Forum vs. Blog

First, let’s talk data.

After more than 5 years online, the forums had a total of 48,465 registered members. Registration was required to post messages and send private messages, but anyone could read the forums without registrering. Registration was always free and took just a couple minutes.

That may sound like a large community to some people, but the total number of forum members after 5 years online was still less than one day’s traffic to my blog.

Out of all those members, less than 10,000 of them posted more than 5 messages total, so most of them didn’t participate much at all.

On any given day, however, only about 400 members would visit the forums, although many of them would visit multiple times per day. Even if we include non-registered “lurker” traffic (which includes search engine referrals), it’s clear that the forums aren’t even in the same ballpark as the blog when it comes to traffic.

The truth is that the vast majority of visitors to my blog simply aren’t interested in our discussion forums.

How did the forums become popular in the first place? They were always attached to my blog, which fed them traffic. The forums were always busy with activity due to this connection to the blog. Without the blog it’s fair to say that the forums wouldn’t have been nearly as popular.

Some people have asked me what impact shutting down the forums would have on my blog and my business in general. The answer is that it’s not going to make any discernable difference. Relative to the popularity of the blog, the forums never had enough interest to matter in that regard one way or another.

What about all the content in the forums? Our forum members posted about 1.03M messages across 67K threads. You might think that all this content must generate a lot of search engine traffic, but relative to the blog, it’s still negligible. One popular blog post of mine will generate more search traffic than 10K forum threads.

Forum threads can help with the long tail of search, but they don’t help enough to matter. They can rank in the top 10 for phrases that aren’t competitive, but these are phrases that hardly anyone searches on. Even with lots and lots of threads, it’s like trying to earn a living by hunting for pennies. You may find many pennies, but even a lot of pennies just doesn’t amount to much.

Forum threads aren’t very good at generating human referrals either… unless it’s a thread about the forums being shut down, as I recently discovered.

I just want to point out that business-wise the forums were never a wise investment of time and resources.

However, I neither launched nor terminated the forums for business reasons. It was a personal decision to create them and a personal decision to shut them down.

A High-Maintenance Community

My vision for the forums stayed pretty much the same throughout its existence, with minor tweaks along the way. I wanted to create a place where growth-oriented people could come together to help each other in a positive and supportive environment. Overall I’d say the forums did a pretty good job of holding to that vision, thanks in large part to the wonderful moderators who helped make it a reality.

By and large our community rules were common sense — the same conventions people naturally adhere to in face-to-face conversations. Most of our members had no trouble following them. When we banned members, usually it was for spamming, and our mods were really good at catching spammers early.

This wasn’t the first forum I founded. I’d already had years of experience as an admin with a previous forum I created for indie game developers. That community is still online by the way, even though I haven’t been involved with it for 7-8 years.

The forum on this site was much bigger from the get-go, and it took a lot more admin and moderation work to keep it on track.

I had zero interest in creating an unmoderated forum — for the most part I consider such things to be junk. I knew this one would require careful moderation. The vision dictated that.

In the beginning we were definitely too lenient. Some sneaky Internet marketers got in there, and trolling was a recurring problem. But we kept tweaking things, and I feel that for quite a while, we got it mostly right.

I don’t think perfection is a reasonable standard, but it’s clear that many of our members felt there was no other forum quite as good as ours. In the area in which it worked, I believe it was the best available. You could say that was part of my vision too — to create the best personal development forum on earth.

One thing that was impressive about our community was the diversity of topics. Anything related to personal growth was fair game, including health, work, relationships, finances, spiritual development, politics, and more.

The community took a lot of work to maintain, but for much of that time it was a labor of love. I know it did a lot of good for many people. I know because people kept telling me that it helped them.

Entitlement Creeps in

As I wrote about in a previous article, we had some issues with entitlement creeping into the community. Some people seemed to feel they could annoy other members as much as they wanted as long as they stayed within the gray area of the rules. Others felt they could push further in the direction of using the forums to promote their businesses or affiliate programs. The mods and I often had to make tricky calls in this zone, but we did our best.

Some people would assume that the top standard was fairness. It wasn’t, at least not for me. Forum participation isn’t a fair trade to begin with. It’s a gift. In practice the standard of fairness doesn’t work well; it allows trolls to linger too long and to degrade the community experience for too many others.

Fairness is also very costly. It may make sense for a democracy that has tax revenues to pay for all the structures required to be reasonably fair, but a very active forum that doesn’t tax its members can’t adhere to such a standard. We’re not going to give someone a 12-person jury trial every time they break the rules and claim otherwise. Instead we have to make the best judgment calls we can, and we have to do this quickly.

The top standard I used was to maintain a positive and supportive community. When people worked against that vision, I sought to weed them out. The community rules were designed to support that vision too. Sometimes this meant doing things people felt were unfair, but usually that wasn’t necessary.

The Regulars

As often happens in online communities, ours developed a core group of regulars over time. I would estimate there were around 100 people in this core group at any one time. It wasn’t a sharply defined group though, and some people wouldn’t even be able to say whether they were in this group or not. One thing was clear though — many members felt like outsiders relative to this group.

Some members considered this group rather cliquish, but I wouldn’t use that label. I saw it as a bunch of people who participated in the forums so often that they got to know each other and became online friends. This happens in many forums and was nothing new to me.

You could also say that many of them were quite addicted. Some of them spent hours on the forums pretty much every day. I didn’t have a problem with them using the place as a social hangout too, as long as they weren’t interfering with the overall forum vision. But increasingly I found that they were clinging to the social aspects and nudging the forum away from its original vision.

I don’t think there was any deliberate intent behind it, but this core group collectively became the dominating force in the forums. Some of them served as moderators, whereby they were often charged with moderating people who may have been their friends. This had positive and negative aspects. These friends usually helped keep each other in line by exerting social pressure when someone began to stray, but they also became somewhat protective of their own, as we saw whenever one of them ended up getting banned.

How did these people dominate the community? By sheer volume of posts.

The average community member made a total of 21 posts. The top poster, by contrast, had 22,520 posts. That’s 1061 times the average. And there were many members with 100+ times the posting frequency of the average member.

If you’re willing to outpost someone by a factor of even 10-to-1, I’d say you can dominate them pretty easily as far as a discussion forum is involved.

This by itself garnered some complaints, but if the people in this group were being helpful most of the time, then I didn’t have a serious issue with it. Again, I was evaluating the forum health relative to the overall vision.

The Cancer of Entitlement

Over time I felt like this core group was developing too much of a sense of entitlement. It was detracting from the forum vision, and wasting my time and that of the mods. We spent more time managing social interaction problems with the members of this group, and it often seemed that they were posting just for the sake of posting as opposed to using the forums purposefully. The signal-to-noise ratio degraded.

The mods were pretty efficient at catching and nuking spammers, but more time was being chewed up dealing with the personality clashes of the regulars. It seemed like my job as admin was devolving into babysitting. I wasn’t interested in dealing with it, so I let things slide for a while as I focused on other projects like my workshops.

The mods easily handled the routine items, but when it came to controversial bans involving one of the regulars, they had a hard time pulling the trigger. They frequently opted to keep giving warnings instead. But this response amounts to what’s called intermittent reinforcement conditioning. Effectively this rewards the negative behavior and conditions the offender to do more of the same by proving that s/he can get away with it. So things gradually got worse during this time, and some members quit the forums because of it. I don’t blame them.

When I decided to look into fixing these problems, I tightened standards and reminded mods that we shouldn’t be giving members half a dozen warnings. The rules are simple and not at all difficult to follow. But when the next incident came up which seemed pretty clear cut, they still hesitated. I could see the mods were agreed on the right call, but it was hard for anyone to step up and take responsibility for it. So I sped things along because it would have been worse not to act quickly. Then I had to deal with the banned guy emailing me to complain and then trash-talking me elsewhere. Truth is he’d been behaving like a jerk for a long time and should have been banned much sooner. Some forum members expressed great appreciation that he was finally kicked out.

In some cases it may have been hard to ban one’s friends, but I don’t think that was an issue most of the time. I’d say the bigger problem is that too many mods were hesitant to act on their calls. They’d seen what happened to other mods who ended up having to ban one or more of the regulars. Collectively the regulars would often unload lots of whining, questioning, criticizing, and pleading upon any mods who made unpopular calls. And when you’re dealing with forum addicts who can post like there’s no tomorrow, this post-storm can seem a bit overwhelming, as if you just inflicted some grave wound upon the community. The calls were right, but I can understand why some mods were hesitant to deal with the social backlash.

I felt the mods were excellent at making the right calls, and I agreed with their calls virtually every time. Where we disagreed was on what to do about it. I was in favor of quickly pruning out the forum members who couldn’t play nice. The mods overall fell back on warnings, but we could all see that these warnings were not proving very effective. The mods were quite good at pruning new members who caused problems, but they had a hard time enforcing the same standards with the regulars. I think it’s reasonable to be slightly more lenient with people who’ve been contributing for a while, but not lenient to the point of allowing negative behavior to linger.

This reminds me of a management study I read about many years ago. Testing showed that managers who didn’t get promoted were just as correct in their decisions as managers who did get promoted. The difference is that the promoted managers were willing to act on their judgments and deal with the consequences.

If it sounds like I’m placing blame on the mods for these problems, I’m not. It was my responsibility. I could have invested more time in training them, and I could have replaced them if I felt they weren’t being too wishy washy. If I had it to do all over again, I’d have been far more strict when it came to enforcing standards. The rules worked great and remained very consistent throughout the forums’ existence. The problem was consistent and efficient enforcement.

When this lack of decisive action lingered too long, it created a problematic climate. There was a conditioning effect on the community as a whole. It taught them that we were going to be exceedingly lenient on the regulars and that they could get away with stretching the rules quite a bit. This had a deleterious effect on the community over time, and it drove some people away.

Despite these problems, I still wanted to turn things around and get the community back to its original vision. I realized that wasn’t going to be easy, but I thought it was doable.

A Turning Point

Then an interesting thing happened. Apparently some members and ex-members of our community got together to create their own discussion forum.

That didn’t bother me at all. If the circumstances by which this played out were different, I’d probably have been supportive of them doing that. After all, having some of them jump ship would have made my life easier.

Instead, the way this played out was that I learned that they were secretly using the private messaging system on my forums to send out dozens of unsolicited messages asking people to join them. This mainly involved sending the same copy-and-pasted solicitation to multiple recipients.

This is called PM spam. It doesn’t happen very often, but we’d seen it several times before throughout the forums’ history. When people do this sort of thing, we ban them outright since we have zero tolerance for spamming. Normally no one even notices when PM spammers are caught and banned, but this time the people involved were regulars and were promoting their own private project, so of course they and their friends made a stink about it, even as others thought that banning the offenders was more than warranted.

Some people seemed to think I reacted negatively because I felt hurt or betrayed that these people were sneaking off to another forum. Seriously, I could care less about that. I don’t own our members. I interact with other communities too, not just this one. What annoyed me was that they did this clandestinely by using our forum’s PM system for their recruitment. Spamming in all its incarnations, including PM spamming, has always been against the rules, and I wouldn’t tolerate it from regulars any more than I would from new members. In my book these people had clearly crossed the line.

The fact that they were promoting another forum was incidental. My reaction would have been the same if they were promoting a blog, affiliate program, Facebook group, charity, event sponsorship, school project, or any other kind of link. When the same message is sent to dozens of our members unsolicited, it’s spamming. I realize that some people felt it was okay due to the nature of the message and the fact that it came from forum regulars. I was most definitely not okay with that. It’s an abuse of our system and a direct violation of our rules. And this sneaky behavior doesn’t mesh with the forum vision either in my view. The fact that they kept this a secret was a hint and half they knew they were doing something wrong.

And so I banned some of the perpetrators that I could readily identify, and when someone in the forum asked why the bans occurred, I quickly explained the reasons. Normally I wouldn’t bother with that, but I wanted to take responsibility for the decision, so that if they wanted to hold anyone accountable for it, it would be me… and they wouldn’t start bashing the mods for doing so.

Of course since the people who did this were among the regulars, they had a lot of friends in the community. There was some outrage in response, which was predictable.

At this point I hadn’t decided to shut down the forums, nor did I have any intention of doing so. However, I began to seriously think about it as the situation unfolded.

It wasn’t the spamming that led me to think about shutting down the forums. The spamming incident was surprising and annoying, especially when I discovered that some of our mods were involved too, but I didn’t see it as a reason to close up shop by itself. I dropped the mods that I could verify were involved; they’d broken my trust, and I wasn’t willing to entrust them with such responsibilities after that.

The decision to shut down the forums resulted from a shift in perspective I had upon seeing people’s reaction to this event. A bunch of people began taking sides. Some people were curious and wanted to know more details. Some just wanted to play up the drama. It was a very divisive time. That part still didn’t surprise me.

Overall, however, I began to understand just how ridiculous this attitude of entitlement had become. I grew increasingly turned off by people who felt they should be entitled to do things that may negatively impact our community just because they want to and because they expect their friends will back them up.

At this point I felt I had two basic options. Either I’d have to get serious about cutting those members with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement — and quickly. Or we’d have to call it quits. I wasn’t willing to keep the forums going under the current climate.

Some people wanted me to open a dialog with the people involved in the spamming, but I declined. Their motivations were irrelevant. I’m sure everyone who spams can justify it one way or another, but I wasn’t interested in their justifications, and based on how they’d behaved up to that point, I didn’t trust that they’d tell me the truth after the fact anyway.

I was basing my decisions on the facts of what happened, and those facts weren’t in dispute. People disputed the various interpretations of what it meant, but in the end it was my call to make. I still feel it was the right call. If I had to do it all over, knowing what I now know, I’d make the same call.

Testing the Waters

At this point I was about 60-80% convinced that a forum shutdown was likely. There was way too much of a sense of entitlement in the place, whereby a number of members felt they could nudge the rules aside and get away with it, if only because they had the support of their friends within the community. Perhaps they perceived a certain strength in numbers.

But my vision wasn’t to provide a social hangout for some friends who wanted to chat each other in circles. I wanted a community with high standards for interaction and a core focus on growth. If people want to chat with their friends on my site, that’s okay to some extent, but not if it interferes with the overall vision. I felt that over time, they were interfering with that vision, and the forums became more of a social hangout for them and less of a place where people were really helping to support each other with serious growth in mind. So it was actually a good thing for me that some of them created their own forum since it would have made things easier for me if they just left. However, I wasn’t willing to have them secretly using our forums as a recruitment center for their own.

Of course this is a judgment call, but it’s my place to judge it. After all, I was the one paying for it.

I finally concluded that enough is enough already. I was no longer willing to host a forum on the terms they seemed to be demanding of me. Either they could abide by my vision and follow the rules and stop acting like spoiled children, or they could leave.

So I began cracking down and banning those members who tried to push their entitlement attitudes too far. Some encouraged their friends to act out, and those people were kicked out too. Some came back with fake accounts, and they got banned again.

I hear there were quite some lively discussions on Facebook about how I must have turned evil or something… or perhaps that I was evil all along. That alone makes me glad I don’t have a Facebook account anymore.

Some of the people who got booted tried to open a discussion with me, even as they lashed out in other channels, but I wasn’t interested in dialoging with them. I’m still not interested. I simply wanted them out, not just out of the forums but out of my life. Their reactions afterwards only served to convince me that I’d made the right call. They acted like I’d violated their civil rights when I was simply closing their accounts to a service I provided free of charge, and only after they abused it and/or me.

In the end they found out just what they were entitled to.

But I also realized that my efforts to finally get those people out of the forums wasn’t going to succeed. The problem had become too systemic at that point. I could ban a few more people, and that actually did help in the short term, but it wouldn’t have worked in the long run. We didn’t have a closed system. Many of those people were so outraged that they made it clear that if we ever opened up registrations again, they’d come back with fake accounts and try to destroy the place. I think that if it came to that, they would have succeeded in making things a lot harder for us. At least one person from that community was openly discussing using illegal means to damage the forums. Enough is enough.

By waiting so long to get these people out, I had lost too much of the support of the community. Getting things back on track may still have been possible, but I concluded that it wasn’t likely to be worth the effort. It would have been a major uphill climb.

The attitude of some people towards me after being banned was like that of a drug addict whose dealer cut them off. Some blew up with anger. Others begged. Some wanted to pepper me with endless questions and alternatives. And at least one person even tried to drag my kids into the discussion.

This is an online forum we’re talking about. It was a good one to be sure but still one among thousands. I knew that no matter what, I was done dealing with them.

One way of describing the problem is that many of these people were loyal to each other, but I was loyal to my vision. I don’t see any practical way I could have convinced enough of them to buy into my vision for the forums once they began treating it as their personal online home. Ultimately they wanted to make the place into something different, but it wasn’t something I was willing to provide. And they made it clear that if I was to hold to my original vision, some of them were going to fight me on it. I didn’t take that as an idle threat since I’d seen just how much time they were willing to spend online. I concluded that it was time to give it up. I’m sure there are better places to invest my time.

Partly this can be explained as a technology problem. If people were personally identifiable instead of being able to easily create anonymous accounts, we wouldn’t have to worry about them coming back after getting banned, and they’d likely behave with greater maturity. I like that Google+ requires people to use their real life identities. I think that’s one reason the discussions there tend to be very civil, and moderation is rarely needed. With different technology we may have had an easier time solving some of these problems.

I think the bigger problem was how I set things up to begin with. This was a free service to the community. Perhaps the fact that I provided this service for free led too many people to take it for granted. Maybe they figured they could behave like spoiled children and that I’d keep providing this service just because I’d been doing so for years. But when the community standards fall this low, it’s just not worth doing anymore. My terms for creating this community were that it must hold to a certain vision, and when I felt that vision was no longer realistic, closing the forums was inevitable.

Overall I think most of the community really did buy into my vision, and I believe they appreciated it. I’m not the kind of guy that needs to be lauded with “thank yous” for doing what he feels is right. But I don’t think I deserve all the “f— yous” from those who took advantage of my generosity, fell into the entitlement trap, and expected that I’d let them continue on their own terms. At least now they’re free to go develop their own community the way they see fit, and hopefully they’ll soon forget this one and won’t resort to illegal means just to get back at me for what they perceive as unfair treatment.

Overall I’m very grateful for this experience. I learned some powerful lessons about creating and maintaining a community of this nature.

If I had to do it all over again, I’d have been a lot more strict about holding to the forum vision. I’d have done a better job of recruiting and training mods who could be loyal to the overall vision, regardless of their loyalties to other members or their fears about being perceived as the bad guy. If people harshed on the mods for doing their jobs, I’d have empowered the mods to prune those people right quick too. And I’d have pruned some members a lot sooner who were clearly visiting for reasons other than to grow (such as forum addiction). Charging a modest membership fee might not have been a bad idea either.

My Community or Yours

Obviously I don’t own people’s relationships with each other, but I was the one primarily responsible for creating and maintaining the forums. I created the community vision, bought and installed the software, paid for the hosting and bandwidth, invited people to join initially, designed the categories and wrote the descriptions for them, wrote and revised the community rules, recruited and trained moderators, promoted the forums, and interacted with the community to help set the tone.

I had a lot of help along the way of course. There’s no way I could have done this alone. But if I hadn’t decided to make it happen, it never would have existed.

I created this community with the goal of manifesting a certain vision. I wanted to create a specific type of online community that would be unlike any other I’d seen. For me this was a personal choice, not a business one. I wanted to create something unique that would add value to the world. I also felt it would be an interesting challenge.

Despite how it ended, I consider this project a great success. During its existence it helped a lot of people, even apparently saving some lives. I know that many people are very grateful for it.

Once the forum reached the point where I felt it could no longer hold to its vision, I decided to shut it down. Some people say this was a selfish decision. From a certain perspective, they’re right, but then they should acknowledge that it was just as selfish to create it. You can’t pick up one end of that stick without picking up the other.

I don’t feel any animosity towards anyone in shutting down the forums. We had a really good run, and I think many people recognize that its time has come. I would rather consciously end it now than watch it die a slow death.

If you’ve been very active in the forums, then perhaps this is a good time to evaluate whether continuing that sort of activity is how you really want to spend your time. This is a nice opportunity to consciously re-evaluate your priorities. I, for one, am really going to enjoy having this off my plate. There will be more adventures ahead.

Some people have suggested handing this community over to someone else to run, but I’m not interested in doing that. When people asked about this in the forums, I usually gave them some shallow technical reason for why it wouldn’t work. But in reality I was putting them off since I didn’t want to get into it with people one on one. Some of the more technically minded people saw through my feeble excuses, but I just wanted to hold them off long enough to explain this in a blog post.

First off, I don’t know anyone with the technical skills, vision, and willingness to pay the hosting costs for this community that would inspire me to hand it off to them. Secondly, if we transfer things to someone as-is, they’ll end up with the same entitlement issues to deal with, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. And if I hand it off just for the sake of preserving the community, I can’t see it becoming any better than it was at its peak, especially without my blog constantly feeding it traffic. I wouldn’t want to be associated with something less.

So I’d rather consciously pull the plug on this. People can still retain the connections they’ve made if they desire to do so, and there are plenty of options for that (email, social networks, other forums, etc).

I think most people will be able to understand this, even if they don’t agree with my decision. It was the right decision, and I have no regrets about how it played out. Once the decision was made, I felt a speedy resolution was best, but I wanted to allow sufficient time for people to wrap up existing threads, suggest alternative forums, exchange contact info, and say goodbye. Now it’s done, and everyone is free to move on to a new chapter in their lives.

If anyone else thinks they can create something better than this, then I invite you to do so. Now that the forums are closed, I’m going to fully enjoy the peacefulness of its absence. After 5+ years, I more than deserve a break from it.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

The way this played out was a bit explosive I know (which you may have seen if you’ve been active in the forums), but the triggering event was only one in a long series, the proverbial straw that finally broke the camel’s back. In this case I’d say it was bigger than a straw, but it was more than enough extra annoyance for me to finally say, “Enough is enough already. This isn’t worth doing anymore.”

It feels like I’ve been using my power to hold down a coiled spring for so long (pushing to keep the forums going while being out of harmony with them), and this time I finally just let go. The result was a significant “boing” in a different direction. Lots of trapped energy finally had a chance to escape. Perhaps it was more of a “boom” than a “boing,” but either way I’m glad this energy is no longer trapped.

I’m sorry if anyone feels hurt by how this played out. This is, however, often how these kinds of awareness shifts do play out. Sometimes when people finally realize it’s time to quit, it’s not all flowers and hugs on the way out. Often it’s more of an “I am so out of here” or “I’m so very done, done, done” feeling. That’s the feeling I have about this — a feeling of just being done with this and feeling more than ready to move on. At the moment I’m not in a place where I feel particularly concerned about others’ feelings. I think it’s better to be honest about that than to feign a sense of loss or regret. I just want to make this transition happen quickly and put it behind me. It’s hard to want to build or maintain bridges when seeing ashes brings much more relief and peace.

I’m aware that this may not be the most graceful of transitions, and I accept that it’s my responsibility how this ultimately played out. I understand that some people may be upset with me, but I just need to be done with this. My attitude right now isn’t one of, “Let’s make this transition as graceful as possible.” I tried doing a graceful transition before, and it got bogged down more than once. Now I’m doing it Aries-style, ramming my head through any obstacles between me and the door while bellowing “Hulk smash!” This will require more bandages later, but it will get the job done.

If you’ve never gone through such an experience yourself, you probably can’t relate to what I’m going through, and you may think I’m out of alignment with what I teach. In truth I’m going through a very similar process to the one described in a 2008 article called Tolerance Is Resistance to Love, which happened when I transitioned from game development to blogging. Within the past day, I basically shifted from the “stop saying yes” phase to the “commit to quitting” phase.

For me this is a matter of self-love and self-care. What I actually feel most right now is… tremendous relief. That’s a hint and a half that I need to do this. I’m not angry or hurt or upset. Yesterday I was surely annoyed, but in a way that gave me great clarity about what I’m no longer willing to tolerate in my life. After sleeping on it, now I’m beginning to feel excited and happy about the coming year. You have no idea how good it feels to know that I won’t have to deal with all the headaches of forum admin in 2012.

I hope this makes some degree of sense, but when something like this goes down, I have to surrender to the notion that I’m likely to be perpetually misunderstood about the whole thing. And honestly, in this case I think I’d rather risk being labeled an insensitive ogre by many people than to spend hours and hours explaining myself and reading forum members’ public psychoanalyses of me. In fact, it’s the connection to those kinds of experiences in my life that I truly want to burn to ashes right now.

As Carlos Castaneda wrote, “When a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him.” While this path did have a heart for me when I first embarked on it, it’s clear I’ve lost the heart connection to it a long time ago. My heart is leading me in other directions, and clinging to the past has become way too burdensome to continue.

Quitting Facebook earlier this year was another step on this journey. I don’t have the clarity just yet to know what I want to do instead of these aspects I’m releasing, but I know they’re not what I want in my life, and so I’ll let them go this year, and I know that down the road something more congruent will come into my life. For me this is very much like quitting a job before I have something lined up to replace it. And I think that’s very much in alignment with what I teach. If you disagree, you really don’t know me all that well.

I believe I can turn the forums into a read-only archive, so as a resource it can stay online, at least for a while. I’m not going to transfer ownership of it to anyone else since that would violate my privacy policy, and I seriously doubt anyone would want their email addresses falling into the hands of some potential spammer.

I want to thank everyone who participated in our online community and especially our amazing moderators for doing so much behind the scenes.

Most likely I’ll shut down the forums between Xmas and New Year’s. The earliest I’ll take things offline would be Dec 26th, so you have at least 5 days. Yesterday I removed the links to the forums from my website’s header (refresh your browser if you still see a forums link), and I also closed the forums to new registrations.

If you’ve been active in the forums, this is the time to say your goodbyes, exchange contact info with friends there, and wrap things up however you wish. Since most people who read my blog never even participate in the forums, there’s a good chance you really don’t care about any of this. But if you do care, then I hope you enjoyed all the fish.

Hulk head hurt.

Update Dec 26: The forum shutdown is complete. The forum archives are still available (and searchable too).

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

Our forums were launched a little more than 5 years ago. They were instantly popular and remained so ever since, partly because my blog was already getting a lot of traffic that helped feed the forums. This made the initial launch challenging — I think we probably signed up and trained around 20 moderators before we even opened the doors.

The forum community has had its ups and downs and dramatic turns, but overall it’s held to its original vision very well: to create a positive and supportive environment where people could discuss their personal growth challenges, a place to get help and to help others.

I really have to credit the outstanding moderators who volunteered their time to help support this community. There’s no way this community would have worked so well without their caring dedication. They really do an amazing job! Most members don’t see what goes on behind the scenes, but the reality is that every week our moderators are taking action to maintain the spirit of the community as a place where people can discuss personal growth without interference.

What I find most rewarding about the forums is how they foster real human relationships. It’s very special to see members meeting in person and creating deeper connections.

Edit: Congrats to forum member Reefs for posting our 1,000,000th message.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

This CGW’s group energy was delightful to behold as it evolved from Day 1 to Day 3, and I’m happy to see the CGW friendship network continue to expand. As with all CGWs, this was a potent growth experience for me as well. It’s going to take me a while to process all the new realizations I had this weekend.

I plan to take a few days off now for some much needed R&R, and then I’ll start gearing up for the Subjective Reality Workshop (SRW), which is less than 5 weeks away.

About the Subjective Reality Workshop

For those who are considering going to SRW and haven’t signed up for it yet, I just want to remind you that the $100 early bird discount expires at midnight on Wednesday, September 21st. You’ll still be able to sign up after that, but the price will be $100 higher. I don’t intend to extend this discount since we already have more than enough people signed up to conduct a fabulous workshop. This one sure has been generating a lot of buzz.

Most likely you were raised to subscribe to an objective belief system, and you probably relate to reality through that lens without even realizing that it’s not the only useful lens available to you. Yet the subjective perspective remains an equally viable, internally consistent alternative.

Objectivity and subjectivity are both assumptions about the nature of reality, so neither systemis falsifiable. Hence it makes no sense to say that one is more valid than the other. That would be like saying that a set of wrenches is true and but a screwdriver collection is false. Similarly objectivity and subjectivity are best seen as toolset for interacting with reality, not as truths unto themselves.

To only have one perspective at your disposal throughout your entire life is unnecessarily limiting and perhaps a bit naive. That would be like only having wrenches but no screwdrivers in your toolbox. Perhaps you could turn a screw with the right wrench, but there are better tools for that kind of job.

At SRW our aim is to help correct this imbalance in your upbringing by educating and immersing you on the subjective perspective. This is meant to complement the objective perspective, not to replace it.

Anything that can be created or explained subjectively also has an objective analog, and vice versa. Both system are equally valid, just as a wrench and a screwdriver are both valid tools. But as with hardware tools, the objective and subjective toolsets each have their particular strengths and weaknesses. They’re more useful together than they are separately. You can accomplish more with a richer set of tools.

The aim of SRW isn’t to try to convince you that reality is subjective — that’s impossible for us to know for certain. Instead SRW is your opportunity to experience the subjective side in a rich and lively 3-day weekend. This will give you another complete toolset which you can use to further your personal growth.

Examples of useful objective tools include the Scientific Method, predictive reasoning, the laws of physics as we currently understand them. By using such tools, we can achieve a great many things.

What are the most powerful subjective tools? The Law of Attraction is one. The others will be taught at the Subjective Reality Workshop next month. I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.

Some problems are easier to solve using the objective tools. Others are far simpler to handle with subjective tools. And many problems are best solved using tools from both toolsets, such as creating financial abundance, overcoming fear, or attracting loving relationships.

Neither system is superior to the other. But since each system has different strengths, by learning both you can effectively became a lot more capable than you’d otherwise be if you were limited to using just one of these potent toolsets.

If you’re curious to learn more about Subjective Reality before deciding whether to attend SRW, you can find many articles on that topic in the Archives. A good place to start would be with the Subjective Reality Simplified article, which will give you a basic overview of it.

Even though I’m a bit spent from facilitating CGW this past weekend, I’m really looking forward to the Subjective Reality Workshop next month. I’ve been enjoying the mental challenge of figuring out how to define, structure, and interactively teach the subjective toolbox. If you’ve read my book Personal Development for Smart People, then you know how much I love to take abstract ideas and search within them for hidden structure and relationships in an almost mathematical way.

Make Your Tropicana Hotel Reservations Today

If you’re attending SRW, please make your hotel reservations at the Tropicana ASAP. A few CGW attendees waiting too long and then tried to get a hotel room the week before the event, discovering that a number of hotels, including the Tropicana, were fully booked. They had to scramble to find other places within their budgets, ending up miles away from the venue. It’s very common for hotel rates in Las Vegas to double or triple if you wait till the week before an event to register, so please avoid this situation and make your reservation now. It only takes minutes.

Please note that the cutoff date for our group discount rate for the Subjective Reality Workshop is September 23, so that’s only 4 days away. After that you may still be able to book a room there, but you could end up paying a lot more. So use the link below to book your room now.

Subjective Reality Workshop (Oct 21-23, 2011) – Tropicana Hotel Reservations (Group Code SSP1011)

Here are the links for booking your Tropicana rooms for the other two upcoming workshops:

Conscious Success Workshop (Jan 13-15, 2012) – Tropicana Hotel Reservations (Group Code SSP112)

Conscious Relationships Workshop (Feb 17-19, 2012) – Tropicana Hotel Reservations (Group Code SSP212)

If you miss the group rate cutoff deadline, you can still reserve a room through the Tropicana’s main website, but again, you could up paying significantly more.

You can also reserve your hotel room by calling the Tropicana directly at 1-800-634-4000 (or 1-702-739-2645 if calling from outside the USA). Just give the the appropriate group code as listed above.

The Tropicana recently underwent a $200 million renovation, so the hotel property and guest rooms are all nicely upgraded. I’m sure you’ll enjoy staying there.

Are you ready to start wielding conscious control over your current dream reality? If so, come to the Subjective Reality Workshop in October, and meet people who will finally admit that they’re characters in your dream world.

Otherwise, choose the blue pill instead, and you’ll wake up in your bed the next morning, forget all about Subjective Reality, and go on about your day within the matrix as usual.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

This is a nice way to save some money on your hotel room, but given the terms of the deal, it would only be useful for those attending the Subjective Reality Workshop in October. The Conscious Growth Workshop in September overlaps the Groupon’s blackout dates, and you have to use it by Dec 29th, so it wouldn’t be useful for next year’s workshops. But since we already have dozens of sign-ups for SRW, I wanted to share this in case some people want to take advantage of it.

Groupons show a countdown and expire in a matter of hours. Go to the Groupon page to see how much time is left. At the time of this posting, there’s about a day and a half left. Groupon says this deal has a limited quantity, so once they sell out, I guess that’s it even if there was time left on the deal.

If you’re not familiar with Groupon, they’re a major corporation that rose to prominence in the last several years, leveraging the collective power of group purchasing to offer major discounts on food, travel, services, and more. I’ve bought some of their deals in the past, and I’ve never had any problems. Rachelle has used Groupons for major discounts on Bikram yoga classes.

This particular Groupon is only for 2 nights, so if you need more nights (which I’m sure you will if you’re using it for SRW), you can book those extra nights using our group rate discount. Here are the links for booking your Tropicana rooms for each workshop that way:

Subjective Reality Workshop (Oct 21-23, 2011) – Tropicana Hotel Reservations (Group Code SSP1011)

Conscious Success Workshop (Jan 13-15, 2012) – Tropicana Hotel Reservations (Group Code SSP112)

Conscious Relationships Workshop (Feb 17-19, 2012) – Tropicana Hotel Reservations (Group Code SSP212)

The group rate for CGW in September has expired, but you can still reserve a room through the Tropicana’s main website.

You can also reserve your hotel room by calling the Tropicana directly at 1-800-634-4000 (or 1-702-739-2645 if calling from outside the USA).

The Tropicana recently underwent a $200 million renovation, so the hotel property and guest rooms are all nicely upgraded. I’m sure you’ll enjoy staying there.

CGW Early Bird Discount Extended

I’ve extended the $100 early bird discount for the September Conscious Growth Workshop a few more weeks (it was set to expire August 17th), so you can still sign up at the lower price if you’d like to attend. It took longer than I expected to finalize the workshop dates with the hotel, so I wasn’t able to give as much advance notice as usual for this workshop. Normally I like to give about 3 months notice, but for this one it was just over 2 months, so I’m fine extending the early bird pricing for a while longer. I know some people want more time to decide. I just needed to avoid a situation where everyone waits to the last minute to sign up since I have to work out the seating configuration with the hotel.

The early bird discounts for the Subjective Reality Workshop, Conscious Success Workshop, and Conscious Relationships Workshop are all still in effect. They don’t expire till 30 days before each workshop.

Other Ways to Save Money on Travel

For booking flights, I normally use Expedia, but Rachelle seems to be enamored of OneTravel.com lately. We used that site to book our recent flights to and from Paris. Keep in mind that flights to and from Las Vegas tend to be less expensive than for most other cities. Las Vegas welcomes tourists because that’s the city’s primary income source.

If you come across other deals that can help people save money on the total costs of attending workshops, please let me know about it, and if it looks good, I’ll be happy to pass it on.

Only 3 more weeks until CGW kicks off… I’m really looking forward to it since we haven’t done one in almost a year.

And how appropriate that SRW would be the workshop to manifest half-price hotel rooms.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

Date: Sunday, Aug 7, 2011

Time: 19:00 (7:00pm)

Location: Jardin des Tuileries (near the Louvre) at this exact location. There’s a fountain on the east side of the garden, and we’ll be meeting to the west of that fountain, next to the statue of the guy who’s missing a key male body part.

Metro: If you’re arriving by Metro, the closest stations are Tuileries and Palais Royal / Musée du Louvre.

There are lots of green chairs throughout the gardens, especially at this location, so we should be able to carve out a spot. I walked past that location 24 hours before the meet-up time, and there was virtually no one there.

If for some reason our selected location is unavailable, just look for us nearby.

The weather should be cool with a small chance of rain, so hopefully it won’t rain on us. I’ll be there no matter what though. The weather for the rest of our visit looks like it will be off-and-on rainy much of the time, so one day seems as good as any other, and I figure that the weekend would be better for most people. There are some trees nearby to provide cover from the rain.

The reason I didn’t go with an indoor location is that we never know how many people will attend these meet-ups since there’s no RSVPing in advance. In the past we’ve gotten anywhere from 12 to 40, and if lots of people show up, then we risk overwhelming an indoor spot. The gardens should be really nice if we can dodge the rain.

Worst-case, if we end up caught in a downpour, we’ll hang out till about 19:20 to wait for any stragglers, and then we’ll duck into the Carousel shops area below the Louvre grounds. So if it’s raining, try to get to our meet-up spot before 19:20 at the latest; otherwise go down the stairs by the Carousel Arc, and look for us down there somewhere… but good luck finding us because it’s a huge place.

There’s no structure for these meet-ups. We just casually hang out and chat with whomever shows up. Please be aware that my French is pretty limited though, although I can speak English and Franglais fairly well.

Usually we hang out for about 90 minutes to 2 hours, depending on how many people show up.

This is the first European meet-up I’ve ever done, so I’m really looking forward to it. Rachelle will be there too.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

This is a seriously long post, but it’s only intended for those who are genuinely interested in attending one or more of these workshops, so if that isn’t you, you can safely skip it. I’m going long here because I expect that people who are on the fence will appreciate this kind of detail. If that isn’t you either, then again feel free to skip it. It took me about 9 hours to write and edit this, so I hope at least one person out there appreciates it. Hopefully the Typo Gremlin wasn’t too brutal this time.

Transformational, not Educational

I like to think of all these workshops as being transformational more than educational.

These workshops aren’t like those seminars where someone lectures for 3 days straight, you take notes, and then you’re expected to apply some new ideas when you get home.

Of course what happens much of the time is that those notes get tossed in a pile somewhere when you get home. You may feel more motivated for a little while after the seminar, but a week later the energy boost has dissipated. You’re still pretty much the same person you were before you attended the seminar. Maybe several months later you finally get around to processing your notes, but by that point they may not even mean anything to you.

This has been my experience in attending lots of educational seminars. I still find value in attending them now and then. Even one good idea can make the whole thing worthwhile, but I don’t take nearly as many notes as I used to. And I normally process my notes within a few days after I attend, turning them into action items that I can apply.

Again, those kinds of seminars have their place. They can still provide value. But that isn’t the sort of experience I’m offering in my own workshops.

I do provide plenty of educational material. My blog has over 1000 free articles, and I’ve written a book as well. I’ve shared a lot of how-to content. But these days I’m more interested in transformation as opposed to education.

Transformation is more challenging but also more exciting. I also feel that transformation gives us a lot more leverage to create positive changes and to improve our results.

Transformation is a shift in perspective. You see things from a different angle than you did before. And that new angle is more empowering and allows you to do things that you couldn’t do before — or couldn’t do without great difficulty.

I have many motives for doing these workshops. The exact reasons why I do them are numerous and complex. But one of the most important reasons for me is entirely selfish. Delivering these workshops is hugely transformational for me. I get at least as much growth out of them as anyone else does.

Education is safe and comfortable. It may be a little boring at times, but it’s emotionally easy to sit through a lecture. You can just blend into the crowd, relax, listen, sip water, and take notes when you feel like it. You do some work to practice and demonstrate what you’ve learned. It doesn’t take any real courage.

Transformation, on the other hand, isn’t nearly so easy. It takes more energy and effort. You have to get out of your chair, interact with people, and do exercises. You go into one end of the tunnel not being able to see the other end. It can seem a little scary at times.

An educational seminar will throw a lot of information at you. At the end of the seminar though, you’re pretty much the same person you were when you first arrived, just with more information in your head.

A transformational workshop is intended to change you during the workshop itself, not by throwing lots of information at you but by shifting your perspective… by helping you see yourself and the world differently than you did before. If the transformation sticks, then even a year later you’ll still feel that change being a part of you.

If you’re looking for educational workshops, don’t attend mine. I don’t do these workshops primarily to educate people. I’m not a teacher in that respect.

If you’re looking for transformational experiences though, then you’ll most likely love attending one or more of my workshops.

Each workshop I offer is intended to help transform you in a certain way. So let me explain the nature of that transformation for each workshop.

Conscious Growth Workshop (CGW) – Sep 16-18, 2011

This will be our 6th CGW. The first CGW in Oct 2009 received an average rating of 9 out of 10, so it started out great, and it continued to get better from there with several rounds of refinement. CGW #5 was a vast improvement over any previous CGW, and I expect to make CGW #6 even better.

The primary theme of CGW is conscious growth.

The transformation we aim for here is to help you get on a path of smoother, faster, more deliberate growth across all areas of your life.

Change is going to happen no matter what. Five years from now, your life will be different than it is today. I think we can all agree on that.

Those years are going to pass regardless of what you do or don’t do.

If you live unconsciously, then for the most part, outside forces will determine how your life unfolds. These forces may include your employer(s), friends, family, society, marketers, etc. There may be some intelligences guiding you down certain paths, or your life may become chaotic and random — a jumbled summation of conflicting forces.

Conscious growth is different. You’ll still be subjected to plenty of outside forces, but now your own will becomes the #1 dominant force that directs your life path. You decide what you want to see unfold. You make it happen. You’re in control.

My ultimate dream is to help transform this planet into one where most people are living consciously. CGW creates many positive ripples that bring this dream closer to reality.

Living consciously isn’t about perfection. It isn’t about having 100% total control over everything. I don’t think that’s a realistic standard. But I do think it’s realistic for you to grow to the point where your own creative will becomes the #1 dominant force that drives your life.

There are some powerful shifts that happen when we awaken and find ourselves wielding more power than we ever did before, and CGW is intended to help trigger some of those shifts in you.

Perhaps one of the most inspiring examples of how CGW can transform people is how it affected Daan Buckinx. Daan attended CGW #1 as well as CGW #5. When he attended CGW #1 in Oct 2009, he said he was not a huggy person at all, but by the time he left he was hugging people left and right. He got so good at it that he was able to receive willing hugs from strangers within seconds.

Shortly after CGW #1, however, Daan went back to Belgium and was diagnosed with cancer. He had a large tumor in his chest, and he went through many rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, which certainly wasn’t easy for him. Daan finally succumbed to the cancer and passed away last month. He was 29 years old.

The last time I hung out with Daan was in Nov 2010 after CGW #5. We went ziplining together and then walked around downtown Las Vegas with a group of other CGWers. Daan showed us how easily he could brighten people’s lives by offering them hugs as they walked past. All he did was hold out his arms and smile, and about half of the people passing by stopped and hugged him. He didn’t have a free hugs sign or t-shirt. He was a walking free hug.

There’s a thread about Daan in the forums if you’d like to see what others had to say about him. He also contributed the story in the blog post on Speedhugging: How to Go From Zero to Hugs in Under 60 Seconds, which was written shortly after CGW #1.

As Daan shared on his own blog, he found CGW to be a transformational experience that inspired him to share unconditional love with others in the remaining months of his life. He explained at CGW #1 that he was not at all like that before the workshop.

The kind of shift that Daan experienced wasn’t due to education. I couldn’t have taught Daan how to do what he did. He went so much further and in much less time than I’d ever done. In this particular line of development, he shot past me like I was standing still. By his example, he motivated me to push myself more in this area. He helped me — and many others whose lives he touched — to really lower our shields and stop holding back so much when it comes to connecting. Whenever I hug people now, it’s hard not to think of Daan walking around downtown Vegas smiling and hugging people. Sometimes I still feel his energy buzzing around me.

I really like how this transformation has affected me, and I’m happier as a result. I have Daan to thank for that.

At CGW I may be the guy in the front of the room, but I’m a student of growth as well. I love being the facilitator, and I know it’s the role I’m meant to play. But the whole experience is truly a co-creative one. Everyone contributes to everyone else’s transformation. It’s a very beautiful thing to behold, and I feel extremely lucky that I get to attend every CGW by default.

As each new CGW approaches, I think to myself, I wonder what this one is going to do to me. I can’t predict in advance what sort of transformation I’ll experience, but so far I’ve experienced significant shifts at every workshop. Part of me is still trepidatious about it because I never know what to expect, but I know that this is the right path for me. I’d rather keep growing and immersing myself in that CGW energy, even if it can add more uncertainty to my life.

Whenever I have doubts about continuing to do more workshops, I remember Daan. If I hadn’t been doing these workshops, he would have lived the last 18 months of his life very differently.

CGW is very special to me because it was the first 3-day workshop I had the opportunity to create. I also feel it’s the most fundamental one, a great starting point for anyone who wants to transform their life for the better.

CGW is the most general workshop in the sense that it doesn’t target a transformation in any one specific area of life. Consequently, everyone gets something different out of it. My personal experience with CGW is that it has the uncanny ability to transform me in the area where I need to be transformed the most, which also seems to be the area where I’m least willing to acknowledge the need for change. CGW cuts straight to the core and unlocks this explosion of suppressed desire that quickly changes my results. I can’t say that’s how it affects everyone, but that’s how it affects me. It’s like an alarm clock for the parts of me that have been asleep and are finally ready to wake up. Very potent stuff!

If you’ve never been to one of my workshops, and you’re pretty sure you’d like to attend at least one of them, but you’re not sure which, then I’d recommend CGW as your starting point. You can do any or all of these workshops and in any order, but I think CGW is the best place to begin because it’s the most foundational workshop. It’s true that CGW doesn’t target one specific area for transformation, but that’s because it actually pushes for growth and change across the board — it seeks to move you forward in every area that’s important to you, not just one. CGW also has the most variety in terms of the exercises you’ll be doing, and it’s probably the most entertaining of all the workshops.

Subjective Reality Workshop (SRW) – Oct 21-23, 2011

Interestingly SRW is turning out to be the most popular workshop in terms of registrations. More than half of the early registrations are for SRW, so we’re already well into double-digit enrollment, and this workshop is still 3 months away.

Based on the workshop survey I did a few months ago, I expected that SRW would actually be the least popular in terms of attendance. It’s still too soon to tell, but I suspect this will end up being a more popular workshop than I anticipated. I think the reason is that while not as many people are interested in SR as compared to other topics, those who are interested seem to be REALLY interested.

The selfish part of doing SRW is that I very much want to explore subjective reality more deeply. I’ve been experimenting with it for years, and I’ve gotten some amazing results with it, but I still feel like I’m just scratching the surface of what’s possible here.

I think that facilitating a workshop on SR with a room full of people who are also interested will be absolutely fascinating. It wouldn’t surprise me if this kind of group energy manifests a lot of synchronicities and strange experiences. I have to say that of all the upcoming workshops, this is the one that excites me — and terrifies me — the most. This isn’t because I anticipate any sort of failure — just the opposite of that. It’s because I’m not sure I’m ready for new successes in this area. As I’ve previously blogged about, I have a tendency to back off from exploring SR when it starts working too well — I often feel like I need more time to step into the greater levels of power it unlocks.

So with SR my personal weakness is that I tend to play it safe too much. I keep doing little things that are within my comfort zone. There’s a part of me that’s still terrified about going big with it, so one of the reasons I’m doing SRW is to face this fear and push through it.

For instance, back in April I started recommending this software called MySpeed, which I personally use and love. It lets you play online videos faster, which is especially good for going through lecture-style videos in less time. Anyway, they started having a contest with their affiliates for a Kindle 3G. I think it was just a random drawing type of thing. I’m not sure why I bothered to do this, but just for fun I did my little SR manifesting thing to create the winning of the Kindle. The process I use these days only takes about a minute, and then I can forget about it.

Well, yesterday I got a phone call letting me know that I won. The funny thing is that I don’t actually need a Kindle because I already have one, as well as an iPad. But that’s part of why it worked. Since I didn’t need that result, it was easier for me to enter a pure creator space. Neediness is repulsive when it comes to manifesting — the more you NEED something to happen, the more you push it away.

Of course from the objective perspective, we can dismiss this as luck, which is a perfectly valid thing to do from that perspective. One of the things you’ll learn at SRW is that you can always translate an SR experience into the OR perspective, and vice versa. These aren’t different realities per se. They’re different lenses for perceiving reality and interacting with it.

I intend for SRW to be a very creative, interactive, and exploratory workshop. I also expect it to be a lot of fun since I’ll probably amp up the playful aspects. SR is all about being the creator of your reality, and playfulness is a great way to lock onto that creator vibe. So this workshop will be rich in games and exercises to help you get into that creator space.

There are a lot of ways we could do an SR workshop, and I know that many attendees have already dabbled in SR to some degree.

I’d recommend that people who decide to attend SRW should at least read through my SR articles if they haven’t already done so. Just go to the Archives page, and review the articles that have the word “Subjective” in the title. You can read them in any order. This isn’t essential, and you can put this off till the week before attending the workshop if you’d like, but I think it will enrich your experience if you’re already familiar with the SR concepts I’ve shared previously.

At SRW I’m not just going to talk about subjective reality and share my experiences with it. I’ll share some basic background info in the beginning so we all have a shared framework for the sake of good communication, but the real heart of this workshop begins where you essentially take the red pill and we all go down the rabbit hole together.

Just be forewarned that I’m probably going to have way too much fun doing this workshop. I don’t want to spoil any surprises, but a big part of this workshop is creating a playful atmosphere that encourages us all to experiment and stretch, so it’s designed with that in mind.

This will probably be the most immersive workshop of all. Once we enter into the SR perspective I’d encourage you to stick with it even outside the workshop hours if you can manage that. In other words, once we go down the SR rabbit hole, see if you can stay in that space at least through the end of the workshop. After the workshop ends, you can pop your head out and evaluate the experience from the objective perspective as much as you desire. But for those 3 days, let’s really play full out and see how far we can take it.

I’ve already done this for 30+ days straight by myself, and it was an amazing experience. But I suspect it will be even more amazing to do this as a group, even if it’s for a shorter period of time.

The transformational aspect of this workshop is to help you experience the SR perspective for yourself, to enter into that powerful space where you’re the creator of your own reality. You’re not just going to read about it or ponder it. You’re going to dive in and live it for 3 days straight.

Much of SRW will be delivered from the SR perspective, so that alone will make it especially immersive. This means that even while I’m the guy in the front of the room explaining and directing things, I’ll be doing this from the perspective that I’m a character in your dream world, as are all the other attendees. So this is your workshop, intended for you specifically. This is your reality, and you’re the creator here, and the rest of us are your figments, here to serve YOU.

Consequently, you can expect this to be a very strange and unusual workshop. I seriously doubt you’ve experienced anything like it elsewhere, and I’ve never heard of anyone doing workshops like this. If you’re looking for something very mundane and grounded, do NOT attend SRW.

Whereas the keyword for CGW is growth, the keyword for SRW is power.

Conscious Success Workshop (CSW) – Jan 13-15, 2012

In a recent survey, I saw that there was a lot of interest in workshops on success and achievement, career and financial development, and entrepreneurship. There’s some overlap between these topics, so I decided to aim this workshop at the center of those interests.

As opposed to the Subjective Reality Workshop, CSW will be delivered primarily from the objective perspective. This will be a very grounded and down to earth workshop in terms of the subject matter.

The keyword for CSW is success. Big surprise I’m sure…

CSW is not a time management workshop. It’s not about doling out productivity tips. It’s not about habits. All of those things will be addressed to the degree that they’re important, but those elements are ancillary.

The core focus of CSW is on clarity and vision. The secondary focus of CSW is on processes to make your vision a reality.

If you’ve read a lot of productivity books, you probably didn’t encounter much information about vision. At best you most likely only encountered some basic info on goal setting.

Setting a goal is the kindergarten version of creating a vision.

If instead of reading productivity books, you read a lot of biographies about highly successful people — i.e. real world success stories — then you’d probably encounter a great deal about vision. Vision is what fuels people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin. By and large you don’t see these people writing books about productivity tips. They’re too busy living their own visions.

When people study success, they often study the action side. They look at what people did. They give a lot of credit to things like habits and productivity — way too much credit unfortunately.

When people ask me how I earned two college degrees in three semesters, they usually assume it had to do with habits and discipline and how I managed my time, as if those were the primary causal factors. Those aspects do play a part, but that’s like 20% of it.

The other 80% is vision. I accomplished what I did in school because I envisioned myself graduating in three semesters. I fueled that vision with my will and power. I committed myself fully to that vision. I didn’t know if I would succeed. But I committed that if I failed, it wasn’t going to be because I gave up. The only way I’d fail would be if I did my very best, and my best just wasn’t good enough. If I was going to fail, then external factors would be responsible, not internal factors.

Most people who ask me about this time in my life will never even come close to applying the specific practices I used. That’s because they aren’t committed to the vision that I committed to. I can write articles about how I did it till I’m blue in the face, but it’s not going to make a difference for most people. They could do the same sort of thing too, but they won’t. It just isn’t important enough to them to commit to it 100%, and for a big vision like this, a sub-100% semi-commitment won’t cut it. Either you’re going to do it, or you aren’t.

Vision is where people are constantly dropping the ball. When people try to improve their lives by studying time management and productivity while lacking a crystal clear vision for where they want to go, they’re putting the cart before the horse. All they do is run themselves in circles, and they’re no more productive five years later. They just happen to know a lot more about productivity, but they aren’t applying most of what they know anyway, so what good is all that extra knowledge? They’re wasting their time by reading more productivity tips.

Vision is why I’m doing these workshops. I imagined myself doing my own public workshops even before I started blogging in 2004. The fact that I’m doing this today comes as no surprise to me. I saw all of this in my mind first, I fed that vision, and now I’m living it. If I went back in time and told my 2004 self that this is what I’m doing now, he’d probably say something like, “Of course you are. I’m the one who imagined you into existence.”

Vision isn’t just goal setting. Comparing a goal to a vision is like comparing a product to a business. A business may have products, but by itself a product isn’t a business.

A vision includes all of your goals in a complete package. It includes the results you want to achieve, the experiences you want to have, and the paths you’re going to take to get there.

I think the reason most people fail to achieve the success they desire is that they’re downright awful at creating and committing themselves to crystal clear visions.

If you ask most people what they want, they’ll give you vague and fuzzy answers at best. No wonder they don’t feel motivated to take action. No wonder they feel stuck and confused.

I’ve gotten quite good at creating an empowering vision for my life. I have a clear vision for what I want to experience in my career, finances, relationships, social life, health, spiritual life, home life, travel, and more. That vision is laid down in writing, and I’m committed to it in writing. I can see that it’s going to be a long road, and many parts of this vision will challenge me. But I’m sticking with it. In my mind it’s a done deal. Making it a reality is just a matter of time. No matter how many obstacles come at me, I will knock them down one by one.

I use good processes not only to clearly define the vision, but also to manage the unfolding of the vision day by day. With such processes and some persistence and patience, this is a very effective way to live. While you can’t guarantee success in the short term — unexpected things do happen — in the long term, you can come pretty darned close to guaranteed success. That’s because in the long run, if you’re living consciously, your will is the #1 dominant force that directs the unfolding of your life.

I envisioned these specific new workshops months ago. I used good processes to keep moving my vision forward one day at a time. Now people are signing up for them. Soon people will be attending them. This whole part of my reality — and yours too — was created by conscious choice… by thought.

CSW will be most helpful to people who are not that clear about what they want from life, those who aren’t yet 100% committed to a vision. The transformational part of this workshop is to lead you from a place of fuzziness to a point of clarity and commitment.

If you’re already crystal clear about what you desire, and you’re zooming towards your vision like a speeding bullet, and you feel you can keep doing this consistently as your life vision evolves, then CSW probably won’t be as useful for you — unless you’re looking for an experience to help you upgrade your current vision to take your experience to a new level.

One thing I’ve seen at CGW is that a lot of people are very fuzzy about what they want. Many can’t even articulate what they want. Others seem to change their minds every few months. I hope you understand that if you want to see some serious forward progress in your life, especially when it comes to career and financial success, you can’t keep changing directions two or three times a year. You really do need to pick a direction and stick with it for a long time. A career change is okay — I’ve been through such transitions myself — but if you’re going to treat that sort of thing as casually as getting a new haircut, then you’re most likely going to remain at the novice level of career development. And you’re probably going to depress your finances as well. It’s like playing a role-playing game and starting fresh with a new character before any of your characters can make it past level 10. A whole different experience awaits you if you commit to a single character and play it all the way to level 50 and beyond, and this is really how the game of life is best played. It’s okay to dabble a bit to find a game you like, but eventually you need to commit yourself fully to mastery of a singular path.

Let me say that deciding what you want from life is indeed quite difficult. But just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean you can’t do it. The alternative is worse. If you don’t define a clear vision for yourself and commit yourself to it, eventually you’re going to feel bored and/or frustrated with your lack of progress. And ultimately, you’ll die filled with regrets about what you should have done instead.

This isn’t to suggest that you should just pick something at random and commit to it. You want to avoid a bad commitment just as much as not committing. What you need is a process that will converge on something you can commit yourself to, and that’s what CSW aims to do for you.

It’s not enough to set goals in different areas of your life. Too often when people do that, their goals don’t combine well to form a singular vision. A clear vision is holistic. When you have a true vision, there’s just one vision, not 10 different ones. Your vision may have many different components, but they all combine to form a single picture.

Personally I don’t know of any book or workshop that truly covers the same territory as CSW. There are some excellent books that touch on certain aspects of it, like Stephen Covey’s First Things First. But this is an area where I really had to come up with my own unique approach. Other people’s insights just didn’t go far enough or deep enough for me to get the results I wanted.

I still picked up and adapted useful ideas from other people, but with respect to developing the core content of this workshop, my best insights came mainly from outside the field of personal development. I found better insights buried deeply within the biographies of highly successful people and from my own personal experimentation over many years. I learned more from people who achieved great successes as opposed to people who wrote a lot about success.

For example, I learned about V2MOM from Mark Benioff, founder of SalesForce.com. I learned about OKRs from studying Google’s successes. These are great tools I’ve adapted from other fields, but I can’t recall seeing anyone else in the personal development field write or talk about them. I got much better results by developing a hybrid approach that started with these tools as opposed to using something like David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) system, for instance. GTD was very popular when I first started blogging, but it’s really for employees with bosses telling them what to do. GTD is too weak to use by itself if you’d rather be the boss of yourself — for that we can do a lot better.

At CSW I’ll share lots of specific details from my own life. I’ll show you what parts of my personal vision look like, how I break my vision down into quarterly deliverables, and ultimately how I manage my actions day by day. I’ll share which specific tools I use (the main tools I use are free, and the others are very cheap and also have free substitutes). You’ll also have the opportunity to run through this process with your own vision.

I’ll show you how the different parts of my vision fit nicely together to form a complete picture. For instance, doing workshops is more than just a business pursuit. Workshops also fuel my personal growth, they expand my contribution, they boost my income, they create new friendships, and they add more fun to my life. They add value on many different levels. Contrast this with situations where people set goals that create internal conflicts for them, such as goals that might boost their income while giving them less time for relationships.

Instead of working in a cubicle somewhere, I get to work on the Las Vegas Strip… and only when I want to. I have no boss but myself. I make good money doing what I want, when I want. How did that happen? I envisioned it clearly first. I committed myself to it. Then I made it a reality.

What are you committed to creating in your life? Could you even tell me? Will your answer be the same a month from now? Why do you even have to think about it? If the answers aren’t forthcoming, you’re not on alignment with success. How can you succeed if you don’t even know what you want? How can you succeed if your desires shift with the seasons, like leaves being blown around by the wind? You can’t build any real momentum that way. Let’s fix that.

I expect that CSW will be the most linear and guided workshop, but I don’t think this is something I can do justice to with a book or a series of blog posts. I have to guide you through this process in person.

I might be able to adapt CSW to work as an online video course someday, but at present I only feel good about doing it interactively. I need to be able to look into people’s eyes and adapt to what they’re experiencing.

The selfish aspect of CSW for me is that I want to push myself a lot more in this area. Lately I’ve been going through a major expansion in terms of setting, planning out, and working towards more ambitious goals. I’ve been in an amazing flow of inspired action lately, but I still recognize that my ultimate potential is greater than what I’m experiencing right now. I know that by delivering this workshop and helping people create and fulfill their own inspired visions, I’ll be able to raise the bar for myself.

CSW will likely be the most introspective of the four workshops. This is all about your life, your desires, your vision. CSW is primarily about how to achieve what you want, and a big part of that is how you identify and define what you want. Most people use a very sloppy process to figure out what they want, so they fail before they even seriously begin. If you set goals in a sloppy manner, how are you supposed to commit to them for years? You’ll never be able to trust that you made the right decision. CSW will lead you through a very orderly, step-by-step, structured process for figuring that out.

You’re never going to have 100% certainly that you’ve committed to the absolute best path for you. That isn’t realistic. But you can still reach the point of creating a powerful and inspiring vision for your life and committing yourself to it, even in the face of uncertainty. Part of getting there is having a better understanding of the long-term consequences of not committing to anything. Sometimes you just need someone like me to give you a kick in the rear to get you off the fence, so you don’t stay stuck there for another five years and look back with regrets.

If you aren’t passionately working on an inspired vision right now, you’re just spinning your wheels, aren’t you? It’s okay to visit such a purgatory temporarily, but it’s a major waste of life if you remain stuck there for too long. Do you really want to drift aimlessly for another five years?

CSW is a workshop to get your ass off the fence, to make some real decisions, to commit to them, and to get moving forward with some serious momentum.

As you can probably tell from the shift in my writing style for this section, the energy of this workshop is going to be rather different from the others. I’m not going to play the role of a military drill sergeant, but I’m not going to baby you either. At CSW I’m committed to seeing you finally make some real decisions and to stop living like a fuzzy-brained teenager. That said, this workshop isn’t going to be all work and no play — it  will still have its playful side, and there will be plenty of fun and creative exercises to help you open up to a more empowering way of living.

CSW cuts to the core of what people really need to succeed, whether it comes to building a kick-ass career, making lots of money, or building a business. This is about how very successful people actually do succeed. They envision what they want, they commit to it, and they intelligently manage the action steps in a sustainable way, so they can keep at it for years.

You can keep running your wishy washy “I don’t know what to do” script on your friends and family, but that isn’t going to fly at CSW. You may show up not knowing what you want, but you won’t be going home that way. In fact, when you do return home, your friends and family probably won’t recognize you.

Conscious Relationships Workshop (CRW) – Feb 17-19, 2012

Let’s switch gears again because the energy of CRW is totally different from that of CSW.

The keyword for CRW is harmony.

This workshop is going to be extremely social. I guarantee that you’ll be spending a lot of time interacting with other attendees at CRW. To learn about relationships, it’s important to do a lot of actual relating.

Relationships are two-sided affairs. You have control over one side of every relationship — your side — but it turns out that this is more than enough control to create a powerful transformation in this part of your life.

CRW is going to focus a great deal on self-discovery. You’re going to learn a lot about how you relate to other people and how this affects them, not by listening to me talk about it but by doing some real relating and getting feedback from others on your “performance”. If you have weaknesses in your social skills, for instance, those will be revealed to you at CRW. This won’t be done in a harsh or critical way but rather in a gentle and supportive way. The point is to raise your awareness of how others perceive you, so you can identify corrections to be made, not to beat you up for perceived inadequacies.

CRW will give you the opportunity to experiment a great deal when it comes to alternative ways of relating to people. My aim here is to create a very safe and mutually supportive environment, one in which everyone can feel free to experiment.

You’re going to be doing a lot of hands-on learning in this workshop. Here you’ll have the opportunity to try relating to people in different ways and on different levels. While I’ll be carefully guiding you through this process, you’re also going to wield a lot of control over how this process unfolds for you. There are some universal processes that everyone can participate in, but there’s also an individually tailored aspect. The way this workshop unfolds for a social butterfly will be different than how it’s experienced by someone who’s very shy.

The intent for CRW is to give you the opportunity to learn and grow in terms of how you connect with people by giving you the opportunity to experience the sorts of connections that you’ve always wondered about or wanted to try but which you never felt comfortable testing out in the real world. Or perhaps you never even thought there were other ways you could connect with people other than what you’ve tried in the past.

As part of this, it’s important that you’re willing to help participate in creating this safe, experimental space for the other attendees as well. Do your best to leave your judgments at home, and bring a willingness to play, experiment, and connect in a variety of different ways.

The transformation we’re aiming to create at CRW has to do with improving your alignment with authority, oneness, and courage.

The authority aspect (authority = truth + power) has to do with deepening your understanding of how you’re currently relating to people and what results you’re getting. What results are you experiencing in this part of your life right now? Why are you getting those results?

The oneness aspect (oneness = truth + love) involves deepening your understanding on what a harmonious relationship life would look like for you. What kinds of changes will be necessary for you to feel a sense of harmony with the other people in your life, such that you’re mutually supporting each other? We’ll help you identify what those changes are, so you have a clearer sense of what your ideal relationship situation looks like.

The courage aspect (courage = love + power) will play out as we create a safe space for you to interact with people in ways you’ve been afraid to try in the past. This part isn’t about me pushing you to do things that you’re afraid of. It’s about you recognizing where you’ve been holding back socially and then using the safe workshop environment as an opportunity to push beyond some of those limits to whatever degree you feel comfortable doing.

How attractive do you appear to other people? What can you do to increase your attractiveness? What is it about your connection style that might be repelling the people you want to attract? What about you is attracting the wrong people that you’d prefer not to attract?

Ultimately CRW aims to shift the social vibe you’re broadcasting and the behaviors you employ, such that you naturally attract empowering relationships and naturally repel disempowering ones. That will cause rippling aftereffects when you go home, and you’ll see your social circle transform to become more harmonious.

In addition to addressing relationships in general, we’re also going to pay special attention to intimate relationships. My goal here isn’t to project my relationship values onto you. I want to help you gain more clarity about what you want in this part of your life, to help you become a match for it, and to help you make it a reality.

CRW has both subjective and objective elements. It lies somewhere in the middle between SRW and CSW in terms of which perspective it uses. This is because we want to create both inner and outer harmony. We want to get you to a place of feeling good in terms of how you connect with people, but we also want to help you create objectively measurable improvements in your social landscape.

Transformation in your relationships can happen in a variety of ways. When you change how you relate to people, sometimes the people in your life will change how they relate to you, and your existing relationships will improve. Other times those people will be repelled by your shifts, they’ll pull away from you, and more compatible people will be attracted to you and will move closer to you. Either way you end up in a more harmonious place.

My experience is that we can’t control how our relationships are transformed. We can only transform ourselves and allow the social landscape around us to rearrange itself to match us. So we can’t get too attached to how each individual relationship plays out — that part isn’t up to us.

You can attend CRW by yourself or with a relationship partner. It will work either way. If you do attend with a partner though, I recommend that you keep an open mind about how it may affect your specific relationship with your partner. CRW aims to help each of you achieve greater happiness and fulfillment, but I can’t predict whether that will play out as a deepening of your existing connection or if it will send the two of you in different directions to find new partners. Honestly it could go either way.

If you attend CRW and you’re already in a relationship, it’s important that you’re committed to discovering your truth and creating greater harmony for yourself and others. If your commitment to your current partner is greater than your commitment to truth, then I don’t recommend that you attend CRW. CRW does NOT begin with the assumption that you and your current partner are the perfect match for each other just because you happen to be together right now.

CRW is a great workshop to attend if you currently feel that the relationship part of your life needs serious work. Do you feel loved and supported by the people in your life? Are you enjoying the relationship situation you desire? Do you feel confident that you can successfully create whatever you want in this part of your life? If you feel that something isn’t working in your social and relationship life, CRW will help you transform your relationships for the better.

A major part of every workshop, but especially one that will play out at CRW, is the new friendships you’ll make there. Many people who met at CGW #1 in 2009, for instance, are still friends to this day. In fact, there have been a number of intimate encounters that have happened between people who met at previous workshops, including during the evenings of the workshop days. This doesn’t surprise me too much because these workshops attract a lot of like-minded people who tend to bond very quickly.

I design every workshop with a strong social element, but CRW will take that further than any other workshop.

My selfish reason for doing this workshop is that I want to continue improving my own relationship skills. I want to get better at connecting with people, attracting people who are truly compatible with me, and enjoying a rich and abundant social life. I already feel I’m doing wonderfully in this area, but I see no reason that I can’t continue to grow further.

I also feel that the relationship part of my life is an area where I want to keep experimenting and letting go of prior social conditioning (especially due to growing up Catholic and having lots of limiting beliefs installed from a young age), so that’s partly why I’m designing it with a lot of experimentation in mind. I do not assume that there’s one relationship model that works for everyone. I think this is an area where we must discover what makes us happiest through personal exploration, so CRW aims to create a human laboratory of sorts where we can do lots of experimenting in terms of how we relate to others, how different approaches feel when we try them on for size, and what results we get with them… so that ultimately we can relate to others in a manner that makes us say, “Yeah, this is me.”

Let me clarify some more about what I mean by the trial-and-error experimental learning aspect of CRW since I feel that’s a really critical part of this workshop.

As I mentioned previously (in the CGW section as well as in my previous blog post), I’m a very huggy person these days. For most of my life, I wasn’t like this at all — I was totally the opposite. I had to try hugginess on for size. At first it felt pretty uncomfortable, but eventually I discovered that I really liked it.

I fully recognize that some people wouldn’t even want to connect in this way; they may even consider it creepy to hug people they’re meeting for the first time. And that’s perfectly fine. I don’t expect everyone to value being a huggy person in the same way that I do. If you prefer not to be a huggy person, and you’re happy being the way you are, far be it from me to try to change you.

By embracing my own hugginess, I naturally attract more huggy people into my life, which makes me happy. I love that the vast majority of my friends are huggy people too. I’m also more likely to repel people who don’t like connecting in this way, which is also fine by me. If you’re not huggy, I don’t see that as a problem at all, but to me it does mean that we’re probably not going to connect as very close friends. I prefer friends who enjoy hugs. That’s just something I want to have in my social life.

I don’t dislike non-huggy people per se, but they do seem colder and more shielded to me, as if they have something to hide. I don’t trust them as much as I trust openly huggy people. I don’t relate to non-huggers as well, and some part of their vibe turns me off. Just as they may find my hugginess to be a mismatch for them, I find their non-hugginess a bit creepy. I’m fine co-existing with such people in my life, and I’m fine respecting their space and not being huggy with them, but I’m not going to surround myself with such people in my inner circle of friends.

I offer people hugs when I meet them, but I don’t force them to hug me or anything like that. I offer people hugs partly as a way of assessing whether or not they’re huggy people too. But it’s not just whether they hug me back that tells me something about them. I probably pick up a lot more from the quality of the hug itself. Does their energy feel open and loving? Or are they giving a perfunctory yet shielded hug? Hugging people when I first meet them reveals volumes about their energy and personality to me. I don’t think most people realize just how much information they transit through a simple hug. Huggy people know this, and I think it’s one of the best reasons to be a huggy person. I like hugging people not just because it feels good but because I get a serious download of information about the person’s energy from the act of hugging them. That’s why I think it’s important to invite a person to hug me by putting my arms out… being careful not to force anything upon them. Hugging someone helps me sync my energy to theirs.

At the same time, when I hug someone I’m also giving them the opportunity to download a lot of information about me. I want people to receive this info quickly. I know from experience that my hugs normally broadcast warmth, caring, confidence, and trustworthiness. So it’s very easy for people to open up with me after they’ve hugged me. It makes conversation a lot more efficient.

You can also pick up a lot of information from a handshake. Does it convey confidence, or did you get one of those limp half-squeezes? But I think a hug allows two people to exchange a lot more info about each other.

I’m glad I figured this out through trial and error, but honestly it took me years to get here. I had to hang out with a lot of huggy people, so I could learn from them. I couldn’t have predicted in advance that I would have liked being in this space as much as I do. I definitely had a lot of resistance to it at first. But it’s way too effective for me to ever want to go back. That would be like deleting a superpower.

Instead of taking years to make similar discoveries about yourself, CRW will give you the opportunity to go through such a process in a matter of days. For example, you can try out being a very huggy or touchy person (respecting other people’s boundaries of course) when you connect with others and see how that feels to you. Do you like it? Does it feel good to you? Or does it feel unnatural or creepy? How do other people respond to it? Do they like it when you touch them while talking to them, or do they find it creepy and unnatural? What new information, if any, are you giving and receiving via your hugs?

I discovered through trial and error that not only do I enjoy giving and receiving hugs, but other people overwhelmingly like my hugs. They receive it as a warm gesture of connection.

When you can try something new and verify whether or not it works for you and discover how it’s genuinely perceived by others, and you see that it’s all good, it’s easier to fully step into that space and embrace that part of yourself. Sometimes this means gaining a useful new skill that you can use for the rest of your life. On the other hand, when you try something and it doesn’t quite work (like maybe it feels okay to you but other people report that they find it creepy when you behave that way), then you’ll have some really good feedback telling you that you ought to try a different approach.

Can you see the value in this kind of experimentation?

I’m not going to force anything on you, so as we do each type of exercise, you’re always free to opt out. For instance, if you really don’t like being touched by anyone, you can always opt out from any touch-based exercises. If you can’t handle giving people compliments, then skip that exercise. I’d encourage you to push yourself a little when it comes to your willingness to experiment, but you’re ultimately the one who decides what type of experiments you wish to participate in. I’m not going to pressure you to do something you know is wrong for you. Fair enough?

CRW will help you answer a lot of questions related to improving your social interactions with others. What styles of relating feel good to you? What doesn’t feel so good to you? What do you do that others find attractive? What do others find repulsive? What can you do to deepen your connections? What are you doing that’s messing up your connections?

We are going to do a LOT of experimenting at CRW. You’re going to be spending a great deal of time connecting with other attendees in a variety of ways. By the end of the workshop, you’re going to know yourself so much better than you do now, and you’re going to have a much clearer sense of how others perceive you. You’ll learn what your strengths are when it comes to relating to people, so you can put your best foot forward when you want to connect with someone. I think this is really invaluable information for people to have that will serve them well for life.

I’ve never been to any workshop that works the way I envision CRW to be. Personally I find this kind of experimenting to be so important to my self development that I’m probably going to participate in many of the exercises myself.

Workshop Content Overlap

Some people have asked me how much content overlap there will be between these workshops. Am I just rehashing the same material in different forms?

If I try to answer this question as directly and simply as I can, I’ll say that the overlap between these workshops is minimal. If you look at my blogging history as any indication, you can verify that I have no shortage of content ideas. I have more than enough content to fill 12 days of workshops without repeating myself.

But that isn’t really the most accurate answer I can give. The problem is that this question is being asked from the wrong frame to begin with. The question makes sense if we’re talking about educational workshops where the core value lies in the content. There is an educational element to these workshops, but as I’ve already noted, their core focus is transformational, not educational.

What does it mean to talk about content overlap in terms of transformation? In this context the original question doesn’t make as much sense.

A transformational workshop takes you from where you are and takes you to a different place of being by the end of the workshop. So even if you attend the same workshop repeatedly, and the core content remains essentially the same, it’s going to affect you differently each time because your starting point will always be different. So it wouldn’t even matter if the content was mostly the same because the value lies in the experience, and your experience will be different each time. You’ll be a different person going in and a different person coming out.

Not only is the content portion different among these workshops — all four are very different from a pure content perspective — but more than that, you could attend the same workshop multiple times, and you’re still going to find it a different experience each time.

This is one reason why some people keep going to CGW repeatedly. The content really isn’t the #1 transformational factor. It’s the experience. The exercises are one part of that. The social environment is another key factor. The vibe that I bring to it matters a great deal as well. As I see it, the role of the content is to help us agree on a common language for sharing in each others’ transformations. Without the content to ground us, it would be a lot more difficult to communicate with each other at the level at which these transformations occur.

Rest assured that I have no interest in rehashing the same material in different forms. That would be utterly boring to me. I can’t even see myself delivering the same workshop in the same way twice in a row. Inspired ideas flow through me in infinite abundance.

My challenge is the opposite of what this question seems to assume. I have enough ideas to spawn workshops on at least a dozen different topics. But I don’t have time to do all of those topics justice, so I’m sticking with what I believe to be the most important ones, both for my own transformation and for those who choose to attend.

Join Us!

Every workshop is special and unique. I never do a workshop the same way twice. I’m always tweaking and changing things, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot. So even if you attend the same workshop more than once, it won’t be quite the same experience. And in fact all of these workshops are designed so that you can attend them as many times as you desire, and you should always be able to get more value out of the experiences. You’ll be going in as a different person each time, and so you’ll experience a different type of transformation each time.

I can say without exaggeration that all of these workshops are unlike anything else out there. They’re all original and are personally designed by me. None are copies or clones of anyone else’s work. I feel very inspired by them, and I’m really looking forward to delivering them in the months ahead. I genuinely hope to see you there.

For more details on the upcoming workshops and/or to sign up for one, see the Workshops page.

And if you don’t want a hug, just say so. Otherwise don’t be afraid to walk right up and squeeze me.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

In addition to doing another Conscious Growth Workshop (CGW #6), we also have brand new workshops on subjective reality, success and achievement, and relationships.

All of these new workshops will be hosted by the Tropicana Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. The Tropicana recently underwent a $200 million renovation, so the hotel and the guest rooms are all nicely upgraded. They’re also offering our workshop attendees a group discount rate on the hotel rooms. The Tropicana is just a few minutes’ drive from McCarran airport, so it’s about as convenient as you can get.

Save Up to $400 (until July 22, 2011)

To kick off this new launch, I’m giving you a $100 discount for each of these workshops, so you can save $100 on any one or up to $400 if you decide to attend all four.

This discount is only going to last about 10 days, until July 22, 2011. So if you’re interested in attending, now is the time to make a decision and sign up. This is the lowest price at which I’ve ever offered any workshop, so don’t expect it to come around again if you miss out.

For details on these workshops, either see below, or check out the newly updated Workshops Page.

In creating the new workshop web pages, I decided to go with a fairly minimalist design. So there are no lengthy sales pitches to read through. I put a lot of thought into the layout of these pages to provide you with the essential info cleanly and simply.

Be sure to read through to the end of this post because there are some freebies at the bottom.

Conscious Growth Workshop (CGW)

Sep 16-18, 2011
Tropicana Hotel, Las Vegas

CGW is a highly interactive workshop designed to accelerate your conscious growth across all areas of life — career, finances, health, relationships, and more. The content is loosely based on the book Personal Development for Smart People, but whereas the book was designed to be read, CGW is meant to be experienced. This is an excellent foundational workshop to learn the core fundamentals of conscious growth.
Learn more…

$497 until Aug 16, 2011 ($597 thereafter)
Save $100 – Register for only $397 until Jul 22, 2011

Subjective Reality Workshop (SRW)

Oct 21-23, 2011
Tropicana Hotel, Las Vegas

SRW lets you experience what happens when you take the red pill and begin to invite experiences into your life you may have previously believed to be impossible. While it may seem at first glance that subjective reality is the stuff of science fiction, it’s immensely practical in its ability to help you overcome blocks, fears, and limiting beliefs. At SRW you’ll begin to restore your true creative power.
Learn more…

$497 until Sep 21, 2011 ($597 thereafter)
Save $100 – Register for only $397 until Jul 22, 2011

Conscious Success Workshop (CSW)

Jan 13-15, 2012
Tropicana Hotel, Las Vegas

CSW will immerse you in the mindset of success and achievement. During this highly focused workshop, you’ll create an inspired vision for your life, break it down into realistic goals, and develop solid plans for all key areas of your life. Finally, you’ll leverage the energy and positive social support of the workshop environment to get into action right away. Put an end to unfocused drifting, and embark on an inspired journey of lifelong success and achievement.
Learn more…

$497 until Dec 13, 2011 ($597 thereafter)
Save $100 – Register for only $397 until Jul 22, 2011

Conscious Relationships Workshop (CRW)

Feb 17-19, 2012
Tropicana Hotel, Las Vegas

CRW is a holistic workshop designed to utterly transform your entire approach to relationships, including everything from how you relate to your coworkers… to how you deal with your relatives… to how you attract and relate to intimate partners. With the knowledge, skills, and direct experience you’ll gain from CRW, you’ll finally be in control of your relationship destiny — no more wishing and hoping for this part of your life to improve.
Learn more…

$497 until Jan 17, 2012 ($597 thereafter)
Save $100 – Register for only $397 until Jul 22, 2011

Free Bonuses

Last year I gave away some free bonuses to people who registered for CGW. Now I’m making them available free to everyone, whether or not you register for a workshop. See the Free Bonuses page to download them.

New Workshop Photos

I uploaded many more workshop photos and created a new Workshop Photos page to host them all. So far all of the photos are from previous CGWs, including many from the 2010 Halloween workshop (hence the colorful costumes). Check them out if you’re curious to see what a workshop actually looks like.

You may have noticed that I’ve been a little quiet lately when it comes to blogging — this is what I’ve been up to.

Hope to see you soon!

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

At this point I’m only trying out Google+ to see how it works and to assess its potential. But given my negative experiences with Facebook, I’m doing this with one foot wedged in the doorway, so I can quickly flee if it seems like it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

So far I’m cautiously optimistic because Google+ seems to intelligently avoid the major problems I had with Facebook.

No More Manually Approving Friend Requests

First, Google+ works like Twitter in some ways. You can follow people or they can follow you, but this doesn’t have to be mutual, and you don’t need to manually approve requests one by one if people want to friend you.

For someone like me who’s likely to end up with a very lopsided account, this is important. Facebook required me to manually approve thousands of friend requests (which is ridiculously lame), and when I hit the 5K limit, it just kept adding more people to a waiting list that grew longer and longer (even more lame).

It appears that Google’s engineers were smart enough to eliminate that nonsensical time waster. So that’s a definite +.

No Forced Inbox

One thing I really hated about Facebook is that it forced me to have an email inbox on their service. I ended up with too many friends for that to be practical. Facebook’s privacy settings were utterly broken in that regard. Even with the strictest privacy settings, people who weren’t even my Facebook friends seemed to be able to spam me endlessly (including in reply-all fashion), add me to groups, and invite me to events without my permission. This alone made it impractical to keep using the service.

With Google+, it was easy to change the privacy settings so that no one can email me through my Google+ page. I definitely don’t want thousands of people thinking they can just impulsively click a button to email me whenever they feel like it. The last thing I’d want is another inbox. I’m very happy with the progress I’ve made this year in reducing my email volume, and I really don’t want to mess that up.

So if Google+ later adds something like a forced inbox, it’s likely that I’ll quit their service immediately.

With Twitter I was able to eliminate the forced inbox just by following zero people there, so that’s the solution I use for Twitter. The only solution Facebook provides in this regard is to quit Facebook. Personally I think Facebook does this on purpose so you have to keep going back to their service to read your private messages, which makes them money since you’ll rack up more ad impressions with each visit. Hopefully Google+ will go the non-evil route.

Google+ Circles

Some people seem appreciative of the Google+ Circles. The circles allow you to sort people into different groups that have different levels of access to what you share. For example, you can share some status updates or photos with your friends and family but not your co-workers. The interface is clean and intuitive, so it’s an easy feature to use.

This feature doesn’t excite me since I’m used to having everything public in terms of what I share, so I doubt I’ll use it much. By default I’ve been using public sharing for everything. But if you’re a very private person then you might find this useful.

How I’ll Use Google+

For now I’m just playing around with Google+ to see how it works. Based on what I’m seeing so far, I suspect I could end up with a significant following there like I have on Twitter. As long as I can use it mainly broadcast-style to share updates and/or inspirational messages with people like I do on Twitter, and I don’t have to manage discussions or process more emails, then it should be reasonable to keep using it.

But if it requires extra work to manage it, I’ll most likely close my account and quit the service.

I don’t intend to use Google+ to stay in touch with friends and family like many other people might. It isn’t practical for me to try to maintain lots of long-distance relationships with people via the Internet. I’d rather spend a few hours talking to someone in person just once a year when they happen to visit Vegas (or I visit their city), and we can virtually ignore each other the rest of the year… as opposed to trying to keep in touch via status updates and publicly shared cell phone pics.

My New Approach to Social Networking

This year I’ve been cutting back on the online side of social networking, so I can focus on spending more time with people in person. In addition to dropping Facebook and greatly reducing my email volume, I also stopped participating in the discussion forums on my website, and I expect this to be a permanent change too. It’s not just that I’m no longer posting there. I’ve stopped reading the forums as well, so I won’t be following any of the discussions there, including the ones where people discuss my blog posts. To make it easier for me to break the old habits, I actually disabled my own forum account from being able to access any of the forums except for those on the admin side. And I’ll eventually replace myself as forum admin as well. I’m fine with continuing to host the community as a public service, but my time of direct participation there has ended. I need to progress to other forms of contribution that are a better fit for where I am today.

I realize this may be disappointing to those who’ve appreciated that we could connect online so easily. I hope you can understand.

For starters, I recently signed the paperwork to book 4 new workshops in Las Vegas. I’ll be officially announcing them next week, but if you want save the dates, here’s what’s coming up:

Sep 16-18, 2011 – Conscious Growth Workshop #6

Oct 21-23, 2011 – Subjective Reality Workshop

Jan 13-15, 2012 – Conscious Success Workshop

Feb 17-19, 2012 – Conscious Relationships Workshop

The first one is the latest incarnation of the classic CGW workshop that we put on four times last year. The other three are new. All of these are 3-day workshops that go from Friday to Sunday. They’ll be held at the Tropicana Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, which recently had a $100M renovation done.

Several CGW alumni have asked if I’d be willing to offer some kind of alumni discount. I understand the sentiment behind these requests, so you’ll be happy to learn that I’m planning to do something even better.

Each new workshop will have the usual $497 price, but when I first announce them, I’ll give everyone who registers an additional $100 discount for each workshop. So that’s up to $400 off if you want to attend all four of them, which I suspect some people will. I’m only going to offer this extra discount for a short period of time, perhaps for the first 7 days, in order to give people who are more price sensitive the chance to save some extra money.

I still need a few days to get everything set up to start selling tickets to these new workshops — launching 4 new ones at the same time is a lot of work — but I wanted to give you a heads up to save the dates and start budgeting for these trips if you might be interested in attending. I’ll share all the details about the workshops next week.

So the simple truth is that I’ve intentionally becoming more hermit-like when it comes to online communication, so I can be a lot more accessible when it comes to connecting with people in person. I understand and appreciate that this won’t be practical for everyone, but for those who do make the journey, it’s a lot more impactful than spending years typing messages back and forth.

For me this has a lot to do with creating a better life balance. Online communication is 24/7 and always on. That can be very distracting — and overwhelming too, if the volume becomes too great. Face to face communication naturally ebbs and flows. I can be super social during a workshop weekend, then relax with a smaller group afterwards, then enjoy some alone time where no one expects to hear from me.

Time will tell if Google+ can become a service that makes it easy to maintain a decent life balance… or if it pushes too hard in the direction of unbalancing one’s life.

At this point I’ll just say that I’m a lot more optimistic about Google’s chances to get this right than I am about Facebook’s. I’m hoping that Google wins this competition, and I genuinely expect it will given their solid history of engineering with the user experience as a priority.

Besides, all the smart people are on Google+. Join us.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

In addition to doing more CGWs, I’d also like to develop workshops on other topics. I love doing live events, and I’ve seen how much value they provide to people. People keep asking me, “When you are going to do more workshops?” so I know there’s plenty of interest.

Format & Pricing

The most likely format for new workshops will be 3-day weekends (Friday-Sunday), but the main factor is to use the most appropriate length for the content. I prefer not to do 1-day events or shorter though because I don’t think it’s a good value for people traveling from out of town. For previous workshops, about 1/3 of attendees came from outside the USA. For many attendees the travel expenses are much more than the workshop registration, so I want to make sure they still get an excellent value for their money.

As far as pricing is concerned, I see no need to label these new workshops as “advanced” and jack up the price. It’s true that by focusing on more specific topics, we can go a lot deeper, but I don’t see why that should cost you more money. I expect the most likely price for each 3-day workshop will be $497 (same as CGW).

I wouldn’t design these new workshops in such a way that CGW was a prerequisite. So anyone can feel free to attend any workshop(s) that interest them. However, I expect there will be synergistic benefits for people who attend multiple workshops.

If you aren’t familiar with the Conscious Growth Workshops I did in 2009 and 2010, you can visit the CGW page to learn about it. We had a really great format for CGW #5 in Oct 2010, so I don’t think I’ll mess with it too much for the next one.

By the way… in case you didn’t know, CGW was mentioned in the business section of the New York Times last week. They even included a photo of one of our CGW games. You can ignore the financial figures that are attributed to me in that article though since what got published isn’t accurate. I was already planning to do more workshops before I was interviewed for this piece, but I’ll take it as a nice sign that I’m headed down the right path.

Location

For now I intend to stick with Las Vegas for the location. Eventually I’d like to take them to other cities, but now isn’t the right time. Las Vegas has a nice advantage in that flights to and from the city tend to be less expensive than for other destinations, and there are limitless entertainment options after hours. The hotels are very reasonably priced, so the overall value is better than most other places.

The two likely locations for future workshops are the MGM Grand and the Tropicana on the Vegas Strip. Both are across the street from each other and only 5 minutes from the Vegas airport.

The Tropicana is an older hotel, but they just completed a $100M+ renovation, and the upgraded hotel looks really nice. I checked out several of their guest rooms to see what it would be like for people to stay there, and I thought the remodeled rooms were terrific. One of their suites even includes a steam room, sauna, and Jacuzzi tub. It looks like they’ll also be able to offer us a discounted group rate.

The MGM is a much larger property with thousands of guest rooms, so big that it has 3 different Starbucks. I could be happy doing workshops there as well. The downside to this location is that the conference center is literally 0.5 miles from the hotel lobby, so I’d have concerns about people getting lost or being late getting back from lunch if they underestimate the size of the place.

Workshop Survey

While I work out the details with the hotels, I’d like to get a better sense of what people want to see in terms of live workshops, so I created a simple online survey. There are only 7 questions, and it’s all multiple choice, so it should only take a few minutes to complete at most.

If you have no interest in attending live workshops in Las Vegas, there’s no need to take the survey. This is mainly intended for people who are at least semi-interested in attending future workshops. This is your opportunity to tell me which topics are most relevant to you.

On the survey there are questions to gauge your interest in several different types of workshops I’m considering offering. These are topics where (1) People have already requested a workshop, and (2) I believe I can provide significant and unique value for attendees. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it’s a good place to start.

If some workshop topics have lower demand than others, it doesn’t necessarily mean I won’t do those workshops. I’ll also use this data to decide which particular meeting rooms to book for each type of workshop, so we can hold the less popular workshops in smaller rooms.

If you have extra feedback to share, there’s a comment box at the end of the survey. If you wish to share your feedback publicly, feel free to do so in the corresponding forum discussion thread for this post.

I really appreciate your feedback on this, so thanks in advance if you decide to share your thoughts.

Update: The survey period has ended.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina