Part 2 of 3: The Power of Manifestation (in response to Annette Carter request)
In my bedroom in my late twenties and early thirties, I had a humongous Vision Board hanging on my wall. I utilized it to visualize and manifest my future.
In the next two decades, all but one of my visualizations came true. The most important one of all. It has been my secret ambition for thirty years, and the purpose of this three-act story.
Over three decades, I would have used different phrasing to describe it. In my twenties, I would have called it “my Galt Valley”. In my thirties, I would have called it “a place where people can go to discover and pursue their dreams.” In my forties, I would call it a destination where people visit ‘to transform in the direction of their bliss’.
When I tell someone about it, and notice that they are having trouble envisioning such a place (or just aren’t really that interested), I make a joke comparing it to the hit TV show “Fantasy Island” from the early 80’s. That always gets a good laugh at a dinner party. It also has the dual benefit of peacefully ending the conversation and invited me to daydream the rest of the dinner.
Occasionally, someone expresses interest in my dream and they begin asking questions. I excitedly respond the same way. Have you ever read “Atlas Shrugged”? If the answer is no, I suggest they read it and truly hope they do. Most do not! It’s not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination. If a person answers yes though, I get even more excited and declare: It is going to be a place like Galt Valley – only not to live, but to visit. It is my dream to inspire people to transform in the direction of their Bliss! My business partner Patrick Combs is just like John Galt! Wait till you meet him!
After my these declarations, if I see even a smidgen of recognition or longing in their eyes, I make a mental note to recruit them to visit one day (just Francisco d’Anconia in the book) or just go to work on them immediately. This is the unique way I get customers. No click funnels, fancy internet marketing or traditional advertising. I like to hand select and tap deserving people on the shoulder. Give them an invitation to change. Did I mention we are a small company that plays big?
Despite my evolving philosophies and wording, my visualization of what I would achieve with such a property has always been crystal clear to me. I can say it in one word: Transformation. Such a physical space was always the centerpiece of my vision board and therefor, my biggest dream. It also happens to be the only dream left from my vision board that has yet to be achieved. While it is my unrealized dream, it is not from a lack of effort. My journey to it has been grand, and never told publicly till now.
I spent my thirties building a global company called University of Dreams to inspire college students to discover and pursue their dreams. During these years, I would spend weekends driving around the greater Bay Area searching for the perfect property that would enable me to fulfill this dream. I would spend hours driving down every nook and cranny of a road that didn’t have a No Trespassing sign on it (and even down a few that did).
Despite my efforts, I never found it. Trusting that I would some day, I focused my energies on hosting transformation events on college campuses around the world. A temporary solution that would last twelve years, lead to the creation of a global company, transform over 10,000 lives and make me wealthy in the process.
At the age of 39, with my new found wealth earned from positively impacting lives for more than a decade, my wife and I bought the Fox Theater in Redwood City, Ca in 2010. The day I closed escrow and got the keys to the property, I took this photo commemorating the apex moment of a long journey (FoxDream photo). I remember thinking, this is it! Surely, I could realize my dream utilizing this majestic palace with its glorious historic stage as my transformation pulpit! Then I met the locals, their politicians, and other city officials who had different ideas.
Super nice people, but they did not want to hear about my dream to transform people at the Fox Theater. They wanted their sleepy downtown to be transformed to be more vibrant. Inspired by the degree of difficulty, I set my dream aside and accepted their challenge. Thus, another seven years passed, this time leading a movement. Just not the one in my dreams.
At age 46, I had an awakening. I was living someone else’s dream, not mine. Leading a downtown’s renewal was nowhere on my vision board. I immediately put the Fox Theater on sale (even though a theater was on my vision board) and began to withdraw from the movement to revive downtown Redwood City. It was hard because I had grown to love some of the people I aligned with and knew I would miss them. I also knew that they would probably not understand and feel somewhat abandoned. I feared that this would cost me some dear friends. But in my heart, I knew I was done in Redwood City and money alone could not inspire me to stay. It was time for my dream to finally happen. I would need a new bliss journey to take me there.
I started a small company called Bliss Champions to begin the journey. I enlisted a dear old friend to be my partner. Our goal was to transform people to discover and live their bliss. This meant I would have to re-enter the Personal Development industry after eight years away, as a life coach.
I decided that putting on retreats would be the most blissful way for me to coach. To say that the market was saturated with personal development retreats and coaches is an understatement. I was about 10 years late to the party, but I didn’t care. I knew that I would need to become an expert at these two crafts for my dream to come true and I was up for the challenge.
Besides, the Personal Development industry has always been my favorite industry to work in. It may not be the place I make the most money, but it’s definitely where I grow the most and live my fullest life. It aligns me with good feelings and gives me ample opportunities to live my purpose.
When I began my journey to create Bliss Champions, my dream of a physical place began speaking loudly to me. It was no longer a faint whisper. Magic doorways began to open. They told me it was time. I quickly concluded that to begin this journey in earnest, research was required. After all, there was still the mighty unknown of where on earth this physical place would be.
Was it lurking somewhere in the Bay Area? Or, did I want do my work from a destination? Perhaps an island? What would it be like to have the beauty and power of the ocean as my backdrop? Or, would it be more blissful to do it from a majestic lake with serenity and calmness as the theme? Or maybe in a sprawling valley with the grandeur of mountain peaks surrounding? I decided that the best way to find out was to try them all.
My need to experiment took me on a three-year adventure around the globe. I scouted out dozens of amazing destinations, choosing to host retreats in Lake Como, Italy, on the island of Kauai, my wine estate in Silicon Valley and this coming August, in San Jose del Cabo in Mexico. Below is a photo of each. It’s been quite a bliss journey as I have enjoyed each location. The retreats themselves have provided amazing transformations for me, my guests and our staff.
In the end, I realized that I desired an island setting the most. The ocean has always felt like home to me. Its combination of power and beauty draw me in. I do my best thinking in its presence. Island living inspires me more than any other setting and based on what I have seen, it works best for my customers too.
Initially, I focused on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. My first mentor, and the only boss I ever had, lives there. He runs a great rental company called Pure Kauai. It rents out the islands best private estates. I found one property on his inventory that I really liked, but it’s $35 million price tag cooled my jets. Not to be defeated, I invested in my friends’ company so I could have regular access to the property if I wanted to rent it for my retreats. We utilized the property for two years. As spectacular as it is though, it never felt like the physical place I truly desired. After all, it wasn’t mine!
While running our retreats on Kauai, I began to search for the perfect opportunity. I found a development called Timbers that offered fractional ownership to luxurious condos on a beautiful beach front property that could work well for our retreats. I liked it enough to enter escrow on five adjacent condos but ended up pulling out because it just didn’t feel like what I truly wanted. As my partner Patrick said, “It wouldn’t be yours Eric!”
Feeling like I had exhausted my search to find something already built, I found a parcel of oceanfront land in the Kukui’ula Development on the south side of Kauai. I told myself, “Fuck it, if I can’t find what I’m looking for, I’ll build it myself” just like Ray Kinsella in “Field of Dreams”. I decided to go for it, and entered escrow for the second time. It is the property pictured with me kneeling and an open field of grass behind me. I would build the perfect retreat compound.
I put together an All -Star team for its development. It included a super talented builder, two world class architects, the best realtor in Hawaii, and a fantastic real estate attorney. I asked my wife, my mentor and my current Bliss Champions partner to throw in with me. I created a start-up to construct my dream of building a one-of-a-kind retreat compound where we could transform people in the direction of their bliss. My dream home for my purpose.
The only problem with this particular version of my journey was its price tag. It would cost a whopping $5.5 million to acquire the land and another $12 million to build what I desired. I would need some help.
My strategy was to close on the land myself and then raise capital for the construction. I was a few days away from getting my loan for the land approved in March 2020 when Covid-19 struck.
During the first week of shelter-in-place, two of the investors I planned to reach out to for capital for the build actually called me asking to borrow money. I quickly realized that raising such a large sum of money during the beginning of a global pandemic and looming recession was not a winning formula for fundraising success. I took it as a sign from the Universe that perhaps I made the wrong choice.
If you know me well, you know that I am not a fan of quitters. Especially when it comes to one’s dreams. I am not a quitter. I have literally never quit on a dream. I consider it unthinkable. Working in the personal development industry, I see people quit all the time and it drives me crazy. So, just like my coaching clients, I had to fight the illusion that my timing sucked.
I spent days brainstorming solutions to the substantial challenges of the Pandemic. It was raw and emotional. I was not fun to be around. The challenges seemed insurmountable. I no longer wanted to wear any of the hats I had accumulated with each failed attempt at my dream (pictured below).
Eventually, while I actually gave consideration to the word “surrender”, I realized a way forward. No surprise that I was staring at the Pacific Ocean the moment I gained clarity. I decided to give myself permission to start the visualization process all over again from the beginning. Rather than label this pivot as quitting, I allowed myself to think of it as adapting to a once in a century occurrence. This eliminated any shame from my thinking. It produced a mind shift that gave me permission to go back to the very first time I had this dream to begin again.
I was surprised to learn that I had forgotten how it all began. I remembered for the first time, in over a decade, that this dream was sparked by a movie I saw at age 19. A movie called “Field of Dreams”. The house in the movie!!! Holy crap, that was the house I drew in the center of my vision board. How could I have forgotten this?
Part 3 of my story tomorrow…..
