Carl Dickson

We're not a passive group. People are here with purpose. And that to achieve that purpose they can't simply be passive. So they participate. They also tend to be creators and makers. Everyone here has an active interest in socializing their thoughts. The biggest impediment is geography. It's why we've started LearnGrowRepeat around the website. However, for people to practice what they've learned in the real world, they have to go out into the real world and meet face to face. We hold as many events as we can. And as the community grows, our capacity to hold events grows. Think decentralized and not in the centralized, hierarchical way we've been conditioned. If you don't have enough LearnGrowRepeat folks out by you to host a lunch, dinner, or cocktail hour then go find some more. The value of being a part of LearnGrowRepeat grows as more people join. Once you've got enough folks to meet face to face, then start thinking about projects. What can you do together? Is there a problem in your town you can help address as a group? Can you practice the principals you've learned here to plan and carry out your project? Gatherings are a chance to prove that you've discovered a better way to go about the whole community thing. It's a chance to see if you can walk the talk. Or does your interpretive mind and conditioning keep sneaking back in? Can you get along with people you disagree with when you are dealing with them face to face? Gatherings are more than just friends and fun. Gatherings are an important part of learning and growing. If you don't have enough folks to meet face to face, then host a virtual event. What topic interests or inspires you? Put it on the site calendar. Invite people you've met on the website. Invite locals you'd like to join. Let your Tour Guide know what you're up to so we can help promote it. If something is on your mind and it's not getting enough love on LearnGrowRepeat, then bring it up. Bring it up online. Host a gathering. Live or virtual. If you want an active community, be active. Live the life. And thrive doing it.

Here's what I recommend: If you like the community, then participate. In forums, in courses, by sharing, and posting. Speak up. Ask lots of questions. Share your journey. Don't be afraid to say something wrong. It just creates an opportunity to delve into other ways of looking at things. That is why were all here, and the opportunity is appreciated. Playing a part in making the community active supports everyone. The value of LearnGrowRepeat to our community members increases as the number of community members increase. Making referrals benefits everyone in the community. You can even get rewarded for making referrals. If something changes your life, then support it like your life depends on it. If something merely interests you, support it so it doesn't go away. If you like what we're up to, then support it so we can do more of it. Support comes in many flavors. We'll take money if you have it to give. If you don't, we'll take your energy, your effort, or even just your appreciation. You can support the individuals or you can support LearnGrowRepeat for hosting the community. Preferably both. Keep the karmic scales in balance by supporting value with value. If you like what someone says or does, then consider taking a class with them if they offer any or do business with them if you can. And if you can't then show appreciation. If you'd like more face-to-face meetings, then host one. Or help plan the next one. Help spread the word and get people to attend. Don't wait for someone to tell you what to do. That's not how we roll. Show initiative. Create and make things happen. Support others who are creating and making things happen. Turn life into an opportunity to practice what you have learned. Repeat.

The shortest answer I can give regarding the benefits of being part of the LearnGrowRepeat community: Think more clearly by separating interpretation from reality and seeing things as they are Bring your rational and spiritual selves into alignment Overcome your conditioning and patterns Better understand your emotions Become more open to change and better able to integrate all the aspects of yourself and the world around you Decide who you are and become it without falling into an identity trap Socialize with people who are are doing the same Improve your relationships Become more effective Have fun doing it At least that's how it's working out for me. I answered the question by thinking about what I'm getting out of my LearnGrowRepeat journey. Just remember: Where ever you go, you'll be there. So don't sabotage yourself.

Each member gets assigned a Tour Guide who will show them around, show them where to find things that match their interests, and introduce them to people with similar interests. We don't think you can aspire to be a community and then drop people off without helping them get introduced. We also have an onboarding process that starts them off with the most important content and opening things gradually over the first month or so instead of overwhelming them with all the content and no direction. Beyond that, by focusing on community building, we've created a place where people won't treat you like a stranger to be feared. You be welcome. Once you are a member and finished with onboarding, you'll have access to our forums, courses, and training materials. The forums will enable you to ask questions and discuss insights with other community members. Our courses involve exercises, quizzes, and many instructors have office hours where you can ask questions and get guidance. Most of the resources you mentioned, like education materials, mentorship (part of the role of your Tour Guide), and networking are all part of our mission. As far as counseling services go, we provide coaching from unprofessional amateurs completely uneducated about psychology and thoroughly uncertified, but knowledgeable about the teaching found on LearnGrowRepeat and capable of helping you understand them and how they can be applied to your life.

Your values are up to you. I can share my values, but that's not the best way to answer this. What guides this community is: A belief that at the core there is an objective reality. Without that being true we can't even have this conversation. Reality is what's left when we strip away all of our interpretation of it. This makes reality the standard for determining truth. Knowing this doesn't make it easy. It requires getting good at seeing past our own interpretations. Perspective helps. Inquiry helps. None of this matters if we don't internalize the lessons we learn. If something you find significant doesn't change you, did you really learn anything? We're doing this as a group. Getting along with others in the group doesn't require a strict protocol. It requires being able to avoid conflict or resolve conflict in a way that both parties learn something valuable from. This requires commitment by us as individuals. And this ends up being something valuable to learn for many reasons, some of which may be unexpected by you when you start. A commitment to not compel others. We don't compel others to believe what we believe and we don't compel them to value what we value. We don't compel them to join our community and we try to be clear about what makes a good fit and what doesn't so we can minimize or avoid having to exile people who don't fit. But that almost sounds clinical or academic. The lived experience of it is wonderful and uplifting. Empowering even. I'm not going to define values for the other community members, but I hope and think it's safe to say that most folks here: Value their independence and safety from compulsion so highly that they are willing and committed to not getting their own way if it requires compelling others Value social interaction with people who are not trolls Love learning and getting to the bottom of the nature of things Are willing to explore difficult topics with other people in non-confrontational ways that ends up being enlightening Are people who are purpose driven and like to accomplish things, although one person's accomplishment might be completely irrelevant to the next Have a sense of humor and like to have fun, whether it's in a nerdy way, an adventurous way, or both

It's in the name. Learn. Grow. Repeat. But that's probably not enough of an answer. Our technical purpose is teaching people a philosophical approach to revealing and living in accordance with objective reality. Our functional purpose is to bring perspective and to develop a community of people with some things in common who support each other. It's wonderful to be able to talk about the things we do with other people who get it. A good way to think of it is that we're learning to get along with people we disagree with. Atheists and religious people can have conversations that make them better atheists and better religious people. And friends. The same is true with many other false dichotomies. Scientists and spiritualists can have conversations that make them better scientists and better spiritualists. Officer workers and people in the trades. Farmers and city folk. Etc. We give each other insights that help us along our chosen paths without forcing our paths on anyone else. And become friends doing it. That's powerful stuff. So how do we do that? The hardest part is choosing to do it and backing it up with effort. You may find that a commitment to this changes you in unexpected ways. For example, you might experience less fear and have more confidence when you no longer default to being in conflict with others because of who they are. Sometimes I think that the best way to change the world is to teach people who to get along without compulsion, how to separate their interpretations from what is real, and how to see things as they are. Usually I recover from this quickly and go back to not wanting to change anybody. They'll come around if they are so inclined. We are not here to change you. But change may happen. We are not here to fix you. But you may find tools that help you fix yourself. We are not here to change The System. But you might discover how to build a better one. And along the way you can make friends and have fun. I plan to spend the rest of my life doing this.

Any way you want. It's a community. Hopefully you'll make friends. We assign each new member a Tour Guide to introduce you to people with common interests. Just like in a real community, you might give your number to people you're friends with and actually talk to them. Or hang out. Or whatever. Or just share your email if you're a geek like I am. The website won't give out your personal info. But you can choose to do so. Or not. On the website, there are ways to: Interact as a group, like in our discussion forums. Direct message individuals Share things with everyone, like pictures, videos, or your thoughts. But this ain't Facebook. We're here to learn and share insights a bit more deep than what you are eating or funny cats. Although there might be something we can learn from cats. Just make it deep. Or funny. Create things like content and training that inspires members about the topics we address on LearnGrowRepeat. Teaching is a great way to learn and brings you into contact with folks in a very positive way. Post events on the site calendar, whether in person or virtual. I'd love to see members putting their energy into discussion meetings, community cocktail hours, volunteer projects, fun outings, and more. It's so much more fun to hangout with interesting folks you get along with than strangers. You can also invite people into your business life if you can be subtle and low key about it. Don't cross the line into being pushy or someone might think you're a troll. But our occupations are part of who we are and there's nothing wrong with people knowing. Just don't make them have to say "no." Make it easy for them to be left alone. Sometimes in a community people want to be left along and that's okay. They'll find you if they want and probably will prefer to transact with someone in the community than a stranger.

The requirements are very subjective. It will be easy to convince yourself that you meet them all. But you should consider all the reasons why you might might not. They include things like: Being a lifelong learner Not being attached to a particular identity Being able to get along with others in a community Be strongly motivated by your curiosity Being willing to consider different perspectives on literally everything Being able to learn from people you disagree with and thank them for it Being independently minded Being a problem solver Being inclined to focus on root causes instead of symptoms Not being willing to be a slave to your habituated patterns Being able to walk the talk and live your ideals And maybe, just maybe being a little rebellious and contrarian in a delightful kind of way And definitely having a sense of humor If you consider all the reasons why you might not be a match and see them as things you need to work on, you may be a perfect match. If you don't see yourself in this list, you may not be happy here. Or you may find just what you need to transform yourself. These are not ways that we assess you and determine whether to reject you. We don't assess you. It's not a part of what LearnGrowRepeat is all about. And we prefer you to take yourself out of consideration than for us to discover that you're not a match after you have joined. Our application process relies on self-assessment. We want to welcome you and cherish learning and growing together. So don't be worried about being rejected. Unless you are a troll. I realize the most trolls don't think of themselves that way. So please look inward and reconsider that. Regarding age, if you are under age 18 we ask that you have your parent's permission to participate. People who are in their 20s and realizing that school didn't teach them anything about how to interact with the imperfect world, realize that adults are a contradictory mess, and that they have entered a world that is broken in so many ways will find new perspectives that will help them find their path without being told what to think. People who are older and finding that the identities they've assumed aren't addressing their needs or who have deep questions about things and no one to talk to about them will find a wonderful environment to explore. People who are a lot older and who haven't found the answers, go from one model or program to another, or who want to step out of themselves and transform will find a way to reconcile it all and settle down into something that makes sense. Regarding occupations, interests, affiliations, etc. See the second bullet above. We don't really care about your mundane background, although it might come up in conversation as we get to know you. We care about your insights. Some people identify so strongly with their occupations, interests, affiliations, etc., that they can't consider other perspectives. This is a problem that will hold you back. But if you are more than your occupation, interests, affiliations, etc., and want to consider other points of view, then come in and be welcome. The same is true for all of us already here.

The cost of your time and attention will far exceed the cost of a LearnGrowRepeat subscription. At launch a subscription is only $8 a month. This helps keep the trolls away and covers the cost of our website. But if that's a burden for you, you can get also get a subscription free of charge by referring people or contributing content. In fact, due to the economic activity within our community we expect some people will make far more than their subscription costs. We want this to be true for all, but it will depend on how much time you put into things. But the real reason the biggest cost will be your time is because that's how learning happens. You gotta put time into it. And that's how community happens. You gotta put time into nurturing it. The funny thing is, that people don't really think of time spent in community and learning as costs. They think of it as enrichment. And fun. We want our community to be fun, so bring your sense of humor.

Some of our in person gatherings will be announced publicly and some will be just for members of the community. I would love for you to be able to attend one of our gatherings, I just can't tell you when the next one will be. Right now we're obsessing over launching the website. We've already decided to have one in person event for our official launch, and probably one a month after that. We'll also have virtual events. As more people join we'll probably get to where we have either a live or virtual event every couple of weeks. As we continue to grow that will probably become weekly with different kind of events based on member interests. That will take us past the point where one person can attend them all, and they'll be in different locations and focused on different things. Then it becomes organic. But it how quickly it happens depends on people's interests, energy, and enthusiasm. As far as trials go, we're pretty stingy with them. But it's not about the money. The subscription keeps the trolls away and gives our community the separation a community needs to be a community. Plus, the commitment is so small. $8 for a month. And it's just enough to give members of our community the feeling of being invested in its success. Take that away and we'll get people with not commitment to the ideals we talk about drifting in and out every time the wind blows differently. We may from time to time, and especially at our launch, give out something like coupons for a free month. But I don't see that being an ongoing or routine thing. What I'd rather focus on is publishing enough information about what's behind the paywall so that you can make an informed decision about whether you want to join and be a part of our community. For example, we haven't officially launched yet and I see about we have about 200 posts and content items. After our launch I plan to add automagically updated statistics to our landing page so that guests can see the depth and breadth of what we're up to.

So many. You can become a referrer, a creator, and a maker. Or simply a contributor. The LearnGrowRepeat website is just a convenient vehicle to start bringing people together to share our ideas. A website is actually a poor vehicle for building a community, but it does have the advantage of not being limited by geography and gives us something to rally around. As our community grows, in person events will become more important and more frequent. If you want events to happen, you can help make them happen. The goal is not for the LearnGrowRepeat founders to organized and do everything. It's not to have a hierarchy like that. The goal is to have a community. The level of activity in a community depends on all of its members. Just simply having events will take a lot of people in many different roles. Some of these events will be formal, some informal, and some will be virtual or hybrid. A conference with seminars and workshops all day is just one type of event. I'm just as interested in dinner in a private room with 20 or so friends from LearnGrowRepeat. Or teaching a class in person. Or a community volunteer effort we select and perform together. Or just sharing cocktails. Could a virtual cocktail hour work? We won't know until we've tried it. A few times. And what about events for people who don't live near the others? You can help grow your local community so that it can become large enough to support in person events. We'll help in whatever ways we can. I don't know about you, but I'd love to travel to other places near or far to meet with a group of eager and enthusiastic people who share the ideas we discuss on LearnGrowRepeat. That would be so much better than a generic vacation at a generic theme park. If I can go back to being serious for a moment. Events give us a chance to use the techniques you learn online at LearnGrowRepeat to improve your relationships with people in stressful circumstances. In person events are not just time spent together. They are practice. If you really want to transform yourself, you need practice. And it will help to practice with other people who get the concept of what we're trying to do. Whether it's leadership, volunteering, or some other role will depend on the scope and purpose of the event. Working together to figure out how to organize our efforts and accomplish great things is part of how we can practice our ideas and validate how we've internalized them. .

Step 1: Decide whether this is the right community for you. If you are not looking to learn, grow, change, and repeat, this might not be the place for you. Step 2: Decide whether to pay for a subscription or earn one through referrals. Earning a free subscription takes longer and requires some effort. But it does not require any cash. If you want your subscription now then go to the store, put a subscription in your cart, and checkout. If you want to earn a subscription through referrals, you'll need to reach out to us so we can create an affiliate URL for you. You'll earn one month for each person you refer who subscribes and stays for three months. Make 12 successful referrals and you'll have a one year subscription free of charge. Step 3: Once you've got your subscription, you'll have immediate access. We have an onboarding process to help familiarize new users. You start with access to things we think all users need to know. Once you take the initial training, more access will open up. While some people will complete each stage quicker than others, over the course of four weeks most users will complete the onboarding process and gain full access. Step 4: Participate in the discussion forums, take more training, attend virtual and in-person events, and consume content. Over and over. Learn, grow, and repeat. Grow from just being a user to being a community member who sees what we're doing not just as a series of transactions, but also as a way of creating a community and ideas that are far larger and more meaningful. Step 5: Integrate what you've learned into your life. Improve your relationships. Cleanse yourself of contradictions, bad self-programming, and negative conditioning. Gain insight. Prosper. Thrive. After you learn and grow, don't forget to repeat.

The best way to learn something is to teach it. For people in the LearnGrowRepeat community, that's a powerful incentive. But we also want people to be able to afford to put effort into our community. Every community has an economy. Most economies use currency. But even the ones that don't have an economy. So does LearnGrowRepeat. Part of learning how to live in a community or how to create a community is to figure out how to have an economy with a minimum of unintended consequences. One of the reasons we use credits for all transactions on LearnGrowRepeat is so that our economy is separate from the economy outside the community. We are working on ways that people can exchange credits with each other in various ways to encourage economic activity. We want to incentivize people to create content, offerings, and services so that the community has a healthy economy. We charge for subscriptions mainly to keep trolls out of the community, but also to pay development and hosting bills. We set 20-30% of all subscription revenue aside for incentives for people to refer others and create content. We do this partly so that people can pay for their subscriptions without having to pay cash and partly so that active community members can be rewarded. Refer 200 subscribers and you can not only have a free subscription for years, but you can put over $1000 in your pocket. In a similar way, we have rewards for people who create content. And we also enable some users to use the LearnGrowRepeat platform to offer their goods and services. The way we see it is if they produce something that community members are interested in, isn't it better to deal with people in the community instead of strangers? We don't endorse, sell or support their offerings for them, we just enable community members to transact with community members if they choose. It also enables us to broaden the value provided to subscribers. You will find training, events, and services here that is offered by community members as well as that produced by LearnGrowRepeat. Over time we hope to see so much of that, our subscribers learn, grow, and repeat forever. If you are a creator or a maker and want to be a part of our economy, then reach out to one of our staff members or your Tour Guide. If you aren't a creator or a maker, you can still be a referrer. If you are not a creator, maker, or a referrer you can still be a valuable part of our community, simply by participating in our discussions, events, and courses. This is how we think an economy should work --- people being able to do what they need to do, engaging in the ways they choose to engage, and working together to thrive.

We focus on: Removing our interpretation of the conflict from the reality of it. Many conflicts arise from conclusions that are not based on objective reality and are instead based on our interpretation of it. Conflicts like these are largely unnecessary and usually unproductive for both parties. Being able to learn from people we disagree with and learning how to approach discussions to achieve that goal. When a conflict is based on objective reality, both parties can still learn something from it and walk away having gained something, even if it was not what they expected. Managing our expectations to either better achieve them or recognize that they depended on someone else who was not obligated to fulfill them. We don't debate to win, we debate to learn. We're not motivated to defeat other ideas, we're motivated to find ideas we can cherish. An idea that does not appeal to us is easily left behind. Being very careful with advanced topics like politics, advocacy, and evangelism. In general, the way politics is practiced is dysfunctional. We do not participate in that. Too many people stop thinking and start cheering for their team when politics comes up, so we leave that for advanced classes with participants who have proven they can separate their loyalty from the application of their personal philosophies to governance and learn from people they disagree with. We also avoid advocacy and evangelism because it involves either recruiting or alienating other members of the community. If you are here to persuade, convince, or advocate, you may have come to the wrong place. You can be religious with being an evangelist and discuss important topics without advocating. We’re here to share and not really to encourage or even convince. Much. Within the LearnGrowRepeat community it’s better to not be so concerned about what people think or believe, and instead to focus on the relevance and meaning behind thoughts and beliefs. But mostly we just try to be the kind of people who can turn lemons into lemonade. We'd rather create and inspire then argue and tear things down. We have the advantage of being able to choose who we let into our community. And if someone we let in becomes a troll, we may have to exile them. A troll is someone who is preventing others from learning and whose behavior does not support discussion. Our moderators treat conflicts as teaching moments, to get people to focus on how they are speaking instead of what they are saying. Moderation actions, which can include censorship (even though we find it distasteful) and exile from the community (rare but possible), are never taken alone. Moderators consult with each other on every action taken. Or better yet, on how to avoid taking action. We don't roleplay how to win conflicts. We roleplay how to avoid letting people who can't manage their emotions or who cause conflicts from joining the community. We are hear to teach and don't want to be distracted by discipline, so we seek community members who don't require discipline.

While we’re allergic to rules, this doesn’t mean we don’t have any. We just have a minimalist approach. We want a community where people nurture and support each other in a friendly and polite kind of way. We do not want to be a community that regulates the use of words in order to fulfill a mandate to be polite. We don't expect people with a different agenda to pay for a subscription to stick around. And if we get invaded by trolls, we can cancel their subscriptions. We hope that never happens because it would trigger our allergies. Let’s put our effort into nourishing positive conversations about challenging topics instead of pretending to be amateur lawyers obsessed with rules. No one wants to live in a community like that. It does help to have a common set of expectations for how we interact. Developing that and perfecting our individual skills at practicing it is a key part of the LearnGrowRepeat mission. Let’s be the kind of people we’d like to discuss or even debate with.