WDS 2017 and Whitewater Rafting
A few weeks ago, I flew to Portland, OR, for the World Domination Summit. Ooh, sounds intriguing! What is the World Domination Summit?
It’s a conference for people who want to live their lives on their own terms instead of blindly accepting what is prescribed by society. We are a global community of adventurers seeking to change the world for the better. Some of us are entrepreneurs. Some of us are location independent (which means they travel so often that they don’t need a “home base”). But all of us reject the idea that society set limits on what we can and can’t do with our lives.
I was so grateful that I was able to attend this year’s conference. I had been sick for two months, but feeling well enough to attend. My first event to kickoff the conference was the whitewater rafting trip that I led. I knew there was a possibility that I wouldn’t be able to go rafting, but I decided to wait until the morning of the trip to see if I felt well enough to raft.
I was ecstatic when I found out I would be able to go with some minor modification. And it was such an amazing experience! We started out as a group of strangers, including one from Singapore and one from Ukraine. We overcame our fears together.* We paddled together. We swam in freezing water together. And after we conquered the rapids together, we celebrated with a meal in front of a gorgeous view of Mt. Hood. We had a great group that bonded after a wild day on the river.
Whenever we saw each other at meetups, academies, and parties, we felt like we were with our tribe. The group had such a great time on the trip, people were still hearing whitewater rafting stories near the end of the conference!
Later that night, I checked my schedule and found a sustainability meetup I couldn’t miss! I was about to rearrange my schedule when I realized the event was full. I decided to go anyway. When I got there, I discovered that none of the people who RSVPed showed up! And it did not disappoint.
The group organizer, Rebecca Wilcox, had been living in Sweden for several years and attended grad school for sustainability. She shared her experiences living in a country where people are more aware of the environment than in the United States. Muffadal Saylawala quit his Wall Street job to get back in touch with nature. He now owns an eco-hostel in Nicaragua, despite lack of recycling facilities there. We shared our visions for building a sustainable future and gave each other great ideas on how to implement them. I have always been interested in sustainability and was looking for ways to apply my engineering skills. This meetup made me realize that it is possible to travel around the world to learn about sustainability and to help communities work towards their goals. I am currently saving up to make this round-the-world trip happen.
That afternoon, I attended a meetup on how to improve your live-streaming video on your social media. I had never used live streaming video and I hadn’t really planned on it. But I ended up learning a lot and I’m so glad I went. I learned that social media algorithms favor live video over everything else. Most importantly, I got lots of great ideas on how to keep my audience engaged. These ideas are sure to boost my social media to the next level! Stay tuned!
After being misunderstood my whole life as that woman with crazy ideas, I have finally found my community. Instead of telling me that I’m crazy for wanting to travel, and that I should forget about it and go back to my corporate job, they say “I want to do that too!” But most of all, I was floored by how unconditionally supportive everyone is. For the first time in my life, I feel like I have a supportive community of like-minded people. We inspire each other to come up with creative ideas and do our best work towards dominating the world with kindness. I can’t wait to see what our community creates by next year!
*Watch the WDS Rafting group overcoming our fears by jumping off of a bridge!