A Portal to Awesomeness

The greatest thing about becoming a certified, bona-fide Street Wizard is the ability to go out into the world and share this incredible tool with other humans.

I found myself in Bali over December and January, pursuing a writing project. I had joined a group of brilliant minds and giving hearts at Tribewanted Bali. The programme offers accountability, mentoring, and goal setting to their members, who are working on a variety of projects, from start-up businesses to career changes.

Importantly, tribe is surrounded by a community of people who are bursting at the seams with inspiration and creativity.

Hosted in Hubud, one of the most exciting and carefully curated co-working places in the world, tribe allowed me to quickly connect with a range of people who, to some extent, have thrown themselves into massive quests. They’ve left their jobs, countries and families to come to Ubud to — in the midst of this ancient, spiritual town of 30,000 inhabitants — begin to look for answers on work-life balance and their true talent and calling.

All in all, the perfect playground for Street Wisdom.

I ran two sessions over two days, with 16 people in total taking part. Most of the participants were either established entrepreneurs or on their way to become so. A few others were living the digital nomad lifestyle by running a mix of freelance projects.

To most of these folk mindfulness is familiar territory; yoga just another language.

What was surprising was that even for people who are fluent in these forms of connection, Street Wisdom is still as powerful. You can have a couple years of deep meditation practice in the bag and still be as illuminated as a beginner in the art of slowing down, tuning up and listening to the true self within.

We settled early in the morning to avoid the tropical midday heat and picked a location which had all sorts of magic going for it: independent stores, the busy local market, plenty of cafés, a variety of temples and plenty of quieter little side streets and alleyways.

The group was happy to share their breakthroughs. One of the members came back from the quest overwhelmed with emotion; not only he had found a whole new side to Ubud he had never noticed (despite living there for a number of months) he also confirmed in those two sacred hours what he suspected all along was his gift to mankind. Two women came back deliriously happy; their much happier and serene body language had attracted the attention of strangers of the opposite sex, and an invitation for dinner.

To some others, the quest opened up a whole new set of questions, and more time required for reflection. One member realised that even though he was now living in paradise, he’d stopped noticing the environment around him as much as he would have in the beginning. He wrote back saying he was going to slow down and improve on his ability to observe.

I felt incredibly blessed for being a facilitator of these moments.

For two days only, I was a portal to awesomeness.

I can’t wait for the next Street Wisdom event.

Claudia Monteiro is on @montyclaudia 

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