Your ‘Current in Entrepreneurship’ editor above had the pleasure of attending the Hive Global Leaders Summit August 15-18 in the Santa Cruz mountains, Scotts Valley, CA near Silicon Valley this year. Simply stated it is an event like no other. Hive members are changing the world, solving humanity’s greatest challenges, making a difference in their local communities, and are committed to personal transformation. Members are working together to create a world in which everyone has the opportunity to pursue their dreams.
This flagship annual event, the Hive Global Leaders Summit (GLS) was a 3.5-day immersive workshop on purpose, leadership, entrepreneurship, and wellness held in August. Hive also hosts major events in Germany, Mexico, Canada, Romania, Nigeria, Liberia, India, Pakistan, Australia, and The Philippines. Members become part of a lifelong community of purpose-driven leaders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, and innovators working together on creating a better world while supporting each other in their personal and professional growth. Over 3,000 leaders from 130 countries are part of the Hive community globally. The organization helps leaders improve their lives through local gatherings and high-quality digital experiences.
It is a group of like-minded social entrepreneurs forming a powerful tribe to do better world work by taking on humanity’s problems and raising standards of living through synergy and diversity. As an example at this year’s gathering, there were panel discussions, renown speakers (Marianne Williamson, a democratic candidate for U. S. President, gave the keynote address suggesting dramatic political change), and self-improvement breakout sessions (public speaking, the “Da Vinci Within”, Authentic Relationships, and Evolve Venturing). By far the the most impactful session was given the last full day by host and Hive CEO Ryan Allis and Nadia Mufti on Designing Your Life Purpose.
This segment can be life-changing for participants. Ryan and Nadia guide cohorts through an experiential exercise called Designing Your life using the Hive purpose model, “What I love doing, What I am good at, What the world needs, and What I can paid for”. As these four wheels intersect, there is a creation of passion, mission, profession, and vocation to define each person’s purpose. These questions are broken down into meaning. For example, for “What do I love doing”, you are asked to answer “When am I most ‘in flow’, what excites me, what makes me come alive, and when am I the happiest”? Near the end people draw their purpose statement and, significantly, list 90-day, 1-year, 5-year and 10-year goals that deliberately include holistic actions like health, travel, work, family, relationships and habits.
At my stage of life I help others learn and grow through entrepreneurship. But, even here I was able to think through a major philanthropic decision using the Hive technique. Three characteristics of a great purpose statement are it is understandable, inspiring, and memorable. After some effort, I was able to reduce mine to fifteen words. I also zeroed in on health as an out-of-balance factor impacting my ‘flow’ and learned new methods of eating, exercise and de-stressing. The final piece of the Hive Global Summit are the people. They are fascinating, from all over the world, and share a common desire to improve both themselves and the larger world. Discussions are extraordinary, interesting, and illuminating.
One example was a fifteen year old invited guest Joshua Gao, inventor of a fire extinguisher that uses sound waves to put out a forest fire. It detects a fire using infrared sensors, and automatically emits a beam of sound waves to the fire source to extinguish it. He recently won the Conrad International Entrepreneurship Challenge. The challenge was created by Nancy Conrad, the widow of Astronaut Pete Conrad who commanded the Apollo 12 mission in 1969. A high school student from Nashua, New Hampshire, Joshua has founded the SAFE company to market the technology to governments and corporations.
If you would like a rich, impactful, and life enriching experience, I encourage you to consider application to the Hive Global Summit in 2020. It will be held again at the 1440 Multiversity in the beautiful redwoods of Scotts Valley. 1440 was built by Silicon Valley unicorn, Scott Kriens, who founded the Juniper Networks.