Ten years ago I was at Booster Conference in Bergen.
My friend Torbjörn Gyllebring alias drunkcod and I met for the third time in person. We had become friends via twitter in the good old days, and I felt like we had known each other forever despite meeting for the first time in October 2013.
Courage workshop
We had wanted to create something for a conference together, and decided on a workshop on exploring courage as we were both inspired by Brene Brown and her talk on the power of vulnerabilty.
We discussed the workshop via dms in twitter (when it was still only 144 characters 😉 ), and ended up with a good abstract – at least we liked it.
To our surprise we got accepted at Booster Conference, so now we had to create the workshop. For this we had a google doc and got started on slides. I can’t even remember if we had a call or if all was done via DM.
The rest of the slides and small add-ons were done the evening before in Torbjörn’s room as it had the best wifi. We had not rehearsed the workshop, and we had never worked together, so all we had the content – and courage. I felt super relaxed about it, and only found out after the workshop that Torbjörn was really nervous 🙂
Next day we prepared the room, made flipcharts, and ten minutes before the workshop, we realised that we had not talked about who would do which part; well too late for that 🙂
We started and it was so smooth. It felt like we were an extention of each other 💕 It was an amazing and powerful experience for us, and created a good space for the participants.
Torbjörn and I so enjoyed doing the workshop and being at the conference; you should go some time; we did not get as much time to talk as we wanted, but we would be on the same flight and booked seats next to each other, so we would have time. Except that we sat down and fell asleep hand in hand.
The results were surprising to us
The workshop was a success; people explored their courage, and they felt safe enough to share with each other and be brave. The workshop helped and helps people, and I found close friends.
Torbjörn and I just wanted to do something together and share our knowledge; we did not expect that we had created something so powerful!
Many great people helped make that first workshop great like the amazing tester and author @lisacrispin.bsky.social that I had met for the first time that morning; little did I know that we would become close friends 💕. She still talks of the workshop as a truly transforming experience.
@mfloryan.bsky.social was also there; he later hired me to fill in for a coach on parental leave, which lead me to move permanently to Stockholm. And both he and his family became close friends. 💕
The afterglow
It turned out that it cost Torbjörn a lot of energy to do the workshop, so he only did it a few times. I on the other hand get energy, so I still do this workshop once in a while, and I love seeing the effect it has on people 🙂
Torbjörn and I realised that we have a connection that is truly special, and we became even closer friends. We give each other the longest hugs and it feels like creating a small bubble of care 💕. He gets me like very few people do. I only have to say a little, and he knows what I mean 🙂
And his girlfriend has also become a friend after I moved here 🙂
Over the years I keep being in awe about how much people can do once they find their courage. I cannot tell you about it as those are their stories to tell.
I had never imagined that so many good things could come from one workshop. Especially not one created via twitter 🙂