued to invest in CGC, they’re clearly gotten stronger and more capable. More possibilities are opening up for them. There’s a sense of strength and stability in the core of the club, which is fertile soil for encouraging even more to emerge.
Back in 2018 when I first created the Deep Abundance Integration course, my motivation was largely driven by compassion for people who were struggling with scarcity. I wanted to provide a helpful resource to immerse people in abundance vibes, so they could really lock onto it and transition over, much like I learned to do back in 1999 (the year I went bankrupt).
In the early years of CGC, there was a lot of this helping-people-who-were-struggling mentality in the club too. That fit with the old coaching model, and many coaching calls involved helping people with various forms of stuckness. Today we are way beyond that old mindset and old approach.
Struggles can be endless and cyclical, especially if people keep recreating the same conditions that lead to struggle. Now we’re better at stepping back and inviting those weaker energies to depart, so something stronger and more engaging can emerge.
When this kind of powerful energy surges, many old struggles vanish. Either they become easy to solve because we become stronger, or they’re no longer seen as problems, or we stop creating the conditions that give rise to them. One way or another, CGCers learn to opt out of living in perpetual crisis mode.
Today’s CGC isn’t a good match for people who are mired in distracting problems. It’s a much better fit for people who want to engage with their lives from their core – their strong selves. Then keep building from there.
I like to think of this stronger part of me as my higher self. That’s the version of me that’s fearless, wise, caring, kind, creative, generous, and more. These days my own path of self-development is mainly about coming into greater alignment with this core version of me. I do my best to channel my deepest wellspring of insight and energy into my decisions and actions. That’s been working really well.
Even when I have mundane problems to deal with, I find that I can easily shred them when I’m attuned to my core strengths. Then I can be as patient, methodical, rational, and courageous as needed to solve problems definitively. These kinds of solutions are very satisfying, both during the solution process and afterwards. I know I did my best, so there are no regrets.
This kind of energy is emerging very strongly in the club now. I sense it will be a big part of Year 9 and beyond.
One specific way we’re supporting this energy is with the new Sense & Solve call format that we’re introducing this CGC year. We’re running it the first time on May 15.
High Trust and Intimate Teamwork
CGC is a very kind, intimate, caring group inside. It took some work to get there though, and I’m very protective of this aspect of our culture. In our early years, we attracted some members who were only into self-development for themselves – some prima donna types if you know what I mean. They came to CGC for the content and for their own gains and didn’t participate much in the community aspects, except for their own validation now and then.
We still did our best to serve those members, but I soon realized that we were better off without them. What we do in CGC really is a team effort, and we grow stronger by attracting good team players. So I’ve deliberately positioned the club to make it less palatable to people who aren’t interested in the team aspect.
We’ve come a long way since then, really focusing on attracting more genuine team players and serving them well. CGC has become a space where the givers tend to gain the most. Those who show up and participate and share their growth journeys surely learn a lot more and make bigger strides.
I see us investing even further in this teamwork direction in Year 9 and beyond. That includes involving other members in the live event we’ll be co-creating for April 2026.
All of our calls for Year 9 involve some form of interaction. They’re really not content-based. They’re all designed as group experiences that we share in and create together.
This morning, for example, we had our monthly Intention Infusion call. The call was very well-attended, with lots of members sharing all throughout. This included sharing our individual intentions for the month and also co-creating a group intention. The group intention we chose was limitless vitality, so we’re all pooling our collective intentional energy to intend limitless vitality for each other. This has been a normal rhythm in CGC for the past two years now. Every month we all hold positive intentions for each other’s well-being and advancement.
The core of this community is trust. When people open up and trust more, they tend to thrive in CGC. It’s not like sharing about your life on social media and wondering who will judge you for it.
It usually takes a bit of time for people to get used to a community like this. They come in with their well-developed masks from years of social media engagement. Then they gradually drop those old facades and let us see more of their real selves. That’s where they’re met with so much love, understanding, and connection.
Life really is different when you learn and grow as part of a kind and caring community that has your back. If you don’t get that from CGC, please find some place to get it – a space where you can fully open up and show all parts of the real you and be seen and acknowledged as the beautiful being you are. This includes letting others see your beauty even when you’re not seeing it yet yourself.
This kind of work really lights me up inside. Even after 8 years of serving CGC, I’m still abundantly enthusiastic about it. As I’ve said many times before, this is my forever project. That’s something I learned from Walt Disney because Disneyland was his forever project. The benefit of a forever project is that you have lots of time to keep improving it and optimizing it. You know to be extra thoughtful in making each decision because you’re thinking about how it might ripple out over decades.
Playfulness
I love that we’re so playful in CGC. I really resonate with making self-development lively and fun. I feel we’re landed in a really good range there. We take self-development seriously, and we have serious fun working on it together.
We often crack jokes on the live calls, but we also do our best to keep them light. I really think we bond very well through shared humor. Some members are really great at anchoring humor vibes into the club, and I would love to see even more people like this join us inside because we so appreciate what they bring to the experience.
We already have some great abundance in this area, but I say let’s keep going. Why limit ourselves? Good-natured humor folds really well into our group energy and values.
I sense that this light-hearted playfulness that so many of us share in CGC will be infused into our April 2026 gathering as well, which makes me look forward to it even more.
Range and Variety
I know of no other self-development group that covers as much range and variety as CGC does. We really do cover all aspects of self-development and more.
Take a look at our call types for Year 9. We have 18 different formats now, up from 14 last CGC year. And even within a given format, no two calls are the same. Each call is a unique experience.
In Bear Care we work on boundaries and self-care. In Contribution Café we focus on purpose and service. In Story Lab we use the lens of story to fuse the objective and subjective aspects of our lives into a cohesive plot that’s unfolding. Courage Forge’s theme ought to be pretty obvious. Same goes with Pure Imagination. Mating Call is a new format we’ve added this year to improve our sex lives. And Moonglow is all about receiving and allowing (and not blocking life’s gifts).
I actually drew a significant amount of inspiration from theme parks, particularly Disneyland itself, in designing and evolving CGC’s core structure. I’ve personally spent at least 100 days of my life at Disneyland, including going there with Rachelle for 30 days in a row, six months before we opened CGC. So you can definitely think of CGC as being like a self-development theme park. While our core focus is on self-development, the calls are all designed to be lively, entertaining, and enjoyable as well. I never want the experience for our members to become stale or boring.
The vast majority of our live calls are unrecorded too (only Reflections & Revelations is recorded), so that helps people open up and be more candid as well. I really noticed a positive shift in participation when we shifted from recorded to unrecorded calls a while back. I love that we have so many years to keep tinkering and fine-tuning to discover what works best for our members.
Learning From Each Other’s Growth Journeys
With the CGC forums as part of the experience, there’s even more variety because members can share and discuss anything of interest to them.
I especially love that our discussions and explorations are so focused on helping each other advance. There really isn’t much debating in CGC for the sake of debating. Politics and current events don’t have a big presence in the group. That’s all fair game for discussion, but most CGCers would rather not discuss that sort of thing, especially since they can do that elsewhere on social media all day long if they want.
In CGC the conversations are mainly about personal experiences and explorations as well as how members are figuring out solutions. People discuss their goals, action steps, and their progress a lot. They share the emotional side too, like how life is going and how they’re being affected.
Because we have our own private, members-only spaces, members are a lot more candid, and the shares are often deeper and more detailed than what you’d find elsewhere on the Internet. People share a certain depth in CGC that they wouldn’t trust to Instagram, Facebook, etc.
This is true for me too. While I’ve been very open about my life from 20+ years of blogging and also YouTubing, I share even more depth and detail in CGC. Most of what I share about my ongoing explorations these days is posted in CGC, not outside of it. I just feel drawn to share certain details more with the people I’ve come to know and trust very well. I’m still into sharing openly outside of the group, but with CGC as such a huge part of my life, I don’t feel drawn to share as much outside the club.
I maintain a progress log in the club myself and update it often. It looks like this in the forums and has hundreds of posts. It’s very interactive too since members can ask me anything about the various explorations I’m doing at any given time. Usually I update it multiple times per week. There is so much I’ve shared there that I haven’t shared outside of CGC, such as details about the 3-night ayahuasca ceremony I did in March and how it affected me – it was very powerful.
One experience that’s coming up this month is my first-ever San Pedro ceremony. I’ve never done it before and have been wanting to sit with it for years. I probably won’t blog about it, but I’ll surely share about what it was like in CGC.
Other members maintain progress logs in the club too, and this has consistently been a great way for us to keep tabs on what we’re all doing and how we’re progressing.
A High-Vibe Approach to Self-Development
When I first got into self-development many years ago, my mindset was very objective. I focused on productivity and time management a lot. I thought very algorithmically much of the time, always looking for useful processes and step-by-step approaches. Some of my favorite authors were Brian Tracy and David Allen – both very deliberate and methodical but also immensely head-based.
That was interesting and helpful for some years, but I soon ran into limits with that approach, especially with respect to certain types of goals and lifestyle desires. Some goals just would not budge.
I was able to use that old mindset to have some cool achievements though, such as running a marathon. That was all about showing up, putting in the training time, and being very methodical and tenacious till I crossed the finish line and got my finisher’s medal – done and checked off my bucket list.
But my most interesting breakthroughs did not arise from that type of programmer mindset. For that I really needed to stretch myself to explore more limitless ways of relating to life and reality. I documented that alternative approach very well in the Submersion course, which is based on relating to life far more subjectively. Since then I’ve layered in even more robust and expansive approaches to keep advancing in ways where an overly objective approach falls flat.
I’d say my #1 favorite gift from opening up and pursuing a different self-development path is my relationship with Rachelle. We’ve been together for 15+ years now, married for more than 7 years. She and I host the CGC calls together. I adore her deeply, and I love the life we share together. I also really love that she and I get to serve and support CGC together. We attracted each other from different countries (she’s Canadian) and flowed into a beautiful yet unconventional relationship. I don’t see anyway a relationship like this could have flowed into my life if I’d been stuck in an overly objective mindset. That old limit had to go, so I could open myself to new forms of allowing, inviting, and surrendering.
This type of energy is strongly infused into CGC. I’ve stopped being an apologist about it, and I’ve really gone all-in with a vibrational-first approach – because it works! It takes time for some people to warm up to it, but what keeps them engaged is that this gets results, especially in areas where an objective approach just isn’t moving the needle much.
The objective aspects of life are still important, and objective problem-solving tools are still useful, so we haven’t thrown that out. We do a tremendous amount of fusion in CGC, and that YES-AND approach woven into many of our group calls as well. Our problem-solving methods are part vibrational, part physical. They involve getting into harmony with the solution space and feeling our way into it to ramp up motivation and inspiration. Then we devise practical action steps and flow into them with greater ease.
In recent months I’ve been sharing in the club about using this approach to do various DIY plumbing and electrical projects around the house. I got clear about how I wanted to solve each problem on a vibrational level first, including how I wanted to feel throughout the experience and afterwards. As I locked onto those feelings, I flowing through a compelling action sequence that included watching how-to videos on YouTube, acquiring the needed parts and tools, and doing all the steps to get to completion.
This really taught me a lot about my own best pathways through problems I might otherwise put off. I didn’t want to deal with certain problems because I didn’t understand them well enough, and I didn’t feel very trusting about the prospect of hiring someone to do those projects for me. So I went to the vibe level first and crafted the solution there. For instance, I knew that education could solve the understanding problem, so I resolved to educate myself thoroughly first. I also saw solutions to the trust issue, so I worked through how to find a contractor I could genuinely trust, and I found and hired a fabulous plumber to do some bigger jobs. It all flowed beautifully at the action level once I solved these problems first at the vibrational level.
I can tell this kind of vibrational-physical fusion will be a big part of CGC Year 9 and beyond – again because it works. Problems are much easier to solve when we engage not just our minds but our hearts and spirits as well.
Lightness & Happiness
The energy in some earlier CGC years felt heavier to me. Today it’s a lot lighter feeling inside. There’s more happiness and optimism inside the club these days – and some genuine excitement too, especially since we’re starting a whole new year together starting today.
Years ago, some people were initially drawn to approach CGC like a therapy container – a space for working through unresolved trauma.
I gave it a lot of thought and took concrete steps to move the club well away from that direction. I know this bothered some people, but I’m certain that it was the correct decision. Even back then I knew we needed to move away from that.
I’m not a therapist, and I don’t intend to become one. I really don’t want to meet people in their misery and delve into the ache with them.
I know some great people who do work in the space of trauma, healing, PTSD, etc. Most of them work with plant medicines because that really moves the needle when nothing else will. I’ve seen a tremendous amount of positive changes unfolding for people who need to process and release old trauma.
But that isn’t my path. I know this. I’m not here to serve people while they’re still enmeshed in their trauma. I’m meant to work and live in limitless land. That’s very clear to me.
I’ve done multiple plant medicine journeys where I’ve looked into that space – with ayahuasca, mushrooms, and more – and they all tell me the same thing. I’m not traumatized and never have been, and I’m not here to help people with their trauma. One journey revealed a fun way of framing this, revealing that when I incarnated as a human in this life, I looked at the box to select my trauma for my human character, and I wrote in “Fuck no!” And so that wish was granted.
I’ve had plenty of challenges to deal with in this life, but none have ever traumatized me. That isn’t what I’m here to experience. And it isn’t how I aim to serve.
I am the opposite of traumatized. I’m ridiculously happy, and I thrive when working with other people who are at least pretty happy with their lives, and they want to unfold even more richness.
I work best with people who want to let go of old limits and stretch themselves. They want to grow stronger and become even more capable. They may not be traumatized, but letting go of old limits is still a great challenge, and this is where I most enjoy serving people.
This has also become a big aspect of CGC as well. We’re not here to meet you in your pain. We’re here to help you advance beyond old limits. If you have a lot of unresolved pain to work through first that’s holding you back from even focusing on richer and more expansive forms of self-development, I feel for you, but there are much better teachers and communities that focus on that. I have tremendous respect for them, and I’m friends with some great people in that space, but I definitely don’t aspire to be one of them. I’ve found where I belong and what I’m good at, and I do sense that this is a limit I want to keep because it serves me well, and it opens into a beautiful outlet for serving others very well too.
CGC’s energy is much lighter than what you’d find in trauma-informed spaces. The energy inside is typically very positive, encouraging, optimistic, and expansive. Members are usually very engaged with interesting projects and working on stretching themselves in various ways.
Even when someone is going through a major challenge, they’re met with positive support, not commiseration. This helps people remember their strong selves, which they can use to meet any problem.
Stepping Into Your Limitless Self
Hopefully this run-through gives you a clearer picture of what CGC is like inside now and how we’re continuing to evolve.
I’d say that our limitless vitality intention for May is a good container for our upcoming year in the club as well. This month we’re inviting more energy to flow through our bodies and our lives, so we can enjoy more capacity to investing in what we find most engaging.
If CGC appeals to you, I invite you to join us. There’s still time to come aboard and join us for Year 9 if you sign up today. Otherwise you’ll have to wait till April 2026 for another chance.
I’d recommend perusing the CGC FAQ, and then read through the CGC invite page as you reflect upon the decision (sign-up button is at the bottom of that page.
Lastly, feel free to drop me a message via my contact form if you have any further questions. We always see a lot of people join on the last day – even in the final hours – so I’m used to that!
Here’s an easy-going video about Conscious Growth Club Year 9 to give you a sense of the vibes and direction of the club and to invite you to join us inside. It’s only about 12 minutes, so please give it a watch now because I’m taking it offline when the enrollment ends.
CGC is our core inner self-development circle. It began in 2017 and has been going strong and evolving beautifully ever since. We only open for new members to join us during one short interval each year, always during the last week of April, and this is it! So please check it out and make the correct decision for you by midnight Pacific Time on May 1st. This is our only enrollment period for 2025, so our next opening won’t be till April 2026.
After you watch the video, read through the Conscious Growth Club invite page to see if you’re a match. It’s definitely not for everyone, but for the right people, CGC is a powerful long-term source of growth fuel and support. It transforms self-development from a solo effort to a team effort.
This is a fabulous year to join CGC because we’re having our first-ever CGC in-person gathering during this new CGC year, so we’ll all get to connect in person together for 4 days in Las Vegas in April 2026. I’m really looking forward to that!
This year I posted a very different kind of invitation than ever before. CGC itself is very growth-oriented – a living entity – so it evolves every year. This is another big step forward, so I wanted an invitation that captured its essence well, something that strong matches would resonate with.
Here are some thoughts about the evolution of Year 9.
Building Upon CGC’s Strengths
Year 8 was a truly fabulous year in the club. We’ve had 103 members in the club this year, so there was lots of activity all throughout. We introduced many new types of Zoom calls, bringing the total to 14, so we had more range and variety than ever before. This was also the most interactive year in the club with all kinds of participation. That created some delightful intimacy inside. I got to know many members better than ever this year.
Year 8 was a truly loving, caring, and supportive container inside. That’s super satisfying because it’s hard to develop a community like this. It takes tons of nurturing and also filtering, always being careful to invite the right people in who can help us co-create this kind of field together, so we can all benefit from it.
Rachelle and I can’t do it all by ourselves, and my heart is so filled with joy for how much help and support we’ve received in making this a reality – from the vibrational level all the way down to the practical action steps.
Going into Year 9 then, my attitude wasn’t about fixing things but about flowing with the wonderful momentum we have.
One of my core recent lessons this year has been that even when life is going really well, don’t stop there. Keep growing. Don’t settle for limits because growth is limitless. When life is good, go for great. When it’s great, go for fabulous. When it’s fabulous, go for extraordinary… then for extra-extraordinary.
This was the mindset and heartset I used when crafting Year 9’s invitation.
Deep Reflection
It took a 3-night ayahuasca ceremony last month (intense!) to really drive this home for me. My lessons while sitting with Aya’s energy were all about letting go of old limits and not settling, especially when life is going really well. She reminded me to keep stretching. This includes stretching my imagination to keep discovering more ways to stretch.
Don’t settle for abundance. Don’t settle for love. Don’t settle for caring. Don’t settle for fun. As good as those vibes are, there’s plenty more to experience beyond them. There are even more abundant, more loving, more caring, more playful frequencies of life to tap into. There are no limits.
We as humans may still be dealing with various self-imposed limits and filters, but life itself is not nearly so limited. So even as we release old limits, it’s important to remind ourselves to keep on stretching. This is where some of the most rewarding self-development work unfolds. This also speaks to the kinds of people I want to invite to join us for CGC Year 9 and beyond.
It was during the integration process for that Aya experience that tons of clarity about CGC Year 9 really flowed through, and all the dots began to connect. I’ll share some of those realizations here.
Even More Range
One of CGC’s core strengths is that we have massive range in what we’re able to cover. This isn’t a group just for entrepreneurs, wellness enthusiasts, lifestyle explorers, or online creators. CGC’s expression is like a self-development Disneyland. I love that we can talk about and work on anything in the club. Whatever impacts us is fair game since it’s a part of our journeys. We’re also very playful inside, where advancement is smoothed by approach life as a game much of the time.
Our 14 call formats are now going to be 18 formats for Year 9, which takes our range and variety from major abundance to ultra-major abundance. You can see all the formats listed about halfway down the invite page.
CGC has become a space of stretching, not of limitation. We’re not here to box you in but to invite you to really stretch your self-image much closer to how you imagine your higher self to be. This is a place where your strongest and most vibrant self gets to be nurtured into its fullest expression. It’s a place where we can relate to you as the being you’re becoming, not as your past baggage.
Connecting the Dots From Sensing to Thinking to Acting
At its core, every problem has a vibrational side and a physical side (at least). Solving problems vibrationally first, then physically, is a powerful way to advance. I’ve been sharing this method here and there in the club already, but this year I sensed it would be wise to go big with it.
One new call type we’ve added for Year 9 is called “Sense & Solve.” This is where we’ll get extra practice solving problems harmoniously, so that the practical solution not only works, but it feels very satisfying too.
I’ve been getting a lot of traction in using this approach across multiple areas of life. It’s been especially useful for stuck areas where projects were stagnant and not progressing. Earlier this year I completed some projects that had been stagnant for years, and I did them with a great sense of ease and flow. Because I paid attention to the vibrational side first, the physical solutions were very aligned with how I wanted to feel. Some of these were relatively simple problems – at least they appeared so – but once I unpacked them and got inside of them, I realized that these were powerful and meaningful vibrational lessons in disguise, just waiting for me to finally see them as such.
If you have some of this stuck energy somewhere in your life, like an area or project that’s lingering on the back burner and not progressing, bring it with you into CGC, and we’ll help you crack it open and get it moving. The process is different than you’d think. The key is to see even seemingly mundane problems as your vibrational teachers. Once you realize that your problems are actually here to help you grow stronger, that’s very transformational. The skill aspect is getting enough practice that you can do this consistently. Then your problems will start to look like Dominoes.
CGC as a Leadership Dojo
Many members in the club have been gradually evolving in the direction of leadership. I don’t mean the corporate or hierarchical kind. This is more of a vibrational shift. As members step into their power, they increase their ability to create more ripples in other people’s lives as well. As they begin to see some of these ripples revealed, that gets people thinking even more about purpose and contribution.
As this path to purpose has been unfolding at the individual level, I’ve been reflecting on how CGC could better support this opening. CGC’s core purpose is to lovingly and powerfully support our members’ paths of growth, so it too needs to grow as we do.
Las year we added the new Contribution Café call format to specifically focus more energy on purpose and contribution for members who align with this. We’re keeping these calls going for Year 9, but I’ve also sensed that it’s time to evolve the club to provide even more support for this direction.
The phrase “Leadership Dojo” came through several weeks ago, and I immediately thought: That’s it!
I love this framing because it speaks to who we’re becoming. We’re emerging leaders – first in consciously leading our own lives, then in creating positive ripples – and CGC is our training Dojo.
So if you’ve been seeing this leadership direction opening up in your life too, and you’re reading this now, that a good hint that you’re likely to be a strong match for CGC.
Being Seen
For CGC Year 8, our overall theme was Fire Infusion. Working with fire energy was a big through-line for the year as we burned off and released misalignments from our lives and amped up our motivation and centeredness.
For CGC Year 9, the theme is Be Seen. This has many facets, but I’d say the biggest one is allowing people to truly witness your unfolding growth journey. There’s something remarkably powerful about working through your advances in the presence of others inside the CGC field.
For our first 8 years of CGC, we’ve had an old energy that’s been coming along for the ride, one that we must release for Year 9. That’s the energy of hiding – of being a background character inside the field of CGC.
On a practical level, this old energy took the form of some members attending Zoom calls in a non-participatory mode – camera off and not raising hands during opportunities to share. And that was okay for the first 8 years. We held space to work with this energy too. But this energy doesn’t mesh with where we’re heading. It doesn’t support a strong enough field. It doesn’t align with CGC being a Leadership Dojo.
So for CGC Year 9, we’re strengthening the field by releasing this background mode from live calls, at least for the ones that Rachelle and I host. That means that everyone is on camera, fully present, ready to participate.
In CGC Year 8, we introduced a “splash zone” feature to some calls. This meant if you were on camera, you were open to being called upon to participate – no need to raise your virtual hand. But there was still the option to turn off the webcam and just watch. Most calls, however, just had voluntary sharing, so even if you were on camera, you wouldn’t be expected to share unless you volunteered.
Near the end of this CGC year, we also began practicing “splash chaining,” whereby a member who shares gets to randomly call upon another member to share – anyone on camera is a fair choice. But again, there was still the off-cam option available too.
For Year 9 there isn’t a passive-attendance option for these live calls. If you’re in the space with us, you’ll need to be on camera and willing to actively participate. That doesn’t mean that everyone will be called upon to share something each time, but it does mean being open to it. Otherwise if someone tries to attend a call in hiding mode, we would invite them to join us on camera, and if they declined, we would drop them from the call.
This change isn’t to punish or shame anyone. It’s to elevate, protect, and strengthen our field inside. There’s a different energy on a call when everyone is on camera and fully seen. Having even one person in the space in off-cam mode shifts the vibe of the experience for all involved. It’s like having an intimate conversation while someone else is hiding behind the drapes, watching you engage. And even when you acknowledge their presence and invite them into the space to be seen and to participate, they still choose the drapes.
The whole experience on a live call is stronger and more aligned if everyone is fully present, just as if we were gathering in person. We want people who are in the space of these calls to really be in the space with us, not half-present. We want everyone shining their light together to help co-create the experience. That’s our standard for Year 9 and beyond.
Not everyone is willing to do this. We’re here to engage with the willing.
Every call in CGC is optional. None are mandatory. So if someone doesn’t feel up to contributing to our strong, mutually supportive, we-are-all-seen-here energy for these calls, they can skip the call. But in Year 9, they do not have the option of merely showing up to watch. We are releasing this energy starting on May 1st, so passive watch mode will no longer be part of the club.
If other members who host their own calls in CGC want to allow for an off-camera mode, that’s their choice, but all of the calls that Rachelle and I host together from May 1st onward will be on-camera for everyone.
This is an example of looking at the vibrational aspect of a situation first, finding the place of alignment, and then translating it into the physical layer. The transformational energy is clearly stronger when we all agree to harmonize our co-creative energy, and being seen together in our emergence is a big part of that. All this requires at the action level is a simple change to what we invite.
From Depletion to Overflow
In CGC Year 9, we’re placing an even stronger emphasis on living from overflow instead of depletion.
When you build excess capacity within yourself – energetically, emotionally, creatively – you have more to share without running dry. You can lift others without sacrificing your own footing. You can contribute with delight instead of draining yourself.
In CGC we’re making this our norm: to meet each other in a state of overflow. To give from abundance, not from scarcity. To share from wholeness, not from woundedness. This practice strengthens not just individuals, but the entire community field.
Overflow doesn’t mean perfection. It means investing in yourself first – restoring, nourishing, aligning – so you’re showing up fully charged, ready to support and be supported.
Year 9 is about learning to live there. What most people don’t realize is that living from overflow is a choice – one that must be made vibrationally before it can be engineered into existence physically.
Building a Stronger Club
Practically speaking, CGC has never offered a better value for members than it does now.
Once you join CGC from here on, you can continue renewing each year for $1111 – only a third of the new member price of $3333. This rewards commitment, consistency, and long-term investment in your growth. It recognizes that our core members are also contributing by helping us to hold and sustain the field in which we all grow together.
The bar to get in is higher than it is to renew. Renewing is a breezier and lighter decision. For new members considering joining, we want you to pause and reflect first. Joining CGC, especially for Year 9, is a big deal. We don’t want this to be an impulse choice for anyone. We want you to make it thoughtfully.
We’re very protective of our space, and it’s definitely not for everyone, so it’s important that we continue to filter and deflect the misaligned – no Trump supporters, no prima donnas, just growth-oriented team players who align with our purpose. We’ve been doing a great job of that for many years now, which is one reason we have such a strong and aligned club inside. We filter for truth-alignment, love-alignment, and power-alignment at the door. The invitation is meant to deflect and repel as much as it is to invite. Only strongly aligned people are likely to find it enticing.
One of the best ways for us to keep attracting new members is also to grow from within. So we’ve added a simple and generous referral program starting this year. Members who refer a new member to join can get their own renewal totally free. So if you refer at least one new member to us each year, you can essentially lock in a perpetually free membership – simply by continuing to bring in highly attuned people who resonate with CGC’s energy and purpose. In this way we support those members who help support the club’s ongoing growth and evolution.
Infusing More Playfulness and Sexiness
Another theme weaving through Year 9 is the infusion of more playfulness and sexiness into the club’s energy.
Growth doesn’t have to be heavy. Alignment doesn’t have to be stoic. Transformation doesn’t have to feel like trudging uphill.
It can be lively. It can be sensual. It can feel like flirting with reality, dancing with your dreams, turning your own evolution into an art form.
In CGC we embrace the idea that conscious growth can feel good, energizing, and even a little mischievous. When your life feels deeply attractive to you, you naturally magnetize the right people, opportunities, and experiences into your field.
We’re allowing that aliveness to breathe through everything we do. And we’re also giving it even more space to breathe with new the Fun & Games and Mating Call formats this year. Many of us bond through fun and laughter, so we want to keep enhancing this aspect of the club’s field too.
Life Support Team
One of the aspects I appreciate most about CGC is the incredible level of support that flows through the club.
It’s not just Rachelle and me holding space. It’s a collective of caring, wise, heart-centered beings who know how to hold, love, uplift, and stretch each other.
CGC isn’t just a group you join. It’s a life support team you consciously weave into your journey – people who see you, believe in you, and encourage you to rise into your truest expression.
If you’re a very nurturing person yourself, you’ll find this to be a space where that quality is deeply appreciated. I’ve also seen how some members who weren’t very nurturing of others at first have really developed this quality in themselves, sensing the joy that comes from encouraging others.
I feel deeply held by this community too. It supports not just my personal growth but also the projects, courses, and events I create. Many of my best ideas and initiatives over the past several years were birthed and nurtured through the energy of CGC.
If you want to feel truly supported – not just tolerated or superficially encouraged but deeply witnessed and championed – CGC is one of the best places to experience that.
We don’t run CGC in some corporate way. We have a strong structure for it, and it’s maintained very responsibly, but it’s very important to me to keep the field caring, gentle, and intimate, even as we stretch ourselves.
Starfire Nursery – Discover Your Core Vibescapes
One of the most intimate and powerful additions for CGC Year 9 is the introduction of Starfire Nursery, an 8-week live series we’ll be hosting this fall. This is exclusively for CGCers and won’t be offered to anyone outside the club.
Starfire Nursery is about stepping into the vibrational roots of who you are. It’s not about goal-setting or external vision boards. It’s about discovering the inner stellar nursery that’s been generating your most meaningful desires, goals, and creations all along – the living frequencies that nourish your path.
Each week we’ll meet live online (but not recorded) to explore these core vibescapes – the emotional, energetic terrains that power your alignment. You’ll map, name, and begin cultivating your inner landscape with exquisite clarity.
The intention isn’t to force new outcomes. It’s to fall in love with the fertile vibrational ground inside you – to nourish it, trust it, and let it guide your expressions and creations more naturally.
These sessions will be highly interactive, playful, deep, and spacious. They’ll encourage emotional honesty, vibrational tuning, and creative revelation.
I sense that for many members, Starfire Nursery will become one of the most meaningful experiences we’ve shared so far – not just for what it helps you create, but for how it helps you become.
Starfire Nursery begins this September and will run weekly through late October. It’s woven directly into the Year 9 flow – part of the living expansion we’re stepping into together. The exact dates and times are shared on the Year 9 invite page.
Gathering In Person
I’m thrilled to share that we’re planning our first in-person CGC gathering for April 2026 in Las Vegas.
It will be a four-day event, free to CGC members as part of their membership. You’ll just cover your own travel, lodging, and personal expenses like food.
I’m envisioning a vibrant, co-creative experience – not just passive consumption but active participation and spirity collaboration.
This gathering will be another step forward in weaving the CGC field even tighter and deeper. For many it will be the first time meeting face-to-face with people who’ve already been walking alongside them for years, supporting, challenging, and inspiring them.
Feeling the Call
If you feel the call, if your spirit stirs when you imagine yourself growing and co-creating alongside other conscious, courageous souls, I encourage you to step through the portal and join us for Year 9.
We only open once a year – and enrollment closes at midnight Pacific on May 1st.
Lesson 15 of the free Engage course covers how to change your self-image for the better, including the most important qualities to weave into your character and the negative aspects to release.
You’ll find the rest of the Engage course videos in the Video section.
