Personal Development for Smart People^TM

Last weekend Erin and I attended Hay House’s 2007 I Can Do It! Conference at the Sands Expo in Las Vegas.  This was my third year attending this conference and Erin’s second.  You may have seen our review of the 2006 seminar.  Keynote speakers included Dr. Wayne Dyer, Bill Phillips, Doreen Virtue, Christiane Northrup, and Deepak Chopra.

I Can Do It! has been growing rapidly over the years.  When I attended in 2004, I think there were about 2000 attendees.  This year I was told there were 7000.  Attendance is still roughly 80% female.

I Can Do It! offered workshops on spirituality, consciousness, psychic development, mediumship, health, personal development, past life regression, animal guides, and more.  If any of those topics interest you, you’d probably get a lot out of it.

Instead of doing a single monolithic post like last year, this year I’ll split the review into four parts, one for each day of the conference.

Day 1 – Thursday

As we were taking our seats in the large auditorium, Erin and I bumped into a couple of our local friends and sat with them.  There was a brief intro before the first speaker came on stage.

Colette Baron-Reid

Steve:  As a warm-up for Sylvia Browne, psychic Colette Baron-Reid spoke about her experiences as a psychic and then gave readings for about 30 minutes.  Last year I attended Colette’s workshop, so I knew she was likely to be hyper and energetic; unfortunately this time I found her style too flamboyant for my tastes.  For example, she would tell jokes that weren’t all that funny and then laugh uproariously at them.  She was clearly having a good time up there, but I’d have preferred more seriousness, substance, and depth with less nervous energy.  As for her readings, I didn’t find them particularly profound or accurate based on the many non-validating reactions she got.  I also felt she was borderline disrespectful towards some of the people who asked questions, as if she was too hyped up to take them seriously.  I’m sure her style appeals to some, but it just didn’t resonate with me this time.  Overall I was a bit disappointed with this presentation, although it had its moments.

Erin:  This was my first experience seeing Colette in person. I didn’t know too much about her before this event.  She was a little over-excited, as Steve mentioned, but she may have been nervous.  She sure knows how to increase the energy in a room!  I thought her readings were okay but a little vague.  Then again she only had a few minutes with each person so how in depth could she be?

Sylvia Browne

Steve:  Sylvia Browne delivered the Thursday night keynote.  She talked for an hour about relationships in her usual direct tell-it-like-it-is manner, including plenty of wit and humor.  I know her style rubs some people the wrong way, but personally I quite enjoyed her snarky sense of humor.  Sylvia then did readings for an hour, spending about 20-30 seconds on each person who was called up, selected by lottery.  I felt some of her answers were a bit vague, but I also observed some genuinely strong matches.  Many people were in tears as they returned to their seats.  Most people seemed to ask very basic questions, seeking reassurance about some area of their lives.  Sylvia doled out generous doses of tough love, telling people in no uncertain terms when their careers or relationships were off course.  I rather like that she doesn’t candy-coat her messages.

Erin:  Sylvia is direct, honest, and pretty funny.  I am not totally enamored with her reading style and her snarkiness, but she certainly is confident and true to herself.  I laughed a lot during her presentation and thought her readings were pretty good.  She had a lot of wonderful insights on relationships.  I can tell that she puts a lot of time, thought, and effort into the topics she writes and speaks about.  I’d love to see her connect more with the people she reads for and take a more loving and heart-centered approach to her readings.  But I can’t really judge her since she has been doing this for so many years, and I certainly have not walked a mile in her mocassins.

Overall

This was an interesting and entertaining three-hour kickoff for the conference.  I can’t say it delivered any substantial take-home value for me personally, but I still considered it worthwhile.

Read the rest of the conference review:

• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 27th, 2007 at 5:05 am and is filed under Consciousness & Awareness, Metaphysics, Motivation, Personal Development, Psychic Development, Public Speaking, Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.