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Voice & Exit: a Festival Focused on Flourishing | happyliving.com

“Only as high as I reach can I grow, only as far as I seek can I go, only as deep as I look can I see, only as much as I dream can I be.”
(Karen Ravn)

With so much negativity in our world, many people feel like their lives are hollow and empty. Seth Blaustein and Max Borders founded an exciting festival called Voice & Exit that focuses on the exact opposite: Human Flourishing!

Voice & Exit (V&E) is a two-day event designed to ask, “What could go right and how we can start it?” The conference explores human flourishing with an innovative structure based on familiar agricultural concepts.

We’re attending our first Voice & Exit conference this weekend in Austin, Texas… and I’m excited to share that I will be leading one of the sessions on Sunday!

Seeds, Sprouts, Blooms and Harvest

First, Voice & Exit plants the seeds of goodness, growth, and optimization with a line-up of visionary speakers sharing big ideas for self, community, and world. Next, attendees develop and nurture ideas sprouted from speaker presentations in guided workshops.

The first day finishes with an interactive festival that fuses art, music, and technology that celebrates the blooming of human flourishing.

On day two, we come together for the harvest. The entire day is organized to transform inspiration into action. Attendees are guided through sessions with experienced leadership and a variety of techniques intended to turn ideas into a personalized effectiveness plan.

Ideas into Action

To my knowledge, Voice & Exit is the first conference to put so much energy into harvesting big and important ideas. Most conferences only focus on the presentation (dissemination) of information rather than implementing new ideas (assimilation). V&E is about actually changing behaviors, improving lives, and making a positive impact on our world.

Harvest is Hard

Getting excited about new ideas, products, and innovations is the easy part. This Voice & Exit experience will be no exception. Attendees will be inspired by ten fantastic speakers covering thought-provoking topics ranging from turning trials into triumphs, how technology is liberating the world, the rise of the poor in third-world countries, the brain’s role in ultimate human performance, and much more.

These speakers will plant important Seeds for change and create a buzz of excitement. The Sprouts workshops and the Blooms celebration will whip up the energy to a fevered-pitch. Then the real work for attendees begins. Maintaining conference enthusiasm and implementing change after returning home is hard.

Leading Change

I am proud to be leading one of the Harvest sessions on How to Turn Your V&E High into Action. My talk will guide attendees to focus on WHAT, WHY, and HOW…

WHAT
Throughout day one, attendees should pay attention to big ideas and innovations that move them. When a big idea “hits” you, write it down and keep a list. On day two, we will prioritize this list into the top 3 to 5 ideas for you.

WHY
The next step is to identify why each idea is important to you. This will help anchor or attach the idea to something meaningful in your life.

HOW
The final step of our Harvest session will be to create a plan for converting each prioritized idea into action. Every idea for change requires something different: time, resources, willpower, collaboration, etc.

Flourishing

It’s critical to commit the “whys” and “hows” to paper just as soon as possible, while you are still feeling that V&E high!

It will be inspiring to discuss as a group some specific examples of the biggest, most impactful ideas of the conference, why they are so important, and how real changes can be made upon returning home.

Optimal human functioning, or flourishing, is a virtuous pursuit of goodness, growth, and resilience. The work for each of us is transforming inspirational ideas into action. In this particular case, the work is turning your V&E high into action.

If you are attending Voice & Exit this weekend, I hope to see you there!

And to explore what makes you flourish, sign up to join our Happy Living Weekend Retreat in Sedona, AZ on August 21-22!