Portland, Oregon · 2011 – 2022
How do we live a remarkable life
in a conventional world?
An archive of ten gatherings, ten summers, and the people who showed up.
What it was
For ten summers, we met in Portland for a weeklong experience focused on community, adventure, and service. It started small—a few hundred people in 2011, drawn by an idea that didn't quite have a name yet—and grew into something we never expected. Before long, we were filling large theaters and taking over much of the city.
WDS was never a conference, exactly. It was a reunion of people who hadn't met yet. Speakers gave inspirational talks from the main stage, but much of the magic happened in the hallways, on the dance floors, at the late-night meetups in hotel lobbies. People showed up curious and left a little braver than when they came.
Then 2020 happened, and 2021. We came back in 2022 for one final event—a closing chapter, on our own terms—and moved on.
Community. Adventure. Service. That was the through-line. And it still is.
By the numbers
The years
2011 — 2013
It began with an invitation and a hope that maybe a few hundred people would show up. They did—and then again the next year, and the year after that. The Art Museum, the Newmark Theatre, the closing party at the Crystal Ballroom.
Speakers in those first years included Brené Brown, Leo Babauta, Gretchen Rubin, Jonathan Fields, and Susan Cain—people who'd later become household names but were happy to share a stage with us when we were still figuring out what we were.
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2014 — 2018
Five summers at full volume. We moved into the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, ran academies and meetups across the city, took over the Portland Spirit for a cruise on the Willamette, and pulled off world records including the Great Namaste—the most people performing sequential yoga poses.
This was the era of surprise charity announcements, the costume parties, the tattoos people got mid-conference. It got weirder and more fun every year.
2020 — 2021
Like everyone, we paused. Two years of empty rooms, postponed plans, and waiting to see what came next.
2019 · 2022
2019 was the last of the big ones—a full house at the Schnitzer, the same warmth, and a sense that something was changing. Then the pause. Then 2022: our tenth and final event, aptly named WDSX. We honored the people who'd been there the longest, and said a deliberate goodbye.
Thank you
To the speakers who came without an honorarium, to the volunteers in colorful shirts who made everything run, to the team who built it year after year, to the city of Portland for hosting us—thank you.
And mostly: thank you to the 15,000 of you who flew in from every corner of the world, sometimes year after year, and made WDS the thing it became. The community didn't gather around the event—the event gathered around the community.
A remarkable life isn't a destination. It's the people you travel with.
What came next