There has been a donate button on this site for well over a year now, yet, I have never taken the proper time to explain why.

To start, and probably provide the bulk of why, I present the following quote (with emphasis added by me).

Independence, or self reliance is the virtue by which you are self-supporting in the sense that you consume nothing that you haven’t earned. In a market economy, everyone lives by trade. This does not make independence impracticable. The virtue of independence is to provide one’s own means of subsistence. This means either producing it directly, or indirectly by creating something that someone else wants. Dependence, in this case, would mean relying on charity or favors from friends or family. Or worse, theft in the form of direct stealing from others, or indirect theft through benefits by government.

Independence is not only applicable to production, though. In fact, production isn’t even the most important place where this virtue should be practiced. The most important is the independence of one’s mind. Life requires man to act in order to achieve his values. This requires the proper use of judgment to not only pick the right values, but to understand the best way of achieving them. To substitute another’s thoughts for yours makes it impossible to judge the accuracy of them. It makes it impossible to build off of them to achieve better understanding. This is the area where independence is most critical. To default on one’s responsibilities is to default on one’s life. The degree to which one abandons his intellectual independence is the degree to which he is helpless to act. The degree to which he cannot pursue his own life and values.

Another area where independence is useful is in social interaction. When dealing with friends or strangers, one needs to earn the benefit of the interaction. To default on this is to accept a reward without cause. Nothing is ever free, though. By accepting the unearned, a man loses his grasp of what it means to earn something. He loses his assurance of his own self-efficacy. Every independent act is a reaffirmation of one’s ability to deal with reality. Every unearned gift is a blow to one’s confidence.

Translated into my own words, I do not seek to prevent individual visitors to this site and viewers of the videos from contributing to The 21 Convention. I do not seek to prevent because your success is in my best interest (and you returning value to T21C that you received from the videos at no cost, is the completion of that success).

The harder you win life, the harder The 21 Convention wins. Whether it’s dropping 50 pounds of fat via Mark Sisson, building 20 lbs of muscle with Drew Baye and Doug McGuff, learning the core fundamentals of game with Dj Fuji, or learning what it takes to be a creator with Matt Hussey — you winning, ends up making The 21 Convention win, big.

And anyone who wins with integrity, and authenticity in their endeavors, has no desire for the unearned. They are going to want to give back to what has helped propel them so high in their life and the success there of.

Something tangible, real, exciting, and alive like The 21 Convention.

Contributing directly is one way you can do this. Attending is another (the best). Viewing the videos on Youtube directly is a third (that results in advertising revenue in exchange for your time and attention). Buying DVDs is a fourth.

Or simply making a real and direct effort to spread the word about T21C — via your blog, your twitter account, Facebook, and direct e-mail to friends and even family.

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In the end, the videos are available to view at no cost. This is by my estimation, the future of video. Some people feel threatened by it — and by The 21 Convention.

I embrace it, because I know the men who matter, the men who do not seek the unearned — the only men I give two shits about addressing — will ping back an equal amount of value in return with regards to what they walked away with from the events, and the videos — even if they were able to take that initial knowledge and inspiration and turn it into something 100x more powerful by their own effort.

The last thing I want to do as the architect of T21C is limit your ability to do that. If you want to give back, have at it. There are a number of ways to do it, and the door is always open for new avenues.

– Anthony Dream Johnson