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.

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.

The question posed was: What’s it like to enjoy financial abundance in real life?

Honestly it’s pretty much the same thing you’d experience in a virtual game world when your character has a lot of gold.

When you have an abundance of gold, the nature of the game changes, doesn’t it?

First, the price of items becomes less important because you can afford anything you want. You’re less likely to whine, “I can’t afford that!” If you have a million gold pieces and you’re earning a thousand more each day, would you fuss about whether a potion costs 10 gold or 50 gold? You don’t even have to think about it. What’s cheap and what’s expensive is relative to your assets, income, and mindset.

Second, in some ways the game becomes more fun, but in other ways it could be less fun. Your financial resources give you an edge. Your character is less limited and has more possibilities. It’s easy for you to secure equipment, lodging, transportation, etc. It’s easy to help out other characters. But you may have to change the way you play to keep it fun and engaging. In the beginning it was challenging just to acquire gold, but now that you have so much, adding more to your stash may not be as exciting as it once was. You’ll probably become more interested in other aspects of the game, such as socializing with the other players. The game becomes more of a social challenge than a financial one. This is an oversimplification, but my point is that when you have a lot of resources, your focus shifts away from acquiring more and toward something else that interests you and keeps the game fun. If the game stops being fun, you’ll probably think about quitting.

Third, your social interactions with the other characters may change when you have more gold. When you’re rich you can do more to help out other players, like buying them equipment and supplies. Some people may appreciate the help. But for others it may not be a good thing. If someone is new to the game, and you artificially advance them, you may rob them of the early learning experiences, so they may be a significantly worse level 30 player than someone who bootstrapped his/her way up from the bottom. You may also rob them of the fun of overcoming the game’s challenges via trial and error. However, when an experienced player is starting fresh with a new character, it makes more sense to give them some aid because repeating the early levels probably won’t do much for them. It takes time to develop the wisdom to make financially and socially sound decisions, and not everyone will be pleased with your choices.

You may want to protect your gold because it took a lot of work to earn it, but you needn’t be overly afraid of losing it because you know you could earn it back if necessary. This assumes you earned it in the first place. I’ve found that this is the same with many people in real life. Those who are very skilled at earning money usually aren’t too afraid of losing it, but those who aren’t very good at earning money become more clingy and tight with what they have because they don’t feel confident in their ability to earn it back quickly. The high achievers are still protective of their assets, but they don’t live in fear of a big loss if they trust themselves; when they do succumb to playing too tight, the game becomes less fun, and they lose their drive and ambition.

I wouldn’t say that the game is always better when you have a lot of gold, but in many ways it is. If you really enjoy the challenge of acquiring gold, then the early levels can be a lot of fun. If you remain in a state of financial scarcity for too long, however, you’ll limit your avatar’s growth. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy interesting growth experiences while in a state of financial scarcity, but the game typically gets boring, repetitive, or frustrating if you stay there too long. To keep it fun and interesting, you need to progress to different kinds of challenges.

If you’ve been stuck in a state of financial scarcity for longer than you’d like, it means you haven’t yet put in the time to master one of real life’s wealth building strategies. There are many to choose from, so pick a strategy that’s fun for you, and run with it until you get good at it.

You can create stuff and sell it. You can be a trader (buy low, sell high). You can get paid to support and/or optimize other people’s wealth building systems. You can acquire income-generating and/or appreciating assets. You can bring people together for lucrative deals in exchange for a fair cut. You can become a performer or entertainer. Real life has more wealth building opportunities than all the virtual worlds combined.

What causes people to get stuck in financial scarcity?

How would you become financially stuck in a game world?

Basically you need to avoid doing those things that will bring in the gold.

For example, you could avoid going on income-generating quests. Stick with non income-generating activities like walking around aimlessly or socializing with other characters. This could still be fun and interesting, but don’t expect to get paid for it.

Many times people will use the phrase “I don’t know what to do” in order to justify their financial scarcity.

So you’re going broke because you don’t know what to do? Is that accurate? Your problems would be easily solved if you only knew what to do? All your financial problems can be traced back to not knowing what to do?

Seriously?

Is it perhaps more accurate to say that you’re using this as an excuse to avoid accepting one or more of the quests that are RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE?

I don’t think I’ve ever met someone that claimed they didn’t know what to do who wasn’t butt up against the most obvious solution, staring them right in the face the whole time. They claim ignorance in order to prevent themselves from having to face that solution, which is often quite clear to everyone around them. They think that other people are actually buying their excuse, but the reality is that there’s a whole gossip network around the person where friends and family keep asking, “Why won’t s/he just do X?” But after dealing with years of denial, it’s too hard for friends and family to be straight with that person and lay out the plain and simple truth because they expect the truth would kill the relationship.

If you’re one of those people who goes around saying “I don’t know what to do,” please believe me when I tell you that no one around you actually believes your story. You’re more transparent than you realize. To other people it just sounds like pointless whining.

If you’re playing a game and you don’t know how to earn gold, how would you figure it out? Is the solution to walk around complaining, “I don’t know what to do”?

No, that would be stupid. You’d never do something like that, would you?

How could you figure out what to do?

You could start by reading the game’s instruction manual.

You could ask the other players who have a lot of gold or even a moderate amount of gold for advice. Chances are that anyone who has more gold than you has more of a clue than you do. If you really want to earn a lot of gold, make a study of how the game’s resource system works. Try different ways of earning gold. Read books about gold mining. Experiment. Discover through trial and error what works best for you.

But for goodness sakes, if you sit around whining “I don’t know what to do” while other characters are happily earning gold, don’t be surprised when the armory guy comes to strip you of your sword and chain mail for being late on your payments.

Choosing good quests

To create a wealthy avatar, accept quests that will earn you some gold. Invest your time and energy into those quests, and you’ll acquire gold.

This is an oversimplification because in real life there’s more financial risk than in most games. Virtually anyone can get rich in a game world simply by playing long enough.

Let’s consider some possible ways to choose a quest that will earn you some gold.

How about letting your parents or family decide for you?

Perhaps your family really wants you to become a healer because they know that healing pays big bucks. So they strongly encourage you to go to shaman school. You also believe that’s a good way to earn a lot of gold, but you really don’t want to be a healer. You don’t think it would be fun for you. Should you ignore your feelings and take their advice?

Only if you’re a total loon.

The point of the game is to have fun, right? So why on Azeroth would you try to acquire gold by committing to a long-term quest that you don’t expect will be fun? What will happen? You’ll become bored and frustrated, and you’ll soon want to quit. You’ll waste everyone’s time and disappoint those who are counting on you.

Even if you can force yourself to succeed on this path, you’ll end up hating your life. It will become a total grind. So what if you earn a million gold. Will spending it be any consolation for the sorry state of your emotional life?

It’s okay to go on a short and dull mini-quest every once in a while, and that may be a necessary step for advancement sometimes. But if the bulk of your time is spent doing stuff you don’t enjoy, the solution is obvious: quit and start over on a different path. And don’t bemoan how far you’ve traveled down the wrong path. Let it be game over.

What if you accept only those quests that you expect will be the most fun?

That would certainly be interesting. You’d be enjoying the game and having a good time.

But maybe some of those quests wouldn’t earn you any gold. Maybe you’d even have to pay for some of the experiences you’d like to have. Eventually you would get bored by the limited options available to you, and you’d feel anxious to progress to something more rewarding.

This hedonistic approach might work in certain games where every roaming monster carries a purse (yet you never see those monsters shopping in any of the stores), but it often falls flat in real life. Every analogy has its limits, so we have to be careful not to stretch this one too far.

Is there a better approach?

What if you played the game with the goal of balancing having fun and acquiring gold? Surely there are plenty of quests you could accept that would be (1) fun and interesting, and (2) profitable.

From time to time you might do quests that are fun but not profitable, or profitable but not fun, or neither profitable nor fun. But suppose you aim to spend 80% of your game time on quests that are both fun and profitable.

Could you do it?

Could you do that in real life?

After all, you’re the one who chooses the quests. And there’s a virtually limitless supply of quests available.

Writing this article is a mini-quest for me. I love writing, so it’s fun for me to do this. This particular article probably won’t be very profitable, but it could generate some extra traffic over the years, and I earn gold from web traffic in a variety of ways. Maybe I’ll even sell a few more instruction manuals.

The point is that you’re the one who’s choosing these quests, aren’t you? So if you’re not having fun, whose fault is that?

I don’t want to see you blaming yourself for picking lame quests, but it would make your life a lot better if you realized you’re the one who’s responsible for making those choices.

Sometimes the bad guy forces a quest on you, one that you wouldn’t have chosen for yourself. When that happens, just accept it and get through the quest as quickly as you can. And remember that it’s still supposed to be fun.

Skill building

Just as there’s an element of skill to playing games, there’s also an element of skill to earning gold in real life.

Some players just plain suck at it, don’t they?

If you’re one of those sucky players, what’s the solution? You need to find a way to suck less.

This means learning how to capitalize on your strengths and shore up your weaknesses.

Where is your character strong? Are you good at vanquishing monsters? Casting spells? Healing people? Motivating and inspiring your guild? Set yourself up in a role that plays to your strengths as much as possible. Do more of what you’re good at and less of what you’re bad at.

What about your weaknesses? Where are the chinks in your armor? How can you work around them? Can you educate yourself to become a better player? Can you recruit teammates whose strengths will compensate for your weaknesses? Most likely you’ll need a blend of training and recruiting. Make your avatar as good as you can, but recognize that you’ll still need help if you want to achieve your full potential.

Decide how you’re going to develop your character. If you’re a warrior at heart, don’t go to mage school. If you’re a cleric at heart, don’t study lock picking. Train yourself to take better advantage of your strengths.

If you can’t decide what kind of character you’d like to be, then make any choice and start pursuing it. You’ll find out soon enough if you chose wrong, and then you can go back and start fresh with a new character and develop yourself along a different line. Often this is the only way you’ll learn what your true strengths are. You may have to try on several gauntlets that don’t fit in order to find the one that fits you like a glove.

When I played computer role-playing games, I almost always chose to be the fighter guy. I wasn’t into casting spells or doing stealthy maneuvers. I didn’t like to be subtle or sneaky. I was the kick-ass warrior guy who’d run into a group of monsters and start wailing on them. I must have thought RPG and FPS were synonyms.

Even when I did pen and paper role-playing, my favorite characters to play were the fearless warrior types. One of my favorite characters to play was called The Tackler. His special power was that he was exceptionally good at running headlong into groups of enemies and tackling them to the ground.

Often I like to control my real-life avatar in a similar manner. When communicating with people, I tend to be very direct and forthright. I’m not very subtle or sensitive. I’m disgusted by people who gossip behind people’s backs. Is this the only way to play the game of life? Of course not. I like playing this type of character though, and when I try to behave too differently, it doesn’t feel right; it feels like I’m out of sync with my avatar.

Recruiting teammates

In an MMORPG, it’s pretty hard to get ahead by playing solo because your options are more limited. Bigger teams can tackle bigger challenges and earn bigger prizes. Teammates can help compensate for each other’s individual weaknesses. The social experience of interacting with other players and working together as a cohesive unit makes the game more fun.

As my primary teammate, I have Erin, who loves to play the healer. She’s the perfect complement for my avatar. I run in first and get beat up, and she keeps me alive and tends to my wounds so I can return for another round. We’ve accomplished some interesting real-life goals this way.

Interacting with teammates can also help you develop a more well-rounded avatar without losing your sharp edge.

For example, sometimes I’m too aggressive, and I have to learn to tone it down a notch. Years ago, Erin and I were playing the MMORPG game City of Heroes. I played a martial arts scrapper character (a tough fighter who inflicts a lot of damage), and she played a healer. While waiting for our teammates to arrive before embarking on a mission, I grew impatient and decided to run in solo and get a head start on bashing enemies. Erin’s character remained in the street waiting for the rest of our group. She sees me enter a warehouse filled with enemies, and about 30 seconds later, my character comes running out the door and immediately falls flat on his face at her feet — dead. With my last virtual breath, I typed, “Do NOT go in there!”

How can you recruit teammates to help you out in real life? It’s pretty much the same process you use in a game, albeit a bit less structured. Simply talk to people and invite them to do something fun and profitable with you.

That’s how I recruited people to help out with my computer games business many years ago. I found people I thought would be a good fit for the team, and I asked them, “Hey, would you like to…?” Then we had a conversation about the possibilities of working together. I don’t recall looking at many resumes. I just asked around. These days it’s how I do joint-venture partnerships. It usually starts with a line like, “Hey, what do you think about this idea…”

That’s how I started my latest mastermind group. I asked someone to join it, and he said yes. It’s only three people so far, but it’s off to a good start. It’s a small team where we all help each other succeed. We had our third meeting recently, and all of us have benefited from it. Each of us is strong in areas where the others are weak.

Don’t think you have to go it alone. Financial abundance is easier to achieve when you make it a social adventure, not a solo pursuit. You’ll probably find that the social aspects make it more fun. Isn’t it more interesting to tackle one of those dragons as a team instead of trying to take it on all by yourself? The best part of going on quests is the fascinating people you meet along the way.

Courage

Courage is an essential element for going on quests because good quests, especially those that are very lucrative, often involve some risk. You might die. You might get robbed. You might encounter a puzzle you can’t solve and get frustrated.

So why do people take on those risks? Why do people keep fighting dragons and risking their character’s lives to do it?

Mainly because it’s a lot of fun. To play sheepishly makes the game boring and pointless. It’s better to play full out and risk death now and then.

Nobody wants to get their character killed. But they understand it’s a possible outcome, and they accept it. In the grand scheme of things, getting your virtual character killed is a minor setback.

It takes practice to find the right balance between playing too fast and loose versus playing too tight and timid. With practice you’ll settle on a strategy that works for you.

How’s your real life strategy working for you? Have you achieved the proper balance between courage and safety?

Most of the time, people play their real life characters way too tight and timid. Yes, some people are on the fast and loose side, but if you’re reading this article, it’s a safe bet that isn’t your problem.

In real life people often exaggerate their fears. They run from things that are largely imaginary. I mean… how often do you have to risk death to acquire financial abundance these days? I guess that depends on where you live and what type of work you’re doing. But where I live most people who choose to become wealthy can do so without substantially increasing their risk of death by dragon’s breath.

What’s the truth of your situation? Are you exerting the right amount of courage? Are you taking reasonable risks, or are you playing too tight?

Courage is what keeps you in the sweet spot of having fun. Courage isn’t something you are or something you have. It’s something you do. When you do courage, the game is fun. Real life is fun.

When you see a quest that scares you but also excites you, that’s the best kind of quest to accept. Those are the really fun ones.

What are some of the quests that are right in front of you, waiting to be accepted? Have you been avoiding them because they require courage? If a quest requires courage, that’s exactly why you should accept it. It will be fun!

Your wealthy avatar

The hardest part of building a wealthy avatar is adopting the right mindset. This is the mindset that people naturally adopt when they enjoy a role-playing game. The point of the game is to have fun and to advance your character. If you’re not having fun, and other people are, you’re probably doing something wrong. If you’ve been playing for a month and you’re still stuck at level 3, you’re probably doing something wrong. You’re one of those clueless newbies who just doesn’t get it.

When you have the right mindset, and you keep playing the game, it’s only a matter of time before you have a wealthy avatar. Sure you’ll have a few setbacks along the way, and your expectations won’t always be met. But if you apply a sound strategy that fits the rules of the game and meshes well with the social landscape, in the long run you can expect to succeed.

Your financial challenges aren’t there to beat you down. They’re important training exercises. Your financial problems are solvable, but in order to solve them you must learn and follow the rules of the game. Are you following those rules, or are you violating them? Are you spending more than you earn? Are you racking up debt instead of creating value? Are you wasting your time on quests that aren’t fun and profitable? Are you ducking the challenging quests that are staring you in the face because you’re scared? Are you trying to do everything alone instead of building or joining a cool team?

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.

Here are some common patterns that involve using your power against yourself as well as suggestions for how to stop yourself and make corrective adjustments.

Complaining

When you complain, you’re using your power to reinforce and magnify whatever you’re complaining about. Why on earth would you want to feed more energy into something you don’t want?

The more you complain, the more you’ll continue to attract and create similar negative circumstances, and the more you’ll have to complain about. Once you step onto the treadmill of complaining, it’s hard to step off again.

How do you feel about people who complain to you about their lives? Do you empathize with them? Do you feel pity for them? What if they keep it up year after year? Don’t you sometimes feel like shaking them and shouting, “For God’s sakes would you please stop all the frakkin whining? I just can’t take it anymore! Try taking some responsibility for your life. Quit whining and go do something about your problems. Stop playing the victim role – it’s not who you’re supposed to be.”

Okay, so maybe you don’t say that to their face, but deep down that is sometimes how you feel, isn’t it?

Actually you’d be lucky if that was how you felt. A more common reaction is to not even recognize complaining for what it is. Making negative comments about our own lives has become so ubiquitous that you may not even notice it when it happens. Complaining has become an acceptable, “normal” part of human interaction. However, the truth is that complaining is an enormously disempowering trap. Learn to recognize it as a disease, and treat it aggressively when you encounter it, especially if you notice it’s coming from you.

Have you ever seen a complainer finish complaining? Imagine a complainer saying, “Well, that’s it! I finally finished complaining! I now have nothing left to whine about, so I guess I can go be happy now.” Of course they never actually finish. All they do is run themselves in circles, pouring more energy into the perpetuation of unhappiness.

Instead of complaining, do the opposite. Talk about what’s good in your life. If you have problems to deal with, then talk about possible solutions. Stay focused on what you want, not on what you don’t want.

If you’ve been a complainer for a while, you’ve probably surrounded yourself with a posse of energy vampires who feed off your negative energy. If that’s the case, you’re going to repel those people when you start shifting to become more positive. Trust me — they will likely freak out and won’t be able to handle it. Just allow that to happen. In fact, go make it happen if you can. If a parting of ways needs to happen, let it happen. You’ll be much better off.

When you talk about what’s good in your life and about solutions and opportunities instead of problems and obstacles, you’ll attract different people who can handle the new you – people who will play back at you with positive stories of their own. Then you can encourage the heck out of each other. These people are typically allergic to complainers, so if you complain a lot, you will naturally repel them, and they’ll want nothing to do with you.

If you can’t seem to make and keep high-caliber, positive friends, is it possible you’re repelling them by being too whiny? You can’t hide the way you use your power. If you empower your weakness instead of embracing your greatness, other people can quickly sense that.

When you encounter a chain complainer, don’t feed their addiction by rewarding their whining with attention or pity. Instead, try raising their awareness of what they’re doing to themselves. You might say, “I’d prefer not to relate to you on the basis of complaining. That isn’t going to serve either of us. Can we talk about what’s good in your life instead?”

Then you should probably duck.

People will sometimes freak out when you violate social conventions like this, but you’ll be doing them a favor in the long run. They may have to hear it a number of different times from different sources, but at least you’ll play a part in helping them kick the habit if they ever choose to do so. Better to shed some truth on their abuse of power than let it go unchecked and perpetuate their denial.

Self-doubt

Doubting yourself or feeling sorry for yourself is another way to abuse your power. Now you’re taking your power and using it to weaken yourself. That’s like being a god who says, “Let me be powerless.”

You’re a naturally creative being. It makes no sense to turn your creative energies into self-destruction.

If you doubt yourself, it’s not because you’re inherently defective. It’s not because you’re a screw up. It’s because you haven’t yet learned how to use your power to create certainty.

Certainty isn’t something you detect. It’s not something you’ll discover through analysis. Certainty is a feeling that you create for yourself.

Certainty is when you say to the universe, “Here’s what I want. Now let’s make it so.”

Self-doubt is when you say to the universe, “Here’s what I want. Or wait… maybe I want this instead. No… maybe I don’t want either of those things. I guess I’m just not sure.”

If that sounds really dumb, that’s because it is dumb.

Stop being so wishy washy. Stop reciting stupid affirmations like, “I just don’t know what to do.” Who taught you to do that anyway? Someone who was an even more egregious self-doubter?

“I don’t know what to do” is not an observation. It’s an act of creation. Obviously you won’t know what to do if you’re using your power to perpetuate a state of self-doubt. Whenever you proclaim that you don’t know what to do, you’re creating your own state of perpetual uncertainty.

To move beyond self-doubt, start doing the opposite. Use your power to create certainty instead of self-doubt. Begin saying to yourself, “I know what to do. I ABSOLUTELY know what to do.” Say it like you mean it.

Never say, “I don’t know what to do” to yourself or anyone else. It only makes you weak. Plus it’s just dumb.

If you can’t handle, “I know what to do,” then start with, “I’m now gaining clarity about what to do.” Use your power to reorient yourself in the direction of clarity. Never affirm “I don’t know what to do” unless you really want to create a state of perpetual uncertainty.

It’s foolish to act like a victim of your own uncertainty when you’re the one who’s creating it in the first place.

If you want certainty, you must create it. You won’t find it out there in the world. The world is waiting on you. If you abuse your power to create self-doubt, then you’ll be even more confused when you look to the external world for answers. All it will do is reflect back what you’ve created.

Please be warned that if you ever say “I don’t know what to do” in my presence, I will smack you – hard. Trust me — this will help you gain clarity. At the very least, it will encourage you to come up with a better idea than being smacked again. My way’s not very sportsmanlike, but it can be quite effective.

Seriously, the next time you catch yourself saying, thinking, or believing, “I don’t know what to do,” give yourself a good hard smack across the face. This will help you connect that whining about your uncertainty is a form of self-abuse. If you don’t like smacking yourself in the face, then stop using your power to beat yourself down.

Fezzik, jog his memory.

Cowardice

When you use your power to feed your fears instead of your desires, you succumb to cowardice.

Think of it this way — whatever you feed with your energy will expand. If you want your fears to grow and expand in your reality, then by all means keep feeding them. Give them even more of your precious attention. Think about your fears and worries often. Hang out with other people who are also good at worrying. Avoid anyone who faces up to their fears or who’d nudge you to do the same.

Maybe there’s a part of you that knows deep down that courage is an essential quality you must develop sooner or later if you ever wish to live as a mature, conscious human being.

Courage can be defined as the willingness to face your fears. But what happens when you finally face one of your fears? The feeling of fear essentially dissolves because now you’re focused on creating a result other than fear. You may feel a sense of exhilaration and determination as the fear leaves you.

Another way of defining courage is to say that courage is the willingness to empower your desires instead of your fears.

You generate fear when you send energy to what you don’t want — by thinking about it, dwelling on it, imagining it, etc.

You generate courage when you send energy to what you do want, in much the same way. Gradually you feel more and more motivated to take action. The more you use your power to generate a feeling of courage, the closer you are to making your desires real.

Whenever you catch yourself feeding your fears, stop and remind yourself that this is a serious abuse of your power. Then reclaim that energy by imagining yourself drawing it back into you. Finally, use your power correctly by imagining what you really want, and send all that energy into those thoughts, images, and feelings instead.

Spend time hanging out with the bravest people you can find. When you will hang out with them, you’ll see that they refuse to feed their fears. They spend much more time feeding their desires instead. They’ve learned how to use their power to create more drive and passion instead of cowardice and fear-based thinking.

Arguing

Arguing with other people is another way to abuse your power. Arguing is trying to make someone else wrong and yourself right at the same time. This is an easy trap to fall into, but it doesn’t serve you.

Making an effort to persuade someone to see things from another perspective is okay. So is spirited debate. In those situations you’re trying to understand the other person’s point of view and to encourage them to understand yours as well. There’s nothing wrong with that at all.

Arguing happens when you take this a step too far, trying to invalidate the other person’s point of view entirely — to make them wrong for seeing reality as they do. This is an abuse of power.

The problem with trying to make someone else wrong is that once again you’re using your power against itself. Your power is creative, not uncreative. When you argue with someone, you’re trying to uncreate their point of view, which can’t be done. You cannot invalidate a perspective.

Instead of arguing, think in terms of acceptance and consequences. First, accept the other person’s point of view as valid for them. Then decide what the consequence of that realization will be. Maybe the consequences are negligible. Maybe it means the best solution is for you to each go your separate ways. Or maybe the best outcome is somewhere in between.

Usually we run into a pattern of arguing when we resist the consequences of acceptance. So we push too hard to force the other person to give in, and that simply doesn’t work. Even if the other person seems to go along, their consent will only be superficial. As the saying goes, “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

When you catch yourself arguing, where you’re trying too hard to make yourself right and the other person wrong, just stop. Drop the disempowering frame of winning vs. losing. Then shift yourself into the frame of acceptance and consequences. Accept the other person’s point of view completely. You may be convinced it’s the wrong way to see things, but it is what it is. Permit that person the freedom to choose their preferred perspective. Next, ask yourself what the consequences of accepting the other person’s point of view will be. And finally, go ahead and implement those consequences if it’s necessary for you to do so.

Sometimes when I catch myself getting into an argument with someone and realize just how pointless it is, I will up and quit right in the middle of the argument. Defending my point of view simply isn’t a good use of my power. Instead of continuing to fuss over who’s right and who’s wrong, I shift over to acceptance and consequences. Even if I think the person is totally out of sync with reality for believing what they do, I accept that it’s their choice to hold that perspective. Then I ask myself, “Based on this acceptance, what do I need to do about this?” Most of the time it just means dropping the argument and letting it go, in which case the other person will have to decide what they want to do about my loss of interest in continuing to argue. A week later I probably won’t even remember it.

Don’t pour your time and energy into arguing. Use your power to create something more positive instead. Again, participating in a healthy debate is fine, but once you recognize that it’s degraded into arguing, it’s time to bow out and move on.

Asking permission

Asking permission is a tricky problem because it can be hard to notice. Many people don’t realize they’re doing it and define such behavior as normal.

When you ask permission to create what you want, you’re projecting your power onto someone else. You’re diminishing your authority as a creative being and thereby weakening yourself.

It’s fine to negotiate with others to help you get what you want. But if you desire to creating something new in your reality, don’t ask permission to want it.

When I was a teenager, sometimes my Mom would question me about my plans as I was about to walk out the door. Of course as a typical rebellious teen, I didn’t feel I needed anyone’s permission to live my life as I saw fit. So when she started questioning me, I would sometimes say, “Just take note of what I’m wearing, so you can identify the body later.” Then I stepped out the door.

Yes, that’s a pretty ornery thing to say to one’s Mom, but it helped me step away from asking permission and to assume more authority (i.e. authorship) over my own life. I realized that just because someone was questioning my behavior didn’t mean I had to justify myself to them. I could simply implement my decisions and accept the consequences of others’ reactions.

It’s amazing how many people yield control of their life’s direction to someone else. When you talk to such people, it’s blatantly obvious that they aren’t in command. They’re still responsible for a starship, but they act like lowly ensigns. Then when the ship crashes, they look for someone to blame.

The sad thing is that many times no one in particular is in command. They just let themselves get bounced around by the currents of social conditioning.

What about going with the flow? That’s fine if you’re a water molecule… not so good if you’re a human being.

Going with the flow only works if you’re the one generating the flow in the first place. Use your energy to set a clear course, and then let your actions flow with your intentions. But don’t use going with the flow as an excuse to be wimpy, powerless, and irresponsible.

Don’t ask permission to live your life. Give yourself full permission to want what you want. Once again think in terms of acceptance and consequences. If someone else has an issue with your decisions, let the issues be theirs to worry about.

When you inform people of new decisions you’ve made, sometimes they’re going to react negatively. Get used to it. Another person’s resistance doesn’t mean that you’ve made a mistake.

I have little choice but to apply the model of acceptance and consequences because doing any less would be totally impractical for me. For example, if I tell people my next article will be about productivity, some people will say, “Yay — I’ve been hoping you’d write more about that.” And other people will exclaim, “No, dammit! Go back to writing about polarity.” It doesn’t matter what the topic is. Some people will embrace it; others will resist it.

If you can see the folly in trying to seek permission from a large and diverse audience where it’s impossible to get everyone to agree on the simplest things, can you also see the folly in seeking permission from people on an individual basis?

Do you fall into the trap of asking your spouse or significant other for permission on how YOU should live your life? Even if you’re in a relationship or have a family, don’t you think you should be free to decide what you’re going to eat, what career path you’ll pursue, and what types of people you’ll hang out with?

Let the other person think in terms of acceptance and consequences as well. If they don’t like what you’re into, they’re always free to dump you and move on. By all means make such decisions carefully and with a reasonable grasp of what the consequences may be. But at the end of the day, you must make your choices and allow other to make theirs. Don’t submit your choices for approval by someone else. You’ll end up with a rather disappointing life if you do so.

Asking permission is really just a cop-out anyway. It’s nothing but an excuse to hold back.

Suppose you tell me that you really want to quit your unfulfilling job and start your own business, but your wife won’t let you. What am I supposed to say to that?

“Oh, well… that’s totally understandable then. If your wife won’t let you… hmmm, that’s rough… what can you do? I guess you’ll have to learn to like your job. I’m sure she’s worth it.”

Yeah, right.

I’d probably say instead, “Whoa… did you just feel that? That wave of vibrational energy? What would you call that? Sheer cowardice perhaps? What’s this nonsense about asking your wife for permission? What’re you 12 years old or something? Just tell her you’ve decided to start your own business and then go do it. If she goes kittywompus over it, let her. Inform her that you’re moving forward with your plan and that you’d appreciate her support, but that if she can’t handle it, she’s free to dump you and go be with someone she can control instead.”

Your wife (or husband or significant other) isn’t the problem. The problem is you. You’re bringing out their resistance because they can sense your weakness, your lack of resolve. And because they can see that you’re weak, they don’t trust you. They’re right not to trust you. I wouldn’t trust you either.

When you give off the hint that you’re asking permission, people will jump on it. They’ll give you plenty of reasons why you can’t get what you want. If you start seeking their permission, you’re giving away your power.

Use your power to feed your desires and decisions, not the objections raised by others.

It’s not a bad thing to ask for feedback from people, but do that to strengthen your own decisions, not to seek approval.

I often post about my decisions on my blog because I want people to try to poke holes in them. I want people to test me and challenge me. I’m not asking their permission because my decision is already made, and I’m simply informing them of it. But I still want them to take their best shots to see if they can say something that might derail me from my course. This helps me refine my decisions, and it also strengthens my power. It’s similar to doing resistance training at the gym to boost the definition and strength of your muscles.

Blaming

Blaming other people, events, or circumstances for your lot in life is pointless. By denying responsibility for the life you’re creating, you only use your power to weaken yourself.

As the saying goes, “With great power comes great responsibility.” So what happens if you turn off the responsibility? Off goes the power switch as well. You wind up helpless.

You can’t wield power over your reality and deny responsibility for your creations at the same time. You must be both powerful and responsible — or neither.

Don’t blame. Practice acceptance and forgiveness instead. Accept what you have to deal with, and focus on channeling your energies in a creative way.

You are always creating. You cannot help it. Your nature is to be a creative being. By choosing different thoughts and actions, you could create a very different life for yourself in a matter of days. That option is always available to you. No one is stopping you or holding you back. You can only hold yourself back.

Realize that whatever life you’re living, you are creating it — right now in this moment. If you don’t like what you’re experiencing, then resolve to create something else. Begin to create that new reality immediately. Realize that no one is coming to rescue you. It’s entirely up to you to make your life what you want it to be.

I had to learn this lesson while sitting in jail when I was 19. I could have found plenty of people to blame for putting me there. But instead I chose to take responsibility for what I created. I finally saw the foolishness of it all. I realized that everything that happened up to that point was the result of what I was doing to myself. In that moment I decided to create a very different life for myself. Was it easy? Heck no. But at least it got me using my power to create what I wanted instead of blindly following a path I didn’t really want.

Are you now finding yourself in some sort of jail cell that you’re still denying? Is it a dead-end job? A bad relationship situation? An unhealthy lifestyle? A lack of purpose and inspiration? A lack of joy in your life? Whatever it is that you don’t like about your life, that’s the jail cell you’ve created for yourself as a result of denying your power. When will you be ready to reclaim your power to make your life the way you truly want it to be? Life is waiting on your answer, always listening, always hoping.

As a creative being, you’re going to have some screw-ups. Forgive yourself completely. Accept your mistakes and learn from them. This is a lot more intelligent than resisting or denying them.

Creativity is not perfection. If you were perfect, there’d be no need to create or experience anything. Your creative power gives you the opportunity to grow and change. Take advantage of it!

Own your power!

This is by no means an exhaustive list. There are still more ways to abuse your power. These just happen to be some of the most common.

Stop giving away your power — to other people, to your fears, to anything you don’t want. Use your power positively and creatively. Channel the tremendous energy inside of you to manifest your desires.

It can be difficult to catch yourself abusing your power, especially when the negative behaviors are habitual. One thing you can do is use the highly effective 30-day trial method. Take on one bad “abuse of power” habit, and commit to using your power only positively in that area for 30 days straight. Simply do the opposite of what you’ve been doing. If you screw up, start again at day 1 until you make it the full 30 days.

Don’t whine. Don’t weaken yourself. Don’t wimp out. Don’t argue. Don’t ask permission. And don’t blame. Decide what you want to create and then pour your heart and soul into creating it. Get in touch with that powerful creative being inside you, and let it shine!

Otherwise, start smacking away until you get 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.

For example, people write to me all the time saying that they wish they could start a successful blog, but they just don’t know how. They act as if I was magically bestowed with some kind of insider blogger’s knowledge that isn’t equally accessible to them. The truth is that no one really knows how to do something new until they’ve done it. Imagine Wayne Gretzky saying, “I wish I could play hockey, but dammit — I just don’t know how.”

If you were to give those very same complainers a greater incentive to get moving, such as a million-dollar bribe for generating measurable results within 30 days, you’d find that their empty excuses and pointless whining are solidly blasted out of the water. Somehow the lack of knowledge is no longer a serious obstacle for them. (Yes, I’m being harsh on purpose. When such people are in front of me, I prefer to smack them, but in this case I’ll have to settle for a verbal smack.)

I’ve written about this topic before, but this time I’ll tackle it from a totally different angle. In the past I’ve pointed out that with sufficient motivation, you’ll simply go out and acquire whatever knowledge you need. All the raw how-to information you need is probably available online for free anyway. Either that or you can figure out what you need via trial and error if you just start taking action.

Instead of looking at the motivation side, let’s consider the excuse side. Claiming that you lack certain knowledge is an act of denying yourself permission to experience what you desire. It’s a way of blocking yourself from moving toward your goal.

The physical and mental act of acquiring knowledge is really a projection of a deeper event that occurs within your consciousness. That event is the act of giving yourself permission to progress to a new “vibration,” to shift away from your current experience of reality and to graduate to a new experiential level. When your consciousness experiences that internal shift, all the knowledge you need will practically show up at your doorstep. In many cases you don’t even require new knowledge, but if you think you need it, then you’ll experience a learning phase in your physical reality as you progress to the next level.

Why would you ever want to block yourself from going up a level? Why would you stay stuck for so long with feeble excuses like ”I don’t know how” or “I don’t know what to do”?

The answer is that you aren’t ready to progress yet. You haven’t soaked up all the lessons from your current reality. Energetically speaking, you still need to experience and accept some of the energy patterns swirling about you.

To use a video game analogy, imagine your current reality as a level from Pac-Man. You can’t progress to the next level until you gobble up all the pellets on the current map. It’s not a matter of putting in a certain amount of time. If you try to wait it out, you’re just waiting for death. It’s a matter of completion. You can run around the map for quite a while, but if you don’t pick up that last pellet, you’re going to be stuck on that level until you die.

People who complain about not progressing are like Pac-Man players who complain that they can’t pass the current level. Maybe you’re complaining that you can’t figure out how to get those last few pellets. That’s usually because those pellets are on the other side of the ghosts (i.e. your fears). It may take you a long time to pass the level if you always run from the ghosts. Perhaps you need to swallow a power pill (i.e. grow a pair) and run straight at the ghosts of fear to pass the current level. Pac-Man isn’t a game for fraidy cats; nor is real life.

For many years I was stuck at the financial level of being broke. I was constantly struggling against debt, but you can’t pass a level by resisting it and hoping that you somehow get a mercy pass. You have to accept and work with the game board as it is. My solution was to turn toward the ghosts (my fear) and realize that I could still be happy even if I was broke. I learned to stop trying to make money with a scarcity mindset and to start expressing my creativity with an abundance mindset. In truth I had to pick up a lot of pellets (lessons) on the financially broke level, but once I got them all, I was able to progress to a new financial level rather quickly. Of course that new level had plenty of other interesting pellets/lessons to gobble up.

When you’re stuck at a certain level in your health, relationships, finances, career, spiritual growth, or personal habits, and you can’t seem to make any progress, take a moment to stop and look around. The universe knows you want to reach the next level. It’s not blocking you to frustrate you. You’re blocking yourself because deep down, you know you aren’t ready for the next level yet. You still have more lessons to acquire right where you are.

Is the point of playing Pac-Man to get to the next level as quickly as you can? Not really. The point is to have fun.

Is the point of life to immediately jump to a state of infinite health, wealth, relationship nirvana, and spiritual bliss? Of course not. The point is to enjoy the progression through various lessons that help you develop and expand your consciousness. When you pass each level, your reward is a new level with… you guessed it… more lessons. If you don’t learn to enjoy the lessons and the process of growth itself, you’re surely going to stagnate.

If you stop resisting where you are, you’ll find that life becomes a beautiful thing, regardless of what level you’re currently experiencing. You can anticipate the next level while still having immense fun right where you are.

If you want to level up, you have to acknowledge the ghosts on your level. They may seem like bullies, obstacles, or dangers, but in truth their purpose is to make you a better player and to provide you with an interesting experience.

Imagine playing Pac-Man with no ghosts. Every level would be the same. It would be incredibly boring. Nobody would play it. Similarly, no one would want to come to earth and partake in this human experience if there were no ghosts to face here. The ghosts make it interesting.

Confronting ghosts develops your consciousness. Ghosts help you discover new truths about yourself. They motivate you to get moving and pursue your goals. They make you stronger. When you face ghosts, you discover what kind of player you really are. That’s a priceless gift.

To pinpoint the ghosts on your current level, ask yourself, “What parts of my reality am I currently resisting, and why? What parts of my reality do I refuse to fully accept?”

When you’re about to go up a level in a video game, what kind of emotions do you feel? I usually feel a sense of excitement, fun, and gratitude. Don’t you basically feel the same way when you level-up in real life?

When you aren’t close to that level-up feeling, it means you aren’t ready to level up.

Leveling up occurs when you’ve completed the current level. This doesn’t mean you tie up every loose end in your life. It simply means that you’ve integrated the key lessons you needed to learn.

If you’re broke and wanting to experience financial abundance, have you learned the key lessons of being broke? Are you feeling immensely grateful for everything that financial scarcity has taught you? Or are you still running away from your ghosts?

If you’re single and wanting to experience a relationship, have you learned the lessons of being single at this time in your life? Do you feel happy and grateful when you’re alone because of all the beautiful gifts you’ve gained from it? Or are you railing against it, thereby preventing yourself from moving on?

If you’re struggling to figure out your life purpose and/or to choose a career direction, have you learned the lessons of being directionless? Do you feel grateful for the freedom and limitlessness of options you have right now? Or do you still resist your current experience of reality?

You can’t move forward in life by hating where you are.

Whenever you resist your reality, you deny your own creative power. You make yourself powerless to progress. You’re like a Pac-Man player that swears “I hate this game” and slams the joystick in anger. That isn’t going to help you level up.

When you’re ready to be grateful for your current experience of reality, warts and all, you’re ready to level up. Now you’re reclaiming your creative power, which is the very power you need to manifest the new level you desire. When you rail against the reality you’re experiencing, you simultaneously deny your power to create something new.

Resistance is powerlessness. Acceptance is power.

Imagine an artist surrounded by her paintings. Suppose she dislikes them so much that she denies creating them. Is that going to put her in a place to go and paint something better? Of course not. She’ll probably just sit around sulking.

Now imagine that same artist, feeling grateful for all the paintings she created. She acknowledges that she created them. This doesn’t mean she feels they’re her best work, but she appreciates each piece for what it taught her. Her early work may not be much to look at, but it’s still precious. The true gift she experienced from creating all that art was her progressive refinement as an artist.

Similarly, when you look at any part of your life with disdain, you deny that you’re the artist who created it. Maybe it’s your early work, and it’s not much to look at, but you can’t progress by denying that it’s yours.

What would be the market price for Picasso’s first crappy pre-school drawing today? Don’t deny the value of your own ”suck period.”

When people do make progress — real progress — in some area of their lives, how do they look back on their past experiences? Usually they look back with gratitude, nostalgia, love, and appreciation. If they look back with resistance, they’re probably still repeating those same lessons in their lives today.

I don’t hate the years of my life when I was broke. I look back on those times with fondness. I smile when I remember how Erin and I squeezed three people and two businesses into a small apartment on a noisy street. It’s funny to remember that we once used a cardboard box as a piece of furniture. I was able to move on from that period of my life because I allowed myself to fully accept it. I now know how important it was for me to have those experiences. I’m very glad that I went through that period. It was a cool level to play through.

What about those times when I was arrested and stuck in jail? I feel grateful for those experiences too. I don’t look back and feel hatred towards anyone. But at the time, I resisted those experiences tremendously. That’s why I had to keep repeating them. I wasn’t ready for the next level. Eventually I learned to fully accept those experiences because of what they taught me. For starters, those experiences turned me on to the pursuit of personal growth.

Are there still parts of my life that I’m resisting today? Of course. We all have those blocks. When we’re ready to face them, we’ll do so.

Blocking yourself from reaching the next level isn’t the end of the world. It’s okay to be where you are and to stay there for a while — assuming that’s what you want to experience. For example, income-wise you may hold yourself at a certain level because you’re still soaking up the experience. Maybe you don’t want to boost your income because you’re quite happy with your current level. That’s absolutely fine.

When a block becomes a problem is when you feel stunted and trapped in your reality. You anxiously crave different experiences, and you’re bored or frustrated with the doldrums of your current level. That’s a signal that you need to turn toward those ghosts and face them head-on. It’s time to build your strength and move forward.

Long-term stuckness boils down to running from fear — fear of failure, fear of success, fear of rejection. We all run from these fears at times. We’re only human. Lots of stuff scares us. Even the best Pac-Man players spend a lot of time running from ghosts. Ghosts are scary.

But we’re also more than human. We’re creators. We have the power within us to dig deep and proclaim, “Enough of this. I’m summoning my power to create a new reality.” We can self-prescribe a power pill. But in order to summon this power, we MUST acknowledge and accept what we’ve already created.

Imagine the Biblical God visiting this planet and saying, “Adam and Eve? Heaven and Earth? Nope, wasn’t me!” That’s what we do when we resist some aspect of our current reality. A mountain of debt? A sucky relationship? No, wasn’t me! Yeah, right… as if the credit card charges just appeared out of thin air and the wedding ring was glued to your finger by a mischievous fairy.

Look around at your reality for a moment, take a deep breath, stick your chest out, and say, “Yup… that was ME!” Take credit for all that you’ve created, even if you don’t think you deserve it. When you claim credit for what you’ve already created, you simultaneously summon the power to create something new. Never deny what you’ve created. That would cause me to smack you. (I swear your cheek LoA’d my palm!)

Your best bet is to assume that you’ve created everything in your reality — and for good reason. With respect to everything in your reality that you currently resist, say to yourself, “Okay, let’s assume I did create this. Now why would I do something like that? What could this possibly do for me?”

Look for the hidden benefit, lesson, or message behind everything in your reality that bugs you.

In order to do this properly, you have to look beyond the physical. Look at how it affects your consciousness. What benefits might you be able to retain even after death?

Use the TLP framework from the book Personal Development for Smart People to help classify your experiences. How are these experiences bringing you into greater alignment with Truth, Love, and Power? What about Oneness, Authority, Courage, and Intelligence? The cool thing about these principles is that they’re rooted in consciousness, not in physical reality, so they can help you see the empowering lessons behind all of life’s challenges, regardless of the particulars. The nice thing about universal principles is that they can be applied to any situation.

Don’t think of yourself as a physical being. Think of yourself as a conscious being. You aren’t here to develop your physical life. You’re going to lose all of it when you die anyway. Everything you build here will eventually crumble. The human race itself will die off too. But consciousness is eternal.

Physical reality is a playground for the development of your consciousness. Your physical body, your bank account, your material possessions, your home and family – none of that stuff really matters in the long run. Eventually it will all be gone. If you get too attached to those things, I guarantee you a lot of frustration and emptiness down the road. You’ll get that slow sinking feeling that something isn’t right about your life. Instead, focus your primary attention in this life on the development of your consciousness. That’s why you’re here.

Work on your physical body because such a pursuit develops your consciousness. Build your discipline by challenging yourself to eat foods you know are healthy for you. Build your compassion by refusing to kill and torture animals for the sake of your taste buds. Build your courage and authority by eating the way you feel is right, regardless of what others think.

Work on your finances because such a pursuit develops your consciousness. Expand your creativity by creating value for others. Cultivate an abundance mindset by learning to let go of scarcity thinking. Build your focus and discipline by working hard. Experience freedom by creating passive income instead of living paycheck to paycheck.

Work on your relationships because such a pursuit develops your consciousness. Build your courage by learning to be open and honest about your feelings. Increase your alignment with oneness by getting to know lots of people and realizing that we’re all part of the same whole. Deal with difficult people to learn unconditional love.

Get the idea?

Learn to embrace the Truth. Learn to connect with what you Love. Learn to channel your creative Power fully. Your problems are there to help you progressively train up your alignment with these principles. The purpose of your physical life is to help you improve the TLP-alignment of your consciousness. That’s something you can take all the way to the grave and beyond.

You are here to shine, not to whine.

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.

When I was in high school, I did volunteer work at two different places, helping out for about 50 hours at each place.

Working With Seniors

The first place was a convalescent home near LAX (Los Angeles Airport). I must have been 16 years old, since this was shortly after I learned to drive. I served as an assistant for the woman who was in charge of the place. Picture Gilda Radner after four cups of coffee.

I helped to facilitate various activities with the seniors at this place, including games and social events. Sometimes I talked one on one with people in their rooms. Other times I pushed people around in wheelchairs for their daily ”exercise.”

I remember talking to one guy who had a world map on the wall of his room. He said, “Point to anywhere, and I’ll tell you about it.” I’d point to different countries, and he’d tell me of his travels there, some of them during World War II. I rather enjoyed that. He reminded me a little of my grandfather, who was stationed in Germany at the end of WWII.

Overall, I learned a lot from this experience, but I honestly didn’t enjoy it. Most of the seniors at this place seemed lonely and depressed. Some were unfriendly, withdrawn, and bitter and clearly didn’t want to be there. A few seemed mentally unstable. I was cautioned to steer clear of at least one person there.

The staff seemed overworked and unmotivated. I didn’t get the sense they wanted to be there either. I imagine it was just a job to them. No sense of life purpose was present as far as I could tell.

Often the staff treated the seniors like children. That was sad to see, but at the time, I just assumed they knew what they were doing.

During the time I was there (Friday afternoons for a few months), I don’t recall seeing any family members visit, but I might not have noticed if they did because I usually wasn’t near the front desk. But it’s safe to say that the people in this convalescent home didn’t have much social interaction with anyone but the staff and each other. And some of them didn’t like each other or the staff.

Most of the seniors there were very passive. They just went along with the program and didn’t resist. For me personally that lack of independent will was the most difficult thing to see. I could better understand the people who showed bursts of emotion on occasion.

Perhaps the biggest lesson for me was that I didn’t want to end my life in this manner. It seemed so sad to me that human beings should spend their last remaining years this way. Virtually no one there was really doing anything with their lives. They spent a lot of time watching old movies on TV. I got the sense that everyone was basically waiting to die. The convalescent home was essentially a holding cell before you hit the afterlife. Once you checked in, you’d eventually be leaving as a corpse.

This was a formative experience for me because it gave me a greater sense of taking personal responsibility for my long-term health — all the way to the grave. Some things may be out of our control, but most of those seniors didn’t really need to end up there. If they’d assumed 100% responsibility for their own health care from a young age, most could have been physically and mentally independent for years to come. I’d rather end up Jack LaLanne (age 94) than have my body falling apart at age 70.

You could blame the families for abandoning their elders, but I wouldn’t do that. I agree that many Americans have a long way to go in terms of how we treat our elders compared to the respect shown by some cultures, but I also think that respect must be earned. If you allow your mind and body to atrophy so badly that your family would rather pay thousands of dollars to make you someone else’s problem, who’s responsible? Ultimate responsibility always rests with you. Just consider for a careful moment or two where your current health decisions are leading you. Where will your body be at age 70, 80, 90?

Incidentally, this convalescent home was later written up in the local newspaper for reported health code violations. I didn’t know anything about health codes at the time, but none of the details in the newspaper report were surprising to me.

Working With Disabled Children

When I was 17, I volunteered at the James McBride School in L.A. This was a special education center for children with various disabilities. I figured I’d already worked with seniors, so I might as well try the other end of the age spectrum. This time I was a classroom assistant for pre-school kids. The kids were probably 3-4 years old.

Most of these kids wore special helmets because they tripped and fell down a lot. One child had cerebral palsy and spent most of the school day in a special contraption to support his body and head. Without it he was unable to hold himself up. He looked a bit emaciated because his muscles were so underdeveloped. He also drooled a lot. I really loved his spirit — his smile would totally light up the room. Just looking at him forced me to open my heart.

I absolutely loved working with these kids. They were so alive and full of joy – the way people naturally act before social conditioning takes root. I enjoyed helping them learn shapes like circles, squares, and triangles. They already knew their colors better than I did.

After the pre-school kids went home, I ate lunch, and then I monitored afternoon recess activities with the grade-school kids. This mainly involved helping them shoot hoops and making sure they didn’t get into trouble. Some of the kids had difficulty managing their emotions, so it didn’t take much to set them off and initiate a fight. I remember that one kid with Down Syndrome sometimes had issues getting along with the other kids; we just had to make sure his tremendous energy was being channeled in a positive way.

I still recall some of the pre-school kid’s names — Steven, Candice, Joey, and Ricky.

Steven was a brown-haired kid who took an instant liking to me once he discovered we had the same first name. In his eyes that made us instant best friends. It was a Festivus miracle!

Candice was a short, sassy blend of Queen Latifa and Rosie Perez. The only problem was that while she was chewing you out, she’d often lose her balance and fall down. For an adult that might have been embarrassing. But Candice would simply get back up, straighten her helmet, and continue sassing you without missing a beat.

It’s funny to realize that those kids are now in their mid-20s. I wonder if any of them are reading my blog today.

Many years later, Erin did some substitute teaching at James McBride. It was a very challenging experience for her. She was working with older kids though, not the pre-schoolers.

Working with those kids made me more interested in having kids of my own. Before that I was definitely a no-kids person. This experience didn’t push me over the edge completely, but it definitely softened me up.

Watching kids learning shapes and colors reminded me of my experience at James McBride. At the preschool level, the way “normal” kids learn and play together isn’t much different than the behavior of children coping with various disabilities. Kids are kids, and self-acceptance comes naturally to us. For a young child, dealing with a disability is just life. It’s only later on that society teaches those same beautiful children that just because they’re different, they’re somehow broken.

Being normal is overrated anyway. If you live a “normal” life, your reward may be a stint at a convalescent home.

This year I read a book called The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal by Jonathan Mooney. The book is an insightful journey into the lives of people who are labeled disabled and the challenges they experience in dealing with society’s pre-conceived notions about them. This book gave me a new perspective on my experiences at the James McBride School. I can honestly say that I both loved and hated this book at the same time.

Community Service

Later in life when I got myself into a bit of legal trouble, I ended up doing some involuntary, court-ordered community service. That was a whole different beast because I didn’t really want to be there. Most of this time was spent picking up trash at the Emeryville Marina.

In January Erin and I spent a few days in Emeryville (just east from San Francisco across the Bay Bridge), and I took a morning walk around the marina. The park where I did my community service was still there, and I actually saw people in orange vests picking up trash just like I did… half my life ago. None of them looked like they wanted to be there either. I should have walked up to one of them and asked, “Surely you must have some interesting stories to tell. Have you ever thought about a career in blogging?”

When you perform service with a closed heart and mind, the experience is completely different compared to doing it because you really want to.

Benefits of Volunteering

I highly recommend doing some volunteer work, especially if you’ve never done it before. It’s a great way to open your heart and to feel more connected to people. If you’re feeling isolated, disconnected, misunderstood, or lonely, then volunteering can definitely help. Your biggest problems in life will all seem pretty minor when you’re face to face with the heart-melting smile of a child with cerebral palsy.

Many people have discovered new career opportunities from volunteering. If you want to work in a certain field, what better way to get started than to put in a few hours each week for free? And if you don’t have a clue what you’d like to do for your main career, volunteer at a few different places to see what you like best. You’ll learn a lot, build valuable experience, and make new friends and contacts.

Use volunteering to face some of your fears. Push yourself to grow. Are you uncomfortable around children or homeless people? How do you feel about domestic violence? Do you avoid people who are dying? You can use volunteering to face your fears head-on, gradually replacing them with greater truths.

The nice thing about most volunteer work is that you can quit whenever you want, so you don’t have to make a long-term commitment.

Volunteering is an activity, but it’s also an attitude. You’re there just to give. Obviously you’ll gain something from the experience, but it’s nice just to have the experience of helping people without needing or expecting anything in return.

Volunteering Through Your Career

Do your best to bring this same attitude to your main career. Work because you want to, not because you have to. Work like a free person who chooses to work, not like a slave who is forced to work. And when you’re at work, pour your whole heart into it. Never leave your soul at home when you go to the office.

I wrote this article because I had something I wanted to share with you, not because I need or expect something from you. My motivation to write stemmed from desire, not obligation. You’re free to read this article, think about it, and not pay me a dime for it. It is a gift.

I hate to think of what would become of my work if it was something I felt I had to do, like involuntary community service. If you work because you feel you must work to earn money, you’re poisoning your output. You don’t get great art by whipping a slave and saying, “Be more creative or else!”

Getting Started

If you’re curious to learn more about volunteering, a good place to get started is VolunteerMatch. You can use that site to search for volunteer opportunities near you. Another option is just to ask around, or stop by a place that looks interesting and ask if they could use some free help. If you’re currently in school, someone at your school may also be able to help out with volunteer placement. I got connected with the convalescent home and the James McBride School through my high school guidance counselor.

I recommend that you do something where you get to work with people face to face as opposed to sitting in a room alone doing filing. If you volunteer at a homeless shelter for example, ask to work with homeless people directly, even if you’re just serving them food. Throw your whole heart into the experience.

If your life is a struggle… if you keep getting bad breaks… if it appears that the world doesn’t much care for you, then it’s your move. The world is waiting on you to say “I love you” first.

A couple hours on a lazy afternoon is all it takes to send your life in a whole new direction.

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.

Traditional dating is actually one of our society’s most ineffective inventions. The main reason it gets so much attention is the commercial engine that drives it. Restaurants, movie theatres, jewelers, etc. want you to believe that spending money on their products and services equals romance. If you’ve swallowed this belief system, I assure you that you’ve been duped. This belief system stems from marketing, not truth. It has virtually no connection to the realities of human relationships.

Erin and I were already boyfriend-girlfriend before we ever went on a typical date. Most of the time we got together, we went straight to each other’s homes, where we could talk one-on-one for hours. Our first face-to-face meeting happened at my apartment, not at a “neutral” public place. From the very beginning, we established high trust. Worrying about safety or second-guessing each other’s intentions wasn’t a concern — our thoughts simply weren’t at that level. We invested our time in getting to know each other on a very deep level, declining to fill our interactions with public distractions.

If you really like someone, aim to spend lots of one-on-one time together with no distractions. Talk about your lives, and unearth each other’s interests. Share your hopes and dreams. Bypass small talk, and dive into what’s really important to you. Speak soulfully and listen attentively. This way you can create an amazing connection in a matter of hours that would take weeks to accomplish with traditional dating.

Be Direct

Dating is a rather timid way to get to know someone. It’s as if you’re creating a buffer of distractions in case things go wrong. This method is slow, boring, and largely pointless. It can also be unnecessarily expensive, causing you to mistakenly think you can’t initiate new relationships when finances are tight.

There’s a much more direct way to express interest in someone you like and to kick off a mutual exploration of relationship possibilities. It’s faster, cheaper, and a lot more fun.

Simply tell any potential partner up front how you feel about them and that you’d love to explore relationship possibilities together. Then ask if they feel the same.

This may take some courage, but it takes very little time.

As Erin and I got to know each other, I realized I was becoming attracted to her. I wasn’t sure if she felt the same about me, but I suspected that she did. I could have entered a dating frame and progressed slowly. But instead I simply opened up and told her how I felt. We were talking on the phone one day, and I said something like: “Erin, I want you to know that I really like you. I think you’re a very special woman, and we obviously have a lot in common. I’ve love to develop a closer relationship with you. I’m wondering if you feel the same.”

How long did that take? About 12 seconds.

Erin’s response was very positive. In fact, by the end of that phone call, we already saw ourselves as being boyfriend-girlfriend.

Alternatively, I could have played all sorts of silly games to try to figure out how Erin felt about me. The direct approach achieved a resolution in less than one minute. What could be better?

This openness and directness quickly took our relationship to a whole new level. Erin knew she could trust me and that I wouldn’t play games with her. We established a long-term connection based on honesty and openness.

To this day Erin and I know we can talk to each other about anything. We don’t have to manipulate or second-guess each other to get our needs met. We can simply say how we’re feeling and ask for what we want.

This is how I’d expect to begin any new relationship as well. When I get to know a person a little and sense that something wonderful could develop if we were to mutually progress to a deeper, more intimate level of sharing, I’ll share my thoughts and feelings openly with her and then ask if she feels the same.

This makes it safe for her to be open and honest with me as well. In fact, I did this with someone recently, and her response was incredibly positive. (I’m not going to reveal who she is, so please don’t ask. I may not be very private myself, but I respect the privacy of others unless they tell me they’re okay with sharing certain things publicly.) I find her to be a fascinating woman, and I’m excited to get to know her better. Had I not been so open and direct with her, I might never have known that she had similar feelings toward me.

Rejection Is Still a Good Outcome

You might be thinking that the direct approach takes a lot of courage, perhaps more courage than you feel you can reasonably muster.

It certainly can take a bit of courage, depending on the circumstances, but mainly it requires common sense reasoning.

You must realize that a rejection is still a good outcome.

If the other person appreciates my directness but doesn’t share my feelings toward her, then I know I intuitively misread her, and that’s perfectly okay. This makes it easy for me to let go and shift my attention to someone else. I might be disappointed at first, but I’d still appreciate such a response because she’s being honest with me too. She’s also saving me a lot of time and potential grief.

On the other hand, suppose she reacts negatively to my directness itself. Once again, I learn that I misread her. Such a match would have been a mistake because anyone who doesn’t appreciate openness, honesty, and directness wouldn’t make a good partner for me anyway. I have no desire to enter relationships with people who prefer game-playing, drama, deception, or manipulation as opposed to straightforward openness and honesty. So being direct is an efficient way to quickly disqualify such people. Again, this saves me time and potential grief.

Now suppose her response is positive. She appreciates my directness and admits that she shares my feelings, if only in a small, noncommittal way. Now we’re off and running to explore a deeper connection together. Our shields are down, and we’re waving each other in. It may be too soon to fully fathom how we feel about each other, but at least we’ve agreed to begin to explore our possibilities together. There are few things more exciting in life than this.

When you are direct, it doesn’t mean your request will be automatically accepted, but a rejection is still much better than pussyfooting around and playing guessing games for weeks on end.

Being Direct Earns Respect

I have TREMENDOUS respect for people who are open, honest, and direct in expressing their thoughts, feelings, and desires. This is a very rare character trait, and it always makes people stand out in a positive way. To be blunt, it impresses the hell out of me whenever I see it.

As a fairly active and busy person, I simply don’t have time for people who beat around the bush and fail to state plainly what they want, even though it’s obvious they want something. Unfortunately, I have to deal with quite a bit of this as a blogger. When people are vague and indirect about expressing their thoughts, feelings, and desires, usually because they’re afraid of rejection, it’s a huge turnoff. They simply don’t create the conditions where I can feel good about saying yes.

Another problem is when people try to connect with me under false pretenses, offering up one motive for meeting and later performing a bait and switch. This practice immediately drops my respect for such people to absolute zero, and I quickly dump them from my life. I have no tolerance for deception and manipulation.

As a general rule, I’ve found that other busy people tend to respect directness as well. Directness is very classy, whether in relationships, business, or other social situations.

Please take note that directness doesn’t mean being pushy or annoying. Directness means that you’re open and honest in sharing your thoughts, feelings, and intentions with others. It doesn’t mean you browbeat people to get what you want. Once you voice your desires, you must give the other person the freedom to accept or reject what you’re offering.

Responding to Other People’s Directness

Suppose a female friend said to me, “Steve, I really like you. I’d love for us to develop a closer, more intimate friendship, maybe something physical if that feels right too. I think we have a lot in common, and I already feel a strong connection with you. How do you feel about this?”

How would I react?

First off, such a woman immediately scores beaucoup points for being so open and direct. I can’t help but be impressed. At the very least, I know she has some courage, and courage is one of my highest values. This tells me we already have something in common.

If I honestly felt the same as she did, I’d tell her so. Then we’d be off and running to create something potentially wonderful together… in a matter of minutes.

If I didn’t share her feelings, I’d be honest with her about that as well. But I’d tell her how I felt in a compassionate and gentle way. If I knew someone else that I thought would be a more compatible fit for her, and if it seemed appropriate under the circumstances, I might even introduce them to each other.

Another possibility is that I’m not sure how I feel. Maybe I just don’t know her that well yet. Or perhaps it’s just bad timing for me. In that case I’d probably open a dialogue to explore further possibilities. Maybe it leads somewhere; maybe it doesn’t.

Regardless of how I felt though, I’d never ever throw it back in her face. Trying to humiliate or embarrass her for opening up like that would be incredibly cruel. If I can’t bring myself to harm animals or insects, I’m certainly not going to intentionally hurt human beings. Behaving like that would violate my own principles, especially the principles of Love and Oneness.

How would you respond if someone openly shared their feelings toward you and asked if you felt the same? Would you find this kind of openness as refreshing as I do?

Connect Like a Real Human Being, Not a Player

I’ll readily admit that I’m not particularly well-versed in the culture of playing manipulative social games. I simply have no stomach for it, so I prefer to opt out by exclaiming, “End program.”

Even when a woman is very flirtatious with me, I have a hard time reading her intentions. I don’t know if she’s genuinely interested, if she’s baiting me into giving her more attention, or if it’s just her natural, playful style. It could also be something else entirely.

Flirting can certainly be fun, and I do enjoy it on occasion, but only as a game to be played rather than as a good way to develop a real connection with someone.

My experience is that directness is almost always well-received. Sometimes people are a little surprised at first, simply because it’s so rare, but they also find it refreshing. They may pause for a moment to process what you say, but then the conversation quickly moves forward in a delightful way. Think of directness as a conversational awareness boost.

Once you enjoy a taste of directness in your relationships, it’s hard to settle for anything less.

When I began writing about polyamory and open relationships a few weeks ago, I started getting a lot more email, especially from women.

Some of those emails were very flirtatious; however, I’m unable to read anything into them. For any individual woman, I can’t tell if she’s just being friendly and playful, if she’s trying to open a dialog because she’s interested in becoming friends or playmates, if she’s baiting and teasing me, or if she’s just probing me to see how I react. With face-to-face interactions where I can read body language and tone of voice, I have a much better shot of getting an accurate read, but with a plain email from someone I may not know that well… there’s just no way.

I’m usually at a social disadvantage in such situations because people who contact me almost always know vastly more about me than I know about them, due to the enormous quantity of personal information I’ve shared online. Even so, I still love getting to know new people, so I’m not bothered at all when people initiate contact with me and suggest that we might become good friends. Most of the friendships I enjoy today were initiated by other people. They got to know me from my online presence, saw that we had a lot in common, and reached out to connect with me. If they hadn’t done this, I might never have known of their existence, and I’d have been denied the gift of their friendship.

Even my relationship with Erin only happened because she initiated contact with me. What if she held back and talked herself out of the idea?

Ironically, potential friends often hesitate to initiate contact with me because they don’t want me to think of them as a fan, a bother, or something along those lines. Several friends have told me this after the fact. They initially put me on a social pedestal because they figured I already had a ridiculous number of options for friends and that they had no chance of getting through. It’s true that I get a high volume of daily communication from people, but the vast majority of it is basic feedback on my articles and podcasts. Also, many people would love to network with me professionally, but personally we’re just not very compatible. So the reality is that I’ve never been overwhelmed by people wanting to initiate close personal relationships with me. I suspect that many potential friends disqualify themselves in advance, perhaps for the wrong reasons.

If someone flirts with me online but never directly shares any particular intent, I don’t assume they have a deeper intent. I just can’t guess at that sort of thing, so I don’t even try. At best I may flirtatiously play back at her, but I can’t offer more than that unless she expresses a genuine interest, especially if I’ve never met her in person.

Honest, Attentive Communication

Flirting can be fun, but I don’t find it much of an opener for a relationship. To initiate a real relationship, it’s better to favor straightforward, honest, attentive communication. Share your thoughts, feelings, and desires openly and honestly. See if there exists the potential for a fun, compatible match. If there’s no match, it’s not a rejection. It’s nobody’s fault. It just means you should both try elsewhere. That’s all.

You might be concerned that being so direct would kill the mystery and romance at the beginning of a relationship. But the fun, mystery, and romance can still be present. In fact, I think you’ll find that they’re enhanced and brought to a whole new level. Instead of wallowing in uncertainty and playing silly guessing games, you’ll spend your time getting to know a real human being without the phony social mask. The reality is far more exciting than any fantasy.

If I’m interested in getting to know a woman, I want to spend as much time as I can with her one-on-one. I want to give her my full attention when we talk. I want us to establish high trust from the get-go. I want to hear her tell me about her life, her dreams, and her struggles. I want to unmask the amazing soulful being that she truly is. I want to share my true self with her as well, honestly and openly. Picking away at an artificial fantasy shell can’t compare to the joys of sharing a unique, soulful connection with another human being.

If you want to cultivate deep, connected relationships, skip the drama and start things off the right way — with openness, honesty, and directness. You’ll be amazed a just how refreshing it is.

I know this isn’t how TV characters behave, but it is how conscious human beings relate to each other.

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.