Engage Course Update

Posted on 27/02/2023 by Boris Clair

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

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

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

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

Key Quotes (AI Simulated)

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

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

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

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

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

10 Side Effects

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

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

Top 10 Inner Issues Experienced

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

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

How about a succinct list of the core struggles?

25 Core Struggles

Doubt
Anxiety
Uncertainty
Overwhelm
Procrastination
Self-doubt
Self-criticism
Perfectionism
Lack of focus
Fear of failure
Fear of success
Negative self-talk
Self-sabotage
Imposter syndrome
Burnout
Distraction
Lack of motivation
Poor time management
Inertia
Lack of direction
Lack of purpose
Lack of clarity
Low self-esteem
Low self-worth
Guilt

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

AI and Empathy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AI Assessment

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

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

Do you predict that this is an achievable goal?

It replied:

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

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

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

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

Productivity Starts With Courage

Posted on 13/01/2023 by Boris Clair

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

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

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

Courage – invite it
Clarity – feel it
Intensity – claim it
Integration – own it
Harmony – be it

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

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

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

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

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

Heart Engagement

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

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

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

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

Always Be Exam-Ready

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Emotional Intensity vs. App Propensity

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

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

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

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

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

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

Engaging with Engage

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Engage!”

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

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

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

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

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

Why Wait? Let’s Get Started Now!

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on 02/05/2022 by Boris Clair

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy the video!

My Intentions for CGC Year 6

Posted on 01/05/2022 by Boris Clair

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

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

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

Fitness

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

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

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

Fasting Integration

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

YouTubing

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

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

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

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

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

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

Video Production Skills

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Balancing Rhythms of Work and Personal Time

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

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

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

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

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

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

Divergent Creative Exploration

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

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

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

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

Join Us for CGC Year 6

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

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

All 30 Guild Course Lessons Are Complete

Posted on 01/05/2022 by Boris Clair

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

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

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

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

Guild Lesson Topics

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

Welcoming & Social Joy
Your Social Why + Finding Matches
Social Resistance
Trust Wounds
Boundaries
Social Expansion
Depth & Intimacy
Deeper Depth
Belongingness
Invitations
Social Time & Energy Management
Social Gravity
Social Realignment
Social Leadership
Social Visibility
Rejection
Conflict Resolution
Masterminding
Humor
Romantic Connections
Social Interfaces
Inner Relationships
Social Courage
Flirting
Managing Expectations
Sex
More Sex
Awkwardness
Receiving
Transitions & New Beginnings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Playful Conscious Growth Club Video

Posted on 26/04/2022 by Boris Clair

Notorious Conscious Growth Club member Ruben recently posted a YouTube video about his experiences in CGC. As you can probably tell from the style of the video, we’re a pretty playful group inside. This one made me laugh out loud multiple times – I think Ruben has a bright future in video if he keeps at it. What do you think?

I have a short cameo in the video too. 🤣

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So far 31 spots have been claimed for CGC Year 6, so there are 94 spots left. We have 8 days to go in our 2022 opening (or less if we max out at 125 before then).

Learn more about Conscious Growth Club and join us for Year 6 by May 3, 2022. 🤣

Join Conscious Growth Club by May 3rd

Posted on 26/04/2022 by Boris Clair

Conscious Growth Club is now open for you to join, from now through May 3, 2022. First started in 2017, this is our most comprehensive personal growth program and support group.

We’re about to start our 6th year together, and you’re invited to join this week. This is the only window during which you can join CGC in 2022. We open for new members once a year, and that’s it!

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 (118,000+ posts so far). Members share intentions and goals, update progress, help each other solve problems, and encourage the heck out of each other. It’s ad-free, spam-free, and troll-free.
A 24/7 video chat channel – We call this the CGC Lounge. 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. Members also regularly use the Lounge to mastermind with other members on specific topics.
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 – Get help solving tricky personal and professional challenges. 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. Calls are recorded, so you’ll have an accessible copy of your coaching session to review as well.
Quarterly planning sessions – Every quarter we invite members to participate in a structured 5-day process to assess recent progress, set fresh 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 our all new Guild course. We add a new self-development course each CGC year, included as part of your membership.
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. Then we support and encourage each other as we go and compare notes on what we learned or gained.
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. We include the latest forum highlights, so you can keep up on recent activity with ease, even when you’re busy.
New for 2022 – This CGC year you also get the full recordings of our recent 3-day online workshop, The Octo Intensive: The 8 Keys to Self-Motivation.
Many extra bonuses – CGC includes lots of extra support material, including a 10-day creative challenge mini-course.

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 are very active in the CGC community – especially the forums – every day. CGC is a huge part of our lives and lifestyle. We’ve met many people from this community in person too.

CGC isn’t one of those outsourced operations where the founders barely engage at all. As anyone who’s been in CGC can easily attest, we’re super present and engaged in CGC daily. So if you join and participate actively, you’ll surely get a chance to interact with us a lot.

Most people who join CGC are long-term readers of my blog, some going all the way back to 2004 when I started. What we have in common is a keen interest in exploring personal growth and living more consciously. This means you’re likely to have a huge amount in common with other CGC members already, and that can lead to some delightful syncs and surprises as you get to know other members.

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 3rd

We’re opening enrollment for a short window only (about 8 days), from now through Tuesday, May 3rd. This will be our only enrollment period for 2022. 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.

CGC Capped at 125 Members for Year 6

Please note that we’re capping CGC membership at 125 members maximum for Year 6. That’s so we can provide abundant coaching and attention to all members who want to use those resources. The tech-based aspects of CGC (like the forums and courses) are scalable, but my personal attention and coaching aren’t scalable beyond a certain point. Last year we grew in membership by 20%, and for quality reasons I want to make sure we don’t grow too quickly in any single year.

At the time of this posting, we have 95 spots left and still more than 8 days to go. So please join soon if you want to be in CGC this year. If all the spots go early, we may need to close for the year before May 3rd.

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

Why Guild Has Such an Immersive Format

Posted on 31/03/2022 by Boris Clair

The new Guild course on creating an aligned and empowering social circle kicks off tomorrow, April 1, 2022 at 9am Pacific time… so about 21 hours from the time I’m posting this.

I’m really looking forward to the experience. A solid month of daily calls with the delightful members of this community is a real treat. 🙂

If you haven’t already seen the invitation video for Guild, I encourage you to watch it now. It’s only 22 minutes (11 minutes if you watch at double speed – click the gear icon to set the speed). It’s not a salesy video – rather it shares the intentions and purpose of the course and why certain decisions were made.

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Guild’s Intensive Format

Guild’s format is the most intensive format we’ve ever used for a course.

Isn’t it a bit over-the-top to be hosting 2-3 hour Zoom calls every day for a whole month, including weekends?

That’s 60-90 hours of time together – about 5x as much time as we’d normally spend together in a 3-day workshop. By comparison our audio courses are typically 15-25 hours of material.

I’m well aware that this format takes time, and I know that not everyone is willing to accept this kind of invitation. Even though the recordings are included for everyone too, this course is really intended as a live experience because of all the interactivity and practice we’ll be doing together.

Moreover, the price for this course is higher than the launch prices for previous courses, which will further reduce the number of people willing to sign up for it. But I think the bigger commitment for most people is going to be the time factor.

That means we’re likely to have a smaller group for this course than for our previous ones.

Our previous courses all had 300+ people in them. Guild has 52 signed up so far. There’s always a surge of last-day sign-ups, so it’s hard to guess where that will land. It wouldn’t surprise me if we double it, but size-wise my expectations are modest.

Why This Format?

I choose this format because I genuinely feel that it’s the right choice for the types of changes and upgrades people want to make in this area of their lives. I knew that it would likely mean fewer people enrolling, but I want the experience to be a match for the people who are really ready for it.

In reviewing people’s feedback about what they wanted, it became clear that helping people improve their social lives is going to take some real investment of time, energy, and focus. This is one of the hardest areas of life to upgrade, and many people have some entrenched stuckness.

I recognize this pattern all too well because I had some entrenched stuckness when I was in my first marriage. My social circle reinforced that stuckness. Even when I could see the situation for what it was, moving beyond it was extremely difficult – with repeated failed attempts. My social circle acted like glue, holding me in a place I didn’t want to be. If I shared what I actually wanted to experience, people would respond as if I was threatening the status quo.

During those years I read some books on relationship transitions such as Uncoupling and Coming Apart, which helped me understand why social transitions are so difficult. I also learned how these transitions actually happen when they succeed.

This might sound strange to say, but the truth is that usually people don’t succeed in transforming their social lives, even when they consciously try to do so.

When a significant social transformation does occur, it may be more accurate to say that people are rescued.

I’m not saying that some outside hero swoops in to save them per se. What normally happens when people undergo social transitions is that they start engaging with a different group of people on the side. Basically they form a new reference group – a group that gets a chance to know them as someone other than their old self.

This new reference group helps people construct a new self-image, especially an image that cannot fit into the old reality. And eventually the old reality breaks.

Here’s another simple truth. In order for people to significantly improve their social lives, they usually have to change jobs or businesses. If they aren’t experiencing what they want socially, their work relationships are almost certain to be part of the problem. This can be very hard for people to accept. From the outside looking in, this observation tends to be obvious because your work has a major effect on your social life. From the inside looking out, hardly anyone wants to acknowledge this.

Creating a New Social Reality

People don’t just transition out of a stuck social situation. Almost always they need something to transition to. They don’t just run away from what isn’t working. They don’t leap off a cliff. They leap to a new ledge.

Was it a coincidence that the same year I started doing in-person workshops was the same year that my first wife and I separated? No, those events were surely linked. Before that workshop we had no plans to break up. Three weeks after the 2009 workshop, we were living in different homes.

The need and the desire for change had been present for a long time. What was needed was the catalyst. Engaging with the workshop community was enough to provide a clear view of a new social reality. Once that new reality was seen, it couldn’t be unseen, and it wasn’t consistent with the old social reality.

Future workshops had similar effects on some people. Multiple people quit their jobs or broke off misaligned relationships during or immediately after attending such events.

These are exceptional cases though. For most people it takes more time to wedge them out of their stuckness.

The saddest part of doing transformational work is watching people have peak experiences that they love and then backslide into their old world of stuckness. Why do people backslide? Usually it’s because they return to the same old social reality.

Whenever I’ve had a nice leap forward in business or lifestyle, I can see that it was strongly linked with a change in my social circle. The same year I got into blogging and speaking and went through a career change, I also moved to a new city at the start of that year. I also joined Toastmasters about 6 months before I started my blog and made lots of new local friends. I completely changed my social circle, both in-person and online.

It’s fair to say that if you want to change your life, you must also change your social circle. Otherwise your old social circle will cement you right where you are. That includes your social media friends.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to eject all the people you know and start fresh. Sometimes you just need to reconfigure what you already have. But even in those cases, it’s normally an outside catalyst that initiates the reconfiguration.

Guild as a Catalyst

So the Guild course is partly intended to serve as a catalyst for people who need it to play that role for them. It’s an opportunity to experience a different social circle for a month. In that new social reality, you don’t have to be the same old self that you’ve been for years. You can explore showing up as someone closer to the person you want to be. You can even show up as a different person each day if you want and see what it’s like to engage with growth-oriented people as a new version of you.

Other people in your life may hold you fixed in the world of all your past baggage. But a new community has no need to cement you where you’ve been. We can help you return to exploration mode, reminding you that more is possible.

In fact, divergent exploration will be a big part of the Guild experience. It’s an invitation to stretch who you think you are by releasing your grip on how others expect you to be.

In this setting you no longer have to stay rooted to your old social world of expectations.

Guild is a space where you have the permission and the invitation to explore aspects of yourself that haven’t been getting enough expression.

I can tell you from many years of experience that this community is very encouraging and supportive of change. People tend to talk each other into (rather than out of) growth experiences. We question the status quo and lean into the winds of change.

What is it like to have a social circle like that? You’re invited to see for yourself what it’s like by exploring with us together for a full month.

Just be aware that accepting this kind of invitation may very well crack open the weak parts of your old social world. That includes a misaligned job or a misaligned relationship. It surely takes some strength of character to deliberately welcome such experiences. I know how hard it can be to have to tell someone that you care about, “This isn’t working for me anymore.” If you may be facing something similar, I feel for you. But on the other side of the transition, everyone says, “It was really tough, but it was worth it.”

That said, Guild isn’t meant to be a rough or scary experience. We’re going to make it as gentle, caring, and mutually supportive as we can. There will be a lot of CGC members going through the course too, and I know they’ll help us create a truly beautiful heartspace inside.

Trust

I would say that one of the greatest catalysts for change is trust.

In order to make a big change, you have to trust that something better awaits you on the other side.

So the main reason for this intensive 30-day format is actually because of trust. For many people it takes time to build up enough trust – in themselves, in other people, in life, etc – to feel ready to shift into a new reality.

This is doubly true when it comes to our social lives. People can’t just leave old relationships behind, even if those relationships are severely misaligned. Some people will even stay in abusive relationships for years if they don’t trust that something better awaits them.

In order to transition, people need to see enough of a new reality that they can trust. They need to see the new ledge they’re stepping onto.

A new social circle helps to build this trust. You could say that it helps to restore trust that was lost. When people no longer trust that their old social circles will support them in the ways they want to be supported, a new reference group must play that role for them.

And that’s the role that Guild is intended to play. It’s an invitation to restore your trust in life – that this is indeed a reality in which you have the freedom to reinvent yourself. And when you do undergo such a transition, you will land in a space of support, not abandonment.

So I invite you to think of the Guild course (and the community you’ll find inside) as your launch pad and your landing pad for the next phase of your life. Our role is to help you build trust and clarity with that next phase, so you can fully welcome it in.

We begin at 9am on Friday, April 1st. Will you join us? ❤️

Guild Course Is Now Open for Enrollment

Posted on 30/03/2022 by Boris Clair

Our new Guild deep dive course on social alignment has launched, and many people have already signed up. I invite you to join if you’re interested in upgrading your social skills, social circle, and relationship life. You can watch the invitation video to learn about the course here:

Guild Course

The main purpose of Guild is to help you make major upgrades to your social life. There are 5 core transformations that we’ll be working on together:

Enjoy rich and dynamic relationships with abundant growth-oriented friends.
Upgrade from shallow or fragmented connections to deep, full-range friendships.
Overcome outreach fatigue and social malaise to attract relationships that energize you.
Merge your character growth and social growth with a personal guild that helps you advance.
Build your social bandwidth and capacity to experience free-flowing social abundance.

So much of life’s abundance flows to us socially. Money… loving relationships… business opportunities… fun invitations… adventurous experiences… The more aligned your social circle is with the life you want to live, the more easily such invitations will flow to you.

If you aren’t already enjoying a nice flow of abundance in other areas of life, it’s probably because you have too much friction in your social circle. If that’s your situation, join us for Guild, and let’s work on correcting that together.

Here’s our group intention for Guild, which I invite you to hold with us:

In an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way, in its own perfect time, for the highest good of all, I intend and invite a beautifully aligned, growth-oriented, and mutually appreciative social circle to flow into my life. I intend positive results and prosperous journeys for the other participants of this deep dive as well – past, present, and future.

Delivered Live on Zoom April 1-30, 2022

We’re delivering the entire Guild course live in April 2022. Every day from April 1 to April 30 at 9am Pacific time, I’ll host a live Zoom call for all Guild course members. These calls will include direct instruction, small group exercises, open sharing and discussion, a co-creative segment, and Q&A. You’ll have the option – but not the obligation – to immediately practice what we teach on the calls.

I encourage you to treat this as a special 30-day challenge to identify and fix alignment problems in your social life. Day by day for 30 days straight, you’ll invest in practical upgrades and improvements to make your social and relationship life better and better.

This is a one-time opportunity. We’re doing this in April 2022, and we’re starting in less than 48 hours, so it’s now or never. Where else will you get the chance to invest in such a purposeful experience?

All of the calls will be recorded, and you’ll get the recordings too. Each recording will be published the same day as the live call, so if you miss any live calls, you can easily use the recorded version to keep pace.

If you’d like to learn more about the course, see the Guild invitation page, which will give you all the details. I’d recommend watching the invitation video on that page to see if the course interests you. That should give you a good idea of what the course is about, along with extra details about the changes we’ll be working on together.

I hope you’ll join us for this one – it’s going to be a fun, immersive, and rewarding deep dive into the world of social skills, social alignment, trust, friendship, intimacy, and more.

Hugs! ❤️

Guild Course Update

Posted on 26/03/2022 by Boris Clair

I finished working out the details for the upcoming Guild course on social alignment, so now I can give you a crisper update on that, including when we’ll get started.

We’ll be opening the doors for people to enroll early next week. I’d say by Tuesday. The course will officially begin one week from today, on Friday, April 1st, and it will run for 30 days straight.

Format-wise it’s a bit of a hybrid that combines the daily live lesson experience of Deep Abundance Integration with the social interactivity of the Amplify group calls. So it will be like an intensive 30-day challenge for anyone who wants to do it live.

Every day for 30 days in a row, from April 1 through April 30, I’ll be hosting a live Zoom call at 9am Pacific time. Each call will go for about 2-3 hours and will have a structured format that includes instruction, breakout rooms for interactive practice, Q&A, open sharing, and more.

The core theme of the course is creating and enjoying an aligned social circle. Each day we’ll chip off a piece of this to work on together, exploring a wide variety of subtopics.

Near the end of each call, we’ll have a co-creative segment to invite and consider suggestions for what to cover on the next day’s call. Then we’ll be able to pre-announce each day’s topic approximately 21 hours in advance. That way people who want to be selective can decide whether the next day’s topic appeals to them enough to attend live, or if they’d prefer to wait for the recording.

All of these calls (but not the breakout room segments) will be recorded, and each recording will be published the same day as the live lesson. Recordings will be streamable in your browser and also downloadable. We won’t be adding text transcripts of the lessons since those just don’t come out well for live calls; we’ve only included those for audio courses.

Every part of this experience is optional. You can choose to have an intense all-in experience by attending every call live. Lots of people did that with DAI and loved sharing the journey day by day – in fact I was impressed by how many people showed up live every day. I even grew a beard for those 30 days as some people may recall.

Alternatively, you can take your time and go through the recordings at whatever pacing you want since you get to keep those indefinitely. Or you can mix and match – do some calls live and enjoy the recordings for the rest.

All the breakout room practice portions are by consent. You can dive in and participate, or you can skip those parts and grab a snack instead. Totally your choice. Every session is an invitation, so nothing is forced, and there won’t be any pressure to do anything you don’t want to explore at this time.

Additionally there will be some extra bonuses to help you with ongoing practice and reinforcement.

The price for the full 30 days will be $497 USD. For Conscious Growth Club members, it’s included as part of their membership. There won’t be a launch discount for this course since the main incentive to sign up by April 1st is if people want to participate in the live experience. The long-term price for the recorded version will be the same.

I’m pricing this as low as I think would be sensible, so we attract people who are really committed to sharing in a major social exploration together. Since this will be a very social course, I want to make sure that we have a good base of very growth-oriented people who truly want to upgrade their social lives. I also don’t want to price it too high since I think it’s better if we have more people for you to engage with on the live calls. That’s better for the co-creative aspect. This price feels more than fair to me, especially for 60-90 hours of live engagement together.

Last year’s 3-day Octo Intensive workshop was also $497, and the Guild experience is going to be around 5-6x as long in terms of our time together. Guild is surely going to be rich in ideas and insights, but I also want to maintain an easy-going pacing that gives us lots of space to share, connect, crack jokes, and explore divergently too.

Like we did last year, I’ll be giving everyone the option to credit the full price of the course towards a CGC membership. CGC opens for new members once per year, always in the last week of April, and our CGC year begins on May 1st. We’ve got about a month to go in Year 5, so that will be the start of Year 6.

This year I expect we’ll open CGC for new members roughly from April 25 through May 1st. Since it started in 2017, CGC has always been $1997 per year, and we’re keeping that the same for 2022. So if you do the Guild course first, you’ll be able to join CGC this year for $1500 more. This type of offer was very popular last year, with dozens of people flowing into CGC from the Amplify course. We attracted some really great and active members, which is the main reason I want to do it again this year. I think such an interactive course is a good way to give people a preview of what the CGC community is like as well, especially since there will be many CGCers on the Guild calls.

I’m excited. This is going be a lot of fun for those who choose to engage with it.

Here’s some extra info about how I make format choices for our courses, in case you’re curious about that.

With each course topic that we do, I like to stay in divergent space about the exact offer / invitation till the format crystallizes. I always get a signal from reality when it’s time to converge and flow into launch mode, and then everything progresses pretty quickly after that point. Before that point, I’m awash in pondering and synthesizing all the feedback I receive about what people want to work on together.

One thing I’ve noticed again and again is that I can’t effectively force reality to converge before it’s ready. I could try to converge at the personal level by my own volition, but it never feels right to do so until I receive that timing ping from reality. The greater floodgates of support from reality won’t be forthcoming unless we get synched up, and when that synching happens isn’t really up to me. I feel like it has more to do with some collective timing coordination that happens in the background, and I have to wait for reality to let me know when it’s ready. It’s like catching a wave on a surfboard. When I feel that rising wave of energy, I know it’s time to advance from private development mode to public invitation mode. And that wave showed up this week.

I don’t entirely feel that the format choices are made by me. It’s more like I bounce ideas off reality and wait for a very clear YES in response. I’ve explored different formats and creative forms over the years, so I’m very flexible format-wise. I like to just tune in to and listen for what kind of format wants to come through, especially as I get clearer about the themes and changes people want to explore.

Whenever I ponder different formats for a course, I get a feel for whether they’re truly right or not. I sometimes run through several different partial match ideas till I feel that the format really does fit the purpose. I’m basically asking, Is this a match for the collective intentional energy?

This 30-day format may seem intense to some. It does to me too – in a good and appealing way. But it really feels like it fits the collective intentional energy too. It makes sense to me that the transformations that people asked for would match up well with a socially immersive approach this time. Some people shared that they have some major social misalignments in their lives, so I think an immersive approach will serve them well. We may need to generate a lot of energy and mutual support to help people get unstuck.

I do feel there are other ways we could do this course, but they wouldn’t match up as well with that collective intentional energy. I did give serious consideration to doing this as another audio course, perhaps with a smaller number of live calls, but that just doesn’t fit the needs and desires that people expressed. I think we’ll be better served by diving into this experience together.

The COVID situation has apparently reduced many people’s social bandwidth and capacity. I just read an article about that this morning – how people who used to socialize a lot but contracted their social lives due the pandemic are trying to open up more this year, but they’re feeling really drained when they try. It’s like they have to start over to build up their social stamina again. It’s much like not exercising for a couple of years and then trying to get back into it. It may take several weeks to train back up again. So here’s the invitation to train up with a 30-day intensive. Consider this a timely invitation to get back into the social game.

There are a lot of people in my audience, outside of CGC, who have zero growth-oriented friends. They have contacts and colleagues, but those relationships lack depth and intimacy. Some are dealing with significant social trust wounds. A lot of people are experiencing some kind of social withdrawal, yet deep down they really want to change that. It just seems like it takes an extraordinary amount of energy to make these shifts alone. So don’t do it alone. Join us and let’s do this together. There’s power in aligning with likeminded people to do transformational work together.

With these kinds of transformations, there’s some strong inertia to overcome for many people. It’s going to take a lot of intention and energy and collective will to help people (who want to) to shift gears and experience what life could be like with more aligned social flow. There are a lot of thorny issues to collectively untangle.

I think this will be the most co-creative course we’ve ever done because, like with DAI, we’re going to come up with the subtopics day by day, always with the intention of helping people get what they want and need from the experience. It’s definitely not going to be a dogmatic course but rather an exploratory and experiential one. There will be lots of sharing and testing of ideas as people discover what works and what doesn’t work for them as social beings. Part of the big picture intention here is to create a psychologically safe space where people can test and explore and stretch themselves in ways that society never gave them the space or permission to do.

I also know that this format won’t be perfectly practical for some people. The timing, intensity, frequency, or duration may not be a fit for their lifestyles. I’m doing what I can to make it as adaptable as possible. This includes recording all the sessions and posting them the same day, like we did with DAI. If people are pressed for time, they can watch the recordings at 2X speed. Since the breakout rooms aren’t recorded, that shaves time off the recorded versions too.

We’ll also be publishing 1-page lesson summaries in an evolving Guild Summary Guild, also on the same days the live lessons occur. So if people just want to skim the key points on busy days, they can do that.

There’s the option for people to approach this as a 30-day challenge by attending every call live, and some 30-day challenges require significant but temporary lifestyle adjustments and possibly some family discussions. It’s up to each person to decide how much they want to prioritize the live session experience relative to potentially competing priorities. There’s no right or wrong choice there – just what’s right for you and the people you care about, right now.

I’m fully committed to facilitating this experience for those who would appreciate it. I’ll bring my best self to this physically, mentally, and emotionally. It feels like a beautiful time to explore this with you.

I’ll put up the official invitation page early next week, but for now I wanted to give you a heads up with the key details, so you can start thinking about whether you want to do this. The Guild course journey will begin at 9am sharp (Pacific time) on April 1, 2022. It’s going to be a fun ride.