All pictures courtesy of Chris Guillebeau's Flickr Photostream.
I spent the last three days volunteering at the World Domination Summit. I can't express how much I enjoyed and appreciated all that I learned and the great people that I met. I have lots of ideas of how I can apply the lessons I learned to my own life. But I'm one who needs time to percolate my thoughts to articulate what the heck I want to say. So for now, I just want to give thanks for this incredible opportunity and to point out some of my favorite things.
It's all good. Be cool. This could have been the motto of the weekend. 500 people arrived from all over the world to attend the summit in Portland. This being the first inaugural summit, there were a few things (although, I'm so impressed that there were so few hiccups) that didn't go as smoothly as planned. Not once, the entire weekend, did I hear one complaint. Everyone was joyous and thankful to be there. If they were waiting in line, they spent the time getting to know and interacting with the folks around them. I was overwhelmed with the number of people who came up to me and and thanked me for helping out with this incredible event. Their positive energy was contagious.
For me, my favorite speaker was Karen Walrond. I was fortunate to see her in a breakout session (I'm one of the blurry figures on the left) and I got so much out of her talk on how to take better photographs. I'm excited to pick up my camera and work on the exercises she gave us. She was also the last speaker of the day to the collective group. Her talk was about how her photography book, Different is Beautiful - Observations of a Confident Misfit, came to be. She captivated me and the audience which at the end of a long day is quite a feat.
I also got a lot from Jonathan Field's breakout session on Uncertainty. Again, I'm the blurry one in the back. Jonathan's straight forward talk was about how to take uncertainty or doubt and change those thoughts and feelings into positive actions. As you know, I'm a crafty, yet shy girl. Uncertainty could easily be my middle name. I have doubt every time I create a blog post. I need to keep learning how to let that doubt go. I'm looking forward to his new book coming out this fall called, Uncertainty - Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brillance.
I must admit, that almost all of the speakers were completely new to me. The one exception was Andrea Scher (pictured on the right) the co-creator of Mondo Beyondo classes and, more importantly for me, the creator of Superhero Designs which has been a huge inspiration to me for close to a decade. On Saturday after hearing so many inspiring talks, I set 1 goal for myself. I wanted to introduce myself to Andrea. This was hard! Really hard. I almost talked myself out off it several times, but on Sunday I mustered up the courage to say hello. She was so friendly and nice, as I knew she would be. My fear wasn't that she wouldn't be gracious, my fear was that I wouldn't be able to formulate the hello without my brain shutting down. It didn't. I had a nice chat with her and she even admired my tattoo. It was really a great experience for me.
Here the entire group is learning a Bollywood dance lesson from the amazing Prashant. This collective group of people were different in every way; from age to size to color to personality, I was impressed with how wide the spectrum of individuals was at the summit. The thing that transcended all of our differences and we all had in common was kindness. Being the shy girl, attending this summit was so far outside of my comfort zone. I worried about what to do and what to say and how to be. After the first few hours, I felt those worries disapate. Everyone was so nice! Everyone. I have never seen a crowd that was so upbeat and positive and geniunely interested in everyone around them. I'm still carrying that contagious happiness with me and I know I will continue to do so for a very long time.
