The Aspen Ideas Festival costs thousands of dollars to attend, but a fellowship program foots the bill for more than one hundred “rising stars,” in fields that range from public policy to climate to the performing arts.
It also encourages participants to take these big ideas back to the real world, and gives them the chance to stay connected with one another. At a lively reception on Tuesday night, Unravel Coffee in downtown Aspen was packed with the young movers and shakers, all eager to share their perspectives on business, innovation, impact and creativity.
The fellows are mostly in their 20s and 30s, and many are already company founders, CEOs or celebrated artists. They were nominated by people in the Aspen Institute’s vast network and selected for this program, in part, because of their ability to turn ideas into action.
Ernest Esparza, from the Bronx, first came to the festival as a fellow in 2019 with support from KIPP charter schools, where he’s an alum.
“I just remember feeling extremely blessed, feeling probably even more nervous, but super prepared,” Esparza said.
He spent a month leading up to the festival reaching out to people he knew and asking for advice, then circled back afterward to share his experience.
As for his time here in Aspen?
“It was life-changing,” so much so that it inspired Esparza to start his own business, he said.
“I am now a life and career coach, and I call my company ‘The Follow Up,’ because that is where dreams, that is where networks, that is where hope and connections all tend to die, is at the follow up,” Esparza said. “So I want to bring life to that.”
Esparza says that his time at the Ideas Festival showed him that he had a knack for building community. He figured that if it worked in Aspen, he could do it anywhere, and, over the next half a decade, he found several more opportunities to come back to the festival. (Lots of other fellows return too, and some end up as speakers on festival panels.)
This year, Esparza is here with Kipp’s Accelerator program as a mentor of sorts for the latest cohort of fellows.
They’re all remarkably accomplished, but many of them are also trying to decide what’s next and how to get there. Esparza encourages them to rethink how they talk about themselves.
“It all comes down to your introduction,” Esparza said. “So, if you're at a crossroads, and you focus the conversation on solely what you do, you are only going to stay in the conversation of what you do.”
His solution? Talk about your purpose and meaning, instead.
Here’s an example: “For myself, I work in advertising as my 9-to-5. I volunteer at nonprofits, and I do coaching. That's a lot to give to somebody at once,” Esparza said. “But if I introduce myself as, ‘Hi, I'm Ernest, and I believe my purpose is to make this world a smaller place by connecting people, and form communities to help us figure out what's our next step,’ … it leads to a better, more fruitful conversation.”
Esparza says the Ideas Festival can facilitate that goal, and it has several big benefits for the fellows.
For one thing, it reminds these high achievers that they’re not alone.
“I think most of the fellows here are so impressive that they're in their spaces, and they're kind of by themselves, so they're in a place with like-minded people that work equally as hard and are here because they want to continue to give back,” He said.
And it really does give people new ideas to mull over.
“You get to hear so many amazing stories,” he said. “It reminds you to dream, and it reminds you to dream big.”
The Aspen Ideas Festival concludes tomorrow, after 10 days of in-depth conversations and lots of networking behind the scenes.
The festival has a full list of this year’s fellows on their website.
