Project 2.0 is a fresh start.

Project 2.0 is not your salvation.  
Project 2.0 does not want to be your salvation.

Project 2.0 does not guarantee success.
Project 2.0 does not guarantee you will become rich or attract everything.

And you don’t need Project 2.0 to find the Real You.

It’s not another guru cult.
It’s not a marketing gimmick.
It’s not a step-by-step system.
It’s not a webinar, a summit, or anyone talking at you.

It’s not Self Help 1.0 in disguise.  It’s not “lipstick on a pig.”

And it’s not Self Help 2.0 either.

It’s Self Help 1.0 torn down and rebuilt from scratch.

You don’t know me but you know my work.

My name is Mitch, and I’m an outsider that became a Self Help insider. 

There’s 90% chance you’ve come across a Self Help program I’ve published.

I’m a behind-the-scenes insider.

There is work I’m truly proud of.
Work that has indeed helped thousands of people.

My collaborations with Joe Vitale are at the top of the list.
The closest I ever came to fixing Self Help was from our work together.

But here’s the rub.

Self Help can’t be fixed.

I tried.  

Again, and again, and again I tried.  

For 10 years.

And it took me 10 years to realize a simple truth:

Self Help can’t be fixed.

There is good in Self Help that be salvaged.

But the problem runs too deep to save its core.
The problems are cracks in its very foundation.  

Self Help isn’t just a troubled industry.

Self Help is a troubled mindset with an iron grip on everyone.  

Including me. 
Including you.

Self Help, as it is, must be destroyed.

Only then can it be rebuilt.

But as what?

Project 2.0 is built on 6 Big Ideas.

I have spent 10 years thinking about how to reimagine Self Help.

Hundreds of ideas turned into thought experiments and real experiments.

My wife can’t listen to me talk about it anymore.  
It’s like that.

But I figured out a way.

I won’t say it’s the only way.
I won’t say it’s the best way.

But as far as I can tell, if you don’t have these 6 foundational pieces, Self Help will remain standing in its unfixable terror.

1. Flip the business model on its head.

Money is not evil.
Profit is not evil.  
But profit at the expense of humans is evil. 

Self Help profits at the expense of you. 

So how do you make sure it doesn’t happen?  

Make a new business model that’s tied to your success.

If you don’t get what you want and need, the business doesn’t get what it wants and needs.

In other words, make it impossible to sustain a profit the focus isn’t 100% on you. 

2. Break the Step-By-Step System.  

You and I are not the same. 
Our paths are not the same.
Our needs are not the same.
Our dreams are not the same.

So why would we use someone else’s exact step-by-step system built on someone else’s path, needs, and dreams?

If it was really that simple, more people would be “succeeding.”

 

But the problem is not the system.
Or the steps. 
Or the big ideas that drive the system.

The problem is that the way Self Help does step-by-step systems are rigid.

You can’t make it YOURS.

Instead it’s “Here’s exactly what to do.  Now take action.  And if you fail, you don’t want it bad enough.”

What???

That’s bullshit.

I love learning from other people.
I love learning about what worked for them.
I love learning about the path they took.

But if I can’t adapt those steps, systems, and big ideas to my path… then it won’t work.

That’s why there’s so much “failure” in Self Help!

It’s like forcing a round peg into square hole. 
Not gonna happen.

3. Ditch the achievement obsession. Make the journey the destination.

Self Help is obsessed with achievement… because it sells.  

If I paint a picture of achieving wealth, I will sell step-by-step systems.  Period.

Achieve all you want. 
But design and own that vision of achievement!

Otherwise, you’re always failing. 
Otherwise you’re always comparing yourself. 
Otherwise you’re stuck in someone else’s shadow.

But once the journey becomes the destination?

There is no failure.
There is no expectation.
There is no right way or wrong way.
There is no comparison.

There is only the intoxicating joy of living and exploring the Real You living the Real Life.

4. Make it open source. 

This might be the most important:  Make it one big, bold collaboration between everyone.

Why?  

Because I don’t have all the answers.
I don’t have the perfect way to be the Real You.
I don’t have the perfect replacement for a broken Self Help.

And I don’t know what you need.

The same goes for you and everyone else.

But then there’s Open Source.

Open source started as a way to develop software.

Instead of one company owning and creating the software, it opened up so that anybody and everybody can work on it, make it better, and have a say in the direction it goes.

And it works.

Ever heard of Wikipedia?  Or WordPress?

Wikipedia is an open source encyclopedia.
It isn’t perfect.
It’s not always accurate. 

But it does make knowledge freely available to billions.  
Think about what that’s done for humanity.

WordPress is an open source website builder.  
It powers 39% of all websites.  That’s 75 million websites!  

Why? 

Because anyone with an idea or a vision can make a website on WordPress.
Because anyone can design a website theme and share it or sell it.
Because anyone can create a fancy plugin with fancy features.

What do both open source projects have in common?

1. They’re platforms that support growth.
2. They support unlimited customizations. 
3. Millions have contributed to making them better.
4. It’s about the collective good.

Self Help is not a software platform that can be open sourced.

But as you’ll soon see, we can get closer than you might think.

5. Model the way of the crazy, dysfunctional artist.

My whole life, I’ve found meaning in helping people.

I was an awkward child who was bullied enough to leave a mark.
My response was to do the opposite.  

I think that’s how little Mitch fought back.

It’s also likely why I’ve spent so much time and energy thinking about fixing Self Help.

We all need help.  
We all want to grow.
We all want to learn.

There’s a need for the role Self Help plays in our lives.

But while fixing Self Help started as a passionate mission, it’s not my real love in life.

My real love and greatest talent lies in music. 
I am a musician in my heart and soul.

But while it started normal enough, my journey as a musician is probably not what you’d expect.

I started piano at 4. 

At a recital a few years later, I performed the theme from Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn. I was so into it that I hit my head on the piano mid-song.  Somewhere there’s a video.

I studied jazz piano performance at a music conservatory in New York City.  I hung out with my crazy artist friends doing crazy artist things.

I’m one of a handful of people who play and perform the Seprewa, an endangered 10-string box harp from Ghana, West Africa.

I once took a sledgehammer to a piano in front of an audience.  They were going to throw it away, so the opportunity presented itself.  I put a brick on the sustain pedal, so every strike rang and didn’t stop.

I sang at Carnegie Hall as one small voice in a choir of hundreds.  So many people were singing at once that my body was vibrating like a string.  The best part? My mother was in that choir with me.

My wife likes to tell the story of when she walked in on me playing an electric guitar with a fork.  And I was really into it.

What unites all my music is my love of improvisation.  Sitting down at the piano, not knowing what I’m going to play, and then just playing… it’s true freedom.

But it’s the next one that connects this all to Project 2.0

I’m on the board of a very special music education nonprofit that’s spent 50 years teaching musicians how to master their own unique musical voice.

And how do you do that?

First, it starts with a few core beliefs:  

1. Everyone has the gift. Everyone has a unique musical voice to find and grow (the Real You).  

2. Listen intuitively. But if you don’t learn how to listen, you won’t hear when you’ve found your voice.

3.  Design your own practice. Master musicians share their ideas, theories, and practices at our workshops.  Participants take what inspires them and make it a part of their practice.

4. Create space to explore.  Our workshops are judgement free with no wrong notes.

And it works.  Famous musicians have come out of those walls.  Famous musicians we know and love.

I joined the board of that organization over a year ago.  

Is it a coincidence that I finally had my Project 2.0 breakthrough around the same time?

How to master your own unique voice.

Why do we love the musicians we love so much?

First, because they’re able to somehow capture the soul of life in their music that speaks to the deepest parts of us.

And second, nobody else sounds like them.  

They have a sound, a musical voice, that’s unique to them.  

If you were a musician and your life was your instrument, then finding your unique voice would be the same as finding the Real You.