96. Steve Pavlina – Personal Development for Smart People

Steve Pavlina is an entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and the author of Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth. After an arrest on charges of grand theft auto in 1991, Steve made a conscious decision to turn his life around. He founded Dexterity Software, a computer game development company that focused on nonviolent puzzle games. He has served as Vice President and later President, of the Association of Software Professionals. Seeing himself as an explorer and perpetual student, Steve closed his software company and started a personal development blog and website to create more meaningful ripples in the world. Steve has blogged over 2 million words of content and released the copyright encouraging people to take his work and merge it with their own. As a result he is co-author of at least 200 books. Steve joins me today to talk about how he gets his ideas for his blog posts. We talk about his many personal experiments and passions including polyphasic sleep, vegetarianism, veganism, even 30 consecutive days at Disneyland, and a 40-day water fast. We also talk about a conscious growth club he runs and a time when he realized he could work fewer hours and get better results. A free thinker testing the conventional paths, he says the smarter we are, the faster we grow. “I decided what I really wanted to do was create a bigger growth-oriented community. And the goal is we all come together and we encourage the heck out of each other. We all help each other grow. We work together as a team. We actually get to know each other and we care about each other. We cooperate.”  – Steve Pavlina This week on The School for Good Living Podcast: Twelve years in Catholic school where all the answers were given to youA seminar with speaker Wayne Dyer changes Steve’s lifeA dream for his twenties ran its course but it wasn’t meaningful enough2 million words on Steve’s blog and it’s all in the public domainWriting for specific peopleA long history of being connected with customers and readers of his blogSteve’s process of asking the universe for writing inspiration, where it feels like a meditationThe accidental vegetarian (then vegan) – a 30-day experiment that just kept going30-day trial: Spending 30 consecutive days at Disneyland…voluntarily. What would it do to a person?Steve created a group called Conscious Growth Club in 2017 and has now over 150 membersFind out how to connect to people – your tribe – of like-minded people aligned and interested in personal growthWhat Steve finds many people struggle with is consistency and what that meansFinding that purpose you want to invest in for 20 years or more40-day trial: Water fastingThe toughest part of fasting is longer for women than menSteve records every day of his fasting experience on his YouTube channel along  with a  personal growth lessonThe risks in fasting for long periods of time – it’s not what you might imagineExperiments that are not worth doingThe benefits of group challengesWhat there may be not-to-like about the personal growth fieldSteven’s travel tips and whyThe exercise that Americans don’t get enough ofWhat are you willing to say ‘Yes’ to?Can you be wealthy without money? Holding wealth in the form of social goodwillSteve’s favorite TV show and what it’s taught himSocial goals vs. Individual goalsThe benefits of not holding grudgesThe downfalls to focusing on individual success vs. investing in social bondsBlocks to our more heart-centered pathsHow being broke is an invitation to thinking about life differentlyResources Mentioned: Personal Growth and Development for Smart People by Steve PavlinaSteve’s BlogDr. Wayne DyerConscious Growth ClubSeven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen CoveyThe Prophet by Kahil GibranThe Handbook to Higher ConsciousnessConnect with Steve Pavlina: Steve Pavlina WebsiteFacebookInstagramYouTubeSubscribe, Rate & Share! Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of the School for Good Living Podcast, with your host, Bryan Miller. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts to subscribe and leave us a rating and review. Don’t forget to visit our website, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. And be sure to share your favorite episodes with your friends and colleagues on social media to inspire others to improve their lives and reach their full potential. The post 96. Steve Pavlina – Personal Development for Smart People first appeared on School for Good Living Podcasts.