I was just watching a YouTube video of Sam Keen talking about his interview with Ernest Becker, author of Denial of Death. Towards the end of the video, Keen is noting how Becker did not exhibit the kind of removed intellectualism that one might expect from such a thinker. Keen, who has become visibly moved by this point, remarks in admiration, “He thought with his life.”

Ayn Rand proposed that man needs a philosophy from which to live his life, and that one’s ideas are integral to who a person is. As someone creating ideas, my primary motivation in creating ideas as tools has always been a personal one… who should i be? how should i live my life! The “should” arising not from a context of ultimate right and wrong, but from an Ayn Rand-inspired context: if I am to have a life of profound happiness, joy and exaltation, I must live true to my deepest values and honest convictions–even if the world stands in judgment. So then, how do I go about living such a visionary life?

As visionaries–as people who highly value independent thought, action and the creative expression and contribution of our values and vision in the world–as people who are not compromising to conform to the pressures of society–then don’t we each need some sort of philosophy from which to live our lives? Some sort of idea system or paradigm, which validates our individual visionary paths? In a sense, we each have an idea system that guides us, or that at least justifies our choices. What I aim to bring through the VisionForce ideas and tools is *not* an all-encompassing idea system for “visionaries” to subscribe to, but ideas as tools and models, which visionaries can apply in the formation of their own self-guiding philosophies and paradigms. The visionary, in my view, is not simply one who thinks new or radical thoughts, but one who does so in an effort to bring a new vision into existence (and vice versa). The ideas support the creation of a new reality.

Ultimately, the power of the tools VisionForce offers are to be judged through their effectiveness in the hands of visionaries. The tools we offer through our programs are nothing but that which I use in my own life. My investment in these concepts and tools is total. My life, the life of someone very conscious of his mortality, rests on the efficacy of these ideas. I’d consider it a very high acknowledgment, if at the end of my life, someone said of me, “He thought with his life.”

Changing the world–WHY? This post may ramble, as I intend to freely journal–with radical transparency…

I know for myself that life has transpired inside of a very serious context. The choices I make in this lifetime, I was told, have eternal consequences. I am proud that the mission I’ve chosen in my life is not one that was given to me, but one that I’ve freely created–born of my own vision. However, the intensity and seriousness with which I often find myself approaching my “mission” is in part a by-product of painful experiences and the serious life context I had as a young man. And while the power of the VisionForce tools is also a by-product of that same pain-inspired intensity and seriousness, what I am ever rediscovering is the extent to which fun and enjoyment can be a source and/or an integral part of much more productive strategies for achieving the mission.

Isn’t a visionary life, by definition, one in which a person faces the judgment and ridicule of authorities and the majority, who do not share the same vision and are often not following their own vision? Such a life can quite naturally be experienced as a lonely, serious battle or a path of martyrdom. However, to the extent that one can live freely from one’s vision, life can be an experience of play, peace and freedom. The VisionForce tools give one access to live so powerfully from one’s own vision and so liberated from the judgments and conditioned constraints of society that others can’t help but look to see what you’re seeing, and feel inspired to stand with you.

So much so does the VF technology liberate a person, that it can be quite challenging then to know where to draw the line–and succeed inside a society of conformity–when you are marching to your own drum.

I am currently entering a phase in my life, where I am exploring how much more productive I can be while operating from a place of play, full self-expression and simplicity. This has been a challenge thus far, because I have so many preconceptions about who I should be as a leader, a teacher, etc. Gandhi, Jesus, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Howard Roarke, John Galt–men such as these have been my role models. Thus, hard work, sacrifice, austere living, etc. are what I’ve been modeling. I’ve found it difficult to balance such ways of life with my propensity and desire for childlike play, teasing, silliness and wild abandon.

I watched some very old home movies the other day and found it very interesting that for one Halloween as a child I was a clown, and for the other I was a pirate. That pretty much sums up who I was as a child: the rebel loner who never took anything too seriously and was always joking and teasing. Even for all the seriousness that I bring to my work, especially when leading events for people, those who know me well, know that privately I am often anything but serious.

I quite unconsciously and often consciously buck the norms of society, and often times I show up as ignorant, rude, selfish and even immature–kind of like the kid who just says and does whatever is on his mind to do. I’ve found it a challenge to know where to draw the line. On the one hand, wanting to be an example of an ever-inspiring, high-minded leader (many regard me even as a spiritual teacher), and at the same time a visionary who operates free from the conditioning of a society that worships image and comfort. Finding the balance here has been a challenge, and has led to many awkward situations–many times when I’ve had to clean up the mess I inadvertently made.

Posting this to my blog is what many might consider an “unprofessional” move, but what I am standing for is being a creator of a new era, a new culture and a new vision for business and entrepreneurship–rather than support the old culture of business that so highly values image. We spend so much of our lives working–why should we spend it compromising our self-expression?

I’m finding it worthwhile to verbalize for myself that I value self-expression, fun and play far more highly than image… and I don’t want to try to fit myself into the mold of yesterday’s leaders, trying to manage all my choices to maintain an appearance that no one can judge. Yes, I do wish to protect the image of the company I am building, and I do wish to separate my personal life choices from the work and products we offer–and yet, for me, the business and the mission is not the end-all. This is my life. I want to live. To live fully. To be alive. To be free. AND, I suspect such an approach may just be what empowers and liberates me to even more powerfully attain the mission and generate the success for which I am aiming.

I am working hard to change the world and evolve myself to “be the change”–why? Cuz it’s hella fun! Who’s game?

Yesterday we tested a new model for our workshops, one in which a partiipant only need give up an afternoon, invest a very small amount of cash and drive to a home in their local area. We titled it, Visionary Mind: Living at the Level of Vision.

We had a great conversation and the workshop “worked,” yet the greatest outcome was the vision for how we can upgrade it in the future. What we want to create is a simple format for a short afternoon or evening discussion that can easily be organized and lead by anyone with a moderate level of training in the iStand technology (the VisionForce work). The idea is to create a formula that can be duplicated around the world by people passionate about VisionForce and the difference it can make in peoples lives and for humanity itself.

We’ve scheduled the next workshop after having made the following adjustments/upgrades:

1) It will be an hour shorter (4 hours instead of 5)

2) We will leave more time to integrate the global vision, to build personal vision and to introduce opportunities for each of us to step up our game in “being the change,” and “changing the world.”

3) We will focus more on the Inner Conflict Diagram and use it to integrate more of the concepts, so participants leave with an even firmer grasp and clearer view of how everything relates.

4) We are going to make it even more of an interactive discussion than it already is.

If you can make it to Austin for the afternoon of Sunday, January 14th, we’d love to have you. Details are here.

Entreprenuers dancing naked around the camp fire? Maybe…

Yesterday when I received an Evite from a local group called Bootstrap Austin inviting me to an evening discussion titled Entrepreneur As Hero, I didn’t think twice. That morning I’d had a revelation of sorts, when I’d seen a new vision for working with entrepreneurs in a new way (more on that later). And with all the seemingly magical synchronicity happening in my life recently, it was a no-brainer.

Just weeks ago, I’d sat down for a bubble tea with a friend who offices next to me, Kevin Koym, and he’d expressed his mission in life in terms of inspiring the maximum number of people possible to take up entrepreneurship. He sees entrepreneurs as revolutionaries who step outside of “what is” to create “what can be,” and his current entrepreneurial enterprise provides a methodology and internet-based tool for entrepreneurs to collaborate at higher levels. It was Kevin who’d turned me onto Bootstrap Austin and the fire dancers.

So recently, as I’ve received the standard emails from people who are of the mind that business, entrepreneurship, capitalism and money are somehow bad… somehow to blame for the ills of the world, the drum of the entrepreneurial warrior within has been beating more loudly. I see entrepreneurs as today’s heroes, the ones who are standing for a better world and risking everything to bring it into existence. They are the warriors and creators of today.

So, I showed up early last night with local Vision Force Boot Camp grad and ally, Audrey Parker, at the home of one of the local bootstrap members and was welcomed by a man whose face I did not recognize, but whose name I did. He introduced himself as Michael Strong, and I knew he was somehow involved with Flow, another Austin-based entrepreneurial network. Turns out he’s the CEO, and come to find out he is a pioneer in education and independent learning and has founded innovative Socratic, Montessori, and Paideia schools and programs around the U.S. He has a passion for freeing young minds “from the matrix.” Talk about synchronicity…
He introduced me to Bijoy Goswami, founder of Bootstrap Austin and the Bootstrap Network, who was already engaged in the topic of conversation of the evening, entrepreneur as hero, and relating it to the recommended reading, Joseph Campbell’s book, Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Soon, other Bootstrappers showed up and as I met each of them I continued to feel as if I was coming home to reunite with family. These were conscious entrepreneurs and visionary thinkers. Where have I been all my time in Austin. How is it I’d not met these people sooner?

It doesn’t get cold too often here in Austin, but this night was quite chilly and so there was a fire in the fireplace in the living room. That’s where we sat down in a circle and began what would be a 3 hour conversation about the heroic life journey called entrepreneurship. We talked about entrepreneurship as a path to enlightenment, and the almost unavoidable and continual expansion of consciousness that happens along that path, as one must continually face one’s self and evolve beyond one’s limitations.

Refrencing movies like The Matrix, Braveheart and Star Wars throughout the night, we talked about how today’s culture conditions us so much to be outwardly focussed and paranoid of failure, and about how we’re missing the kind of rituals that could help us as a culture mark our inner progress along our entrepreneurial paths in life. All evening I couldn’t help but notice how it felt as if we were warriors of the same tribe on a spiritual journey, and at some point I even brought up the idea… What if once a quarter, we went camping and celebrated our failures, struggles and triumphs around the campfire?

While that may or may not happen, what I do see emerging in the next decade are new cultural traditions and structures to support people in living entrepreneurial/visionary lives. I see that visionary thinking and an entrepreneurial approach to life is the way of the future, and I am so excited for what is to come.

I strongly encourage all entrepreneurs to get involved with communities like Flow and the Boostrap Network. We may live in a world where entrepreneurship as a lifestyle is increasingly growing in popularity (some surveys have shown 7-8 out of 10 highschool students want to be entrepreneurs), yet we still live in a world that blames successful entrepreneurs for society’s problems. How ironic that the very individuals who are, as Ayn Rand might say, lifting the world on their shoulders and taking humanity to new heights are often those blamed for our problems.

I use the term entrepreneur very loosely to mean individuals who are risking a lot to bring something new of value to humanity into existence. (Aren’t we all entrepreneurs in spirit? Don’t we all yearn to live a heroic life, creating value?)

Do entrepreneurs do what they do out of greed? Is there a limited amount of wealth that entrepreneurs and capitalists just greedily fight for at the expense of others? Or is wealth created? And who creates it?

I’ve mentioned recently that there were several boot camp grads, who after attending, cashed in big time. They started businesses, wrote books, etc., and it was their boot camp experience and technology they learned that made the difference.

One grad just emailed me about some outstanding success he’s had over the past few years after boot camp. He’s built several very successful businesses, and wants to help us here at VisionForce (and you, if you’re interested).

(Immediately after boot camp his income increased by 10K per month, and he went on to start several businesses that still, 3 years later, bring him in 4-5 figures per month.  He soon paid off his $145,000 personal debt and then built another business that is now valued at 1.5 – 3 Million, and he’s selling it right now.)

So what’s the difference between him and VisionForce? Why has he experienced incredible business success, while we’re still figuring things out? It comes down to the business model. We at VisionForce are building a very non-traditional model and have not been content to do “business as usual.”

He, on the other hand has zeroed in on a very simple, powerful business model and has replicated it over and over again. It’s a business model that works well with the internet and he is creating a plan to train us at VisionForce in the advanced concepts behind his model.

If you want in, or at least want a peek at his business concepts, go to this special page I created exclusively for VisionForce friends.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment about pricing!

We have been contacted by a very successful on-line businessman, who is going to help us build VisionForce like dynamite.  When we talked, I asked if he could help the people on my list too.  He said, “Yes!”  Interested?  Click here.

We need your advice.

If you’ve been following VisionForce for long, you know we’re asking some pretty radical questions that are throwing all previous “common sense” out the window. One big question we asked is how can we get the most powerful tools in the hands of those most ready for it–for as close to free as possible–and now!? In other words, we don’t want money to be a barrier to change agents and visionaries around the world having access to everything we can offer them.

That has led us to start creating free on-line courses, removing the fee from our membership area (and a ton of things we’ve not revealed yet. Now, if we’re going to do so much for free, how are we going to continue to exist? Money is the blood of the VisionForce organism. We need it to not just survive, but to grow massively.

So, we’ve been thinking, “Well, we’ll train people for free in as many ways as we can, and those who want to pay for a physical product or attend a high-level live training can pay us.” So, recently we removed the discount from our new physical home study program, Visionary Mind, and listed it at the regular price of $297. And we feel good about this, because it is such an extensive, valuable program. But, we’re left with this question:

Does this create a barrier for many people? Yes. It does. In the future we’ll have other physical products that we can let go for a lot less–books, for example. But right now, we think we need to just get it in the hands of as many people as possible. How can we do that? Well, maybe lowering the price–radically–could be a way. That’s just a hypothesis, though. Lower prices don’t always translate to more sales.

One business approach to pricing would be to tally the costs and add enough for a profit. Another approach would be to charge as much as the market will bear–based on the products’ perceived value and how much we can increase that perception of value. We’re asking a different question. What does the price need to be to have you “own” VisionForce as something you eagerly share with others and something you also invest in financially with your pocket book?

If the price were a lot lower, would you buy (if you haven’t already)? What would that price have to be? Would you buy for your friends or family? For your teenage son or daughter (oh, watch out if you do this though)?

We need cash to spread VisionForce throughout the world. Will lowering the price impact *your* decisions to help us–to spread the word, to buy, etc.? And what should the price be?

Please post your comments below. Thank you.