Conscious Growth Club FAQ

There isn't a monthly option. The minimum membership for CGC is a year.

Having annual memberships ensures a high commitment level among the members, and it helps create a stable group throughout the year.

Sure, here's a walkthrough video recorded in 2019. Since then we've added even more to CGC, but it will give you a good idea of what some of the member areas look like.

There isn’t a payment plan. We tested one when CGC first opened in 2017, and I learned the hard way that I don’t want to be anyone’s creditor.

Offering a payment plan did attract more members who might not have otherwise joined, but unfortunately it didn’t work out well enough to make me want to continue offering it, so I’ve decided not to offer a payment plan going forward.

The payment plan added more complexity and distraction, which I disliked and would rather not deal with anymore. Some members overstretched themselves financially and didn’t complete their payments, and they had to be dropped from the group. Sometimes people wanted to put their payments on pause. Other times people decided they could just quit after a month or two, trying to treat it like a monthly pay-as-you-go plan, despite the fact that they’d agreed to commit to the full year.

The actual experience of offering a payment plan was disappointing, even though it did result in a net gain from a numbers standpoint, including some people who’ve been excellent members. Alignment matters more to me though, and offering a payment plan ran contrary to that purpose.

Most members chose to pay in full anyway, so the payment plan wasn’t as popular. I fully expect that if we offered a payment plan, we’d attract more members, perhaps as much as 20% more. But to me it’s just not worth all the problems and distractions it creates.

It’s not as good for the community to have some members dropping out along the way for payment-related reasons. When other members invest in you and then you drop out, it's a letdown for the community.

It feels more aligned to get everyone’s payments handled up front as they join. Then everyone inside knows they’re fully paid up for the year, and we can be fully present with investing in each other for the year. Then no one has to wonder who might drop out along the way because they couldn’t or wouldn’t honor the payment plan.

I especially disliked having to drop someone from the group because they didn’t complete their payments. It would be unfair to other members to keep them in the group though.

If people want to finance their memberships some other way, that’s up to them. I no longer wish to be involved in extending credit though. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I’m glad that we at least tested it, but I like the dynamic a lot better without it. I think it yields a healthier community inside. And people can always save up and join in a future year if they so desire.

There's a lot of variety amongst CGC members, so it's hard to sum up what everyone is like. Frequently shared commonalities include: caring, playfulness, sincerity, ambition, and a desire to learn and grow. If these commonalities resonate with you, I think it's likely you'll get along rather well (and perhaps even make some new best friends).

Most members are in their 20s, 30s, or 40s, but we've had adults of all different ages inside.

The age span within CGC has served to strengthen the sense of community while offering a greater range of perspectives and experience.

CGC members can seek out other members to act as accountability partners. Sometimes small accountability groups or masterminds are set up as well. Additionally, you can start a Progress & Accountability log in the forums to formally document your progress. Making your progress visible can help keep you accountable.

CGC is internationally diverse.

Most of our members are from North America and Europe, but every year we have members from many other countries around the world. Since CGC began in 2017, we've had members from every continent except Antarctica.

Some members have moved to different countries since they first joined CGC. Some have been learning different languages. Some have been nomads, moving around frequently.

Many people in CGC have met up with other members in person while traveling.

A nice CGC benefit is that it can help you become more globally aware. You can learn many interesting details about what it's like to be a growth-oriented person elsewhere in the world. If anything this raises the level of compassion we have for each other.

In CGC there's a mix of those who are single, those who are married or in long-term relationships, and those who have families.

There have been discussions on parenting, dating, and long-term relationships in the CGC member forums.

As long as you can communicate to some degree in English, you'll be able to connect with others in CGC.

CGC has many members who speak English as a secondary language, and they are still very active and well-integrated into the community.

You can even lean on the CGC community to help you improve your English skills, such as by practicing with other members in the video Lounge.

While some members in CGC identify as having social anxiety, we do our best to create a culture of psychological safety, caring, and support. It's a team effort to help each other get results.

Members can decide what level of engagement they desire – nothing is forced. For instance, some members like to watch the coaching calls but not actively participate in being coached themselves, which is totally fine. Each member is free to decide when to stretch themselves and when not to.

We have 7 core values, and each one is a verb because we want to live these values, not just think about them.

The first value is ALIGN. We want to help you close the gap between what you want and what you’re actually experiencing in life. Bring your results into alignment with your desires. This means helping you correct misaligned areas that are keeping you stuck. It means helping you get the pieces of your life working together well, so you’re happy with the direction your life is heading.

When people first join CGC, major misalignments are common. Sometimes people haven’t even identified them yet. But when you see other members releasing or changing parts of their life that just aren’t working for them, and you see how relieved they are to finally let go of something that’s been holding them back, it will make you take a hard look at your own life too.

Our second core value is EMPOWER, which is to help you become a stronger and more capable human being. Get stronger mentally and emotionally. Think bigger. Upgrade your habits. Increase your level of abundance and resourcefulness. We want to help you feel centered and confident and enjoy high self-esteem, so you can believe in yourself and believe in your goals and your dreams.

We’re not here to tear you down. We help each other train up together. We’re all striving to become stronger human beings. We invest in each other's wellbeing and prosperity. We’re each other's coaches and cheerleaders too.

Our third value is EXPLORE. In CGC we learn by doing. We don’t just talk about ideas. We test them. We take a lot of action.

Our members frequently share resources and interesting opportunities with each other in the forums. You’ll see invitations to have certain growth experiences together. That’s a really nice part of our culture.

Sometimes CGC works like a central hub where you’ll learn about other interesting self-development resources and experiences that may benefit you. We also help steer each other away from the bad apples.

Our fourth value is CARE. CGC is a club of smart, conscious people who care. There's a lot of kindness, empathy, camaraderie, and friendship in the group.

We welcome all ages, genders, sexual orientations, skin colors, levels of wealth, and people from different career backgrounds. We have members from around the world. It’s fine if English isn’t your first language. There are many multilingual members. There tends not to be much debate about our differences. People usually don’t want to bother with that in a paid community because they want their money’s worth, and arguing opinions doesn’t really help them move forward in life.

We do our best to create a culture of psychological safety. We're not into shaming each other or beating each other up. It's not that kind of community. It's a team effort to help each other get results.

Our fifth value is PLAY. Think about the Avengers movies, where they have a team that pursues these epic goals, but they do it with a playful attitude. They crack jokes along the way. That's similar to how we approach personal growth in CGC. Fun and laughter is a big part of the group.

Laughter is a good pressure release valve. Being able to laugh even in the dark times, knowing that you're going to be okay, that’s really helpful. It’s good for keeping your vibe up.

I’ll crack jokes on the coaching calls now and then. Sometimes people will be making jokes in the chat logs during the calls. I even like to encourage that because it makes the calls more fun and engaging.

Overall I’m impressed with how well our members balance seriousness and playfulness. I think that’s an aspect of our culture that works really well. So if you’re a playful person, I think you’ll really like CGC’s culture.

Our sixth value is HONOR. This is about honoring your best self and building a stronger character. It’s also about creating a high-trust group inside. We’re all students of personal growth, so let us get to know you. Try to leave your masks behind. There's no need to try to impress anybody.

We all need a space where we can truly honor who we are and who we’re becoming, away from the world of critics. CGC is a space where the real you finally gets to come out and play.

After you’ve been a member for a while, you might notice that the person you’re becoming inside the club feels a lot better to you than the person you’ve been presenting to the outside world. I think you’ll find a lot of authenticity in the people inside.

Our seventh value is CREATE, which is about nurturing your creative brilliance, helping you build up your creative skills. We want to help you hit your creative stride, so you can express yourself more fully.

We co-create Conscious Growth Club together, so it's always evolving.

For example, some writers in the club got together and formed a writers mastermind group that’s been having regular calls together. They help and encourage each other to advance their writing projects. And we encourage members to do this sort of thing. We want to keep discovering new ways to use the resources of the group to help you.

So our values are helping you align, empowering you, exploring together, caring for each other, playing and having fun, honoring our best selves, and creating some kickass ripples in this reality.

Do you like these values? If you do, you’ll probably like being a member.

You certainly don't have to be extroverted to make use of many of the resources CGC has to offer. That said, the process of making friends usually involves some degree of reaching out to connect. As CGC is a very friendly and supportive group though, you may find the process of making friends within CGC to be a lot easier compared to making friends elsewhere.

While it's helpful to know what you want, it isn't necessary for joining CGC. Inside the group you'll get access to the Stature course on character sculpting, which can help you clarify who you'd like to become. You'll also be invited to partake in our 5-step quarterly planning process four times each year, which will help you define your goals 90 days at a time.

Helping you get clear about what you want to accomplish and experience is a big part of CGC.

As much as you want. Some members are active in the group every day while others check in less frequently.

CGC has a flexible structure, and nothing is mandatory. How much time you invest in the group depends on what you want to accomplish and experience.

Nothing in CGC is mandatory, so it’s very flexible. Consequently, members have a variety of engagement patterns with the group.

Some members love total immersion style and go all-in for a massive year of growth by being super active in the group. They engage in the forums pretty much every day. They attend most of the coaching calls. If you like that approach, go for it. Get your money’s worth. Let CGC be your personal growth playground for a year. Your family probably won't recognize you afterwards.

Other members prefer to more casual style of engagement. They occasionally check the forums, do a quarterly planning session now and then, sometimes hop on a coaching call, do some lessons from the courses at their own pacing, and engage with the group when they want help with something. That's totally fine too.

Still other members adopt an infrequent engagement style that works for them. Some enjoy enough financial abundance that they don't need a lot from their membership to feel happy with the results. They have enough leverage such that a few good ideas and improvements throughout the year can easily justify renewing each year. We have members that barely seem active in the group at all and keep renewing. And they must choose to do that each year because a CGC membership doesn't auto-renew.

One last approach is to use CGC more like an insurance policy. It's good to know that a supportive community is always there for you when you need it, even if you don't expect to be very active. If you ever run into a serious challenge and want help quickly, the community is there for you. You could also hop on the next coaching call and get some thoughtful guidance to help you find the most empowering perspectives.

While many members love to be very socially engaged in CGC, not every member wants that kind of experience. So if you prefer to experience CGC in a more solo style and hang back from the social aspects, you can do that. Maybe you’re not an online community type of person – not everyone is. Or maybe you want more time to warm up to this type of experience because you're not used to it. That's totally fine. You can still read the forums. You can watch other people get coaching on the coaching calls. You can go through the courses on your own. You can do the Quarterly Planning Sessions and the monthly challenges privately. And you’ll get the club emails too. We're not going to drag you into the social aspects if you prefer to have a more private experience. So this is a totally acceptable way to go through your CGC year as well.

So you have lots of flexibility in how you engage with the club and how you use its resources. You can even change up your approach throughout the year. Some members do that. You have a whole year, so some months you may choose to be more active and engaged, and other months you may want to focus on other parts of life.

As long as you're interested in personal growth, you're welcome to join. Your starting point doesn't matter.

You can always contribute to others by sharing encouragement and emotional support, which many members appreciate.

You may be surprised by just how much you know that's valuable to others though. Trust yourself.

First, it challenges people to make up their minds. Are you in or out? It's good for CGC to attract members who can make up their minds and commit themselves when they see something they like. This helps create a more action-oriented culture inside.

Second, it gives us the opportunity to welcome the new members each year in a relatively short span of time, including a group welcome call. Then we can invest the rest of the year helping and supporting each other and fulfilling CGC's purpose.

Third, it gets the money situation handled up front, so no one has to deal with any further transactions throughout the year.

Fourth, it makes each year of CGC a unique experience. Every year some members renew, some leave, and new members join. So each year is a different adventure with a different group.

If you're retired from a career path, that's totally fine. Please do join us.

If you're retired from personal growth, however, then you shouldn't join because we do work on many aspects of personal growth, so it's important that our members are interested in taking action to continue learning and growing. It's a club of lifelong learners and explorers.

We are very welcoming of the LGBTQ community, with various members identifying as LGBTQ themselves. Discrimination based on sex, race, gender, orientation or identification is not tolerated within CGC. Mutual respect amongst all CGC members is a must.

It's not a problem for the community if it's not a problem for you. You're welcome to join us.

CGC members are pretty good at using meaningful titles for discussion threads, so if a topic doesn't interest you, you don't have to open it. You can also mute topics that don't appeal to you, so they won't even show up on your updates list if people keep posting to them.

Members are free to discuss what they like, as long as they stay civil and follow the community rules. Sexuality (including kinky sex) is a valid topic, but so far those types of discussions have been rare. Just be aware that they're allowed though since sexuality is an aspect of personal growth for many people.

On a coaching call, if some member wanted to discuss an issue that you'd rather not hear about, it's easy to mute the discussion till the next member comes on (or simply skip ahead if you're watching the recording).

People who can't afford the fee won't join, so they won't become CGC members.

If that's a real issue, then it may be better to start with the Deep Abundance Integration course.

Additionally, some people treat the affordability issue as a personal challenge. It creates a conflict between their desire to participate in a personally meaningful experience and their current self-image that’s still keeping them stuck in some ways. Such inner conflicts are common in life, and they actually help us grow – if we allow ourselves to accept them as invitations instead of rejecting them as punishments or taunts.

There are active members of Conscious Growth Club who found it challenging to afford their membership, and they decided to see if they could make it happen anyway. For some people there can be a personal growth journey just to join such a group. This often involves some reframes about what’s personally possible. For some people it was a big stretch experience to attend one or more of our previous live workshops as well. Just getting to the event can feel like a major accomplishment.

The price was co-decided with the first group of people who were interested in the idea of CGC in early 2017.

Some people actually wanted it to be higher to create a more exclusive club while others wanted it to be lower to make it bigger and more accessible.

The current price has been the same since 2017 and has worked well, ensuring a healthy-sized group of dozens of members each year.

Lots of people prefer in-person interaction, which definitely has its advantages.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. You can do both. CGC isn't a replacement for your in-person social life. Think of it as a very useful supplement for that.

The question is: Is your in-person social circle growth-oriented enough for you? Do you have an accessible social network of dozens of good friends who encourage and support you in pursuing your desired goals and experiences?

Most people (including most CGCers) don't have that strong of an in-person social network. And it might take them years to build one if they tried. Some would have to move cities to make that realistic for them. CGC can do a pretty good job of filling this unmet need.

An online group has some key advantages too. We can gather committed, growth-oriented people into one community from all around the world. The group is available 24/7. You can access all of it from any modern Internet device – computer, smartphone, tablet, etc. If you move cities, you can still keep the same online friends and keep learning and growing with them.

Every month in CGC, we host a group 30-day challenge. Members can choose which challenges they want to do, and we share updates as we go through each challenge together.

Some challenges are to improve our habits or to test new habits. Other challenges are more exploration-based. Some are just for the experience.

Each challenge allows for plenty of customization, so members can adapt any challenge to fit their situations. One month we did a daily exercise challenge, and members decided whether to walk, run, bike, do yoga, weight train, etc. Another month we did a self-expression challenge, and members chose how and what they wanted to express each day; some did daily blogging, for instance.

Here are the themes of monthly challenges that we did during one CGC year:

• Exercise daily
• Overcome procrastination
• Build momentum
• Practice mindfulness and gratitude
• Explore a curiosity
• Optimize your sleep habits
• Shift your vibration
• Declutter your space
• Express yourself
• Be a good friend
• Fuel your body / strengthen your immune system
• Structure your time

For each type of challenge, we provide some specific examples. Here are some examples we provided for the “Optimize your sleep habits” challenge:

• Get out of bed by a specific time each day
• Get into bed by a specific time each day
• Go 100% stimulant-free (no caffeine, chocolate, etc)
• Keep your phone out of the bedroom for the whole month
• Take a 20-min nap each day
• Use a sleep mask for 30 days
• Turn off WiFi at night
• Sleep in a room with no active electronic devices
• Get into bed by a certain time and read till sleepy
• Avoid using anything with a display screen (TV, computer, phone) after a certain time each day
• Test a 28-hour sleep-wake cycle
• Keep a dream journal and log your dreams upon waking
• Practice lucid dreaming each night
• Sleep naked
• Sleep without a pillow or with a different pillow
• Fall asleep cuddling someone

These challenges are… well, challenging. They help to build self-discipline and determination. Each one requires a small habit change for 30 days, so there’s a training effect when we do them. They strengthen our adaptability and flexibility as we practice incorporating small, positive changes into our lives.

We don’t map out 12 months of challenges for each CGC year in advance since that would be too rigid. Instead we prefer to select each challenge on a month-by-month basis. We look at what’s arising in the community and develop a sense of where the momentum is and where the group energy wants to flow next. This has been working well. Many members find that the monthly challenges are nicely aligned with their personal goals.

Growing as a human being requires change, and change is difficult. These monthly challenges help us practice the art of change. At the start of each month, there’s a new invitation to change or improve some aspect of our lives for the next 30 days.

Members don’t do every single challenge. They selectively choose the ones that feel aligned to them.

The number of members will be different each year, but each year so far, we've landed in the range of 88 to 150. So it would be reasonable to expect around 100 members.

Yes, there are many vegan CGC members and members learning in that direction because my work attracts a lot of vegans and future vegans. Many people in my online audience have also gone vegan after reading some of my articles on the topic, such as How to Be Vegan.

CGC isn't a vegan-only community, but it is a vegan-friendly community managed by long-term vegans.

Yes, many members do have a strong interest in spirituality and the spiritual aspects of self-development. We've had plenty of discussions about the nature of reality and the Law of Attraction as well.

Spiritual curiosity seems to be common among CGC members. Mainstream religion doesn't seem to be very prevalent in the group though.

There are some interesting discussions about plant medicines and the spiritual insights people have gained from such experiences.

Some members do spiritual work for a living while others have expressed interest in leaning more in that direction.

Spirituality is just one of many subjects discussed in CGC though, so it's certainly not the only area of interest to our members.

Transformation is free. A membership in Conscious Growth Club is not.

If we offered something similar in design and made it free, and we invited people to join for free, it might still be interesting, but it wouldn’t be Conscious Growth Club.

Conscious Growth Club is a paid program, and delivering it in this form has many advantages. The investments people make help to ensure that the group has ample resources, making it more sustainable. This also makes it easy to invest in its ongoing development. Having a price to join attracts more committed, ambitious, and action-oriented people than a free community would. It keeps the group more manageable in size, so we can give members more personal attention, such as the many hours spent coaching people on our coaching calls. This also creates a sense of accountability among members to do their part to get their money’s worth from their memberships.

From 2006 to 2011, we ran free public forums for 5 years (at a loss to provide the service). More than 50K people created accounts, and there were more than a million posts. That experience ran its course for me.

In free circles, people mostly talk about personal growth. They discuss and debate quite a bit. They usually hesitate when it comes to bold action though.

Our free forums were quite possibly the best of their kind anywhere. We had a good run, but that ship has already sailed.

Give this some thought: Would you rather participate in a free community with 50,000 members, where no one has invested a dime to be there? Or would you rather participate in a paid community with dozens of members, knowing that they all invested to get access? That isn’t a trick question, and there’s no single answer that’s right for everyone. It’s simply a question of what’s right for you, right now.

Free is a good start for many people. I also benefitted from other people’s free content and free communities when I first began on this path. But eventually I saw that I benefitted more when I paid money and had some skin in the game. The risk motivated me to take more action. And paid communities tend to have very different dynamics inside than free ones.

When someone pays $2K to be part of a group with other people making a similar commitment, it raises the accountability bar for everyone. Free doesn’t provide much accountability to take action and get results. No one needs a result when they aren’t invested. If people aren’t getting results but there was no significant risk to them anyway, people are frequently okay with that. They just move on to something else that’s also free. In the long run though, this approach is limiting. It can feel pretty circular after a while.

It would be wonderful if people would routinely make powerful progress just the same when they pay nothing, but that usually isn’t the case. We frequently need some risk to drive us. We’ll often do more to avoid losing than we will to accomplish something risk-free.

Having some risk isn’t a bad thing. Risk can be stimulating and motivating. It’s what drives many entrepreneurs.

When you invest financially, you feel that pressure to act. You sense the risk if you don’t do your part. And that works well for a lot of people, including me. It gets us taking action and testing ideas, and from that we eventually get some meaningful results.

I’ve invested a lot to make Conscious Growth Club a reality. It was a risk to attempt to create such a group. It required a lot of nurturing, careful decision-making, and co-creative solutions. It hasn’t been an easy project, and I never expected it to be. I feel very good about what we’ve built thus far and how it will continue to evolve.

People don’t have to pay for transformation, so if anyone prefers to remain in the free space, that’s totally fine.

If you think of CGC as a song that plays out over the course of a year, the rhythm of it is easier to understand.

On any given day, you might check on the latest activity in the forums and see what your friends are up to. And you could do a course lesson or two if you feel like it.

Over the course of a week, you’ll usually get one email, which will highlight some forum topics you may find worthwhile and remind you about the next coaching call. You might update your progress log once a week too. And if you’re really active, you might have an online meeting with a subgroup like a mastermind group. You could also chat with other members in the CGC Lounge.

Over the course of a month, there might be a monthly challenge you want to join. So that would be part of your daily rhythm too if you’re doing a challenge that month.

Then once every three months, we have our quarterly planning session, which involves getting clear about your goals for the next 90 days. It’s an important check-in with yourself. Lots of members share their goals with each other during this time, so it's great opportunity to see what everyone is up to and what progress they've been making.

Then once a year, we’ll create and release a major new deep dive course. If the timing is good for you, you can do the lessons as we publish them. Or you can do them whenever you have time.

Also once a year (new for 2021), we'll have a 3-day online workshop that all members are invited to attend. This will surely amp up the energy in the club.

And then finally, once a year you’ll be invited to renew your membership. You can be a member for just a year if you want to have a very growth-oriented year, but we’d certainly love for you to continue beyond that and be a long-term member of the club, so you can compound your gains.

When you join CGC, you can start right away.

Click the button to join, go through the payment process, and then you’ll see a welcome page with instructions on how to get started. From there you can follow the links to our main web portal. That’s where you’ll find the courses, the coaching call recordings, and all the bonus material. Those instructions will also be emailed to you, along with your login info. So it’s pretty straightforward.

The second piece to this is that we’ll also email you an invitation to join our private discussion forum. The forum is on a separate website. So please give us a little extra time to send that you that forum invitation. Usually you’ll get that within a few hours. For many people we’ll get that it out within an hour after they sign up.

Now once you’re in the forums, you’ll be able to start posting immediately and having discussions with people. That’s the main area where our members connect – many of them are active there every day because there’s activity every day. So there’s always something to engage with when you want to.

Now once you introduce yourself and say hi to people in the forums, you can expect to get a LOT of welcome messages. When new members join, there’s this fresh excitement in the group. You’re part of the club now, and people will want to welcome you. So you’re going to see right away that it’s a very friendly community. And I think you’ll find that very reassuring that you made a good choice. My advice to you: Don’t worry about trying to break the ice with people. Try to put yourself in the mindset that there is no ice, and I think that will serve you well.

Now additionally, during your first week or two, we’ll also have a group orientation video call together. Think of me as your tour guide, and I’ll give you a tour of the many features of the club, so you can understand how to use them right away.

During that call we may also invite some long-term members to share some tips and advice for getting the most out of your membership, especially during your first year. It’s a chance for other members to pass on their wisdom. And we can also do some Q&A, so if you have questions about how to get started, we can help you with that too.

This orientation call will be recorded, so you don’t have to attend it live. We’ll add the recording to the member portal as soon as it’s ready.

After the orientation call, there will be an email sequence. You'll get one email a day for several days in a row to help you understand some of the finer details of CGC's features and resources.

We want to give you a nice smooth runway into the group, so you can gradually warm up to the experience. I think this will also help reassure you that you made a good choice.

If you ever need tech support or help with anything, there’s a support form in the member portal that you can use, or you can send me or Rachelle a private message through the forums, or you can use the contact form on my public website, or you can just reply to any email from me. It’s easy to contact us.