Beyond the 140: Part 1

I've been sitting on this all weekend. How do I explain something so amazing that I'm not sure it really happened. How do I tell you I spend 4 days falling in love with strangers. How do I express the feeling of bottled magic. I'm going to try. I will not do it justice but hopefully I can at least acknowledge those who touched my soul.

This will not be a 1 part post... It will take me days to wrestle through the emotions this post will take.

And with that said, I'll start with my Knight In Shining Armour, Lyndon. We met up at the airport unexpectedly on our way to New York. He was on the earlier flight, but I got there early and we had some time to talk. After finding out I was super nervous to get from the airport to the hotel he offered to wait for an hour on the other end and travel with me. This was only the start of Lyndons chivalry. Waiting places for me,  taking in a room mate he had never met because I asked him to, coming back to the airport, sleep and family deprived to drive me home. This is just what he did, it doesn't even get into how just his presence kept me calm and his voice made me smile.

I say I fell madly in love with strangers, and I did, none more so than Matteo. From the moment we were in the same room the first time I knew my life was better because he was in it. We connected. I wanted him in our world, involved in our fun. I wanted to experience 140 with him. We had so many sparkling moments, not big moments, but important ones. It was like we had been friends for our entire lives. I ran like a crazy person to make his talk Wednesday morning and to see him come so alive on stage brought tears to my eyes. I was lucky enough to get to connect with his partner Pheobe online and realized that the awesome ran through this family like a waterfall. Proof that true beauty finds its mirror image.

Just writing about these 2 amazing men has brought on the tears. I went through so many kleenexes the past week that I should probably be out planting trees. I spent 4 days in New York and saw none of the city, but I saw world changers, dream makers, I saw magic with my own two eyes.

Going into day 1 only hours from my talk I spoke to my dear friend Kat. My nerves were frazzled and my anxiety through the roof. I told her I had no idea how I was going to speak between my childhood hero, Carlos Delgado, and a man who inspires me every single day, Mark Horvath. I didn't know how I could possibly come up to their level. She looked at me and told me I could do it, I would do it and I would be great. I stopped and breathed in the air around me, then put it out of my mind. To think about it would spiral me into anxiety. People asked if I was ready, if I had my talk together, I laughed and said I wouldn't know until I hit the stage. How true this was, no one actually knew. I had nothing when I got to New York, absolutely nothing prepared. I woke up at 6am that day, realizing I had another hour or so to sleep I curled up and closed my eyes.

Then I had a dream... A dream featuring another new friend, Tiffany. I was giving my talk just to her. Her stunning smile was the only thing I saw. I woke up and knew. I knew exactly what I was going to say, how I was going to say it... I knew I was about to bare my soul and I knew it was going to be worth it. The nerves and anxiety never went away, but from the moment I opened my eyes after that dream I was in control. I was prepared to take on the world. It was my time to stand up and sparkle.

I was ready...


To be continued...

Vibrating: NYC

I. AM. FREAKING. OUT!!

3 more sleeps until New York City!!

I'm dying! Nerves have made me jittery and anxious but so so excited!

I can't even tell you how happy I am that Jacki, Krystal and Gord will be there with me. For so many reasons. It's not very often that a girl gets to live out a dream with some of her best friends beside her. And by beside me I mean, keeping me from falling over and making sure there are kleenexs available at all times.

Is my talk ready? Well define "ready". It changes, daily, hourly, by the minute. I have so much I want to say. So much to tell the world. So much of myself I want to give. The encouragement I have been getting just makes me want to give more, do more, be better.

On top of all of that, there is talk about #140karaoke in NYC. Did you hear that? Probably not since it was me, unable to catch my breath. I've mentioned before my dream of singing to finance my mental health projects. Singing in NYC would just blow my mind... BLOW. MY. MIND. The experience would be stellar, killer, amazing... pretty much any word you can find in the thesaurus under "incredible".

This whole trip is going to be incredible.

I'm trying to figure out how to download my brain so I can have space to fill with all the new memories I'm going to make. Another reason I am so glad I'm going to have friends with me, to remind me of what the hell happened!

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to be able to thank Jeff Pulver and the 140 family for making this happen.

3 sleeps.

Well 3 nights, I don't know how much sleep I'm going to get.

Why, Mr. Pulver, I hardly know you...

So, wow, yeah.

#140ConfOnt - You blew my mind.

I laughed, I cried, I fulfilled my dream of one day skipping out of a building with the Kitestring team.

I also will never be the same.

I had the privilege of speaking at the Ontario 140 conference in Kitchener yesterday. For 10 minutes. For 10 minutes they said - you own that stage. "You will be great!" "You will rock!" -- I was more worried about throwing up on some ones shoes.

For 10 minutes I told my story. Not the whole story, not even a fraction of my story, but I told the part that mattered in that moment. I'll be honest, I have NO idea what I said. Something about Oprah and pillows I'm told, makes sense, sounds like something I would do. What I said truly wasn't as important as what happened when I walked off that stage.

I fell in love.

I walked off the stage into a sea of open arms ready to hold me and tell me I was amazing and strong and brave. That I was funny and heart-warming. That I was ok. I managed to hold it together on stage, but off stage the release of this weight from my shoulders was followed by many many tears.

I went outside, I took deep breaths, I looked back at the hundreds of people who had just held my hand through something so hard and I fell in love with each and every single one of them. I fell in love with the human race again. My switch was flicked and I saw the world not as something I was going to be battling against forever, but as something I would be battling for.

I was ready to take on the world in that moment.

Walking back into the conference my phone was vibrating almost non-stop. I had to turn off the vibration because it was so distracting. My twitter timeline was blowing up. People at the conference, people at home, in offices, in parks were tweeting about me. I can only assume that this is the social media equivalent of a rockstar having their name chanted at a concert. I couldn't keep up, hell twitter couldn't keep up.

Then I saw it... "KarmicEvolution is top trending now in Canada."

In Canada.

Me.

Trending.

I turned to Laurel Crossley and handed her my phone. Then... its a blur of tears and sobs and hugs. I sent that phone all over the damn conference. Shock, glee, amazement - 11 am I started dreaming and apparently wasn't waking up any time soon. To quote the Record "Immediately following her 10-minute talk she was trending higher than pop sensation Justin Bieber on Twitter".

#TrendingHigherThenBieber

Can we take a minute and just digest how HUGE that is?!

Justin Goddamn Fucking Bieber!

Wandering in a teary daze around the lobby of the conference, I was super thankful for Jeff Pulvers hug policy. The hugs and love and positivity were coming in fast and furious. People I look up to like Jeff Pulver and Alexandria Durrell and Craig and Wendy Silva were using words like "proud" and "rockstar" and I was in a fog of joy and disbelief.

Then I had another moment of realisation... Jeff Pulver - this icon of social media. A man with brilliance and inspiration to spare - cared. He wasn't just a figure head. He wasn't someone to be intimidated by. He was a guy who genuinely loved watching people succeed and be inspired. Money, fame, position meant nothing, he was one of us. We were all just people. In a room full of entrepreneurs, home makers, business people, dads, sisters, uncles, wives... we had more in common then we knew. Status meant nothing. We were there to just be, we had actually entered the state of now.

I also realised I wanted to work for Jeff Pulver and feel what he gets to feel every day. I actually may have wanted to BE Jeff Pulver but I was willing to settle for living vicariously through him.

Which leads me to McCabes. Most of McCabes was a blur too. The people, the food, the lights, the booze. The whole room was radiating light and for once I felt completely comfortable standing in this crowd. After all, we were just people.

Standing outside with Jacki Yovanoff and Chris Farias, two of my closest friends, someone must have dropped some magic dust. Jeff walks out with Stephanie Montreuil and I say something along the lines of "I think my new dream is to work for you Jeff". As my friends are pimping me as the perfect employee, it happened.

It.

Huge.

I can't even remember at this point what was said, how it was said, or if I stayed upright.

And now my big news.

I will be speaking at the 140 Conference in New York in June.

Me.

Little Ol' 10th grade educated, unemployed, solo mom me.

Me.

I think my name is Jodi, but honestly I also think I'm still asleep.

To see the record article click here.

To see the stream of the conference (I am at roughly minute 21) click here.

And please take the time to watch the other amazing speakers! Especially my friends Chris Farias and the Kitestring Crew, Craig Silva, Heather Hamilton, Laurel Crossley, Chris Eh Young, Alexandria Durrell, Taylor Jones, Dee Brun and of course Jeff Pulver.