A Turning Point

Posted by Michael Skye on Aug 10, 2006 in Michael's Journal

As you may have noticed, VisionForce.com is evolving in some major ways. Along with Vision Force’s evolution comes my own.

Starting with this blog post, I am going to be chronicaling the intimate details of my personal thoughts, insights and experiences in the creation of VisionForce and our mission to evolve humanity and the world we live in.

Here’s the email I sent to Vision Force Newsletter subscribers today :

It was August of 1996.

Exactly 10 years ago.

The seeds of what is now VisionForce were planted,
and the missing piece of the puzzle for my model
of human consciousness snapped into place.

But this was when the real struggle began for me. It
continues to this day, and right now, it seems as
if it is just months away from being over.

I believe the concepts and methods we work with
in our boot camps and other programs can literally
change the world–evolve humanity beyond this point.

I sensed it 10 years ago, and I’ve been struggling
ever since to bring these ideas to the world.

If you’ve ever had a long shot dream,
a far out idea that you knew could change the world,
or a vision that you felt compelled to devote your
life to, then I think you’ll be able to relate.

I want to start opening up to you, sharing much more
of my personal journey, as you’re likely someone who
can relate (or you wouldn’t be on my list).

==August 1996==

I was reading an obscure book from a brilliant theorist who
studied the history of psychology. His book was explaining
his radical theory on the development of human consciousness,
but…

It was something else in his book that hit me… and
all the pieces started coming together.

Human behavior–especially irrational human behavior–
had long perplexed me. I just didn’t get, from the time
I was a teenager, why intelligent adults acted as
irrationally as they so often did.

So when I found ideas that exposed such irrationality
and offered practical ideas and methods for understanding
it at a deeper level and evolving beyond it, I delved
into them.

In this particular book, the author presented a model of
human consciousness that when integrated into my other
ideas and conceptual models of consciousness, just clicked.

Everything came together for me at that point and I
saw a vision for how I could help humanity evolve
forward beyond the gross irrationality and destruction
we see today.

In the years to come, I developed the “Wealth Warrior”
concepts and technology. To me, wealth meant an abundance
of values, and a warrior was someone who stood for
their values from a place of ultimate responsibility.

In 1997, I set out to take my concepts and methods to
the world. What I lacked, however, was the business
experience to make it successful.

That year, I quite the landscaping business I’d had while
doing my research, and went for broke. I borrowed
from everyone I could. In less than 12 months I was
so deep in the hole that everyone advised me to
declare bankruptcy.

I refused. I did throw in the towel on the business
venture, and I started another business–again a
landscaping business–determined this time to hone
my business skills and build up enough financial
resources to be a success the next time around.

I’d lost the trust of family, friends and business
associates from the failure to succeed with the
Wealth Warrior concepts in 1997. It was one of the
most difficult periods of my life. The people who
had so trusted me and believed in me, turned away.

4.5 long, hard years later, I was ready to give it
another go.

In November 2002, I held my first ever “boot camp,”
a “Wealth Warrior Boot Camp.” It was the first time
I’d taken my human development concepts and methods
public.

I didn’t know if it would be a success or not. I
had simply promised everyone who attended that they
would get more value that what they paid, if they
simply gave me one weekend.

It was a huge success. I was without self-consciousness,
and just “showed up” as exactly who I needed to be. It
was the most amazing experience for me–I was powerful
in a way I’d never known myself before.

That weekend 12 people I’d not known before left with
their lives changed, most calling that weekend the most
powerful experience of their life.

That was it for me. I knew I had to go for it this time.

Did I have enough business experience yet? Did I have
the financial resources in place to make it happen?
Would I fail again–harder this time?

I went for it.

That was nearly 4 years ago now. Over these last 4
years, I’ve faced just about every obstacle you can
imagine.

We’re still struggling to find the best way to
communicate what our work offers people, and what
the best way to get the word out is.

Just last week I had a huge insight. When we first
started under the Wealth Warrior, not Vision Force,
model, most people assumed we dealt with financial
wealth.

And while it was true that many of our boot camp
graduates experienced huge financial successes with
their businesses afterwards, we didn’t teach people
anything about money.

It was all about their conscious framework–their
relationship to their values. That’s what made the
difference. All we did was use some simple exercises
and methods for thinking and communicating that got
people so deeply connected with their values (with
themselves) that everything else clicked into place.

Nevertheless, we were largely marketing to entrepreneurs
for the first few years, and so I tried to maintain
an image of a very financially successful enterprise.

When the truth was, I was living the garage entrepreneur
lifestyle, just fighting to do whatever I could to make
the business model work. Because I believe it’s by having a
successful organization that we were going to be able
to reach millions in a way that makes a difference.

The point I am getting to is that
it has been a struggle, and I still haven’t “figured it
all out.” I really don’t know what the best methods are to
share the powerful concepts and methods we’ve discovered.

I want to do it in such a way that everyone around the
world who wants to “be the change” can have access to
the most powerful tools for evolving themselves, for
keeping their vision alive and for standing in the face of
any inner challenges to make it happen.

These aren’t get right methods or self-help ideas. It’s
something much deeper, much larger, and I believe truly
revolutionary… a revolutionary advancement in human
consciousness.

This is what I like to call “visionary and revolutionary
training.”

It is my personal vision and my deep connection to
my values and my purpose that gives me the strength to
continue on, and to evolve, in the face of all the
challenges that arise.

That is what we offer. It’s the power to love (or become
deeply connected to what you value), the power to see
a vision that calls you from deep within, and the power
to stand–to stand–in the face of all adversity. That’s
it in a nutshell. Personally, I am unaware of more powerful
human development work that offers this.

So, I just wanted to invite you into my world. I don’t
want to pretend anymore that we’re anything we’re not.

I don’t want an illusion maintained that keeps you at a
distance, thinking there’s not much you can contribute
to this effort, when the truth is, this effort depends on
you.

We’re all in this together, so I want you to know that
there are plenty of ways we can work together to evolve
humanity and change the world.

I invite you to share this journey with me, one visionary
to another, as we here at VisionForce venture to make
this world a better place.

I’ll be journalling about my journey on our VisionForce
blog, here:

==> http://visionforce.com/

The VisionForce concepts and methods give a person with
new ideas the power to be true to his or her vision in
the face of all adversity. There is no amount of pain,
lack of sleep, fear, doubt, humiliation or anything else
that can keep me or anyone here at VisionForce from
continuing on with our vision.

I thank you for being someone who has trusted me, and us
here at VisionForce, over the years. Your one of thousands
on our email list, and I may not know you personally, and
still, you mean a lot to me.

Thank you again for your trust, your love and your support.

Michael
VisionForce.com

P.S. Your comments on our VisionForce blog are most
welcome. You’ve probably noticed a lot has been changing
over the last 6 months with VisionForce, and we can really
use your feedback as we go forward.