Living in our truth means doing the internal work to come into alignment with ourselves so deeply that we don’t feel triggered when others don’t agree with us... and we speak anyway. Being a leader means that we have learned to show up in so much soul and agency that others listen and real change is created, not just talked about.

Sharing our stories, our personal mythologies, is how we normalize the dark night of the soul processes that our world and our individuals so desperately need in order to create something new. A dark night of the soul, otherwise known as “positive disintegration” or “existential crisis” is standard operating procedure for gifted individuals in order to create and show up with our talent, but is usually considered a “problem” by western medicine. The real problem is that no one is allowed or supported to go through these much needed developmental stages. Positive disintegration happens when a person has the capability of multilevelness: the ability to see two or more things at once: where the world is broken and where the world needs to be, for instance. Your psyche cracks during a dark night. A part of your ego dies. It is heartbreaking. It is painful. It is terrifying. It is overwhelming. we aren’t meant to do it alone. Telling people that there is something wrong with them is the worst thing we can do: no one will ever grow that way. Instead we need to normalize it. And who better to do it than gifted women leaders?

We are not here to tell anyone that they are or are not gifted: That is not the point of this summit. We have no desire to be “better than” anyone. We know that everyone has gifts. And our gifts always are accompanied by quirks and wounds. However, the bigger the gifts, the bigger the quirks, the bigger the internal angst, the more we are misunderstood and the harder it is to feel that being gifted is a gift. This is especially true for women because gifted theory itself is based on a masculine neurobiological system and perhaps has itself limited genius in the areas of intuition and interpersonal intelligence.

How are we to know what is dysfunctional and what is genius if out-of-the box female leaders aren’t able to show up in our very narrow cultural world without being crucified? Especially in business and government: we live in capitalism which means we have to transform business culture first before other cultures. (~Real Beauty Begins Where Perfection Ends)

We can be gifted in many different ways: Intellectual, Imaginary, Emotional, Psycho-motor, Somatic/Sensual, and last but not least: Interpersonal.The last category is not documented in gifted theory, but as the owner of the The Interpersonal Institute where the entire goal is the spread the wisdom of interpersonal intelligence, Erin knows that gifted women are particularly prone to being genius in this area. Because it is THE intelligence most needed to save our planet, we believe in boosting women who can spread the seeds of the interdependence (collaboration) revolution.

This weekend you will get to immerse in the stories, the blood, sweat, tears, the ecstasy and the agony that our interviewees have been through in their own “Dark Nights” in order to be here today with new vision. We will also be sharing new ideas, insights and networks.