After creating thousands of slides and surviving hours of endless powerpoint presentations in the last 10 years, I have a hard time paying attention when someone is talking at me with bullet points.
But this format was pretty great. Ignite Boulder. 20 creative slides, 15 seconds per slide, and 1300 energetic geeks, entrepreneurs, artists and nerds piled into Chataqua auditorium in Boulder despite the cold to celebrate life and the fabric of ideas in this great town.
The best part, in my opinion, were the breakthrough stories.
When you lose everything, you either can stay as a victim (mentally), or I guess you can look at disaster as an opportunity - as a clean slate. I'm always impressed with people who have the courage and discipline to do the latter.
I missed the name of the guy who lost everything in Katrina and humbly went from being a self-admitted, unfocused mess, to using that massive catastrophe as a wake-up call and an opportunity to change direction in his life. You could tell he had a really clear sense of who he is, now, and what he wants to do with that vs. getting stuck in circumstances.
I also dig the courageous leap into a crazy business idea stories.
Banjo Billy's tours - a favorite local Colorado company - started by a frustrated data analyst who came home one night and in an act of defiance (aided by a bit of intoxication, admittedly) decided to buy a school bus on eBay.
The company now gives about 1,000 tours of local historic sites a year in Boulder and Denver and touches probably about 50,000 people a year who come to visit Boulder and Denver or who rent the bus for private events.
That spontaneous decision probably had years of build-up behind it that culminated in one logic-defying act (and what's even better was this guy was totally a logic-driven data analyst). The owner - John Georgis -seems pretty darn happy with life and gets extra bonus points for quoting and exemplifying the words of the mighty Yoda - "do or do not, there is no try." Commitment.
Three years ago I bought a nut machine on a credit card. I didn't know it at the time, but it was an act of commitment that I needed to take to prove to myself I could follow through on my idea (vs. a job or opportunity that was in reaction to circumstances or convenience).
I'm also 5 years into a day job (personal record), and eight years into a marriage (8X my longest relationship), and I'm finally starting to know what commitment feels like in a deeper way.
Thanks to Katrina guy and Banjo Billy for putting it out there tonight. Good stuff, fellas.
