Society conditions us to attach certain labels to our relationships and then to assign meanings to those labels. For example, being single has a different meaning than being someone’s boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife.

At some point in the course of your relationships, you may be tempted to change the labels. Are we boyfriend and girlfriend now or just dating? Let’s be exclusive with each other. Let’s get engaged.

A label is an association, and labels come with their own attached associations. For example, what does the label wife mean to you? What can and can’t a wife do? For some people this can be a very restricting label with all sorts of rules about that particular role. For someone else it may not be nearly as restrictive.

Once you label a relationship (any kind of relationship between two or more entities — not just a human-to-human relationship), you give it form and structure by way of associating it with other labels and meanings.

Social conditioning

Social conditioning affects us in two ways. First, we may have a tendency to pre-judge others based on their associated labels. If you know someone is single vs. married, does that change how you relate to the person? I’ve definitely had that bias. For example, I’d probably be a lot less flirtatious with a woman who was married… unless she also had an associated label like polyamorous, open marriage, or separated.

The second way social conditioning affects us is through the labels others associate to us. For example, if I’m flirting with a woman that I just met at a party, and we’re having a great rapport going, and then I casually mention being married (such as while telling her a story), her energy will often shift noticeably, and the nature of our interaction changes. Why is that so? Why is it even necessary? Why give our power away to labels?

On the other hand, when I’m conversing with people that are very conscious and aware, I notice that labels have less impact on them. The more conscious and aware someone is, the more social conditioning they’ve shed, and the more power of choice they retain. So when a label is used, it doesn’t matter as much. A conscious person knows that in any moment we’re free to make new choices and that labels have no power over us. So they don’t give their power away to labels.

Highly conscious people have more relationship options. They take full responsibility for their choices, and they expect others to do the same. As a result they have much more flexibility in how they relate to people. They largely ignore labels and focus on their freedom to connect.

The more social conditioning you can release, particularly by letting go of labels, the more relationship opportunities you’ll have, and the more intimacy abundance you’ll be able to experience.

Living without labels

Labels can be useful tools at times, such as for the purposes of communication, but they can easily be abused. If a label unduly restricts your freedom of choice, you’re giving too much power away, and you’re crossing the border from conscious living to unconscious living.

This was a tough lesson for me to learn. When I announced at the beginning of this year that I was polyamorous, there was a backlash of all sorts of judgments from people I’ve never even met. Some of it was positive praise (which seemed undeserved), and some was harsh criticism (which seemed equally undeserved). After all, I hadn’t actually done anything yet. I merely switched the labels I used to define my relationship path. Other than blogging about it, no real action had been taken. So it was interesting to see how much power people gave to those particular labels.

And again when Erin and I separated last month, we dropped the label of marriage from our relationship path. And some people freaked out about it… people that never even met us. Now that we’re about a month into our separation, Erin and I can clearly see that this was the right choice for both of us. By shedding the marriage label, we’ve both restored our freedom to make conscious choices without being boxed in. And each of us is happily taking actions that most people would consider inappropriate for a married couple, yet they bring us much joy.

For example, if you haven’t already seen it, check out the video blog Erin posted of her firing a handgun. While we were married, I never would have thought that was something she’d ever want to do. My sweet Erie? No way! But as a newly independent woman, she’s making fresh choices. She no longer finds it necessary to ask permission or negotiate with me. If she wants to do something, she knows she’s free to up and do it. It’s quite refreshing to see her creating a new path for herself that is different from the path we were previously pursuing together. I’m really enjoying seeing her as a unique person instead of merely through the lens of the wife label.

Should I be worried that my ex-wife is suddenly getting into lethal weapons training? Yes, honey, of course you can have the car.

I’m not ready to publicly share the specifics of what I’ve been up to lately, but suffice it to say that I’m experiencing the opposite of loneliness. Much like Erin, I’m also enjoying experiences that lie outside the scope of our old marriage box, and I’m ridiculously happy about it.

In retrospect I think the decision to explore polyamory was part of the process of breaking out of the marriage box. But then there was a risk of moving into a new box called polyamory, so I found it best to dump that label as well. I find that I’m a lot happier and enjoy much richer experiences when I do my best to shun labels altogether. So I can’t really say whether I’m monogamous or polyamorous right now. Neither label seems to make sense at this point.

Perhaps the way to describe what’s going on in my relationship life at this point is to say that I’m riding a roller coaster in the dark. I can’t see where the track is going, but it’s quite a fun ride.

Stepping outside your comfort zone

Living without labels can feel very uncomfortable at first. Don’t expect it to be predictable and secure.

I’m gradually getting used to this, but it currently remains outside my comfort zone. Fortunately I’ve been getting a lot of help from some very conscious friends.

A while back I was talking to a very close female friend, and I was confused about where our connection was headed. The ways in which we connected were so deep, open-ended, and flowing that I had no way of predicting the path ahead, and I found that very unsettling. We had multiple conversations where I was trying to assess where we were (often by trying to assign labels) and where we expected to go next (more labels). Those conversations gave me some relief initially, but the assigned labels tended to stunt our interactions, and a week later I’d be forced to drop those labels anyway, only to reconsider them once again at a later date. Our connection seemed to take on a life of its own, and any attempts to define it appear foolish in retrospect.

Since this approach clearly wasn’t working, I eventually dropped it. That wasn’t remotely easy and felt like jumping out of an airplane. I had to learn to let go and trust instead of trying to control and direct.

What helped me was seeing how I already applied this pattern in my past. That’s how I created a situation of financial abundance. I used to be really tight with my finances, but a control strategy never gave me a sense of abundance. In most cases it only perpetuated more scarcity. When I switched to holding abundant intentions, shifting my vibration to a place of abundance, and welcoming what showed up (as explained in this video), that worked beautifully. It was very uncomfortable to step into that space at first, but now it feels so natural that I can’t imagine going back to a tight control strategy with respect to my finances. I just assume there will always be an abundant flow of money through my life, and there always is; however, I can’t predict specifically where it will come from or when and how it will arrive.

When I recognized that intimacy abundance must follow the same principles, I was able to use my finances as a reference experience that made it easier to let go and trust. There’s more to it than that of course (creating value for others is another key element, whether you’re dealing with relationships or finances), but it was a huge breakthrough for me to see that letting go and trusting were necessary in order to attract and enjoy intimacy abundance.

As I learned to let go of labels, I noticed that many of my relationships improved dramatically, practically overnight.

At first it was just like riding a roller coaster in the dark. I couldn’t see the track, so I had no idea where the coaster was heading. The twists, turns, loops, and plunges all surprised me. But I gradually got used to it and decided to simply enjoy the ride. Instead of seeing the surprises as a bad thing (unpredictability that could lead to a crash), I started seeing them as fun and exhilarating. This took a lot of getting used to, especially since I was emerging from a very stable, predictable marriage pattern.

A few of my relationships took unexpected turns. But I did my best to follow the flow of these connections instead of feeling like I should direct them to some particular aim or assign them clean labels and compartmentalize them.

Living in the flow

This is a messier way to live. In some ways I have less control over my life, but I can’t deny that I’m also much, much happier for it. My relationships give my life so much richness; they provide an endless supply of fun, joyful experiences and a sense of deep, soulful connectedness. Each day is an unfolding mystery where anything is possible. Labels only get in the way, so I do my best to avoid them when possible. Instead, I just let each relationship flow as it will.

These realizations have completely shifted how I live my life. For example, I’ve been using the Internet a lot less and spending much more time on the phone and hanging out with people face-to-face. That’s partly why I haven’t posted a new blog entry in more than a week — I’ve been too busy focusing on my social life. In the past month, I used up an entire year’s worth of accumulated rollover minutes on my cell phone. I also finally bought a Bluetooth headset so I can be hands-free during the hours I spend on the phone each day.

If I could lock down each relationship in my life with a tidy label, this volume of communication wouldn’t be necessary. The boxes would be well defined, and I could simply take them for granted (i.e. this person is a friend, this person is an intimate partner, this person is a playmate, etc). But now I see relationships as being all about flow. I’m doing my best to listen more, to sit back and enjoy the ride, and to relax into this new space of being.

Freedom

Freedom is an essential ingredient in a healthy relationship. When freedom is sacrificed, choices become more limited, and when choices are too restricted, unconscious behavior patterns replace conscious living, and true happiness becomes a distant fantasy.

I spent much of the past 15 years giving a lot of my power to labels, such as marriage, husband, wife, committed, monogamous, etc. Now I can see what a huge mistake that was and how it created far more scarcity than abundance.

I’m reminded of this quote from Helen Keller, one of my all-time favorites:

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits
in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.

The daring adventure is the path of freedom. The more you curtail your freedom, the more you shun the daring adventure and end up with nothing.

I remember when I first got married in March 1998. It was a very comfortable place to be. As a husband with a wife, my relationship life was now well defined — by myself, by my wife, by our friends and families, and by the rest of society. We had a clear sense of our roles. We had very few disagreements about where the boundaries were.

For a while I embraced life in that box. It was like sinking into a soft recliner chair. I had secured an amazing woman, and she had secured me. We were both deeply in love with each other. There was no doubt about that whatsoever. I could finally relax. My relationship life was now complete. It was a safe and snuggly place to be — and yet it was a total self-delusion.

For whatever reason, this untamable character called personal growth was living in that marriage box too. At first he was quite happy. The box was large and interesting and fun to explore. There were lots of rooms to visit, such as having children. But over time, this guy grew discontent with life inside the box, and he started feeling restless. He began to push against the walls. Eventually he realized that the box was entirely of his own creation, and he decided to step outside of it and reclaim his freedom.

I think that if you’re on a path of conscious growth, and you try to label any of your relationships, you’ll eventually outgrow those labels. So consider that it may be wisest not to bother with labels in the first place. Either the labels will betray you, or you’ll end up betraying the labels. You are too free and untamable to be labeled.

Instead of relating to people on the basis of labels, try relating to them on the basis of freedom and choice. We’re free to connect with each other however we see fit. Our decisions have consequences, some of which may be unpredictable to us. But if we surrender ourselves to all possible outcomes, then we can avoid giving our power away to our labels.

Broken hearts

What is a broken heart? A broken heart is a label failure. It is a crushed box. I thought we were X to each other, and now you’re telling me we’re Y?

A broken heart is the result of violated expectations. But in the area of human relationships, your expectations are vain attempts to predict and control the path of your heart. The heart has its own agenda, and it won’t always respect your logical choices. So in order to align yourself with truth in this area, you must accept and surrender to this unpredictability.

Enjoy your relationships in the present moment, but do your best not to get overly attached to their being a particular way. Otherwise you’re setting yourself up for a badly broken heart.

To avoid a broken heart, don’t close your heart to others. Instead, open your heart more than ever. Open your heart to all possible connections, and don’t get hung up on labels. If a connection feels good to you, invite it in and explore it. Allow it to flow wherever it wants to go, and enjoy the exhilaration of the ride.

You will still encounter some sorrow — sometimes the roller coaster takes an unexpected plunge — but if you keep your heart open, that sorrow will soon pass, and joy will reside in your heart once again. A traumatic roller coaster ride needn’t ruin your entire year. Simply switch to a different ride, and you’ll soon be having fun once again. A closed heart heals very slowly, but an open heart heals quickly.

Intimacy abundance

Intimacy abundance is about your connection to all that is. This abundance may manifest through a deep relationship with one other person, but most likely it will manifest as a path with many twists and turns involving relationships with different people. Since we are all one, it doesn’t really matter where these connections come from.

Don’t focus so much on trying to be deeply intimate with any one particular person. You run the risk of substituting attachment and addiction for unconditional love and connection. Instead, focus on being intimate with yourself and with life itself. Realize that you’re already intimately connected with everyone. There is no ice to be broken. We’re all part of the same whole.

If you maintain a deep, intimate connection with yourself and with all life, your human relationships will reflect that. You’ll attract new intimate partners with little or no effort because you won’t be resisting or labeling them. You will simply allow them. And it’s hard for people not to want to relate to those who fully and completely accept them as they are.

From this place of awareness, you may manifest an incredibly deep relationship with one particular person, or you may manifest multiple relationships. It could take the form of monogamy, serial monogamy, polyamory, or any mixture of these. It may even take the form of celibacy (not for me though!).

Locking yourself into fixed relationship patterns — i.e. Ahh… I have a girlfriend now — may seem like a good idea, but for highly conscious people, it becomes too much of a trap. Even a beautiful looking box is still a box. Conscious people don’t need boxes to define themselves and their relationships. Instead they bring fresh choices to each relationship in the present moment.

Avoid succumbing to the “grass is greener on the other side” pattern. Which label is better? Single or married? Monogamous or polyamorous? Friends or lovers? You can’t drink the wine in front of you, and you can’t drink the wine in front of someone else. Both glasses are poisoned. The only sensible choice is to drink straight from the bottle. The bottle is abundance.

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

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

Slide Into Your New Reality

Did you ever see the TV show Sliders?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Partial Visualization

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not a good manifestation!

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

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

Complete Visualization

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Write It Down

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

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

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

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

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

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

Creating Abundance (Part 1 of 4)

Creating Abundance (Part 2 of 4)

Creating Abundance (Part 3 of 4)

Creating Abundance (Part 4 of 4)

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

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

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

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

We came to this decision very consciously, and we’re separating amicably because we can see it’s the best thing for both of us. We intend to remain good friends and continue working together, so as far as our blogging is concerned, it’s going to be business as usual for the time being.

Why?

Over the years we’ve both noticed that our goals and desires were pulling us in different directions. When we talked about our future together, we each had a different vision of what we wanted to create and experience. That didn’t seem like a big deal at first, especially since there was a lot of overlap, but when those visions began to manifest and take shape, we had to start dealing with the incompatibilities that came up.

At first we tried to keep pace with each other and made compromises to that effect, but that only made both of us unhappy. Eventually we realized we’d both be happier if we ended our marriage, not by going our own separate ways per se, but by transitioning our relationship into something other than a marriage. We love each other enough to see that we must allow each other the freedom to pursue our own individual dreams.

Separation Details

Erin and I already worked out most of the details of our separation. Since we own two houses that are only 6 miles apart, and one house was vacant, deciding on the living arrangements wasn’t too difficult.

On Friday Erin and the kids moved into our other house. Erin bought some new furniture and appliances for the place, and we moved some furniture from our existing home. We lived there for a few years (2005-2007), so it’s a familiar environment. Since it’s a 4-bedroom home, Erin has her own bedroom and a home office, and the kids each have their own bedrooms too. It’s plenty of space for 3 people.

For now I’m staying in the larger house by myself. It might seem that Erin and the kids should take the bigger house while I move into the smaller one, but the financial realities make that an unwise choice in the long run. Although we’ve been paying down the mortgages on both homes much faster than we need to, the Vegas housing slump and the local unemployment rate (currently around 14%) has caused home prices to fall even faster, so neither home has any equity right now. We’d prefer to own the homes we live in and not overcomplicate things, and Erin favored the smaller home with the smaller costs, so I’m getting the bigger house with the bigger debt and expenses.

Erin and I are both pleased with this arrangement. It took a while for our friends and family to understand it, but it makes sense to us, and ultimately we’re both getting what we want. By taking the smaller home/mortgage, Erin will have more flexibility to move to another home if she so desires, and her living expenses will be well within her means. I don’t mind taking on more of a financial burden in this case, not just with the bigger mortgage but with alimony and childcare payments too.

It’s a bit weird to be living in a 6-bedroom house all by myself though. It’s a huge amount of space for just one person (4300 square feet), and even with a guest room and my home office, 3 of the rooms are totally empty right now. This will take some getting used to. I’ll probably be living here for a while though because I like the house, I like living in Las Vegas, and I definitely don’t want to sell in this housing market. Since this community has a rather strict homeowner’s association, I’m somewhat limited in what I’m able to do with the house. So for now I’ll just have to treat it as my private batcave and surrender to the weirdness of it.

As for what we’re going to do with the business, we’re still working out the details there, but we’re close to an agreement on the major items. Suffice it to say that the business will continue running as usual. It would be a lot harder if we weren’t on such good terms with each other. The most important asset we both want to maintain is each other’s goodwill.

Children

Our kids (ages 6 and 9) are handling this transition pretty well. Las Vegas is a place where divorce is pretty common, so our kids have friends that have seen their parents get divorced. Emily was a bit concerned about it at first, but she’s gradually adjusting to it. Kyle is young enough that he sees this transition as more of an adventure. They’ll continue going to the same school (at least for the rest of the year), and they’re living in a home that’s still familiar to them, so the changes aren’t as dramatic as they might otherwise be.

Most likely Erin will get sole custody of the kids, and I’ll be paying some child support. That seems to be the best arrangement for both of us, given our future goals. Neither of us wants to subject the kids to a shared custody arrangement where they live part-time in two different homes. We think it’s much better for them to live in a single stable home.

Friends

Erin and I share many friends in common, and we hope to keep it that way. We let our friends know that we’re still on good terms with each other, and we don’t want anyone thinking they must take sides. This transition might be a little weird, but the last thing we’d want to do is alienate our dearest friends.

Many of our friends have been through divorces themselves, and in a city like Las Vegas, there isn’t much of a social stigma attached to it. In some ways it’s almost the opposite: Ahhh… your first divorce… welcome to the club! That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.

Questions

Here are some answers to a few questions that I figure some people will ask us.

Did you know about this before or during the October workshop?

No, this decision was made afterwards. It was partly the awareness-raising effect of the workshop itself that encouraged us to take a deeper look at our relationship. If you had told me at the start of the workshop that this is where we’d be today, I wouldn’t have believed you.

We meant what we said during the workshop segment on conscious relationships. Although we’re ending our marriage, we intend to continue relating to each other in various ways, so the same principles still apply. When I talked about consciously breaking up, I didn’t think we’d be applying those ideas to our own relationship that same month. Life can be funny that way.

It’s possible we may both share the stage again at the January workshop and talk about what we’ll have learned between now and then. That depends on whether or not we think our personal lessons can provide substantial value for others.

Human relationships have a lot of fluidity to them, and marriage is only one of many forms they can take. In this case the most conscious decision we can make to improve our relationship is to end our marriage.

The nice thing is that the universal principles we talked about during the workshop still apply to a separation and/or divorce. In that case, it’s about recognizing and accepting the truth of your situation, deciding what you both need to be happy, and taking action to ensure that both people end up in a better place. Perhaps one of the most important principles to apply in this case is courage. Courage is especially vital when the short-term prediction may seem negative at first, but the long-term prediction looks much brighter.

Did polyamory play a role in this?

To a certain extent, yes. It helped us discover new truths about ourselves.

This year we both opened ourselves up to having deeper intimate connections with other people. This was a bit of an exploration process. It gave both of us more clarity to see that our marriage wasn’t the best vehicle for our long-term happiness. We were happy in some areas but not in others. We had reached a dead-end and needed to let go of the marriage to get around it. Otherwise we’d end up working harder and harder trying to make each other happy, with worsening results.

I learned that I really enjoy relationships based on a deep emotional connection, openness, honesty, trust, compatible interests, and having fun together. I definitely want to have more of that in my life. But I found it very awkward to do this within the scope of my marriage. It was like trying to straddle two different worlds. An open marriage is practically a contradiction in terms. I found that I resonated more with the concept of openness than with the concept of marriage.

Erin and I realized that we were disempowering each other by giving too much power to the marriage itself. It was as if we somehow owned each other’s hearts and had to keep checking in and asking permission for anything we wanted to do intimacy-wise. We went out of our way to avoid serious misunderstandings and to check in with each other’s feelings, but the communication burden become insane after a while. It was a fun thing to explore, and I don’t have any regrets about it, but I wouldn’t want to keep this up long-term within a marriage structure.

I’m reminded of the quote from Kahlil Gibran: “Let there be spaces in your togetherness.” Erin and I had become so close that we were smothering each other. We both needed to step back and give each other more freedom, and ultimately that led us to step right out of the marriage itself.

It’s fair to say that polyamory was a catalyst for ending our marriage, but only partly. Another catalyst behind that one was my decision to get into raw foods. That’s partly what spawned this exploration of intimacy in the first place. Eating raw is an emotional amplifier. I had to learn to start processing the emotions I was feeling because they couldn’t be so easily dismissed.

But an even deeper causal factor beneath that was my commitment to conscious growth. The desire to relate to other people as consciously as possible eventually made it impossible to continue giving my power away to an external structure like a marriage. That was a problem for both of us. For years we fell into the trap of treating the marriage as something more powerful than ourselves, something we must preserve at all costs even when it didn’t make us happy to do so. I’m glad we finally saw the folly in that mindset.

What’s next?

It’s too soon to answer that question in much detail. For starters Erin and I will need some space to adapt to our lives as single people. It will probably take about a month for us to feel settled into our new routines.

Beyond that we still have some details to work out regarding the divorce. We’re not in a rush, but we’d like to have that figured out by the end of the year. Since we’re splitting up amicably, it shouldn’t be that tough to work it out.

At this point we’re taking it one day at a time.

Although our marriage is ending, Erin and I still expect to remain good friends. We want to thank you in advance for your patience and support during this time. After 15+ years together, it will take time for us to navigate this transition and adapt to life as single people again. We know, however, that this is the right direction for us and for our children, and we’re letting go consciously and with great love and regard for each other.

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

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

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

Workshop Details

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

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

Workshop Location

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

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

Comparison to CGW #1

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

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

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

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

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

Workshop FAQ

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

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

Workshop Forums

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

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

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

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

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

CGW Alumni Attend Free

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time to Register

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

In January 2006 I gave a 90-minute Power Point presentation to explain blogging to a group of about 60 speakers in Las Vegas. By that time I was earning a decent sustainable living from blogging (a few thousand dollars a month). I predicted that blogs would be everywhere within a few years. That wasn’t a difficult prediction to make since Technorati was reporting such phenomenal growth month after month with no end in sight. You didn’t have to be particularly prescient to see that blogging and other social media had bright futures. But I doubt many people in the room believed me.

They believe me now.

Fast forward a few years, and social media has exploded. Now I can scarcely find people who haven’t at least heard of blogging, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Unfortunately there’s a downside to such a rapid technological and social change. Part of that downside is that people approach social media with some misguided expectations that aren’t based in reality. In this article I’d like to offer some suggestions and analogies to help steer people away from such erroneous thinking.

The major mistake people make is that they assume they’re entitled to free speech when it comes to participating in online communities such as blogs, forums, Facebook, Twitter, and so on.

Entitlement

In the USA and many other countries, free speech is a protected right. Well, that’s certainly debatable these days, but let’s be idealists for the moment.

There are some legal limitations on free speech (criminal behavior, slander/libel, copyright laws, Patriot Act, etc). Some countries, such as China, restrict free speech more than others. I live in the USA, and we Americans are accustomed to a wide latitude when it comes to free speech.

It isn’t surprising that this sense of entitlement to free speech should be carried onto the Internet. In general I’m all for that. I’ve especially enjoyed having the opportunity to interact with people around the world.

Free Speech and Contract Law

Free speech protection, however, does not extend to private homes or businesses. You may have the right to say what you like in a public forum, but you don’t have the right to enter a private home or business and do that. In such situations your right to free speech is subject to the discretion of the owner of that private forum.

Contract law may apply in many cases as well. With some limitations it’s perfectly legal for a contract to limit the right of free speech. This is because you have the ability to enter into a contract that restricts your right to free speech.

I’ve signed many business deals over the years that restrict my free speech rights. Many business contracts include a non-disclosure clause, whereby I agree that I won’t disclose certain financial or other protected info that another business shares with me. This is very common in business.

It’s likely you’ve entered into many contracts over the years that restrict your right to free speech. For example, if you ever sign up for an online service and agreed to their Terms of Service, they usually define pretty clearly what restrictions you’re agreeing to.

Free Speech Online

For many of the online sites where you may think free speech is protected, you’re required to contractually agree to limit your free speech rights. You actually don’t have the same right to free speech that you would in a truly public forum.

This is true of Facebook, Twitter, and pretty much all the major social media sites I’m aware of. Review their Terms of Service and see for yourself.

In most cases the restrictions are reasonable and maybe even necessary for maintaining a quality service. It depends on who’s running the service.

While it may seem that you’re entitled to free speech just the same as you would in a public forum, in actuality you waived that right when you joined the service. That was a condition of your registration.

Some online services are quite liberal when it comes to restricting your free speech rights, while others are more restrictive.

The Catch-All Clause

Many online services also include some kind of catch-all clause which basically gives them the right to censor you however they see fit.

For example, Twitter’s Terms of Service includes the following sentence: “We reserve the right at all times (but will not have an obligation) to remove or refuse to distribute any Content on the Services and to terminate users or reclaim usernames.” So according to those terms, they can nuke your account and content whenever they want.

Since I’m a Twitter user myself, Twitter could disable my account and delete all my Tweets on a whim. They have the right to do that because I agreed to their Terms of Service. Now if they actually went around doing this sort of thing, it would likely generate some bad PR for them, but because I agreed to their ToS, I don’t see that I’d have a strong legal case if I tried to fight them on it. The legal reality is probably more complicated than what I’m expressing here, but as far as I can tell, I do have a valid contract with Twitter where I willfully agreed to restrict my free speech rights when it comes to using their service.

Consequently, I know that when I post updates to my Twitter account, I have no entitlement to free speech. I’ve signed away that right in exchange for the privilege of using their service. And yes, it is a privilege. Tweeting is not a guaranteed right under the law.

I include a catch-all clause for the discussion forums on my website as well. It says, “The owners of Personal Development for Smart People Forums reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason.” In addition to that, you also have to agree to follow our forum etiquette rules. You can’t post messages in our forums unless you agree to our Terms of Service.

So in order to post your own messages on my website, you must also waive your right to free speech. If you think you can post whatever you’d like with impunity, you’re sorely mistaken.

This certainly isn’t unique to my website — not by a long shot. The phrasing I use came standard with the forum software I installed. A simple Google search can verify that thousands of other forums use similar phrasing.

The Reality of Private Forums

Why do so many online communities restrict free speech? Isn’t the expansion of free speech the whole point?

This isn’t some draconian conspiracy. It’s largely a matter of business realities. Creating and managing a highly social website isn’t free. If someone is going to go to the trouble to host and maintain such a community, especially one that may become very popular, they want to make sure they have enough control over the management of the site to fulfill their reasons for building the community in the first place. Unbridled free speech can easily degrade the quality of a community and run afoul of the site owner’s agenda.

If they were legally prevented from restricting free speech, fewer people and businesses would host such online communities. I for one would not host an online community under those conditions.

While it’s nice that government played a major role in funding the underlying Internet infrastructure that makes online communities possible, they don’t directly subsidize online communities like mine. I have to pay my site’s expenses. This includes my $350 monthly web hosting fee.

Computing power costs money. Bandwidth costs money. Site management, including installing security updates and performing basic maintenance activities, takes time. The forum software I use costs money; I pay an annual license fee to use it. Maintaining an online community certainly isn’t free on my end. Even if I use free software and find free hosting, I still have to invest my time. And someone else would still be paying for it somewhere down the line.

Allowing unbridled free speech on my website would be a very bad idea. It’s easy enough to predict what would happen because I know what our moderators deal with on a daily basis, and I’ve seen what happens to other forums that have done that. Within a few months, the site would be overrun by spammers and marketers looking to promote their wares. Flame wars would flare up on a daily basis, and threads beyond a certain length would be quickly derailed by juvenile comments and trolling by drama addicts. The quality of discussions would go down the drain, especially when it came to sensitive personal topics. I’d take one look at the mess and quickly pull the plug. Our forums would not be able to fulfill their purpose under such conditions, which is for conscious growth-oriented people to come together to help each other solve problems and improve their lives.

Although our community has more than 25,000 registered members and more than 407,000 messages posted, the core community of regular daily visitors is actually much smaller. Our top contributor has more than 10,785 posts herself (2.6% of the total). On any given day, the number of registered members who visit the site is around 400 people total. So the core community isn’t nearly as big as the casual visitors. This is pretty common when it comes to online forums and social media sites in general. The hardcore users make up only a small percentage of the total community.

Managing our community requires a staff of volunteer moderators. These moderators aren’t paid for their work. The forums don’t generate enough income to justify it, especially since I removed all the Adsense ads last year. If the quality of the community was too low, we’d have a really hard time recruiting decent moderators, which would lead to a downward spiral. So if we slacked off a little, the community could quickly go from bad to worse as our moderators concluded, “This just ain’t worth my time.” By maintaining high community standards, our moderators can see that their efforts help keep the community as a whole running smoothly, and that intrinsic reward is very important to maintaining community integrity as a whole.

Many of the most active members of our online community have been with us for years. I’ve met many of them in person, including several of our volunteer moderators. Consequently, our community doesn’t much resemble an open public forum. I’d say it’s closer to a really large family reunion with lots of drop-by visitors.

The Site Owner’s Agenda

Amazon wants to sell products. They allow you to post product reviews because someone at Amazon decided that allowing lots of people to do this would increase their sales. Do you honestly think they’d let any of us post reviews if it hurt their sales or cut into their market share to do so? They have some free speech restrictions to prevent people from doing too much damage to their sales, like posting non-Amazon links in reviews. It’s their site, so they make the rules about what you can and can’t post in a review.

The owners of Facebook have an agenda too. Investors have poured a lot of money into the site, so I’m sure they want to see it turn a profit. Consequently, you’ll see ads on your Facebook pages. Facebook makes money from those ads.

And as for Twitter… well, I don’t think Twitter’s owners have even figured what Twitter’s agenda is yet.

Some people seem to think that my primary motivation for starting and maintaining an online community was financial, as if being an entrepreneur means that all of one’s actions are driven by a profit motive. Now that’s a laugh and a half. If I really cared that much about money, I’d never have launched our forums in the first place, and even if I did, I’d have quickly realized my mistake and would have dropped them within a few months. Our forums aren’t profitable. They hog a lot of computing resources, requiring me to pay for a much faster server than I’d need for my blog alone. The forums usually cost more to run than they generate in revenue. On top of that, I’m not counting the value of the time Erin and I invest in administration. If we had to pay someone else to handle the admin, we’d lose more money on it, even if we could hire someone for less than minimum wage.

This isn’t the first time I’ve hosted an online community, so this didn’t surprise me. I used to host a popular forum for game developers, and I’ve been active in online communities since the early 90s. My game developer forum wasn’t profitable either, but I kept it going for a while because I enjoyed the communal interaction. So I knew full well when I started my personal development forums that they weren’t likely to be very profitable. Fortunately my blog generates more than enough revenue to subsidize the forums. But if I ever sold the site to someone who sought to maximize revenue from it, they would most definitely either ax the forums, flood them with third-party ads, or make some other changes to financially justify the community’s existence.

The main reason I maintain a discussion forum is that I like having like-minded people over to hang out. Just as I frequently invite people to my home, I also invite people to my online home to hang out together and talk about life. As I see it, paying for the upkeep of the forums is similar to providing snacks for my house guests.

If you have issues with the site owner’s agenda, don’t pay a visit to their virtual home. And don’t make the naive mistake of assuming their agenda is to help you assert your right to free speech.

Common Courtesy

When people approach online communities with the erroneous belief that they’re entitled to unbridled free speech, this misjudgment often leads to inappropriate behavior.

For example, sometimes people will register for my forums and try to trash talk me.

I don’t mind a bit of friendly ribbing now and then, and I’m all for intelligent debate, but if people come to my website and try to treat me, my wife, my friends, my business associates, or other members of my community with disrespect, they get banned very quickly.

Try going around to various privately owned forums and trash talk the site owner and his/her family. See how long it takes before your account is nuked. Sure, some people will allow you to do that. Some people don’t care. Some don’t pay attention. Some will get into it with you because they like the drama. But quite often you’ll end up having your account disabled. Ostensibly it’s for violating their Terms of Service. But in reality, you got banned for behaving like a jerk in someone else’s home. And when you find yourself bounced to the curb, see how much anyone cares to hear your protests that you were simply exercising your right to free speech. I’m sure the crickets will enjoy listening to your well-formed arguments.

You Are an Invited Guest

Here’s an attitude I suggest you adopt when it comes to participating in online communities. When you visit someone else’s online community, you’re a guest in the owner’s online home. Behave accordingly. Your participation there is a privilege subject to their owner’s discretion.

For example, StevePavlina.com is my own private website. In case that wasn’t obvious, take note of the URL. Notice that the URL is NOT personal-development-free-for-all-subsidized-by-steve-pavlina-who-will-bend-over-and-take-it-up-the-ass-from-anyone.com.

For some reason, certain people seem to confuse those two URLs quite often.

Technically Pavlina LLC owns StevePavlina.com, and technically an LLC is a separate legal entity from a person. Lawyers, accountants, and IRS agents get off on that sort of thing. But based on the company name you can probably guess who owns 100% of Pavlina LLC… and you’d be right.

Some people seem to have a really hard time with the whole notion of privately owned online communities. The idea that they don’t have the right to free speech everywhere online really messes with their heads. They visit their favorite online communities expecting that they’re entitled to rant and rave about anything they wish, even after they just legally agreed that everything they post is subject to the site owner’s discretion.

From time to time, visitors come to our forums and post something disrespectful toward me, Erin, our friends, or our community members. Naturally they get banned rather quickly.

Some visitors act really immature and annoy our members. Banned. Some visitors try to use our forums to promote the latest pyramid scheme. Banned. Some people think it’s fun to derail other people’s threads. Banned. And some people try to participate without ever having seen The Princess Bride. Banned and sent to Count Rugen for rehabilitation.

Most of the time, I’m not the one doing the banning. We have a team of more than a dozen moderators who do a great job of enforcing the community rules. But if I happen to be the first to notice a problem, I’m happy to take care of it myself. It’s my home, so I’m ultimately responsible when problems arise.

Sometimes people who’ve been banned will go to another online community such as someone else’s blog or another online forum and rant about what happened. “I can’t believe it. All I did was go to Steve Pavlina’s website and insinuate that he was a loser for being into self-help, and he banned me. What a jerk!”

Sometimes someone else who had a similar experience will chime in and commiserate. “Yeah, he banned me too. And all I did was call him a Satan spawn for being married to a psychic medium. Can you believe that? He’s censoring people!”

No, actually I banned you for being a moron. Well, it might not have been me personally, but I’ll gladly take credit for it. And if I was the one who handled it, most likely I did it without guilt or remorse. As everyone knows, the Dread Pirate Roberts never takes prisoners.

Do I censor people? Technically yes. But I don’t like the word censorship in this case — not because it’s too strong but because it’s too mild. I’m not just censoring people. I’m kicking them out of my home and telling them not to come back. I’m not saying, “I don’t like what you’re saying, so I’m going to cut you off.” I’m actually saying, “GET THE HELL OUT, BITCH! AND TAKE YOUR NASTY CHEESE PUFFS WITH YOU!”

Is that clear enough?

So my critics in this area are a bit off base, not because they’ve accused me of something I didn’t do but because they didn’t accuse me of enough.

If you’re going to come into my private online home and behave like a jerk in my presence, I will show you the door every time. And after you’re gone, I’ll return to my other guests and refill the snack bowls.

Who Makes The Rules?

Ostensibly when someone is banned from an online community, it’s because they violated the Terms of Service and/or community rules. But the deeper and more accurate reason is that the site owner has ultimately decided they don’t want you there.

After all, who wrote the rules in the first place? Quite often the site owner did. At the very least they approved someone else’s boilerplate text. Where did those rules come from? They came from the owner’s sense of what behaviors they’re willing to accept in their online community.

Who wrote the formal rules for my online community? I did. I solicited a lot of input from others, but the final decisions were mine to make. Where did those rules come from? They’re based on what sorts of behavior I’m willing to accept from people in my online home. If I’m not willing to tolerate certain behavior in my online home, and if I can articulate it reasonably well, I add it to our community rules, and it becomes part of our Terms of Service. But the unwritten rule is that every member who participates in this community does so at my personal discretion, especially given the catch-all in the ToS. Most people seem to have no problem with this, especially those that have had a lot of experience participating in other online communities.

Now generally speaking, if you want to build a cool community, it’s wise to be fair and reasonable. If you behave abusively toward your own community, you’ll have bigger problems to deal with. I happen to think our current community rules are quite fair and reasonable given the nature of the subjects we discuss. Again, it’s like having people over at your house. If you host a good party, people will enjoy hanging out there, and everyone is happy. If you’re an ogre, you’ll scare everyone away, and your parties will suck. The point of throwing the party is to bring people together to socialize. Maintaining a good social atmosphere requires maintaining a careful balance between freedom and good manners.

How would you react if you were hosting a party at your home for your friends, family, and community members, and someone waltzes in and starts treating your guests rudely or otherwise behaving like an obnoxious buffoon? Would you continue to welcome this person into your home, or would you show them the door right quick?

In general, this is the unspoken truth about how online communities are managed. The idea that you have free speech is a delusion. Your participation is subject to the site owner’s consent. Even if the community has written rules and does its best to uphold them fairly, who makes the rules? In most cases the site owner makes the rules.

Online Abuse

If people want to rant and rave about me in their own homes or on other websites I don’t own, more power to them. I really don’t mind that. Some bloggers commit libel by posting ridiculously false info, and sometimes we end up with a version of the telephone game where information loses accuracy as it spreads around. But as I see it, such things are a natural consequence of my chosen lifestyle. This can get a bit weird sometimes, but after 5 years of blogging, I’m used to it. It’s easy enough for me to tune out someone who rants about me somewhere else. No one is forcing me to go look at it. Whether I choose to read stuff like that or not depends on how masochistic I’m feeling.

That said, I have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to being abused in my own home, whether online or offline. I’m simply unwilling to enter into an abusive relationship with anyone. If I catch you peeing in my yard, I will hose you.

When someone posts trash talk on my own website, it’s like they rang my doorbell and left a pile of crap on my doormat. It smells bad, and it’s a waste of my time to deal with it.

Do you have to become my close personal friend or agree with everything I say to participate in my website’s online community? Heck no, I’m not that strict. But if you pay me a visit online or offline, I do require that you treat me, my wife, and our other guests with basic courtesy, politeness, and respect. Treat me online as you would if you were a guest in my home. Just as I open my website to others, I often open my home to a variety of guests as well. I love hanging out with many different kinds of people, as long as they behave with a modicum of human decency.

Now if at some point you think that I’m behaving oddly or that my manners are a bit lacking, you’re always free to leave. No one is forcing you to sit there and listen to me. It’s my home after all, and if you’re going to hang around in my living room 24/7, you’re bound to catch me at my worst at some point, so try not to be too shocked when that happens. But rest assured that when I visit your home, I’m going to be respectful of your space.

Am I trying to build a cult of supporters? No, I’m actually stricter than a cultist would be. I’ve turned away people who might have had the potential to become good and loyal cult members, but I just didn’t want them in my home because they acted too stalker-like. I want to hang out with interesting people who enjoy intelligent discussion, and I want to maintain a persistent place where people like that can come together. I have no interest in surrounding myself with mindless minions.

Misunderstandings arise when people make erroneous assumptions about how online communities really work and why people run them. This really isn’t rocket science. Can you grasp the analogy of virtual communities being equivalent to someone’s online home, regardless of how big they appear to be? Does this make sense to you? Does this help shed light on some of the problems you may have encountered in the past?

Quality Criticism

Isn’t it a community owner’s obligation to be receptive to criticism?

I’d say that’s entirely up to the owner.

I do think it’s reasonable to be open to critical feedback. A bit of constructive criticism now and then is good for growth. It keeps people honest and grounded.

If I’m going to listen to criticism, however, I want it to be of high quality. I don’t want to waste my time listening to drivel. In my case the best quality criticism almost always comes from people who know me pretty well. They’ve met me in person. They’ve met Erin. They know me on a personal level beyond my public persona as a blogger.

I’m not nearly as receptive to criticism from people who wander in off the street (virtual or otherwise) and who’ve never had so much as a single one-on-one conversation with me. Such criticism is almost always of such low quality as to be useless. Too often such people base their criticisms on one or more inaccurate assumptions and build a house of cards on top of it. It’s totally inactionable; they might as well be talking about someone else. In this area I think Erin has it worse than I do. She gets some pretty wacky criticism from people who begin with, “Erin, since you’ve obviously sold your soul to the devil, you may not be receptive to what I have to say, but please hear me out anyway…”

There’s a difference between offering genuinely helpful constructive feedback to someone you know, coming from a place of respect and wanting to be helpful, vs. cluelessly ranting because you want to vent or you like drama. I do my best to listen to respectful, actionable criticism because it’s in my own best interest and the interest of my community to do so. But it isn’t a good use of my time to wade through unreasonable criticism, and I don’t welcome unreasonable critics into my home to hang out with me either.

Communities within Communities

On some sites we see communities within communities. For example, I have a Facebook page which is maxed out on friends. The friend limit is 5,000. Someone else owns and manages the monstrous beast that is Facebook, and all members, including me, are subject to their Terms of Service.

Beyond that, anyone of the 5,000 Facebook members who want to post messages on my Facebook page are subject to my unwritten Terms of Service.

Imagine that the larger community is an apartment complex, subject to the terms of whoever owns that complex. All residents and guests of residents must follow that owner’s rules. But within that complex, each unit is additionally subject to the individual resident’s terms.

I regard my Facebook page as my online apartment. It’s another fun place to hang out online. If people visit my apartment and try to trash the place, I kick them out and unfriend them. It goes without saying that if you go to a friend’s apartment and behave like a jerk, they won’t be your friend for long.

When I visit a friend’s Facebook page, I consider myself a guest in their online apartment. We all live in the same complex, and it’s fun to pop over to other people’s units and see what they’re up to. But I know that if I go to my friends’ apartments and graffiti up the place while they’re gone, I’m going to lose those friends rather quickly.

I suggest you adopt a similar mindset when interacting in online sub-communities. It will save you a lot of grief.

I think if you have your own Facebook page or something similar, especially if you have a lot of active friends, you’ll have a reasonably good idea of what it’s like to manage a larger online community. How would you react if people came to your community and started posting trash talk about you? How would you feel if they started disrespecting your friends right in front of you? I imagine you’d send such people packing right quick. And I seriously doubt you’d be swayed by their protests of free speech entitlement.

So just to be abundantly clear, in most cases you are not entitled to unbridled free speech when you participate in online communities. You are a guest of the site owner — and possibly of the virtual renter as well. Behave as you would if you were a guest in someone else’s home, and you’re likely to be welcomed as a friend. Give the site owner a reason to dislike you, and you’re likely to be booted to the curb.

Online Fairness

Is this whole situation unfair? Maybe it is unfair.

I think the concept of fairness stems from a misguided sense of entitlement. You may be entitled to the right of fair treatment under the law (but realistically you can’t even count on that anywhere on earth that I know of), but you certainly aren’t entitled to fair treatment in someone’s private home, whether online or offline. When you enter a private residence or online community, you’re subject to the rules of the Lord or Lady of the place. Whatever level of fairness you may experience is at their discretion. Fairness is a privilege that humans may choose to bestow upon each other, not a right that you’re automatically entitled to.

I imagine that most homeowners like to consider themselves fair people, but their implementation of fairness is a very personal decision. You have no special entitlement to be treated fairly by others. Some laws may apply under certain situations, but generally speaking, whoever owns the house makes the rules.

If you go through life thinking you’re entitled to fair treatment by people who barely know you, well, let’s just say that you’re in for a rude awakening. The real world doesn’t work that way. Give it another decade or two, and reality will hopefully straighten out your belief system.

I’m not saying you have to like this situation, but I’d encourage you to accept it for what it is. If you have a hard time accepting it, you may have picked the wrong planet on which to incarnate.

You may now commence with the Steve-bashing… as long as you do it off-site and don’t tell me about it.

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

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

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

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

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

Evaluating David DeAngelo’s Products

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

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

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

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

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

Man Transformation

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

Man Transformation focuses on three core areas of relationship development:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exclusive 10% Discount and Bonuses for StevePavlina.com Readers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

Continuing on with our tips…

Communicate like a human being, not a marketer.

If your email looks even remotely like spam, expect that busy people will treat it as such.

If an email looks impersonal at all or seems like it’s being sent to more than one person, busy people will often delete it without reading it. Busy people get enough personal communication that they don’t want to bother with anything that isn’t personal.

Sometimes I get messages sent through my online contact form that start with salutations like “Hi Marc…” I actually prefer these copy/paste blunders, since it saves me from having to read them before hitting delete.

If you’re going to contact a busy person, make sure your message is personal and specific to that person.

Be authentic.

Get clear about why you want to connect with a particular busy person.

Do you want to become good friends? Do you want to do business together? Do you want to ask for advice or mentoring?

Don’t put up a false front, pretending to want one thing while secretly desiring another.

Don’t pretend you want to be friends and hang out if you really just want to do a deal together. Similarly, don’t pretend you’re interested in doing business if you just want to hang out and be friends.

When you communicate inauthentically, other people will often pick up a creepy vibe from you. They may not even notice it consciously, but they’ll feel turned off by you.

Inauthentic communication is a big pet peeve of mine. It’s such a huge turnoff when someone is being fake with me. You may think you’re good at hiding your real intentions, but someone who deals with a high volume of communication has the opportunity to get pretty good at discerning patterns, so what seems invisible to you may be glaringly obvious to them.

Authenticity is the best policy. Putting up a false front simply isn’t necessary.

I’m not suggesting the approach of radical honesty, blurting out whatever you’re thinking and feeling no matter how offensive it may be. I think a little decorum and politeness is reasonable. However, to say one thing while secretly intending something else is a bad idea. You’re a lot more transparent than you realize. People usually won’t call you on it, but they’ll sense that something is off with you, and their shields will go up.

If you want people to lower their shields around you, make sure your expression reflects your intention.

Be patient.

Don’t buy into the myth of the once-in-a-lifetime networking opportunity. If you maintain an abundance mindset, interesting opportunities will come up again and again.

Think of networking like playing in the World Series of Poker main event. You aren’t going to win the whole thing on the first day. It’s a long road. You probably won’t make it to the final table. That may be a goal to strive for, but most of your experience will involve playing the game and making new friends along the way. The try-hards usually just make fools of themselves.

Networking with people is much the same. Sometimes you’ll encounter what appears to be an opportunity, but it doesn’t quite work out. Don’t force it. Be patient and wait for a better spot. Maintain your poise and self-respect, and don’t be a try-hard.

A few years ago, someone from Oprah’s production company called to offer me an “opportunity.” They were looking for someone to help teach Eckhart Tolle’s material for some webcasts they were doing. Was that a good spot for me? Heck no. I have no interest in presenting someone else’s material when I have so much of my own to share. I knew they could find hundreds of people to fill that role, so it’s not an area where I can make a unique contribution. It may have looked like an opportunity, but it wasn’t a good spot for me. To say yes to that would have been to act out of desperation. So naturally I turned them down. The “better spot” is to share my own material in the form of a 3-day workshop.

When you network with people, do so from a place of abundance. Know that opportunities are everywhere. When a good opportunity comes your way, accept it. But when the opportunity isn’t right, just relax and let it go.

Realize that the rules change once you’re in.

Once you’re “in” with a busy person, it’s still important to be respectful of their time, but if you’ve made it past the slush pile, your status will likely change, and their shields will go down when they’re communicating with you.

Once I’ve established a solid friendship with a person, my rules change. Now my attention shifts from processing their emails and voice mails to managing a relationship.

There’s a continuum here of course. I might spend one minute typing an email to one person, an hour on the phone with another, and a half day in person with someone else. When I’m typing emails, I normally want to process them fast and move on to something else. But when I’m talking to someone face to face, I’m just going with the flow and having fun, not looking at my watch and worrying about the time investment.

Almost every busy person I know experiences a similar dichotomy. Busy people are usually tight with their time in some areas but much looser with their time in other areas.

The people who will send you a one-line email to save a few minutes are the same people who’d have no qualms shooting the breeze with you for hours under different circumstances.

I think the reason for this is simple. Typing emails and returning voice mails isn’t much fun, especially if you have to process a high volume. I certainly don’t want to spend hours each day typing emails. But I like connecting with people face to face – that feels much more natural, and it isn’t tedious at all.

Sometimes when people pop over to my house to visit with Erin and me for the first time, they start feeling anxious after a while. They might look at their watch and say, “Oh I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I just chewed up two hours talking with you. I’m sure you’re very busy and have better things to do.” I have to reassure them that it’s okay for us just to hang out and chat.

I’ve had one-on-one conversations that have lasted as long as eight hours. I’ve had people hang out at my house for days at a time. Why? Because it’s fun. I enjoy it. But if I spend more than an hour answering emails, I start feeling squirmy.

I’m certainly not alone in feeling this way. Other busy people behave much the same way. Even so-called productivity gurus will sit around drinking coffee and chatting for hours about the most mundane things. Why? Because they enjoy it. They apply their productivity tactics to efficiently process the tasks they don’t enjoy much, so they can free up more time to do what they enjoy most.

Therein lies another good lesson. If you try to communicate with a busy person through a channel they don’t enjoy much, you’re going to get processed. But if you use a channel they enjoy, you have a much better chance at connecting.

***

This was a long series, and it should be largely common sense, but these tips aren’t commonly practiced. I hope that by sharing what it’s like to network with busy people (from both sides of the fence), I’ve helped you gain some distinctions that will help you become a more effective networker – and a better friend as well.

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

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

Continuing on with our tips…

Don’t apologize for reaching out.

Never begin your first contact with an apology.

Every week people send me emails that begin with phrases like, "Sorry to bother you, but…" What does this tell me about the other person’s expectations for connecting with me? It tells me they expect to bother me. Who am I to argue with them? Delete… next.

If you hint that you’re about to irritate or annoy someone, they’ll assume you’re right. Why should they do otherwise?

You might think that you’re just being polite and respectful. Are you really? Or would it be more accurate to say that deep down, you don’t feel equal to the person you’re contacting?

If you have to apologize for bothering someone, maybe you shouldn’t be contacting them at all… at least not until you do a bit more work on your self-esteem.

“Excuse me…” is another weak opener. Why do you need to be excused? Are you doing something wrong?

If you’re going to approach a busy person, do so as an equal. Don’t act like an equal. Know you’re equal.

It doesn’t matter which person on this planet you wish to connect with – the President of the USA, the Dalai Lama, Oprah, etc. Don’t chode yourself with anyone. We’re all equal. We’re all part of the same whole. Why should you feel intimidated to meet another piece of humanity?

Don’t put busy people or celebrities on a pedestal. They may have a lot of accomplishments under their belt. They may be famous. So what? They’re still human just like everyone else. Don’t mistake the public image for the real person underneath.

Be secure in who you are. Know that whenever you reach out to connect with someone, you’re offering something of value. The value is who you are. If you don’t think you’re worth knowing, you need to spend more time getting in touch with your own value. Of course you’re worth knowing.

If you want to be worthy of a busy person’s time and attention, then know that you deserve it.

The surest way to have your communication devalued is to signal up front that you’re a low-value contact. High-value contacts don’t apologize for reaching out.

Get to the point.

If you conclude that making friends isn’t right for you, and you opt to communicate some kind of offer straightaway, then do your best to be concise and direct.

Never ever begin your emails with a paragraph like this:

I know you get a lot of emails, but I just had to send you this message. I’m sure you must be very busy, and I definitely respect your time, so I’ll try to be as brief as possible. This request will take a bit of explaining though. But please take the time to read it all the way through. I’m sure it will be worth your time to do so.

This is the point where a busy person will often hit delete. When I see a paragraph like this, I probably hit delete at least half the time without bothering to read the rest of the message, regardless of length. Historically speaking, such messages have rarely been worth the time to read. Also, when I answer the phone and someone offers up the verbal equivalent of the above paragraph, I know it’s best to get off the phone ASAP.

Plainly state the purpose of your communication in the first sentence. Get to the frakkin point as quickly as you can. Let the other person know the context for the rest of your message.

If you really don’t care to connect on the basis of friendship, then don’t act like you do. That’s inauthentic. You’re better off sending an android-like email and cutting out the fluff. Keep it short and sweet.

Never send a wall of text.

More than two paragraphs is usually overkill when you’re trying to solicit business. If you send long-winded emails, busy people will hit delete long before they make sense of your offer.

Making an offer or suggesting a deal doesn’t require sharing the entire history of your business. Really it doesn’t.

Some people think they should include as much detail as possible in their first message to a busy person. That way the busy person will have all the important info up front. They figure they’ve only got one shot to make a first impression, so the more words they use, the better. So they send first-contact emails that are upwards of a thousand words.

This is a mistake.

If your first contact with a busy person is to send them a wall of text, you immediately give the impression that you’re going to be a time drain. This makes it much harder for a busy person to want to follow up with you.

Make your first message to a busy person as short as you can. Busy people are more likely to read and reply to a 100-word email than a 1,000-word one.

People send me wall-of-text emails every week, but I stopped reading such messages a long time ago. I don’t even skim them anymore. I’d be afraid to reply to them for fear of receiving another wall of text in response.

If you already have a close relationship with someone, a wall of text is questionable but ok I suppose. I’d still suggest you pick up the phone if you have more than a couple paragraphs to communicate – it’s usually a lot faster. But definitely don’t send a wall of text as your first contact to someone new, busy or not.

If you want to share the history of your business or the complexities of your business model or your personal history, it’s inappropriate to do that in an email. Instead, offer to schedule a phone call or face to face meeting, and share the details then. Don’t propose marriage before you’ve had a first date. If the busy person is interested, they’ll follow up with you.

Keep your personality switched on.

The way you normally behave with your friends and family – that’s how you should behave when connecting with busy people. That’s what it means to be yourself.

I’ve seen people act like a deer caught in the headlights when meeting someone they consider famous or popular. It’s like they switch off their personality and freeze up. They can still talk, but it’s not how they normally communicate.

No one wants to connect with an automaton. That kind of communication is very boring.

I think a lot of people hide their personality because they’re worried they might say or do something that will lead to rejection. Can you see that this is a very fear-based way of thinking? You’re going to create exactly what you fear.

Don’t worry about getting rejected. It’s really not a big deal. If you’re secure in who you are, it shouldn’t matter whether or not someone else likes you. It’s much better to relax and be yourself instead of tensing up and worrying about every word that comes out of your mouth. It’s not like such mistakes are fatal. In most cases they’re easily correctable.

When you make a social faux pas and then become aware of it, brush it off if it’s minor. If it’s more serious, acknowledge the mistake and apologize for it. Most of the time the other person will appreciate your candor, and you’ll form a closer bond because of it.

A few years ago, a friend with a very “switched on” personality treated me in a way that some would regard as slightly rude. This happened in front of a bunch of our mutual friends. He didn’t notice it at the time, and I simply brushed it off, but someone else noticed and pointed it out to him later. He quickly realized that he goofed, and he took me aside and apologized. I was touched by the gesture and actually came to respect him even more because of it. He and I are still good friends to this day.

People tend to be very forgiving of personality quirks when they see you’re just being your natural self.

As a human being, you’re going to make social mistakes. That’s perfectly okay. Don’t expect yourself to be perfect. And definitely don’t assume that other people expect you to be perfect. They don’t. When you take things a bit too far and screw up, fess up to it and move on. Learn from your mistakes. This is much better than tensing up or using fake routines and communicating like a social robot.

Keep your real personality switched on, even in circumstances where you might feel inclined to clench up. You’ll make some mistakes now and then, but the honest social feedback will allow you to hone your personality over time. “Being yourself” is not a static state. You’ll continue to evolve.

You can’t grow if you hide your real personality whenever you encounter unusual social situations. The uncommon situations are often the best teachers.

To be continued…

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

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.

Continuing on with our tips…

Meet in person.

It’s hard to create much of a connection with someone via email. Email just isn’t expressive enough. Email is communication stripped of its emotional context.

Instant messaging is a step up from email because it’s real-time instead of asynchronous, but it’s still a very thin channel. Consequently, I virtually never use IM. It feels like trying to communicate underwater.

Text messaging is a close cousin of instant messaging and email, depending on how it’s used and how quickly people respond.

Phone calls are a big step up because now you can pick up some emotional context from tone of voice. You can build a halfway decent connection over the phone. But you’re still missing out on body language, and when it comes to creating a strong connection, that’s a pretty big deal.

The best way to communicate is face to face and belly to belly. Nothing else compares to it.

If you do a lot of networking by email and phone calls, but you never go outside and meet people face to face, you’re probably only 20% as effective as you could be – and I think that’s being generous.

Face to face communication is very efficient in terms of the bonds it creates and the value that can be exchanged. Many people can create a strong, intimate connection with someone in a matter of minutes when communicating face to face, but that may never happen via email.

Sometimes when I meet people in person, we can get an amazing connection going in just a few minutes. It’s like our souls recognize and acknowledge each other. If I tried to form these kinds of connections via email or phone, it still wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as face to face, even after years of back and forth contact.

I know a lot of networkers who love to work the phones and email. Personally I find that a huge waste of time. It may seem more efficient at first glance because you can reach more people in less time, but is it really more efficient? What about the quality of those connections? Email and phones are okay for maintaining relationships, but they’re poor choices for building relationships.

I’m not saying that you can’t build some decent connection when communicating remotely. I’m just saying that face to face communication is about a couple orders of magnitude more effective if your goal is to create an authentic connection.

I dare say that if you’ve never met me in person or talked to me one on one, you really can’t claim to know me all that well, even if you’ve read every article and listened to every podcast I’ve created. Many people who’ve met me after “knowing” me online for years have said something like, “This is weird. You’re not like I expected.” That’s because only a small slice of me can really be communicated over the Internet.

I’ve experienced this from the other side as well. At the leadership retreat I attended in July, I finally met some people in person where we’d previously communicated only by email or phone. In every case my expectations of what they’d be like in person were off. Sometimes my mental model of the person was wildly out of sync with the reality, and it took only minutes to realize that.

When you communicate remotely, much of the connection you feel is rooted in illusion. You may harbor very deep thoughts and feelings when typing an email, but only some dull text gets delivered to the other person’s inbox, not the whole mental and emotional context that spawned that text. Similarly, when you read someone’s reply, you’re adding your own mental and emotional context to it, which is going to distort the message quite a bit. Most of the connection you feel with the other person is just you connecting with different aspects of yourself.

Sometimes I meet people who seem really gregarious and vivacious online, but in person they’re so shy and quiet. Other times I’ve seen people who seem very woo woo from a distance, but in person they’re highly intelligent and grounded. My assumptions about people I’ve never met face to face are never accurate, so I do my best to keep an open mind about people I’ve only communicated with remotely.

One of the best ways to meet busy people face to face is to go to conferences, seminars, and workshops where they’ll be, especially multi-day events where you’ll have multiple opportunities to meet and talk to them. Ideally, volunteer to be a speaker at the same event if you can.

If you spend a lot of time networking through technology, spending hours at your desk, make a point of going outside to interact with people face to face. You’ll find that life becomes much more fun and fulfilling when you do this.

Earlier this week I did a live interview for an online radio show. I could have done the interview by phone like I always do, but since the studio was only 15 minutes from my house, I opted to go there and do it in person. It was so much more fun and lively than other interviews I’ve done. I could see the hosts and read their body language from a few feet away. This made it so much easier to interact with them. It made the interview flow much better. There’s just no substitute for face-to-face communication.

Meet people when their shields are down.

Timing plays an important role in meeting busy people. The worst time to try to create a connection is when the other person’s shields are up.

If you try to talk to people when they’re “on stage” or in public performance mode, you’re not really connecting with them. You’re only connecting with their public image. Some speakers are still very human and authentic in those situations, but most have a hard time being fully themselves when there’s so much energy coming at them. They shield themselves in some fashion to avoid being overwhelmed. When you talk to them, they may seem nice enough and be very charming, but you can sense that you’re not really connecting with them at a deep level.

I’ve met some interesting authors and speakers just by hanging out in the speakers lounge for a conference I was speaking at. It’s a great way to meet people and connect as friends. Speakers typically drop their shields when they walk into the speakers lounge. It’s a place for them to just relax. I often hear them sigh as they enter the room. “Ahhh… I can relax and hang out with friends now.”

Sometimes fun connections can happen when you least expect them – if you stay open to them.

For example, I first met Gregg Braden in a restaurant bathroom. We were attending a speakers’ dinner last year and just happened to go to the bathroom at the same time. Sort of an odd place to meet, but in that environment the shields are down, and we joked around a bit before returning to the dinner. When we came out, Erin was standing there waiting, wondering what was taking us so long.

During one of the bathroom breaks at the leadership retreat last month, someone walked into the men’s restroom and jokingly said something like, “Well, this is quite a sight… All these transformational leaders lined up against the wall urinating… What would the rest of the world think if they saw this?” Then we all started cracking jokes about it. I guess this was one of those had-to-be-there moments, but the point is that even very busy and successful people are still human, and it’s a lot easier to connect with their human side than it is to connect with their public persona. The best connections happen when the shields are down.

This doesn’t mean you should hang out in bathrooms trying to network with people. The point is to stay open to connecting.

Connect with laughter.

Sharing laughs is one of the best ways to create a fast connection. This can be done over the phone, but it’s much more powerful in person. Laughter is contagious. Much of the time we don’t even laugh because someone says something funny. More often we laugh for other reasons. Laughter is a vehicle for creating a sense of inclusion and connection.

Personally I love to joke around, to tease, and to have fun. My sense of humor is largely spontaneous, so only a small amount of it comes through in my writing. People who’ve never met me in person often expect me to be this very serious and intense guy. They’re often surprised at how much I joke around.

This was something that surprised me when I first became an entrepreneur. I thought the world of business was this super-serious thing. I assumed that having fun and being business-like didn’t mix. My image of business was colored by TV and movies. Unless it was a comedy, the boardroom always seemed like such a serious place.

When I started connecting with other people in a business context, fresh out of college, I was surprised at how much they joked around and had fun with each other. Even lawyers would sometimes crack jokes with each other or their clients (although generally speaking, I found lawyers to be the least fun-loving profession I worked with, perhaps because their clients don’t take kindly to joking around when they’re paying an hourly rate). It took me years to realize that this was normal and acceptable and that I could actually use my sense of humor to good advantage in business.

I’ve noticed that young entrepreneurs tend to be the most serious. They’re so business-like and don’t give themselves permission to express their natural personalities. Experienced entrepreneurs tend to be more relaxed and sociable; they know how to have fun and enjoy themselves, even in serious business contexts where a lot of money could be changing hands. Generally the people who can’t express their natural selves end up quitting. When you can’t lighten up and have fun, the result is that you burn out.

Networking should be fun. You won’t enjoy it much if you’re super serious all the time. You will enjoy it if you learn to express your natural personality. The way you behave among family and friends should ideally be the same way you behave around business colleagues. Otherwise you’re splintering your personality and living incongruently.

To be continued…

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

© 2009 by Steve Pavlina.