I’ve recently returned home from one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life.

Christine Chang Photography

loving the day of training with Lisa Nichols at Awesomeness Fest

Imagine spending 5 days in a tropical location with 350 of the most amazing people you’ve ever met. People who are making the most of their lives, people with big visions to help move humanity forward, doers, entrepreneurs, healers, founders, movers and shakers.

The event is called Awesomeness Fest, an invite-only experiential event that brings together people who are driven to change the world. Their tag line? ‘Because every visionary needs a posse’….and wow, did I ever need that!

What were we doing together? Oh, just all of my favorite things! Combine business, love and the passion of 350 incredible Changemakers and we have my version of heaven.

We spent our time together getting to know each other and figuring out how we could support one another in building our businesses. We heard amazing speakers who taught us a few business strategies, but most importantly ripped our hearts open even wider, helped us dream even bigger and helped us remove obstacles to our success.

While much work was done while listening to speakers and reflecting on and implementing what they were sharing, even more work was done in the form of conversations at costumed dance parties, catamaran cruises, while eating great food together and swimming in the Caribbean sea.

Together we further solidified our shared visions for the world we want to help create and found ways to help each other do that. The speakers we heard from helped expand our perspectives. Among the speakers were an astronaut, a Broadway producer, silicon valley start-up founders and some of the world’s foremost experts on personal development.

One of the themes I noticed at this event was the surprising commonality that almost every speaker on the stage had at one point in their life suffered from extreme depression. These passionate beings who are now living life to the max, had once come from the darkest places where they had hardly felt they were living at all.

We heard from people who’ve lost their children, their soul mates, their businesses, themselves, and risen above all of the challenges they’ve faced to become super successful in what ever they decide to do. People who are now living life large and in charge. These are people who feel and live fully. People who saw where they were at and committed to doing what-ever it took to drastically improve their situation.

I found the sharing deeply touching and the really saw how inspiring it could be for those who currently suffer from depression to realize the temporal existence of what currently is and the potential for such extreme turnarounds in their life. Perhaps those deeply passionate beings that experience the lowest of lows also have a greater potential to experience the highest of highs?

Upon returning home and reflecting on this interesting phenomena of the extreme lows and highs, I came across a Ted Talk by Jane McGonigal where she mentioned the element of post-traumatic growth as being a springboard to excellence. Further research on post-traumatic growth reveals that it often results in a greater appreciation of life, changed sense of priorities, warmer, more intimate relationships, a greater sense of personal strength and recognition of new possibilities or paths for one’s life and spiritual development; all characteristics demonstrated by the speakers. Other character elements that may affect the likelihood of the positive use of previous traumatic events are listed as being an openness, optimism, confidence, the ability to grieve and accept trauma and having others to support you and help you craft narratives that help you confront and reconstruct questions and answers around the meaning of your experience.

I’m sharing this here for those of you that may feel you’ve experienced traumatic events in your life that have left you at a disadvantage. Our paths develop as they do for a reason and perhaps your experience is meant to launch you even further into your version of success than you may have previously imagined. By working to cultivate more of the characteristics mentioned above, you may then more fully optimize on your experience.

Personally, the things I learned and experienced at Awesomeness Fest will continue to infuse all of my work. The connections I made are dear to my heart. Just knowing that there are others out there working on helping make the world a better place, whether their vision is very similar or fairly different looking than mine, is incredible inspiration to keep moving forward in a powerful way.

While at AFest, I challenged my own beliefs about how much sleep I actually need, something I had been curious about for years. I returned super charged to share my work with the world and to reconnect with these folks and to support each other in our endeavors. I’ve learned new ways to share my work and to better ensure that the people who are in need of it can get access to it. Through the experiences and teachings I learned how to shine my light even brighter and be myself even more fully.

There’s an African proverb that says,

If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go farther, go together.

I say,

If you want to go farther quickly, team up with a bunch of powerhouse Changemakers with common visions and find ways to help each other super-charge your movement forward.

This event has helped me become a better coach, friend, business woman and human. For this, I am forever grateful to my Awesomeness Fest posse.

Solah’s new favorite place for business meetings is neck deep in the Caribbean sea. If you would like to schedule a meeting with her, feel free to pick up two flight tickets before calling to schedule an appointment. 🙂

solah – who has written 30 posts on Positively Purposeful.

---