Conscious Capitalism Conference 2018

Last week I attended the Conscious Capitalism Conference in Dallas, Texas.  It was bigger than ever with more than 800 attendees.  It's nice to see the movement growing.  This was my second time attending.  Its an enlivening event.  There are activities that engage you in learning and growing, a great group of people attending there alongside you, and a lot of inspiring content to take in.

I loved all of the presentations I saw.  There were some common themes with an overall essence that inspired/reminded me:

• Be present and show up in your daily actions.  Emotions are contagious.  Be aware of the climate you create in the room.  When your nervous system takes over, pause and reset.  Listen for possibility.  Resonance expands energy; dissonance reduces it.  Ride the wave of life force energy.  Spread beauty and grace.  
• What you pay attention to expands.  Quantum physics proves this at a molecular level.  Consciously focus your attention on strengths and solutions with questions and curiosity.  Let go of the minor things you find stealing your joy.  Pay attention to what you want more of.  Think of your attention like a ball of light.  
• Brilliant ideas come when you're relaxed.  Play is the highest form of research.  Capture your genius ideas down when they are incomplete.  If you can't think of a win/win/win, you haven't been creative enough.  Geniuses are just people who get better reception.
• Never give up.  Failure is commonly found on the path to greatness.  Learn, grow, and try again.  When you want something bad enough, the world conspires to give it to you.

A few presentations were truly unforgettable.  These speakers were charismatic and had a powerful story to share.

Shawn Achor opened with a bang.  He is a happiness researcher who is full of energy and zest.  He shared a ton of interesting content on happiness.  I highly recommend checking out a podcast.  Three key points were unforgettable:

• Happiness is the joy you feel when moving toward your potentional.  
• We all have mirror neurons that connect our brains wirelessly to each other.  We co-process the world and are interconnected.  When we are in sync with each other, our success rate rises dramatically.  We literally shine brigher as a connected community.  Positive patterns of gratitude deepen optimism and social connection.   
• When we run into challenges, we all feel that they are much easier to face when we don't feel that we have to face them alone.

Chad Houser told his story of opening up Cafe Momentum.  His restaurant is run by young men and women that are released from juvenile hall.  He runs a 12-month paid internship that teaches them all jobs in the kitchen and guides them through a process that sets them up to be hired after it's over.  He helps these kids empower themselves through hard work and determination to be able to lift themselves out of a vicious cycle.  I could literally hardly hold it together after he was done.  He's remarkable.  Check out this video:  The Cafe Momentum Story

Shawn Nelson is the creator of Lovesac.  He shared his idea of "Designed for Life" which is a framework meant to inspire innovation by challenging companies to create better so that consumers can buy less.  His sactionals are amazing.  Check out this video: Designed for Life: The Lovesac Vision.

The content that I connected with most was during the chapter leaders pre-event on Sunday.  Danny Friedland, MD went over the triune brain and how it impacts us every day.  He explained that there are three main parts to the brain and it's natural to oscillate between them throughout the day.  Everything that comes in is filtered through an automatic process that constantly seeks to confirm safety.  The opportunity/challenge we have is to notice when we're in the lower levels (fragmented and reactive) and lift ourselves up to a cycle of creativity by recognizing it and choosing to shift from safety or identity to solutions/action.  He encouraged us to be mindful and pay attention with a sense of openness, kindness, and curiosity for whatever is arising in the present moment.

I love being able to bring this back into my day to day and looking at everything from a renewed perspective.  Although I came back to a very full inbox and several things piled up to deal with, I felt 100% present in each of them and had expansive ways of looking at "processing" them.


This content is blended and inspired by the following people: Michelle Kinder, Shawn Achor, Danny Friedland, Michael Gelb, Deval Patrick, Chad Houser, Jeff Sinelli, David Emerald Womeldorff, Selim Bassoul, Suzy Batiz, Ed Freeman.