Category Archives: Updates on the GFRF experiment

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.

 

GFRF Kung Fu – on hold for now

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Well the next term of classes for my junior kung fu classes has begun now and after a LOT of thinking I have decided against trialing one of the classes as a give freely receive freely class.

I just don’t feel confident that it would work at this point.  Also I guess I am feeling a bit stretched by how much I am already doing on a GFRF basis.  I am now doing all my clinical work, my qigong classes and workshops and also creating online training courses on a give freely receive freely basis.  While for the most part things have been going ok in these areas, they haven’t been going stunningly well either, in fact some areas have been quite disappointing.  In particular the response to my first GFRF online training course has been much lower than I expected… and I wasn’t really expecting much.

My ideal is to be able to do everything on a give freely receive freely basis… but I recognize that is a high ideal, and for me it is a lot of uncharted territory to get there.  My push to try GFRF with one of my Kung Fu classes was part of my desire to reach my ideal, but it just doesn’t feel right just yet.  I think I am better off being content taking a little step back and ‘consolidating’ my give freely receive freely efforts in other areas.  I think that if I can achieve more success with GFRF in these areas I will then feel more confident in moving forwards and expanding my GFRF into the remaining areas of my work.

Better to go a bit slower and surer than to rush and mess things up and potentially not be able to continue with GFRF in any area.

I still want to make my Kung Fu GFRF, but its going to have to wait awhile for now.

Success Again!

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Someone else has paid something for the ‘give freely receive freely’ qigong course I have put online.  This is only the second payment to come through, and it was a very small payment, but still I see it as success!  More evidence that people will voluntarily pay for something they see as having value, even though they could just take it without paying anything and there would be no repercussions.

For me this is another small piece of evidence that maybe it is possible to live in this way.  I look forward to more evidence in the future, hopefully the payments for the qigong course will become a constant stream as more people hear about it and find the value in it.

If you haven’t seen the course, it is online here: http://longwhitecloudqigong.com/online-courses/qigong-foundation-practices/

 

The next step – Kung Fu

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I have been spending quite a bit of time lately thinking about my next step.  Ideally I would like to try to do all my work on a ‘Give Freely Receive Freely’ basis.  I have already started with my clinical work and also with my qigong classes, courses and workshops, and it has been going ok.  It hasn’t been a massive success, but it hasn’t been a miserable failure either – I believe the idea has potential and CAN work.  This leaves one major area of my work to try GFRF with and that is my Kung Fu teaching.

I have a number of reservations about trying GFRF with my kung fu teaching, one is that while a lot of people love the idea of GFRF there are others who just don’t seem to get it and they feel awkward about it.  My view is that GFRF is the fairest deal there can possibly be for both the provider and receiver, but I don’t want people to shy away from using it because of unfamiliarity or discomfort.  Being faced with making your own choice about price can be quite confronting when you have not spent any time thinking about it and my aim is not to confront, but how else can I introduce the idea?

Another concern I have is that while I have contact with the students attending my classes every week, I often do not have a lot of contact with the parents of students.  All too often I think paying for the classes can be easily forgotten about.  It is a problem I have now with set prices that I have to chase up some parents right till the end of the term to be paid.  This takes a lot of time and effort which quite frankly I don’t have to spare.  I actually wonder if by putting the responsibility on the parent to decide how much to pay, they might also be more prompt in paying and understand better that it is their responsibility to support what I am doing for their child rather than my responsibility to chase them for payment.  It comes down to the idea that under GFRF both parties to the transaction become free givers rather than takers from each other (see my earlier blog post here).  But then again… it may not work out that way in practice.

Another concern is that I think people often underestimate the true cost of providing things (in this example kung fu classes).  There are many overheads to cover: rent, power, equipment, wages, advertising and so on, even really simple things like GST make a big difference.  Also I think people tend to underestimate the amount of time it takes to provide things like classes, looking just at the actual time the class takes when in fact there is a significant amount of time spent on administration, preparation, travel time and so on.  Owners of small businesses tend to be the exception as they have experience with all the things that need to be done to keep something running and what they cost, but for other people I think they often look at things from the perspective almost of the person providing the service receiving all the money.The reality is far from this.  The truth is that many of my classes are marginal with some even running at a loss, but I continue with them because I believe that learning kung fu has a lot of value for people by developing fitness, confidence and social skills (there are some really good studies that show that children allowed to play fight go on to be better socially adjusted than those who are not allowed to play fight).  I also believe that we have a great kung fu syllabus and organization that will grow over time if given the chance.  I can only do so much with the classes if they are not profitable though, and there is so much more that I would like to be able to offer in terms of competition, advanced training and performance, but I can’t until I have more financial resources to support them.

Similar to my concerns mentioned earlier, I wonder if GFRF may actually provide a solution to some of these problems as certainly it would allow any families who cannot afford my current prices to be able to attend at a price that they can afford, increasing class sizes.  Also the GFRF model would allow those who can afford more, to give more if they want to help support the ongoing running and further growth and development of the kung fu organization.

So there are significant pros and cons on both sides.  I guess one final factor is that I want to move to GFRF because I like how it changes my relationships with people.  I have noticed in my clinic work and qigong teaching that whether the client or student pays more, less or exactly the same as they did previously, there is a subtle change in how the interaction feels.  It might sound a little corny, but there seems to be more warmth, love and respect in the interaction from both sides; and that really is how I want to live my life.

I’m still nervous about it though… Due to the overheads and the time commitment involved in running classes it could easily go wrong and make it difficult for me to continue.  I wonder maybe if it is too soon for me to try this, but I also think if not now when would I start?  What I’m thinking of doing at the moment is trying it out at just one location where I have kids and teens classes and see how that goes… but I’m still not even sure about that.   I have a few weeks to think about it before the next term begins.

Support for Give Freely Receive Freely

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I had something really nice happen yesterday.  Someone gave me some money for the GFRF website.  I was very touched.

I know the website isn’t much yet, but I do hope that it provides some inspiration to the people that come across it.  I know that at least a few people have been influenced by what I am doing and my writing about it, and this has given them inspiration to try to do things differently in their lives.  I am always pleased to hear about these stories and hope to continue to hear more in the future.

It is so nice to have these sorts of things happen, whether it is receiving support for what I am doing or hearing about it making a difference to people.

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/

Small update on the GFRF online qigong course

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So I’ve enabled advertising on a select few of the videos for the online qigong course that I have created.  I wanted to keep it advertising free so as to compare returns of putting the courses up in different ways and also just so people wouldn’t have to deal with the ads, but I noticed something from my other youtube channels.  In preparation for putting these courses online I enabled advertising on my old channels with videos I put up awhile ago.  What was interesting was that after enabling advertising my video views went up significantly.  I later found out that youtube actively promotes your videos with enabled advertising, which makes sense as they make more money that way.

While I wanted to keep the course advertising free I also want people to see the course and benefit from it.  So I’ve enabled the ads on just a few key videos that it should not really impact on the learning as they aren’t really the types of videos that a learner would watch over and over.  I think this is a good practical compromise that will lead to more people finding the course and being able to still use most of the videos advertising free.

Awkward conversations

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As I have continued with my give freely receive freely experiment, I have of course continued to have conversations with people about what I am doing and why I am doing  it.  For the most part these conversations have been really positive, often with people expressing what a great idea it is and that they hope I have lots of success etc etc.  But then some of the conversations have just been awkward…

Part of this is probably due to me not being all that great at expressing my ideas about GFRF yet, and then part of it is probably that the idea is so different from what people are used to and have experienced for their entire lives that they really struggle to understand what its about.  Some of our ideas about exchange are so deeply embedded that they become invisible to us, they become fundamental assumptions that we do not question or even necessarily realize exist.  So when a new idea is presented to us that operates outside those sets of assumptions we still try to interpret them in the context of our underlying assumptions even though they don’t apply, and this can lead to confusion and misunderstanding.

In a way its a bit like trying to tell someone that ‘there is no spoon’, those who’s minds are ready embrace the idea readily, while others just think you’re weird.  I guess what I need to do is demonstrate that there is no spoon to help them to understand.  I’m working on it but I think it’ll take some time.  (If you don’t get the reference, watch the video clip below, and if you do get the reference still watch the video – its a great scene).


So in this post I thought I’d mention some of the comments or misunderstandings I’ve encountered in my awkward conversations.

One of the biggest misconceptions I have encountered has been that by using ‘Give Freely Receive Freely’ I am not valuing what I do.  One quote “Yeah I get what you’re doing, but I don’t think I could do that myself because I value my time too much”.  Honestly this couldn’t be further from the truth.  The way I see it is that I value my time so highly that I don’t want to put a price on it.  The moment I put a price on my time, even a very high price, it becomes a commodity to be bought and sold.  My life, and my time is more valuable to me than that, I will however give it freely at my own discretion.

Another misconception related to this when I mention this system of exchange is that I am expecting people to pay less because of this.  Again not true.  Essentially I expect people give to me freely in return because they want to support what I am doing.  This is not tied to any particular price level.  People will give according to their means and the value they find in what I provide.  I want people to find and evaluate that value for themselves though.  Too often our ideas about value are determined by marketing efforts or by power relationships (monopolies, cartels, vulnerability of one of the parties to the exchange) rather than by the actual value of what is provided.  This leads to distortions in our economy and society and causes resources to be directed to things that aren’t actually useful to us and to be diverted from things that are.  If each of us is able to determine value for ourselves then our individual and collective resources would go to the things that are truly worthwhile and make us happy, rather than being wasted on things that actually contribute no value to our lives.  (Many of the things our money and therefore resources go to under our current way of operating, far from adding value to our lives actually take it away – more on this in another post).

(A classic example of price being determined by marketing rather than true value in this article.  A $3000 vacuum cleaner that doesn’t perform as well as a $100 one: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10829343 ).

I believe there is great value in what I do, that it really helps people in their lives, and that left to find the value themselves they will value this appropriately.  Of course there is the challenge of helping people see past the common externally imposed marketing and power relationship driven value system, but you’ve got to start somewhere and I believe that exchanging in this way may actually cause people to value what I do more highly than if I put a set price on it.  Most people are actually quite intelligent if you give them a chance to be.

A third misconception again related to the other two, is that somehow by doing this I have given up on having all the things our material society values.  Basic things like owning my own house, take holidays and so on.  Again not true at all, I still want those things and think I have a good, maybe even better chance of receiving them by giving freely and receiving freely than by charging set prices.

What I have given up on is the idea of struggling and competing against others in my society.  I guess you could say I have given up on the rat race, but I don’t think that the rat race is the only way to achieve those material aims.  I think there is a better way, and that is what I am pursuing.  This way involves more trust and more co-operation with others in our society.  It will bring out the best in me so that I end up contributing more that is of true value to individuals and society without wasting as much energy on the things that are not of value; and if it works properly I will receive more in return for the true value I create.

This way is the Give Freely Receive Freely way.  I hope you’ll continue to follow my journey as I explore these ideas and learn how to make this work in practice.

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!

GFRF Workshops Update

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I have completed the first lot of workshops that I scheduled using the Give Freely Receive freely system of exchange.  It wasn’t fantastic, but it wasn’t a trainwreck either.  Some people paid the same as they would normally have when I charged a set price, others paid considerably less.

I think there are a number of factors why people would pay a lot less, financial need is one – in which case fair enough, that is exactly the sort of person who should pay less, but I think that reason is less common than you might think (my prices were already very reasonable).  I think a more common reason is the mindset we get used to which is behind so many of our exchanges, which is to get as much as we can while giving as little as we can.  Another is a misperception that because something is being given away potentially for ‘free’ – this makes it like a ‘charity’ and somehow cheapens and devalues it.  I think there are some major unhealthy distortions around our ideas about charity in our society.

I’ll write more about these types of thinking in future posts.

Anyway, my current evaluation of the success of my workshops… they were OK.  They were successful enough that I want to continue to run them GFRF and see how they perform in the future.  I have some hope that performance will improve.  I think there may be long term benefits as more people are exposed to the idea, begin to understand it and become comfortable with it.  I think there may also be long term benefits in terms of a long tail of goodwill which will build as I stick with the concept for longer.