FAQ

Thoughtware is what you use to think with. It is not the content that you think about such as: what will I do next, how much do the others like me, or what to make for dinner. Thoughtware is built out of memes, and creates a specific context out of which our actions and interactions emerge. For example, the thoughtware of public school generates a context where it is understood that: “The teacher is forced to follow the rules set by the administration. There are set hours and a set curriculum for learning with graded tests. If you get the best grades you will get the best jobs.” The thoughtware of free school generates a context where a different understanding emerges: “The hours and curriculum for learning are set by the student’s interest. The test is if the student activates their potential and experiences inspiration through delivering their gifts to the world.”

What does it mean to upgrade your thoughtware?

People usually adopt a majority of their thoughtware directly from their parents before they go to school. But what rule says that the thoughtware you adopt as a baby is the optimum thoughtware for you to be using in your adult life? This would be as silly as saying, “Since I first learned to use VolksWriter on my IBM PC that is the program I will use forever.” Just because you are currently using certain thoughtware does not mean that is the most effective thoughtware you could be using. It is straightforward to upgrade your thoughtware. The process involves identifying the thoughtware you currently use, thoroughly seeing its consequences, understanding how alternative thoughtware would function, and deciding which thoughtware you want to use. While switching from one thoughtware to another there may be periods during which time the old thoughtware is disassembling but the new thoughtware is not yet up to speed. This transition time may be experienced as a liquid state.

Why are people afraid of upgrading their thoughtware?

Perhaps it is not that people are afraid of upgrading their thoughtware so much as they are afraid of the unconscious experience of fear. Being afraid of fear is a conditioned response from modern culture. Initiated adults regard their fear as a valuable amplifier for insights and attentiveness. Fear naturally accompanies any internal or external change because we don’t know what will come next and we don’t know if we are prepared to survive in the new circumstances. Conscious fear tells us what to prepare for and what to take care of in the change process. Sadness also naturally accompanies change because we need to let go of and grieve the old familiar ways in order to replace them with new ideas, attitudes and behaviors. Anger accompanies change when old habits persist and we have not yet achieved competence in the new ways. And joy also accompanies change with raw pleasure at new experience and expanded playing fields.

The term “radical” is intended to mean without compromise, far-reaching or thorough. We could also call it absolute responsibility. The result of taking radical responsibility is that there is no one else to blame. Excuses no longer suffice. You take radical responsibility by placing yourself in an energetic position with the universe where you declare: “No matter what happens, no matter what is, I am responsible.” Clearly, you abandon the concepts of “fairness” and “security” when you claim radical responsibility because being absolutely responsible is neither fair nor secure. The radically responsible perspective says: What is, is. There is no such thing as a problem (because “there is a problem” is a story that you or somebody else made up). Irresponsibility is an illusion. It is impossible to be a victim. A significant level of initiated maturity is required before you can claim radical responsibility and have the universe believe you. But if you do manage to take radical responsibility the universe suddenly starts working in interesting new ways. Possibility Management begins when you take radical responsibility for creating your Box.

A gameworld is a dynamic environment created by two or more people agreeing to relate according to an internally consistent story. Gameworlds can range from temporary and of minor consequence to longer lasting and of major consequence. Examples of gameworlds include let’s go up the elevator, let’s have a party, let’s have a relationship, let’s have a family, let’s have a company, let’s have a town, let’s have a country, let’s have a religion, let’s have a war, and so on. Gameworlds can be responsible or irresponsible, depending on their purpose and their results. Gameworlds become defensive if their stories are believed to be true or are kept invisible to the participants, in which case the participants are said to be identified with their gameworld. Even if a gameworld is considered to be the “one and only true reality” by a majority of its players, it is still a gameworld. Gameworlds founded in beliefs build false community and survive through competing for limited resources through war. Gameworlds founded in Bright Principles and responsible results build authentic community and thrive on creative collaboration to source the resources. Taking responsibility at the level of being the story maker for gameworlds is the entry door to Possibility Management. Responsible gameworlds tend to be more galaxical than hierarchical in design. In a galaxical gameworld the source people are found serving as its center.

One of the best ways to explain the term “Training” is through comparing Training to Education. Whereas Education provides already known ideas, concepts and content to think about, Training provides thoughtware to think with so as to discover or invent what is not yet known. Both Education and Training are needed to support the full development of human intelligence; however, Training is an essential element in successful adulthood initiations. Why the capital “T” in Training? To distinguish initiatory and transformational Training spaces and processes from other sorts of training such as new job preparation, sports and fitness training, or animal behavior training.

Initiation is a transformational experience that expands your capacity to be responsible. Responsibility is consciousness in action. You can also say: Responsibility is applied consciousness. During our 40 years of research, development, and delivery of Possibility Management we have discovered two astonishing relationships between initiation and authentic adulthood.

1. Human beings do not become adults through getting older. Human beings become adults through formidable adulthood initiatory processes delivered by already-initiated adults.
2. Initiation into authentic adulthood is not a one-time ritual but rather a lifelong series of step-by-step expansions of awareness, capability, and responsibility.

We have practical proof that human beings can connect into far more powerful internal and external intelligence and energy resources than modern education has ever led us to believe. We are so happy to discover this because it makes life more surprising and dynamic than surfing Facebook.

Here is a video list of 150 initiatory processes.

The Box is the term that assembles ego, belief system, worldview, mindset, comfort zone, psychology, personality, defense strategy, and identity into one easy-to-engineer construct.

The field of Box Technology explains how we each build a unique Box for ourselves out of stories, habits, interpretations, meanings, assumptions, attitudes, prejudices, customs, conclusions, beliefs, rules, and other thoughtware, with the overall purpose of assuring our own survival. The Box filters everything we can perceive and everything we can express.

The Box is meant to be transcended during our late teens and early twenties like butterflies escape from their cocoon, but making the Box optional requires formidable and authentic adulthood initiatory processes. The patriarchal empire eliminated initiations long ago, probably because initiations identify psychopathic personality traits. The result is that persons holding leadership roles in modern culture’s hierarchies are uninitiated, operating from within defensive-purpose Boxes that must be right and win or else they feel life-threatened. The result, of course, is interpersonal, intergender, intercultural, and intergovernmental war.

The Thoughtmap of Box Technology turns out to be one of the most powerful tools from Possibility Management, explaining the relationship between the Box, the Being, and what might actually be possible right now.

The fulcrum of initiation work is the liquid state. The liquid state is the in-between stage where you are not yet where you want to be, and not anymore where you were before. It is a condition that modern culture likes to treat medically, avoid, or not even allow. That’s because the value of this condition is usually not recognized, let alone acknowledged, utilized, or even intended. Instead the common attempt is to avoid the liquid state. The established strategies range from distraction through extreme sports or games to drinking alcohol to consuming pills for mental regulation.

You can compare the liquid state with the situation of a pupated larva before the butterfly hatches. After its transformation the larva no longer hatches as a larva. A completely new form emerges with new functionalities and new possibilities. The in-between state is when structural components can move around and establish new relationships with each other.

This transformation process would naturally occur at an age between 15 and 18 when a human being is structurally capable to take 100% responsibility and to feel and navigate 100% intense feelings. But since this is not a natural part of modern culture we start in the safe space of a training exactly where you are.

During authentic adulthood initiatory processes human beings experience liquid states in one or more of our four bodies: physical, intellectual, emotional, and energetic. A liquid state does not guarantee a change. However, if there is no liquid state how could anything shift around? Learning the characteristics of four-body liquid states helps you detect when change is underway, and a map indicating how the change may be happening. If a change is desired then a liquid state confirms you are right on course!

Gandhi said: “You need to be the change that you want to see in the world.” Even if your opinion is: “Well, so far I got through life pretty good, even without transformation,” an era is dawning where the change may not even knock on your door anymore but just walks in.

And then it would be good to know the liquid state.

Bright Principles archetypal forces of nature that existed before the universe. Each Bright Principle is a facet of consciousness, responsibility, love. During our research it has become obvious that each of us has a resonance to serving three to six Bright Principles in our work; this is our destiny. By distilling your Bright Principles out of your life you can more easily tap into their energy and intelligence resources, and more effectively take actions under their auspices. This kind of living quickly becomes high level fun! Examples of Bright Principles are Integrity, Abundance, Aliveness, Learning, Inclusion, Clarity, Kindness, Possibility, Acceptance, Respect, Connectedness, Commitment, Impeccability, Creation, Winning Happening, Healing, Transformation, Openness, Communication, Relationship, Appreciation, Hospitality, Generosity, Authenticity, and so on.

Shadow Principles are archetypal forces of nature. The overriding Shadow Principle is Irresponsibility or Unconsciousness. Irresponsibility is unconsciousness in action. During our research, it has become obvious that each of us has a resonance to serving three to six Shadow Principles. The Gremlin thrives in the service of Shadow Principles. Unless we become conscious about which Shadow Principles we are serving we will have no other choice than to keep serving them unconsciously.

Unconsciousness prisms into a rainbow of Shadow Principles including Revenge, Hatred, Survival, Betrayal, Being Betrayed, Superiority, Manipulation, Blame, Deception, Exclusion, Disempowerment, Good / Bad, Arrogance, Disrespect, Scarcity, Competition, Being Right, Self Pity, Greed, Envy, Jealousy, Sneaking, Resentment, Making Wrong, Withholding, Domination, Contamination, Separation, Right / Wrong, and so on.

Your Gremlin is the archetypal king or queen of your shadow world. Everybody has parts. Everybody is part Gremlin. Gremlin is the part of you dedicated to creating low drama and serving your hidden purpose. Gremlin is quite likely to take over whenever you are unconscious of the purpose of your action. When Gremlin takes over you do not know the true cost of your irresponsible actions. Gremlin creates low drama gameworlds based on scarcity, competition, and survival in order to eat Gremlin food. For example, Gremlin leaders take other people’s centers and surround themselves with followers in order to feel safe. Gremlin derives joy at other people’s expense through “I win! You lose!” and “I’m right! You’re wrong!” and “Ha-ha! I got you!” games and nasty little jokes. As you begin to get clarity about the presence and participation of Gremlin in your life it is crucial to remember that Gremlin is not bad. Gremlin is Gremlin and can be counted on to do what Gremlins do. Gremlin cannot be rehabilitated to be responsible, and besides, that is not the point. Gremlin is not your enemy. The idea is not to kill, imprison or disempower Gremlin as you may have been taught through some kind of moral system, but rather to establish a relationship with Gremlin such that you own Gremlin rather than Gremlin owning you. When Gremlin is consciously integrated into your general presence and sits at your feet at your command, you become responsibly “dangerous,” that is, no longer gullible or naïve. Gremlin awareness refines your overall awareness. Transforming your relationship to Gremlin is the way to stellate joy, and like stellating the other feelings involves two phases. Phase one is liberating Gremlin to 100% capacity and presence (which obviously must be done in a special Gremlin-proof environment designed exactly for this purpose). Phase two is integrating Gremlin capacities into practical skills through conscious practice. Since Gremlin can destroy any space at any time for no reason, there are many practical uses for Gremlin that nothing else can accomplish. Some of these uses are, for example, staying unhypnotized, staying unhookable, and going nonlinear. Expanding to responsibly include Gremlin takes time and practice, and necessitates building matrix.

Stellating means to change from a planet into a star. A planet absorbs more energy than it radiates. A star radiates more energy than it absorbs. Human beings are designed to live as stars: creating, designing, exploring, producing, generating, and so on. Standard Human Intelligence Thoughtware has us living as planets: consuming, imitating, criticizing, giving our center away, being adaptive, feeding off of the responsibility of authority figures, and so on. You can learn and practice with upgraded thoughtware to possess your center, to take responsibility for responsibility, and to become the source of resources. Stellating would naturally occur during initiation work that you are ripe for at about fifteen years of age, but this maturation process is not provided by ordinary Western culture.

The process of stellating requires that you experience and express one hundred percent maximum intensity of each of the four feelings (anger, sadness, fear, and joy) intentionally until you discover that although the energy of the feelings is big, you are bigger. Then for the rest of your life the energy and wisdom of your four feelings is available to you, and your feelings start informing you in very low intensities about what you need to take care of, rather than thinking something is wrong with you because you are having a feeling.

Archiarchy is the currently emerging class of human cultures that comes after matriarchy and patriarchy. Whereas in matriarchal cultures the feminine holds a dominant position and in patriarchal cultures the masculine holds a dominant position, in archiarchal cultures, archetypally initiated adult women creatively collaborate with archetypally initiated adult men and the Bright Principles of the culture hold a dominant position. Archiarchal cultures revolve around authentic adulthood initiatory processes.

The word “meme” was invented in 1976 by Clinton Richard Dawkins, a British biologist. A meme is a fundamental instruction for the design of your mind, just like a gene is a fundamental instruction for the design of your body. Memes can be classified into various categories, such as assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, conclusions, definitions, excuses, expectations, interpretations, justifications, meanings, opinions, perspectives, preferences, prejudices, reasons, stories, values, visions, and so on. Simple memes equate to the names of things, for example, the meme “feeling” is the name of something that carries emotional energy. Once a mind is infected with a meme, the meme frames up the mind’s perceptions. Then something like music is sensed by the quality of feeling it delivers. Complex memes are constructed out of simple memes pasted together with Is-Glue, such as “feeling is dangerous” or “feeling is fun.” The idea of a “meme” is itself a meme. Your Box is made of thoughtware and thoughtmaps, both of which are made of memes.

(Not to be confused with the matrix concept from the popular films of the same title.) Matrix is similar to the trellis upon which a climbing rose is supported. Without the trellis the rose plant grows feebly along the ground. With a trellis the rose grows strong and radiant. Matrix is the energetic structure upon which consciousness or “being” can grow. Matrix cannot be rushed or grown instantly. Matrix grows at its own speed limit and as a result of certain efforts and influences. Matrix can be built through exposing yourself to certain beneficial stresses (such as living in a foreign culture or doing responsible edgework experiments), certain radiations (such as being in the company of saints, empowered temples, objective art, or sacred artifacts), certain substances (such as early morning sunshine, or a true alchemical elixir like Tonic GoldTM), certain efforts to stay awake (such as by paying attention to your attention and staying aware of what you are aware of), and your efforts to practice (such as avoiding low drama, or flossing your teeth every night before you go to bed no matter how late it is or how tired you are). No one can build matrix for you. If you do not do what it takes to build your matrix then your matrix grows geologically, that is, at the natural speed of continental drift. Matrix can be functionally compared to soil. There are more than enough seeds. What is needed is good soil. As soon as the soil is prepared the seeds grow. As soon as matrix is built, consciousness grows. As soon as the Box expands, new possibility is available.

Possibility Management is copyleft, which means that it cannot be copyrighted. Possibility Management is also open source code, which means that the original distinctions are freely available for people to use, improve, and derive further works. Specifically, we adopt the Creative Commons licensing protocol (Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike International 4.0 License) (CC BY S-A Intl. 4.0) which states that derived works should also carry the legal attribution and share-alike clauses. Anybody, anywhere who has the ability to consciously understand and responsibly use the thoughtmaps, tools and processes of Possibility Management has full authority and responsibility to further expand, deepen, clarify, evolve, apply, and share them. There is no (and actually cannot be any) individual or organization who can limit the development of, exclude others from making use of, or demand a license fee, percentage, royalty, or commission from others using or teaching Possibility Management. People who deliver Possibility Management classes, workshops, Trainings or processes, of course, need to receive compensation for their services. But the context and thoughtware of radical responsibility cannot be copyrighted. All further development of Possibility Management feeds Gaia’s creative commons.

Copyleft is appropriate because the growing set of tools, processes, and thoughtmaps through which Possibility Management is applied come from an inexhaustible source of clarity and possibility open to all who can access it. In fact, one objective of Possibility Management trainings is to prepare you to personally jack into the same bright principles that empower Possibility Management so that these bright principles can serve you for the rest of your life as resources, and through you, your people.

If you can produce the results of a Possibility Manager, then you are a Possibility Manager. Some of those results are that your buttons cannot be pushed anymore. You would be in peace with your parents, teachers, peers, and human beings in general. You would be using thoughtware that comes from the context of radical responsibility. You would have stellated your four feelings. You would have taken your shadow world into possession so it doesn’t own you anymore. You would be centered and grounded and speak with your own voice and authority. You would live in a context where you don’t get to blame anyone else for anything anymore. You would have left the survival level with regards to money, and your main purpose would not revolve anymore around having to make a living. You would be doing what you came here to do and what inspires you 24/7. You would make this world into a better place.

And since Possibility Management is not about mastery or being perfect you would be called a Possibility Manager once you have graduated from Expand The Box training and continue to walk your path of authentic adulthood initiations.

No, Possibility Management is not a sect. At the same time, such a question is always appropriate. To come to an answer the questioner should define for themselves what a sect is. At the core of a sect is usually a person of questionable character implementing a plan to benefit from the sect members. The members should do what the sect leader says rather than doing what they actually want to do themselves. Typically the sect leader demands power, money, sex or other services of the followers, who are expected to diminish themselves and obey the teachings and commands of the sect leader. As a trade-off, they may hope to find the false security of belonging to “the family,” or receiving “salvation.” The followers have many duties and few or no rights.

Possibility Management produces the opposite of a sect. There is nothing to believe in. Everything will be tested by your own experimenting. Step-by-step you gain the clarity and power to take a stand for yourself and walk your path in order to unfold your beneficial talents to serve the world and bring your true calling to life. Possibility Management is a way to find and actively live your authentic vocation. Consequently, the tools of Possibility Management are copyleft and open code, meaning no license fees are charged for the trainers. Because of this Possibility Management can be further developed by anyone who understands the ideas and can generate the context of radical responsibility.

Expand The Box training is not cheap.

It is not expensive either if you know the relative value of what Expand The Box delivers in the personal-development training market.

From one perspective, Expand The Box is free because it is possible to get millions of dollars for free through legalized gambling with commodities shorts and puts and futures, using insider information in stock-market trades, running money-market systems, etc. Banks and Governments “print” trillions of dollars for free in their computers, and give this money away as grants to other countries as long as those who control those governments use the free money to buy products from the granting government’s businesses. Multinational corporations externalize environmental and social costs while changing nature’s wealth into free money as “profits”. From this clarity, paying money for Expand The Box is giving something fake to receive something real. This deal may not continue to be available much longer…

From another perspective, Expand The Box costs everything you have. This is because during Expand The Box your “you” – the story-world you’ve created about yourself which you believe is true and which you unconsciously identify as “yourself”, in other words, your Box – changes fundamentally. After you are digested by a few Possibility Management distinctions nothing works the same anymore. The whole world opens up in unexpectedly delightful ways. Expand The Box costs you everything because your previous relationship to the world ends. This is one reason why rich people almost never participate in Expand The Box: fear of losing everything. Which in one sense is a valid fear, and yet, in the same sense, it is just as valid to say that what you get in return is more than everything you had before.

However much money you have, your relationship to money is challenged by the Expand The Box training. Being challenged in general is an essential part of it.

The intensity of Expand The Box’s challenge is why we cannot charge anything for Expand The Box. Without paying the full price you will not make full room in your life to receive the astonishing quantity of high-quality possibilities given by the training experience. We have tried over and over again and found that it also does not work to collect grants to provide half-price scholarships or free seats for those people who “have no money.” What we found is that the people who “have no money” have no money on purpose. It is a political statement to have no money.

The requirement of paying for Expand The Box quickly reveals the hidden purposes behind the political position of “I have no money.” This can be a valuable heart-opening process.

It is not whether or not you already have enough money for Expand The Box that determines whether or not you come to Expand The Box. Nobody already has enough money for Expand The Box unless it is your practice to reserve a certain budget for personal development trainings each year – not a bad idea! Most people already have all their money dedicated to other purposes and don’t have a thousand bucks sitting around.

The determining factor as to whether or not you attend Expand The Box is whether or not you have truly decided to come to Expand The Box.

Authentic decisions do not happen in your mind. Authentic decisions happen in your energetic body and each decision changes who you are.

In the moment you irrevocably decide to participate in Expand The Box your energetic body changes shape and the universe must conform to your new shape. Then the money seems to come all by itself. It is your decision that opens doors. This is the first money secret.

Deciding is so simple! What could ever get in the way of this? Fear can get in the way.

Since an authentic decision changes who you are, and since deep change is frightening, then if you try to avoid the fear you will avoid evolutionary change. This means you will never grow up, the equivalent of a butterfly never hatching out of its chrysalis to fly free in the wind. To justify this atrocity it becomes convenient to believe yourself when you say things like, “I don’t have enough money for Expand The Box. It is too expensive.” This statement gives you a logical reason that explains to your logical mind why you must avoid getting for yourself something a part of you may, in fact, deeply long for.

We are trained to be afraid of fear by modern culture. On modern culture’s Old Thoughtmap of Feelings, fear is one of the negative or bad feelings that you should avoid at any cost. This is convenient for the regime because then, if they can make you afraid, they can control you as easily as herding sheep.

This leaves us in a quandary. How can you apply an initiated relationship to fear so you can register for Expand The Box when you have not yet done Expand The Box and are probably still afraid of fear?

One way through this is to let yourself get even more afraid of continuing your life as it is than you are afraid of changing your life. Get afraid of missing the opportunity to upgrade your thoughtware. Be afraid of years going by chasing modern culture’s illusionary carrot-at-the-end-of-a-stick security, when you could instead be using those years to head into an entirely different future.

When you get more afraid of staying the same than you are of changing, you no longer need to use the story, “I don’t have enough money” to avoid registering for Expand The Box. You can simply decide you are going to Expand The Box and start behaving as someone who is getting their money together.

Then you will discover that getting the money together for Expand The Box is itself part of your initiation. Accomplishing the challenge of getting the money together is not so much a benefit for us as it is a benefit for you.

Once you figure out how to get $1000 together for the Expand The Box’s tuition, overnight stays, food and transportation, your new skills make it possible for you to get $100,000 together, or perhaps $10,000,000 for even bigger projects.

Authentically deciding for something shows up as you being committed to that thing. Commitment is decision in action. Committing to a thing even before you know how to do that thing forces the universe to give you the know-how for doing that thing. Would you spend the time and energy to give someone the know-how if they are not already committed to doing the thing no matter what? No.

The universe is not stupid. The universe conserves know-how because know-how is precious. The universe provides know-how to those who are already decided and therefore committed. So a second secret about money is to commit first, before you know how. Then there is true necessity for you to gain the know-how.

11 WAYS TO CREATE THE MONEY FOR ATTENDING EXPAND THE BOX

Before reading the list below, prepare yourself with these three actions: First, label a big glass jar “Expand The Box Money”. Do not take money out for anything except Expand The Box.

Now is the only time you can put money in your jar. Put a dollar of you own money into the jar now.

Yes, it is true: whatever money you put in the jar is no longer available for cigarettes, cokes, ice-cream, restaurant meals, movies with your girlfriend, or that new pair of shoes. But each time you put more money into your jar you prove wrong the story that you don’t have any money for Expand The Box. Look at your jar. You ALREADY have money for Expand The Box in the jar! Is it enough money? Do not count how much money is in your jar for two months! Just keep bringing in the money for Expand The Box.

Second, select an Expand The Box training to attend that is 4 to 6 months in the future. Register for that training. Tell the Trainer you are committed to coming no matter what and that you are getting $1000 together to come.

Third, circle #1 plus four more plans in the list below and start doing all 5 of them simultaneously. Don’t be concerned if you are not good enough to do them, or if you don’t know how to do them, or if you feel too embarrassed to do them, or if while you are trying to do them the details morph into another set of actions, so long as you keep using what you learn to improve your “sourcerer” or “sourceress” skills, and you keep taking actions to get your money together for Expand The Box.

1. Go to our Calendar, click on the button for our TeamUp calendar and choose one of the Possibility Teams. Call up the spaceholder and arrange to attend their Possibility Team. If you find a team that is inactive, ask the spaceholder to call together a special meeting just for you. If there is no Possibility Team that you can attend, get 5 or 6 friends together and have your own Possibility Team meeting. During the check-in (of whichever Possibility Team it is: yours or someone else’s) tell people that you have committed to attending Expand The Box (tell them the city and date), and that you came to the Possibility Team for this reason: “Please give me possibilities for getting together the $1000 for attending Expand The Box.” Then clearly write down every idea they tell you, especially if you do not understand it or do not agree with it. Then ask if one person at this meeting is willing to be your mentor during the process of getting the money together for Expand The Box. Call or meet with your mentor once every week to get more courage for doing whatever it takes to get the money together to attend Expand The Box.
2. Tell each person you come into contact with, including colleagues, neighbors, and your boss, that you have registered for Expand The Box training. If they ask you what that is, you can say, “Ask me afterwards!” If they ask why you are doing this, you can say something like, “Life is an adventure!” or “The future is unknown and human potential is so amazing, isn’t it?” or “Do you want to come with me?” Then say, “After Expand The Box I am going to have a celebration at my house (tell them the date and time). I am getting the money together for the whole thing now. Will you donate $10 or $20 towards this?” Put the money in the jar. Also be sure to have the party!
3. Go through everything you own in your closets, the garage, the basement, the attic. Anything you have not touched in a year, take a photo of it and put it up for sale on eBay. Especially the little things. There are so many people out there collecting Star Wars mementos, baseball cards, coins, stamps, souvenirs from Mexico, old ice skates, or small sized penguins. Do not try to get top dollar for your stuff. Just get rid of it. Once you figure out how to sell things on eBay, tell other people you will sell their stuff for them on eBay if you can keep half the money. Immediately convert your PayPal money into cash and put it in the jar!
4. Set up a chair on a busy street corner or the shopping zone of your town. Stand on the chair holding a sign that says, “Laughing Lessons $1”. As soon as someone gives you their attention, get off the chair and have them come stand on the chair. When they are up there, give them the sign to hold. They will laugh. Then tell them exactly every detail about how you got them up on the chair to laugh, and then have them practice what they just learned about holding space, making contact, asking nonlinear questions, etc. to get the next person up on the chair laughing.
5. Go door to door in your neighborhood and ask people: “Is there anything I can do for you right now in exchange for you donating $5 towards a project that expands young people’s awareness and increases their ability to take positive actions that create a better future for humanity?” Many people, if they think about it for a moment, have light bulbs that need changing, a compost pile that needs turning over, a hedge that needs trimmed, something moved in their garage, a refrigerator that needs washing, a dog that needs to be walked, windows that need cleaning, or rain gutters that need to be cleaned out. When they feel the enthusiasm and joy you put into creating positive change they will be happy to donate $5. Put the money in your jar!
6. Start a crowd-funding project online at www.kickstarter.com, www.ecocrowd.com, www.indiegogo.com, or, google “crowd-funding” and choose from the many that are now available. Select the kind of crowd-funding program where either you reach your goal and get the full $1000 or you get nothing. Do not choose the kind where you get whatever people give – this takes the spirit of excitement out of crowd-funding and changes it into begging. Don’t confuse the two. Get a couple friends together to help you develop your list of perks for the various levels of contribution. Your friends have a different sense of your value than you do, and probably they are right. Make the perks so juicy and universal that nobody can resist supporting your project. Paint the big picture of what is happening in the world and what your contribution is to creating a brighter future for humanity on Earth. Tell people who you are really, to a depth that you’ve never revealed it before. Surprise yourself with your vulnerability. If you reach your goal, celebrate everywhere, and be meticulous and impeccable with delivering each and every perk.
7. Go to your boss at work and say, “If I can tell you a way to save the company $10,000 in 3 months, and we implement the plan and it works, will you give me 10% of the money we save?” If the boss says, “Yes,” write the deal down on paper and both sign it. Then get 4 or 5 friends together for an evening around the kitchen table at your house, people who do not work at the same company. Give them papers, writing materials and coffee. Brainstorm ways your company could save $10,000 in less than 3 months. The trick is to go into a Generative Phase by establishing a creative sanctuary in which you write down every idea that is said and stop anyone from judging or criticizing ideas. Doesn’t matter how stupid the ideas are or if you already tried it 100 times before. Add on to ideas, even crazy ideas. Go sideways and nonlinear. Then for the last 20 minutes, switch from the Generative Phase to the Analytical Phase where you pull out your Sword-of-Practicality and select the best 3 proposals that you can implement with your boss. Tell your boss that you will manage the project for her. Put the money in your jar!
8. Have an extra birthday party now because… “When I was 17 years old I forgot to have a birthday party and now it is time!” Invite as many people as possible, people you would normally never invite, especially invite your “enemies” – defined as anyone who when you scan them from a distance you feel that there is some kind of charge or story between you. Invite people to dress as they did when they were 17 years old, and to bring their favorite teen-songs as MP3 files to dance to. Tell people that you are saving up for a “wild-ass fun adventure” that will transform your life and that for birthday presents could they please only bring you cash. Put the money in your jar!
9. Start a tutoring job on the side. For example, put signs up around town that you teach conversational and business English for small groups of people wanting to get better jobs. Charge a middle to low fee per hour, like $8 per one-hour class. Limit class size to 6 people. A full class means $48 per hour for you. Teach two classes per week and in less than 3 months you have your $1000. Run your class no matter how many people come. Keep it exciting and experiential, not intellectual. Keep people talking English from the first minute they arrive, properly greeting each other with, “Hello Dr. Sonners.” “How are you today Miss Spring? Are you enjoying global warming weather changes?” But also sing with them in English, read English subtitles out loud together while watching Hollywood or Bollywood films, do movement poems like Patty cake. Patty cake. Baker’s man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can. Never let students be able to predict what will occur next at your conversation classes. Get them into pairs and have each one ask the other: What is the thing you’ve done in your life that you are most proud of? Most ashamed of? What is the scariest ghost story you know? What do you feel when you see a policeman? Why? What do you think about God? When you die, what will people say about you? Have the Asians pair up with the Mexicans teach them how to eat with chopsticks. Have the Mexicans show the Asians how to make tortillas. Have them write poems in English that start and end with the same line, a sentence about their childhood, such as: “I never knew who my father would be when he came home.” Have people read their poems out loud. Don’t let people use any curse words. Instead teach them to say, “Pickle!” Use exercises from Directing the Power of Conscious Feelings to practice conversing. Have them read SPARKs out loud in pairs while giving each other feedback and coaching about pronunciation. Have them give 3 minute improvised speeches about topics written on scraps of paper they pick from a hat. Here and there you can teach them the 10 most common mistakes foreigners make while learning to speak English. Put the money the jar!
10. Set up a small booth at a fair or festival or a Farmer’s Market with a sign that says Next Culture Career Shift Consultant. The idea is that careers such as lawyer, doctor, schoolteacher, businessman, senator, nurse, etc. defined by modern culture fit last century’s patterns of training citizens to fit into a capitalist patriarchal empire. This makes sense if the empire is in its expansion phase and environmental conditions are stable. Neither of these conditions are true anymore. The empire has entered its collapsing phase and environmental conditions are rapidly degrading. The service you offer is to engage the very real conversation with people of them shifting to a more realistic career. You can start by asking, What kind of work do you do? Then ask: Do you love your work? Would you continue to do your job if you were not getting paid for it? (If the answer is “No” they do not love their work.) What kind of work do you think you would really love to do? Spend a couple minutes appreciating their qualities of being while making notes for yourself. Then help them formulate these true service skills in the framework and language of next culture. Here are some examples: Guardian of the Diversity of Species, Healer of the Soil, Communicator and Ambassador for the Nature Beings, Sourceress, Kaitiakitanga, Designer for Earth Centered Cultures (rather than profit oriented), Agent for 7 Generation Thinking, Possibility Alchemist, Four Body Geomant, Speaker for the Dead, Defender of the Laws of Nature, Gaian Agent, and so on. Then help them plan out the first three steps they would need to take to shift from their current modern-culture occupation to a next-culture career path. The first three steps will certainly include some kind of education about what else is possible, such as studying some of the books from Next Culture Press. It may also include attending gatherings with people who are already engaged in next-culture lives, such as ecovillage summer programs, alternative music and dance festivals, intentional community seminars, transition town open days, and the many projects with websites, online webinars, videos, and training programs. Listen more than you talk, but do not allow the space to go longer than half-an-hour (most conversations will be 15-20 minutes), and especially do not let them use you as an emotional garbage can for victim stories and complaining about their troubles. Make this a real career-shift consultation. The fee for your service is by donation, that is, people can give whatever they feel your consultation was worth to them as an energy exchange. Put the money in your jar!
11. Figure out other linear and nonlinear ways that use your hidden gifts and talents to serve others while creating the thousand bucks for your next training. The first ten people who tell me ideas that worked for you that I am turned on by and add to this list I will add $100 to your jar! Please send your strategies to clinton at next culture dot org. I can’t wait to hear from you!

The most effective way to bring a talk or workshop to your area is to contact a local trainer of your choice and spark their interest for your idea. It helps if you already have a sizeable database of people interested in authentic personal work.

If you wish to organize an Expand The Box training in your area the best way is to contact ask one of our Trainers. Tell them what you want and they will help you make it happen. The International Trainer Team can deliver Expand The Box in English, German, and several other languages. If you are asking to have an Expand The Box training for your circle of people in a country where there are no certified Possibility Trainers yet, the one you asked will either gather a team themselves or present your wish to the International Trainings Team and they will arrange to support your organizing efforts to deliver Expand The Box in your location. Experience has shown us that a local organizer needs to already have at least 300 enthusiasts in their circle of friends in order to see 25 participants in their first local Expand The Box training.