The World Domination Summit was an experience where when you sit down to recap, putting the experience into words is a slow and thoughtful process. Words like “amazing!” and “impacting!” don’t quite satisfy questions from friends yet short outbursts like these are the only responses that make sense. And yet, this experience needs to be shared with those outside of who attended because it will continue changing the world.

In my mind, WDS can easily be described by its core values, and the depth of it is so comforting.

Service
We left WDS wanting to change the world by finding ways to serve it. How can I take what I know and what I’ve learned and help others with it? How can I tie what I do and am passionate about to make the world a better place? The speakers gave us a taste of this by sharing their stories and what they’ve learned and encouraging us to do the same. We inspired each other by sharing what we are currently doing in our lives.

Adventure
Coming to Portland was an adventure in itself, which I shared in this blog post. Discovering a new city, discovering parts of ourselves that we’d forgotten and taking journeys with new faces through our conversations – these are the best kinds of adventures.

Community
The strongest value of WDS is community and this is the hardest thing to put into words. WDS is a group of people who challenge, support, and accept each other. We understand the struggles and the conventional ugliness of life yet we are not afraid to be vulnerable, even on a stage in front of 3,000 people, because we know we will laugh and cry along with each other. It’s ok to be unsure yet willing to explore what’s next, to be remarkable, and to give up what the world tells you to do and chase your dreams. We go to WDS because we want to be inspired, to build community and to be with people who understand. That’s why it was hard to leave and why we take these connections home with us.

Thank you to: (links go to video of their presentation)

Nancy Duarte for awesomely analyzing those speeches and teaching us how to draw people in through our presentations.

Darren Rowse for bringing us back to our dreams and reminding us to create the future we want.

Jia Jiang for reminding us that rejection is not something we should be afraid of and that we risk rejecting ourselves if we do.

Gretchen Rubin for reminding us to “be [insert YOUR name here]” and giving insights on how to recognize our tendencies to work towards happiness.

Bob Moore for sharing the importance of giving back.

Tess Vigeland for being vulnerable and showing us it’s ok to not know what the hell we’ll do next, but reminding us to seek the remarkable.

Andrew Warner for teaching us the difference between our true mind and our counter mind.

Chase Jarvis for reminding us about the importance of creativity.

Steve Schalchlin for the wake-up call to come out and live!

Donald Miller for reminding us we are not our failures or our successes.

WDS Team and volunteers for brilliantly planning and executing this event. Loved the Welcome Tunnel, awesome branded swag, Opening Party at the Oregon Zoo, Closing Party complete with Bollywood dancing and everything in between.

Chris Guillebeau for bringing us together and putting hard work into building WDS.

WDS Community for being incredibly awesome and authentic.

For speaker notes, check out these awesome sketchnotes by @rohdesign.

Also check out founder Chris Guillebeau’s event recap and Armosa Studios’ official event photos.

Cheers to dominating the world!

The post World Domination Summit 2013 appeared first on Fearless Captivations.

When I went to Portland on July 4th weekend for Word Domination Summit 2013, we made sure to explore the city as much as we could. It’s very similar (but not better; I love you, Austin!) than Austin. In comparison to Austin, Portland’s weather is cooler and the city is weirder. (Austin is more of a cool, subtle weird.)

GETTING AROUND
The MAX Red Line will take you straight from the airport to downtown. We stayed in the downtown area so we walked everywhere but the MAX lines should get you where you need to go.

FUN

Waterfront Bikes
When in Portland, do as the Portlanders do. The cooler weather made riding a bike the perfect way to explore the city. We had great service and bikes from Waterfront Bikes, which is located right on the waterfront and gave us easy access to a scenic route.

Oregon Zoo
Though it’s a little ways from downtown, the Oregon Zoo is a fun place to visit. They’ve got cute otters, giraffes, lions, tigers and bears. I saw two animals I hadn’t seen before: a mongoose and a fluffy tailed monkey.

International Rose Test Garden
Close to the Oregon Zoo, this garden is a wonderful park filled with beautiful flowers. You can easily spend an hour here, strolling the park, enjoying the flowers and hugging some trees!

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
If you want an Instagram-worthy shot, go by this concert hall. WDS was held here and the 84-year-old building is gorgeous inside!

FOOD

Saint Cupcake and Cupcake Jones
Both shops had delicious cupcakes! The flavors I tried:

Saint Cupcake: The Salty Captain, Carrot Cake, Rhubarb with Raspberry, Vanilla with Cream Cheese

Cupcake Jones: German Chocolate, Peter’s Chocolate Mint, Strawberry Shortcake (Also pictured: Chocolate Chip Cookie and PB&J)

Pok Pok
Made famous by its award-winning chef and its appearance on “No Reservations,” Pok Pok proved its worth with a delicious Thai feast: pork belly and shoulder, Vietnamese fish sauce chicken wings, boar collar, Northern Thai curry, glass noodles, water spinach, and Thai tea to top it off.

Salt & Straw
Yes. You need to eat this ice cream. Strawberry with Cilantro Lime Cheesecake and Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbon earned two thumbs up from me.

Beer
Beer is kind of a big deal in Portland. I only tried the Deschutes Twilight Summer Ale at the zoo but I loved it. There are many brewpubs in the downtown area since most of the breweries are outside of Portland. I can’t wait to come back to explore the brews/breweries more.

Food Carts
There are food carts all over this city and we hit homeruns with two in particular: Momo Cart and Nong’s Khao Man Gai.

Momo Cart: A first for me at this Himalayan dumpling cart: Yak Dumplings.

Nong’s Khao Man Gai: Try the Chicken and Rice.

Portland was such a fun city to visit and explore, and it’s perfect for a long weekend. Portland breweries, I’m coming back for you!

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