Have you ever been sitting at work, going about your normal day when suddenly you’re offered an amazing training course in Bali – except you need to be on a plane in three days to make it happen? No?

Well I have!

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After grabbing tickets to Bali on a Friday afternoon, and flying out on Sunday morning, I have just returned from an incredible. 7-day tour of Bali, facilitated by Karen and Fabrice at Learning Options (you really want to click through and do a course with these guys. You’ll thank me for it later!).

Our course lead us through the real Bali, and I experienced something that I could never have imagined. I watched the way the Balinese people had built their lives in and around their environment, and the respect shown by the outsiders who were also making a living there. Images of drug and alcohol fuelled holiday destination no longer make any sense to me. That’s just not what it was like.

But this trip was more than just learning about the beauty of the people and culture. I was impressed by the leadership and innovation that I saw – I don’t mean that in the way that those words are usually used; I mean it in a true sense. I was inspired by the creativity used to overcome issues and the sustainability of the solutions that were generated by caring minds, coming together to make their world better.

Sure, there were many problems – like can you believe we were soaked with torrential rain daily, yet there is a drought in Bali right now? But I suppose it’s all part of figuring out how to make our world blend into our natural environment.

We fit so many amazing experiences into the week, from traditional mud-wrestling, to touring a Balinese village, learning to play traditional instruments with orphans, learning about the language and culture, and spending time with two vastly different (yet strangely similar) business models that assist the local communities. On each day, I wrote a reflection with the hopes that I could capture even a portion of the lessons that I learned along the way. I will roll these posts out over the next week. I should add in here that these experiences would not have been so wonderful had I not been surrounded by 11 other incredible participants. I am so grateful that I got to share this experience with them.

As I sit at home now, with my suitcase unpacked and my photos being uploaded to my computer, I am weighed down by a sense of emptiness and sadness because I already miss the buzz of Bali and feel that I was reaching my potential while there. Equally, I am filled with a sense of excitement and hope for what my future holds . If I can apply some of the things I’ve learned over this jam-packed week, things will be glorious.

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Yeah, that’s a mud pool. Yes, it was amazing!

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