Category Archives: Relationships

Conscious Growth Club Has 108 Members for Year 5

Posted on by

Conscious Growth Club had its best annual launch ever last week. We now have 108 members in the club for Year 5, including Rachelle and me. That a 20% increase from last year.

We only open for new members one week each year. We’ll open again for Year 6 in the last week of April 2022. From now till then, we’ll be serving and engaging with the CGCers who decided to share this journey together.

I love that each year in CGC is a different experience because there’s a different mix of people each year. CGC co-creatively adapts to the people who join. I think CGC Year 5 is likely to be our most co-creative and playful year since we started, especially since 45 people joined from the Amplify course on creativity.

There’s been a huge surge in activity in the CGC private member forums since we opened for new members from April 25th to May 1st. This is what the daily page views have looked like recently. Today (May 4) isn’t even halfway over yet, so that will probably end up closer to the bar for May 3rd by the end of the day. This is a normal pattern for the first week or two of a new CGC year as members introduce themselves and start engaging with the community.

This launch was very different from previous years. Last year I spent more than $6K on Facebook ads for CGC, and I actively promoted CGC on social media (Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube).

This year I didn’t even mention CGC on social media, and I didn’t advertise it at all. I had deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts in January. And even though I have thousands of YouTube followers, I decided not to mention CGC there this time.

This time I really wanted to focus on alignment. I wasn’t really trying to grow CGC in size, and I had no particular number goals for this launch. Growing CGC is nice, but it would have been fine if we ended up with a smaller group than last year. I just want to make sure we’re attracting people who strongly align with CGC’s values and culture.

This was also the simplest launch we’ve ever done. Not only were there no ads and social media to deal with, I also decided not to create an invitation video this time. The invitation web page was very straightforward. I also did a lot less blogging this year, and I sent fewer emails to invite people on my email list to join CGC this time.

So I approached this launch in a very chill way. Any parts of the launch process where I felt resistance to doing them, I simply skipped them this year.

What I noticed is that this freed up more emotional energy, and I was able to flow that energy elsewhere. I felt more relaxed than ever when inviting people to join CGC this year.

I really don’t think the launch would have gone this well if some of my energy was still wrapped up in social media. I’m really seeing that going for bigger reach isn’t what matters. This experience verifies what my intuition was telling me all along – that alignment is way more important than reach. Even if the numbers turned out smaller this time, I think I still would have feel that it was a wise decision to focus on improving the alignment by reducing the reach. All throughout the launch, it felt so nice not to being dealing with Facebook at all. That place is such a clutter of misaligned energies. I feel so much lighter without it. It’s pretty easy to compensate for the reduction in reach.

When I see the interactions that people are having in CGC now, as I’ve been reading the new member intros and welcoming people in, the vibe of the group feels different – as in better than ever. It’s pretty early in the new CGC year, so that vibe will surely shift along the way, but something just seems super promising about it. I feel like CGC Year 5 is likely to exceed my expectations, perhaps by a lot.

I thought that I’d be feeling pretty tired after finishing the Amplify course. I just published the 63rd and final lesson for it on Friday, April 30th. Even though I haven’t had a single day off in at least 10 weeks – lots of 12-16 hours days, 7 days a week – I don’t feel burned out. Quite the opposite – I feel energized and enthusiastic to dive right into more projects – and especially to engage with CGCers. I think this is because I’m picking up so much supportive energy from other people that it’s keeping my motivational batteries full. And I think that effect is extra strong because of the alignment of the group this year.

I just finished a major course and wasn’t intending to do another one till the first quarter of next year. But now I’m already starting to get a flow of ideas for a new course, coming from a direction I didn’t expect. I thought the Muse would give me some time off, but part of me just wants to keep dancing with her. I don’t think this is because of the ideas per se – I think it’s because of the super aligned people I get to co-create with.

When I reached out to attract future CGCers from social media in previous years, we did see some people joining from those services, but this included people who weren’t as familiar with my work or this community. They may never have done a course or a workshop with us. So they usually weren’t as aligned with CGC as the people who are more closely engaged with this community over a longer period of time.

Most CGCers have been familiar with my work for at least 10 years. Some have been reading my blog for 15+ years. Since those people share so many interests in common with me, they also have a lot in common with each other. Whatever I’ve blogged about in the past, you’ll find people with those interests in CGC – online business, Star Trek, veganism, non-monogamy, travel, sleep experiments, subjective reality, manifesting, productivity, Toastmasters, and more.

This year almost everyone who joined CGC has been through at least one of our 4 courses, and quite a few have gone through 3 or 4 of them. Many members have been to previous workshops as well. I can see why the courses attract so many people to eventually join CGC. If people like the courses and get value from them, they’re highly likely to find CGC worthwhile too. The Deep Abundance Integration and Amplify courses both had a social element, so people can get a much clearer sense of the community and what the people are like.

A lot of people in CGC are very intuitive and sensitive to energy flows, as am I (especially this year while I’m eating raw). I think it’s possible that by focusing on a more socially aligned launch for a course or CGC instead of trying to go for more reach, it helps to create a more focused energy pattern around the experience. I think some people in this community can pick up on that energy, at least subconsciously. This year in particular, they may have sensed a more aligned vibe than usual, like this was the perfect year for them to join.

When I eat raw like I’ve been doing this year, my intuition gets a significant boost. In some sense the signals are the same as before, but they’re much louder and clearer, so they grab my conscious attention more easily and more often. When I’m eating cooked food, I may have a background leaning or a suspicion that some particular direction might be worthwhile. Then after eating raw for several months, that same idea will seem closer to plain-as-day obvious, like it will surely work out. Consequently, I find it significantly easier to trust and act upon my intuition when I eat raw. Those decisions don’t seem nearly as risky because I can see that life is going to work out nicely just by following the energy flows.

I am not attached to growing CGC in size. It works wonderfully at or near its current size. I am willing to see it grow in future years, but not at the cost of alignment. I’m also willing to see it shrink, as long as the alignment of the group stays high. Alignment has been my priority from the beginning, but in past years I sensed that there might be a conflict between alignment and growth. Now it feels like this was an artificial conflict, and it’s evaporating. I think it may be very possible to do both, and that points to a different kind of path forward – one that remains free of social media and doesn’t involve going for more reach.

One unusual aspect of CGC is that we’re very much a Mile Wide, Mile Deep kind of group inside. We cover all aspects of personal growth – health, relationships, finances, work, etc – but this doesn’t water down the experience because we also go for depth in these areas too. Why settle for only breadth or depth? I see no conflict between these. By learning to go deep in one area, it’s easier to go deep into others. Otherwise it’s like saying to a scuba diver, “Because you went so deep in the Indian Ocean, you’ll have to stay on the surface when you visit other oceans.” Diving deep in one ocean just makes it easier to dive into others. The same goes for different personal growth investments. If you learn how to do a major transformation of your finances, for instance, you’ll actually get better at doing deep transformations in other areas of life too. Going deep into one area certainly doesn’t limit you to the surface of the others.

CGC has a bright future ahead. It’s a joy to be present to it each day and be part of its ongoing evolution. If you haven’t joined us for it yet, I invite you to keep CGC on your radar for future years. When the alignment is there for you, you’re welcome to join us in 2022 or beyond.

Share Button

My Intentions for CGC Year 5

Posted on by

This is the one week during each year during which Conscious Growth Club opens for new members to join. We are open through May 1st. It’s an exciting time inside the group as current members who’ve been in the group for 1-4 years are actively welcoming new members who are just now beginning their CGC journey.

Every year at this time, some members renew for another year. Some members decide to leave or take a break from CGC. And many new members join. Also this year, some previous members who skipped Year 4 have already rejoined CGC for Year 5. I’m delighted to welcome them back.

So it’s a time of transition. Every year in CGC is a different experience because the people are different, and the group dynamics change. Year 5 is likely to be an especially creative year in the group due to many people from the Amplify course joining us. We launched Amplify on March 1st, starting with just 2 lessons, and today I’ll be publishing lesson #60. I’ve been creating and adding a new lesson every single day, 7 days a week, for the past two months. I expect we’ll close at about 62 lessons, so the main course will be complete this week, and then I’ll create some additional bonuses for it too. The feedback on this course and the interactions with the members have been deeply rewarding.

We’re having our 8th and final live group call for Amplify tomorrow (April 28th). CGC members get to attend that call too.

CGC’s Will and Consciousness

The lesson I recorded yesterday for Amplify is called “Stellar Nursery,” and one topic it covers is how big projects can take on a life of their own, as if they have their own will and consciousness. CGC is one of those star-like projects. In the beginning I felt like I had to give it tons of careful thought and nurturing, always going back to getting clear about the intention for it. Now I feel like it’s doing a good job of voicing its own intentions and summoning its own energy for where it wants to go and what it wants to explore and experience each year.

Many people have contributed their own intentions to what CGC is to become. In the past, some had conflicting views about which way CGC should go, and when the group zigged one way, they zagged and left. Others preferred to hang with the zig.

One thing I love about CGC is that it too is an explorer. There are so many explorer types like me in the group, and we’ve collectively given CGC a similar explorer consciousness. CGC has some nicely structured elements, but it has plenty of flexibility to move and dance in different directions throughout the year.

For instance, members often use the CGC Lounge (our 24/7 video hangout room, basically an open Zoom call that never ends) to mastermind together in various ways. Groups form, meet purposefully for a while, and then naturally dissolve when they energy is ready to flow somewhere else. CGC has a very wave-like nature internally, much like how I like to blog and create new courses with the flow of inspiration.

I feel there’s a part of CGC that absolutely resists being caged. It loves freedom. It loves to explore the possibility space. It does not want to be locked down into an overly rigid structure, but some structure is healthy for it as a base from which to explore. It loves to invite and encourage experimentation, spontaneity, and going with the flow of inspiration among its members.

CGC also loves abundance. It delights in inviting new people to the party, yet it’s unattached to who stays and who goes, knowing that it’s up to each individual to align or not. CGC doesn’t try to convince or chase after anyone to join. It offers no resistance when people leave. It simply basks in the energy and presence of being what it is and becoming what it wants to be. And it knows without a doubt that it’s going to be an incredible match for people who want to surf its waves and dance with it for some portion of their lives.

CGC loves compassion. It willingly accompanies people into the depths of their sorrow. It has no fear of pain or trauma. It welcomes transformational tears with love and hugs. It will stand in the Pit of Despair with members and do tequila shots with them while they’re there, occasionally pointing up at the stars.

No Advertising or Social Media This Year

Last year I spent over $6K on Facebook ads to promote CGC during its launch. This year the ad budget is zero.

This isn’t for financial reasons. The ads for previous launches were always profitable, bringing in 2-3x what was spent. But I haven’t spent a dime on advertising this whole year.

I’m not even mentioning CGC on social media this time. I deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts in January. I had thousands of followers on both services. I let that go.

Interestingly, CGC’s sign-up and renewal rates are even better than they were last time at this year. It’s still early in the launch week, so I can’t predict where we’ll land, but so far 38 people are already enrolled for Year 5 (40 if you count Rachelle and me). That’s a fantastic start. We’ll see where we end up after the May 1st deadline.

The Amplify launch was ad-free and social media-free as well, and 300+ people signed up for it during the first 2 weeks. That was a good test to verify that advertising and social media just aren’t needed.

I trust my intuition – a lot – and it tells me that it’s time to let go of some old frames, even frames that may have served me well in the past. So instead of thinking of a launch in terms of reaching out to more people, I’m focusing on alignment and depth. I’m deliberating inviting fewer people this time.

This year I’m only sharing the CGC invitation with the core community around my work, namely my blog readers, course customers, and email subscribers. It’s really this community that CGC is intended for. Reaching beyond this community just doesn’t seem necessary or wise.

I’ve noticed that a lot of CGCers don’t even have Facebook accounts anymore. CGC has become such a good and healthy online home for them, and I too see the potential to go even more all-in with this community. Facebook may have a lot of reach, but it terms of depth and intimacy, it’s nowhere close to what CGC offers. And Facebook has so many misalignments that CGC doesn’t have to deal with.

I feel like my own alignment with CGC has grown even stronger since letting go of Facebook and Instagram. I think it has something to do with letting go of the shallowness and misalignments of those services. My brain no longer has to maintain any circuitry for the Facebook-style interactions, so it can repurpose all of that mental and emotional energy for greater depth and engagement. I like how this has simplified my life too.

I especially notice that I’ve been feeling a lot more compassionate and caring towards people this year. I can really feel that as I record lessons for the Amplify course – there’s a depth of compassion there that feels very powerful to me. And I think letting go of social media misalignments helped. This kind of energy feels like it’s way more me. It’s nice that I no longer have to maladapt some part of my thinking and my energy to deal with social media interactions. It feels like my energy matrix is free to stretch into its proper dimensions now – no need to put so much energy into shielding anymore.

I’m just so used to engaging with people at great levels of depth and intimacy. It’s like being a submarine that doesn’t want to surface anymore because there’s so much beauty to explore below the surface.

Last year I was involved in other communities too, including a year-long coaching program. I wrapped all of that up in December, and I also wrapped up my 2020 daily blogging challenge. I feel that CGC is drawing me even further inward, which seems like a very aligned invitation to accept for Year 5.

Inviting Aligned Members

CGC has a very beautiful culture inside that took a while to evolve. There were some bumps along the way, which served as invitations to make clearer alignment decisions. I’ve especially loved how nicely it’s been flowing for the past several months. There’s been a core group of active members who’ve been holding a strong vibe of mutual caring and compersion. I really like how we’ve managed to merge mutual caring with goal-oriented pursuits and improving our results. Internally it feels like group has become more team-like than ever.

Compersion is a word you may not find in the dictionary. It’s adapted from non-monogamy circles. Compersion is the opposite of jealousy or envy. It means feeling happy for other people’s successes and happiness.

I’ve been flowing with a lot of compersion lately too. I really enjoy seeing people in CGC make their lives better. I like celebrating their wins with them. It’s an honor to connect with such growth-oriented people each day. I get to see how much they invest in moving their lives forward, especially when it comes to working through various misalignments. I really do feel good about their accomplishments, big and small, since I seen a lot of their journey to get there, making it feel like I’ve walked that path with them.

Same goes for connecting with people on the Amplify group calls. It’s been a joy to watch people advance their lives in so many ways.

I think one reason that I’m able to feel so much compersion for other people is that I’m really happy with my own life. The pandemic situation has made me feel luckier and more appreciative. In some ways I feel that the pandemic has been a gift. It helped me flow into a much-needed contraction phase, which helped me see how much there is to appreciate that’s right in front of me.

To help members see if they’re aligned with joining CGC, I’ve made some tweaks to the CGC Invitation Page, and I’ve also updated the CGC Frequently Asked Questions to provide even more answers and details about the club.

CGC Is a Trump-Free Zone

One specific thing I’ll share is that CGC isn’t a fit for Trump voters and supporters. This isn’t for political reasons, and it doesn’t actually matter what someone might state as their reasons for supporting Trump, such as their personal financial interests. It doesn’t matter if people made that choice out of ignorance or careful consideration. The behavior alone is enough to disqualify someone from being a match for CGC. That behavior and its effects are just too incompatible with CGC’s culture, values, and internationally diverse membership. This is stated plainly on the CGC Invitation Page too.

Additionally it would not feel good to be put in a position where I’d be expected to coach or help Trump supporters to achieve their goals, so I’m not willing to offer that service to them. That would be incompatible with my own values and ethics. If I invited such people to join, it would degrade my relationship with CGC, and I’m not willing to let that happen. It’s my intention to develop and even stronger relationship with CGC this year, and having Trump supporters in the group would be incompatible with that intention too.

For anyone who has a serious problem with this, I would ask them not to join CGC.

I think that for many people who are very well-aligned with CGC though, the fact that I’ll do my best to maintain CGC as a Trump-free zone may even bring some relief regarding what they will not have to see or deal with inside. This decision includes acknowledging how Trump supporters’ choices and behaviors negatively impact the lives of many members of this community.

Maybe there will come a time when ex-Trumpers have a place in CGC – and if so, I think it would be a very long road to get there – but this year CGC needs to stay Trump-free. If anyone doesn’t like this decision and wants to blame it on my personal shortcomings, it won’t change the decision. It’s my responsibility to make this call, and I think it’s the right call for where the energy flow is going for CGC Year 5. I’m just not seeing any kind of flow in a direction that could be compatible with having Trump supporters joining us this year. I don’t see a scenario where that could be a win-win situation, so I do think it’s wise to take that option off the table.

Public Q&A and “Meet the Members” Call for CGC

To help people who are thinking about joining CGC this year make a good decision, I’ll be hosting a Public Q&A and “Meet the Members” call this Thursday, April 29, 2021 at 11am Pacific time.

You’re welcome to attend if you’re interested in CGC, subject to the caveats I shared above. Just register for the call, and Zoom will send you the link to join.

I’ll answer people’s questions about CGC, and CGC members are also invited to join the call and share about their experiences and tips for new members. They can offer their own perspectives on what CGC is like and who’d be a good match for it.

So this is an opportunity for you to get a little more perspective on what CGC and the members are like.

We’ll record this call too, and I’ll share it on my blog afterwards, so if you can’t make the live call, you can still watch the recording.

My intention for this call isn’t to try to convince anyone to join, so it’s not going to be salesy. My intention is to help people make the right decision for themselves and for CGC. I know that each year, some people really sweat this decision. If someone really is a terrific match for CGC and would likely gain a lot from joining, then everyone is well-served by helping them to see that. And if someone really wouldn’t be a healthy match for CGC, then it’s also in everyone’s best interest that they see that too.

If you do feel aligned to join CGC already, then I invite you to visit the CGC Invitation Page and join us. The new CGC year runs through April 30, 2022, and your membership starts immediately when you join. So if you join now instead of waiting till May 1st to decide, you’ll get several extra days for your one-year membership (the rest of April 2021), and you can begin engaging with the community right away.

If you have other questions about CGC, you can also get in touch via my contact form. 😃

Share Button

Join Conscious Growth Club by May 1st

Posted on by
Conscious Growth Club

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

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

What Is Conscious Growth Club?

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

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

CGC is an annual membership that includes:

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

New for 2021: A 3-Day Halloween Online Workshop

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

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

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

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

Consistency Is Key

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

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

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

Learn More and Join CGC

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

Enrollment Is Open Through May 1st

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

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

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

Share Button

Amplify Inspiration

Posted on by

On a group call for the Amplify course last week, we did a two-part co-creative exercise. The first part involved connecting with our sorrow, and the second part was to see the invitation in that sorrow to discover a new place of joy. Then members co-created intentions for the world with the purpose of sharing those intentions publicly – with the hope that we may collectively inspire more positive ripples in the world.

I promised to share on my blog the intentions that people wanted to put out into the world. Every group was free to decide what medium to use to express their intentions, as long as it was something we could capture and share in a digital format.

Here are the intentions that people wanted to share with you. I hope you find this inspiring. 😃

Umbrella of Love

Respectful Co-creation
Nurtured by Love and Connection,
a Möbius strip, no beginning or end,
Embracing both result and process.
An umbrella of Love overarching,
Held aloft aloft by Connection

– Group 2

Healing Ripples

Through healing ourselves and taking personal responsibility for our authentic self-expression, we create ripples that heal the world.

– Group 7

A World of Connectedness

We intend a world of connectedness where everyone feels like a part of a community. A world where there’s freedom of speech and expression. A world where people feel deep empathy, recognize each other’s common humanity and find ways to relate to each other irrespective of their backgrounds. A world where they feel safe and a sense of belonging.

– Group 3: Gianfranco, Benjamin, Sean, Christine, and Ranjana

Waking Up Abundance

To combat indifference, apathy and cruelty in the world, let go of scarcity, wake up to abundance, empathy and the power within you.

– Group 5

Feeling Deeply

Lead by example, in this moment, by being open to have our heart broken today. We’ll be able to feel connected to each other, experience profound joy and create change because we feel deeply.

When you have a powerful enough “why”, you’ll find the “how”. Leave space for infinite how’s.

Additionally, eat ice cream every day!

– Group 1: Ellie, Randy, JR, JQ, Théo, Thorsten

On behalf of Group 1, Ellie sings about being the change you want to see in the world.

[embedded content]

Embracing Individual Uniqueness

On behalf of Group 6, Sean shares the intention to connect based on our uniqueness rather than our sameness.

[embedded content]

Elevating Empathy and Compassion

Compassion…there is no “other.” We are interconnected…but what’s it like to be the other?

– Group 4

Phil elaborates on Group 4’s intention to elevate empathy and compassion.

[embedded content]

Welcome Home

On behalf of the Welcome Home Group (Harriet, Bri, Nessy, Darryl, Artem, and Karine), Darryl shares intentions of belonging, wholeness, nurturing, and healing, encapsulated by the words “Welcome home.”

[embedded content]

Celebrating Existence

On behalf of Group 9 (aka “The Dandelions”), Manuel celebrates the fact that we’re alive and that you may contribute a verse to the powerful play of life.

[embedded content]

Here’s the poem “O Me! O Life!” that Manuel mentioned in the video.

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

by Walt Whitman (from Leaves of Grass, 1892)

And by the way, Broderick… Walt Whitman isn’t the guy from Breaking Bad. 😉

Here’s an image of a dandelion growing in a sidewalk that Manuel mentioned in the video, drawn by Harriet Knight.

A Community of Higher Selves

Build a community to help us connect to our higher selves. It will require investment from participants (not necessarily money) to join.

– Group 10

On behalf of Group 10, Richad envisions a community of people who want to embrace their higher selves.

[embedded content]

Welcome Home – The Song

This exercise has been inspiring some further creative ripples among Amplify members. In particular, Bri Harris felt inspired to write and sing this beautiful song called “Welcome Home,” shared with her permission.

I have a dream
that one day every being
will feel nurtured, loved, accepted, safe
and welcomed on this earth

And they will know
that they are home
and they belong
yeah, they belong

Standing at the mirror
the young girl does not compare
herself to flawless images
or fear judgmental stares

The voice in her own head
is a kind and caring friend, it says
your body is beautiful
your body is your home

Welcome home
welcome home
you belong
Oh you belong

Playing in the yard
the boy falls down and cries
his tears are not a weakness
he ever has to hide

The feelings in his chest
are openly expressed
holding space for his friends,
he makes them feel at home

Welcome home
welcome home
you belong
you belong

Stepping off the plane
in an unfamiliar place
the woman doesn’t recognize
a single face

But the people in the crowd
wrap their loving arms around her
and say—
Welcome home!

Welcome home
Welcome home
You belong
You belong

Walking through the doors
head bowed down in shame
the man is scared he won’t be forgiven
for all of his mistakes

But the world is there
with its heart open wide
ready to heal
and to welcome him home

Welcome home
welcome home
you belong
you belong

Girl or boy
he, she, they or them
No matter your identity
or the color of your skin

You are welcome here
You always fit in
You are home
And you belong

I have a dream
that one day every being
will feel nurtured, loved, accepted, safe
and welcomed on this earth

And we’ll know
This is our home
and we belong
yeah, we belong

Final Thoughts

Even though each group did this exercise independently (in groups of 5-6 people), it’s fascinating that there’s so much commonality in the themes, especially regarding belongingness and welcoming. Several people noted this during the call as well. There was even a suggestion of getting “Welcome home” tattoos.

I wonder how universal this intention is – to create a world where everyone feels like this is truly their home and that they belong here.

It’s interesting how many spiritual beliefs suggest that there’s a better place after this one, or that we came from a better place before this one. What if we intend to make this world the most welcoming place to be, while we’re here right now?

Share Button

After 80 Years Of Marriage, This Couple Have The Best Love Advice

Posted on by
Reply

HuffPost is part of Verizon Media. We and our partners will store and/or access information on your device through the use of cookies and similar technologies, to display personalised ads and content, for ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development.

Your personal data that may be used

  • Information about your device and internet connection, including your IP address
  • Browsing and search activity while using Verizon Media websites and apps
  • Precise location

Find out more about how we use your information in our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.

To enable Verizon Media and our partners to process your personal data select ‘I agree‘, or select ‘Manage settings‘ for more information and to manage your choices. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Your Privacy Controls.

Share Button

Relational Goals

Posted on by

A nice way to identify goals, especially for the New Year, is to clarify how you’d like to upgrade your relationships with different aspects of life. Then identify and commit to action-based goals that you expect would improve these relationships.

For example, you have a relationship with:

  • money
  • your body
  • each key person in your life
  • your work
  • your habits
  • your daily routine
  • your exercise routine
  • your diet
  • sleep
  • life
  • reality
  • your skills
  • your emotions
  • your past self
  • your future self
  • your website
  • your home
  • your workspace
  • your lifestyle

You could start by rating each of these relationships on a scale of 1-10. Which of your most important relationships are getting relatively low ratings? These are areas where your current way of relating isn’t working for you. So accept the obvious truth that you must stop relating to these low-rated areas in the same ways you’ve been doing in the past.

Now go another step and describe your existing relationships with the weaker areas. Then contrast this with how you like these relationships to be. You may find clues to your desired relationships within your stronger areas.

Suppose you rated your relationship with money as a 2 out of 10. Perhaps this relationship is full of tension, stress, worry, and anxiety. Clearly your current way of relating to money isn’t working for you. So accept that you must relate to money differently going forward. You must heal the broken relationship.

So where would you like to take this relationship? How would you like to see it improve? Suppose your answer is that you want to relate to money with feelings of ease, lightness, confidence, flow, abundance, playfulness, fun, and trust. Perhaps you want to enjoy and appreciate money and not fear it or stress out about it.

You can transform this relationship with money to make it the way you want it to be, but you have to pick the right kinds of goals that are aligned with this transformation. This means you have to pick different money-related goals than you did in the past. You can’t keep picking goals that stem from a broken relationship. You have to shift to goals that can heal, repair, and upgrade this relationship.

What sense does it make to set income goals such as to make a certain amount of money if you’re piling them on top of a broken relationship? That would be like adding more furniture to a house that’s on fire. If the relationship isn’t working, don’t add more. Set goals to turn that relationship in a more aligned direction.

Often when a relationship isn’t working well, it’s because you aren’t being very strong in your boundaries. It’s the same with relationships among human beings. Without good boundary management, you’ll likely end up miserable.

Targeting a goal like “make more money” is like saying you want to connect with more people – that only works if you’re already good at boundary management. It makes little sense to use this approach if you’re filling your life with abusive relationships. You’re just inviting more conflict and abuse then.

Using our money example, here are some sample goals that may help you transform the relationship in the direction you want it to go:

  • If your job isn’t aligned with ease, lightness, confidence, flow, abundance, playfulness, fun, and trust, quit the job. If the job is keeping you from creating your desired relationship with money, it has to go. Henceforth make sure that your approach to income generation is aligned with your desired relationship with money. Don’t settle for less.
  • Buy a small item or upgrade one of your possessions just because you’ll enjoy and appreciate it. Gift yourself with a joyful expenditure to remind yourself that you can enjoy money with ease and lightness. Each time your mind tries to stress over the minor expense, use this item to remind yourself to align with trust and abundance. Keep it around as a symbol of your pending transformation. Remind yourself that you never would have bought this item if you were stuck in stressful scarcity thinking.
  • Perform a small act of kindness for someone else. Give a small but playful gift. Do a little favor for someone. Lean into the feeling of having excess capacity. So this is another goal to do some specific action that’s incompatible with your old relationship with money. The key is to start taking actions that your old relationship style wouldn’t allow you to take but which are nicely compatible with your new relationship style.
  • Brainstorm a list of 100 different ways to generate income that are aligned with ease, lightness, confidence, flow, abundance, playfulness, fun, and trust. Review this list each day for 30 days in a row. After you review the full list each day, pick one item and let yourself daydream about actually doing it for five minutes. This will begin training your mind to start thinking in a direction that’s more aligned with your new relationship with money.
  • Do a modest-sized passive income project based on something you’ll enjoy. Create a new stream of income in a way that honors your desired relationship with money. For instance, one Conscious Growth Club member recently designed and published a new journal that she sells on Amazon, thereby creating her first passive income stream.

Note that these goals are specific and actionable, and they’re intended to shift the relationship from the undesirable to the desirable. When you focus on the relationship you want, you’ll set different kinds of goals. You won’t just be pushing yourself to go further down an old path with an old relational style that isn’t working for you anyway.

Getting the relationship right is the key to sustainable motivation. How will you motivate yourself to work on income generating projects if you’re relating to this area of life with stress and worry? You’ll probably procrastinate and do something else instead because it will make you feel better.

Remember that all of your relationships with different parts of life exist in your mind. Therefore you have the power to change them.

If you can elevate your relationships with different areas of life to a place of feeling good even when the circumstances look challenging, this creates an intelligent base for further investment. You’ll want to keep investing because it will feel good. The motivation is similar to being in love with someone. You naturally want to spend time together because it feels good to do so. And when a human relationship isn’t working well, you’re more likely to want to avoid each other.

This is a simple but powerful frame for setting goals that not only give you a sense of achievement, but they also improve your day-to-day quality of life. Moreover, this approach helps you gain access to bigger achievements and explorations that require more commitment, investment, and motivation – and to enjoy the process of working towards those goals.

Share Button

Why Socialize at All?

Posted on by

How do you get motivated to reach out and connect with people? What gets you to overcome inertia? What makes you want to risk rejection? Is it worth it to keep sifting through so many mismatches and partial matches? What makes you exert the effort to engage with people socially? What’s your why?

I brainstormed the following list in Conscious Growth Club yesterday in a discussion thread about the motivation for doing anything of a social nature – like connecting with people online or offline, joining groups, maintaining friendships, and doing shared activities. I thought it would be worthwhile to share it here too.

Here’s a personal list of motivations for being social. See if any of these strike a chord with you.

  • because I think it will be fun and interesting
  • because the people in that group have abilities or understandings that I lack, and I’d like to learn from them
  • because I like the people (or think I might like the people) and want to spend more time with them
  • because I can often advance faster in a new direction with more social support (I’ll take more action)
  • because I want to keep in good practice with my social skills
  • because I enjoy the activities
  • because I often create more interesting memories with people than without
  • because I grew up shy and introverted, and I love stretching myself to explore extrovert mode
  • because I find great benefit in following the “embrace the new” heuristic, and connecting with new people is one way to do that
  • because even when I don’t connect so well with a group, I’ve processed that energy that made me wonder about them, and I can let it go and invite something more aligned, so I gain clarity either way
  • because there are a lot of interesting people in the world, and it’s a fun gamble to take a risk that I could meet someone who changes the course of my life
  • because I sometimes enjoy the experience of “hiding” in a new group and seeing how long it takes for someone to recognize me and call out something like, “Hey, wait a minute… you’re that blogger guy, aren’t you? I remember reading about that polywhatsit sleep experiment you did back in the day.”
  • because it will stretch me if I choose the right groups, and it’s not a big loss if I temporarily choose a mismatch
  • because women will be there, and they’re fun creatures to connect with
  • because I’ve noticed that I’m generally happier after hanging out with growth-oriented people, even if I don’t always feel motivated to do it beforehand
  • because I keep getting better at finding quality matches, like learning that paid groups are usually vastly better than free ones (free Facebook groups are mostly dreadful compared to their paid equivalents)
  • because socializing in positive ways is better for my health and the health of others, adding years to our lives and reducing many risks (COVID times are different though)
  • because I like the positive surprises, interesting invitations, and variety that friendships add to my life (such as going to Costa Rica for a week of ayahuasca ceremonies with about 15 friends)
  • because I like seeing my friends learn and grow, especially over 10+ years
  • because I tried the opposite, and that ran its course for me and became boring
  • because I want to enjoy rich and meaningful friendships during my later years as I get older
  • because I enjoy and appreciate my alone time even more when it’s balanced with social time
  • because I’m not the jealous or envious type, and I take pleasure in other people’s successes (compersion)
  • because I get to wear clothes from the other side of the closet
  • because interacting with people helps me sculpt my character
  • because I struggled in business for years before I reached out and got involved with a nonprofit association, and that decision really transformed my life and business for the better
  • because I went bankrupt trying to figure everything out on my own
  • because I learned from someone else how to quickly recover from bankruptcy (his advice worked)
  • because humans don’t thrive in isolation
  • because I wouldn’t have met either of my wives if I didn’t reach out socially (I met Erin on an online forum and Rachelle at the first Conscious Growth Workshop)
  • because I wouldn’t have gotten a book published by a major publisher so easily if I hadn’t stretched myself socially
  • because I would have far fewer hugs and cuddles in my life if I held back
  • because I wouldn’t have seen the opportunity to get into blogging as early as I did (I learned about it from a game developer friend that I connected with online and at in-person conferences – Thanks, Tom!)
  • because other people frequently challenge me to stretch in different ways, and I wouldn’t grow nearly as much without them
  • because this life journey is fun and rewarding to share
  • because investing in people has made me feel less fearful and more at home here
  • because interacting with people helps me explore, deepen, and improve my relationship with life
  • because I used to avoid and mistrust people a lot, and I like that I developed the ability to feel a lot more comfortable around them (it’s lovely to enjoy the fruits of this transformation)
  • because compassion and caring are strong motivators for me
  • because I’d much rather spend 30 days at Disneyland with my best friend, lover, and life partner than alone
  • because many experiences are so much richer and more memorable when shared with one or more people
  • because it’s wonderful to be married to a woman whose cooking skills greatly exceed my own (and who likes to cook, including making yummy raw food)
  • because this is a part of my reality that isn’t going away anytime soon, and if I didn’t accept the invitation to explore it, I’d always wonder if I should have invested in a deeper social explorations
  • because the influence of other people got me traveling internationally, which has enriched my life tremendously
  • because I wouldn’t have otherwise discovered that I really like Canadians
  • because I wouldn’t have otherwise discovered independent theater (I’ve see 200+ plays from independent performers)
  • because most of the value that I give and receive in life flows through people
  • because Conscious Growth Club wouldn’t exist otherwise
  • because I’d never have done any live events otherwise
  • because I’d still otherwise be wondering “What if I had invested in this?” during every remaining year of my life
  • because game developers still keep cranking out the same drivel, and people remain more interesting for now… except Zelda: Breath of the Wild… that game is a bit better than most human interactions, but at least it ends
  • because a common regret of the dying was that they let their friendships fade away
  • because this life and all of our lives are temporary experiences
  • because I like being in love, and I want to spend most of my years that way
  • because The Princess Bride was a labor of love, created by people who enjoyed working together and who had a lot of fun along the way (listen to Cary Elwes’ As You Wish audiobook for some delightful stories about the making of the movie)
  • because if I don’t let myself engage with people, despite the risks, I’ll regret it
  • because many people are socially scared or anxious, and a lot of them secretly appreciate when someone takes the initiative and reaches out to connect
  • because many people feel socially awkward, and it benefits them when someone reaches out to help them practice while accepting them as they are (they still want and need to connect)
  • because socializing teaches patience like nothing else does
  • because social risks add spice to life
  • because rejection isn’t such a big deal once you get used to it
  • because one juicy connection makes it all so worthwhile
  • because we can help each other
  • because the world is facing many problems we cannot solve individually but we can solve collectively
  • because it took me many years to learn how to get in touch with the part of myself that cares, and I’ve invested way too much in that to turn my back on it (it lights me up inside)
  • because I want a life rich in emotional depth, and dealing with growth-oriented people sure stirs up plenty of emotion
  • because if I didn’t invest in this part of life, I’d be living out my days in a much smaller reality without realizing just how small it was
  • and dozens more reasons if I want to keep writing…

Instead of looking for one big why, you could consider the totality of many different whys. See how those stack up against your objections.

Share Button

Hard Cares

Posted on by

What do you care about?

Go ahead and rattle off your initial list – the people you know, doing a good job at work, making a positive difference in the world, etc.

Then dig deeper.

What are your high-risk cares? What do you care about internally but never share because you might be judged for it? What are your unusual cares?

Once you go beyond the the easy-breezy cares, what are the harder cares that require more investment or risk?

Here are some of mine:

  • I care about the long-term future of humanity and where it’s heading.
  • I care about politics. I respect and admire good leadership and intelligent decision making. I find the opposite deplorable.
  • I feel a connection with people who are feeling alone right now, not getting their needs met, wondering if they’ll ever find someone to share their life with or if they’ll even pull out of the slump they’re in. I care about helping them. I like playing the role of being a stable, positive presence in their life, someone who will keep encouraging them with limitless patience.
  • I care about the people who are in hospitals right now, many dying from COVID, especially those wishing they had more time to live. Sometimes I imagine what it’s like to not be able to breath.
  • I care about my relationship with this reality. This is a wondrous dimension of existence. I want to keep this relationship rooted in trust. I want to keep making this relationship stronger as I grow older.
  • I care about my wife. I want her to have a fabulous life full of delightful experiences, playful adventures, warm cuddles, sensual pleasures, inspiring challenges, and cherished memories. I love seeing her stretch herself as we grow together. I love that we are each other’s best friends.
  • I care about death. I want its presence to keep reminding me to live fully and not to settle for partial matches. I like that it keeps me aware of the potential pain of regret, sometimes with gentle reminders and sometimes with powerful ones.
  • I care about animals, especially those in the factory farming system that suffer daily in ways that would be unimaginable to humans. I would love to see humanity graduate to a more caring relationship with animals.
  • I care about technology. Its evolution fascinates me. I love seeing how my relationship with tech has evolved since the 1970s. It’s fun to think about how it will continue to evolve and what possibilities are just over the horizon.
  • I care about my character. I want to look within myself and like and appreciate what I see. I want to delve into the darkest regions of myself and replace shame, fear, and guilt with love, forgiveness, appreciation, and warmth. I want to live as a fully integrated being, not as a collection of parts arguing amongst themselves.
  • I care about my relationship with time. I want it to be my friend and ally, not my enemy. I want to look forward to my later years with positive anticipation and pre-appreciation, not with worry or angst. I want to look in the mirror and smile as I watch myself getting older.

Some of these cares led to major changes in how I live my life or how I run my business.

Hard cares are very motivating, but they’re difficult invitations to accept. It’s challenging to move beyond the easy-breezy cares and to admit that they just aren’t giving you enough motivational juice.

When I imagine doing things that other people seem to care about, like showing up to a corporate job each day, they just seem demotivating and pointless… like why would I want to waste my precious life on that, even for one day?

But I can easily get myself to spend days on end delving into esoteric aspects of personal growth that few people who like corporate jobs would understand or care about, but these explorations matter to me.

If I want to experience a life that flows with lots of motivational juice, I have to pursue and explore what I truly care about, not what society expects me to care about. This includes accepting that my cares are good and that they’re mine to explore and understand.

One care that’s been fascinating me a lot lately is my relationship with aging. I turn 50 in a few months, so knowing that I’m about to enter a new decade of my life is pushing this idea to the front of my mind. Society in general has a tremendously negative relationship with aging. I want to create a vastly more positive relationship with this aspect of life.

My hard cares are mostly relationships with different aspects of life. I care about making those relationships healthy, positive, and rich in appreciation. When I spot a relationship that isn’t working, I ask myself if I truly care about that relationship, and then I think about what changes I’ll need to make to invest in long-term improvement.

Investing in hard cares, especially by defining them as relationships, works very well.

I found it difficult to care about money, but I was able to care about my relationship with money. I didn’t want that relationship to be full of stress and angst. I wanted it to be full of abundance, playfulness, trust, creativity, and fun. I still don’t care much about money, but I love that I’ve been able to create this kind of relationship with money. I appreciate the relationship way more than the money itself.

I found it difficult to care about business, but I definitely care about my relationship with my business. I want this relationship to be rich in exploration, variety, connection, purpose, positive ripples, creative flow, and inspiration. I also want my relationship with my business to be light, playful, and flexible, not so heavy and controlling. I never want to feel trapped by my business. I want to feel engaged and uplifted. The desire to have this kind of relationship led to some careful decisions, including avoiding many “opportunities” that could easily turn the experience into a stressful trap. I love my business, and I want to keep that relationship happy and healthy for many more years.

I encourage you to take a hard look at the relationships with parts of your life that aren’t working so well. Describe the current relationship based on how you feel about it. Then describe how you’d like that relationship to be. Recognize that these are your hard cares, and to get aligned with them, you’ll need to make some hard decisions.

Be willing to say no to relationships that aren’t working for you. Elevate your hard cares from “nice to haves” to the level of “must haves.”

Many years ago I tolerated partial matches in my professional and personal life. I treated my hard cares as soft cares. That was very unsatisfying.

It was tough to go against the social grain and to demand better relationships from life. It was hard to admit the truth that these relationships really do matter a lot to me, and I’m not willing to sacrifice what I want to live up to someone else’s expectations.

It was hard to say, “No, I’m not just going to suck it up and suppress my feelings.”

It was hard to leave… again and again… till I got these relationships right.

But oh it was so worth it.

Share Button

Secure Attachment and Investment

Posted on by

In psychology there are three general ways to relate to other people, depending on how you interpret and manage emotional risk.

  • You can avoid deep emotional investments in people (avoidant attachment).
  • You can try to control other people (anxious attachment).
  • You can intelligently bond with people and invest in secure relationships (secure attachment).

You can generalize these dispositions to consider how you relate to different areas of life. Are you hiding? Are you over-controlling? Or are you securely investing?

There’s really a spectrum here for different aspects of life and for relating with different types of people, so in practice there are a lot more than just three options.

Your root relationship is your relationship with reality itself. That’s the most important one to get right because it’s the one from which all other relationships flow. All of your relationships are a part of your reality, so if your base relationship with reality is shaky, that will negatively affect all the others. This relationship is so important that I created the full 60-day Submersion course to help you explore, improve, and invest deeply in this core relationship to make it stronger and healthier. Do you feel grounded and secure in this life? That answer needs to be a yes.

Another relationship that’s critical to get right is your relationship with yourself. This is what the 65-lesson Stature course delves into in tremendous detail. It’s the deepest and most thorough self-exploration course that I’m aware of. The purpose is to help you face the full-spectrum truth about yourself and and to develop a healthy and empowering lifelong relationship with all aspects of yourself, including your inner critic, your inner child, and more.

From here you can consider relationships with people and with other aspects of life.

Our next deep dive (for the first quarter of 2021) will be about creative productivity. This new course will help you develop a healthy and secure relationship with your own creative flow. This doesn’t just mean doing creative work like writing or game development. It means managing the creative flow of your entire life as well. What kind of life are you creating? Do you like the direction your life is going? Are you over-steering or under-steering? How can you intelligently manage this flow on each time scale, hour by hour, year by year, and decade by decade, especially with an increasing rate of change?

For many years I’ve enjoyed a secure and healthy relationship with my creative flow, but I didn’t always have that kind of relationship. I had to work through issues like procrastination, selecting projects for the wrong reasons, seeing too many projects die on the vine, feeling too anxious about certain modes of expression (public speaking, being live on camera), overplaying the importance of money, etc.

I continue to invest in improving this relationship, which is really a collection of many different relationships. This year I discovered more depth and nuance in my relationship with creative output through the 365-day blogging challenge. If I wasn’t securely bonded in this relationship, it could have been a difficult year requiring a lot of discipline. But I was exploring a relationship that was already very healthy and positive, so I found the overall experience to be beautiful, warm, and relaxing.

Setting and maintaining healthy boundaries connects with these ideas as well. We can’t deeply invest our time and energy in relationships with everyone and everything. Do you know which relationships you want to deepen and which relationships you’d prefer to avoid? Do you know where you want to plant your social and emotional flag? Is that flag securely planted where you want it to be?

I especially love the depth of exploration that comes from secure bonding, so I can really invest long-term.

One of my personal flags is securely planted in a vegan lifestyle and vegan ethics. I’ve invested almost 24 years of my life in this path, and I want to keep investing for the rest of my life. I love being vegan, and my relationship with veganism keeps growing stronger and deeper. Next year I want to deepen this relationship even more by investing in a full year of a raw foods lifestyle.

I also really enjoy the secure bonding I have in my relationship with Rachelle. Lockdowns and social restrictions seem almost trivial when I get to spend each day with her. I never tire of spending time with her. Day after day I always look forward to even more time with her – hours, days, weeks, months, and years ahead. I love investing in our relationship.

Here’s the key that I struggled with for a long time: the notion of settling. I got stuck for so long by trying to settle for less than I really wanted.

The problem with settling for a partial match is that you don’t feel good enough about the relationship to full invest in it. Some part of you always holds back. The thought of investing may even give you a queasy feeling.

That was me in my first business. I liked many aspects of game development, but I too often felt like I was falling short when it came to contributing, making a difference, and really caring about people as much as I could. There was a certain coldness to the work, and I wanted to invest in more warmth. It was always going to be a partial match for me, so I could never unlock 100% of my desire to invest. Some part of me was always going to have doubts, wondering if maybe I should be doing something else.

My first marriage followed a different trajectory. I did feel very invested in it in the early years, but eventually incompatibilities grew, and it became clear that each of us wanted to invest in different directions. Looking back I do feel good about investing in that relationship while it lasted. I also see that it was best for us to move on when we could no longer truly invest in building a life together going forward.

What I love about my life today is that I feel securely bonded with people and aspects of life with which I’m can really invest long-term.

I can also see where I’m not investing as a sign that I may be dealing with a partial match, in which case the solution isn’t to settle but rather to find a full match where I can really invest.

Share Button

A Growth Heartset

Posted on by

You may have heard about the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset and how important a growth mindset is for self-development. You may not have considered how important a growth heartset is too.

While a growth mindset is wonderful, it’s not enough. There are plenty of people with growth mindsets who struggle, burn out, and give up. And even when they don’t give up, it’s painful to watch sometimes because they invite struggle, struggle, and more struggle. They keep trying to “earn” happiness and fulfillment, and it keeps eluding them. They may work hard and try hard, but they always look like they desperately need a massage or a vacation… or a vacation full of massages.

What’s going on? Such people may have a growth mindset, but if they lack a growth heartset, they’re very likely to find themselves grinding through year after year of struggle with no end in sight.

A few lists can help clarify this.

A growth mindset includes:

  • opportunity awareness
  • expecting that you’ll keep learning and growing
  • never using “I don’t know how” as an excuse
  • expecting that you’ll gain new skills
  • expecting that you’ll continue to improve your skills and gain new skills
  • expecting to become more capable over time
  • investing in long-term self-development
  • job and career flexibility
  • adaptability to change
  • deliberately challenging yourself
  • setting stretch goals
  • inviting and embracing new experiences
  • willing and able to make new friends and build new relationships
  • maintaining strong personal boundaries (so your boundaries aren’t being violated by. misalignments)
  • learning and bouncing back from failure (resilience)

A fixed mindset includes:

  • opportunity blindness
  • figuring that you’ve already learned most of what you need to know
  • figuring that school is for learning and life after school is for doing
  • identifying with your job or career
  • identifying yourself based on personality attributes
  • identifying yourself based on what you’re good at or not good at and not expecting that to change much over time
  • resisting change
  • expected to earn a pre-determined annual salary (fixed income mindset)
  • feeling stuck with the same social group (fixed social/family mindset)
  • dismissing ideas and opportunities with the “I don’t know how” excuse
  • tolerating boundary violations
  • avoiding failure by not trying

If you’ve been reading my work for a while, it’s very likely that you lean towards a growth mindset. It’s probably obvious why a growth mindset is better for you.

The next two lists, however, can be more polarizing. For some people these will be at least as obvious as the two lists above. For others there may be some surprises that invite self-examination and reassessment, especially the items related to aging.

A growth heartset includes:

  • seeing your biggest fears as invitations to grow and expecting to eventually master what you fear (such as public speaking)
  • expecting to eventually outgrow your major fears, knowing that someday you will no longer feel fear in those situations
  • feeling pleasure and enjoyment from facing fears
  • weaving playfulness, fun, and other positive emotions into your goals
  • shifting away from overly head-based goals that don’t excite you emotionally
  • expecting that your boldest and most courageous years are still ahead of you
  • doing some things just for fun, completely shamelessly
  • expecting to become happier and to have more fun as you age
  • looking forward to your future years with positive anticipation, including your 70s, 80s, and beyond
  • growing in boldness and courage over time
  • expecting to be emotionally stronger and more confident in your later years
  • expecting to set and achieve more ambitious goals as you age
  • taking alignment problems seriously, knowing that you’ll do whatever it takes to solve them
  • being willing to let go of people who aren’t aligned with the direction you want to go and the kind of life you want to have
  • falling more deeply in love with your life with each passing decade
  • expecting your relationships to become more aligned and harmonious
  • expecting to appreciate and enjoy your relationships even more as you age
  • feeling centered, grounded, and at home here (even while alone)
  • speaking your truth and letting your social circle realign as needed
  • feeling inspired and encouraged by people who are further along similar paths (seeing them as allies, not competitors)
  • feeling patient, persistent, hopeful, and determined
  • being willing and able to fully commit yourself to new actions and behaviors, even when you aren’t sure how they’ll turn out
  • investing in a relationship with reality based on deep and abiding trust
  • expecting to trust life even more as you age
  • appreciating vulnerable honesty in yourself and others
  • embracing intelligent risk taking
  • being coachable and willing to ask for help, advice, or coaching
  • wanting and expecting to care even more as you age (about people, animals, life, social issues, etc)
  • deeply enjoying and appreciating your leisure time
  • knowing that your feelings matter tremendously
  • knowing that you can always invite and tune in to the flow of inspiration

A fixed heartset includes:

  • feeling threatened by change
  • avoiding growth experiences that require facing fears
  • expecting that your fears will always be your fears
  • fearing or worrying about aging (dreading getting older)
  • feeling clingy and attached to what you have and not wanting to risk it
  • worrying about financial decline or financial threats
  • complaining about what you don’t want
  • feeling jealous or envious of people who have what you struggle to achieve
  • feeling discouraged, impatient, or frustrated when your goals take longer than you’d like
  • unwillingness to fully commit yourself
  • unwillingness to take emotional risks that could lead to failure or rejection
  • dismissing your feelings as less important than your logical thoughts
  • avoiding commitments that would require a significant emotional risk or emotional investment
  • feeling like you must justify doing “just for fun” activities (such as to your spouse or to colleagues)
  • feeling guilty or unsettled when taking time off
  • setting vague goals like “make more money” or “get healthier” (no real commitment, no emotional investment, also highly ineffective)
  • being too proud, self-sufficient, or timid to seek help, advice, or coaching
  • feeling alienated, disconnected, and alone (and expecting this to continue)
  • feeling that you must hide your true self from the world
  • avoiding actions that could invite criticism
  • staying emotionally aloof or emotionally anxious
  • expecting to retire someday (in terms of reducing your emotional investment in life)
  • never really knowing if you can trust this reality and therefore holding back on your willingness to invest
  • holding back on expressing your feelings
  • surrendering to the “fact” that no one will ever say “I love you” to you and mean it

Which way does your heartset currently lean?

If you know in your mind that you can grow, but your heart isn’t onboard with that, you’ll likely succumb to a lot of struggle and stuck-in-your-headness. You’ll often be pushing against your own emotions instead of enjoying the long-term benefits of strong, positive motivation that helps you flow through life with lightness and fun.

The good news is that you can use that fancy growth mindset of yours to recognize and acknowledge the importance of developing a growth heartset too. You can learn to spot the predictable problems that could throw your life off track, such as fear of aging and lack of commitment, and you can decide to work on improving these aspects. When you begin to grasp the value of emotional alignment, that’s a big step in the right direction.

Share Button