Slide Into Your New Reality

Did you ever see the TV show Sliders?

In that show a group of four people would “slide” through a portal between dimensions, spending each episode in an alternate version of earth. For example, they might enter a reality where the Nazis won WWII. Or in another reality one of them might be a famous performer.

Another TV show that can give you the right idea is Quantum Leap. In that show a man spent each episode in someone else’s body in an alternative time and place.

Imagine you’re a Slider or a Quantum Leaper, and you just slid through a portal into your new desired reality — into that new YOU as well. You’re already there living it. The whole reality already exists in some alternate dimension, and you’re now experiencing it as real.

Put yourself in the shoes of that new person. Witness through his/her eyes how s/he goes through a typical day. Imagine that you’re in an episode of Sliders or Quantum Leap.

What time do you get up in the morning? Who’s sleeping next to you? Where are you? How do you feel? What do you eat for breakfast? What do you do in the morning, afternoon, and evening?

You must imagine yourself as already being there. You want to reach the point where it feels natural and normal to be there. After all, this is your reality, isn’t it? So of course it will feel normal in a way. You’re already used to it.

Initially the Sliders/Leapers were freaked out when they entered the new reality. It took them a while to figure it out and understand it. Eventually they got used to it and were able to get things done within that reality.

This is what will happen when you visualize a new reality for yourself. At first it may seem like an alien environment. You’ll have to play around with it for a while before you get used to it and it starts to seem normal to you. It’s very important that you push beyond that freak-out phase. You must shift from thinking about your visions as FANTASY to seeing them as REAL.

A good movie to watch is Being John Malkovich. That will give you more insight into how to slip into an alternate reality and imagine life through the lens of your new character.

Ideally, visualizing your future should be very much the same as remembering your past. Just as you would recall and mentally review what you did yesterday, that’s how you want to imagine your new reality. What are the highlights of your typical day, and how do you feel about them?

Notice that emotional memories are much stronger than routine events. Such memories can draw the past back into your present, but they can also draw a powerful future into your present if you create powerful new memories of the future.

Partial Visualization

One of the most common mistakes people make is that they fall into the trap of doing partial visualizations. They only imagine one or two aspects of their new reality but not the entire big picture. Or they’ll imagine something that makes them feel a certain way, but it wouldn’t actually be a part of their desired reality.

For example, you may imagine seeing a pile of cash on your table and counting the bills. A lot of people suggest this exercise as a way of manifesting more money. I think it’s a lame idea though.

If you really had financial abundance, would you actually have a pile of cash currency in your home? That seems unlikely. If you were already living it, playing with your money or obsessing over it would be silly and immature. That’s the sort of thing someone would do only if they weren’t already living it.

Partial visualizations manifest partial results. You may attract part of what you want, but it will be unstable because you’ve only locked on to some, but not all, of the necessary frequencies required to shift into that new reality. You may be able to visit it briefly, but you won’t be able to stay long.

When I was around 24-25 years old, I read the book Think and Grow Rich, and I started doing partial visualization exercises to attract more money into my life. I imagined having about half a million dollars as a pile of cash on my bed. I felt the texture of the bills with my fingers. I saw it as very real and imagined what it would feel like to have that much cash all at once.

Sometime after that (I don’t recall how long — a few months maybe), I entered into a new game publishing deal with a total advance of $675,000. I soon received the first installment in the form of a check for $50,000, which was the biggest check I’d ever received at that point in my life. It appeared that my intention had manifested.

However, this situation was incredibly unstable. The publisher turned out to be extremely corrupt. First, they screwed up the deal with seemingly insane delays and nonsensical decisions. Then they unilaterally breached our contract. And finally they tried to sue me (unsuccessfully) to recoup the $50K advance. Looking back, it appears that their goal was to tie up my team’s project so that it wouldn’t hit the market… while they had another team developing a potentially competing game. The initial $50K I received was spent on early development for a game that was never released. In the end I was left with a busted project and more debt than when I started. If I could have afforded the legal fees (which I couldn’t at the time), I may have been able to successfully sue them for breach of contract, but that simply wasn’t how I wanted to do business. I wanted to spend my time making games, not giving depositions.

Years later this same publisher was publicly exposed for a massive accounting scandal, and the company and several officers were sued by the SEC. If I recall correctly, their CEO was fined $10 million and had to step down. That came as no surprise to me and many other developers who worked with them.

Not a good manifestation!

Although it seemed promising in the beginning, this attempt to manifest money completely imploded and left me worse off than when I started — aside from learning some very tough lessons, which in retrospect turned out to be quite valuable.

I hope you can learn from my mistakes here and not succumb to the trap of partial visualization. In order to manifest your desires, you need to lock on to the total package of frequencies and the full range of emotions that you’ll experience in your new reality. And one of the best ways to do that is to get really, really clear about what you want.

Complete Visualization

Don’t just visualize one small part of your new reality, such as having more money come to you. Visualize the entire alternate reality you wish to enter, in as much detail as possible.

It’s okay to focus on one area of your life at a time. I personally find it rather difficult to visualize a whole new life for myself that covers career, finances, health, relationships, my daily habits, spiritual development, personal development, etc. So I generally focus on one area at a time, but I do my best to make sure it’s congruent with my desires in other areas too.

A few years ago I focused on creating financial abundance. Then I worked on social abundance (having lots of friends). Now I’m working on intimacy abundance (creating deeper relationships). All of these parts of my life are working beautifully right now. This process definitely works. Sometimes it works so well it scares me a bit.

Career and finances are good areas to visualize together since most people generate income via their careers. Don’t just imagine yourself having more money. Put in some detail about what is sustaining that flow of money. How is it being maintained?

My initial attempts to manifest money flopped (or made things worse) because the big picture was incongruent. I was trying to pull money out of thin air, figuring it would come to me like magic. Well, this isn’t magic… not really.

Similarly, in the area of social abundance, I didn’t just manifest friends with magic. I had to see the big picture. This required thinking about what kind of friend I’d be. I thought about the kinds of friends I wanted to attract, and then I imagined what kind of friend I’d have to be in order to attract them to me — and to maintain good relationships with them. This made it clear that I had to work on myself too in order to step into that new reality. I had to become a better friend to others so I’d be worthy of those new relationships.

I know some people who are working really hard at manifesting new relationships. But all they do is imagine the other person coming to them and loving them. That’s a partial visualization, and it fails consistently. Honestly I don’t think I’ve seen this approach ever really work out. People do attract new partners this way, but the matches aren’t very compatible.

Suppose you’re trying to attract a new woman by visualizing her in your life. She’s everything you desire. She’s a perfect match for you and absolutely amazing as a human being. You can’t help but fall in love with that new reality.

But will she fall in love with you — realistically? A new reality is something you’re going to make REAL — it’s not a fantasy!

If you think your new reality is too good to be true, then well… it is too good to be true.

What do you have to offer this woman? She may be YOUR best possible match, but are you HER best match as well, or will she have better options than you? Will she have to compromise her values and settle for less than she’s worth to be with you? Will you really be able to maintain a relationship with someone like that? Are you worthy of her?

These questions can hit people like a ton of bricks because they reveal our inadequacies. But we still need to address them.

When you visualize your new reality, you must imagine yourself BEING the kind of person who can attract and hold on to all the good stuff you wish to manifest. That means you’re going to have to work on yourself and grow into that kind of person.

I know one woman who’s been trying to manifest the perfect relationship for years. She goes on a lot of dates, yet she remains perpetually alone. It’s obvious to me — and to many who know her — why that’s so. The simple reason is that the man she desires wouldn’t find her attractive at all. I can’t even see that being a remote possibility. She’s a kind-hearted person with a successful career, and she doesn’t have a problem getting dates, but her personality is a total mismatch for the kind of man she wants. She doesn’t fathom what such a man would find attractive in a relationship partner, so she lives in denial of the fact that he wouldn’t be attracted to her. So she’s always dating people where there’s no two-way chemistry. If she keeps doing what she’s been doing, she’ll either remain alone indefinitely, or she’ll eventually settle for an unstable connection with someone she doesn’t find attractive or who doesn’t find her attractive.

In the area of career and finances, what kind of person will you have to become in order to attract and hold on to the abundance you desire? What will it take to be worthy of that kind of flow?

When I was in my 20s, a $50K sum was too much for me to hold on to. I could attract such a sum on rare occasions, but I couldn’t retain it. It would slip through my fingers like water.

Eventually I stopped doing partial visualizations and began seeing the big picture. I realized I’d have to become a man who was worthy of abundance. This may mean something different to you, but to me it meant that I would need to be a kind and generous person who created a lot of value for others. That felt congruent to me. If I were a greedy bastard who was all about me-me-me, I’d feel I didn’t deserve that kind of flow. In my visualizations I felt really good about centering my career around service to others, and I could see that this would be consistent with attracting and perpetuating a constant flow of good stuff through my life — money, good health, low stress, loving relationships, fresh opportunities, etc. The total package just made sense to me.

I had to work a lot on myself to step into that new vision of me, but it definitely worked. In the past five years, I’ve put out enough free content to fill a couple dozen books. That feels really good to me. And resources flow to me so easily that I simply take it for granted that I can relax and enjoy whatever I want to experience in life. This works because it’s a congruent and stable situation. I use my creativity to put out a lot of value for others, so naturally I receive a lot of value in return. But in order to reach this place, I had to go through many internal shifts to step into this new reality.

In the area of social abundance, I do my best to be the kind of friend that’s worthy of having amazing friendships. I support and encourage my friends to pursue their dreams, but I also love to joke around and have fun. Consequently, I attract and maintain relationships with like-minded people. I’m really good at attracting people who are loving life, who enjoy helping people, and who are very encouraging and supportive of me too. And I naturally repel people who wouldn’t make good friends for me.

In order to manifest what you desire, the total package must be congruent. There must be harmony between what you’re attracting and what’s attracting you. Too often people fall into the trap of trying to attract something that would naturally repel them, such as trying to manifest a flow of money without creating any value, or trying to attract a loving relationship without becoming a loving and attractive person.

This is largely common sense, which many people seem to lose sight of when trying to apply the Law of Attraction.

Will a health nut be attracted to a lazy couch potato? Will honest, conscious business people want to do business with someone who creates little value and is in only in it for the money? Will an adventurous growth-seeker be attracted to someone who’s timid and security-minded? Even if these situations were to manifest, they’re unstable and usually won’t work out very well unless there’s a strong attraction in some other area to compensate.

Manifestations can occur very RAPIDLY and POWERFULLY once this harmony is achieved. But until that happens, results tend to be minimal or negative.

Write It Down

Imagining your new reality can be tricky if you try to do it all in your mind.

You may find it helpful to sit down and write out what it will be like to experience your new reality, in as much detail as possible.

For example, if you want to attract a certain type of person into your life, write out a detailed description of that person. Then you can use that as a guide when visualizing. Another option is to create a vision board by assembling a collection of photos or images (physical or digital) that helps you imagine the big picture.

I recently stumbled upon an old journal entry where I wrote out several pages describing in detail what I wanted to experience in life. My life at the time was nowhere close to that reality. I put an incredible amount of detail into it, even including personality descriptions and physical attributes of imagined people, such as how tall they were or that they wore contact lenses or were left- or right-handed.

What really freaked me out is that there is now a person in my reality who matches someone I described about 95% accurately. This person was not on my radar at all when I wrote this journal entry. I wrote it in February 2001. My life was in a completely different place back then.

Most of what I wrote about back then has already manifested. I’m now living it. Other parts of my reality have shifted so much that parts of my vision that seemed so far away are not nearly so distant now. I can actually see steps that would make more of them possible and realistic. The big picture is sliding towards me.

I was talking with Erin about this last week, and she asked me, “Why did you put that kind of detail into it? Why did it matter to you that an imaginary person was near-sighted?”

My best answer is that I found that a copious level of detail made it easier to see it as real. The vision became more believable. If the new reality is to become real, the people within it must be real too, not imaginary archetypes. Real people have height and weight. They may be near-sighted or left-handed. They may have pimples or unshaven faces. They wear certain types of clothes. They have unique personalities.

If you suddenly slid into your new reality, you would instantly observe all of that detail. It would be right in front of you. So put it in front of you now. Create it in your imagination. Clarity creates believability, which gives rise to stronger, crisper vibrations than fogginess.

It takes practice to get good at this, but the more you practice, the richer and more vivid your visualizations will become. That richness makes it easier to lock on to the new emotional states you’re aiming to create.

Achieve new breakthroughs in your habits, career, finances, relationships, health, and spiritual development. Register now to attend the transformational 3-day Conscious Growth Workshop in Las Vegas, January 15-17, 2010.

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

Is it possible to use the Law of Attraction to manifest true abundance in your life, including financial abundance, social abundance, and more? Absolutely, it is. In this 35-minute video (split into 4 individual clips for posting on YouTube), I explain why people so often fail in this area, and I give you a simple two-part method to make it work for you. I also share some stories and examples from my own life to help you internalize these ideas so you can apply them successfully.

There are several video clips of me on YouTube already, but those were all recorded by others, including some interviews that people have done with me. This is the first time I’ve intentionally recorded a video to share the kind of ideas I might otherwise cover in an article or podcast. So please consider this my first official video blog.

I recommend that you watch all 4 clips back to back if possible (35 minutes total). I broke the video into shorter clips because of YouTube’s 10-minute limit. I wanted to post these on YouTube instead of another service since it’s the most popular one, and I already have a YouTube channel (stevepavlinadotcom). Feel free to subscribe to it if you’re a YouTube member.

This video was recorded in HD by the way. Enjoy!

You can watch the videos one at a time below, or use this playlist link to automatically watch them in sequence on YouTube.

Creating Abundance (Part 1 of 4)

Creating Abundance (Part 2 of 4)

Creating Abundance (Part 3 of 4)

Creating Abundance (Part 4 of 4)

I’m a total newbie at video, and this was my very first time using iMovie — or any video editing software for that matter — so please be kind.

I hope you find these insights on creating abundance helpful. If you’d like to see more videos, I’m open to suggestions for additional topics to cover.

Achieve new breakthroughs in your habits, career, finances, relationships, health, and spiritual development. Register now to attend the transformational 3-day Conscious Growth Workshop in Las Vegas, January 15-17, 2010.

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

The first Conscious Growth Workshop earlier this month was such an unqualified success that I started the process of booking another event less than 48 hours after it ended. It took a little while to select the meeting room and get the paperwork signed, but we’re good to go now.

Workshop Details

All the workshop details can be found on the Conscious Growth Workshop page, including the specific topics we’ll be covering each day.

This will be a very holistic workshop, blending high-level ideas with practical application. We’re going to cover career development, money, health, skill building, habits, productivity, emotions, relationships, spirituality, and more. I’ll be sharing the best insights I have on each of these topics. My goal is not to send you home with pages and pages of notes that you’ll hopefully implement later. This workshop is geared to create many a-ha moments that shift your thinking right there in the workshop.

Workshop Location

The first CGW was at Harrah’s. This one will be at the Flamingo, which is just two doors down, still right in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip.

For CGW #2 we’ll have a significantly larger and nicer meeting room. This new room can hold up to 400 people, so we’ll have more capacity too. I expect attendance for this workshop to be considerably higher than for the first workshop, especially given all the positive buzz about it — and the fact that CGW #1 alumni can attend for free.

Comparison to CGW #1

I’ve received a tremendous amount of feedback from attendees of CGW #1. I didn’t calculate it precisely, but it looks like the average rating was higher than a 9 out of 10. So obviously we did something right. We don’t want to mess up what’s working, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

In the months ahead, I’ll be poring over the feedback in detail and making lots of tweaks to the format, the exercises, the fieldwork assignments, and the way the material is presented. I REALLY appreciate the level of detail people used when sending me their feedback. Rest assured I’m reading every word of it and carefully considering what you shared.

One simple change is that we’ll be doing 2-hour lunch breaks each day instead of 90 minutes. It was obvious that people wanted more time to socialize at lunch, myself included. To compensate for the longer lunch breaks, we’ll be ending 30 minutes later each day (5:30pm on Fri and Sat, 4pm on Sun), so the actual time in the workshop will be the same.

We’ll still cover the seven fundamental principles of growth on Day 1, and then we’ll apply them to different areas of life on Days 2 and 3. The feedback I received suggests that this overall structure was very effective. Most of the changes I’ll be making will pertain to how each individual segment is structured and delivered. I’ve already refined some of the exercises (including the Master-Servant one), and I’ll probably make a lot of changes to how we do the written exercises to make them more impactful. The biggest challenge is figuring out how to incorporate the best ideas into the time we have available.

My goal is to make CGW #2 significantly better than CGW #1 while retaining the elements of CGW #1 that worked best. I can’t yet say what all those changes will be. It’s going to take time to fully review the feedback and re-factor each segment of the workshop.

Workshop FAQ

If you have questions about the workshop, please consult the Workshop FAQ first. It packs in a lot of info.

I did my best to anticipate any questions you may have about the workshop, travel arrangements, hotels, and staying in Las Vegas.

Workshop Forums

A few weeks ago, we added a Conscious Growth Workshop discussion forum. This is a great place to interact with CGW #1 alumni if you want to learn about their experiences. You can read plenty of feedback from them about the experience.

A good place to start is with Alex Wu’s day-by-day review of CGW #1.

You can also use that new forum to introduce yourself to other CGW #2 attendees, arrange social gatherings in Vegas, find people to share hotel rooms, ask questions about Las Vegas, etc.

Additionally, you may enjoy reading through this thread about the workshop results, which includes lots of feedback on CGW #1. Just be aware that it’s pretty long (more than 140 posts). You may find this post from Daan Buckinx especially insightful since he shares the specific changes he experienced.

The CGW discussion forum is also a good place to keep in touch after the workshop. It’s very likely you’ll make some great new friends there. I’ve been seeing CGW alumni continuing to stay in touch on Facebook, Twitter, and sometimes in person.

CGW Alumni Attend Free

As I mentioned previously, anyone who attended the very first Conscious Growth Workshop in October can attend one of the 2010 CGWs for free.

Will there be any benefit to attending more than once? Yes, absolutely. This workshop is designed to meet you where you are right now and to help you grow from there. If you attended the first workshop, you may recall the analogy of the different planets. Next year your Planet A will be different, and so will your Planet B. Even though the material will be similar, you’ll be applying each principle to your current life situation, so your experiences will be different each time. Also, you’ll have many new friends to make and hang out with, so the social opportunities will be unique as well.

If you’re a CGW alumni, and you’d like to register for CGW #2, don’t use the online registration form. Instead, please visit Erin’s contact form, and send her a message letting her know you’d like to register for CGW #2. Please provide her with the following info:

• Your name (as you want it to be printed on your badge)
• Your city and state (city and country if you live outside the USA)
• Your email address
• Your phone number

If you send Erin this info and she confirms receipt of it, we’ll have a badge waiting for you at CGW #2.

There’s one caveat though. We need to make sure we don’t get too many alumni saying they’ll be at CGW #2 and then not showing up. That could mean having empty seats we might otherwise have offered to someone else. So if you request a badge for CGW #2 and you flake for some reason, then it means you’ve used up your freebie pass for good, and you won’t be able to attend another CGW in 2010 for free.

Since there were 115 attendees of CGW #1, we should have enough capacity to accommodate anyone who wants to attend CGW #2 for free, as long as you request a badge early enough. However, if we sell out with paid registrations, then it’s possible we may have to turn away some alumni freebie requests if they wait till the last minute to request a badge.

I’d suggest that if you want to request a free alumni badge, please submit your request by December 1st, 2009. That gives you more than a month to decide. We may be able to accommodate requests after that date, but I can’t guarantee it.

If we do get close to selling out, we may follow up with each alumni freebie request to verify that you’re still planning to attend. That way we can offer your seat to someone else if you change your mind. But please don’t request an alumni badge unless you’re willing to commit to using your freebie pass.

If we can swing it, we’ll use a different color for the alumni badges, so you’ll be able to tell at a glance who’s alumni and who’s new.

I don’t know how many CGWs we’ll have in 2010 — that depends on the demand — but I’d like to do at least 3-4 of them, roughly one per calendar quarter. CGW #2 is the only one that’s been scheduled so far.

Time to Register

It should be obvious that I’m EXCITED about doing another workshop. I had so much fun at the first one that I couldn’t wait to schedule another one.

This workshop has had a huge impact on my own personal growth. I thought I was there to be the facilitator, but it turned out that I was just as much an attendee as anyone else. Together we created a space where many breakthroughs were able to occur. The last two weeks have been – without a doubt – one of the most intense growth periods of my life.

Some of the changes I’ve been experiencing are still creating ripples and will have to be revealed in the weeks ahead. But one of the simplest changes I can share is that I’ve been exercising a lot more, eating more lightly, and sleeping less. My fitness level has measurably improved, and I dropped six pounds in the past two weeks.

But perhaps the most astonishing change is that I did something I’ve never done before. That’s right — I bought a Mac! After 20+ years of continuous PC usage, I decided to switch to a Mac for a while. The fact that my laptop PC and desktop PC both went belly-up within the past 3 months made it a good time to switch. I figure it will be an interesting growth experience to become a Mac guy for a while. I ordered a Macbook Pro online last week, and it’s supposed to arrive on Thursday. I also bought a 24″ Mac monitor, which I received yesterday. Before the workshop I’d never have thought it possible!

So what are you waiting for? Go sign up for January 2010 Conscious Growth Workshop. You’ll love it!

Achieve new breakthroughs in your habits, career, finances, relationships, health, and spiritual development. Register now to attend the transformational 3-day Conscious Growth Workshop in Las Vegas, January 15-17, 2010.

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

The cubicle is the antithesis of doing work you love. Virtually no one pictures a cubicle when they think about doing what they most love.

The cubicle is where you end up when you fall out of harmony with what you love.

The only way you can be stuck in a cubicle is by giving your power away to it.

A cubicle has no power over you. You can empower the cubicle, but it can’t empower itself.

To complain about a job you dislike is an act of giving your power away. You chose the job, and you can just as easily choose to stop showing up.

Think of it this way: If you and your cubicle got in a fight, who would win?

Still not sure? How about this: You plus a chainsaw vs. the cubicle plus a chainsaw. Who’d win?

If you decide to leave the cubicle, it is powerless to stop you. You could smash the thing to pieces just for spite.

So the only one keeping you trapped in that cubicle is you. You’re there by choice. You’re there because that’s the life you chose to create.

“But I need that cubicle because I need money,” you say.

Now you’re giving your power away to money. Money is nothing but a piece of paper… or a number on a computer screen. How can something so lifeless and inanimate have any power over you whatsoever?

If you and $1 million cash got in a fight, who’d win?

Not sure? Ok, try this: You plus a flamethrower vs. $1 million plus a flamethrower. Who’d win?

Is that even a fair fight? You could repeat it for a thousand matches and win every single time.

“But I have bills to pay,” you say.

Now you’re giving your power away to your bills. You do realize you don’t have to do that, don’t you?

What is a bill? It’s a few pieces of paper at most.

You vs. your bills in a fight — who’d win?

Can you see who’s stronger here, or do we need to arm each of you with a paper shredder to be sure?

“But I need a roof over my head and food on the table,” you say.

Now you’re giving your power away to the roof and the food. Those are inanimate objects.

Who’d win in a fight between you and a house or you and a ton of food? I think it’s clear that you’re the fiercer opponent in those matches, and unless you do something stupid and slip on a banana peel, an easy victory is yours.

Follow this chain of making and busting excuses for as long as you desire. You’ll still end up at the same place. Each rationalization is just another instance of giving your power away.

Giving your power away is stupid. Who would use their creative powers to create a trap for themselves and then complain about being stuck in the trap afterwards? That wouldn’t be very bright, now would it? I mean… you’d have to be really, really stupid to do something like that, wouldn’t you?

Do you realize that you don’t actually have to give your power away to anything? Really you don’t.

You don’t actually have to create a trap for yourself, fall into it, and then spend years complaining about the trap.

It’s not like your traps are very strong anyway. A cubicle isn’t a particularly strong cage, now is it? You can walk away from it this very second, and it’s powerless to contain you.

An unfulfilling relationship isn’t much of a cage either. Again, it’s easy enough to just walk away.

Even now, you have the ability to withdraw your power into yourself and reclaim it.

That power is your creative ability. Your power allows you to bend reality to your will. If you want to experience a different reality, you have the power to create it.

If you desire a roof over your head and food on the table, you can use your power to create that.

If you desire to have bills in your life and also have them be paid on time with ease, you can create that reality too.

If you desire to have money flowing through your life, that is also within your power.

And if you desire to live your life outside a cubicle, then once again you are strong enough to make that happen.

Do not make excuses. Do not complain about your situation. Complaining and excuse-making are acts of using your power to create what you don’t want.

Whenever you complain about anything, it’s because you do not understand the true nature of power.

Do not pretend you are powerless. You are stronger than any excuse.

Use your power to constructively create what you want. Focus your will upon your desires. Withdraw your thoughts from helplessness and hopelessness.

Realize that you’re the creator in your reality. If you find yourself in a cubicle, who created that reality for you? Who used their willpower to walk up to the cubicle and sit down? You willed that into existence. You thought about it. You felt what it would feel like. You fed that potential reality your power. And so you manifested and experienced it. But you didn’t have to. You never had to. And you never will have to.

Look around your life and notice all that you’ve created. You did all of that. Your repeated applications of power constructed the reality you are now experiencing.

Celebrate that realization. See the good in what you’ve created. Remember the thoughts and feelings you summoned to create it. Do not give your power away by pretending that you didn’t create it.

You may have created much that you no longer desire to experience. In that case, focus your creative energies elsewhere. Stop feeding your power to what you’ve already created, and begin channeling it toward what you now desire.

You cannot uncreate what you’ve already created. Well, maybe if you use the flamethrower. But you can re-create your reality into that which you desire to experience.

Imagine being in the place of experiencing a reality that you created. Actually you’re already there. You’re experiencing that every day. But now imagine yourself enjoying a reality that you very much desire to experience. You can create that too.

What if you don’t know what you’ll enjoy? How do you know what to create next?

Well, start with what you know. If you know you aren’t thrilled with what you have right now, then pick a direction and target your creative energies there. If you know what you’re experiencing right now isn’t what you desire, then the most foolish thing you can do is to use your power to keep re-creating it.

Explore. Experiment. Create new experiences for yourself. It is only through exploration that you will hone in on what you most desire. Be willing to fail.

Celebrate your creative failures. Celebrate those times when you created something you didn’t like. Those experiences are your greatest teachers.

When you know you’ve created something you don’t like, learn from that contrast. Ask yourself, “How does this help me understand what I truly do want?”

If you know you don’t want to spend your life in a cubicle, how does that help you? It helps you better understand what you do want. It suggests other places to explore.

Based on your reaction to cubicle life, perhaps you will see that you desire to spend more time outside. You desire more freedom. You desire to manage your own time without having to be at a certain place at a certain time. You desire to physically get up and move around more. You desire fresh air and sunlight and moonlight. You desire to be with people who are on fire with passion and happiness, not with people who are slaves.

Observe your creations. Take credit for them. Take full responsibility for what you’ve created. And then learn from them. Allow yourself to have an emotional reaction to what you’ve created. Do you love it? Do you hate it? Are you bored with it? How do you really feel?

When you observe the life you’re living, are you blissing out? That’s a sign you’ve created what you truly desire. Or are you bored or frustrated or stressed? That’s a sign you missed the mark and need to try again.

Use your emotional reactions to what you’ve created as a way to re-orient yourself in the direction of new desires. Then withdraw your power from the creations you no longer wish to experience. Realize that you created all of it and that you now have the power to create something else.

Now focus your power in that new direction. It doesn’t have to be a perfectly crystal clear direction. It just has to be a path with a heart, something that feels good to you, something you’d like to explore.

If you can’t find a path that feels good, then look for a path that feels better than what you’re already experiencing.

That path with a heart is a path that requires courage. If you haven’t chosen a path that requires courage, you’ve chosen to create another trap for yourself. In the end you will only create more of what you don’t want.

True desires pull at your heart. But if your application of power has been rather weak, then the mind will resist these desires. This conflict between head and heart is called fear. Fear is what you experience when you turn your inner eye to see the path with a heart, but your mind doubts you have the power to create it and have it feel good.

When you see that path with a heart, it’s okay to feel fear and tension. It will take time to re-awaken your power and apply it to the pursuit of that path.

Imagine power and energy flowing forth from you. Flow your power toward your desires. Imagine them as real. Use your power to create them in your mind and in your heart. See your creations as real. Feel your creations as real. Know that this is an act of creation.

Be careful not to feed your power back to your undesired creations. Let the old creations die. Let go of the cubicle. Disconnect from the unfulfilling relationships. Channel your power toward your desires only.

If this is difficult for you, then strive to minimize the amount of time you spend feeding your power to what you don’t want. Go on a power fast in those areas. Starve out those creations. Keep pulling back and withdrawing more and more of your power into yourself.

Notice when you are channeling energy to something you don’t want. You will know it’s happening because you will be feeling negative emotions. When you notice this happening, withdraw your power and re-channel it toward something you desire. You will know it’s happening when you experience positive emotions. Feeding power to your desires feels good.

Enjoy the unfolding journey as your new desires begin to manifest. Keep following the path with a heart. Turn your body, mind, heart, and spirit in the direction of your desires. Keep facing toward them as much as possible, as you turn your back on that which you no longer desire.

Do not pretend to be powerless. Such behavior is unbecoming of conscious beings.

Achieve new breakthroughs in your habits, career, finances, relationships, health, and spiritual development. Register now to attend the transformational 3-day Conscious Growth Workshop in Las Vegas, January 15-17, 2010.

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

For those who were already getting pretty good at it, I offered an additional challenge: Meet a stranger and share a hug in less than 5 minutes. One person in the room said he thought he could do it, but only if I dared him. So I said to him, “I not only dare you. I double-dog dare you!” That got a big laugh, and the challenge was set in motion. I heard a lot of fun stories from people sharing hugs with strangers, spreading love around the Las Vegas Strip.

The most impressive piece of feedback I heard was that Daan Buckinx actually met and hugged two people in less than a minute. I was impressed and told him that would be difficult to top, but he did it anyway. He eventually got it down to 15 seconds. How cool is that? Whenever you’re out in public, isn’t it great to know that the nearest hug may be only 15 seconds away?

I told Daan that if he emailed me his story, I’d post it here in the blog, and thankfully he agreed.

So here’s Daan’s story of how he went from zero to hugs in under 60 seconds:

I never used to hug people before I came to this workshop. I did want to however, but I was afraid to do so because of what people might think. You know, the usual. But I set the intention to hug as many people as I could during the workshop.

My first hugs were exchanged at the pre-meetup on Thursday. I knew people would be open to this, so they came almost effortlessly. And hugs were also quite abundant the following days at the workshop itself. I started refusing to shake hands.

But the challenge was to connect with and hug strangers. That seemed more difficult. But I wanted to do it. And then there was an opportunity. Following the silly questions exercise at the workshop, I began to consistently start up conversations with anyone I ended up in elevators with. This went really well and I loved doing it.

Eventually on Monday an elderly couple joins me in my elevator. I ask what they’re up to and they tell me they’re going to see a show, le Rêve. I tell them I want to see that show too. They ask what I’m up to. I tell them I’m going to a Toastmasters meeting later. They know Toastmasters and tell me that’s nice. Then they ask where I’m from. I tell them it’s Belgium and they seem to have got a connection with that too. They went there to see the bi-annual flower carpet once. By then we’ve exited the elevator and it’s time to go our separate ways. But not before I ask them for a hug! Which they gladly agree to, of course, smiles all around. All in under a minute.

So I told you this story on Monday and you said that would be hard to beat. But it wasn’t.

So on Tuesday I’m in the Imperial Palace, where they have some dealers impersonating celebrities. A friend points out a younger looking female one and asks if I can guess who it is. My friend walks on and I stare for a few moments but I have no clue. When I start moving again, I notice an older woman who seems to be giggling to herself. I feel compelled to ask why, so I do. She tells me that I was staring at that dealer’s knickers! Huh?! I look back and see that, indeed, there’s some underwear exposure I hadn’t noticed. So I tell her that it wasn’t me, but her that was checking out the knickers! The naughty lady! We’re both laughing hard now. I explain the situation and we end up hugging. Total time, around 40-45 seconds.

Does that sound hard to beat? It still wasn’t.

A few hours later, I went to a Chinese restaurant in Harrah’s. We get escorted to our seats by the waiter and while still standing up, I start thanking him for giving us great seats in the (mostly empty) restaurant. I say something like: “Kevin, (I love name tags) you are amazing! Thanks for giving us the best seats in the house! I love you, man! Can I give you a hug?” And what do you know, he’s ok with it! Total time, around 15 seconds!

Maybe that last one doesn’t count, because he’s a waiter and it’s his job to please people. But he still didn’t have to though, as Darby pointed out to me. So I’m not sure. The waiter was definitely smiling afterwards though.

I love speedhugging!

On Wednesday I shared some hugs with another couple at the airport in Washington while waiting for my flight back home. That one took some more time but that’s good, because it allows for a better connection. I even gave a seated hug to a girl sitting next to me on the plane to Belgium. We had been talking for ten minutes and had a great connection going on. She went to Vegas with her husband on their honeymoon. And she’d quit her job after working there for five years to start studying again, because she only had a high school diploma. We ended up exchanging details and she’s going to add me on Facebook now!

I’m going to take things a bit slower now though, because I’m sure I bruised a rib or something by bear hugging Jesse on Monday.

I’m guessing it’s a ‘coincidence’ that some strangers started talking to me in the end or that I started seeing pennies eventually too, right?

I love this new planet!

* * *

Highly conscious people don’t have to buy into the socially conditioned reality. We can create our own reality, one that is a lot more connected and fun!

It will be fun to see if anyone can break Daan’s record at the next Conscious Growth Workshop.

I can now confirm that the dates will be January 15-17, 2010 at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. I expect to open registration for it next week.

Achieve new breakthroughs in your habits, career, finances, relationships, health, and spiritual development. Register now to attend the transformational 3-day Conscious Growth Workshop in Las Vegas, January 15-17, 2010.

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

Something about the energy of the room pushed me to keep stepping up my own energy. If you attended the workshop, you may have noticed a shift in me too from Day 1 to Day 2 to Day 3. Those shifts have been continuing and increasing this week. It feels like a tremendous amount of blocked energy was freed up, and I’m more passionate about my life and my purpose than I’ve ever been.

I am anxious to do another workshop, not just because of the huge transformations I saw in others but because of the major shifts I experienced in myself. I can’t even fathom where I’ll be after doing 5-10 more of these. And the ongoing rippling effects created by other attendees will be incredible to behold.

More Workshops

We’re definitely doing this workshop again. I already contacted Harrah’s to tell them we wanted to schedule another one ASAP. Later today I have an appointment on the Strip to check out potential meeting locations.

Specifically I’m looking at January 15-17, 2010 (Fri-Sun), but this is very tentative.  The same room isn’t available on that date, but there are other places available. The most promising location at this point seems to be the Flamingo, which is just a couple doors down from Harrah’s, still right in the middle of the Vegas Strip.

At least for the next workshop or two, I’d like to stick with groups of 100-125 people, not including repeat attendees. We had 115 people for this first one, and that worked very well. It was big enough to generate plenty of energy and audience interaction, and it was small enough to create a sense of connection, intimacy, and friendship. Erin and I were able to personally meet and talk to most of the attendees, and on the second day we went out to lunch with a group of them. I really liked the level of connection we were able to share. If we had 500+ people, we wouldn’t be able to manage the same level of personal interaction — it would be too overwhelming. But on the flip side, that many people would be able to generate a lot more energy. This may be a tough balancing act, and we’ll just have to experiment to see what works best.

I get the feeling we won’t be able to keep these small for long. Ideally I want to be doing these workshops about once a month.

Las Vegas

I intend to stick with Las Vegas for the location for at least the next several workshops. We had people flying in from all over the world for the first workshop, and Las Vegas itself is a natural (or perhaps unnatural) draw.

Harrah’s was great to work with. They own many properties in Las Vegas, so I can work with a single meeting planner to scout lots of possible locations. They own Harrah’s Hotel, the Flamingo, Caesar’s Palace, Bally’s, Paris, the Rio, and Imperial Palace. Our meeting planner likes to say, “We have infinite inventory available. Whatever you need, we’ll find you a room.” I love her attitude.

Aside from the fact that Erin and I live in Las Vegas, the main reason I like this location is because of the rich social opportunities that are available 24/7. At the first workshop there were some “homework” assignments that people did outside the workshop room. All they had to do to find people was to go downstairs, and they’d find a sea of approachable tourists playing slot machines… or a line of people queued up for a buffet. Las Vegas has a very fun and lively energy to it, so it’s a great fit for the energy generated by our workshop.

Yes, Las Vegas has its vices, but that’s exactly why I think it’s such a perfect fit for a workshop on conscious growth. The city is all about freedom and acceptance. If you want to drink, smoke, gamble, stay out all night, or have sex, you have the freedom to do that here. I think a city that defends your freedom of choice so staunchly is the perfect backdrop for the sort of transformation we want to encourage with this workshop. This is a city where people are out living life and having fun. It’s not a city that demands you spend your life in a soul-sucking cubicle.

Another city that could be a good fit would be New York City. But the people there seem to be always in motion, hurrying from one place to another. In Las Vegas, it’s easy to find people just hanging out, sitting at a slot machine, and having fun. Since so many people here are on vacation, the open energy makes it much easier for our workshop attendees to go out and start conversations with strangers. And they can’t use the excuse that they couldn’t find anyone to talk to, even if they do the exercises at 3am.

Friday and Saturday nights are always bustling on the Vegas Strip, so having our workshop on those days makes a lot of sense to me. It’s hard to imagine a more lively place on earth than the Vegas Strip on a Friday night.

I know that some people will groan about having to travel here, but my intuition says this is the right place for us to be for now, so I’m going to trust that.

I also have a special personal connection with Las Vegas. It’s long been my favorite city. Doing workshops in this city helps keep me in a fun, high-energy state. Other cities simply don’t excite me as much as Las Vegas.

Plus I think it’s just insanely cool that I get to go to work on the Vegas Strip. We don’t have our own neon sign yet, but we can dream. I just need to figure out how to work in some showgirls and maybe a tiger or two. :)

Free Repeat for First-Time Attendees

Anyone who attended the first workshop is welcome to attend another one anytime within the next year for free. That’s my way of saying thanks for being part of the very first CGW, which I think we can agree was something very special. It can only get better from here as we continue to experiment with the format (authority), take some creative risks (courage), listen to feedback (truth), create a deeper and more connected space for working together (love, oneness), and hold the intention and take action to improve (power).

Did you know that we were generating so much energy in the room that we blew out 6 light bulbs near the stage? (Fortunately, Harrah’s wonderful staff replaced them within a matter of minutes during one of the breaks.) We also blew a few wireless mikes.

After Effects

Electronic devices are having problems around me. When I got home, my desktop computer started overheating repeatedly, even though it’s cool in the room and outside. Last night it overheated again, and I can’t even get it to boot up now. I have all my data on an external hard drive, so no worries there, but I may need a new computer soon. My phone also kept disconnecting during phone calls with another workshop attendee, and this morning my phone provider was having an outage. Sorry, Vonage.

I’ve been noticing a major increase in synchronicities since the workshop. The details are a bit too complicated to explain. But it’s very clear to me that this is something I need to keep doing.

On Monday sixteen workshop attendees who were still in town came to a Toastmasters meeting with Erin and me. Erin is our club President, and our club, Powerhouse Pros, is the largest in Vegas. The energy we brought to the room was so high that it elevated everyone. I was impressed to see everyone take their skills to a whole new level. It was one of the most hilarious meetings we’ve ever had. Alex Wu’s Table Topics answer was absolutely hysterical — I was still laughing about it on the way home. I didn’t have a speaking role at that meeting, although I contributed a bit of observational humor at the end.

After enjoying such a fun, high energy meeting, I couldn’t help but think… What the heck did we put in those green orbs??? (an inside joke for workshop attendees)

Returning Home

If you attended the workshop, you may be noticing a stark contrast between the person you used to be and the person you’ve become (or are becoming). It’s when you return to your old environment that you really notice how much you’ve grown. Believe me — you definitely aren’t alone. I’ve been hearing about this contrast from lots of attendees.

You may be feeling an increasing sense of disconnect with your old life. Relationships with certain people may begin to feel pointless or lifeless. Try watching TV, and you may be able to barely tolerate it — it’s utterly boring no matter what you watch, isn’t it? Your sleep patterns may shift. You may be able to barely stomach going to work. In fact, several workshop participants either left their old jobs immediately upon returning home, or they made commitments in front of other people or on YouTube videos to quit their jobs within a matter of months. Amazing!

This is a good time to go ahead and shed that which you know is soulless and heartless. Let it go and simplify your life. Create the space for something new. Jettison the excess junk as you embark on your journey from Planet A to Planet B.

The most important thing that you can do is to keep your vibration up. Hold that new level for as long as you can.

Remember to apply the principle of Love. Reach out and connect with other highly conscious people, including the friends you made at the workshop.

My commitment is to do whatever I can to facilitate your continued growth and help you apply what you learned from the workshop.

For starters, to help workshop attendees stay in touch and keep connecting, we’ve added a new discussion forum. Anyone can participate, including people who didn’t attend the workshop, but this is a great way for workshop attendees to stay in touch, discuss the after-effects of the workshop, and keep encouraging each other to apply the principles to sustain positive momentum.

But don’t just use email and the forums to stay in touch. It’s really important that you pick up the phone now and then, or arrange a face-to-face meet-up. It’s important to connect with the other people’s energy, and the Internet is unfortunately a weak medium for that. I’ve probably spent 15-20 hours on the phone this week after the workshop, and it really makes a huge difference.

Remember that we’re all in this together. You do not have to go it alone. Tapping into that social support is very important at this time. If you stay connected with other highly conscious people, they will help you stay grounded in that new place of being and help you avoid sinking back down.

Be sure to also apply the principles of Power and Authority. This is a great time to kick off a new 30-day trial. Also, take some small actions to move forward. Don’t think you have to change everything all at once. Start with little changes here and there. One attendee rearranged his office as soon as he got back, in order to help break the old patterns of thinking and doing.

Take the cover of one of the handouts from the workshop with the Truth-Love-Power triangle, and post it on the wall in front of you, so you’ll see it every day and remember to apply the principles to your life. If you want a copy of that image in digital form, feel free to copy-paste the one below.

Be patient with yourself. It’s going to take time for your outer reality to catch up to your new inner reality. Those changes won’t manifest overnight, but they will happen if you can hold yourself to your new state of being, so just enjoy the process of unfolding. Take note of the daily shifts and new synchronicities that are popping up in your life, and flow with them.

Follow the path with a heart. This is the time to drop all the heartless connections from your life. You already know where the old path leads. Do you really want to keep following it? Remind yourself that maintaining heartless, soulless connections in your life is a STUPID path. Stop giving your power away.

Think bigger. Begin to notice ways you can be of service to others and to the larger body of humanity. You don’t have to seek them out. They’ll find you. And when you notice an opportunity to serve, pounce on it without hesitation, and throw yourself into it fully.

When you feel ready, make some new decisions — REAL decisions. Remember that the word decide comes from the Latin decidere, which means “to cut off from.” Don’t give your power away to excuses. Go out and get the lunch you want to eat. If you get blocked, let it be because the world beat you down and your muscles failed you, not because you gave up and pre-failed in your mind.

Connect with people. Say hi to someone new as frequently as possible. Set a minimum standard for yourself like one new connection per day or per week — a few workshop participants have already committed to this. Keep pushing yourself to connect socially. Don’t retreat back into your cocoon where the Internet becomes your primary portal to the rest of humanity. Your primary communication device is your body, not your computer, so use your body to go outside and connect.

Take time for journaling. Write about your workshop experiences, so you can remember them. Review your notes and written exercises. If you feel so inclined, blog about your experiences. Several bloggers have already done so.

Referring People

If you want to refer others to future CGWs, I ask that you do so wisely, responsibly, and with careful consideration. Ask yourself if the person you’re referring is really on the path of conscious growth, or are they still in the unconscious growth phase. Is s/he ready for such a big shift? If not, please don’t refer them.

If you attended this workshop, it should be clear that CGW is not for everyone. You need to have at least a minimum basic level of alignment with Truth, Love, and Power to benefit from it. That’s one of the reasons I charge admission for it. If your Power is so low that the entry fee seems like an enormous barrier, it’s safe to say you probably won’t have the strength to really do the work, especially the exercises that require some courage. You may or may not have noticed that one woman left the room crying on the very first day. This workshop can generate some intense inner processing, and not everyone is ready for that.

CGW is like an advanced yoga class. If you’re new to yoga, then it’s unwise to jump into an advanced class without training in a basic class first. My articles and podcasts collectively form the basic class, and they’re free to everyone. My book is an intermediate step. But this workshop is meant to take things to a more advanced level for those who are ready for it. It is far removed from a basic self-help seminar. So be careful about referring people to this workshop who haven’t yet done enough of the inner development work necessary to benefit from it. People you refer should at least feel they are personally responsible for their lives, be able to afford the registration price without undue hardship, and have a stable social environment around them.

It’s not my intention to draw as many people as possible and sell, sell, sell. If you attended CGW, that should be obvious. My role is to help create the space to assist you on your path of conscious growth. Holding that space requires that the people within it have enough Truth, Love, and Power alignment to help us stay at a high level of consciousness without being dragged back down. That isn’t easy, and it takes a serious commitment from the whole room. If you felt yourself unusually tired after the workshop, even when you didn’t physically exert yourself much, it’s because you were holding a higher vibration in your body, and it was a bit of a strain to keep it there. And that’s okay.

I am now leaving for the Strip to find us a new location for CGW #2.

Achieve new breakthroughs in your habits, career, finances, relationships, health, and spiritual development. Register now to attend the transformational 3-day Conscious Growth Workshop in Las Vegas, January 15-17, 2010.

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

Since these courses tend to be fairly involved, I decided to ask for feedback from people who’d already gone through some of them to see if they’d be worth my time to evaluate. To be honest I was partly hoping that people would trash them because that would save me a lot of time.

However, the feedback I received about David’s work was very positive overall. Several people told me they got great results from applying what they learned from his programs, such as successfully initiating new relationships.

Another thing I was able to discern from the feedback was that many people found David’s later programs to be significantly better than his earlier works. These products were released over a period of many years, so it makes sense that the work would evolve over time. At the time I wasn’t quite sure what people meant by “better” though.

Evaluating David DeAngelo’s Products

This summer I went through a massive amount of material from David’s product line for men — dozens of DVDs in total — including the following home study courses:

• Cocky Comedy
• Meeting Women Online
• On Being a Man
• Deep Inner Game
• Man Transformation
• Become Mr. Right

He has other product lines for women created by different experts, and I have several of those products too, but I haven’t had a chance to evaluate them yet. Because of the size and scope of these programs, it can take a long time to go through them. It’s a good thing I enjoy evaluating personal development products.

I definitely saw a progression in these courses. The earlier works like Cocky Comedy and Meeting Women Online were largely technique-based. Say this and do that to get a certain result. Although the message in those programs didn’t resonate strongly with me, I could see them being helpful to many men, especially men in their early 20s. I might have applied some of those ideas in college to good effect, but I don’t see them being as effective at creating connections with women who are very conscious and aware. Even David admits as much in his later programs. Whether or not those products will prove helpful to you depends on where you are on your path of relationship growth. If you’re just starting out, you’ll probably find them useful. But if you’re already good at connecting with women and are working on the intimacy stage, it’s safe to say you’re ready for something more advanced.

David’s more recent works like Man Transformation and Become Mr. Right have a significantly different focus. I could see why people liked them so much. In these courses the emphasis is on inner development, not so much on tactics and techniques. A lot of time is spent exploring what it means to be a man today. How do we shed outmoded models of manhood that no longer serve us? What kind of men do we wish to be? How can we express ourselves authentically with women? What do women find most attractive about men? How can we create fulfilling intimate relationships? What’s holding us back?

Man Transformation

By far my favorite course was Man Transformation. At 20 DVDs, it’s the most comprehensive of all these programs. That’s about 35-40 hours of material.

Man Transformation focuses on three core areas of relationship development:

1. Inner game – developing your character, identity, and life purpose from the inside out
2. Interaction skills – approaching women, starting conversations, being confident and authentic
3. Creating lasting intimacy – moving beyond attraction and creating a deep connection with your partner

This course covers everything from approaching a woman the first time… to dating her… to creating a fulfilling long-term relationship with her.

I especially liked that this course included hour-long presentations by multiple experts — 16 in total aside from David himself. These people share a wealth of knowledge based on extensive experience.

My perspective on this course is necessarily different than most people who’d be interested in it, since I’ve been enjoying a very fulfilling intimate relationship since 1994, married since 1998. One reason that Erin and I remain very happy together is that we worked through a great number of blocks to intimacy along the way, especially during our first few years together. There were a lot of challenging moments, but we worked through them together. Our relationship has been — and continues to be — an amazing growth journey for both of us.

Many men, however, don’t know how to work through their blocks to intimacy and remain stuck for years. For example, many guys feel tremendous anxiety at the mere thought of walking up to a woman and starting up a conversation with her (aka approach anxiety), and this paralyzes them from taking action. Other guys can start a conversation, but they don’t know how to express romantic interest and end up orbiting the woman indefinitely as a friend. Other guys are good at getting dates, but they’re stuck with a series of shallow connections and can’t progress to the intimacy stage.

Man Transformation spends a great deal of time identifying these blocks and explaining how to overcome them. I think it will be really helpful for men to learn from men who started out with poor relationship skills and progressed far beyond those limitations.

If this program sounds interesting to you, please read my complete review of Man Transformation.

Exclusive 10% Discount and Bonuses for StevePavlina.com Readers

When I find a course or program that impressed me and that I feel good about recommending, I like to arrange a special deal for my readers if possible. Since I have such a large readership, product publishers are often willing to offer us a group discount or bonus.

Well, I’m pleased to tell you that the publisher was willing to offer both a discount and an extra bonus for any of my readers that are interested in purchasing the Man Transformation course. And best of all, this offer is exclusive for us, so you’re getting a better deal here than anyone else can offer.

First, you get a 10% discount off the price. My readers are the only people who are being offered this discount. Apparently they never do discounts, but they’re willing to do it for us.

Second, you get a number of free bonuses, including 3 extra DVDs (on time management, health, and financial success), a note-taking journal, and a free copy of David’s Double Your Dating e-book. Most of those bonuses you would still get if you buy direct from the publisher — it’s part of their standard offer. However, the free Double Your Dating e-book is a special bonus that’s only being offered to StevePavlina.com readers.

Third, you also get to try Man Transformation for a free 30-day trial. You only pay for it if you decide to keep it. Otherwise just send it back and don’t pay a dime.

As with any special deals I arrange, this one includes a 100% no-questions-asked money-back guarantee.

Finally, if you live in the USA, you get free shipping too. If you live outside the USA, you’ll pay a reasonable shipping fee.

This offer is good for the next 10 days (through September 27th, 2009). After that, the offer may continue in some form, but it probably won’t be as generous.

You’ll find all the details on my Man Transformation review.

In case it wasn’t obvious, this program is intended for men. If/when I find a high-quality dating or relationship program for women or couples, I’ll be sure to let you know about it.

Achieve new breakthroughs in your habits, career, finances, relationships, health, and spiritual development. Register now to attend the transformational 3-day Conscious Growth Workshop in Las Vegas, January 15-17, 2010.

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

Erin and I recently did a 35-minute video interview for the Alison and Jaye Show (see below). Most of the Q&A focuses on psychic development and communicating with spirit guides, including the benefits and pitfalls of receiving guidance from non-physical entities. We also discuss overcoming blocks to financial abundance near the end of the interview.

If you’re convinced there’s no such thing as psychic abilities, you can safely skip this interview because it won’t likely do much for you. This video is geared more toward people who already have some experiences with psychic phenomena as well as skeptics who are curious about this topic and want to learn more. By skeptics I’m referring to open-minded doubters but not close-minded disbelievers. If you aren’t open to this sort of thing, don’t press play.

If you liked this video, you may also enjoy listening to Erin’s recent 60-minute radio interview with Janice Marie Wilson, which covers similar topics and includes some Q&A with live callers.

Additionally, Erin is now offering an instant download of her PDF “10 Ways to Raise Your Vibration” when you sign up for her free newsletter. Raising your vibration essentially means feeling stronger, lighter, and happier and releasing feelings of depression, anxiety, fear, anger, guilt, shame, grief, etc. These techniques can also be used to boost your passion and motivation for action. The lower your vibration, the more you’ll be stuck in negative emotions, apathy, and helplessness. The higher your vibration, the stronger, happier, and more vibrant you’ll feel.

In case you’re wondering whether or not we’re going to cover psychic development during our Las Vegas workshop in October, the answer is no, not by design. If someone brings it up during Q&A, we’ll answer their questions, but this topic is too expansive to adequately cover in this particular workshop. We didn’t want our first workshop to require attendees to be receptive to psychic development. We’d have to plan a separate workshop to do this topic justice.

Achieve new breakthroughs in your habits, career, finances, relationships, health, and spiritual development. Register now to attend the transformational 3-day Conscious Growth Workshop in Las Vegas, January 15-17, 2010.

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

Realize that if you eat eggs, you’re actively and directly supporting practices like this. This video is actually pretty mild compared to what happens to the hens.

What’s the difference between being the guy who tosses the live baby chicks into the grinder vs. paying someone else to do it for you? Of course there’s no meaningful difference other than how much you distance yourself from the truth.

There’s really no difference between this level of conscience and Hitler’s treatment of the Jews. If people can justify treating animals like this for the mere taste and satiety of an unnecessary digestible, what’s to stop them from relating to other human beings the same way? The law? If you’re willing to kill and torture defenseless animals simply to satisfy a craving that you could easily do without, what more are you capable of when the stakes are higher?

Animal torture and human torture both occur at the same level of consciousness — the level of separation at which inflicting harm on another being is seen as justifiable. Distinctions between the two are made at the level of rationalization and assigned meaning, but harming animals doesn’t occur at a higher level of consciousness than harming humans. If you do either, you’re certainly capable of both, given the right conditions. Look within yourself and observe that the same consciousness that says, “I don’t care what happens to this baby chick” is the same level of consciousness that says, “I don’t care what happens to that guy overseas.”

All it takes is for you to say, “That person/animal is unimportant to me,” or “If it gives me a little more pleasure, then torturing and killing is fine,” and you can justify any behaviors you like. And as history shows us, quite often people do exactly that. Is this how you truly want to live, or do you think you’re capable of better?

Now you might think that if you eat free range eggs, then your conscience is clear. Nice try, but not even in the ballpark. Free range is no better because the hens still originate from the same factories that grind up the male chicks alive, so you’re still supporting the same practices. “Free range” is only a marketing term anyway and has no legal meaning. It’s largely a gimmick for branding purposes.

What about the excuse, “Everyone else is doing it, so it must be okay”? Hey, that line worked pretty well for the Nazis. Maybe it pisses you off to have me compare you to the Nazis. The Nazis were pretty pissed off too, so there’s another match. Perhaps you aren’t so dissimilar after all.

Obviously it’s a different story if you get your eggs from a local chicken-loving farm where the animals are well-treated, but do you get all of your eggs from such sources and never stray? This would mean never consuming any products that include eggs, such as baked goods or pasta or processed foods or restaurant foods with eggs, where the source is almost certain to be a factory like the above. If you’re lazy about it, you might as well buy a meat grinder and lend the guy in the video a helping hand.

If you give it a little thought, does it really make sense to eat the reproductive material from another species’ ovaries? I know it tastes good with certain preparation methods, but I’m sure your own reproductive organs would taste good with the right sauce. When you eat eggs, you do realize that you’re eating something that comes out of a bird’s vagina, don’t you? You might as well turn a woman’s period into pasta sauce.

Dropping eggs from your diet is actually quite easy. It’s a nasty habit that arises from social conditioning, but it isn’t hard to dump. I stopped eating eggs many years ago and never went back. Before that I often had eggs for breakfast. I especially loved omelettes. In January 1997 I did a 30-day trial with no eggs (I also dropped dairy at the same time), and I never had any desire for eggs after that. I lost 7 pounds the first week and felt a lot more energetic afterwards. You can just as easily use the same 30-day trial method to see what egg-free life is like for you.

If you like scrambled eggs, a good transition food is scrambled tofu. Google the phrase, and you’re sure to find plenty of recipes online. Scrambled tofu (or tofu scramble) is very easy to make. Tofu is a very bland food by itself, but it easily picks up the flavor of anything you mix into it such as various spices. No doubt some people would rather avoid soy, but it’s a big step up from any meal that comes from a menstruating bird.

Then again, maybe you’re one of those Nazis who really enjoys their work. Maybe you’re the kind of person who watches the video and thinks about applying for a job at a chicken processing plant. Well, at least you’re congruent.

Ultimately you have four basic options:

(1) Eat eggs and feel good about the whole process, including how the baby chicks and the adult hens are treated. This means you experience no guilt or regret about it. You’re totally fine with slaughtering baby birds on a daily basis. If baby chicks must die, so be it. Your taste buds are worth it. Heinrich Himmler would be proud.

(2) Eat eggs and turn your back on truth. It makes you feel sad, guilty, etc. to retain awareness of the reality behind your food choices, so you do your best to tune all of that out. Listen to the marketing messages, and try not to think about what goes on behind the scenes. Become dumber and more ignorant in order to create faux happiness. Distance yourself from your true feelings, and become increasingly disconnected from yourself and more of a social drone. Don’t rock the boat. Live as a typical Nazi.

(3) Keep eating eggs, but get them only from compassionate sources that fits your values. You’re willing to go out of your way to satisfy your craving, but you want to do as little harm as possible.

(4) Stop eating eggs and stop supporting a process that doesn’t feel good to you. Listen to your conscience ahead of your cravings and addictions. This is a more difficult path to be sure, but it also promises tremendous growth. On this path you may get egged by others from time to time because your actions will expose their incongruencies, but you’ll know you’ve made the right decision for you, and any resistance will simply make you stronger. The more you can summon the courage and fortitude to make such decisions, the stronger and more congruent you become as a compassionate human being.

Technically there are other levels beyond this, but at that point the solutions became less about personal growth and more about contribution.

If this post/video pushes some emotional buttons in you, rest assured it’s intentional. To whom do those buttons belong anyway, and why do they keep flashing “push me” in bright neon letters?

Achieve new breakthroughs in your habits, career, finances, relationships, health, and spiritual development. Register now to attend the transformational 3-day Conscious Growth Workshop in Las Vegas, January 15-17, 2010.

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

I’m not going to give you a hard-sell pitch to try to convince you that you should attend. The workshop page is designed to explain what you can expect to learn and experience at this workshop, so you can decide whether it will be a good fit for you on your path of conscious growth. I’d rather speak to a smaller group of people who really want to be there than a larger, less committed group of people who have to be sold on the idea.

Internet marketers will probably shake their heads in disgust at the way I’m promoting this workshop since I’m breaking most of their “rules” for how to launch and promote a live event. I’m doing that intentionally though. I thought long and hard about which people I can really help and which people I don’t feel I can help as much. I decided to create a workshop to benefit the people I believe I can help most, so this isn’t a mass-market seminar that will appeal to everyone. It would not be a good fit for the average person. Consequently, I designed the main workshop page to filter out the people I don’t think will gain as much from working with me in person. I wrote that page with a sense of what the ideal attendee would be like. Once you read that page, I think it should be fairly easy for you to decide if you’re meant to be there.

I considered a number of different names for this workshop. If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you may have seen some of my joke tweets when I was trying to figure out what to call it. In the end I decided to go with “Conscious Growth Workshop” because it’s a straightforward description of what the workshop is about. The whole point of this workshop is to help you overcome blocks and step up your conscious growth.

Workshop Details

All the workshop details can be found on the Conscious Growth Workshop page, including the specific topics we’ll be covering each day.

This will be a very holistic workshop, blending high-level ideas with practical application. We’re going to cover career development, money, health, mental development, habits, productivity, emotions, relationships, spirituality, and more. I’ll be sharing the best insights I have on each of these topics. My goal is not to send you home with pages and pages of notes that you’ll hopefully implement later. This workshop is geared to create many a-ha moments that shift your thinking right there in the workshop.

This will be a very interactive workshop with a good mix of left- and right-brained learning. Rest assured you won’t be sitting through 3 days of solid lecture. It won’t be filled with rah-rah fluff either.

Workshop FAQ

If you have questions about the workshop, please consult the Workshop FAQ first. It packs in a lot of info.

I did my best to anticipate any questions you may have about the workshop, travel arrangements, hotels, and staying in Las Vegas. If you have a question that isn’t answered there or on the main workshop page, please submit it via my contact form. I’ll probably expand the FAQ over time as new questions come in.

Events Page

I also added a new events page to this site, which is now linked from the navigation bar. The Conscious Growth Workshop is the only event listed so far. I expect this will be the first of many future live events, so I’ll use the events page to keep you up to date on what’s coming up. So far this workshop is the only public event on my agenda. There are no solid plans to repeat this workshop or do it in other cities as of yet.

I’m very excited about this workshop. Ever since I made the decision to go forward with it about a month ago, everything has been falling into place beautifully.

Several people have already registered for the workshop since the registration pages went live last night. I expect we’ll have a really awesome group of people in the room.

Take a look at the Conscious Growth Workshop page, and see if you think it’s a good fit for you. If you decide to attend, I suggest you register early because there’s a possibility it could sell out.

Achieve new breakthroughs in your habits, career, finances, relationships, health, and spiritual development. Register now to attend the transformational 3-day Conscious Growth Workshop in Las Vegas, January 15-17, 2010.

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.