Tonight I’ll land in Portland, Oregon to gather with 3,000 people for the World Domination Summit. It’s not as threatening as it sounds. As bombs drop in Syria, Iraq, Ukraine and other parts of our world we’ll be gathering to find common ground. I have never seen such diversity coexist in peace.
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Our common thread
Our common thread is strong. We encourage each other. We treat each other to drinks. We assume the best of each other. Our common thread is that we’re all dissatisfied. It’s required to come to WDS.. You have to be hungry for more. Awesome is the new average at WDS. Awesome work, awesome relationships and awesome conferences are what we expect of ourselves.
3,000 journeys
The World Domination Summit is 3,000 people on 3,000 journeys toward better selves and collectively toward a better world. It sounds like we’re going to Woodstock but most of the event is the traditional conference setting where you sit and listen to people who you want to be like. That’s where the traditional ends though.
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The speakers don’t get paid.
Speakers that command $25,000 a speech are working for free. They do that because they’re dissatisfied too. They want more from life and they know that WDS is a place where they can come give and get filled up. The speakers don’t leave. They come early and sit in the audience like the rest of us.
WDS is a non-profit
The founder (more on him in a minute) could have made this a huge money maker. The scale of the number of people coming is massive. It sells out every year, even when though they’ve doubled the amount of tickets, twice. WDS attendees aren’t against making lots of money, it’s one of the things we probably all have in common, but the fact that WDS is a non-profit gives us all a sense of ownership. There’s a collective expectation to make it better.
The founder is just like us
No one is more important than anyone else at WDS, even the founder Chris Guillebeau. We know each other because we know Chris but he’s not the celebrity, the community is. We’re friends. We’re adventurers. We’re sojourners.
Here’s to world domination, the good kind.
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