The Nation of Light
Two people on a sunlit summit above the clouds at sunrise, arms raised

Twenty-five quick challenges. On your phone. Free.

Can you awaken your greatness in just ten minutes?

By the last one you will feel it: the momentum that makes the next skill, and the one after that, feel possible.

Start my ten minutes

Two men

Which is the greater man?

A man in a designer tracksuit leaning on a red supercar outside a mansionBought Bitcoin in 2011. Worth a fortune today.
A strong, relaxed man in a white linen shirt on a golden beach at sunset, a book under his armStrong, skilled and calm. Loved wherever he goes.

Now take the money away. Watch, then decide.

Today greatness is measured by what you can buy and show. For most of history it was measured by what you can do. The world usually pays the capable person in the end, but sometimes it takes years to catch up. Be great first.

Two paths

Chase the proof, or become the thing.

The old way

The new way

Chase money to prove you are worth something: crypto, NFTs, betting, the lottery, selling things you do not believe in.

Become someone worth something. The money is more likely to follow, and you are still you if it does not.

Wait for the right time, the right job, the right partner.

Start this morning. Five minutes counts.

Buy a course. The group ends when the course does.

One school for life, and people who stay.

Resolutions that are gone by February.

One rung a day. Momentum that builds.

Quick food, and tired by three.

Real food that tastes amazing, and energy all day.

Evenings on the sofa with a screen.

Evenings outside, trying new things, with good people.

Five years pass. Same person.

Five years pass. Sixty new skills.

The greats

The greats were good at many things.

The word is polymath. They built skill after skill, mostly in their free time, until they could see how the whole of life fits together. Take Benjamin Franklin.

  1. A printer at a wooden press in a sunlit print shop

    Printer

    Ran his own print shop and published Poor Richard’s Almanack for twenty-five years.

  2. A man and a young man flying a kite under storm clouds

    Scientist

    Showed that lightning is electricity, and invented the lightning rod.

  3. A man swimming across a wide river while a crowd watches

    Swimmer

    Swam miles as a young man. He is in the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

  4. A man writing at a desk by a window beside a small chart

    Self-improver

    Kept a daily chart of thirteen virtues and marked every slip.

  5. A diplomat in a plain brown coat in a gilded French palace hall

    Diplomat

    Won France to America’s side, and helped draft the Declaration of Independence.

  6. A public library room with people reading at long tables

    Builder

    Founded a lending library, a fire company and a university. Invented a stove.

He left school at ten and started as a printer’s boy. Every one of these was built on purpose.

The rut

A year goes by. What changed?

It is easy to get stuck. The years pass and you are the same person with a newer phone. What gets you out is momentum.

StuckA skill here and there.
One skill a monthSixty skills in five years.

Imagine

Imagine you show up, and you can…

A person giving a talk to a seated audience in a sunlit hall
Give a talk to thirty people, and enjoy it
A person reciting a poem by a fireplace to family
Say a poem by heart
A person doing a card trick for friends at a garden table
Do a card trick that makes a room gasp
A person juggling three balls in a park
Juggle three balls for two minutes
Two people laughing over coffee in a sunny square
Hold a conversation in another language
A person serving a roast dinner to eight guests
Put a hot meal in front of eight people
A person lifting a golden loaf from a stone oven
Bake your own bread
A person playing guitar while friends sing round a fire
Play a song everybody sings along to
A person swimming in a calm turquoise sea
Swim fifty metres in the sea
A person cooking over a small campfire on a hillside
Light a fire and cook on it
A person showing a family the stars from a hilltop
Show your family the planets by name
A person doing a handstand on grass in a park
Stand on your hands

Every one of these is a ladder in Light School, one small rung at a time.

What you get

Everything you need to become it, in one place.

Free to use today. No account. Start with the first one.

  1. Wide marble steps up to a school, a flame burning at the top

    01 · Momentum

    Light School

    Within a week you notice you can do things.

    175 ladders: speaking, selling, negotiating, cooking, swimming, magic, an instrument and more. One rung a day, five minutes counts. Adults and children in the same school, for life.

    Light SchoolStart here. One rung a day.
  2. Bread, fruit, greens and a jug of water on a marble table

    02 · The body

    Feel good in it

    To do great things you have to feel good in your body.

    Delicious real food that leaves you lean and full of energy. Three small movements a day.

    Eat RealReal food, in the order that works.
    Move WellThree small movements a day, for life.
    Food ScannerScan a label and see what is in it.
  3. A marble bust of Socrates

    03 · The mind

    Read from the greats

    Have the conversations you have been missing.

    The greatest minds in history, in their own words. You become somebody with something to say.

    FirsthandFifty-two traditions in their own words. Classical MindA little wisdom a day. In His Own WordsOnly the words of Jesus. Self MasteryThe daily work on yourself.
  4. A green headland over a bright sea

    04 · The world

    Get out and live

    A coast twenty minutes from home that you had never seen.

    Two thousand places on one map, and you had driven past most of them.

    Days Out NITwo thousand places on one map. Happy WeatherThe weather, told the other way round. Fuel Price NILive fuel prices, cheapest first.
  5. Children playing in a sunlit courtyard under an olive tree

    05 · The family

    Raise children who are glad to be alive

    Your greatness is worth most when it is passed on.

    Moments of wonder, big days made magical, and letters with your little one.

    Conscious ParentingMoments of wonder, and the daily calm. Mo & PipLetters with your little one.
  6. A few people talking at a table between columns

    06 · Your people

    Never do it alone

    People who are on the same road, and glad you came.

    A group through the week, a call every week, and meet-ups in person in Northern Ireland.

    Starts in Light SchoolYour first ten minutes.

Now imagine

A whole nation of people choosing greatness.

Everyone you meet in town is on the same road. Nobody is a stranger, because you already share the words.

A few people talking at a table between columns
The same great books, and people to talk about them
Bread, fruit and greens on a marble table
Real food and strong bodies, as normal
People building a beautiful stone building
Beautiful things, built together
Children playing in a sunlit courtyard
Children glad to be alive

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

Ninety-six seconds on what a nation actually is:

What we hold

Eight things. They earn their place by being true.

Each one leaves the moment something truer turns up. Tap a card to read it.

Verified, or possible

Two shelves. We never mix them.

What can be tested becomes solid ground. What cannot stays marked possible, and we are free to play with it. We do not take anybody's word for it. Where a thing matters, we test it.

The world is the book

It is ordered, and it shows you how to live.

The world we live in is the book we were given to read. Take the time to look and it tells you what is going on and where you fit. Our job as a people is to read it.

First principles

New evidence, new position.

We start from the ground and stay open to the best way, whatever it turns out to be. When we talk to you, we hope you know something we do not know yet.

We hunt the challenge

The hard thing, on purpose, while it is still your choice.

Take on tough things voluntarily and you become so strong through your own actions that you stop waiting for the world to test you. We hunt challenges. Challenges do not hunt us.

The whole person

Good at many things, on purpose.

The Greeks had one word for making a complete human being: paideia. How you think, how you live, what your hands can do, how you hold yourself when it is hard. Drop what drags on you. Keep what makes life beautiful.

Family, and fun

Fun is a rule here, not a decoration.

We look at everything through the lens of a family that works, because that is what lets life continue. And we are to be fun. If a thing here reads like a lecture, it is wrong.

Beauty, for the ones after us

Everything great was built by somebody.

Every beautiful place in the world was made by people who brought their light to it. We are grateful to them. The best way to say thank you is to build more things that people love.

The flag of the Nation of Light flying in front of a classical building

A nation, not a country

You can leave any day. People stay anyway.

No border, no second place named. The first hub meets in person in Northern Ireland and everyone else meets online. Nothing owed, nobody held. A nation you can walk out of at any moment, and that people stay in anyway, is the only kind worth belonging to.

Your next step

Give it ten minutes. Feel the difference.

  1. 25quick challenges, one after another.
  2. 1small step braver each time.
  3. 10minutes, and you walk away feeling different.

The last one will make you squirm. Stumbling counts. When you finish, you will feel it: momentum. That feeling is what Light School builds, a little more every day.

Start my ten minutes

Light School is free. It opens on your phone.

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