Unconventional Blessings from World Domination Summit

This post is a compilation of some of our experiences and reflections over the years with the World Domination Summit. Updated: January 2021.

Photos in this post are by Armosa Studios

What is WDS?

If you’re not familiar, the World Domination Summit is an annual event in downtown Portland that brings together entrepreneurs, creatives, and world-changers who are pursuing a “remarkable life in a conventional world” and who value Community, Adventure, and Service.

It started in 2011 and was slated to wrap up in 2020 for its tenth and final year.

The weekend consists of inspiring main stage speakers, attendee-led meet-ups (topics that range from travel hacking to education reform), optional workshops for special interests, and random adventures (like breaking a world record together).

I learned about the event through the blog, The Art of Non-Conformity, while we were serving in the Peace Corps and it was a goal of mine to take part as soon as we were back in Portland.

In 2014, we attended as volunteer Ambassadors. For the following five years, we were honored to take part on the planning team.

The best part of World Domination Summit (WDS) is the amazing community of people.

It’s nice to be surrounded by folks who understand and value veering away from “the path of least resistance.” At WDS, we don’t have to explain our freelance work online or the fact that we’re nomadic. So that’s nice.

The main stage speakers are also great and though we didn’t hear everything that was said on stage, I do have a few favorite moments to share.

How We Got to WDS

In 2011, life was going well. We both had awesome jobs at two different universities in Portland. We were in the process of buying a house, setting down roots…

But we decided it wasn’t the life that what we wanted.

What we wanted was a life that allowed for adventure, specifically: living abroad.

We wanted more freedom, both in time and flexibility to pursue different opportunities to explore our world and spend quality time with people. And so began the journey of living a simple and intentional life.

Prior to our first WDS we:

– Went on a month-long road trip visiting many of the National Parks of the West
– Traveled to Tampa to get to know Jedd’s Great Aunt and help her move
– House sat for people all over the Northwest
– Served 2 years with Peace Corps in Jamaica
– Traveled to Montreal and Quebec City
– Traveled to Washington DC as winners of a Peace Corps “Blog It Home” contest

In the few months following our first WDS we:

– Road tripped through Canada and the US visiting Banff, Glacier, and Rocky Mountain National Parks
– Traveled to France and Switzerland for a month visiting family and doing a Help Exchange
– Continued house-sitting throughout the NW to save money on rent

A Shift in Perspective

(By Jedd) Though I’m a dreamer, I’ll have to admit that when we first started this adventure I was very skeptical about it all. How would we afford to travel, to live? What about retirement? Health care?

“When you really want something to happen, the whole world conspires to help you achieve it.”  ― Paulo Coelho

The first major change in our life was our attitudes. We believed it was possible. We didn’t have tangible, specific answers to all the uncertainty.

If you know both of us as a couple, you know that although we have similar beliefs and values, how we arrive at that point, how we understand and go about our world, is night and day. Michelle is a researcher- analytical and practical. She puts in countless of hours studying, verifying, and planning. For me, I go off of feeling, intuition, and irrational logic (if there is such a thing). In other words, I put my trust in Michelle.

Michelle’s research led her to countless blogs from people all over the world that were also living unconventional lives. And she found the World Domination Summit, so we signed up to be volunteers at the event.

It turns out this community happened to be very open about what they were doing and how they were doing it. So not only did we get confirmation that long-term travel was possible, we were also given the information and tools to make this happen for ourselves.

Living A Remarkable Life

Currently our world is dominated by values and themes that prevent us from dreaming that anything else is possible. Think of a child who has an amazing gift as a dancer or an artist, but someone tells them they can’t make a living from that life.  

We live in a world where we follow conventional thought, lives that are in some ways predetermined by measurements of success that don’t have real value.

Want to travel the world? People will tell you it’s not possible, it’s too expensive.

But we saw so many examples of people that were living proof that lives of adventure, community, and service do exist.

We aren’t saying one persons’s life choices are better than another’s. We aren’t saying you have to go out and travel or become an artist to have a remarkable life.

We are just saying that a different way is possible and worth trying.

The WDS Community

Everyone who attend WDS has their own answer to how to live a remarkable life.

Michelle and I have always felt that we’re “swimming upstream.”

When we participated in our first WDS, we felt like we had found our people. We didn’t have to explain the choices we’ve made for our lives, that by most conventional standards would seem strange (living nomadically, being minimalists, etc.).

We love that the people who attend WDS are genuinely interested in learning more about who you are and what you do, as well as being willing to support you.

3 generations of one family. They gave us leis to honor my late father. pc: Armosa Studio

There’s already an assumption that you have an interesting story and a reason for being there. There’s no judgement because, in this community, the intent is to learn and discover from each other, not to compete against one another.

That’s why I love the community at WDS.

It’s a reminder of how special our world can be when diversity is celebrated and each individual is seen as a valued part of a community.

Here are some examples of people that I met at this event (WDS 2014):

– A woman who used to be in debt, working too many hours, unhealthy, not getting to spend time with family, who then started a community around drinking healthy green smoothies and now is financially secure, and more important: happy and healthy –  http://simplegreensmoothies.com/

– A man who figured out an efficient and effective way to learn new 13 languages –  http://www.fluentin3months.com/

– A man who took a vow of silence for 17 years, walked a cross the US, earned his Masters, and PhD in the process in order to bring attention to environmental issues – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Francis_(environmentalist)

– A woman who uses her love of art and mountain biking in places like Afghanistan to bring awareness and action to improving women’s rights and opportunities – http://www.mountain2mountain.org/

There are so many things that we can attribute to our current lives that we learned from folks that we met at WDS:

• This community taught us how to travel hack and earn airline miles, which we use to cover all of our big overseas flights.
• They showed us that it’s possible to start our own business to not only financially sustain the life we want to live but to be the master of our choices and time.
• We’ve learned that alternative housing options are viable possibilities for our lifestyle; living abroad as digital nomads, living in an RV full-time, tiny house living, help exchanges, house sitting and pet setting.
• WDSers represent what our world can look like when diversity is celebrated and people are willing to support each other instead of compete against each other.

Maybe the most important thing we receive at WDS is the gift of hearing new stories.

Meeting a family that resettled in the US from Iraq. pc: Armosa Studios

Though the week-long event is special for many that attend, being part of the organizing team has given Michelle and I a different perspective.

While we spend the whole year planning for this one week event, the core team members actually don’t get to experience much of it. Our world exists behind the scenes and sometimes, literally, backstage. But it’s worth it.

There’s something powerful that happens when you work hard and battle alongside others to accomplish a big task or goal. The bond that is forged can best be described as familial and this team has become our family.

Our core team gathers for magical moment. pc: Armosa Studios

WDS 2015 Speaker Notes

John Acuff

The World Domination Summit main stage kicked off with an entertaining talk by John Acuff that was full of little nuggets of wisdom. These stood out to me the most:

• Regret has a much longer shelf-life than fear.
• Busy-ness isn’t good for our personal development. If you stay in motion, you don’t have to face the things that make you emotional.
• If you’re having a hard time finding your voice (the ability to express your true self), feed it some time.

Brad and Kid President

Robby (a.k.a. Kid President) and his brother-in-law Brad were popular guests on the WDS stage this year. They shared the story of how they got started making Kid President videos and spread the infectious spirit of their “joyful rebellion.”

• Treat everybody like it’s their birthday.
• Ordinary things can become extraordinary when they’re used with love.
• Give the world a reason to dance.

Megan Devine

Megan’s talk was powerful because it brought vulnerability into the room. She shared the pain of losing her husband and how we should interact with grief.

• • Conversations about grief are really conversations about love.

• • You can’t fix pain by trying to take it away.

• When others are grieving, just bear witness. Pause. What response is called for? Don’t fix. Stay present and make space for it to suck.

Jeremy Cowart

Jeremy’s presentation was a digital masterpiece. He used mixed digital media and hand wrote his story of overcoming his “low aptitude” with art. Most inspiring were his photography projects giving voice to survivors of the Haiti earthquake, child soldiers in Uganda, and Rwandan genocide victims reconciling with their former enemies.

• Love is a weapon that kills all evil.
• What have you been too afraid to try?

Lissa Rankin

Lissa shared the insight into our true calling – something that probably started coming to surface in our lives before age 10, something that bothers us about the world.

• The heart will always lead you home.
• Uncertainty is the gateway to possibility.
• In difficult times, we can either break down or we break open.

Derek Sivers

Derek shared the story of his “accidental” success and key take-aways for growing a stand out business.

• Avoid “deathbed regret.” Don’t pursue something because it’s what you should want.
• A successful business stays committed to solving a problem, not to sticking with the original plan. No plan survives first contact with the customer.
• If it’s not a hit, switch to something else. If people aren’t loving what you’re doing, stop. Persistently improve and invent, don’t persistently push what’s not working.
• Be so remarkable that people tell their friends.

Academies

Among the pre- and post-WDS workshops I heard were: Kari Chapin’s “Journaling for an Enhanced Life”, David Fugate and Jane Friedman’s “How to Get Your Book Published,” and Sean Ogle’s “How to Become a Location Rebel.”

• You can take the path of least resistance or you can take the path of freedom.
• Develop online skills for freelancing that will allow you to quit your job and sustain a location independent lifestyle while you work on a passion business.
• Take up the practice of journaling your Ideal Day. What things do you want to do every day that allow you to be your best self?

Wayfinding Academy

The WDS crowd also heard from a long-time member of the event’s planning team, Michelle Jones (a.k.a. The Magician). Michelle told the inspiring story of leaving her position as professor at Concordia University in order to pursue her life’s work: creating a new kind of college.

Michelle led the charge to start an affordable, non-profit college in Portland that will focus on real world experience, community support, and individual passion. The two-year school raised start up funds through IndieGogo to launch that year.

Learn more about Wayfinding Academy here

WDS is preparing for its tenth and final year, but the community and the ideals will continue to impact our world. We’re incredibly thankful for the opportunity to take part in the magic that is WDS.