Steve Pavlina

Personal Development for Smart People

Updated: 5 hours 36 min ago

Spanked by eBay

Wed, 07/28/2010 - 20:36

A few hours ago, eBay removed my listing for a 60-minute phone consultation. The last time I checked, that auction had received dozens of bids and was up to $1000. There were still 2-1/2 days left in the auction, so I suspect the final price would have gone much higher.

I checked my email and saw that I’d received an automated message from eBay about it. Here’s the relevant snippet:

You recently listed the following listing:

120599874589 – 60-minute consultation with Steve Pavlina

Unfortunately, we had to remove your listing because the following information violates our policy:

60-minute phone consultation

The purpose of the eBay Web site is to enable members to buy and sell items from each other. Listings that do not offer an item for sale through the site, or that are designed for any other purpose, are not permitted. For example, listings for invisible or intangible items are not permitted. Buyers should be able to verify the existence of an item they bought when they receive it.

For more information on this eBay policy, please visit:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html

You may need to take a tutorial. The next time you sell, you may be asked to take the tutorial, if it’s required. Once you’ve completed the tutorial successfully, please review your account status for any other possible concerns. If there are no other issues, you should be able to sell again.

I read that policy, but it didn’t seem to apply to what I was listing. There was mention of trying to sell intangibles like a “soul” and other crazy stuff that of course wouldn’t make sense.

So I contacted eBay to find out why they delisted it and to see what my options were.

The first person I connected with there wasn’t very helpful. I got nothing but stock replies, and then I was disconnected before I could get very far.

I tried again right away, and the next agent was much more helpful. He looked into it and explained that they don’t allow such listings. I gave him links to several similar listings on eBay, but he simply asked me to report them through their public flagging system if I felt they violated eBay’s terms. I’m not an eBay cop, so I’m not going to do that.

I also suggested other options like including an MP3 recording of the call and/or an autographed copy of my book, but apparently that wasn’t good enough.

If you go to eBay and do a search on “consultation,” you’ll find hundreds of results, including listings for phone consultations with no tangible products — the exact same form of service I was offering. One of my Facebook friends pointed out that eBay is inconsistent in enforcing this policy. The agent who was helping me also admitted as much.

I’m disappointed by this outcome, not because of the money but because eBay pulled the plug on my experiment. I was really curious about the outcome. A lot of other people were curious about it too. I would have preferred if they nuked it after the final bid, so we could have seen where it ended up. I think that would have been a cool piece of data to share with everyone.

This doesn’t seem like a good deal for eBay either. Other top bloggers were following my experiment, and in fact someone else already listed a similar consultation there, crediting me for the idea (his auction is still live). I imagine that if this experiment was a success — if they hadn’t delisted it, it’s fair to say that it already was a success — it could easily have resulted in thousands of dollars in extra revenue for eBay this year. (I think that’s a pretty modest estimate.)

On the other hand, I can understand why they may not want to list such items. It’s hard to verify the delivery of a phone or video consultation, and maybe they had problems with scammers in that category in the past.

The only real option they could offer me was to purchase classified advertising there, but I’m not interested in buying traditional advertising. I was using eBay for their auction service — I was obviously able to refer plenty of bidders to them.

So for all practical purposes, eBay appears to be a dead end for this sort of thing, at least for me.

I don’t see a need to assign this event any particular meaning. I’ll simply let it go and await the next wave of inspiration. As the saying goes… when one door closes, another door opens.

So where’s the open door now?

Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the Conscious Growth Workshop, October 29-31, 2010.

Discuss this article in the forums.
Make a donation.
View a random article from Steve's blog.
Get the free newsletter.
Visit Erin Pavlina's blog.Steve Recommends
Man Transformation - Attract a high-quality relationship
Site Build It! - Build an income-generating website
PhotoReading - Read books 3x faster
Paraliminals - Accelerate your personal growth
The Journal - Keep a secure journal on your PC

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

30 Days of Inspiration

Wed, 07/28/2010 - 15:21

Today is Day 5 of my 30-day trial of inspired living, as I explained in the previous post. If you missed that post, basically I’m testing what it’s like to live without thinking or planning ahead. I’m living in the moment and doing my best to act on inspiration whenever it comes to me, riding each wave for as long as it lasts. If I’m not feeling any strong inspiration, then in those moments I’ll take some downtime or catch up on routine tasks like email — and take the time to eat, shower, etc.

I’m not scheduling anything at all, unless the inspiration to schedule something hits me. I’m not using an alarm clock to wake up at any particular time, I’m not “planning” to exercise unless I’m inspired to do so, and I’m only eating meals if and when I’m inspired to eat.

I’m learning that hunger can be somewhat inspirational at times, but last night I skipped dinner entirely and went to bed hungry because I didn’t feel inspired to eat. I was too busy following other inspirations, so being hungry didn’t bother me much. By the end of the day, I was spent and collapsed into bed.

A Difficult Trial

What began in the spirit of fun and adventure is now becoming much more difficult. I’m realizing that this is shaping up to be the most challenging and intense 30-day trial I’ve ever done. How nice that this part of it shows up after I’ve already made a public commitment to it…

This trial isn’t about testing a new habit or altering my sleeping or eating patterns. It’s a 24/7 commitment. Part of me is surprised that I can even commit to this at all. I had to get my thinking to a whole different level just to say yes to this experiment.

Dealing with the unpredictability of what’s going to happen next is extremely unsettling. In order to make it through this, I have to let go of trying to control anything. I have to let go and trust.

I’m also seeing that in any given moment, I can be under the influence of multiple waves of inspiration at the same time. They don’t conveniently line up for linear processing. They arrive in complex layers sometimes. When there are multiple waves overlapping, I do my best to ride the strongest wave at the time.

Another pattern is that each wave has its own crests and troughs. Sometimes there’s a powerful impulse, but it’s too much to do all at once. After I catch and ride the initial wave, there’s a lull, and then another related wave shows up to move things further along.

Initially I figured that I couldn’t screw things up so badly with this trial that the damage would be irreparable. Now I’m having serious doubts about that. As I ponder what’s beginning to show up now, I can easily see a pathway where I could do some real “damage.” I could throw a lot of things out there that would make it impossible to ever return to my Day 1 equilibrium.

There are certain things that, once I put them out there, can’t be recalled. If I act on such impulses, my life will spin off in some new direction, and there will be no going back. An example was when I shared the story in the Meaning of Life: Intro article. There was no way to back away from that once it was posted. I don’t regret doing it, but I can never go back to what my life was like before I posted that.

At this point, I now expect that by Day 30, I’ll have probably done at least some things that will make it impossible to restore my life to essentially the same place it was in on Day 1. That’s pretty unsettling.

I now see that it’s going to take a lot of courage to continue, let alone complete, this trial. I know you probably don’t see evidence of that yet, but I imagine you’ll have a better grasp of what I mean by the end of the trial.

Subjective Reality

There’s another aspect to this trial that I haven’t mentioned yet. For me this trial is also a deeper exploration of the perspective of subjective reality. Subjective reality is the notion that consciousness is primary, that there’s only one consciousness, and that all of physical reality is essentially a dream world that arises within consciousness. I’ve shared articles about this concept years ago. If you care to learn more about it, see the Archives, and scan for the articles with “subjective reality” in the title.

At the last CGW, I spent much of the final two hours explaining how subjective reality works, along with some personal experiments that indicate it may in fact be a more accurate model of reality than the objective model (whereby the physical universe is primary and consciousness arises within it).

At one point, I asked the CGW attendees that if they had to pick one or the other, which model did they feel was probably the more accurate depiction of how reality actually works? Interestingly, the room was divided roughly 50-50, with half the people favoring the subjective model and half favoring the objective one.

That didn’t surprise me because I’ve been on the fence as to which model is likely to be more accurate. From a subjective standpoint, it makes perfect sense that the dream characters in my reality would reflect back to me a 50-50 split.

Well, after that CGW, I began thinking that I was ready to explore the subjective perspective in greater depth than ever before. I had largely stopped progressing down that path because quite honestly, it scared me. Things were beginning to get too strange too quickly. This perspective was bestowing me with more power than I felt ready for. For example, in less than a year (which was 2006-2007), I progressed from manifesting pennies to manifesting $50K. And to this day I can still create roughly $50K amounts with relative ease. I’ve also manifested lots of other good things in my life. All of my needs are well met, I enjoy an abundant life, and I’m genuinely happy with my existence. But this begs the question, “How deep does the rabbit hole really go?”

After a few years of stalling interspersed with some very gradual steps forward, I finally decided that as scary as it was, I needed to get moving in this direction once again. Within days some synchronicities began showing up. Some were personal, and others were more public and obvious. For example, right after I made this decision, the movie Inception showed up in my reality and began generating a lot of buzz. Several people began telling me to go see it, some claiming that it included elements of subjective reality. I almost went to see it last night, but I still haven’t seen it yet. Maybe today if the inspiration hits me. Before making this decision though, I’d never even heard of this movie.

Another thing that happened is that some TLC friends shared some subjective manifestation stories of their own with me, stuff that was beyond what I’d experimented with on my own. For example, Joe Vitale shared the story of Dr. Hew Len, a therapist who cured a hospital filled with mentally ill patients without ever seeing them. If you believe the story, this sort of healing is tough to explain objectively, but it makes perfect sense if reality is in fact a subjective dream world. If you want to learn more about this therapist, go read the article The World’s Most Unusual Therapist, or read Joe’s book Zero Limits. I’ve already started testing some of these ideas, and some curious results are beginning to show up. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to regard other human beings as separate and distinct from me now.

At present I’d say I’m now around 80-20 in the sense that I’m 80% certain that subjective reality is the more accurate model of how the universe actually works. Consequently, I’m beginning to loosen my grip on the objective side, and I’m beginning to do things that may seem risky from an objective standpoint, but subjectively they make perfect sense.

This trial is a good example. Objectively speaking, it’s a very risky thing to do. By acting impulsively for weeks on end without pausing to think things through, I could really screw up my life both personally and professionally. I could potentially do and say some things that have serious long-term consequences, not just for me, but for other people in my life.

However, from a subjective standpoint, this should actually be a much more sensible way to live. The notion of an “out there” is nothing but illusion, and it makes no sense to fear what may happen in a world that’s a projection anyway.

Needing to Know

I’m embarking on this trial because I really need to know. I can’t remain on the fence. I have to go down this pathway and see where it leads. It scares me to do so, but I’ll just take it one day at a time. If things get really screwed up along the way, I’m willing to accept those consequences. I’d be willing to sacrifice a lot in order to discovering some new truths (or old ones I’ve forgotten).

I think that deep down, part of me already knows that reality is subjective and that the whole objective model is pure delusion. But I can’t overcome my doubts by staring at them and pondering them. I have to push through the fear and doubt and resistance and see what really lies on the other side. Will it be a glorious new level of existence, or will it lead to chaos?

I strongly suspect it’s the former, but the only way I can really do this experiment properly is by being willing to accept the possibility that I may experience the latter.

Inner Processing

I’m still doing a lot of inner processing. If I feel inspired to share the details at some point, I’ll do so, even if it’s really difficult in the moment.

Last night I went to bed at 1:30am, and I woke up at 4:30am. Some very emotional stuff began coming up again, and I did little else but cry and sob till 6:15am. I’m still not sure if I’ll share the details about this publicly. It would probably stir up some drama if I did, but for now I’m not feeling the inspiration to write about it, at least not yet.

I am getting a glimpse of things to come. I may not be able to control it, but I can try to make sense of it along the way.

One thing I’m seeing is that I’m going to be pretty busy. Lots of energy is getting stirred up, and it’s leading to a lot of activity. I can’t separate the personal side from the professional side, so I don’t know in advance which part of my life I’ll be working on most. It feels like I’m working on both at the same time.

I made breakfast almost two hours ago, before I started writing this post, but it’s been sitting there uneaten this whole time. I’m pretty hungry, but I’ve had to follow this wave of inspiration to write because it was the stronger wave. Hopefully I can go eat once I post this. I’m also very thirsty. There’s a full glass of water next to me, but I’ve barely sipped it. I stuck with the writing wave until it reached its shoreline, even as my hunger and thirst increased along the way.

Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the Conscious Growth Workshop, October 29-31, 2010.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

An Inspirational Week

Wed, 07/28/2010 - 04:38

I spent last week in Santa Fe, NM for a Transformational Leadership Council retreat. These TLC retreats are held twice a year, and this is the third one I’ve attended. It was also the largest, with about 80 members (out of a total of 114) present.

The atmosphere at TLC is like a big family reunion. It’s a place where people who are doing transformational work can come together to help and support each other both personally and professionally. Sometimes business deals happen, but the main focus isn’t transactional. It’s about caring for each other, supporting each other, and helping each other grow and improve.

We meditate together each day, we sing, we dance, and we do fun and sometimes silly activities. We share many laughs and hundreds of hugs. We help support those who are going through rough times. We share our best ideas on how to accelerate the healing of this planet.

We also pool our knowledge and skills to help each other in a spirit of cooperation. For example, at the January TLC retreat in Puerto Rico, I did a presentation on building web traffic. It was rewarding to see that six months later, a number of TLC members had already applied those ideas to reach more people with their positive messages.

On top of that, we do a lot of deep introspection. We push ourselves to grow as human beings, to become more aware and to recognize new truths, to become stronger and more courageous, to connect more deeply and to become more heart-centered, and to more fully step into our missions to help create a better world.

One of the most important elements is that we do this away from the public eye, sans fans and critics alike, so we can keep the energy very positive and loving but also honest and real.

For me, going to TLC is like taking a weeklong spa day for the heart and spirit.

Immersion

Imagine spending a week with 80 transformational leaders, many of whom are the top experts in the world at what they do. Some are fabulously wealthy. Some are deeply insightful and brilliant. Some are very loving and compassionate. Some are incredibly fearless.

You can informally walk up and ask anyone there about anything, and they’re happy to share their best ideas as if they’re your brothers and sisters.

Some of them have been doing this kind of work longer than I’ve been alive. They know all the best methods and processes and whatnots. They know the places where fear, denial, and falsehood love to hide.

Being at TLC is like going to a place where everyone has X-ray vision, so by default you end up walking around naked the whole time, even if you think you’re wearing clothes.

If you speak something other than your truth, you’ll get called on your B.S. But you don’t get judged for your foibles. You just receive more unconditional love and acceptance. The focus there isn’t on fixing ourselves or transcending what we believe to be our faults. It’s about integrating the various parts of ourselves into a complete whole.

The atmosphere at TLC is similar to what you’d find at CGW (especially on the third day of CGW). My ego would just love to credit the brilliant CGW content, but the content is only part of it, and arguably not the most important part. Many of the shifts have more to do with being around the energy of so many conscious people. It can be difficult to define or explain those shifts afterwards, but they’re extremely potent, and they can send one’s life spiraling off in new directions. Every CGW and TLC have had that kind of effect on me. In such an environment, much of the B.S. we tell ourselves simply burns away, and new truths finally have the chance to be seen and heard.

For example, when people at CGW see how their lives could be filled with so much more love and connection, they cannot return to doing soulless work on Monday morning; the utter foolishness of that approach is too obvious to ignore, so they quit that same week and quickly transition to a path with a heart. They finally see that on the heartless path, they were already living without that which mattered most to them, so there was nothing more to lose… and everything to gain… by letting it go.

TLC has a similar effect on me. It’s not really the content we share that’s the biggest element. The content does help, but the bigger shifts have to do with being bathed for several days in the positive energy we create. We could gather with no formal plan or structure, and it would still have a transformational effect. Great content just makes it that much better.

Many TLC members recognize that working on ourselves and working to create a better world are inherently the same thing. Healing the world is a journey of self-healing. We are teachers because we are lifelong students, and teaching is one of the fastest (and most intense) ways to learn.

That’s why I wrote 1000 articles and a book… and why I do workshops that turn out differently each time. By giving thoughts and ideas form and expression, I deepen my understanding of them. If I knew how an article was going to turn out before I started writing it, I wouldn’t need to write it. Everything I share and express is a growth experience for me; otherwise I delete it before it’s done and never post it.

Intensity

Every time I’ve gone to TLC, I’ve returned home feeling like a different person. At times the TLC experience can be like drinking from a fire hose. Occasionally I have to spend some time walking around by myself just to internally process the shifts that occur.

Before attending TLC this time, I was already in a really good place. I’d just finished an amazing Conscious Growth Workshop a couple days earlier, so I was still enjoying that post-workshop high, feeling incredibly grateful and happy and super motivated.

The first couple days of TLC were a bit of a letdown, energetically speaking. It usually takes a day or two for the energy at TLC to amp up, just as it does at CGW. It was great to reconnect with so many friends, but on Day 2 I started feeling bored and listless. By the next morning, I was actually feeling grumpy, and when I turned within to ask myself why, I realized that part of me felt that I really didn’t need a “vacation” right now and that I’d much rather be getting some real work done. Going to this particular TLC seemed like an unnecessary indulgence when I had so many other things to attend to, both personally and professionally. At this particular time, I didn’t want to be on a retreat. I wanted to be advancing. I was already renewed and energized when I got there.

But I still had several more days there, and I didn’t want to be fighting with myself the whole time, so I acknowledged and accepted that feeling and the message behind it, applying a process that was a blend of Genpo Roshi’s Big Mind method and Hale Dwoskin’s Sedona Method. (Both of them were at TLC.) This process took only minutes. In fact, I did it while taking a shower, so it didn’t even take any extra time.

Almost immediately, the grumpiness and boredom vanished, their message received. By realizing that I wanted to be active and productive rather than taking time off and restoring myself, I shifted my focus and saw that I could use TLC to get some actual work done and to make it a productive experience, instead of treating it like an unwanted break. This might seem obvious in retrospect, but it wasn’t obvious to me at the time.

With a better attitude, I launched into the third day of TLC with a lot more motivation and passion, and this energy carried me through the rest of the week. I spent many hours connecting with people I wanted to get to know better, and I deepened some existing connections. I picked up ideas for improving CGW, and I got advice for growing my business. I found several new potential joint-venture partners. I learned new methods and techniques.

I also shared a lot of advice to help others, especially with blogging and traffic building. And I recorded a few videos to help members promote their work.

And I had a lot more fun since I was congruent about wanting to be there.

I took the exercises seriously and worked a lot on myself too. It’s too much to explain in a blog post though. (That’s a B.S. excuse, but I’m hoping you’ll buy it for now while I do more inner work on it and build up the courage to share it.) Suffice it to say that I went through some huge emotional shifts related to my past. One morning I woke up in my hotel room, and all I could do was cry for about an hour, struck by some realizations I’d been repressing for most of my life. Pretty frakkin’ painful stuff. I’m still not sure I’m ready to deal with it yet, but I have to practice what I preach. Sometimes it annoys me that I teach courage.

There was another attendee who arrived later in the week, and her needs were practically the opposite of mine. She’d been on the road for a few weeks, and she was feeling worn down. She came to TLC for renewal and rejuvenation, and she got that.

Authenticity

One thing I love about TLC is that the people there are very authentic.

One thing I hate about TLC is that the people there are very authentic. (That isn’t a typo.)

As much as you might think you’d love it, hanging out with dozens of highly authentic people for a week is tougher than it sounds. That kind of experience shines a light on your own authenticity issues. You may even come to see that the pursuit of authenticity is yet another form of self-delusion.

Many people have asked me how on earth I can publicly share certain aspects of my life on my blog, such as I wrote about in the article Share Your Shame. The underlying assumption is that if people knew the real truth about you, you could be socially ostracized. Your friends and family would shun you. You’d be cut off, abandoned, and tossed aside for being unworthy. In the end you would receive less love.

But the truth is that the exact opposite happens. Initially there may be some tumult, but the long-term outlook is extremely positive.

When you learn to love and accept all parts of yourself, especially the parts you’d rather keep hidden, then you attract a lot more authentic love and support from others. Instead of being shunned, you’re welcomed and invited and included.

We all have these dark parts of ourselves that are difficult to accept and integrate. But your secrets aren’t secret at all. People can see right through you. They just aren’t telling you about it because they can see you aren’t ready to deal with it yet.

Your inner shame is far from unique. We all have similar issues. Only the details are different.

My friends in TLC have plenty of dirt on me. It’s not like it’s a secret.

They know I separated from my wife last year, that I went bankrupt, that I used to be a thief, that I’m into D/s, and so on. And it just isn’t a big deal. In fact, all that stuff is more like a badge of honor. During the awards ceremony one night, I joked that I was hoping to qualify for the most recent divorce award.

The truth, however, is that my issues just aren’t particularly striking or unique. It’s practically a truism that the people there have had to go through some serious challenges at one point or another, such as divorce, loss, addiction, financial scarcity, abuse, and more. It’s a pretty common pattern that a TLC member’s life has been a roller coaster of ups and downs, as opposed to smooth sailing all the way.

The stuff that really tugs at my heart is when these loving and compassionate people have to deal with things like the death of a spouse or a drug-addicted child. And they ultimately process those experiences in ways that allow them to become even more loving and compassionate, even though they have every reason to justify becoming resentful and bitter.

People sometimes ask me, “Is so and so the real deal?” And having met these people behind the scenes, I have to say yes again and again. These people pour their hearts and souls into their missions, and I respect and love them immensely. I feel honored to be included in this group.

The Challenge of Being in the Public Eye

One of the reasons TLC is so important is that doing this kind of work can be very challenging, especially when you’re in the public eye. The exposure to criticism can be brutal at times. It’s really helpful to have a group of supportive friends you can turn to, get bandaged up, and go back out into the world again.

These people aren’t superheroes. They’re very much human. When they take a beating, it hurts them and slows them down, but in the long run, it also makes them stronger and more compassionate.

I can’t say I’ve encountered anyone there who does this kind of work for the money. If such a person exists, I’ve never met him/her. Even the ones who teach about wealth and abundance seem to be primarily motivated by the love of the work and the desire to contribute. The truth is that it breaks their hearts when they see people suffering from lack, and they want to do what they can to alleviate suffering and spread more happiness and abundance.

I think if you got to know the people behind the scenes as I have, you’d feel immensely grateful for them. Even when they’re dealing with major personal and professional challenges, they just keep giving, giving, giving. Maybe their contributions aren’t perfect, but they do the best they can.

What you may not realize is that these people question everything they do. They question whether they should use certain Internet marketing techniques, or if the methods would be manipulative. They wonder about how they can help more people. They wonder how they can be more impactful on each person they connect with. They wonder about what to work on in themselves so that they may become better teachers.

For all the criticism they receive, they are their own harshest critics. If their critics actually knew the personal standards these people hold themselves to, it would make those critics cringe and say, “Whoa… go easy on yourself.”

Of course this is something I had to learn as well. I spent a good 10 minutes today casting unconditional love at Tony Robbins. He isn’t a TLC member, but it became clear to me that he too must be doing the best he can.

Inspiration

I realize this is a rambling article, perhaps a bit too stream of consciousness, so let me get to the wrap up portion.

This was a mind-blowing week, but one element in particular was especially mind-blowing.

About halfway through the week, Joe Vitale gave a talk on inspiration. I first met Joe and his wife Nerissa at the July TLC in 2009, so I’ve known them for about a year, but this is the first time I saw Joe speak. He was simply brilliant.

Joe and I have something in common in that we are both content machines. He’s authored 52 books, for instance, and he’s constantly giving birth to new products. I haven’t been working in this field as long as he has, but I’ve authored a respectable 1000 articles in less than 6 years, which is enough to fill about 25 books… not to mention getting one actual book published as well.

Joe explained how he creates his content, which I recognized as essentially the same approach I use. When an inspired idea comes to me, I act on it almost immediately. I know that I have about a 48-hour window — maximum — to write and publish that idea. Otherwise the energy is gone. Trying to create that same content later is possible, but it’s much more difficult and takes a lot longer.

The experience is like catching a wave. I might wake up one morning and get an idea for a new article, and I know I need to grab my laptop immediately and let it flow through me. In those situations I can write nearly as fast as I can type, without having to pause to think.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s a real wave and what’s just a minor swell, but this calibration gets better with practice. When you catch the wave and stick with it, it has sufficient energy to carry you all the way through to completion of whatever it is you’re creating, as long as you’re willing to put most other things aside and stick to that wave like glue. Again, it’s like surfing. If you stick with the wave, you can ride it all the way to shore.

Well… as Joe continued to speak, I realized that he does something I don’t. He uses this same method for acting on business ideas in general. I haven’t been doing that. I only use it for content creation, and the vast majority of that content has been in the form of free articles.

Joe, however, also uses this method to conjure up new products, workshops, events, business deals, and so on.

That’s when I gave myself a mental slap upside the head.

Duh. Duh. Duh.

For some stupid reason, I’ve been managing the rest of my business in a much more left-brained fashion. I get inspired business ideas all the time, but instead of acting on them immediately and riding them like the time-sensitive waves they are, I toss the ideas into my inbox for later processing. Then perhaps a week later, I’ll consider each idea carefully and integrate it into my to-do list for future action. But by and large, by the time I get around to them, if ever, that wave of energy has long since dissipated, and trying to start those projects is like pulling teeth.

Consequently, the content creation aspect of my business has always been super easy for me. I know I’ll never run out of ideas there. But the rest of my business changes much more slowly. My website, for instance, has essentially the same design as it did 5 years ago.

Very quickly I got the idea to do a 30-day trial of acting on inspiration almost immediately whenever it hits me, whether it has to do with content creation or some other idea. I decided that I wasn’t going to wait, so I kicked it off while I was still at TLC. To be honest, I really don’t care about the exactitude of the 30-day stretch for this trial, but today was Day 4.

This is new territory for me, so it may entail some hidden risks. I know it works on the content side, but I can’t predict what will happen as I apply this to the rest of my life. In order to begin this trial, I had to remind myself that worst case, I probably can’t screw things up so badly in 30 days that I can’t repair the damage later if necessary. Because the potential benefits are so great, I’m willing to take this risk.

30 Days of Inspired Action

The same day I heard Joe’s talk (Friday), I was in my hotel room at around 8pm, and a stray thought popped into my head. I got the idea to put up an eBay auction for a 60-minute consultation, as I shared in my previous blog post. I began to ponder it, and my initial inclination was to jot down the idea and then consider it when I got back to Vegas the following week.

Then I stopped and smacked myself and said, “No… you have to catch this wave now and see where it takes you. Don’t just let it pass.”

So I dove into immediate action. I wasn’t sure how far I’d get with it, but I started by checking to see if my old eBay account was still good. I hadn’t logged in since March 2001, but the account was still there. I haven’t used eBay in a very long time, so it took me about 30 minutes to create the listing and make it live, something an experienced eBayer could have done in 10 minutes or less I’m sure. Then I spent another 20 minutes writing a quickie blog post about it, and that also fed to my Twitter and Facebook pages.

Imagine that. Less than an hour after getting the idea, it was already up and running. If I’d written it down instead of acting upon it immediately, I could have wasted that much time just pondering whether or not I should do it.

A few minutes later, I was Skyping with Erin, and I told her what I’d done. She loved it. Then she checked on the auction and told me I was already up to $51. I said, “You’re joking… it hasn’t even been up for 10 minutes yet.” But she wasn’t joking. By the time I went to bed, it had reached $132.50. The next morning it was at $425. Today it hit $1000, and there are still 3 days left till the auction closes. I can’t predict where it will end up.

If you want to see what it’s up to now, you can visit the auction page. The auction officially ends on Friday, July 30, at 9:28:29 PDT.

The next day I told Joe about this, and he loved it. I told other TLC members about it as well, and throughout the rest of the conference, people would check in with me to see how the auction was going. I think they were just as curious about it as I was.

One morning at breakfast a fellow TLCer asked me, “So what are you up to?” I started telling him what I’d been doing, and he said, “No no… I mean, ‘What are the bids up to?’”

Some people have asked me what this means. Does it mean I’m going to be doing paid coaching and consulting? Does it mean I’ll do more eBay auctions?

Honestly I have no idea. It’s not part of some grand plan. This was pure impulse. I’m simply going with the flow of an inspired idea and riding it to shore. I can’t say when the next wave will arrive or what it will look like.

This wasn’t even an idea with an intention behind it. I wasn’t intending to make money with it or anything. The motivation for this idea was sheer curiosity. I want to see what happens when I act on these sorts of ideas immediately, without trying to analyze or understand them first.

In order to be true to this 30-day trial, I can’t think and plan ahead. If I schedule a bunch of stuff in advance or try to plan things out, I’m at risk of not being able to ride those waves of inspiration when they come.

One thing I find very interesting is that from today through the rest of the trial, my calendar is completely blank. I don’t have a single scheduled appointment at all — no interviews, no meetings, nothing.

There are still some events coming up, including my son’s 7th birthday and some potential travel, but none of it is in the form of a fixed appointment, at least not yet.

I did have an appointment to meet with someone Wednesday morning, but it got bumped to today, so it’s already done with. And I would definitely say it was an inspired meeting.

I’m used to having a flexible schedule, but it’s pretty unusual to have such a huge block of time with no scheduled appointments. I should at least have a radio interview in there… or a workshop… or a scheduled phone call… or something. But no — it’s totally blank. Is that just a coincidence? I can’t say. But this is an ideal time for me to conduct such an experiment. I could even extend it well beyond the 30 days, especially since the next CGW is still 3+ months away.

A Sample Day

As a typical example of how things are going with this trial so far, I’ll share how today went. I woke up at 5:30 this morning, and immediately my mind was racing with thoughts of writing this blog post. I didn’t originally plan to blog about my TLC trip, but the inspiration was there, so I had to ride it. I went straight to my computer and started writing, which was effortless.

After 3 hours of writing, which passed in a blink, the phone rings. It’s Erin inviting me to go to breakfast with her. I realize that I’m starving and could use a break anyway, so I accept. While at breakfast, I got some inspired ideas related to our separation. Instead of pondering them and hashing them out a bit more, I shared them with her immediately. That turned out to be a wonderful thing, as it sent us down a path towards resolving some tricky practical aspects of our separation. Erin and I both leave happier, with a commitment to taking some specific actions that should make life easier for us both.

From breakfast I drove to Starbucks to meet with a British military intelligence officer. I didn’t have any particular need to meet with him other than the fact that he expressed interest, and my intuition gave it a green light. We ended up having a fascinating 2.5-hour conversation. I learned a lot that I didn’t know about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. After a couple hours, the thought occurred that many of my readers might be interested in hearing what he had to say, so I asked him if he’d be up for an interview. He agreed. It turned out that doing an interview would be a win for him too because he’s about to enter a phase of writing and publishing his own ideas, including starting a blog.

By the time I got home, he’d already sent me some article links that we discussed. I haven’t had a chance to read them yet, but I quickly wrote up a forum post to keep riding that wave. I wanted to see if there was interest in such an interview and if people had specific questions. It looks like there is indeed interest, so I’ll compile some questions and send them off to him when I feel inspired to do so.

I wasn’t feeling any major waves of inspiration this afternoon, so I ate lunch, processed some communication, and handled a few minor tasks while watching the movie Pulp Fiction.

Lately I’ve been getting a number of synchronicities associated with the film Inception, which I haven’t seen yet. I thought maybe I’d go see it this evening, and I saw there was a 7pm show at the local IMAX, so I “planned” to hit that show. Whoops.

But around 6:30pm when I was thinking about leaving, I realized that I just didn’t feel inspired to go see the movie, at least not yet. I was starting to feel a mild pull in a different direction — oh yeah, I still wanted to finish up and post the blog entry I’d started in the morning. So I decided to skip the movie and go with the writing wave. You’re reading the result.

While I’m writing the final section of this post, I hear a text message come through on my cell phone, but I don’t check it till now. It’s Rachelle asking about Skyping tonight. That feels right, so as soon as I’ve posted this article, I’ll flow into that next. I haven’t had dinner yet, but I notice I’m not hungry.

There’s another IMAX showing of Inception at 10:20pm. If I go to that show, I’ll still have 30 minutes to Skype, but it would keep me up till 1am. I can’t predict whether I’ll see it tonight or not. I’ll have to wait and see if the energy of the moment is pulling me in that direction.

As I was typing the last sentence, my laptop tells me I’ve got 9 minutes of battery power left. Time to go plug it in.

This is going to be a very unusual 30 days. I have no idea how it will turn out. I can’t even say how much I’ll blog about it along the way — that too will depend on whether I’m inspired to do so.

In any event, you may see some rather erratic behavior from me in the coming weeks. I’m extending this trial across all areas of my life, both personally and professionally. It’s a 24/7 commitment with no breaks except those that occur naturally as the inspirational waves ebb.

I’m excited about this. It’s going to be an interesting 30 days to be sure. Wish me luck!

Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the Conscious Growth Workshop, October 29-31, 2010.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

60-Minute Consultation Auction

Sat, 07/24/2010 - 04:50

I got inspired by an idea this evening and decided to offer a 60-minute consultation to someone. I don’t know what to charge for it, so I created an eBay auction to let the marketplace decide the final price.

The auction goes for 7 days, and it’s already underway, so the clock is ticking.

The bidding starts at only $0.99. The auction is public, so everyone can see what the final price is. There is no “buy now” price. Highest bid wins it.

If you’re the winning bidder, you can use the 60-minute consultation however you wish, as long as you schedule it as a single block of time. It’s fine to divide that time between multiple people if you want to split it with someone.

I can call you by regular phone or Skype. We can even do it via video-Skype if you’d like.

I have a flexible schedule, so it should be easy for us to agree on a time for the call.

During the call, we can talk about anything you’d like, and I will do my best to advise you as I would for one of my closest friends.

You can ask for help or advice regarding anything you desire — personal or professional challenges, blogging, online business, career transitions, financial abundance, health, relationships, spiritual growth, habit change, etc. You can even spend an hour pitching me on a business proposal if that’s your thing.

I’ve never done this before, and I may never do it again. For now this is a one-time offering, sparked by curiosity.

For further details, see the eBay auction page.

Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the Conscious Growth Workshop, October 29-31, 2010.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

Spiritual Salon With Erin

Wed, 07/21/2010 - 18:35

Erin is holding her first Spiritual Salon on Saturday, August 14, 2010 in Los Angeles. She announced this on her blog a while back, but I wanted to announce it here in case anyone missed it who may be interested in going.

We do expect it will sell out since the limit is 25 people, most of the seats have already been reserved, and there’s still a month to go. The cost is $77.

The format of the salon is a Q&A session followed by quick readings for attendees. You’ll be able to ask Erin questions and potentially get some intuitive guidance on a major life question. The setting is cozy and informal, so it’s also a good place to meet like-minded people. There will be tea and vegan cookies too.

Get more information or register for Erin’s salon.

If these are well-received, and I expect they will be, Erin may do more of them. But for now this is the only one she has scheduled.

Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the Conscious Growth Workshop, October 29-31, 2010.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

CGW #4 Results

Mon, 07/19/2010 - 18:00

I’d say that this last Conscious Growth Workshop (July 16-18) was the best one by far.

For this CGW I took the elements from the previous three CGWs that created the best results for people (based on feedback) and put them all together in a single workshop. Consequently, CGW #4 was the most balanced workshop but also the most intense.

The Most Intimate CGW

The smaller size (27 attendees, compared to 70-115 people for previous CGWs) certainly made it more intimate. We even moved it to a smaller room to take advantage of this. No microphones, no sound guy, no stage.

I can’t say whether I liked this smaller CGW or the bigger ones better. The size makes a difference, but I love it either way. It’s just a trade-off between more energy for the larger workshops vs. more intimacy for the smaller ones. I would say that overall, this was my favorite CGW so far. But I think the main reason it worked so well was because it’s gone through so many rounds of refinement, not due to the smaller group.

Some things work better with a smaller group; other elements work better with a larger one. I prefer the larger groups for the games segments because they generate more energy and enthusiasm with more people. But partner-sharing exercises seem to work better with a smaller group.

I saw some amazing shifts in people from the start of Day 1 to the end of Day 3, especially in the social/emotional realm.

I know many people, including me, were sad to see it end. There were lots of hugs goodbye.

I expect to use essentially the same format for CGW #5. I’m sure I’ll make many tweaks based on feedback, but I don’t expect to make sweeping structural changes like I did after the last two CGWs. I think we really nailed it this time and that refinements to future CGWs will likely be more gradual.

If you’ve been to CGW #1 and then attend CGW #5, I think you’ll be very impressed by how much it has improved.

Fieldwork

One new thing we added to this CGW was devoting time during the workshop itself to doing fieldwork outside the meeting room. We had people get into groups and do power, courage, and oneness exercises in public.

There were more than 50 individual challenges that people could choose from. Some were fairly easy tasks like smiling at someone as you walked past them. Others were more challenging such as dancing, singing, and skipping in public and inviting strangers to join in… or walking around pretending to talk aloud to an imaginary friend.

Challenges were sorted into 4 categories, so people could focus on what they needed the most help with:

Building Confidence and Overcoming Shyness and Approach Anxiety
Being Silly / Overcoming Fear of Embarrassment or Attention
Being Assertive / Overcoming Fear of Rejection
Flirting & Connecting More Deeply

Before we went out, everyone had a chance to rate each specific challenge on a scale of 1-3. A 1 means it’s an easy task they felt they could do without much trouble. A 2 meant it was challenging but doable. And a 3 meant, “No way I could see myself doing that!”

I asked people to start with their 1s to warm up, then progress to some 2s, and finally to attempt some 3s when they felt ready for it. These fieldwork exercises continued throughout the whole weekend.

By the end of the first 30-minute session, about half the room had already completed at least one of their 3s.

By the end of the workshop, some attendees had completed all of their 3s, meaning that they’d successfully done things they’d previously thought were beyond their grasp.

It’s very rewarding to help people push through their fears, so they can see for themselves how much more fun and spontaneity they could be enjoying. Building one’s courage is very liberating.

We also did some oneness exercises, including spending time sharing unconditional love with strangers. One woman who was cleaning the floors near the workshop room received a lot of love that day. Imagine how nice she’ll be to her family afterwards.

Feedback

If you attended this CGW, I’d love to hear your personal feedback. How did it go from your perspective? What parts did you find most helpful? What do you feel could be improved? What did you think of the overall balance between the presentation portions, games, exercises, partner sharing, group sharing, fieldwork, etc?

If you have feedback to share, I’d appreciate it if you’d send it to me through my contact form. I print out all the CGW feedback I receive and put it in a file until I’m ready to prepare for the next CGW. Then I sit in my recliner with a pen, notepad, and a cup of herbal tea, and I spend a few hours reading through every word of it and taking notes on anything that’s actionable. Then I use those notes to make design changes to the next CGW. So CGW is constantly evolving. I keep working to make it more impactful and beneficial to those who attend.

I also pay attention to long-term feedback. There have been cases where someone initially said a particular exercise didn’t do much for them, but then months later they realized the impact of it. So I have to be careful not to remove things that are working on a longer time scale. Some of the elements from CGW #1 and #2 that I removed, I ended up adding back in CGW #4 because the long-term feedback told me they helped people in the long run. An example was the Exodus Speech exercise.

Also sometimes I didn’t know if an exercise was working until I removed it, and CGWers who attended multiple workshops saw the difference with and without the exercise and told me they missed it when it was removed and that I should add it back.

CGW #5 – October 29-31, 2010

I expect that CGW #5 in October is going to be even better. We’ve been hearing talk that many alumni from previous CGWs will be returning for it, so in some ways it may have a bit of a family reunion atmosphere. October is traditionally one of the best months for personal development workshops in terms of attendance, while July is one of the worst. So we have good reason to expect a bigger group for the October workshop.

If you’re a CGW #1 alumni, and you haven’t used your freebie pass yet, the October workshop is your last opportunity to use it. If you plan to use your freebie pass, please let Erin know via her contact form. Give her your name and city/state (city/country if outside the USA), so she can have a badge ready for you. Please don’t wait till the last minute if you expect to attend. If the workshop sells out, and then you try to use your freebie pass, we won’t have a seat for you. If there’s a chance you’ll attend, it’s better to confirm with Erin now and then notify her later if you determine you can’t go, so at least you have a seat reserved for you. Just let her know you’re a “maybe,” so if we get close to selling out, she can contact you to confirm either way.

Halloween

Since the final day of CGW #5 is Halloween, we’re planning to invite everyone to wear costumes to CGW that day. You don’t have to wear a costume, but it could make the workshop more fun if lots of people do. Erin and I will probably wear costumes ourselves. I think that would make the fieldwork exercises especially lively.

Vegas is a lot of fun on Halloween. People cruise the Strip in costumes, much like they do on Hollywood Blvd in L.A.

Halloween weather is usually very nice, typically around room temperature during the day and cool at night.

The Future of CGW

The October CGW is the only remaining CGW we currently have scheduled. After that CGW I’ll take more time to assess the long-term impact these workshops are having on attendees, and I’ll consider the best options for future workshops.

I expect to continue doing CGWs, but I’ll probably do them less frequently, maybe once every 6 months. I think once a quarter is a bit too frequent, at least in the same city.

I may also spin off some other workshops. I’m considering creating separate workshops on career and financial development, productivity, relationships, building courage, subjective reality (including intention-manifestation), and more.

Several people have also requested an advanced version of CGW, for those who’ve already attended the original CGW. The challenge of doing something like that is that each person has a different opinion on what “advanced” means. Does it mean going deeper into certain topics, more challenging fieldwork, a longer workshop, etc? I’m open to the idea, but it might make more sense to spin off separate workshops that have a tighter focus, so people can go deeper into certain areas where they need the most help.

I think the best part of CGW is simply bringing together so many conscious, growth-oriented people in the same place. That alone tends to have a very transformative effect on people, especially those who don’t already enjoy such connections as a regular part of their daily lives. Many attendees leave with the feeling that they’ve finally “found their tribe.” So regardless of what kinds of workshops we do or how CGW continues to evolve, I think the most important factor is to keep providing a space for such people to come together face-to-face. The Internet can’t get close to this yet.

CGWs are very rewarding, but they sure take a lot of energy. Last night I went to bed just after 8pm and slept 11.5 hours.

I’m taking a light day today, and tomorrow morning I’m flying to Santa Fe for a weeklong retreat with the Transformational Leadership Council. This is my third TLC retreat, and I’m really looking forward to it. The energy at TLC is very similar to that of CGW — lots of positive, conscious people coming together to help each other grow.

Feeling very grateful, appreciative, and abundant…

Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the Conscious Growth Workshop, October 29-31, 2010.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

Toronto to Las Vegas

Thu, 07/15/2010 - 20:21

This is a final wrap-up post about my Canada trip. First I’ll share some details about the last leg of the trip (Toronto), and then I’ll share some overall travel lessons to broaden the perspective.

After 3 weeks in Canada, I flew back to Las Vegas from Toronto on July 6th. Overall this was an amazing trip, filled with many memorable experiences. When it was time to go back to Vegas, I was both happy and sad — happy for such wonderful growth experiences but sad to see it end. I can’t say it’s really the end though. This trip made me realize just how much I love to travel, and I’ll surely be doing more traveling in the coming months.

Toronto

Toronto felt very American to me — like a blend of New York City and San Francisco. I spent a week there, and aside from all the maple leaf flags and the different currency, it was hard to know I was outside the USA.

It was hot and humid in Toronto, getting up to about 90 F with 50-80% humidity. I didn’t like feeling sticky all day, but I didn’t let the weather stop me from going out a lot. I just sweated my way through it. It was like an all-day hot yoga class, minus the yoga. Even though it’s hotter in Vegas, I prefer our 105 degrees with 7% humidity.

As I was walking around downtown Toronto with a friend one afternoon, he told me that if you accidentally bump into a Toronto resident while walking past them, they’ll say “sorry” even if it wasn’t their fault. The funny thing is that 20 minutes later, that’s exactly what happened. While fumbling with my phone, I accidentally bumped into a woman walking past me, and before I could say anything, she quickly turned and said “sorry” even though it was clearly my fault.

On the final days of our trip, Rachelle and I got City Passes. These are packets of half-price tickets that get you into the CN Tower, Royal Ontario Museum, Ontario Science Center, Casa Loma, and Toronto Zoo. They also include an all day public transit pass. The passes are good for 9 days, so it’s a good deal if you want to squeeze in some tourist stuff. Las Vegas has something similar called the Power Pass.

We first used our City Pass to hit the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). Overall the museum was very interesting, one of the best I’ve seen. I wish we could have spent more time there. We went on Friday night and stayed until closing. It was an extra $7 to see the Chinese Terracotta Army exhibit, which I felt was well worth it. I thought the mixed design of the two parts of the museum clashed (classic vs. modern), but on the other hand, the modern design at the front of the building is an attention-getter that made me curious to see the inside.

We went to the top of the CN Tower around 10pm one night, so it was just after sunset (the sun sets later up north). The view was okay, but I felt the experience was overrated. You can just as easily get a nice view from an airplane as it’s coming in for a landing.

The problem with the CN Tower is that it’s a tourist trap — I mean you literally get trapped up there. When we were ready to leave, there was a long line of people waiting for the elevator to go back down, perhaps a 30-60 minute wait. And it was very humid, so waiting in line up there is a sweaty experience. I said to Rachelle that we have to find another way down. We went to a lower floor of the observation deck and caught an elevator on its way up, just before it reached the top floor. The elevator operator wasn’t going to let us in at first because we were supposed to catch that elevator from the top floor, but I’ve never much cared for other people’s rules, and fortunately I scored a critical on my charm roll, so she kindly let us in. Then we went to the top floor, scooped up more people from the regular line, and sped back down to the street level.

On another day we spent a few hours exploring Casa Loma. This is a castle-like home built by industrialist Sir Henry Pellatt before he went broke and lost it. It was only a few blocks from where we were staying, so we walked over and did the self-guided tour. A Renaissance Faire was in progress when we got there, so there were people in costumes walking around, mock sword-fighting, and various vendors selling trinkets. I quite enjoyed the tour, and the view of the city from the Scottish Tower was great — if you don’t mind climbing some very narrow staircases.

We did the Toronto Zoo on a really hot and humid day. Even the tram driver talked about what a bad day it was to visit the zoo. Many of the animals were hiding in the shade or sleeping.

Like many vegans I have mixed feelings about zoos. On the one hand, they hold animals captive, and there are reports of animals being mistreated at times. On the other hand, they also “rescue” orphaned animals and invest in helping certain species survive. So going to a zoo can be a mixed experience. Overall I’d have to say that even after compensating for the weather, the Toronto Zoo was a bit weak — it doesn’t compare with the L.A. Zoo or the San Diego Zoo.

I think what I most enjoyed about Toronto was just walking around a lot. I especially liked exploring at night (when it was cooler). There were a lot of drunk people out at night though (near Bloor and Spadina), and we occasionally had to step around vomit puddles, but overall it was a lot of fun. We even found an ice cream place that served vegan ice cream and sorbet.

Our Toronto meet-up in Queen’s Park went well, although we had to move the location slightly due to some Pride Week festivities happening nearby. About 15 people showed up, although not everyone stayed till the end. I was pleased that we got that many. It’s always nice to connect with people face to face.

Since we met in a public park, we had a few solicitors walk by to spam our group, including a couple women telling us about their play and a shirtless guy talking about a G20 protest meditation circle. As Rachelle and I left the meet-up, we saw that same guy sitting on the curb at the edge of the park, handcuffed, with three cops standing around talking to him. I don’t know what Toronto’s laws are like, but I wasn’t aware that anything he did would have been illegal.

I continued helping Rachelle with her Fringe play in Toronto, which went really well overall. Some people from the meet-up also came to her show and had a good time. I only wish she’d had a better audio tech for this Fringe. One of the guys who was assigned to her was unpleasant to work with, sporting an “I am God here even though I don’t know even how to use iTunes” attitude. He induced some eye rolls by making pointless demands that had nothing to do with putting on a good show. I’m not sure why this guy was involved in the Fringe at all since he didn’t seem to have any joy for the theatre. By contrast, the tech we had in London was so much easier to work with and seemed to enjoy participating.

During our travels I saw Rachelle’s play a total of 10 times, and I still wasn’t bored with it by the end. That’s because it includes so much improv and audience interaction that it comes out differently each time. She just did her first show for the Winnipeg Fringe today.

Travel Lessons

Taken as a whole, this trip was an amazing growth experience. Let me share some of the things I learned.

First, being on the road for 3 weeks and visiting 3 cities in another country was a lot of fun. I really enjoy going to places I’ve never been to. Even though London (Ontario) wasn’t particularly exciting, I still enjoyed it because it was a new experience. In many ways this trip reminded me of playing computer RPGs and exploring new areas of the game world. Each city is a new adventure.

I did this whole trip without staying in any hotels. In fact, I never slept in a regular bed. Rachelle and I slept on a mattress on the floor in Montreal, an air mattress in London, and a futon in Toronto. That was a mixed bag. On one hand, there was no hotel expense, and we always had an accessible kitchen and free WiFi. On the other hand, these kinds of arrangements can be unpredictable. I felt that things worked out great in Montreal and London, but in Toronto we stayed in the top floor of a 3-story house with no air conditioning, so as the temperature and humidity went up during that week, it became less comfortable to sleep there. Occasionally the house would rumble as trains passed nearby as well. And later on, the shower broke. On the other hand, it was a great location, and we were able to stay there more than a week for free.

Would I have rather paid extra money for hotels? I was tempted to do so in Toronto, but overall no. I’m a resilient traveler, and I feel just as comfortable sleeping on a couch as I do staying in a 5-star resort. I can’t say one is always better than the other. They’re just different types of experiences. For this particular trip, I very much enjoyed the experience of going hotel-free.

One lesson I did learn from this, however, is that it would be wise to feel out each place in advance before accepting an offer for free lodging. Sometimes free is great; sometimes it isn’t so great. For example, if the weather is hot, do they have air conditioning? What hours do the other household members normally sleep? It may take a bit of tact to pre-qualify an offer for a free place to stay without insulting the other party, but it would be worth it in certain situations. I’ll bet experienced couch surfers could share some tips in that regard.

Another lesson I learned is that you can get some really cheap flights if you’re flexible about when and how you fly. Ticket costs vary tremendously. For my initial flight from Las Vegas to Montreal, there were direct flights for around $600 one way. But I got a flight for only $135 total, including all fees and taxes. The catch was that I had to transfer twice and fly at night. I don’t need to pinch pennies like that, but I thought it would be fun to try it as an extra challenge. As it turned out, I actually liked it. Especially after my polyphasic sleep experiment (2005-2006), I find that I can sleep easily on planes and feel refreshed, so flying at night is no big deal. There are no long lines or crowds at night, and the airports are quieter too. I actually preferred a series of shorter flights as opposed to one really long flight. It gave me a chance to get up and walk around the airport for a while instead of having to sit for so long. And I can always pull out my laptop if I want to do some work along the way.

Traveling to a time zone that was 3 hours ahead threw off my daily rhythm, but instead of trying to adapt to local time, I just became a night owl instead. I normally go to bed around 10:30pm in Vegas, but during my Canada trip, I typically went to bed around 2am. This was another area where I had no trouble being flexible. I didn’t feel a need to be an early riser while traveling. It was more fun to be out at night, especially in Montreal and Toronto.

If I had to do this trip over again, I’d have done more advance planning, including coordinating my schedule with Rachelle. It was okay to do this along the way, and it allowed us to be more spontaneous, but we definitely could have done more on the planning side in advance instead of having to spend time doing that during the trip. If we’d prioritized some of the things we wanted to see together and then set aside blocks of time for doing those things, it would have helped us budget our time better. Instead we ended up doing this along the way in an ad hoc fashion. To the degree we did do advance planning, however, like planning a day trip to Niagara Falls, it worked out great.

Time budgeting was a frequent consideration. We really packed in a lot, but sometimes we didn’t allow enough time for certain activities. For instance, we did the whole Royal Ontario Museum in 2.5 hours. We had to rush a lot and didn’t get to see the 4th floor before they closed for the night. It would have been better if we could have set aside 4 hours to see the whole thing, breaking it up with lunch in the middle. But by the time we committed to going, we could only devote 2.5 hours to it.

I also wished I took the time to see more Fringe shows. Not counting Rachelle’s, I saw seven other shows. I could easily have seen double or triple that if I’d planned things out a little better.

I wouldn’t want to overplan. That would be too rigid since I enjoy being spontaneous. So in the future, I might allocate about half my travel time to planned activities and the other half to being spontaneous and going with the flow. It may take some experimentation to find the right balance though.

While traveling I spent very little time handling online communication. When given the choice between spending more time answering emails vs. going out to explore something new, there was no contest. When I’m at home, this distinction isn’t as clear. But while traveling, it becomes a lot easier to separate essential tasks from non-essential ones. On this trip I did what needed to be done and let the rest go.

Sometimes I had issues with the GPS in my phone. Most of the time it worked wonderfully, but occasionally it would take a while to pinpoint my current location. One time it determined that my exact location was in the water between New York and New Jersey, some 450+ miles from my actual location in Toronto. It reported that I’d need about 9 hours of travel time to reach my destination, which in reality was just a few miles away. I had to make sure I didn’t become overdependent on the GPS for navigation since it isn’t 100% reliable.

I learned that locals can be a great source of info, but not always. When I told people that I was visiting from Las Vegas and asked them what would be fun to do while I was in town, sometimes I got good suggestions, but other times I drew blanks. Locals often get caught up in daily living and don’t necessarily go out and do all the fun stuff in their own cities. That was a lesson for me as well. I realized that even in Las Vegas, there are some interesting things to do that I’ve never done yet. I found it curious that I went to the top of the CN Tower in Toronto, but I haven’t even been to the top of the Stratosphere in Las Vegas, which is the tallest man-made structure west of the Mississippi. What interesting things are tourists doing in your city that you haven’t even done yourself? Maybe it’s time you did some of those things, just once for the experience.

In many ways this trip was an unbalancing experience. Away from home I don’t have the same scaffolding around my daily routine, nor the same social support. So while I was on the road, each day was fresh and spontaneous. I felt like Elizabeth Gilbert exploring Italy in her book Eat, Pray, Love. I indulged more than usual. I ate rich foods that I don’t normally eat at home, including vegan cookies and vegan chocolate cake. I drank soy lattes, stayed up later at night, and slept in later. I even enjoyed a silly night of red wine and classic video games. But I sought to balance it with some degree of discipline, so I wouldn’t regret the consequences later. I walked a lot each day, and on average, I only ate about two full meals per day. Unlike Elizabeth Gilbert, I didn’t gain any weight on this trip, but I surely would have if I averaged three meals a day or if I didn’t do as much walking.

When I got home, I needed a short period of adjustment, but now I’m back to my usual routine. I’m getting up early, eating simpler foods (lots of salads and smoothies), and hitting the gym. It feels good to be back to my usual routine now, but it also feels good to know that I can enjoy more indulgent experiences — as long as I don’t overdo it. It would have been no fun if I’d gotten sick on the road.

I think the pacing of about one week per city was just about right, maybe 3-5 days for smaller cities and 7-10 days for bigger cities.

I especially enjoyed traveling with Rachelle. We make very compatible travel companions since we’re both low maintenance. Initially I resisted the idea of a long-distance relationship, but it certainly pushes me to travel more, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, so in terms of my personal growth, it was exactly what I needed. Such a relationship can be an emotional roller coaster though. We’ve had to hug each other goodbye many times at airports in the past six months.

I didn’t like trying to do travel blogging during my trip, in the sense of documenting things as I was going along. It was too time consuming and tedious, and I question the value it provides to others anyway. I wanted to try it as an experiment, but I won’t likely do it for future trips. Instead, I’d be more inclined to write personal growth articles, perhaps using travel stories to illustrate key points if it makes sense to do so. I’d rather spend more time enjoying my travels as opposed to documenting what I’m dong in detail. I think that traveling can yield a lot of personal growth lessons, and I’m interested in sharing those lessons if I think they’ll benefit others. Writing about what I learn also helps solidify my own lessons.

This trip has given me a sense of expansion. Even after 3 weeks and 3 cities, I easily could have kept going, continuing to visit other cities for a longer tour.

Upon returning home, I found that my motivation was sky high. I’ve been getting lots of work done, and I’m ahead of schedule in prepping for CGW this weekend.

For my next trip, I’m going to Santa Fe for a week, leaving on Tuesday. That’s for a Transformational Leadership Council retreat. This will be a different kind of trip since I’ll be staying in a 5-star resort and hanging out with friends from the personal development field.

I feel grateful that I’ve invested so much in my personal growth to reach the point where I can enjoy such a fun lifestyle. For many years I’ve had a career path that bestows plenty of freedom, but I hadn’t fully exercised that freedom. Now that I’m exercising it more, it feels great to do so.

Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the Conscious Growth Workshop, October 29-31, 2010.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

July Workshop Update

Mon, 07/12/2010 - 18:27

Here’s a quick update on the July Conscious Growth Workshop, which starts this Friday (July 16-18).

A More Intimate CGW

This is going to be a smaller CGW than previous ones. I’m guessing we’ll have in the range of 30-40 people, depending on how many last-minute registrations come through (today is the last day to get the $100 discount).

The nice thing about a smaller group is that it’s more intimate and personal. We can get to know each other in ways that just aren’t possible with a larger group. We’re not going to be filming or recording this workshop, so that should help with intimacy as well.

A smaller group also provides more accountability. It’s harder to sit in a back corner of the room and hide. If you commit to doing something, people are likely to check up on you to make sure you follow through.

I have a friend who only does workshops for 40 people or fewer. He’s perfectly capable of speaking to bigger groups, but he prefers smaller groups due to the increased intimacy and connection they create. He charges $2000+ for his workshops, partly to limit the number of attendees.

Obviously I don’t make as much money with a smaller group (since I’m not charging more for it), but I’m okay with that. Other income sources have been doing great recently, so that isn’t a problem. With a smaller group size, the costs are lower too. Depending on the final attendee count, we may not even need microphones and an audio technician. I may also use a less formal seating arrangement and perhaps get rid of the stage altogether to make it easier to connect.

When I first started doing CGWs, I wondered what the best audience size would be. I think I mused about that in a blog post last year. So now I’m looking forward to having our most intimate CGW this weekend.

Last Day to Save $100

Today (Monday, July 12th) is the last day to take advantage of the $100 early registration discount for the July CGW.

Tomorrow the price will increase from $497 to $597. I need to work out the room setup with the Flamingo Hotel tomorrow, so I need a reasonably accurate count of attendees by then.

If you need any help with hotel and travel arrangements, see the Workshop FAQ. It’s very thorough and includes travel tips. Keep in mind that it’s often cheaper to fly to/from Las Vegas than to/from other cities.

Free Passes for CGW #1 Alumni

At CGW #1 (October 2009), I offered all attendees a free pass for any one of the 2010 CGWs. It was meant as an extra “thank you” to those who attended the very first CGW. Many CGW #1 alumni have already used their free passes to attend the January or May 2010 workshops.

This is a reminder that there are only two remaining CGWs in 2010, so if you went to CGW #1 and haven’t used your free pass yet, you can still use it for the upcoming July 16-18 workshop or the October 29-31 workshop. After those two workshops, the free passes expire.

CGW has changed significantly since the original version, so if you do choose to come back, I think you’ll gain a lot of value from it.

If you’re a CGW #1 alumni and you wish to use your free pass for the July or October 2010 workshops, please let Erin know via her contact form, so she can have a badge ready for you. Also let her know your city and state (city and country if outside the USA), so she can list that on your badge too.

CGW Web Page Updated

A couple days ago, I posted a new version of the Conscious Growth Workshop web page.

I rewrote most of the text from scratch to make it more concise. I also added details weren’t there before, such as the part describing the use of accelerated learning techniques. The page contains many photos from the May 2010 CGW as well. It’s still a fairly long page, but I think it flows much better than before.

This version is much more left-brained than previous versions. You could say it’s at the opposite end of the spectrum from the version created by the copywriter that I mentioned in a previous blog post. I think it will give you a more accurate picture of what CGW is all about.

Immerse yourself in a positive environment of conscious growth seekers

Hope to see you at an upcoming Conscious Growth Workshop.

Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the Conscious Growth Workshop, October 29-31, 2010.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

Toronto Meet-up

Sat, 07/03/2010 - 23:21

This post is about our Toronto meet-up, so if you don’t live in or near Toronto — or if you have no desire to go outside in this humid weather — you can safely ignore it.

Meet-up Details

Our Toronto meet-up will be this Sunday, July 4th, at 5pm. The location will be in Queen’s Park. Anyone in or near Toronto, Ontario, who wishes to attend is welcome to do so, including bringing friends and family members. It’s free.

Queen’s Park is located next to the University of Toronto. Our exact meet-up spot will be the Equestrian Statue of King Edward VII, as shown in the photo below. There are benches all around the statue. This statue is located roughly in the center of Queen’s Park, north of Wellesley St, on a small hill. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find. If you have any trouble, just look for a child and ask them, “Can you tell me where to find the horsey statue?”

Now there’s a possibility that for whatever reason, this exact spot may not be available, or it may turn out to be a poor location for us to hang out while we’re there. When I took this photo, there were only a few people around. But it’s possible this particular spot might appear unsuitable when we get there.

Fortunately, we have a few ways to deal with the unexpected. For starters, if you’re able to do so, please be there at 5pm (or earlier), and try to grab some benches for us. If our preferred location isn’t suitable for whatever reason, then we can all move together to a nearby location in Queen’s Park and have our meet-up. Queen’s Park is filled with plenty of benches and picnic tables and shady spots under trees, so it shouldn’t be too tough for us to find a nice place. If you arrive after 5pm and you don’t see us right next to the statue, scout for us in the surrounding area near the statue.

Now if the entire park seems unsuitable for us at the time (due to some festival, demonstration, burning police cars, etc.), our backup meet-up location will be the Back Campus grassy area at the University of Toronto. It’s just a few minute’s walk to the West. Look it up on Google Maps if you don’t know where it is.

If we have to move our meet-up spot, I’ll post the new location on Twitter and Facebook as well.

The subway stations nearest to our meet-up spot in Queen’s Park are the Museum station to the north and the Queen’s Park station to the south. Our meet-up location is only a short walk from either station. The Museum station appears to be closer.

Rachelle and I will both be there. We can stay about 90 minutes, till 6:30pm.

The weather will likely be warm and humid, but there are plenty of shady spots around the statue where we can hang out and talk.

Feel free to bring food, drinks, protest banners, etc.

This meet-up is free and informal, so come with a desire to meet other locals, hang out, and enjoy good conversation.

This is the first time I’ve done a Toronto meet-up (first time in Canada too), so I have no idea how many people will show up. Around 15 people have expressed interest so far.

Rachelle’s Show

Rachelle will be performing her Toronto Fringe play, unADULTeRATED me, on Sunday at the Tarragon Theatre (located at 30 Bridgman Ave, corner of Bridgman and Howland, entrance is on Howland). If you’d like to attend her play before the meet-up, you’re welcome to do so. The play starts at 3pm and ends at 4pm. Just be aware that it’s a very adult show, so don’t bring your kids to it. This play won the Best of the Fest “Most Daring Show” award at the 2010 London Fringe last weekend.

Tickets for the play are $10 each and can be purchased at the door up to an hour before the show. The Theatre seats about 100 people.

If you decide to attend the show, don’t be late… not even a couple minutes late. They won’t let you into the theatre after 3pm, even if you’re a member of the press wanting to review the play.

It’s about a 30-minute walk from the Tarragon Theatre to Queen’s Park, less than a 10-minute drive. I don’t know the subway routes, but you could probably take the subway too.

I’ll be at the show, but I probably won’t have much time to chat while I’m there. I’ll be helping Rachelle set up before the show, take down the set after the show, and then we’ll head over to Queen’s Park together for the meet-up.

I’ll also be at Rachelle’s 8:45pm show tonight (Saturday) and at her Monday night show at 10:45pm.

. . .

Hope you can make it to the meet-up. I’m excited about it because it’s our first meet-up ever outside the USA.

Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the Conscious Growth Workshop, October 29-31, 2010.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

London to Toronto

Wed, 06/30/2010 - 23:43

On Monday Rachelle and I drove from London, Ontario, to Toronto. We’re currently staying in a house in the downtown Toronto area, within walking distance of the University of Toronto. We arrived the day after G20 ended, so we didn’t have any issues with that.

Final Days in London

It seems that regardless of how many times I spell out “London, Ontario,” I still get messages from people saying, “Oh wow… I’m in the UK too… we should meet up while you’re in town.” I guess some people don’t realize that Ontario is a province in Canada. Sorry to disappoint some of my UK readers. I’m sure I’ll visit UK’s London at some point, but for now… it’s Canada.

I spent about a week in London. Overall I had mixed feelings about the city. I liked the people there, but for the most part, I didn’t care much for the city as a whole.

For starters, London is a city that definitely sleeps. I’m used to 24/7 cities like L.A. and Las Vegas, where there’s always something to do at all times of day. Rachelle and I sometimes wanted to stay out late and do fun stuff, but aside from bars, most places closed on the early side. This was in stark contrast to all the nighttime activity in Montreal.

Hunting for Booze

One evening Rachelle wanted to buy a bottle of tequila as a gift for her show technician. Apparently it’s a Fringe tradition to gift your tech with a bottle of booze. However, this turned out to be more difficult — and annoying — than we expected.

First, in Ontario you can’t just buy liquor at any corner market or grocery store like you can in the USA. I’m a bit out of my element in explaining this, so if you’re more knowledgeable about this area, and I’m not quite getting it, feel free to share more details in the forum discussion. But from what I’ve seen, it appears that other than in licensed bars and restaurants, you can only buy liquor for home consumption at certain government-run stores called LCBOs. LCBO = Liquor Control Board of Ontario. I’m guessing there may be some exceptions though.

Rachelle already knew about the LCBOs, so when we were in downtown London, I used my Droid phone to locate the nearest LCBO. We walked there in a few minutes and found out they were closed. It was 7:30pm on a Saturday, and they closed at 6pm. A downtown liquor store that closes at 6pm on a Saturday? Wow! Those are some pretty conservative hours.

The next day we tried another LCBO (at 12:30pm on Sunday), and it was also closed. Sheesh!

Finally we returned to the first LCBO later on Sunday, and it was open. That was the first time I’ve been to an LCBO. It seemed to be well-stocked with many varieties of beer, wine, and liquor. Rachelle bought some tequila and gave it to her tech later that night. He thanked her, took a swig, and we all hugged goodbye.

London Parking

Another frustration I had with London was the parking. Seriously, I think it’s the worst of any city I’ve visited, perhaps aside from Manhattan. A city as small as London doesn’t seem like it would merit such bad parking. This looks like the result of questionable legislation combined with poor urban planning.

First, there’s apparently some law in London that says that no one can park on the streets between 3am and 5am — anywhere in the city. This includes residential streets, so we had to try to squish 3 cars in Karen Bell’s driveway at night or risk getting a parking ticket. Personally I think that’s a bit crazy, and apparently the residents aren’t too fond of this law either. It seems like more of a tax than a law in my view. It might make sense in the winter if the snow plows have to run often, but in the summer? No overnight parking on the streets at all? This law creates problems for residents and visitors alike. What’s the justification for it? Extra money for the city perhaps?

Also, it was sometimes difficult to find parking during the daytime, especially at peak times. London is filled with thin streets that are overcrowded with cars. Parking is often limited to one side only, and there are lots of no-parking zones that seem overly restrictive without good cause.

Eventually I figured out some good places to park, both in the downtown area and just north of it, but more than once we had to hunt for a spot. Also, the 2-hour time limits during business hours were a bit annoying. The crappy parking in London made me feel nostalgic for Vegas, where ample free parking is available city-wide, even in the busiest areas and at peak times. I also have a lot more respect for the Vegas city planners.

I wish I could say, “London is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.” But I really can’t make that leap. Although Karen Bell was an incredible host during our stay, I found the city of London itself to be rather tourist-unfriendly.

The Fringe

One thing I really did enjoy about London was the Fringe Festival. Not counting Rachelle’s show, she and I saw 5 other Fringe plays, including: Long Time Passing, Fishbowl, Gunpowder, Monster, and 39. All of these shows were unique and interesting, and for an average price of about $8 per person per show (we bought the “buddy pass”), it was well worth it. Of these 5 shows, I would say that Gunpowder was my personal favorite. It was a hilarious play about a Clouseau-like detective.

Even though I indulged in some heavier foods on this trip, the busyness of helping Rachelle with her show and doing the Fringe thing caused me to skip at least one meal per day. That helps compensate for consuming a few kilos worth of Karen’s home-baked vegan cookies.

The Toronto Fringe is even bigger than the London Fringe, so I’m hoping to catch at least a few more shows before leaving Canada next week. London’s Fringe has about 50 shows spread across 7 venues. Toronto’s Fringe has 150 shows across 27 venues.

Humidity

I didn’t like the humidity in London (or in Toronto for that matter). Even though it was 70-80 degrees most days (when it wasn’t raining), it felt less comfortable to me than 100+ degree days in Vegas. Vegas summers are hot, but the dryness makes a big difference.

Low Stimulation

Aside from the Fringe, I found London to be on the dull side. Again, I liked the people, but the city itself was underwhelming. Since I grew up in L.A. and now live in Vegas, I’m used to cities with lots of stimulation. In London there just wasn’t much to do, especially at night. Perhaps my most interesting find in London was when I stumbled upon a WWII Sherman tank in a park.

London simply wasn’t big enough to be exciting nor small enough to be quaint. It was somewhere in the murky middle, leaving me feeling that it lacked a strong identity as a city. Even some residents would refer to London as a “city 2 hours outside Toronto,” so it’s possible that London draws upon a wider area for much of its identity, such as the province of Ontario.

On the other hand, London’s nature had me reflecting on my own preference for a highly stimulating environment. After I processed my initial impressions, I opted to look for the good in it and to do my best to embrace it while I was there.

London seems to be a very family-centric place. Many yards don’t have much in the way of fences, or the fences were practically see-through, so I’d imagine this fosters stronger connections with neighbors. One day I accompanied some people to the park to fly a kite with a couple of little kids on a breezy day. Other times I lingered over a meal to savor the experience and enjoy good conversation with friends. After a while, I began to see the appeal of that slower pacing. I doubt I could handle that on a daily basis, but every once in a while, it’s nice to slow down and savor life’s experiences. I think if I lived in London, however, it would have a demotivating effect on me. It seems like an easy place to become complacent.

This trip got me thinking that I should take more time to slow down and savor some of the simpler experiences in life, as opposed to trying to pack lots of activity (work or play) into each day. But at the same time, I wouldn’t enjoy that sort of pacing as my daily default.

Stratford

On Friday afternoon, Karen Bell, Rachelle, and I took a trip to Stratford, a quaint city 30 minutes north of London that’s known for its Shakespearean Festivals. We walked around and did some shopping for a few hours. It was really beautiful there — and very green — especially by the river. I quite enjoyed that trip.

Here’s a pic of Karen and Rachelle next to the river in Stratford. We saw many ducks and swans along the riverbanks.

Rachelle’s Show

I’ve seen Rachelle’s play, unADULTeRATED me, seven times now. I never grow tired of it. Her show relies heavily on audience participation, so she has to do a lot of improvisation, which keeps it fresh. Even though the overall story arc is the same, the show turns out differently every time. I’ve recognized a few repeat attendees in her audiences; it’s neat to see people coming back for more.

Obviously due to my connection with Rachelle, it’s fair to say that I’m biased, but now there are plenty of others who can confirm how frakkin’ talented she is. During her week in London, two of her shows received standing ovations, which is impressive for a Fringe show. Also, at the awards night following the 2010 London Fringe, Rachelle’s show won the Best of the Fest “Most Daring Show” award, out of about 50 shows total. It didn’t surprise me that her show won that particular award. When I first saw her show in Montreal, I told her afterwards, “Wow… you really take a lot of risks with your show, risks that most performers would never go near, but somehow you’re able to make it work.” This is definitely not a scripted show where the actors recite memorized lines.

In her play Rachelle plays a clown character named Fizzy Tiff, and her play takes you through a mock rehearsal of a date with her lover. The part of her lover, however, is played by an audience volunteer. It’s a real volunteer too, not a shill, so the show turns out differently each time. IMO one of her best shows was when her lover was played by a woman — that was a pretty wild one. Another extremely funny show was when her lover was played by a guy who was older than her dad.

I don’t want to spoil any surprises for you, but I’ll mention that since Rachelle plays a character who’s a bit neurotic, her “date” blends story, humor, and sexiness in some unusual combos. Even though I’ve seen it multiple times and in two different cities, I find myself laughing anew each time because it’s never quite the same. Rachelle is really good at injecting improv-style humor that isn’t planned in advance. I know the general pattern of how Fizzy’s date is likely to flow, but the twists are always fresh. In a way it reminds me of a computer adventure or role-playing game where there are semi-scripted sequences and choke points the player is expected to pass through, but the actual gameplay experience is unpredictable due to the freedom of choice element.

Here’s a pic of Rachelle getting her Fizzy on before taking the stage for a promo appearance.

If you want to see Rachelle’s show in Toronto, she’ll be performing July 3-10 at the Tarragon Theatre. Her show is only $10 at the door. I’ll be at the July 3, 4, and 5 shows. I’m flying back to Vegas on July 6th. (See Rachelle’s showtimes.)

I’m usually available to hang out and chat for a while after her shows. Some members of our forum community came to see Rachelle’s London shows, and I enjoyed chatting with them afterwards about life, the universe, and everything.

Toronto

I only arrived in Toronto a couple days ago, and one of those days was spent at Niagara Falls, so at this point I can only share some limited observations. Other than going for a long walk around the downtown area and a little eating and driving, I haven’t seen much of the city yet.

Toronto has a big-city feel that reminds me of New York City, but with fewer skyscrapers. I was drawn in by some of the interesting architecture as we drove around. I hope to see more of that. I would say that Toronto feels a bit more laid back than NYC though.

Some interesting architecture at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto:

Rachelle and I went to a Whole Foods on Avenue Road (Toronto could use a bit more creativity in naming streets, methinks), and the organic produce prices were about 40% higher than what I’m used to in Vegas. Are people really paying $4-5 for one organic cucumber? Maybe that Whole Foods doesn’t have enough competition. Many items had the prices listed as “per 100 grams,” perhaps to make them seem lower. I imagine some people would cringe at seeing tomatoes at $5 per pound.

Pot-friendly?

On my first day here, I was surprised to see a guy casually smoking pot in broad daylight on a busy downtown street. While walking around later, I caught the scent of marijuana smoke at least a couple more times. (Having lived in Berkeley when I was a teenager, I know that smell quite well.) I posted a Twitter/Facebook update to ask if that was normal here, and the response was overwhelmingly affirmative. Some people said it’s even more pronounced on the West coast of Canada.

Supposedly marijuana is illegal in Ontario, but people tell me those laws aren’t strongly enforced.

Canada and the Queen

One thing I find odd is Canada’s apparent obsession with the Queen of England. Her picture appears on Canadian currency, and there are streets and parks and other things named after her too. I even heard on the radio that the Queen thinks of Canada as her home away from home.

What’s up with that? Can anyone explain this? Doesn’t paying homage to another country’s monarch seem a bit loony?

Going Metric

I’m getting used to the metric system. I’m now very good at doing mile-kilometer and celsius-fahrenheit conversions in my head. It’s cool that my Droid phone automatically switched to metric when I crossed the border, so now it gives me navigation directions like, “In 600 meters, turn left at …”

Since I have a Canadian rental car, it’s fun to be driving down the freeway and seeing the speedometer at 120. Makes me feel I’m going super fast, even though I’m barely doing 70 mph. Canadian speed limits are lower than what I’m used to in the USA, but everyone drives the same speed.

I enjoy telling Canadians that Vegas temps are currently in the 40s, and they respond, “Wow… that’s really hot!” I don’t know why that amuses me, but it just does.

Rachelle and I were out at 2am last night, and I was fine wearing shorts even though it was only 12 degrees outside.

Smart Phone Advantage

I’ve been using my Droid phone a lot on this Canadian trip. I had to pay extra to enable it for data access abroad, but it really comes in handy.

I especially like using the navigation and search functions. I like that it can give real-time navigation directions for traveling by car, on foot, or via the subway. This saves a lot of time and makes it easier to be spontaneous when going out.

I also like the search function, especially as it integrates with the GPS and mapping functions. It sure comes in handy when searching for vegan food nearby or trying to find a particular kind of store. After selecting a destination, the phone can navigate me there step by step. It even counts down the distance in 10-meter increments as I walk. Often I hold the phone in my hand and pretend it’s a tricorder. My phone has the tricorder sound effect on it from ST:TNG, so occasionally I pause to scan people with it too. By their reaction I can tell if they’re a Trekkie. I wish I’d scanned the guy smoking pot — it would have been fun to see his reaction.

I love the instant re-routing for the voice navigation. While driving in the car yesterday, a couple of times the suggested route wasn’t possible due to road construction. For example, I was told to turn right on a street where I could only turn left. Whenever I deviate from the anticipated route, he Droid immediately plots an alternate route and starts giving new directions without missing a beat.

Another cool thing is that I can post Twitter and Facebook updates from my phone, including taking photos and uploading them in seconds. I usually don’t post pics to Twitter, but I often do so on Facebook. I posted several new pics yesterday.

During short breaks, such as while waiting in line, I also use my phone to catch up on email. Most of the email I receive doesn’t require a personal response, and the Droid makes it quick to read and process those. For anything that requires a response longer than a couple sentences, I prefer to use my laptop.

I just wish this phone had a longer battery life. Using the GPS functions (like navigation) drains the battery especially fast and causes the Droid to become hot to the touch. I use a free app called TasKiller to kill off any background apps, so the battery lasts longer, and it doesn’t get so hot. But even so, using the navigation for about 4 hours straight is enough to completely drain a full battery, so if I forget to kill the navigation app when I’m not using it (even if the phone is otherwise idle), I soon end up with a warm but powerless brick till I can recharge it.

Feature-wise the Droid phone I have is comparable to an iPhone 3G. I chose the Droid because it integrates very well with the Google apps I already use, like GMail, Google Maps, and Google Calendar. I’d have gone with the iPhone if I thought it more useful to integrate with Apple’s iStuff.

I don’t think I’d want to travel internationally w/o this phone. It’s just way too handy and versatile. On days when the battery died early, I really missed it.

Niagara Falls

On Tuesday Rachelle and I went to Niagara Falls for a day trip.

Niagara Falls is only a 90-minute drive from Toronto. It’s a scenic drive too. I especially enjoyed seeing Lake Ontario from the highway.

Niagara Falls is on the border between the USA and Canada. The border runs right down the middle of the river. There are two major waterfalls there. One is called the American Falls (on the left in the pic below), which is on the USA side. The other is called the Horseshoe Falls (right side of pic), and that’s on the Canadian side. An island in the middle of the river separates the two falls (center of pic).

We brought our passports just in case, but we ended up staying on the Canadian side the whole time. I’m pretty sure that’s the more interesting side. From that side we got a great view of both falls.

We were close enough to the USA that we could have walked across the Rainbow Bridge to get there, but we didn’t see a reason to make the crossing, given all the things to do on the Canadian side. It did feel strange to be within walking distance of my home country and not bother crossing the border. It just seemed like it would have been more trouble than it was worth.

We got an “Adventure Pass” for the day (about $40). This allowed us to use the People Mover (basically a bus) to travel to different stops along the river. It also included 4 different activities: (1) a ride on the Maid of the Mist, (2) a ride in an elevator built in the 1930s followed by a walk along a boardwalk to see the rapids at the narrowest part of the river, (3) an excursion behind the Horseshoe Falls, (4) a really cheesy movie / simulated experience about the history of the falls.

Here’s a pic of us wearing the plastic cover-ups near the Horseshoe Falls:

Here’s a pic of a rainbow in front of the Horseshoe Falls:

Lots of people told us to do the Maid of the Mist ride. It was well worth it. Even with the plastic cover-ups provided, it was a very wet ride. We sailed right up next to the Horseshoe Falls from below. We got wet due to all the wind and heavy mist created by the falling water. I think that waterfall does about 34 million gallons per minute in the summer. It was impressive to see it up close.

The area next to Niagara Falls (on the Canadian side) seemed a bit silly in terms of the touristy stuff. It’s filled with casinos, campy decor, places to eat, and various attractions like a ferris wheel, water park, wax museum, house of mirrors, a giant maze, a haunted house, Dracula’s something or other, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, and lots of other goofiness. It felt like a cross between the Las Vegas Strip and Hollywood Blvd, but in a more compact area.

Here’s a pic of the Canadian city next to the falls:

I didn’t care for the campiness of the surrounding city — and that’s saying something given that I live in Vegas — but I really enjoyed the natural beauty of the falls. It’s one thing to see it on TV, but it’s quite another to see and hear the roaring waters and feel the mist on your face. I’d definitely recommend a day trip there (or a few days if you want to meander) to anyone who thinks it might be worth a trip.

We opted to hit Niagara Falls less than a day after arriving in Toronto because it’s expected to be much busier later in the week, with July 1st being Canada’s birthday, and July 4th being a major USA holiday.

Toronto Meet-up

At least a dozen people have expressed interest in a Toronto meet-up, so I’m up for doing that while I’m in town. I think the weekend would be best since some people still have M-F jobs apparently. I’m leaning towards Sunday late afternoon or early evening. Rachelle has a show on Sunday at 3-4pm, so sometime after that would be great for us since we have that evening free.

The next step is to select a good meeting spot. I don’t know the area well, so I’m open to suggestions. We’re staying a few blocks from the intersection of Bathurst St and Dupont St. It looks like there’s a big park in or near the University of Toronto, which is within walking distance for us. Would that be a good spot?

I wouldn’t suggest that we meet in a restaurant — we’d likely have too many people to make that work, and most restaurants aren’t very good for mingling.

In New York City, Erin and I hosted a two-hour meet-up in a dance studio in Midtown Manhattan on a weekend morning. That one drew about 40 people. We opted for an indoor location since the weather was on the cold side, and there was a chance of rain.

I’d expect a Toronto meet-up would be smaller than our NYC meet-up, maybe 15-30 people if I had to guess.

I’d suggest a public place like a park. The weather is expected to be nice this weekend, so let’s do something outdoors if possible. In the spring we did a picnic-style meet-up in Vegas, and that was a nice relaxed environment to hang out and talk for a while.

Can any Toronto locals suggest a good location for a Toronto meet-up, something that would be (1) free, (2) easily accessible via Subway, (3) conducive to mingling and lots of simultaneous conversations, and (4) ideally within walking distance of Bathurst & Dupont?

The meet-up will be free of course and open to anyone who wants to go. There’s nothing formal planned. Just hang out, meet cool people who live in your city, and chat about anything that interests you. It’s very relaxed and casual.

Once we have a meet-up location worked out, I’ll post about it on my blog to let you know the details.

Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the Conscious Growth Workshop, October 29-31, 2010.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

CGW Sales Page Lessons

Thu, 06/24/2010 - 18:34

You may be aware that a couple months ago, I worked with a copywriter to redo the Conscious Growth Workshop sales page. This particular copywriter was a referral from a friend and claimed he could greatly increase the conversion rate of my original sales page.

In the end, however, the sales page he created had exactly the opposite effect. I let it run for about 6 weeks, and the results during that time were utterly dismal.

I didn’t do any formal A/B split testing, but a reasonable estimate based on expected results is that CGW registrations dropped by roughly a factor of 5 while the copywriter’s version of the sales page was online. So despite all the various sales techniques he used, my original no-frills “wall of text” version of that page actually outperformed his version by 5-to-1. That’s no small difference. That’s a lot of money too (in the five-figure range).

And this is especially telling given that his version of the page incorporated some nice video testimonials from previous CGW attendees as well as 3 new downloadable bonuses for no added cost. I created two of the bonuses, and the third bonus was created by CGW alumni. So there was actually even more value for the copywriter to work with.

It’s important to be careful not to overgeneralize from such a limited experiment, but if you couple the actual sales results with the abundance of feedback I received via email, Facebook, Twitter, the forums, and even face-to-face at CGW #3 in May, the big picture is pretty clear.

Overall, it’s fair to say that most of the readers who gave me feedback very much disliked the copywriter’s sales page. They described it as “cheesy” and “manipulative.” Some people downright hated it. Many said they would never buy anything from a page like that, even though this sort of sales page is incredibly common on the Internet.

Now it’s one thing to receive such feedback from people who’ve never attended a CGW and had no plans to do so in the future. That kind of feedback isn’t particularly actionable. But I also heard from several people who attended CGW, claiming that they never would have attended CGW at all if they’d seen the copywriter’s sales page first. That kind of feedback is certainly actionable in my view. I can’t simply brush it off.

Sales Page Fail

Since the copywriter’s sales page failed to perform, the next decision was a no-brainer. I took it offline a few weeks ago.

I replaced the copywriter’s sales page with a modified version of my original CGW page.

I didn’t re-use any sales text created by the copywriter. Since the results were so bad, I figured it was best to just scrap all of it and go back to my original version.

I kept the free bonuses, so those are still there, but I removed the over-hyped descriptions and replaced them with my own, so they’re now described in plain English (or at least my version of plain English).

I also kept the video testimonials. Those were recorded after a CGW by our video guy, so they copywriter wasn’t involved in creating those at all.

Additionally, I added about a dozen photos from a previous CGW, in order to give you a better idea of what CGW actually looks like. These photos were taken at CGW #3 last month.

I still think the sales page needs work, but at least we have a version online that does a good job of explaining what CGW is all about, sans hype, and I haven’t received any complaints that it turns people away. On the contrary, I’ve already received some positive feedback about it, especially with the addition of the photos.

Within a matter of hours of replacing the sales page, a new CGW registration came through, and that person actually dropped me a note to say that he wouldn’t register via the copywriter’s page since he was so turned off by it that he didn’t want to contribute to its stats, thereby risking that I might keep it online. That about sums it up!

Fortunately I didn’t pay this copywriter any money. I probably would have been rather pissed off if I had. We were going to do a trade instead, but since he ultimately wasn’t able to deliver on his grand claims of increased conversions, there was no basis of consideration for any trade. Despite the negative results, however, I probably still would have gone through with the trade, but that deal fell apart for other reasons. Even so, it’s fair to say that just by performing this experiment, I lost a good chunk of potential CGW registrations, and it’s hard to say if those sign-ups will ever be recouped.

Lessons Learned

Despite the overwhelmingly negative results, I’m glad I did this experiment.

I learned that my original sales page for CGW was perhaps not so bad after all. It may not have been pretty, but it was honest and straightforward, and people obviously liked that. I also learned that my Internet marketer friends — who encouraged me to incorporate the same sales techniques they were using — may not be so brilliant after all when it comes to knowing how to sell something like CGW.

What I find especially interesting is that even many of the people who disliked the copywriter’s sales page actually predicted that CGW sales would increase while that page was online. That didn’t surprise me. It seems to be a common perception that such sales pages must be effective if so many online entrepreneurs are using them. But perhaps they aren’t as effective as people assume. Maybe those pages are so popular not because of their inherent effectiveness but simply because so many Internet marketers have been teaching people to make those kinds of pages for years.

The design of such sales pages stems from direct mail, which has a history dating back more than 100 years. Should we still be relying on snail mail sales methods from the last century?

With most direct mail, there’s no personal relationship to speak of, so hard-sell tactics are used to stir up a person’s emotions and push for an immediate sale. The Internet is different though. The online world is becoming more about ongoing relationships, especially with the rise of blogs and social networking. There’s so much stimulation available already that it’s unnecessary for people to buy something to achieve a perceived emotional benefit. They can find plenty of free substitutes to create the same effect.

Provide a genuine benefit at a fair price, however, and hard-sell tactics may be completely pointless.

Despite the financial sting, I’m actually glad this experiment turned out the way it did. I probably would have been more bothered if the copywriter’s sales page succeeded in a big way. Looking back, I feel I did my best to give it a fair chance to prove itself; I don’t see any evidence that I sabotaged the results. But it’s nice to know that a more authentic approach to selling not only feels better to me — it also appears to be the more profitable route in the long run. It’s nice to know that the apparent conflict between following the path with a heart and making the best financial decisions for my business may be a false dichotomy. It does seem possible to do both at once.

I also hope this experiment will give Internet marketers pause… maybe even scare them a bit. What if their best efforts are only performing at 20% of capacity or less? What if they simply dropped the contrived tactics and instead communicated with web visitors like real human beings? Perhaps the reason they must use such tactics is that the products and services they offer are of questionable value to begin with.

Is it possible that the best sales techniques may actually be authenticity and straightforwardness? Is it possible that all the fancy complexities espoused by Internet marketers could actually hurt sales?

What if you could instantly start earning 5x as much money by removing the technique-based sales page from your website and replacing it with a straightforward, no-frills “wall of text” that explains in plain English what you’re offering and how you think it could benefit people? No pressure. Just say, “Here’s what I’m offering. Here’s what it costs. Take it or leave it.”

I could say a lot more about this, but for now I’ll leave this for you to consider.

July CGW

The July Conscious Growth Workshop is only 3 weeks away. It will be held July 16-18, 2010 (Fri-Sun) at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas.

Largely as a result of doing this sales page experiment, the July CGW is undersold compared to previous CGWs. We’re at 20 paid registrations so far, which is definitely on the low side. Normally by this point we’d be at 50+ registrations.

We do typically get a lot of last-minute registrations, but even considering that, this will most likely to be our smallest CGW to date. Although that means less income for me, I actually don’t mind this. It means we’ll have a more intimate environment with the potential for more individual attention than at previous CGWs.

Fortunately our costs for doing a CGW are such that even if we don’t get any more registrations, we aren’t at risk of losing money on it. So rest assured that the July CGW is still going to happen.

I’ve had the opportunity to refine and polish CGW a great deal since CGW #1 in October 2009. The overall content remains largely the same, but the way the content is presented has changed a lot over the past year. Many accelerated learning techniques are used to make it easier for you to learn, retain, and apply the material. Best of all, CGW is also a lot of fun. That should be obvious from looking at the photos.

$100 Discount Period Extended

Partly to help compensate for the negative experiment results, I’ve decided to extend the $100 discount period for the July CGW. Originally it was going to expire on June 16th, but I’ve extended it through July 12th. That’s the Monday before CGW begins. So if you want to attend CGW for $497 instead of $597, you still have about 2-1/2 weeks to sign up.

I also made this extension for the October workshop as well, so now the $100 discount for that workshop is extended through October 25th. Again, that’s just 4 days before the workshop begins.

I’m able to do this because now that we’ve already done CGW three times, the hotel team we work with knows our requirements, so they only need three days lead time for us to work out the final room setup with them. This greater efficiency means that I can extend the discount period much longer than before.

If you’d like to learn more about CGW and sign up for the July and/or October workshops (yes, some people do attend multiple CGWs), just visit the current CGW sales page.

Entrepreneurial Experimenting

I’ve been an entrepreneur for 16 years now, and I know I wouldn’t be doing very well in business if I wasn’t willing to experiment, especially when there’s financial risk involved.

In my first several years in business, I tried to learn everything I could from other people. I essentially did what everyone else in my field was doing. I read books written by experts and followed their advice. Some of their advice worked, but much of it didn’t. Five years later I was bankrupt.

I didn’t give up though. Eventually I started paying more attention to my intuition, and I began conducting my own experiments to figure out what would actually work for me. Often the results I obtained through direct experimentation were practically the opposite of what other people, including the “experts,” said would happen.

For example, one time I conducted an experiment with my computer games business. I did a formal A/B split test where half the people visiting my website would have the opportunity to download free demos of each game I sold, and the other half wouldn’t have access to the free demos. Many people in the field made predictions about which group would produce more sales, but they couldn’t agree. Most people said the free demos would increase sales.

Ultimately the results were completely neutral. The difference in sales was so negligible that it didn’t matter whether I had free demos on the site or not. Sales were not measurably affected either way. That result surprised a lot of people. The benefit to me was that, coupled with other experiments, I learned where to best focus my efforts to increase sales. Other developers potentially wasted a lot of time and energy optimizing things that made no difference whatsoever, whereas I was able to take steps to increase my sales by a factor of 10 over a period of years.

It didn’t take me long to see that I was frequently getting better results by doing my own thing instead of applying the most popular solutions. I realized that a great many respected experts, including lots of published authors, really don’t know what the frak they’re talking about. Their advice was counterproductive much of the time. Many so-called experts simply rehash what they’ve been taught, and as the world of business changes, their advice eventually becomes inaccurate and then obsolete. Yet they continue to preach the same old drivel.

I extend this attitude into my personal life as well. I got caught up following the prescribed path of going to college, getting engaged, getting married, having kids, buying a house, etc. It seemed like the thing to do. But for whatever reason, it didn’t yield the long-term happiness it promised. So now I’m experimenting once again to figure out what actually works for me as an individual. And as usual, there are plenty of people making a fuss about it, proclaiming that what I’m doing isn’t going to work and that I should go back to doing what everyone else is doing.

And they’re still wrong.

Most important of all is this. Don’t copy what I’m doing. What works for me may not work for you at all. Conduct your own experiments to figure out what works best for you as an individual, whether you’re pursuing increased sales, better health, greater happiness, etc.

This is actually something we teach at CGW. It’s part of the 5th principle of conscious growth — becoming your own authority.

Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the Conscious Growth Workshop, October 29-31, 2010.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

From Montreal to London

Wed, 06/23/2010 - 20:40

I finally have some time for another update on my Canada travels, so here goes…

Montreal

I really enjoyed my stay in Montreal, which I found to be a very sensuous city. There’s so much to take in with the senses, including much beauty to behold (some natural, some manmade), delicious foods to enjoy, and music to experience. Montreal has a certain joie de vivre that’s very captivating. I don’t think I’d want to live there, but it was a fun place to visit.

Montreal is especially active at night. Many restaurants line the streets, and their outdoor patios are filled with patrons even well after midnight. Late into the night the streets are filled with people, some of them sober. Crowds of twenty-somethings form staggered queues outside loud but tiny dance clubs (tiny by Las Vegas standards at least).

On Friday, Rachelle and I took the the Metro (Montreal’s subway) to the Jardin Botanique. The subway was very fast and efficient and much cleaner looking than New York City’s. All the signs are in French, and the subway stops are announced in French too. I picked up a few more words to help me improve my Franglais.

The Jardin Botanique was huge — much larger than I expected. We walked through sprawling greenhouses filled with a variety of plants — everything from tropical rainforest flowers to spice plants to desert cacti. Then we went outside and walked through massive veggie gardens. And finally we strolled through the beautifully sculpted Japanese and Chinese gardens.

In the Chinese gardens near the water, there were lots of tiny frogs on the walkway. Each frog was only about the size of a housefly. We had to step carefully along the path to avoid squishing them. Along the way we noticed one frog that didn’t appear so lucky.

As we left the gardens, we also saw the Parc Olympique, a huge stadium built for the 1976 Olympics at a cost of more than $1 billion. Apparently it was a big embarrassment for the city since the project went way over budget, and the retractable roof never worked properly. The place looked deserted when we were there, but supposedly it’s still used to host various events.

Montreal to London

Rachelle’s final show in Montreal was at 11pm Friday night, ending at midnight. She had a tech setup in London the very next day at 11am. So we had 11 hours total to take down the set, pack up, get some sleep, clean up the apartment we were staying in, catch a cab to the airport, fly to Toronto, pick up a rental car, drive from Toronto to London, and reach the theater in downtown London.

That was quite a night. I managed to get about 90 minutes of sleep, and Rachelle got about 10 minutes. The cab we arranged to pick us up at 5:15am didn’t show up, but fortunately an empty cab happened down the street just as I was about to call for another one, so I flagged it down, and he was happy to take us to the airport. We got through airport security and made it to the terminal about 10 minutes before our flight began boarding.

The flight from Montreal to London, Ontario, only took an hour. We picked up our rental car, and we were on the road by 10am and made it to the theater at about 11:20am. That still left enough time for Rachelle to complete her tech setup. Then we grabbed some lunch, and she did her first London show at 4:30pm that day.

London

After Rachelle’s first London show, which went great, we popped over to the home of our friend Karen Bell, who graciously invited us to stay with her while we’re in London. As it turned out, her neighbors recently sold their home, and they were willing to let us stay in the empty house before the new owners moved in, which will happen later this week. The house has no furniture, but Karen provided us with a bed and some other necessities.

When we first got to Karen’s, she offered us some dinner, but Rachelle and I were both pretty tired and didn’t feel like eating just yet, so we decided to unpack our suitcases and rest a bit first. Around 7:30pm we lied down on the bed just to see what it felt like, and we ended up falling asleep almost instantly and sleeping for a couple hours. Shortly before 10pm, we went back to Karen’s house, knocked on the door, and after getting past her two playful greyhounds, we said, “We’re hungry!”

Karen fed us raw zucchini pasta with marinara, some raw dehydrated bread, raw lime pie, and licorice-mint tea. It was quite delicious, especially after such a long day. Then Karen’s husband Darryl introduced us to his classic arcade machine, and we played arcade games such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Street Fighter II, and Tetris until after midnight. Then Rachelle and I returned to the house next door and slept for many hours, finally getting up just before noon. (I expect I’ll soon be ready to write “How to Become a Late Riser.”)

On Sunday we had lunch with Karen, Darryl, and Karen’s parents, which was very nice. I also video-Skyped with Erin and the kids, since my kids wanted to wish me a happy Father’s Day. They showed me a couple artistic gifts they made me, which were really cute to see.

Obviously part of this experiment involves seeing how it feels (for all involved) if I’m away from my kids for an extended period of time. It’s one thing to guess about it, but I prefer to see how it goes by diving in and testing. At this point I don’t have anything significant to report, but I will note that video-Skyping is a great way to keep in touch from the road, and best of all, it’s free.

unADULTeRATED me

Rachelle has performed her Fringe show, unADULTeRATED me, 3 times in London so far, and she has 3 more to go, including one later today. I’ve seen all of her London shows so far (and one in Montreal). They come out differently every time since her show relies heavily on audience participation. Her second show here got the best reception, after which she received a standing ovation. That show went really well, so the standing-O didn’t surprise me. Interestingly that was the show in which her main audience volunteer was a woman.

Rachelle’s show is about a woman who’s rehearsing a date with the man of her dreams, so having a woman volunteer for the man’s role created a whole different energy. The audience loved it, and Rachelle did a great job of adding in lots of extra humor to play off the female-female interaction.

Since I never participated in drama when I was in school, I’m enjoying learning about theater in such a hands-on way. I’ve been helping Rachelle promote her show locally by putting up fliers and posters, and I’ve helped her set up and take down her sets before and after each show. I’ve also enjoyed chatting with people after the show. For the past two shows, members from the discussion forums have been in the audience too.

After each show, I help Rachelle do a postmortem on how it went. She’s constantly tweaking things from one show to the next, so I give her feedback on what worked well, what could be improved, and how the audience reacted to each part. This is tricky because every audience is different, so sometimes ideas that were a hit with one audience may not work as well with another.

Helping out behind the scenes is a different experience for me since I’m used to being the guy on stage. I think I get more nervous for Rachelle doing her shows than I ever did before doing a speech or a workshop.

If you happen to be in the London area and want to see Rachelle’s show, you’re welcome to come. Her show schedule can be found here. Just be aware that it includes sexually oriented content and nudity, so please leave the kids at home, and bring a playful attitude.

More About London

Before visiting London, a few previous London inhabitants warned me that it isn’t necessarily a place I’d enjoy visiting for an entire week. I see what they mean. There doesn’t seem to be all that much to do here, especially late at night. Rachelle and I had a hard time finding places to get vegan food after her shows. As far as we can tell, there’s only one all-vegan restaurant in the city, Veg Out. We’ve eaten there twice so far. The food is pretty good, but the service is very slow — nowhere close to the speedy service I’m accustomed to in Las Vegas. Both times it took more than 30 minutes for us to get our food, and the restaurant wasn’t full either time.

Another restaurant we found was Zen Garden. It’s a vegetarian restaurant downtown with a lot of vegan options. We’ve only eaten there once, but the atmosphere was nice, the service speedy, and the food good. We ate there just before closing though, so we were the only customers at the time. I wouldn’t mind eating there at least once more before we leave for Toronto.

So far though, I think the best place to get raw/vegan food in London has been Chez Karen.

One thing I noticed about the restaurants here is that many of them bring portable electronic devices to the table when I opt to pay with a credit card. I punch in the tip amount, or push a button to tip 15% by default, and push a few more buttons, and it prints out a receipt right at the table. I’ve never seen these devices in the USA. Rachelle tells me they’re common in Canada though, perhaps because paying for meals with debit cards is more common than using credit cards. I always use credit cards though. Why are debit cards more popular in Canada? I don’t see the advantage if you pay off your credit card balance in full each month, so there’s no interest to pay.

I’m not planning to do a special London meet-up (mainly since there hasn’t been much interest in one), but if you’re in the area and want to say hi, it should be easy to catch me after one of Rachelle’s shows. I’ll be hanging out after the show to help Rachelle take down the set. That only takes about 15-20 minutes usually, after which we can chat in the art gallery area outside the theater.

Time to leave now for another of Rachelle’s shows…

Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the Conscious Growth Workshop, October 29-31, 2010.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

Canada Trip

Thu, 06/17/2010 - 22:00

For the next 3 weeks, I’m embarking on a trip through Eastern Canada, visiting Montreal, London, and Toronto. (That’s London in Ontario, not London in the UK.)

I expect to blog about this trip along the way, so if you have no interest in reading about it, simply skip those posts. They’ll be easy enough to identify by the titles.

I decided to take this trip for a number of reasons. First, I’ve never been to Canada before, and I love new experiences.

Secondly, I set the intention to do more international travel, and very quickly thereafter, the opportunity to take this trip manifested, so it was easy to say yes to it.

Thirdly, I’m traveling with Rachelle, who’s currently on tour with her play for the Fringe Festival. Most likely I’ll see some of the Fringe shows along the way.

There are other reasons, but I really don’t need them. This was one of those “you had me at hello” manifestations.

Since Erin and I still have many divorce details to work out, our finances are still co-mingled. So to be fair to her, one of my constraints for this trip is that I want to keep any travel expenditures low — at least low enough that they have no meaningful impact on our joint finances. Ideally it would be great to earn money as a result of this trip, so it more than pays for itself. That can realistically be achieved simply by blogging about it along the way, since new blog posts generate traffic and income. It also makes more of my travel expenses tax deductible because the trip now has a business component to it.

In a larger context, this trip is a bit of an experiment. I’ve been considering the idea of taking a year or more to devote to extended travel around the world (possibly in 2011), essentially running my business from the road. There are a lot of challenges to overcome to make that a reality. None seem insurmountable, but there are some tricky trade-offs to consider. I also don’t know if I really want to commit to something like that.

So first, I want to get a feel for what it would be like to run my business from the road for an extended period of time in another country. This will not only be my longest trip outside the USA, but it will also be my longest trip ever in terms of the number of continuous days spent away from home. While I’m sure to do some touristy things along the way, I intend to keep up with my work as well.

Fortunately I happen to be in the lucky position of being able to define my work as pursuing my path of growth and sharing what I learn along the way for the benefit of others. So for the next few weeks, my work will involve pursuing personal growth through travel and sharing what I learn on this trip. Hopefully I can share some things that you’ll find interesting, insightful, or at least entertaining.

And if for whatever reason, this experiment doesn’t resonate with you, no hard feelings. I certainly won’t be offended should you choose to tune out during this time. Most likely I’ll be too immersed in what I’m doing to worry about that sort of thing.

Traveling to Canada

If you follow my Twitter updates, then you know that my trip is already underway. I left for Canada on June 15th, so I’ve been here for a little over 48 hours now. I’m currently in Montreal, Quebec.

Flying to Canada from Las Vegas was painless. Airport lines were short or nonexistent, and my plane landed in Montreal about 25 minutes ahead of schedule.

Before booking my flight, I wasn’t sure whether to travel by day or by night. In the end I opted to travel at night, since I happen to be one of those people who can sleep pretty well on planes (especially after my polyphasic sleep experiences). That way I wouldn’t lose a whole day to travel. I wouldn’t recommend this for most people, but it worked great for me. The travel time flew by since I slept through much of it.

On the plane to Montreal, I immediately noticed a lot of people speaking French on board. The safety instructions were given in English first, then in French.

As I got off the plane, I saw that all the airport signs were in French first, then with an English translation next to them. For example, the exit signs said, “Sortie | Exit.”

Getting through Canadian customs was hassle-free and took just a few minutes. The only issue was that I had to declare that I had nuts on my person — or risk a $400 fine. I didn’t see why I should hide my nuts, so I checked a box on a form to declare them. As a result of that declaration, a security person directed me to a side room, where a very attractive blond woman proceeded to inquire about my nuts. I described them to her, and then I unzipped my bag and plopped my sack of nuts on the counter for her to inspect. She smiled and nodded her approval. Then she waved me on through, so I put my nuts away, zipped up, and proceeded to the taxi area.

There was no line for a taxi, so I got one right away. The taxi driver was bilingual. I gave him the apartment address, and he knew right where to go, so we got there lickety-split. During the ride we listened to a French talk show on the radio.

Currency

I opted not to exchange any currency at the airport since I read online that the airport exchange rate tends to be a bit poor, and I figured I’d mostly use a credit card to pay for purchases anyway. I still don’t have any Canadian money yet, other than a penny I found, but there are a few currency exchange places within walking distance that have reasonable rates. Canadian money is very colorful. They have $1 coins, which are called loonies (because they have a loon on them), and $2 coins, which are called toonies. I guess the word toony is derived from the word two. I like the toonies because they look like one coin in the center of another.

The exchange rate between American and Canadian dollars is very close to 1-to-1 right now, so for all practical purposes, I can just interpret all Canadian prices as if they’re in American dollars.

So far, prices in restaurants seems to be equivalent to what I’m used to in large American cities. Tipping is the same as in the USA. I’ve only been here a couple days, but there haven’t been any surprises so far.

One thing I found unusual is that whenever Rachelle and I went out to eat, before bringing our bill, the server would ask us if we wanted to pay together or separately. I think this happened every time we ate out so far. The first time it happened, I shrugged it off, but when it kept happening, I asked Rachelle about why they keep doing that. She said this practice is normal in Canada. In the USA, however, it would be rather unusual. For groups with a certain dynamic, like a large group with people arriving separately, the server might ask if people want separate checks, but for a couple dining together, that pretty much never happens. They’d just bring one check for the table by default.

Montreal

After Paris, Montreal is the city with the second largest primarily French-speaking population, with 52.4% of the population reporting that French is the language they most often speak at home. (By comparison, English is at 12.5%.)

Rachelle and I are staying in a small one-bedroom apartment in the downtown area, a few blocks north of McGill University. This place reminds me of an apartment I had back in college. It has a very dorm-like feel to it.

We’re also within walking distance of Mont Royal, the large hill from which the city gets its name.

Montreal is on Eastern time, so it’s 3 hours ahead of Las Vegas, which is on Pacific time. My sleeping hours are definitely off, enough that I could easily write a new article titled, “How to Become a Late Riser.” The first night I was here, I didn’t get to bed till 4am. Last night I think I went to bed around 2:30am. I have plenty of energy during the day though. Overall I’m feeling quite fascinated by what I’m seeing, doing, and learning.

From what I’ve seen so far, I really like Montreal. The city just oozes with culture.

One night as Rachelle and I were walking around close to midnight, we happened upon a free outdoor concert. Early today we turned a corner and saw a street that was closed to traffic and filled with vendors (clothes, food, art, etc). That street reminded me of Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

Many of the buildings have a very European look to them. Montreal also reminds me of the lower east side of Manhattan, where you might see local musicians jamming in a public park together, as well as Greenwich Village. There are lots of interesting things to see and do just by walking around. However, Montreal has a lot more greenery than New York City — and a lot more French too.

Food-wise, Montreal appears fairly vegan friendly. I enjoyed eating at the vegan restaurant Aux Vivres and the raw restaurant Crudessence, both within walking distance. I especially enjoyed the raw fruit crepes from Crudessence.

I wish I had more time to spend in this city, but we’re leaving early Saturday morning, so Friday is our only full day left. Most likely we’ll take the subway to explore the Biodome de Montreal (some kind of bio-dome) and the Jardin Botanique (Chinese botanical gardens).

Français

I find myself utterly fascinated by the bilingual nature of this city. As I walk down the street, I’ll pass people speaking English, then French, then English, then French.

Most shop signs are either bilingual or in French only.

Every merchant I’ve dealt with so far has been bilingual. Most of the time I am greeted in French, but if I respond in English (or dare to use my butchered Franglais), they immediately switch to English too.

I grew up in Los Angeles, which is a multicultural city as well, having an especially high Spanish-speaking population. About half of my friends in grammar school and high school were Hispanic, and many spoke Spanish at home. However, in L.A., language differences fall strongly across race lines. If I walk into a Mexican restaurant where everyone there speaks Spanish as their primary language, no one is going to greet me in Spanish. However, in Montreal, you can’t easily guess a person’s primary language just by looking at them (at least I can’t), so I’ve often been greeted en français.

One thing I’m really enjoying about this trip is the chance to brush up on my French. I took 3 years of French in high school and got straight As all the way through. In my junior year I placed 4th in California in the National French Contest. I was even beginning to learn how to think in French. However, not having cause to seriously practice the language for 20+ years has made my pretty rusty.

This trip seems to be gradually re-activating my French language skills. Every day I’m remembering more of it and pushing myself to keep learning as much as I can.

Fortunately Rachelle knows French reasonably well because her schooling from kindgergarten through 8th grade was in French. She’s not at the skill level of the native speakers in Montreal, but she can at least translate pretty well.

The main thing that’s holding me back from trying to converse in French is that I’ve forgotten so much of the vocabulary. I have to relearn so many of the basic nouns and verbs just to communicate the simplest of ideas. My recognition of French words is much higher than my recall ability. So I can understand a lot of it, especially in writing, but it’s incredibly hard for me to speak it. I know how to form sentences, but I’m constantly at a loss for the vocabulary. If I could just re-learn enough of the basic vocabulary, I think I’d have a blast communicating with locals in French. But that will likely take much more time than I have.

Rachelle is a very patient teacher. I’ve been encouraging her to speak more French to me on this trip, so I can practice more. I feel so immersed with all the French around me in this city — people talking, street signs, billboards, etc. — that I’m rebuilding my French language skills at a rapid pace. I’ll bet if I could spend several weeks in a row here and did some vocabulary rebuilding on the side, I could at least gain enough competence to converse with people in a basic manner.

Another thing is that even for the nouns I do recall, it’s hard to remember whether they’re masculine or feminine. The door (la porte) is feminine, but why?

Since I lack the vocabulary, I simply do the best I can. Consequently, I’m constantly communicating with Rachelle in Franglais, mixing French and English together in the same sentences. I try to speak as much French as I can, but when I don’t know the vocabulary, I just sub in English words or guess at their French equivalents. So I might say something like this:

Cette crepe de pommes est tres miam miam. Je pense qu’un blueberry crepe sounds délicieux aussi.

Rachelle gives me some funny looks at times, but at least she’s able to understand what I’m trying to communicate.

My brain seems to be split between thinking in English and thinking in French, so even though I’ve only been here for two days, I’m actually beginning to think in Franglais, which est tres étrange.

As Rachelle and I walk around the city, I feel like Lal from the Star Trek: TNG episode “The Offspring” (where Data builds an android daughter). I keep pointing at things and trying to label them. “Regard! Un petit chien!”

Or I’ll point to something and say “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” And if Rachelle knows the answer, she’ll tell me in French. Then I give her a gleeful smile and and exclaim, “Show me more, father!”

While trying to re-learn French this way is a lot of fun to be sure — if you aren’t discouraged by the dorkiness of it — it doesn’t seem very efficient beyond a certain point. In order to really improve my language skills, I’d need to spend a lot more time studying and memorizing basic vocabulary, especially nouns and verbs.

Interacting with Locals

While I do take plaisir in doing touristy stuff de temps en temps, mostly what I enjoy about traveling is spending time with locals. You get a lot more insider info that way, not to mention practical advice about what’s worth seeing and doing and some social invites to do fun things as well. Usually I prefer to allow these opportunities to arise spontaneously as opposed to trying to plan everything out in advance. So far that’s been working out great.

If it seems practical, and if there’s some interest in it, maybe we could do a meet-up in London and/or Toronto while we’re in those cities. There doesn’t seem to be time to do one in Montreal since we’re only in town for another day and a half, and we have a pretty full agenda between now and then, including some work and some play. If you are interested in a meet-up, please let me know about it through one communication channel or another. Also let me know if you can suggest a good location, perhaps a park if the weather is nice.

Dans le meantime, Rachelle pense que les nuts que j’avais brought elle sont tres tastement.

Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the Conscious Growth Workshop, October 29-31, 2010.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

How to Fall in Love with Procrastination

Thu, 06/10/2010 - 20:50

Many time management experts label procrastination in strictly negative terms such as “the thief of time.” But is procrastination always such a negative experience? Is there a positive side to procrastination, one that may even encourage you to procrastinate more often?

What if you could see procrastination from a more empowering perspective? What if you could even fall in love with procrastination?

The Anti-Procrastination Brigade

One of the reasons procrastination gets such a bad rap is because it’s generally perceived as contrary to corporate agendas, which rely heavily on time-is-of-the-essence execution driven by command and control authority to hit financial targets. When employees procrastinate on key projects and tasks, it can cause delays that hurt the corporate bottom line.

Managers are typically held accountable for these delays. Managerial pay is frequently linked to the corporate agenda, so procrastination issues with team members can personally impact a manager’s income. This incentivizes managers to turn procrastination into an enemy and to do what they can to squash it.

Consequently, you’ll commonly find that anti-procrastination books are written by current or former corporate managers. I’ve read many books on this topic, and I have a hard time recalling one that wasn’t written by someone with management experience.

Since I’ve managed a team in the past as well, I’ve also witnessed the effect of procrastination on team results, so it should come as no surprise that I too have been a member of the anti-procrastination brigade. One of my earliest article hits was Overcoming Procrastination. I wrote the original version of that article in 2001 while running Dexterity Software, three years before I started blogging, and for most of the intervening years, it has held a top position in search engines.

Anti-procrastination, however, is merely a perspective — a lens through which we can view reality. In this article, I’d like to offer you a different perspective to consider. Instead of favoring what’s best for the manager, the team, or the company, let’s consider what’s actually best for the individual.

What Do You Do When You Procrastinate?

When you’re coming upon a deadline, and you seem to be putting off what “needs” to be done, what are you doing instead?

Some people tend to freeze in this situation, doing virtually nothing. They get some impulses for things they’d rather be doing, but then they guilt themselves out of acting on them.

However, if you were to set that guilt aside and flow with those impulses, what would you end up doing instead? And what might be the long-term consequences?

Perhaps the consequences of procrastination are not as negative as they initially seem. The pressure of the moment has a way of distorting your perspective, just as physical pressure can distort a glass lens.

When I was in high school, I used to procrastinate heavily on certain school assignments, almost always waiting till the night before the due date to begin working on them. Most often I’d procrastinate on writing essays and doing various reading assignments. I generally found them boring and tedious. Looking back, I don’t see that this has hurt me at all over the long run. I still don’t care about analyzing the works of Chaucer, and since then my mind has seen fit to reallocate the neurons once devoted to such tasks.

What would I do while I was procrastinating on school assignments? I spent many hours playing video games. I also read programming books and wrote small programs on my Atari 800 and then on a PC.

And this actually benefitted me in a huge way. Many years later I started a game development and publishing company and ran it for more than a decade. Thanks in part to my previous gaming experience, some of my games won industry awards. So while it seemed like I was procrastinating on the important stuff in high school, in truth I was putting off what was less relevant to me personally, so I could spend more time doing what actually mattered to me. Somehow I never got around to writing a computer game based on the life of Chaucer.

Years later, I found myself procrastinating on programming projects in order to read personal development books, listen to audio programs, and write articles. My early article writing was actually a form of procrastination. I always had to put off something seemingly more important to free up time to crank out a new article.

I’d also coach other game developers as a form of procrastination, helping certain people gain the knowledge and skills they needed to quit their corporate jobs and start their own indie game development businesses. But the funny thing is that further down the road, I ended up licensing and publishing games from some of those developers I helped.

In retrospect, this pattern of procrastination has benefitted me tremendously in the long run, although at the time it often seemed like a bad habit I needed to resist, and I’d feel guilty about it. It caused me some extra stress and a number of all-nighters. I’ve also had to deal with the occasional late fee or penalty now and then. But overall I have to say that all that procrastination wasn’t such a problem after all. I can make a case that it’s done me more good than harm.

Whose Agenda Are You Fulfilling?

Whose deadlines are you really working on? Are they your deadlines or someone else’s? If the deadlines aren’t really yours, why do you care so much about them anyway?

Quite often you’ll find yourself procrastinating on someone else’s agenda so you can spend more time working on your own. Much of the time, however, people aren’t in tune with their own agendas. They spend more time fussing over what they think they should be doing as opposed to what they actually want to be doing.

So what if you’re late? Do you really care all that much what your teacher thinks of you… or your boss… or the government?

Other people’s deadlines are just that — other people’s deadlines. They won’t always mesh with your desires.

Even if you choose to take on a certain project, and you’re the one defining the milestones along the way, you may find that at some future point, you seem to be resisting your earlier decisions. You may have a hard time getting yourself to take action when you know that you “should.”

Where do you think this resistance comes from? What if this isn’t a failing at all? What if your procrastination is actually a signal that your priorities are askew? What if procrastination is a sign that a greater intelligence is trying to nudge you in a whole new direction?

How Much Is Procrastination Really Hurting You?

When you feel that you’re procrastinating, take a deeper look at what’s going on. First of all, is your procrastination really hurting you all that much? Or are you making mountains out of molehills?

In the grand scheme of things, having to pay a late fee is hardly the end of the world. Same goes for doing an occasional all-nighter. The money can be recouped. You’ll have a chance to catch up on your sleep later. You’ll recover easily enough. The consequences are little more than a mosquito bite.

Even when something seems really bad at the time, years later you may look back and realize it wasn’t such a big deal after all. And maybe it actually helped you get onto a better path.

For example, if your procrastination is so “bad” that you end up failing your classes and getting kicked out of college, initially it may seem like a huge blow. You may be inclined to beat yourself up with guilt, and the people around you may heap loads of disappointment onto you. But later in life when the emotional sting wears off, you may realize that this was a powerful step along your path of growth. You’ll begin to see the good in those trying times.

Perhaps your procrastination helped you escape the wrong major. After all, how can you purport to be majoring in something that’s aligned with your passion and talents if you got yourself expelled because when push came to shove, you consistently opted to do something other than tend to your studies? Maybe your real mistake was further upstream, and procrastination helped you escape a dead-end track.

Another possibility is that the timing just wasn’t right. Maybe your procrastination is telling you that this is the wrong time to attend college. Perhaps you should travel the world for a while. Maybe you don’t need a college degree at all. Maybe you should dive right in and get to work doing what you love. What if the decision to earn a degree was just a fear-based delay tactic?

The Benefit of Hindsight

Even when it seems like your procrastination habit is a purely destructive one, there may be hidden benefits that can be difficult to see at the time.

When I got expelled from UC Berkeley after 3 semesters — I think that in my final semester, my GPA actually started with the decimal point — it was a huge blow to me at the time. Even worse was that I’d just gotten out of jail after being charged with felony grand theft, and I was awaiting my court date. This was a major low point in my life. I was only 19 years old at the time, and I constantly beat myself up about the stupid mistakes I’d made. I thought I was a fairly intelligent guy, but apparently my choices had been incredibly stupid. I procrastinated endlessly on my studies, so I could do things like drink alcohol, go to parties, play poker, and shoplift.

My original plan was to earn my degree in computer science, then maybe go on to earn a Ph.D. Afterwards I could get a nice job as a computer programmer somewhere. That was my “should” path.

Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, however, the seemingly crazy path I ended up taking turned out to be tremendously valuable. It was very stressful at the time, but to this day, I remain immensely grateful that I didn’t stick to my original plan and graduate from UC Berkeley. If I’d followed that course, I might be working as a computer programmer for the government or some corporation today. That wouldn’t necessarily be a terrible outcome, but I’d much rather be where I am today than where I expect that path would have led me. I think my original plan would have been a heartless path for me in the long run.

Instead, my procrastination put me in a position where I had to learn entirely different lessons. Through shoplifting I pushed myself to face my fear again and again and to control my adrenaline response, so I could maintain my composure even when taking big risks. That has been of tremendous benefit to me ever since, especially in business. I really love that I’m able to look at something that scares me and motivate myself to plow right through it without freezing up. It’s very unlikely I’d be doing public speaking today if I’d never learned those courage lessons via shoplifting.

Secondly, I learned how to handle negative social pressure. When I hit that low point in my life, everyone who knew me at the time seemed deeply disappointed in me. A lot of criticism was heaped upon me, and I can’t say that it was unwarranted. But in order to make forward progress and turn things around, I had to learn to tune out unhelpful feedback, decide for myself what was best, and take action without the benefit of social support. Otherwise I’d have gotten stuck in a place of self-pity or defensiveness. This ability still comes in handy today. For instance, I feel quite comfortable opening up about topics that will predictably generate a lot of negative feedback (such as polyamory or divorce). It’s hard for me to get worked up over anonymous Internet criticism after what I’ve already been through.

Thirdly, I had to learn to love myself unconditionally. The beating I gave myself at the time was worse than what anyone else could have done to me. I was terribly disappointed in myself, and I felt guilty about blowing everything that seemed important. As I recovered from those experiences, which took a long time, I gradually learned to accept myself in spite of my apparent flaws. I had to learn that I’m still worthy of love. We all are. By loving myself, I feel more inclined to care about others. A few days ago, I noticed that a friend seemed to be feeling down on herself, so I wrote her a note to offer her some support and to remind her that she’s loved and appreciated. And of course I had to procrastinate on something “important” to do that. Perhaps our to-do lists should include more items like this to begin with.

Fourthly, I became more motivated than ever to do some good with my life. I was so disgusted with the way I’d been living that I pushed myself to the opposite end of the spectrum. I began spending a lot of time working on my character development. Changes were slow and gradual, but eventually I grew into a man who felt good about himself and his contribution to the world.

Fifthly, I became a lot less judgmental towards others. Given my sordid past, who am I to judge someone else for their choices? I learned that accepting others and accepting myself are two sides of the same coin; you can’t love and accept yourself without doing the same for others. In my writing I will sometimes temporarily adopt a very opinionated position to stimulate people to think about the ideas, but that’s simply a literary tool I employ to make articles more impactful and memorable. People who hang out with me in person know that I’m ridiculously accepting of others, regardless of their lifestyles. Consequently, I seem to have a habit of attracting friends who are often subjected to harsh judgment by society, including psychics, strippers, porn stars, polyamorous people, pot smokers, people with non-mainstream spiritual beliefs, and of course those “crazy” jobless folks. This has added tremendous richness to my life, including many fun and educational experiences that I’d have otherwise missed. Associating with such people has also helped me feel a lot more comfortable in my own skin.

And finally, I gained much more freedom. Since I had failed in such a big way, everyone else’s expectations of me hit rock bottom. No one expected anything from me after that. This gave me the social and emotional freedom to begin taking control of my life without feeling that I had to live up to anyone else’s expectations. Even though I was in a low place, I felt like I finally had the wherewithal to steer my life as I saw fit without worrying about what other people might think. I could hardly make things worse, so it was easier to take some risks.

To this day I’m immensely grateful for these lessons (and many more), which came about as a result of procrastinating on my studies in order to follow other impulses. I can’t be sure where those impulses came from, but I’ve since learned not to reject such urges out of hand. Perhaps there is a greater intelligence at work here.

Stop Beating Yourself Up

If you have a tendency to beat yourself up for procrastinating, maybe you should stop doing that. It doesn’t help you anyway, does it?

Perhaps procrastinating isn’t such a bad thing after all. What if there are important growth experiences to be found within your procrastination?

Are the items on your to-do list really so important? Are they important to you personally? Why do you feed them so much energy?

Even the stuff that seems really important in the moment may look totally different with the benefit of hindsight.

You may be beating yourself up because your procrastination seems to be leading you astray. What if you’re even at risk of losing your home? Is it possible that this may turn out to be a good thing in the long run? Who’s to say that losing your stuff is bad?

Maybe you’ll find newfound freedom in a life of minimalism. Maybe you’ll end up living in a much nicer place down the road. Maybe the experience will help you develop more courage and self-acceptance. Maybe you’ll gain a cool story to blog about someday, whereby you’ll be in a position to help other people learn valuable lessons.

Realize that someday, all of this will be gone. Eventually you’ll pass on and leave this world behind. What will matter to you most when you’re on your deathbed? Will you wish you’d hit more of your assigned deadlines ahead of time? Or will you perhaps wish that you’d spent more time following your heart? Will you regret those late assignments? Or will you regret those amazing life experiences that you missed because you were too busy working to meet someone else’s deadline?

Procrastinate Harder

What if… instead of resisting your impulse to procrastinate, you threw yourself into it more fully? What if you dove headfirst into your biggest procrastination impulses? Where might they lead you?

Maybe procrastination won’t seem like such a curse if you follow those impulses without so much guilt and resistance.

You’re probably going to procrastinate anyway, so why not do it in style?

When you feel the urge to procrastinate, what are you driven to do?

Do you feel like watching movies? Perhaps you could become the next Roger Ebert.

Do you prefer to play computer games? Maybe someday you’ll start a game review site or become a game designer. Maybe playing games will evolve into a fun hobby that you can enjoy with friends and family. You might even find a new relationship partner via an online game.

Do you like to escape into books? If you read enough books in a certain field, you can eventually become an international expert. I learned a great deal about personal development by reading hundreds of books, but at the time it often seemed like I was procrastinating on something more important.

Do you invest a lot of time and energy in online socializing? Maybe you’ll meet your next relationship partner that way. Or perhaps you’ll become a highly paid social media consultant. Corporations are throwing thousands of dollars at such consultants just to learn how to use Twitter and Facebook like any teenager can. You may not even realize just how valuable your expertise can be to the right people.

Maybe you could do what the worst procrastinators in the world frequently do. Start your own productivity blog.

Having a Life

What would you rather be doing than working to meet someone else’s deadlines?

Quite often when you procrastinate, you’ll find yourself doing what it takes to have a life.

If you stopped resisting the urge to procrastinate and simply went with it, what new experiences would you invite into your life?

What other emotions are hidden behind those surface feelings of stress and resistance? Do you also see some potential excitement staring back at you? What about the feeling that maybe you could get all the so-called “important” work done in half the time you originally estimated while still carving out space to do what you love? Maybe it’s not such a bad idea to blow off today and go have some fun.

Isn’t it a more natural tendency to do what you enjoy first… then do what you supposedly have to do as urgency dictates? Perhaps you should allow those “have tos” to build up a certain level of urgency-based pressure before you tend to them. Such pressure has some benefits, doesn’t it? Once it reaches a certain level, you may be able to plow through tons of work with unrelenting speed and focus, drawing on inner resources that you could never bring to bear when you were swimming in extra time.

Maybe you’ve been over-thinking this problem, turning it into a phantom boogieman. What if you simply relaxed into the idea of following your heart? Let the procrastination happen. Let the pressure build. If there’s something that really does need to be done, you’ll find a way to get it done. You always do when it truly matters, don’t you? It’s not like you’ve procrastinated yourself into starvation. Despite all your worst procrastination episodes, you’re still breathing, aren’t you?

You may think that procrastination is hurting you, but is that harm actually real? Or is it just imaginary harm? Are you still whole and intact?

Perhaps there is some greater intelligence nudging you to delay tasks and activities that merely seem important but really aren’t.

“Having a life” might just be what happens while you’re procrastinating on something else. When you delay to the limit those uninspired tasks, you’ll create more space in your life for inspiration and joy.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed this article since I procrastinated on lots of accounting work to write it. I’m sure I’ll feel plenty guilty about that later.

In the meantime, please ponder these quotes from Geoffrey Chaucer:

Love is blind.
Forbid us something, and that thing we desire.
The life so short, the crafts so long to learn.
First he wrought, and afterward he taught.
The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.
The guilty think all talk is of themselves.
Time and tide wait for no man.
Women desire six things: They want their husbands to be brave, wise, rich, generous, obedient to wife, and lively in bed.

You had to procrastinate on something to read this article, didn’t you?

Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the Conscious Growth Workshop, October 29-31, 2010.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

Suspending Judgment

Thu, 06/03/2010 - 21:02

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. – Mark Twain

Whenever I write about certain topics, especially those that seem contrary to mainstream conditioning, some people voice very strong opinions. They communicate their thoughts with a high degree of certainty, as if adopting the posture of an expert.

However, upon further inspection it becomes readily apparent that most of these people have little or no direct experience upon which to base their opinions. Their knowledge of such subjects can hardly be classified as knowledge at all, since it’s derived largely from non-primary sources like media conditioning, third-party rumors, and supposition.

Erroneous Knowledge

Of course the problem with acquiring “knowledge” in such an indirect manner is that it’s often riddled with errors. People claim certainty about things that “just ain’t so.”

For example, when I wrote some blog posts about polyamory, much of the feedback I received was nonsensical, whether it was supportive or critical. Out of sheer ignorance, some people would start with a false assumption such as polyamory = polygamy (polygamy is illegal in the USA) and then base their opinions on that assumption. Other assumptions were not quite so ludicrous, but they were just as inaccurate.

People made such errors in judgment because they have no relevant experience upon which to base an informed opinion. So they filled in their lack of knowledge with guesses, and many of those guesses turned out to be completely erroneous. From their perspective their opinions seemed to make sense, but to any reasonable person with experience in those areas, such opinions seemed utterly naive at best and sometimes borderline insane.

Such problems aren’t limited to polyamory of course. They can come up with any topic, but they tend to happen more frequently in areas where people lack direct experience. Other topics which generated a lot of ignorant feedback based on false assumptions include polyphasic sleep, raw food diets, divorce, and even self-employment.

The Smoothing Function

One reason this problem occurs is that our brains have a tendency to apply a “smoothing function” when we lack information about certain subjects. Our minds are always searching for new levels of certainty and patterns of predictability, so when we lack direct experience in a certain area, our brain does the best it can to pull in connections from seemingly related areas.

Unfortunately sometimes those related areas just aren’t related enough, so the connections that are formed introduce a great deal of error, and this corrupts any conclusions we might draw based on those connections.

Think of it like an image or a video that’s overly compressed to the point where you can’t even make out any distinct elements. It’s just a blur of colors. That missing data is important. If the compression is turned up too high, the images don’t convey accurate and useful information.

For example, when I wrote about polyphasic sleep, the topic was outside of most people’s direct experience. Nevertheless, that fact didn’t prevent such people from voicing strong opinions about it. But since they hadn’t experienced polyphasic sleep and knew virtually nothing about it, their opinions were based on the closest mental connections they could form. So people would share opinions with false suppositions like polyphasic sleep = long-term sleep deprivation.

Similarly when I wrote about the raw food diet, many people who hadn’t read so much as a single book about raw foods would share ignorant (yet often strongly worded) opinions based on silly assumptions like raw foods = eating only salads all day.

And then there were false associations like polyamory = promiscuity, domination and submission = abuse, and divorce = conflict.

Some false associations are of a more personal nature, the result of overgeneralization. These include beliefs such as, “I can’t make money online,” or “If I get divorced, it will screw up my kids,” or “If I lose my job, I won’t be able to cope.”

Suspending Judgment

False beliefs and associations are growth killers. When your mind is cluttered with false information, and you base your beliefs on such falsehoods, you can’t move forward in those particular areas. Your progress remains stunted until you clean up the mental mess.

Now the obvious solution here is to suspend judgment when your knowledge in a particular area is lacking. You can actually do this consciously. Your brain may still apply its smoothing function at inappropriate times, but with sufficient self-awareness, you can discipline yourself to mentally override those biases.

The first step is awareness. You must become aware of the areas where you’re likely to harbor false beliefs.

When you catch yourself voicing a strong opinion on some subject, pause for a moment and check in with yourself. What specific knowledge are you basing your opinion on? Is this knowledge based on a wide range of direct experience? Are you an expert on this topic? How do you know what you claim to know?

Do you catch yourself arguing with someone who has more direct experience than you? Are you voicing an opinion just to be opinionated, or are you sharing information of value?

Is your ego getting too involved? Are you wrapping your ideas into your identity, such that when your ideas are criticized, you feel a need to personally defend yourself.

What comes up if you ask yourself, What else might be true?

Based on your self-diagnostic, you may come to realize that your opinion, even though it may be strongly held, has little or no basis in fact.

At this time you can choose to take a step back, release your attachment to your opinion, and allow your mind to unclench and open itself to new ideas. After all, your opinions are not even yours to claim. They are just perspectives. There’s no need to take ownership of any perspective and wrap it into your identity.

You Are Perspective-Independent

It can be tremendously helpful at times to adopt a particular perspective and make the best case you can for it. Then sit back and observe how other people react to it. Allow their feedback to poke holes in your arguments if possible. Use the strength of that initial perspective to draw out other potential perspectives, and explore them as well. But don’t get your ego so wrapped up in your perspective that you close your mind to new ideas.

I do this quite often when I write new articles. Before I begin writing, I adopt a certain perspective that I want to explore in more depth. Then I write some observations based on how reality appears through that lens. After I post the article, I step back and observe the feedback. I see what other lenses people suggest. I see what new pros and cons they identify. In the follow-up discussions, I may push harder to make a case for the original lens, but sometimes I’ll switch sides and offer up other perspectives, so we can explore those as well.

I realize this can confuse people at times because we’re so conditioned to wrap perspectives/lenses into our identities, but I find that more growth opportunities are possible with an open mind. Open-mindedness, however, makes for very dull writing and cannot stimulate much growth. A truly open mind can only receive; it has nothing to give. However, when the mind fixates for a while on a specific perspective, it can express many interesting insights.

If you assume that my blog posts represent my personal opinions on all subjects I write about, you’ll have a completely inaccurate image of me, and you’ll probably be confused in the end because many of my articles share perspectives that appear to be in conflict with each other. That’s because the perspectives I share aren’t mine per se. They’re perspectives that I temporarily adopt to stimulate people to grow. It doesn’t matter whether people agree or disagree with the perspectives that are shared. They derive new growth lessons through the process of thinking about and discussing what’s true for them.

For example, when I write a very opinionated article like 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job, it stimulates a tremendous amount of thought and discussion. For some people, the ideas in the article help motivate them to start their own businesses. I’m aware of dozens of new businesses that have been spawned as a direct result of people reading that article. But some people react in just the opposite way. That article makes them think more deeply about their role as an employee and warns of traps to avoid, so they’re able to make more conscious choices if they choose to follow the path of long-term employment. Either way, that article helps stimulate growth precisely because it appears so strongly opinionated, and therefore people are inclined to think about and react to the ideas being shared.

So the irony here is that it can be a very powerful growth experience to adopt a specific perspective and explore it deeply, but you don’t want to get so attached to any particular perspective that you miss out on powerful growth opportunities. You want to use strong perspectives as a tool for stimulating growth as opposed to a method of blocking growth.

Blocking

Quite often people succumb to false beliefs and erroneous judgments in order to block themselves from facing their fears.

For example, if people can make harsh judgments about divorce, even if such judgments are based on false or inaccurate information, it allows them to rule out the possibility of divorce. Consequently, they may remain stuck in an unfulfilling marriage. Staying stuck enables them to block themselves from facing fears such as: If we break up, will I be able to cope? Will I be able to support myself financially? How will my friends and family react? Will a divorce screw up the kids? Am I good enough to attract a new partner? Can I handle seeing my partner withs someone else? What if s/he finds someone who’s a better match than me, and I’m still alone?

Facing such challenges consciously can be too much for some people, so in the short run, it may seem easier to block the whole thing by clinging to a false belief like marriage is permanent.

A telltale sign of such blocking is closed-mindedness and the unwillingness to consider contradictory information. Especially common is the unwillingness to embrace learning through direct experience.

When people are in blocking mode, they’ll often propose and defend the most ridiculous arguments that make more experienced people cringe.

I see this sort of blocking happen quite often in relationship related discussions in our forums. When people are desperately clinging to an unfulfilling relationship situation, out of fear they may not be able to find anything better, they’ll frequently attack any perspectives that would potentially present them with major growth opportunities. Their unwillingness to face their fears prevents them from seriously considering new perspectives.

The upside is that blocking is often a prelude to a breakthrough. People who are in a blocking phase aren’t necessarily stuck long-term. Usually they’re working through their fears. The whole reason they dive into such discussions instead of remaining silent is that subconsciously they know that other more experienced people will rip their baseless arguments to shreds, thereby pushing them to face their fears. This can help create cracks in the person’s resistance as their block begins to crumble.

Some people eventually come to realize that they’re blocking, and this helps them open their minds and take a deeper look at themselves. This is a difficult thing to do, and I have tremendous respect for people who can recognize their own blocks and look for ways around them. On the other hand, I also have a lot of compassion for people whose resistance is much stronger; they’re deeply afraid of what they may find on the other side.

Beyond Blocking

Based on my experience seeing many people go through this process, and having done it myself many times, I can at least turn the page and let you know what to expect when you begin to see your own blocks.

Initially it’s a humbling experience for most, and afterwards it opens the door to tremendous growth. But how that growth plays out is a bit different for everyone.

Some people experience a major breakdown as their old beliefs succumb to new truths. For a while nothing seems real anymore. It’s as if their whole reality is broken. They have to live one day at a time for a while to process what’s happening to them. If you find yourself in this place, rest assured it’s temporary. Just keep breathing, and you’ll work your way through it.

Other people go through this process much more gradually, spreading it out over years instead of weeks. Little by little, bits and pieces of their false beliefs are chipped away, and they begin to perceive reality more accurately than before.

In the end, the general attitude I see most often is one of gratitude. People look back and say things like, “It was hard, but it was surely worth it.”

Do you have blocks? Yes, we all do. If you’re aware of one or more of your blocks, then you have a chance to chip away at them. If you aren’t aware of any blocks, it simply means you aren’t ready to work on them yet. When you feel ready, simply say aloud to the universe, “Show me where I’m blocked.” Say it like you mean it. If your desire is genuine, you won’t have to wait long for one of your blocks to reveal itself.

One suggestion I have for overcoming such blocks is to educate yourself. Turn towards your fears in a gentle way by getting a book on the subject and reading about it. Education is a powerful antidote to fear.

Another option is to talk to people who’ve already gone through what you fear you might have to endure. They can share a more empowering perspective with you that you may not think is possible.

I was much less resistant to divorce, for example, after reading some books about it and talking to people who’d already gone through a divorce. Similarly, I felt a lot more comfortable running my own business after reading books by successful entrepreneurs.

If reading a whole book is too much of a commitment, then make an appointment to go to your local bookstore and read just one chapter of one book. Or read for just 20 minutes total. See if you can pick up one or two ideas that will help fill in some gaps in your knowledge.

Once you’ve educated yourself, it’s much easier to muster the courage to begin taking small action steps, and from there you can build momentum towards a greater transition.

Yet another option is to use the Lefkoe Method to identify and eliminate limiting beliefs, which takes about 20 minutes per belief. I’ve been recommending this method since 2009, and the feedback I’ve received on it since then has been wonderful. I know many people who’ve benefitted greatly from this technique.

Intelligent Judgments

Judgment isn’t a bad thing per se. Judgments are necessary for making good decisions. Your brain is wired to make judgments automatically because your survival depends on it. Whenever you decide what to eat or not eat, you’re making a judgment call.

In terms of personal growth, it’s important to strike the right balance between flexibility and rigidity in your judgments. If you’re too flexible, you become wishy-washy and can’t make strong decisions. Such people don’t function very well. They get tossed around by the currents of life. Other people run roughshod over them. They can’t build or sustain any serious momentum. They bounce around from one thing to another without any rhyme or reason, and their weak results reflect their lack of self-control.

On the other hand, too much rigidity can be just as problematic. Such people have a hard time seeing the big picture. False beliefs cripple them from growing in certain areas, so they remain perpetually stuck.

How can you tell the difference between good judgments and bad ones?

This is perhaps the simplest way to understand the difference. Good judgments yield accurate predictions. Bad judgments yield inaccurate predictions.

For example, if I post about something I’m going to do, and you make some predictions about what’s going to happen, how accurate are your predictions? Do my reported results fall within the range of your expectations, or do they violate your expectations? If your expectations are violated, it means you’ve based your predictions on one or more bad judgments.

One of my favorite ways to challenge people who are clearly succumbing to false beliefs is to push them to share some specific predictions based on their judgments. I simply ask them to share what they expect will happen next, preferably in public, such as by posting in our forums. For those who do it, it puts them on record, and it allows them to see if they were right in the long run. Some of these people make ridiculously erroneous predictions that any experienced person would find laughable, but that doesn’t seem to stop them from voicing their opinions with great certainty.

For example, when I was doing my 30-day trial of raw foods, I seem to recall that one person predicted something like, ”If you eat 100% raw vegan for 30 days, you will suffer protein deficiency symptoms. You’ll never make it to 30 days because otherwise you’d get sick and die.”

This person’s ignorance about basic nutrition led them to make a completely inaccurate prediction. Such is the nature of false knowledge — it leads to erroneous predictions.

What’s even more ridiculous is when people make erroneous back-predictions of events that have already turned out contrary to their false assumptions. For example, I’ve seen some people predict that if I try to eat vegan for 30 days, I’ll die from nutritional deficiencies… even though I’ve already been vegan since 1997.

Obviously these cases are extreme to the point of being ludicrous, but I share them because we all do this sort of thing to varying degrees. If we would put ourselves on record more often by sharing our best predictions and expectations, it would help expose more of our false beliefs, thereby giving us the opportunity to uproot and replace them with more accurate perspectives. If we can’t share any specific predictions, then a posture of open-mindedness makes more sense than one of closed-mindedness and rigidity. If we can’t make good predictions, we can’t claim any degree of certainty.

If you want to know if your judgments are accurate, make some predictions based on those judgments, and see if they come to pass as you expect. The more accurate your judgments, the more accurate your predictions will be. If your predictions turn out to be grossly inaccurate, take a deeper look at your judgments to see where you’ve gone wrong.

As you gradually fine-tune your judgments, you’ll consequently make more accurate predictions. And since you naturally rely on your predictions and expectations when making decisions, you’ll get better at making decisions that generate the results you desire. This has very practical consequences. It means more money in your wallet, better health and energy, and happier and more fulfilling relationships to enjoy.

It will take time and patience to calibrate your judgments effectively, such that your flexibility or firmness is appropriate to your level of knowledge and the circumstances you’re dealing with. Fortunately, your interactions with those who challenge you will automatically help you get there, if you hold the intention to keep growing and learning.

Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the Conscious Growth Workshop, October 29-31, 2010.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

Ludicrous Results

Wed, 06/02/2010 - 02:16

When an idea is first conceived, it’s very easy to idealize it and see only the good aspects. In your imagination, anything is possible. But when ideas are implemented under real-world conditions, the results may not be what you’d expect. In fact, sometimes the results will be completely ludicrous.

The Idea-Implementation Gap

During the 1980s, my younger brother and I saw a TV ad for a device called The Clapper. You could hook up The Clapper to an electrical outlet, and it would allow you to turn the power on or off by clapping loudly a couple times. Perhaps the most common use for the device was to turn the lights on and off. So you could be lying in bed reading, and when you were ready to go to sleep, just clap your hands to turn the lights off. Clap again to turn the lights back on.

This seemed like a cool gadget at the time, so my brother and I got one. We shared a bedroom with bunk beds, so we thought The Clapper would be especially convenient for turning the lights on or off when we were on the top bunk, far from the light switch.

Initially The Clapper worked just as expected. We got used to it within a couple days. It was very nice to turn the lights off just by clapping. Such a cool gadget, we thought.

In the following weeks, however, we began to notice some strange side effects from The Clapper.

Some nights one of us would roll over in bed and notice that the lights were on. The Clapper must have turned them on by mistake. Sometimes when the lights turned on at night, it would be enough to wake one or both of us up. But other times we’d just be sleeping for a while with the lights shining on our faces. Occasionally our alarm clock would go off in the morning, and we’d notice that the lights were already on.

Other times we’d be sitting down doing our homework in the evening, and the lights would suddenly turn off. We’d have to clap again to turn them back on.

Eventually we figured out what was causing this screwy behavior.

Our next door neighbors had a dog, and our bedroom window was pretty close to their backyard. The dog could get within 10-15 feet of The Clapper, and if the dog barked loudly enough, it would turn our lights on and off.

If the dog ever barked in the middle of the night, it usually wasn’t enough to wake us up, but it was enough to turn our lights on.

If I recall correctly, the device had a sensitivity adjustment slider, but that didn’t help. If we made it sensitive enough for us to activate it, it was also sensitive enough for the dog to do so.

Oddly, once we realized The Clapper could be activated by barking, my brother and I also started barking. Instead of clapping, we would yelp, “Arf! Arf!” to turn the lights on or off. That became our preferred method because then we didn’t even have to move our arms — the ultimate in laziness.

Our barking had the side effect of making our parents and siblings think we were going a bit nuts, especially when we’d bark in the middle of the night to counteract the dog’s actions.

One night the dog was barking a lot, and our bedroom lights kept turning on. After the dog would bark, one of us would bark to turn the lights off again. Unfortunately my brother and I didn’t always coordinate well, so sometimes we’d both bark at the same time, and our actions would cancel each other. We’d end up turning the lights off and then on again. And when we’d bark, the dog could hear us too, and it would bark back at us, turning our lights back on once again.

Another problem was that usually one of us would wake up before the other, and that first person would bark to turn the lights off. This would often startle the person who was still sleeping.

“Arf! Arf!”

“What was that???”

“Just turning the lights off. Dog turned them on again.”

“Oh, okay…”

Suffice it to say that The Clapper didn’t last much longer in our home after that.

Although The Clapper seemed like a cool idea, it failed to perform well under these real-world conditions. In the end the problems it created were worse than the one it solved. My brother and I inadvertently entered into a barking contest with the neighbor’s dog.

Ludicrous Results

Despite the problems we encountered, it took my brother and me a while to admit defeat and dump The Clapper.

Why?

Partly it was because we’d gotten used to it. Even though our constant barking sounds silly in retrospect, the problems surfaced gradually enough that we developed a tolerance for them.

We also got into the habit of using The Clapper to turn the lights on and off. We barely used the light switch anymore. Upon entering the bedroom at night, we’d automatically bark to turn the lights on. And as we left the room, it was easy enough to yelp another “Arf! Arf!” to turn them off. After doing this for several weeks, the habit was ingrained, and we didn’t even question it anymore — although the rest of our family certainly did.

And lastly, our egos got involved. We didn’t want to admit defeat. Getting The Clapper was our decision, and we took pride in making good decisions. We didn’t want to admit that it was a waste of money. We wanted so much to believe, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

So even though the results were ludicrous, we still kept using The Clapper for several more weeks.

Checking in with Yourself

Do you currently find yourself in a similar situation? Are you getting results in any areas of your life that an intelligent person would label as completely ludicrous? Are you in denial of the obvious?

What would an intelligent person say about your career path? How’s your relationships with your boss and co-workers? Anything ludicrous to report there?

How about your finances? Are those going smoothly, or are you heading for a ludicrous reckoning?

Same goes for your health habits… Is it smooth sailing there, or would an intelligent person predict a rude awakening somewhere down the road?

What about your relationships and social life? Would an intelligent person appreciate your choices, or would they roll their eyes in disgust?

How about your daily routine and habits? Are those generating good results for you, or are you addicted to patterns that yield completely ludicrous results?

Admitting Defeat

When you notice that your results in some part of your life are completely ludicrous, it’s time to admit defeat and cut your losses.

It was hard for my brother and me to ditch The Clapper, but eventually we saw the “light” of reason. We had to admit that using the light switch was better than turning into dogs.

Just as The Clapper became a trigger for our ludicrous behavior, you may have some ludicrous triggers in your own life. All my brother and I had to do was dump The Clapper, and the ludicrous behavior went away.

What are your triggers? How can you remove those triggers from your life?

If you keep certain foods in your kitchen that trigger you to overeat, perhaps you should stop buying those foods altogether. Tell your friends and family that if they ever find such items in your house, you’ll pay them $100.

If your boss is a trigger for unreasonable behavior, fire your boss. You deserve better than to work under ludicrous conditions.

If a certain friend or family member triggers ludicrous reactions in you, dump ‘em. Shift your attention to more reasonable people.

If you catch yourself wasting hours and hours watching TV or playing video games, dump the TV, games, and game systems. If the Internet is your problem, you can install blocking software to prevent you from accessing sites that trigger your addiction. Or simply offer a $100 reward to anyone who catches you on certain online hangouts.

Do your best not to let your ego get too wrapped up in the problem. Just admit defeat, drop what’s causing the ludicrous results, and move on. It’s pointless to cling to something that isn’t working for you. It’s also pointless to beat yourself up with thoughts like I should be able to handle this better. Those “solutions” will only make you look silly.

Being Intelligent

Use the word intelligence as your guide. When you have doubts about some part of your life, ask yourself, “Is this an intelligent approach?”

Some people suggest that the external world is never the problem. They claim we can simply shift our inner perspective to solve any problem.

The inner approach has merit at times, but I’ve seen some people go nuts with it — to the point of becoming ridiculous. They push themselves to tolerate all sorts of ludicrous hardships when a simpler, more practical solution is staring them in the face. Their solutions are akin to suggesting that my brother and I make peace with being dogs. “Release your resistance to the barking. Allow the barking to be. Love and accept yourself as canines.” Sure that might solve the problem on some level if we went with it. But that solution is just plain stupid.

If you’re really attached to the inner solution method, give yourself a couple weeks (max 30 days) to take your best stab at it. If you’re still not seeing signs of progress after that, consider a more grounded solution.

Some problems are easy to solve with an inner perspective shift. Others are much easier to solve via an external approach. And some problems benefit from a blended approach. Don’t be so attached to a single tool that you force every problem into the same mold just so you can use your favorite tool. Use intelligence as your watchword, and select the right tool for the job.

Also consider that even a practical external solution requires an inner shift as well. Many people cling to the inner work of building tolerance and acceptance, when the real inner work they need for growth is in the realm of courage and the proper exercise of power. It often takes more inner work to quit a negative situation than it does to tolerate it. So don’t assume that inner development is solely about love and peace and harmony. Inner development also includes the courage to stand up for yourself and claim the life you deserve.

Often the best solution when you’re getting ludicrous results is to simply up and leave. Physically remove and disconnect yourself from the people, places, and circumstances that bring ludicrous interactions into your life, just as my brother and I opted to physically unplug and discard The Clapper.

Now perhaps the designers of The Clapper might be emotionally hurt by our decision, but from our perspective, the problem was solved, and it never returned. We gradually stopped barking and regained our humanity.

Similarly, some people might throw a hissy fit because you’ve decided not to accept ludicrous results. Don’t let their reactions get you down.

In the long run, it’s better to stop barking.

Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the Conscious Growth Workshop, October 29-31, 2010.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

Mango Allergy

Sat, 05/29/2010 - 04:05

One very odd side effect that happened to me after eating raw foods for a long time is that I somehow developed an allergy to mango. This happened well over a year ago (in late 2008 I think), and I’ve been mostly avoiding mango ever since.

At some point in time, I started having strong adverse reactions to something I was eating, but it took a while to track it down. I was eating 100% raw at the time, and from time to time, I’d find myself suffering from intense stomach cramping and nausea. I would retch and vomit, and then for almost 24 hours afterwards, my whole body would break out in extremely itchy hives. After that I’d be fine. It seemed clear to me that this was some kind of allergic reaction, but to what?

This happened to me repeatedly over a period of weeks, but at the time I didn’t know what was causing it. By process of elimination I was eventually able to figure out what it was with certainty — mango.

This was a huge surprise to me because I never used to be allergic to mango. I was able to eat it in large quantities just fine. After I went raw it became one of my favorite foods. But eventually I had to do without it because it would make me terribly sick.

With some trial and error, I was eventually able to figure out the following:

If I ate just one small bite of mango, I wouldn’t notice any negative effects.

If I ate about a quarter of a mango, I’d get a mild upset stomach, which would last for an hour or two, but I’d be otherwise okay. So if there was a small amount of mango mixed into something (such as mango salsa), I could eat a little of it without serious negative consequences.

If I ate about half a mango, I’d get a bad upset stomach and some nausea for a couple hours, but I’d be able to keep it down.

If I ate as much as a whole mango, I’d get a severe upset stomach followed by vomiting, and then I’d break out in hives for about a day. The hives were the worst because I’d have itchy red spots all over my body — chest, arms, face, legs, back, groin, etc.

I was seriously miffed that this happened because I really love mango. I know there are lots of varieties of mangos, and I certainly haven’t tried them all, but every type I did try had the same negative effect on me. And due to the negative symptoms, I wasn’t particularly motivated to keep trying.

So for more than a year I basically stopped eating mango altogether. I had to completely drop it from my diet. Every now and then I’d have a little bit, like if someone put mango on their salad at a raw potluck I attended, but even when I ate a small amount, I’d get an upset stomach.

I talked to a number of raw food experts about this. Most had never heard of such a thing. A couple said they’d seen it before though and that it was most likely going to be permanent.

What a bizarre problem I thought. Am I supposed to spend the rest of my life being allergic to mango now?

Well, recently I decided to try some experimenting to see if perhaps I could rebuild a tolerance to mango and be able to eat it regularly again. I opted to start small and see what would happen if I consumed a little bit of mango each day, not enough to make me seriously ill but just enough to notice some symptoms.

I’m honestly not sure if this is a good idea, but I thought I’d give it a try to see what would happen. So earlier this week I bought a 12-pack of mango kombucha, a raw fermented drink that includes mango puree. Each bottle is 12 ounces.

The first one I drank gave me a pretty strong upset stomach and some mild nausea, but it passed after about 90 minutes.

The next day I drank another one, and that time I had a mild upset stomach for about an hour but no nausea.

On the third day, I drank another one. On that occasion I noticed some odd gurgling noises in my stomach, but there was no pain, discomfort, or nausea.

Today is the fourth day, and I drank another mango kombucha a few hours ago. I heard only some minor stomach gurgling but no other adverse symptoms.

So each day the results have been getting better and better. I still have 8 bottles to go, and once I’m done with them, I’ll probably graduate to small quantities of solid mango.

This seems like such an odd problem to have, so I’m sharing this info in case someone else has a similar weird reaction with a latent food allergy that develops over time. If anyone has heard about this sort of thing, I’d love to hear about your thoughts and experiences.

In the meantime, however, I’m takin’ it back!

Get unstuck and leap ahead in your career development, wealth creation, relationships, habits, health, and more. Join us at the Conscious Growth Workshop, July 16-18, 2010, in Las Vegas.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

How to Raise Your Hourly Rate

Wed, 05/26/2010 - 19:47

If you work as an independent professional or employee whereby you get paid by the hour, then your income depends heavily on your hourly rate. So obviously if you can raise your hourly rate, you can earn more money without working longer hours.

But when does it make sense to raise your hourly rate? How do you know if you’re charging a fair price for the service you provide?

When Not to Raise Your Rates

If you’re going to raise your rates, there should be solid business reasons for doing so. In the absence of such reasons, it makes no sense to raise your rates.

Because you feel like it is not a solid business reason.

Nor is the desire to earn more money. That’s a nice intention, but it’s not a justification for charging your clients more for the same service.

When to Raise Your Rates

Here are some cases where raising your rates may be a wise choice:

1. You’ve improved your service and/or skills. If you’re able to provide more value to your clients in less time, then raising your rates to reflect your increased quality and efficiency is reasonable.

2. The supply-and-demand curve for your service has changed. If you’re missing opportunities, becoming overbooked, or having to turn away clients because the demand for your service exceeds the supply, then it makes sense to raise your rates to bring supply and demand into better balance.

3. You want to work shorter hours. If you want to reduce the number of hours you work with clients, you can raise your rates to reflect the scarcer supply.

4. You’re testing to gain more information. Testing a higher rate is a perfectly valid business reason. However, before you test new rates, be sure to have a fallback plan in case the new rates meet with too much resistance.

5. You want to reposition yourself. Positioning or branding are also valid business reasons for raising your rates. However, you’d better have the necessary skills and experience to back up your new positioning. If you want to be a high-priced consultant, be sure that you can consistently deliver high quality results. Otherwise if you charge premium prices for less-than-premium service, you’re essentially scamming people.

These are some of the most common business reasons for raising your rates, but there are others, many of which are field-specific.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Here are some common mistakes people make when raising their rates:

1. Not raising rates at all, i.e. undercharging, is a common business mistake. This means leaving lots of money on the table and being paid signficantly less than you’re worth, especially as your skill increases. It’s a suboptimal way to run a business or build a career.

2. Not testing is another huge mistake. If you never test higher rates, you’ll never know how much potential income you may be leaving on the table. A good approach is to test higher rates with new clients first, but keep your existing clients at the old rates for a while. This way you don’t have to risk losing your old clients if a rate increase proves ineffective and you decide to return to the old rates.

3. Raising rates beyond what the supply-and-demand curve will bear is a common novice mistake. Some people want so much to be on the same level as the experts in their fields, but they haven’t yet acquired the skills to justify such high prices. It’s best to keep your rates reasonable (even low) until you’ve built up a decent client base. When you reach the point of having to turn away business because you’re getting overbooked, then it’s time to raise your rates. But if you overcharge right out the gate, many potential clients will know you aren’t worth as much as a seasoned expert, and they’ll avoid patronizing your business.

4. Changing rates too often is a less common mistake but still one to be avoided. If you’re changing your rates every season, you’re going to confuse your existing clients. Frequently changing your prices will make it hard for your clients to see how your services might fit into their budgets.

Don’t be surprised if you initially see a decrease in business whenever you raise your rates. If the rates are reasonable, business should pick up again within a few weeks.

How to Raise Your Rates

Here’s some advice to help you get your hourly rate trending upward:

1. Invest in improving your service. Keep adding value; don’t get complacent. The more you improve your service and skills, the more you can charge. Note that more knowledge doesn’t always translate to better service. If you want to increase your rates, then focus on building skills with market demand. Don’t waste years learning how to do things that no one needs done (or that can be done at a lower hourly rate than what you’re already charging).

2. Over-deliver. Provide such outstanding service that your clients feel compelled to talk about the great experiences they had. This will help your client base grow via word of mouth. Let a high quality of service be the central core of your marketing efforts. Violate your clients’ expectations in the best way possible.

3. Keep non-core work from becoming a distraction. Take the time to establish and maintain good systems for invoicing clients, educating new clients, handling tax filings, etc. Put this type of detailed work on autopilot so it doesn’t become a distraction.

4. Collect testimonials. When you do good work for a client, ask for a testimonial. Most satisfied clients will be happy to provide them. Then you can share the testimonials on your website or other marketing materials.

5. Ask for referrals. Ask your clients for referrals to others they feel might benefit from your services. Some businesses even go so far as to “fire” clients who never provide any referrals because such clients are dead ends. If it seems reasonable to do so, formalize your referral program and offer referral incentives, such as by providing an affiliate program your clients can join.

6. Leverage your strengths. If you do work that you’re especially good at, you’ll be able to raise your rates faster. Switch fields if necessary, but make sure you’re working in the sweet spot of your core talents and skills.

7. Care about your clients. Treat your clients as real human beings, and they’ll be more likely to want to continue doing business with you — and to refer their friends, families, and co-workers to you. A business is built on relationships. If you treat your clients coldly, don’t be surprised when they respond coldly to your requests for referrals.

8. Keep in touch. Don’t be a stranger. Check in on your clients now and then. Let them know about meaningful improvements to your service. Don’t spam them with fluff, but do maintain the relationship you’ve built.

9. Reactivate dormant clients. A client may go inactive for a variety of reasons, and many of those reasons have nothing to do with you. There’s a good chance that such clients can be reactivated, even after a year or more of inactivity. Maybe they had a bad year. Maybe there were some personal issues they had to attend to. Maybe there was a misunderstanding that can be remedied. If you’re open to doing more business with this client, reach out and reconnect. The worst case is that they won’t do business with you again (which is no worse than the status quo), but the best case is that you reactivate a good client who continues doing business with you for years to come, and they may generate fresh referrals for you as well.

10. Embrace change. The world is awash in change, and change represents opportunity. Don’t be a dinosaur. When you see industry-impacting changes occurring, jump to the front of the line, and look for ways to leverage those changes to provide new and better services. For example, what new technologies are becoming available that are causing surges in demand for software developers and consultants?

Be Patient

The best rates for your service will ultimately be determined by the marketplace. Sometimes you’ll be delighted by the results. Other times you won’t like the market’s verdict, especially when it tells you there are few people willing to pay you what you’d like to earn. Realize that this is only a reflection on the social value you’re currently producing; it doesn’t speak to your intrinsic value as a human being. Accept the market’s feedback for what it is, and use it to make better decisions as you move forward. Don’t try to argue with the market — you will lose!

The nice thing about setting your own rates is that the sky is the limit. You may not be able to control market forces, but you can control how you angle your virtual surfboard and ride those forces. Will you let them toss you to the sidelines, or will you ride them to the top?

Keep in mind that even if you’re an employee, everything in this article still applies to you. In that case you’re simply contracting with a single client. You still decide what rates you charge for your service; despite appearances to the contrary, that decision isn’t up to your employer. For more on this topic, see the article You Are Self-Employed.

Get unstuck and leap ahead in your career development, wealth creation, relationships, habits, health, and more. Join us at the Conscious Growth Workshop, July 16-18, 2010, in Las Vegas.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

Forming Intentions

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 17:17

Hold your breath and put your head underwater. Notice that a clear intention begins to form within a matter of seconds.

Now take a nice big bite of a habanero pepper and begin chewing it. Again, notice that a clear intention forms within seconds.

When you are sick, notice that you gain clarity in your health intentions. When you lose your job, notice that your financial intentions become clearer.

If you want to bring more clarity to your intentions, get off the sidelines of life, and get onto the field. The field is scarier. The sidelines are safer.

Go immerse yourself in something you fear. A new intention will quickly form.

A low-contrast life has very little power to form intentions. Such lives maintain that safety is a higher priority than growth. However, those who subscribe to such a philosophy eventually find themselves locked within their safes.

The quickest way out of that safe is to follow the path of courage. Fear is its signpost.

Turn toward your fears, and powerful intentions will form automatically.

Get unstuck and leap ahead in your career development, wealth creation, relationships, habits, health, and more. Join us at the Conscious Growth Workshop, July 16-18, 2010, in Las Vegas.

Tweet This Post Post to Facebook

Categories: Social

CGW #3 Results

Mon, 05/17/2010 - 19:30

Our third Conscious Growth Workshop was held in Las Vegas this past weekend. I had a blast! Overall this was the best CGW ever in terms of the initial verbal feedback I got and how well the attendees seemed to grasp the material… as well as my own opinion of it at the end of the 3 days.

For this CGW I tried a mixture of new things. The difference between CGW #2 and #3 was much greater than between CGW #1 and #2. I felt that most of the changes worked well. For other changes where the results were mixed, I got very valuable feedback on how to make improvements to CGW #4.

CGW #2 in January was the most right-brained and social, including lots of interaction with other attendees. Some people absolutely loved all the interactivity and got a lot out of it. Some people didn’t get as much out of it because their partners weren’t the best fit, like if a raw foodist got matched up with a meat-eater during the health segment. So for CGW #3 I decided to try something different.

CGW #3 was the most left-brained and introspective CGW. The handouts for Days 2 and 3 of the first two CGWs were 8 pages each. Those same handouts at CGW #3 were 33 and 26 pages, respectively. So we did a lot more written exercises. The goal was to help attendees get a much deeper understanding of how to apply the principles to various parts of their lives and to give them a written game plan for moving forward in their career, finances, relationships, health, etc.

I think the left-brained approach worked better than the right-brained one overall for most attendees this time, especially since it seemed we had a lot of left-brained attendees this time, but I feel that now we went too far in the left-brained direction. So for CGW #4 I’m going to aim for the best of both worlds, a mixture of left- and right-brained exercises, introspective and social aspects. My priorities for CGW #3 included adding more depth and take-home value. For CGW #4 I intend to achieve more balance.

Day 1

CGW #3’s Day 1 was completely redesigned to take advantage of accelerated learning techniques that I learned a few months ago. There was more variety than ever this time, including on-stage demos with audience participation, interactive games, demonstration exercises, and more. If you’ve been to a previous CGW and remember the Authority segment with the Master-servant exercises, imagine all of Day 1 being done in a similar vein. Suffice it to say that it was a very engaging day.

I’m extremely pleased with how Day 1 came out. So far I’ve received very positive feedback about the changes. My intention is to keep the overall structure of Day 1 largely unchanged for CGW #4 in July… with only some additional tweaks and polishing. I won’t mess with the structure of this day too much though because it works very well as-is.

In terms of the accelerated learning techniques I used, they worked wonderfully — but oddly that became a problem later on because most attendees had such a good grasp of the principles by the end of Days 1 and 2 that my planned pacing for Day 3 was going to be too slow for them.

Day 2

This was the most left-brained day of the workshop, involving lots of introspection and written exercises as we covered career, finances, health, mental development, and habits and daily routine. There was also a lot of group sharing. My goal was to increase the take-home value participants received.

Time will tell if this approach really did improve the take-home value — I’ll have to wait for the long-term feedback on that, but I suspect it will. However, I didn’t like the overall structure of this day. I thought it was too mental as we went along. It needs more interactivity, fun, and variety — more of that Day 1 vibe. So I expect to make the most changes to Day 2 for CGW #4.

Day 3 – Morning

As I drove home from Day 2, I wasn’t feeling good about my plans for Day 3. The pacing was going to be too slow. I had slotted about 70 minutes for segments that I concluded this audience could complete in about 45 minutes. I’m not into fluffing or padding my workshops, so I decided to redesign that day and pack more value into it.

Due to time constraints and the fact that I was pretty tired after Day 2, my options for a total redesign were limited, so I decided to delegate the problem to my subconscious. As I went to bed, I listened to the “New Option Generator” Paraliminal. I set the intention to have a solution by morning. Then I fell asleep.

At 1am I woke up — sort of. I was still in that half-awake, half-asleep stage, but my mind was rapidly delving into numerous permutations for an improved design of Day 3. This went on for 3 hours straight. By 4am I began feeling very blissful because I felt my subconscious had locked on to a new design that would be much, much better than my original plans.

At the start of Day 3, I shared all of this with the audience. I informed them that we’d be compressing what I’d originally planned for that day into just the morning segment. This didn’t require shaving any content. It only required faster pacing. This was a very bright, snappy audience, so they simply didn’t need as much time and explanation for the written exercises as I’d originally anticipated.

Before we started on the morning segment, I announced that I had a special fun surprise for the afternoon segment, something I’ve never done at a previous CGW — and that it wouldn’t involve written exercises. Attendees could tell I was gushing with excitement about it, which gave them a sense of anticipation. I think I even let out a “Muahaha” at one point.

The morning segment went as expected. I think the faster pacing was just right. We covered emotions, relationships, and spiritual development. Some people had powerful shifts during that time, including some tears, hugs, and acts of courage.

Day 3 – Afternoon

After everyone returned from lunch, we played another round of Ultimate Rock-Paper-Scissors as a warm-up. This is a game that my friend Matt Weinstein from Playfair taught me. It’s a lot of fun and gets the whole room energized, and it only takes a few minutes to play.

Then we got everyone into groups of 9-10 people each. I informed everyone that now they get the chance to apply what they learned throughout the workshop. Their task — design and perform a skit or play on stage that collectively expresses their new visions for their lives. We had 7 groups total, so that would mean 7 plays. I suggested aiming for about 5 minutes for each play.

The challenge was that I gave them only 15 minutes total to design — and be ready to perform — their plays.

Then I explained how in order to succeed, they had to be in alignment with the 7 principles taught in the workshop. There wasn’t enough time to fall out of alignment, which could lead to problems like disagreeing about what should or shouldn’t be included in the play and not finishing in time. They had to share their new truths (Truth), cultivate a positive atmosphere (Love), make quick decisions and take immediate action (Power), support each other and contribute value to the audience (Oneness), author a new creation (Authority), be brave and perform on stage (Courage), and creatively express themselves with flow and beauty (Intelligence).

I told everyone that afterwards they’d be able to brag to their friends and families that they’d performed in a show on the Las Vegas Strip.

Even our staff helpers participated in this exercise.

I loved this segment! The plays people came up with were so fun and creative — and funny! It was really cool to see dozens of people working together to express themselves creatively. I imagine that most attendees will still remember this part of CGW years from now.

The funny thing is that this segment probably wouldn’t have worked with a larger audience. At CGWs #1 and #2, we had too many attendees to make it practical — either the groups would be too big, or we’d have too many groups and not enough time for everyone to perform. Traditionally, September and October are the best months of the year for holding workshops. May is among the worst. So it didn’t surprise me that we had lower attendance at this one. The sign-up rate for the July and October workshops is better than for the May workshop. But the upside was that the smaller audience size meant we could do something unique this time.

For future CGWs I’d love to include this segment again. Maybe I can redesign it to work for a larger group. The main factor is the time budget. The more people we have, the more groups we’ll have, and the longer it would take to perform all the plays.

CGW Sales Page

I’m going to redesign the CGW sales page, so if you don’t like the current version of it, no worries there. It was an experiment I felt I had to try.

If you’re curious about the results, so far the current sales page has performed no better or worse than the previous one as far as I can tell. From what I’ve seen of the CGW attendees, the sales page format doesn’t seem to matter that much. Most people apparently attend CGW not because they’re persuaded by a sales pitch but rather because they’ve been reading StevePavlina.com for a long time and already have a sense that they’ll get a lot of value from attending CGW. The new sales page was designed with first-time visitors to the site in mind, but I think that’s the wrong approach based on who actually attends CGW.

One of the things I’m curious to learn is: What’s the most conscious way to promote a workshop? I’m leaning towards doing away with the written sales page approach altogether. Instead I may use a “show me; don’t tell me” approach, like putting up a page with pics and/or video clips from previous CGWs to share more detail about what actually goes on there.

Future CGWs

I’m very pleased with how this CGW turned out. There were many improvements over previous CGWs that I intend to keep. I’m confident that CGW #4 will be even better.

I’m a big believer in kaizen (continuous improvement), so I’m always tweaking segments to make them better. I’ve never done a segment quite the same way twice. I’m always looking for ways to make it more impactful.

One advantage is that I expect we’ll continue seeing alumni returning to every future CGW, so we always have a good core group helping to keep the energy up.

Another element is that I’m getting better at teaching this material in a workshop setting. I’ve found ways to teach the same concepts in less time than I could at CGW #1, for instance.

I enjoy thinking on my feet and keeping things lively. If I feel something isn’t working well enough for a particular audience, I’m willing to make changes on the fly, even if it means doing something I’ve never tried before.

Here are some specific changes I plan to experiment with for future CGWs:

Use an asymmetrical structure for each segment on Days 2 and 3. More variety will reduce predictability and make the material more engaging.
Strive for a balance between left-brained and right-brained teaching methods (lecture, interactive games, on-stage demos, group exercises, partner sharing, etc).
Add more fun and interactivity to Days 2 and 3.
Streamline the handouts for Days 2 and 3.
Incorporate some music where appropriate.
Do a better job of leveraging my past experience as a game designer; include more interactive games and play as learning tools.

* * *

I’m already looking forward to the July Conscious Growth Workshop, which is only 2 months away (July 16-18, 2010). Take note that the early registration deadline to save $100 is June 16th. Hope to see you there!

Get unstuck and leap ahead in your career development, wealth creation, relationships, habits, health, and more. Join us at the Conscious Growth Workshop, July 16-18, 2010, in Las Vegas.