“You want an amazing life. But you can't decide. You think you have to be, fully formed already, don't ya? You don't have to be just one thing, but you have to start with something.” – Clare Bowditch singing Amazing Life
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“Slava Bogo,” said the farmer in a Russian accent after reading the name “Zaslofsky” on my World Domination Summit badge.
“Huh?” I said to him, not understanding the context.
“Your name. It's Ukrainian or Russian,” he said as he handed me a free sample of fresh cherries. “Slava Bogo means ‘Hallelujah!' in Russian, and those two words will take you anywhere in Russia. People will stop their cars for you when you say ‘Slava Bogo' in Russia.”
He continued. “So… how are you doing, Joel?”
I said, “Well, I'm doing pretty freakin' great! I'm here for this event called… ”
And then he interrupted me with a sly grin and a twinkle in his eye. “No, no, no, Joel. The answer is ‘Slava Bogo.'”
I can't think of a better microcosm that sums up my experience at the 2013 World Domination Summit (WDS) in Portland, OR this month with 3,000 other people.
I can't help but thinking “Slava Bogo!” that:
- An event like WDS exists, let alone helps people answer the question, “How do we lead a remarkable life in a conventional world?”
- The people who attend WDS are so giving, quirky, supportive, and hug-happy.
- I'm incredibly grateful to have experienced all of that.
Service. Adventure. Community. These are the official WDS core themes, although many unofficial themes come out depending on who you are. This is the kind of event where you talk to someone about an unusual idea that almost everyone else thinks is straight-up whack – like curating your existence in spreadsheets – and they get super jazzed to hear more.
Everyone is authentic at WDS… blemishes, strangeness, and inadequacies be damned. No shuffling around hundreds of personas based on the physical environment or social context at WDS, folks!
My life has been permanently changed by my time in Portland with so many damn inspiring people. I took hours' worth of written and spoken notes from events, places, and conversations to distill into one post.
If you attended WDS or have absorbed other people's recaps, tell me what ideas or general awesomeness I missed in the comments.
Unusual Ideas and Experiences
WDS was serendipity central.
That was mostly intentional because I was in go-go Gadget extrovert mode for four straight days. And when you're in “I gotta maximize every second of this experience because it's unique and so freakin' rad!” mode, you (mostly) throw simplicity out the window.
Because of this, I met some of the most amazing – and fascinating – people at WDS.
You know, folks like:
- Mark Powers, who introduced me to the concept of “yes” people; friends or family that you almost instantly say yes to (regardless of the request).
- Asia, who recently fought off developers trying to illegally evict everyone where she lived.
- Aaron, who added the phrase “philosophical nudity” to my vocabulary.
- A seemingly homeless man that asked me for the time and, as I told him, instantly replied, “Thanks, man! In fifteen minutes, I'll be ganja high. Ganja time, baby!”
WDS Ambassadors who organized various high-five gauntlets inside the main venue. It was so much fun I went back for seconds… multiple times!- The random people of Portland who were just as groovy and quirky as promised. Plus, from breakfast at Mother's Bistro with my buddies Ethan and Dan to paleo food carts in multiple parts of the city, I ate great.
(I heart you, Cultured Caveman)
- New “Experience Curators:” I met multiple people who were captivated by “Experience Curating,” especially Susan (whose mind was blown when I showed her a curated spreadsheet on my smartphone).
Jennifer, who gets more stoked to use and talk about spreadsheets than I do. Plus, she loves curating and Toastmasters. There's an ongoing investigation of whether we were separated at birth.- DJ Prashant: The after-party DJ that lead my first Bollywood-style dance-fest. I can't remember the last time I danced so much – and so vigorously – that I was sore the next day.
Yet the external flurry of activity yielded to internal fireworks during the keynote presentations.
Here are the biggest or most unusual ideas that I captured from these crazy schweet speakers.
Nancy Duarte: Presentation Maestro
1. Your idea can shape a movement. And the power of the spoken word can amplify it.
2. Show compassion for your community, regardless of their problems or afflictions.
3. Everyone can help someone else rise up and make a difference.
4. The words “but I'm just…” ring hollow. You are amazing. You can do awesome things.
5. Great communication takes a ton of work and analysis, but few things are more important. (That's also why I highly recommend Nancy's TEDTalk and her book Resonate)
Darren Rowse: The Dream Fulfiller and Original ProBlogger
6. Dream regularly… and take risks to make your dreams a reality.
7. Become obsessed with being useful.
8. Entrepreneurship can be found anywhere (including nine-year-olds picking flowers and selling them to neighbors).
9. Do not keep your dreams inside. Tell other people so they can help you achieve them.
10. Nobody leaves your life because you're too awesome. But people will leave if you're ordinary.
11. Be curious, chase sparks, and realize that movements can begin with something as innocent as clicking a link in an email.
12. Experiment like crazy. Find out what gives people energy and then light their fuse.
13. Focus on making other people's dreams come true. Darren made Clare Bowditch's dream of singing on the WDS big stage become reality, and as a result, I cried when she sang “Amazing Life.”
14. Credentials? We don't need no stinkin' credentials! The people with the fewest credentials are often the most helpful.
15. Your next big thing might be the small thing in front of you.
Bob Moore: Happy Giver of What's Most Important
16. People are always more important than profit
17. There's truth in Mark Twain's words that, “The secret to success is to make your vocation your vacation… [and] the secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
Steve Kamb and Jodi Ettenberg: Nerds, Misfits, Nomads, and Awesome
18. Trust is trendy, but it never goes out of style.
19. You only get to sell out once. Once you do, people won't give you another chance.
20. Don't demand engagement. It demeans the people who are already engaging because they want to.
Chase Jarvis: Captain Creativity
21. Our biggest crisis is a lack of creativity…
22. … And we're encouraged to get less creative as we age…
23. … When we aren't systematically suppressing and removing creativity from school.
24. An education system based on the schedule of the farm and the jobs of the industrial revolution is ridiculous.
25. Creativity is the new literacy.
26. We can no longer wait for creative geniuses. We need to create them.
27. Creative activities create more creativity.
Gary Hirsch: Making Improv Make Sense
28. There are magical things happening all around you. Take a moment to look up (sometimes literally) and notice them.
Gretchen Rubin: Happiness Finder and Spreader
29. It's shockingly easy to misunderstand what's true about ourselves.
30. Self-knowledge is the key to happiness.
31. If you don't love travel, music, or things that you feel like you “should” enjoy, who cares! Be the real you, not the fantasy you don't even want.
32. You will exhaust everyone if you constantly question everything (mental note made).
Andrew Warner: Top Entrepreneur Interviewer
33. You often don't hear the critic when it's inside your head… even though you're guided by it.
Tess Vigeland: Seeking Reinvention and Former NPR Marketplace Money Host
34. Telling someone, “Just make it happen” doesn't really help.
35. There are about six personal finance stories, but roughly infinite ways to spin them (mental note made again).
36. It's time to leave your job, relationship, or anything else when you have too much self-respect to stay.
37. There is nothing more fun than bathing in a tub of kittens (according to Tess).
Donald Miller: Brutally Honest Best-Selling Author
38. We escape to pleasure when we can't find meaning.
39. Shame should be a foreign concept, but society makes sure we know it well.
40. We must break through layers of projected personality and shame to get to the self. That's because the best creative work comes from the core.
41. Spend less time impressing people and more time genuinely connecting.
42. We are not our failures. We are also not our successes.
What's Next?
WDS 2013 is in my top 10 life experiences. Yes, it was filled with that much awesomeness.
So I can't let the experience be for nothing.
That means I'm using the cumulative WDS fuel to power one of these two future projects (decision coming by August 13th):
- A new website to help people kick digital addictions like video games, Facebook, TV, or smartphones glued to a hand.
- A live, in-person conference for people in the simplicity and minimalism movements. This is the conference that I want to attend, but doesn't exist yet.
Which of the two projects would you rather see happen? And what unusual ideas or experiences from WDS changed the way you think about things? Share your insight in the comments.
Ahhh just reading this is getting me all excited again! It was so cool to meet you in person (and share that epic breakfast). I think both of your big ‘next’ ideas are good ones, and very different. Personally, I’d be really interested in the simplicity/minimalism conference. As an aspiring minimalist, I think I’d have a lot to share and learn from an event like this.
I love how you and other cool folks like Courtney Carver describe yourselves as “aspiring minimalists.” It’s humble and understates the progress you’ve already made bringing your life into alignment with the principles of minimalism (as you practice them). I’m super stoked about the possibility of a simplicity/minimalism conference, Ethan! Almost as stoked as the prospect of our next breakfast together. Our breakfast was a big highlight of my WDS experience and I’m glad I could feature such good lookin’ fellas as you and Dan Hayes in a picture within this post. 🙂
What a completely comprehensive list, Joel! Looks as if you got something out of WDS, many things!
I’m glad you think I covered a ton of ground, CJ. I actually had to heavily resist trying to pack too much into this recap and diluting the overall experience. But if you really want a comprehensive review of my time at WDS, just give me thirty minutes on Skype, bud.
Whoa, Joel. I should have anticipated such a nicely curated list of highlights from you, but still. Wow 🙂 I’m so glad WDS was such an amazing experience for you. It certainly sounds like you got a ton out of it, on many levels and in many ways.
As for which project I’d love to see you pursue, my first choice would be “whichever one you feel more drawn to work on”! But since I know both are major passions of yours, my personal preference would probably be for the website. It’s something I know I could learn a lot from, and in-person events just aren’t really my thing. Either way, though, I know it’ll be great.
I still can’t believe it took me almost two full days to curate my WDS experiences and send emails to all the groovy folks I met. I mean, two days of consolidation for a four day experience?! Either it was truly that awesome or my Experience Curating filter needs to get better so I don’t have to curate as much. 🙂
Thanks for the feedback on the future project, Erin. The advanced decision calculation definitely has a variable in it called, “what does Erin think and which path could I take that could potentially have Erin involved in it?”
Joel, I’m so happy I met you at WDS and got to hang some. I’d love to see a website dedicated to kicking the habits of digital addictions. I think there are probably some out there already, but a quick search didn’t reveal them. A resource for helping people change that behavior would be sooo valuable.
BUT a face-to-face conference of minimalists. I think it’s a totally AWESOME idea that MUST happen and if you can’t find an organization that is already doing it, grab your fellow minimalists and set a date right away. (And invite me!)
By the way, that #42. “We are not our failures. We are also not out successes.” Reminds me of Chris Brogan’s talk last year in which he said (my paraphrase): If you want to follow your own path, ignore people’s disappointments and ignore their praise as well. Both can easily distract you from your own path.
It was awesome hangin’ with you at WDS too David, especially the tea house time when you, me, and Susan were distracted and just chillin’. I’m tempted by the digital addiction website because – as your research turned up too – there isn’t much out there already. But that’s the same reason I’m tempted by the face-to-face simplicity conference: there’s nothing like it out there yet.
At least I know that both projects involve meeting real needs this time around. Previous projects (including my first, Enlightened Resource Management), didn’t have that level of clarity or research. By the way, thanks for sharing the Chris Brogan paraphrase. I’m tempted to watch the WDS talks of 2012 now that I “get it” and am a WDS alumnus.
Are you the “really tall guy” that DJ Prashant gave a shout-out to during the dancing? I was up on the stone steps when he did that and it was a great vantage point..not that I needed one to spot you in the crowd!
Great article. #42’s the bomb.
I was actually the really tall guy next to the really, really tall guy kickin’ it like mad. I figured the super tall dudes should dance in the same area so we don’t block the view in two separate places. 🙂
But I did catch the attention of a woman who told me “I was great down there” as I walked up the steps for a rest. I got a video testimonial of her saying how much I was rockin’ it and I’m willing to share the Vine length video with anyone interested.
P.S. Yes, idea #42 is a keeper. That one is resonating with a lot of folks today.
Man, you gave us a tough choice there. Selfishly, I’d prefer to see the website simply because I don’t have conferences in the budget at the moment, but both sound really fantastic.
Great list here. I’ll be digging in to these speakers even more.
Each of the speakers brought a different angle and value depending on who you are and where you are in your journey. Darren Rowse blew me away with his dream-themed presentation and walking the walk by having Claire sing her song during his talk and coming out in a Superman outfit after she finished. That was badass! Seeing Nancy Duarte live was a real treat though. The Communications and Rhetorical Studies major in me geeked out on watching an absolute master of public speaking just forty feet away.
The only bummer – which I didn’t mention in the post – is that I missed what many people considered the most powerful speaker, Jia Jiang. His theme was about overcoming rejection and I’ll definitely be watching the replay once Chris Guillebeau loads it to Vimeo/YouTube.
I’m super-glad you met Asia… She rocks.
Sounds like you’re feel rejuvenated, which is awesome. I love both your ideas, but while personally I need the anti-addiction site more, I think the conference has more legs and would serve you better on the whole. 🙂 Just my two cents!
I always multiply your cents by 10x because they carry a lot of weight. You probably wouldn’t be shocked by all the uber groovy people I met at WDS, Sarah, but perhaps we should compare notes between the folks I met and the folks you met at WDS 2012. I’d like to know who I should put on my 2014 “Must… meet… this… awesome… person” list.
Wow, Gretchin Rubin was there! I didn’t know that. I love her stuff.
And I loved your #29 and 30.
So many of the cool kids were there, Shanna. You would have been in total, “Whoa. You’re here too?!” mode like I was.
Great recap. What is so great about WDS is that everyone has different encounters and experiences throughout the day. While there is the common experience of the conference, there are lots of things that happen randomly – the people you meet and the conversations you have throughout the weekend lend itself to a very unique experience.
I like both project ideas. I can see a strong need for the first project because I can see technology addiction on a daily basis in the world around me.
I like the idea of the 2nd conference as well but since it is about simplicity and minimalism it may need to be a zero impact event or held online to keep inline with the lean theme.
It’s hard to resist reading, listening, or watching our fellow WDS attendees recaps because, as you noted, each experience is so different than the rest, but each one has so many common threads too. And just like a shared experience can vary in impact and perspective, so can potential experiences. I hadn’t considered a zero-impact angle or an online-based format for the simplicity conference. But I understand why you suggest that might align well with the principles that create the foundation for the simplicity movement. It’s something to think about (or at least partially incorporate).
I read this post yesterday, and there were so many points I liked, I wasn’t sure what to comment on. But, of course, I love #21 for obvious reasons… gives me some encouragement to keep my site going/evolving.
As far as your projects, I like the first one. Despite my recent ode to video games post and my new interest in gamification, I feel strongly that there’s not enough eye contact taking place in the world and a site like that could make a difference.
The theme of creativity was running through everything I experienced at WDS, Denise. You would love it!
But speaking of things we don’t love… I’m glad we share a dislike of the rampant “eyes glued to a glowing screen” problem that infests developed countries. Technology can empower us or enslave us, but I know far too many people who think that they are empowered when they are actually are enslaved. I know I could help a lot of folks with a website about digital addictions and I appreciate your vote.
Joel! How super cool of you to give a shout-out in this post. It was fantastic to meet and get to know you while you were out this way. You’ve got that easy Midwestern chemistry that I often miss and always enjoy being able to hang out with, and show more interest and care in others than one usually runs across. Great WDS wrapup you’ve got here…honored to have made the list!
Thanks on a number of fronts, Mark. Your concept of “Yes” people is going to stick with me for a long, long time. That, and all the stellar high-fives. I’m still regaining feeling in my right hand from all my trips through the high-five gauntlet and the one-off “fivers” from various folks.