What a day, what a day!

I went back to Second Cup for coffee with Emmanuel Lopez and Rob Schaumer at 3:00 PM. Kevin McIntosh introduced me to Emmanuel Lopez because of Emmanuel's upcoming series called “Movies that Motivate”. Instinct told me to invite Rob Schaumer (Purpose Realized), whom I had met at the Mesh planning party last November 15 and again at the DemoCamp afterparty. And what a conversation we had! Two hours just flew past, and we all had great fun.

Emmanuel Lopez has been a motivational
speaker for the past three years. “Motivational speaker” is too bland
a word to describe him—hence the moniker, “Motivatorman”. The movie
series this January at the Royal Ontario Museum looks really
interesting. With feel-good and thought-provoking movies such as
Groundhog Day, As Good As It Gets, and Pleasantville, he'll help so
many people face their challenges and develop themselves. And the
events aren't just movies, too. He'll start each event with 30 minutes
for a motivational speech and discussion, and wraps it up with more
discussion and reflection. Sounds like good stuff!

I'm *really* excited about his second project, too: a series of
workshops on self-development for hubs/connectors. With the tagline
“network – interact – share”, it definitely sounds like my kind of
thing—heck, it's something I wish I could've organized! <laugh>
It's a pity that the first event is in January; I'll only be able to
make it to the next one. AHA! I know, I can suggest homework…

What a delight! I'm looking forward to inviting the people I know to
those events (even in absentia!), which will help me get to know their
non-work sides too.

And I had *no* idea that Rob Schaumer had a
talent for marketing, but I'm glad I discovered it in the course of
conversation! He suggested all sorts of useful little tweaks for
Emmanuel's marketing campaign.

He has such a fascinating life history. Self-educated in an Orthodox
Jewish community where most people are expected to complete university
degrees, he really wants to reach out and motivate other people. He
related how motivational speakers tend to break into the profession in
three ways:

• earn a university degree in it (they have degrees in motivational speaking?)
• work for someone already doing it
• prove your worth

Rob decided not to go for university, and ended up building a company
for the heck of it—just to see if he could. (Wow!) The motivational
companies he talked to wouldn't consider someone without a university
degree, so by process of elimination…. I've no doubt that he'll find
his niche and fill it really well!

Rob's got such awesome experiences. One of his stories fits in
perfectly with Emmanuel's focus on movies. He was playing squash, but
he was pretty tired and out of form. He told us how he intentionally
visualized the scene in Superman Returns where Superman flies into
space to recharge, and that just filled him with energy. Every time
his energy flagged, he'd go back to that scene. Because of that, he
played a pretty good game!

We swapped many more tips that I'm looking forward to writing about
over time, but I just wanted to help you get to know some of the
fantastic people I met today. Isn't life awesome?

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