Sex

Affirmative Consent and Erotic Tension

If I’m connecting with a woman, and it begins to go in a sensual or sexual direction, I pause for a moment and say: “I’m attracted to you, and I want to feel free to express my desire with you. And, I’m committed to you feeling totally safe and comfortable with me. So if anything I do with you tonight makes you feel even slightly uncomfortable, I want you to say ‘Stop’ or ‘Slow down’ immediately and I’ll stop or slow down.”

This almost always puts a woman I’m already connecting with at ease; she usually thanks me for saying that and tells me how much more comfortable she feels with that in place.

I then often also combine this with affirmative consent. If at any point I want to escalate the physical touch, I will look her in the eyes and say, “I want to kiss you. May I?” etc.

This means she has affirmatively agreed to any touch between us, and she knows she is totally free to stop what we’re doing at any point: we have set up a space where yes means yes, and no means no, layered on top of each other.

Which means, we are both more free to explore our desires and attractions, knowing everything is totally consensual and we can stop easily at any time. That, it turns out, is a very hot space.

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Self-Education and Self-Investment

Loving the Unlovable Within


A few days ago, I released a new audio program, “Loving the Unlovable Within.” The same day, I received a letter from a listener that moved me to tears. After reading the letter, I have decided to release this program to everyone, for free. (I returned the money of those who already paid me.)

Why? Because after receiving this woman’s letter, I decided that I wanted everyone in the world who needs the information in the program, to have it immediately, without the material being stuck behind a paywall. Which means YOU get it now too.

I have posted the audio program, in its entirety, at the bottom of this post.

Here is the letter that moved me so deeply, from listener Sarah (who gave me permission to reprint it here):

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Self-Education and Self-Investment

Drop Out of The System, Drop Into Success – The Dartmouth Lecture

[Below is an edited transcript. There is also an audio version available for streaming and download at the bottom.]

I’m going to open with a statement that I guarantee that every one of you in the audience is going to find shocking.

I think every one of you students in the room here should consider dropping out tomorrow.

Obviously I don’t mean that in the literal sense. If I did the people here at Dartmouth who brought me in to speak would get fired tomorrow, and I don’t want that. So what the heck do I mean?

I’ve spent the day here on this lovely campus, and one of the messages I’ve heard from various people—both students and faculty—is that there’s a kind of track going on here. It’s not unique to Dartmouth, but maybe it’s more pronounced here. That is a track of doing well in school, then coming here and doing well at Dartmouth, then going on to a “respectable” profession. The professions I’ve heard are really popular here are management consulting, investment banking, and law. So the picture I’ve gotten is of a place where young people are brought on a track from a young age and then are put into a “tracked” career.

I’m not trying to single out Dartmouth here. I went to Brown, where it’s pretty much the same thing. We have a slightly different relationship to conventionality there, but most of the people are still being groomed for, and going into, these kind of “traditional” careers.

When I say you should consider dropping out, I don’t mean that you should consider dropping out of this institution. Please don’t do that! However, I do think you should consider dropping out of that “track” I mentioned. What I hope to accomplish by the end of this talk is to instill in some of you a broader perspective on the range of careers that are possible for you after you leave this institution—which will still allow you to lead a happy, comfortable, and successful life.

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Persuasive Arts, Lectures, Videos

How to Connect With Powerful and Influential People

At Awesomeness Fest in Playa del Carmen, I delivered this keynote:

[Below is an edited transcript. There is also an audio version available for streaming and download at the bottom.]

[By the way, if–after watching this video–you’d like additional help putting these steps into action, in a way that is relevant and tailored to your particular situation, check out my page “I Will Build Your Network“]

You think you’re here right now for a just little dose of awesomeness. Actually, what you’re here for is a religious conversion. The particular religion of which I’m a missionary—and I’m going to convert every last one of you—is the religion of connecting with powerful and influential people. Everything good in my life has come through this power. The most important connection in my life, to my wife Jena, came through a mutual connection. My book deals have come through connections. Most of what has happened in my business life has come through connections. I’m going to share some secrets with you that are going to “super sauce” this power in your life.

There’s one really important distinction you have to understand if you want to be good at this skill, and bring all the benefits that I’ve already mentioned into your life. It’s a distinction between two types of networking: the “right” way, and the “wrong” way. My guess is that a lot of you are unconsciously networking the wrong way, because a lot of people do this.

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Lectures, Self-Education and Self-Investment, Videos

My Debate in India, Sponsored By the Hindustan Times

Here is the video of my debate at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, New Delhi, India.

We had a lot of forces against us. I had been in India for 24 hours, did not know the local culture, was in Goddess-knows-what time zone, the motion was worded, for maximum debate fireworks, in a highly polarized way that didn’t work in our favor (“A liberal arts education is a waste of time and money.”) On account of that wording, by show of hands only two people voted, pre-debate, in favor of the motion (my wife and my friend), and most of the hands in the room, full of 500 of India’s most elite businesspeople, went up against it.

Nonetheless, I rained debate hellfire on our opponents. If you’d like to see what it looks like when a young tyke dresses down the headmaster of prestigious Wellington College (one of Britain’s most elite boarding prep schools) for perpetuating and promoting a system in which a year of education at his institution costs 40+ years worth of the average income of an Indian family, watch here.

I also got a chance to tell, to an Indian audience, the story of how my wife got her higher education, informally, traveling in their country on a budget of $6K, for 2 years in her early 20s. That made her a mini-celebrity for the rest of the conference.

We lost the debate (the audience was still overwhelmingly against our motion in the post-vote), but we went down swinging and fighting. Dozens of people came up to me afterwards and expressed gratitude for bringing up the issue of the costs of higher education, which are so pressing for Indian families (as they are for US families). And our opponent, Wellington College headmaster Anthony Seldon, graciously came up to me afterwards after our spirited debate, and said that he thought we won the debate. I was unrelenting and merciless, and had Seldon on his knees (literally! watch the video!) after my segment. He was a good sport and came back swinging in his own segment after mine. You can watch all the fun below.

My segment starts here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoi-ixfqWkc&t=1h17m34s

The full debate from the beginning is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoi-ixfqWkc&t=56m27s

And stay tuned on the same video (either link), after our debate segment, for a wonderful presentation by Darryl Hannah.

Lectures, Videos

Your Competitive Advantage is Not Information, It’s Transformation

Of all the talks I’ve ever given, this is, in my judgment, the best.

At Jazz @ Lincoln Center, speaking to the students of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition:

[Below is the edited transcript. An audio version is available for download at the bottom]

If you are a thought leader, trainer, coach, or service provider of any kind who shares with an audience or works or with personal clients, you are in the midst of a storm right now.

There’s a very powerful competitor out there trying to put each and every one of you out of business. This is an extremely well-funded competitor. I just checked their market capitalization. It’s around $230 billion. Everyone has heard of them. Everyone uses them. People have access to it on their computer and in their pockets or phones. Pretty soon it’s going to be driving your cars. It’s even going to be on your eyeglasses. If you haven’t guessed, I’m talking about Google.

We live in an age now where information is abundant, cheap, and free. If you are going to compete by providing information to your clients, you will lose. Competing with Google is a losing proposition. Often you’ll hear the distinction made between information and knowledge. There’s so much information out there, but what we really need is knowledge. Google has us beat here because they have videos. They own YouTube. Anyone can get the information distilled in any way they need. They can get all the concepts they need for free. Just flip on TED or go to YouTube. It’s all there.

This sounds a little depressing. How can you compete with this behemoth that is making all of the world’s information free and available to everyone? The answer is that your competitive advantage is not information. It is transformation.

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Persuasive Arts

How to Live The Writer’s Life

HiResI’ve put in my 10,000 hours at being a neurotic writer.

Now I’m sharing what I’ve learned with you!

I’ve created a course called “How to Live The Writer’s Life”

This isn’t focused on *selling* your writing (I may teach a course on that later.)

This is focused on *actually* writing.

Like, how to get yourself to do it regularly. (Which is, by the way, most of the “trick” to being a writer.)

–> How to do that most elusive thing writers are supposed to do, “Find your voice.”

–> Vulnerability vs. transparency. How to be “vulnerable” (that 2010’s must-have for writers) without being transparent about that… uh… that… that *thing* you’d rather people not know about…

–> Dealing with rejection from family, friends, and publishers (A writer who can’t deal with rejection is like a surfboard who can’t deal with water.)

–> Owning your identity as a writer fully, and dealing with people’s judgments of that identity. (“Oh, a *writer*. I see. What have you published?”)

–> How to write things people will actually read.

–> How to find the best material to write about.

–> Paying your dues as a writer adequately, but not *overpaying*!

–> How to get the feedback you need, while avoiding the feedback you don’t need. Knowing whose advice/feedback about your writing take seriously, painful as it is, and whose advice/feedback to say “Fuck off!” to.

–> How to become a better writer.

–> How to find writing mentors.

–> How to deal with the fact that most other people who are as smart as you, and who are not writers, are probably making more money than you.

–> Dealing with the greatest writing-killer the world has ever known: perfectionism

–> Gaining the courage to share your writing with an audience, before you know it’s perfect. (If you waited until you *know* it’s perfect, you might start sharing some of your writing in the old age home. And then, only because you’ve given up on waiting for things to be perfect!)

–> Career guidance for writers. If you’re going to spend all this time developing the skill of stringing words together, you might as well figure out how to make some dough from it. (No, not how to sell your writing. That’s the *worst* way to try to get paid for your writing skill.)

–> Mental Health and Sanity 101 for writers (You’re going to need it!)

Note: my own focus, for 20 years, has been non-fiction, so that’s where my perspective comes from. I have *zero* credibility on how to write fiction (create characters, plot, etc), poetry, etc., so I won’t be talking about fiction specifically. But I do think a lot of the stuff I mention above applies to fiction and poetry writers as well.

So, here is:

How to Live the Writer’s Life
A Course on All the Topics Above
by Michael Ellsberg

–> Four recorded class modules, 2 hours each

–> $150 for the series. 

–> One of the greatest components of the class, is the private Facebook group and community for the class, where you’ll meet all kinds of fellow travelers on the writing path, many of whom may become your writing buddies for life. *Here* you can share your writing, ask for feedback, ask questions and get advice from your fellow writers. Honestly, just meeting one good writing friend is worth the entire price of this course. This private group is currently alive and hopping with activity, with over 100 students participating.

I’ve also asked some of my friends who I consider to be *real writers* to join us for interviews. These are not just people who happen to have written (or had a ghostwriter write) a book as a business card for their business. These are not just people who happen to have a blog because, well, having a blog is the thing to do.

These are people who have *paid their dues* as real writers, over many years or decades, who identify as writers as a core part of their identities, who have achieved success as writers, and who are very well qualified to provide us guidance and wisdom on Living The Writer’s Life. You’ll have access to these bonus recordings as well.

This class is for you if:

  • You’ve been “wanting to write” for a long time but can’t seem to get yourself to do it. Other things always seem to take priority over your writing.
  • You “know you’ve got a book in you”- but that’s where it seems to stay- inside of you! And you want to get it OUT, into the world!
  • You feel isolated as a writer, and you long for community (a tribe) of writers on the same writing path as you
  • You feel a bit “weird” for being so obsessed with writing, almost as if it’s a guilty pleasure, and you don’t quite know how to fit this obsession in with the rest of your life, or with your family and friends
  • You’re finally ready to take your writing seriously, or take it to the next level

If any of these describe you, you’ll definitely want to be a part of this. I won’t teach this course again, so now’s your chance.

Ready to join us? Register here and you’ll get instant access to all the recordings, and the Facebook group, which is going strong.


(Be sure to click through the “Back to Michael Ellsberg” link on PayPal’s confirmation page, to get access to the Welcome materials for the course.)

Can’t wait to *see* you in the course!

To the writing life,

–Michael

Self-Education and Self-Investment

How to Hack Your Education: A Conversation With Dale Stephens

imgres-1These days, the “cool kids” at school don’t cut class and smoke weed in the back alley behind the school, like they did back when I was in school…

These days, the cool kids drop out, say F.U! to tens or hundreds of thousands in student debt and bloated tuition bills, start companies, and build lives for themselves, on their own terms, long before parents and professors tell them they now have “permission” to be adults.

Listen here to a special call I did with Dale Stephens, author of the new book from Penguin, Hacking Your Education: Ditch the Lectures, Save Tens of Thousands, and Learn More Than Your Peers Ever Will

Dale Stephens is a Thiel Fellow, has been featured in every media outlet you could imagine, and is the founder of UnCollege.org. He and I were both featured in the New York Times Sunday Styles article “Saying No to College,” and we shared the stage at TEDxSF on the failure of the higher education system.

Dale is an expert on the new youth-led alternatives that are now popping up like flowers amidst the college loan wasteland that parents have made of their children’s lives (parents have done this by foisting on children outmoded, out-of-touch, retrograde notions of education.)

Screw debt and five-figure tuition bills: get educated on your own, says Dale. Listen as we take this issue head on, and teach you real-world skills for educating yourself, the secret methods that out-of-touch parents, teachers, and professors don’t want you to know about, because they fly in the face of every bureaucratic notion that the older generations still rally around like lemmings jumping off the Titanic.

This recorded call is for you if:

  • You are a parent or prospective parent (Listening to this call may save you hundreds of thousands of dollars in college tuition that you won’t need to save for- and it may save your child from becoming a victim of indentured student-hood, via our nation’s broken and bloated perpetual student debt fiasco.)
  • You are thinking of plunking down hundreds of thousands of dollars on a graduate education. (HEAVEN’S NO! THIS CALL MAY SAVE YOU!!!)
  • You are currently a college student and want to learn how to get the most out of your student years, for the least amount of money.
  • You are currently a student and are thinking of getting the hell out of dodge, and joining all the other cool kids, by saying “No thanks” to your parents’ antediluvian ideas about education.

Listen to the call below. 

And, while you’re at it, order a copy of Dale’s great new book Hacking Your Education.

Persuasive Arts

How to Live as an Artist

1. Message first.
2. Money second.
3. Money is still important, as it helps you get your message out. So don’t ignore it. But don’t put it first!

For a while, I have been stepping into my identity as an artist. As opposed to a marketer or businessperson.

What I mean by *artist* is, someone who is moved primarily by a message, and spreading that message, not by earning money or building a repeatable, systematized business. (Can art truly be repeated or systematized?)

And yet, the stereotype and reality of the “starving artist” or “struggling artist” persists. I certainly paid my dues on that front, as a seriously struggling writer in my 20s. Though I was never close to starving, I certainly struggled plenty as my career as a writer emerged.

I’ll let others judge the value of my art (which I express in my writing every day, and in what I’m co-creating with all of you in my tribe every day.)

But I do believe I’ve created something truly of value in my own lifestyle—in the way I’ve learned to *live* as an artist. I have never felt so creatively free, never felt that my message was reaching as wide an audience, or never felt as materially abundant as I do right now.

I’m not an insanely wealthy man in a financial sense. But I have enough resources flowing through my life to live very comfortably. And more important, I have the resources flowing through my life to invest it back in spreading my message, via media, Web, PR, travel, networking, connecting, relationship-building.

(Something those of the “starving artist” mentality neglect: if you don’t have money to buy food, you probably also don’t have money to buy a nice web design or travel to an important networking conference, to spread your message. When living an integrated life, money—and the getting of it—*supports* the spread of art, rather than taking away from it. Be your own arts patron!)

And, most important, I have the resources to make time and space to devote myself to creating and spreading a wider message that is important to me.

The creative life, the artistic life—without the struggling or starving.

That is what I seem to come upon, and that, I am certain, has value for a lot of other people besides me.

Yet, when I look around me, I see very little serious business/marketing/branding advice aimed at people who primarily identify as artists (in the sense I’ve described above), instead of identifying as marketers or businesspeople.

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Self-Education and Self-Investment

How to Deschool Your Mind: A Controversial Dialogue With Dale Stephens & Michael Ellsberg

School is not inherently bad —but an exclusive focus on formal schooling as your only education, in the absence of real-world street-smarts, almost always is.

Listen to me in a teleconference with Dale Stephens, founder of Uncollege.org and “Chief Educational Deviant” of the Uncollege movement. This movement is liberating young people from constrictive views—foisted upon them by parents and  teachers—about how they should educate  themselves.

How to Deschool Your Mind: A Dialogue With Dale Stephens & Michael Ellsberg
You can listen to the audio of the call below.

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