Category Archives: Announcements

New Project – Encouraging Giving

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I have a new project – I will be working to improve the earth’s energy in the places people live and work. I am quite excited about it. I have had some amazing experiences in my travels recently which have greatly enhanced my ability to do this type of work, and I thoroughly enjoy it.

Following on from my recent blog post here, I am going to take the opportunity to try out some different ways to encourage suitable giving on the part of the recipients of this service. I now realize how important this is, as if the recipient does not give appropriately (according to their means) to show suitable respect and appreciation for what they have received, in order for the universe to remain in balance they also do not receive the benefit of what they receive. So by not creating conditions where the recipient is inclined to give appropriately, they are actually being denied the benefit…

Figuring out how to do this in different situations is going to take some getting my head around, but I now feel it is very important. Previously I just thought it was unfortunate for me when some people did not reciprocate appropriately, but I now realize it is actually mainly bad for them.

Earth smallWorking with the earth’s energy is actually one of the things that has given me a lot more insight about this.  What I do with the earth’s energy is a truly rare skill. Recently I did some work to substantially improve the energy flow on a property. I did all the preparation and got everything ready to make the energy in this place amazingly vibrant and beneficial to the occupants.  But at the last stage I was stopped from completing it.  Something just would not let me complete the work – because I knew that the occupant was not going to appreciate and respect the work that had been done… I would have liked to finish the work for my own satisfaction, but I was prevented from doing so.

switch-41684_960_720So it is sitting there all ready to go, kind of like a house all wired up for electricity, but with the switch connecting it to the main powerline in the off position. Perhaps if things change in the attitude of the owner of that property in the future the switch will be able to be flipped on.  I hope so.

So anyway, what is this GFRF method I will be using for this project? Essentially I will be framing expectations of how much someone should expect to give in return for what they receive – but in the end it will still be up to them. There will also be a minimum payment required at the start, which is for their good to ensure that they get the benefit of the service, otherwise it is a waste of both their and my time.  This minimum payment, and in fact the comments about the expectations of what is suitable is expressed as a % of the value of the property being worked on. This gets around one of the issues of setting price vs GFRF, as this does not respond to the level of resources someone has, it excluded those without enough resources, and may not encourage those with a lot of resources from giving enough relative to their means. As the amount is expressed as a percentage of the property value, and the person owns the property, by definition it should fit the level of resources that they have.

I’m excited to both be doing this works, and also to try this new twist on GFRF. If you would like to read more about it you can visit the site that I have created for this service: earthenergyconsulting.com

I highly recommend it as it is something that can make a big difference to your wellbeing.

Give Freely Receive Freely – World Tour

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Well its happening.  I have reorganized my life to give me the freedom to be able to travel and offer workshops on a ‘Give Freely Receive Freely’ basis.  I am actually currently in Australia presenting workshops.  Later I will be going to the USA, Colombia, UK, Europe, Egypt, and South Africa. (You can see details at http://longwhitecloudqigong.com/)

In the end the tour will not be fully GFRF, I have left it up to the people in the different areas who are helping with organizing the workshops to decide how best to organize them in their area. This means that some are setting a price, others are having a ‘minimum donation’ arrangement, and others are running them straight GFRF.  And of course I do not have a source of freely given plane tickets, train tickets etc, along with other miscellaneous expenses along the way. Whatever the case I am going and presenting the workshops without expectation of whether they will make money or not, just focusing on the experience and sharing my knowledge and skills with others.  So in that sense it is still truly GFRF.

I hope that somehow this is able to work out, because to be able to live in a GFRF way is still my dream, but nagging at the back of my mind is that I may eventually have to change this and start to operate in a way where I charge set prices. In the end I have to be able to cover costs and live or it will be impossible to continue.  But for now I want to give it a chance, perhaps miracles can happen. I try to push these thoughts to the side and enjoy the journey in front of me for now.

My first GFRF product offering

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My first experiment with offering a physical product GFRF is now live.  I haven’t offered physical products GFRF previously due to the fixed cost of the products.  If a lot of people bought the products at or below what it cost me to supply them… well I would quickly run into financial trouble.  Its a bridge I wanted to cross at some point though, so today I have taken that step.

The product is an ‘Acupuncture Massage Ring’ and has been really popular in the past when I have sold them for $8.95 each.  It will be really interesting to see how people respond to paying what the want for them.  I figure now is a good time to get the product online as Christmas is coming and people will be looking for gifts soon.

I am not entirely sure how I will promote the offer, probably just on facebook and via my websites, but it is now up on a new page of the GFRF website – the ‘Shop’.  If this is successful I will look to adding additional products in the future.  Also if anyone else has products they would like to offer GFRF, maybe I will be able to include them on the Shop page as well, or at least link to your own website with the offer.  The offer must be truly GFRF though with no strings attached, not something that is just an intro to try and get someone to buy something else at a fixed price.

Anyway, at some point in the future I will report back on how this experiment with GFRF physical goods goes.

Give Freely Receive Freely Goes Underground!

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Ok, so this is my next step in experimenting with Give Freely Receive Freely.  I am planning on offering more of my services on a GFRF basis, but only to those who ask for it.  For other customers/clients/students there will be set prices.

What had led me to try this?

For most people GFRF is a very unusual idea, so much so that they find it very confronting to have to deal with.  This can be offputting and cause them to be uncomfortable with the interaction and shy away from using a product or service.  I believe that there is real value in the things that I offer and I don’t want people to miss out on those benefits because they are uncomfortable with the payment method.  Also my aim is not to be confrontational but to share an idea and way of exchanging with people that I think has potential to be hugely beneficial both to the individuals involved and society as a whole, but at the moment some people get it and others just don’t.

Also, I recently had a telephone conversation with Ian from Northriver (the horse and humanship training centre listed in the directory) and one of the things we discussed was that one part of their payment policy is that the client must make the payment face to face.  I think this increases the connection between giver and receiver and helps to make sure that the client has some level of internal reflection on the value of what they have received so that they are comfortable with the payment they give in return for it.  I think this is a powerful idea with many benefits, but not one that I feel I am able to implement with all of my services at the moment.  In particular this would be difficult with my junior Kung Fu classes as I do not have that level of engagement with many of the parents (many of them I do not see, or they drop and run).  I would like to increase the level of engagement with these parents but don’t think I can push it on them, its one of the common problems of modern life – excessive busyness resulting in disengagement from community.  I think that GFRF can help to solve these problems, but people need to come to it in their own time – I’m not going to force it on them.

So how will people find out that I am offering things on a Give Freely Receive Freely basis?

Well, I’m going underground with it, but it will be underground with big gaping cavernous entrances and signs with flashing lights pointing the way in.  I think that GFRF has great potential to create better interactions between individuals and a better society and world for all of us to live in, so of course I am going to continue to tell people about it.  I will continue to write on this blog and share the posts with people.  I figure the people that ‘get it’ will find the idea and the posts interesting and will look around the site and find all of what is on offer.  Those that don’t ‘get it’ will just find the idea too strange and probably won’t look around the site or read many of the posts.

It really won’t be hard to find what I am offering GFRF, it will be listed on the directory along with the services of others that I find are offering things in this or a similar way.  Those that are interested will find it.

In addition to this I will continue to offer some of my services only on a GFRF basis, these services will act as entrance points to Give Freely Receive Freely and will introduce the idea to people and start them getting used to it.

And finally, if I come across someone who I think could particularly benefit from my GFRF offerings and somehow has not found out about it through other means, I’ll tell them about it and point them to this website.  I actually did this the other day with a parent who said they were having difficulty coming up with the fees for their child’s Kung Fu classes – so I guess technically I have already started offering Kung Fu on a GFRF basis.

What am I offering GFRF?

I will continue to offer the following services openly GFRF:

  • Clinical work (using Qigong and Traditional Chinese Medicine)
  • Weekend Workshops (Qigong and Self Defence Workshops)

I will offer the following on an underground GFRF basis: (people will have to ask for it)

  • Kung Fu classes
  • Term based courses (Qigong, Self Defence – possibly some more offerings soon)

The following will still have set prices due to the fixed incremental costs involved in supplying them: (although I do have ideas about trying to offer some of these on a GFRF  basis too, so stay tuned on that).

  • All physical products (health products, books, t-shirts, uniforms, massage equipment etc.)
  • Gradings and Examinations

What does the future hold for GFRF?

Well I will continue to experiment with ways of offering things on a Give Freely Receive Freely basis.  I think there is such value in GFRF to create better lives and a better world  for all of us, but I realize that it can take a lot of work to effectively link theory and practice.  I want to make this work on a practical level.  I will continue to share my experiences along the way as I find what works and what doesn’t work for me.

I will also continue to find and list details in the directory of other people doing things on a GFRF basis or similar.  I will also be interviewing or encouraging these people to contribute their experiences with GFRF to this blog so that we can all learn from and be inspired by each other – look forward to a post about my conversation with Ian from Northriver soon.

I may start again to post some items about my thoughts on politics, history and philosophy and how they apply to GFRF.  I pulled back from this for awhile because it all felt a bit overwhelming to lay out all the theory while being so new and inexperienced to the practice of GFRF.  I think its really important to get theory and practice in balance otherwise you just end up fantasizing… or even worse ranting.  So it will probably be only the occasional post on philosophy at this point as I think my focus needs to be more on practice right now, but I think there may be some value in beginning to write these again.

I am excited to be able to offer Kung Fu on a GFRF basis.  Kung Fu was a real sticking point for me in figuring out how I could offer it GFRF due to the dynamics of some of the interactions involved and I think taking it ‘underground’ may be a good way for me to do this.  I hope that it is successful and if there is enough of an underground movement I may be able to bring it out into the open later on.  As with all aspects of GFRF, it is an experiment at the moment.  I will continue to review tweak and change if necessary to find what works.

 

Humanship Horsemanship – give freely receive freely

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A parent of one of the kids who comes to my Kung Fu classes gave me the details of some people who teach horsemanship humanship workshops on a GFRF basis (although they don’t call it that, it is the same idea. They also have other programs that they have set prices for.  You can read their pricing philosophy here).

I am always encouraged when I hear about other people doing the same or similar things.  To be honest I am not finding the journey of converting to GFRF particularly easy and I often find myself facing doubts and fears so finding other people doing similar helps to give me a boost of confidence and encouragement.

So if you’re interested in horses, check out North River Horse and Humanship Centre near Waipu, north of Auckland.

I will also be contacting them myself as I would like to hear more about their experience using their pricing philosophy.  I may be able to interview them and put that on the blog at some point.

Success! – first online payment for my online qigong course

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I’m excited.  The first payment has come through for my online qigong course.  I had hoped people who use the course would start making some payments soon, but had thought I might possibly need to wait til they completed the course (12 weeks) before they started paying.

So this is great.  Evidence that at least some people viewing the course recognize the value in it and are willing to make a voluntary contribution in return for it.  I hope this is the first of many to come.

If you haven’t seen the course, you can check it out in the link below if you are interested.

http://longwhitecloudqigong.com/online-courses/qigong-foundation-practices/

My First GFRF Online Course is now live!

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It is a 12 week online qigong course.  It has been a huge amount of work putting it together.  About six weeks of loooong days to get it ready using every spare moment to work on it, and that doesn’t include the years of work preparing the material in the course in the first place.

Part of me is nervous about putting so much work into something that potentially I will not be paid a cent for, because hey, I have to be realistic – I need to eat and have somewhere to live just like everyone else, and if my time and effort is going into something like this that means its not going into something else that might help to pay my bills.

But I’m excited to have it up and at this point don’t really care if people pay me anything for it or not.  I just want people to find out about it, use it and benefit from it.

This video gives an introduction:

 

You can see the whole course here: http://longwhitecloudqigong.com/online-courses/qigong-foundation-practices/

and like the facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/longwhitecloudqigong

Let me know what you think!

Phase Two of My Give Freely Receive Freely Experiment

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Well, I can’t say my experience with GFRF so far has been a runaway success, but it hasn’t been a resounding failure either.  All in all it has been close to business as usual.  It will be interesting to see how things develop as I continue on with using GFRF in my clinical work.  I have some ideas to spark things up a bit there which I will look at implementing in the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime though I am ready to embark on phase II of my experiment.  I am going to expand my GFRF offering to include the next set of workshops I will be teaching.

I have three workshops scheduled in August, one on qigong, one on self defence, and one on breathing.  They will be listed on an online events directory, so this should expose a reasonable number of people to them and also to the GFRF concept.

I am a little concerned about the outcome, as I have put a huge amount of work into preparing the material for these workshops, and quite a bit of work goes into delivering each one.  For me to re-coup the opportunity cost, or the time cost of having spent so much time on these which has meant I have not been working on other things that would pay me, I really need to be paid quite well for them every time I deliver them over the course of several years.

Will people pay/contribute enough when attending these workshops to make them viable for me?  I don’t know.  There is a tendency here in New Zealand to contribute minimally to things that are perceived as ‘free’ or ‘community’ events, or even some idea that somehow someone else is paying for them (which is often the case through grants etc), so therefore the attendees don’t need to.  Of course I’m trying to get past this idea into having people understand that the value of something is not determined by the price, but they themselves can determine the value to them, and they should exchange based on that value – within what they can afford.  This would mean that people pay different amounts for something according to how useful it is to them and according to their financial situation.  It also means that they are realistic about the cost of provision of whatever it is that they are receiving and understand that for that thing to continue to be offered those costs need to be met.  Quite simply if those who use the service or whatever it is offered don’t collectively contribute enough to meet those costs, then it will no longer be able to be offered (as the person or people offering it will run out of resources).  This is the case with these workshops.  I am not wealthy (far from it) and able to do all this work as a fancy.  I have bills to pay just like everyone else.  If I am not able to receive enough money for delivering them, then I simply won’t be able to continue to offer them on a GFRF basis.  Either I will have to stop offering the workshops or go back to charging a set price to bring in enough money.

Operating in a GFRF way makes the individual very powerful, they essentially vote with their money (or other resources).  If they want something to continue – they contribute a reasonable amount so that it can continue or even grow.  If they do no want something to continue, they just pay less or nothing for it and it will quickly shrink or cease.  You might think this is the same as a conventional economic arrangement, but there are some significant differences which I believe makes the GFRF concept a much more effective way for people to shape what goes on in their society than a set price approach.  I’ll discuss these differences and there implications in future blog posts.

I believe that what I offer in these workshops is valuable to people.  The feedback I have received about them has always been universally positive.  But will people contribute enough on a GFRF basis?  There are a number of ways this could happen.  Either the average amount paid could come out close to what I would usually charge ($100 per workshop, which I think is good value, I know of other people who charge about $300 for similar workshops).  Or seeing as people can pay whatever they like for the workshop I could have more people attend – which would mean that a lower average contribution would add up to me still receiving about the same amount of money.  This would maybe happen if people attended who previously would not have been able to afford to attend, but take the opportunity to make the most of the GFRF system.

I would be happy with either of these scenarios.  I’m still a bit nervous about it though.  It is a radically different way of doing things than people are used to.  I also realize that some people who might have attended may not attend if they are uncomfortable with paying this way.  I expect to a large degree the success of the workshops will come down to how well I communicate about GFRF to those who are interested.

Well nothing ventured nothing gained.  I am sure I will learn a lot from this experience.  I really want to be able to offer as much of what I do as possible through GFRF as I feel good about working in this way, as it makes what I offer affordable to everyone, and I believe it can do this while also providing me with what I need.  In a way it is a great natural leveler, and naturally creates a type of social equity which is sadly lacking in our current environment.  But it is hard when this concept is so different to what people are familiar with.

I will report back!

Also if you are interested in these workshops there are basic details here: http://longwhitecloudqigong.com/calendar/

I will also put links to more comprehensive details in the comments to this post once I have listed the workshops on the online events directory.

 

The ‘Give Freely, Receive Freely’ experiment

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Hi everyone

A few weeks ago I started an experiment with giving freely and recieving freely.  I am doing this with my clinical work (I practice Traditional Chinese Medicine, Qigong and also offer Massage and Lifestyle Advice).  You can read what I initially posted explaining the idea, on my website for my clinic here: http://developyourqi.com/?p=468

The experiment is off to a fairly uneventful start (not a lot of people know about it yet), but as I have thought about it more and had conversations with people about it, I have realized that I have a lot more to say about the ‘give freely, recieve freely’ concept.  I think that it not just about an alternative way to look at money and exchange, but a concept that bridges over into other areas of our lives and how we view the world and interact with others.

So I have created this blog to share my further thoughts on giving and receiving freely.  I hope that you find them interesting and that I inspire a few people to look at the world a bit differently as a result.