Now that I’m home from Alt Design Summit, I can safely say two things. One, if you ever have a chance to cheat on your bathtub with the deep & gorgeous bathtubs at The Grand America Hotel, TAKE IT. Two, if one of your 2012 goals is to “Do Uncomfortable Shit,” you actually have to, you know, do uncomfortable shit.
Which is how I found myself in Salt Lake City last week, surrounded by 500+ design-ey bloggers & uber-smart creatives, ready for an inspiration-filled 4-day conference at which I didn’t know a single other person. NOT ONE SINGLE OTHER PERSON. OUT OF OVER 500 PERSONS. THAT’S A LOT OF PERSONS, YOU GUYS.
But here’s my theory: if we don’t force ourselves into scary and uncomfortable situations, we can’t grow. And if we aren’t growing, then what the fuck, right?
So, there I was, in one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever stayed in, with a king suite all to myself, a suitcase that was more than 50% shoes (Whaaat? Go away. Leave me alone. Girls need footwear options when surrounded by 500 unknown persons), and a plan to just start conversations with as many people as possible over the course of the event.
Guess what? EASIER SAID THAN DONE.
Randomly approaching strangers is one of my least favorite things. I’m as outgoing as the next girl, sure, but there’s just something so unnerving about being all, “HI! YOU DON’T KNOW ME. LET’S BE FRIENDS OKAYYY??” But, again, Doing Uncomfortable Shit = mad personal growth, so I did it. I went from panel to panel, lunch to lunch, dinner to dinner, party to party, and I made friends. I had to spend a little bit of time in between all the madness hiding in my bubble bath to regroup from All The Socializing With Strangers, but overall I met a shit ton of people. And not just any people, kind people. Creative people. Friendly and open and passionate people. I’ll tell you, for an event filled with women so beautiful and stylish it’s as if Pinterest came to life right in the middle of Salt Lake City, there wasn’t a catty remark to be heard or a judge-y face to be witnessed. Should that surprise me? I don’t know, but it did.
My favorite part of the event (other than ordering delicious pesto pizza from room service at 10:30pm and eating it in the bathtub), wasn’t actually part of the event at all. After I took “Doing Uncomfortable Shit” to the ultimate level at Gretchen Rubin’s closing keynote by standing up and asking her a question in front of ALL 500 MOTHER WATCHING PEOPLE, I joined in on one of Erin Loechner’s impromptu “Resource Parties” and realized, again, that people are inherently good and genuinely want to help each other whenever possible.
Never heard of a Resource Party? Yeah, I hadn’t either, but basically you get a group of people together, everyone stands in a circle, and then you go around the circle and each person has one minute to share a big (but specific) thing they’d like to accomplish in the coming months. Then, once they’ve shared their thing, anyone in the circle who can help them accomplish it (or who knows someone who could help them accomplish it) silently walks over and hands them a business card. At the end of it, everyone is left holding at least a few business cards from people who have offered to help them achieve their goal, and they can go home, follow up on their own, and hopefully make the magic happen.
HOW RIDICULOUSLY BRILLIANT IS THAT??
So brilliant, in fact, that I’m going to host a virtual Resource Party, right here, right now. Want in? Leave a comment sharing one (super specific) thing that you want to accomplish in 2012. Do you want to get an article published in SELF Magazine? Do you want to learn basic Photoshop skills? Complete a half marathon? Travel to Spain? Master the art of pole dancing? Whatever your thing is, leave it in the comments. Then, read through other people’s comments and offer your help wherever you can. Maybe you’re an ace at gluten-free baking and you see that someone else wants to learn some new gluten-free recipes to add to their culinary arsenal. Reply to their comment, offer to help, and give them a way to get in touch with you (email address, Twitter handle, etc).
Who knows, you could find the perfect ally or mentor to help you achieve your goal, and you might just be the missing link to making someone else’s dream come true. You could totally do that. Yes, you! You could be someone else’s fairy goal-mother (or goal-father!) and help them turn their big scary dream into a reality. And hey, before you start being all self-deprecating and telling me that you’re not an expert in anything and that you don’t have anything to offer, let me interrupt you and say that that’s bullshit. Seriously, bullshit. Everyone is good at something. Everyone is good at lots of somethings, in fact, and it’s time you stood up and announced to the world that you’re a pretty great illustrator, or that you’re knowledgeable about weight lifting, or that you have an inappropriately delicious brownie recipe. Maybe what you have to offer is that you’re incredibly supportive, and even though you might not have the exact expertise someone else is looking for, you know that you’re the perfect person to be their support system while they pursue their goal. Sometimes, being supportive and being the person someone else can check in with along the way matters more than anything else, so let’s stop being afraid to admit that we’re totally fucking awesome and that we have a lot to offer, okay? Also, let’s stop hoarding our awesome all to ourselves. I mean, sharing the awesome only breeds more of the awesome, right??
RIGHT.
{ 322 comments }
Posted in: a life less bullshit, life 2.0, personal growth and shit, the one with all the traveling