2021 Telluride Festival Recap

Oct 12

Thank you for an incredible festival!

Dear Original Thinkers -

What a tremendous delight and honor it was to share our work at Original Thinkers last weekend in Telluride. The Aspen leaves were going off, we had early snow in the mountains and the town was buzzing with the power of original thinking. Of course, this doesn’t come together without all the people who made OT 21 singularly memorable.

It is a lot to ask of people to travel to this remote town of Telluride to take our stage yet so many brilliant minds did and each of them brought so much original thinking to the people in the seats. Our audience, understandably uncertain about gathering in a pandemic, did so and did it smartly working with our COVID protocols to keep everyone safe. And I am particularly grateful to the many people who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make sure everything went smoothly.

It actually went swimmingly (yes, swimmingly) with a number of indelible moments happening throughout the festival. I was thrilled to see the characters from Rebel Hearts take our stage and share their wisdom with our audience in Becoming Braver. Pat Mitchell’s riveting talk about her own life story becoming a dangerous woman was fascinating and I thought it worked so well with her fellow speakers Harold O’Neal and Princess Lockeroo in the show, Our Purpose is Our Story. There was so much more happening throughout the weekend including our OT Spotlight Series, which featured remarkable speakers including recording artists Chris Pierce whose songs were a joy and a revelation. Of course, joy was also examined in our show, Joy is an Inside Job featuring the documentary Mission: Joy and what we learned from filmmakers Peggy Callahan and Louie Psihoyos as well as happiness expert Sonja Lyubomirsky about how to reframe the events in our world seems so valuable.

There is so much more beyond this and of course, one of the new paradigms of our world and OT is that we have this wonderful opportunity to share Original Thinkers with people beyond the Telluride valley with our virtual programming, which is available throughout the month of October. If you attended the festival, you have access to all of it and if you didn’t, please consider purchasing a virtual pass. There is a wealth of knockout programming available and know that what these Original Thinkers have to say will resonate with you in a variety of ways so hope you will check it out. Also check out some of the photos from last weekend and some of the big ideas that were shared below.

Thanks and take good care,

David Holbrooke

Founder and Ringleader

Original Thinkers

Virtual Programing

Big Idea Board

Notes, thoughts and big ideas from festival guests and staff.

Gwen Thompkins - Silence makes everything stronger
Rosa Manriquez - At immaculate heart, you never retire. Being of service is my purpose in life.
Pat Mitchell - Change never come with a fight or without the people who are willing to be dangerous.
Louie Psihoyos – Keep the outdoor spaces, eating out in the streets, post - pandemic.
Chris Pierce - Do not weep for what you feel.
Steffi – Leading with gratitude. if we all spent more time before we did anything and thanked the people that are about to receive our gift, i feel like things would move a little bit smoother. if before a logger cut down a tree, they thanked every single tree, or if oil companies had to create ceremony around places they were pumping oil. do you think they would pump as much oil as they would?
Christi Cooper – jfk –– "the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened." i firmly believe that the strength and endurance of our rights are dependent on our pursuit in protecting and securing them.i would love for everybody to have a pocket constitution, so that they know what their rights are and they know how to go and fight for them.
Vic Barrett – An app that encouraged us to invest in socially-good companies and then encourage Gen Z to use their extra income to donate to nonprofit organizations within the same app.
Lenore Dowling – I belong to immaculate heart community and we have a retreat house that several years ago, because of fires and floods, was destroyed so our plan is to rebuild it –– its a retreat and conference. My big idea is to replicate this kind of conference in California, which is full of artists, writers, professional musicians and that doable.
Harold O’Neal – Have storytelling be part of the core curriculum in schools.
Malcolm London – The only beautiful thing about there being so many problems is that there are so many beautiful solutions.
1) more people should wear Lee Kim's wearable tracy hats. 2) People should really think about reimagining justice and understand prison and police abolition.
Lee Kim – 3 years ago i had the big idea of spreading joy from inside out so i began making wearable Tracies, and i started passing them out to people and i asked for one thing –– you don’t have to give me money, give me your name and promise me you’ll spread joy. so my big idea is one day i walk out of grand central, and the whole city will be filled with people who are spreading joy.
Princess Lockerooo – At the height of police shootings, including George Floyd, I realized how many people just don't get it. what if we use facial recognition technology to put the loved ones of extremely racist people's faces on the body of George Floyd and all of the young people who have been murdered by police and have this virtual experience which might traumatize them but might wake them up.
Brigid Kaelin – Bring back music education to everyone –– businesses, schools, conferences.
Miros – Each of us to-go home, learn about local and national indigenous communities and share that information with your friends and families.
Jillian Richardson – When somebody moves to a new city, you have an onboarding system –– so you’d sit down with them and say who are you? what kind of communities do you want to tap into? and immediately tap them into these communities so they don’t have to do it themselves.
Sarah Holbrooke – Not try to be perfect yourself when trying to advance a big idea, but just take a step in the right direction.
Thom Beers – People with wealth should embrace the possibilities, give the money to social infrastructures, let's build it from the ground up again.
Laura Shaunette – The power of story is incredible and taps into each of our innate desires to be seen and heard. my hope is that we share more story and engage with intention and really listen. all of your stories matter and if you take pride in your story. Every year, write a new chapter of your own memoir. It will instill some pride in your behavior and actions, and impose some reflection. More stories.
Jane Ferguson –– my big idea is that we don’t let not for profit media die out, and that in fact we raise it so that for profit media has to maintain the standards that we set.