Montreal Gazette Article And How Blogs Give Us All The Power To Be An Editor

The Montreal Gazette has an article today on the cover of their Working section called, Who Motivates You? The article was written by Max Harold and I was interviewed as a part of it.
Pre-Blogs and social media we counted on the mainstream media to deliver stories. Now, through the power of Blogs and other social media tools, we’re able to deconstruct and analyze the media like never before. As a former journalist and PR flack (but not at the same time), I still live by the saying: “the only bad press is an obituary.” I am eternally grateful to the Montreal Gazette for asking me to be a part of their article. I also get a chance – here – to clarify some salient points that clearly got caught between Max, the editors and the printing press. Thankfully, because of the power of Blogs and social media, we all have a voice to express beyond the newsprint component and to keep the conversation alive.
On Anthony Robbins, I was quoted as saying:
“He brings a whole other level of understanding and energy.”
Now, I did say this, but not in the context of how the article flows. I was talking specifically about his presentations skills and what I got out of seeing him live.
“He’s not saying anything you don’t already know.”
I did say this, but not as a stand-alone statement. I was talking about how if you’re already an active learner and working on personal development, Anthony Robbins crystallizes and unifies all of the best concepts, even though you have probably heard them, in one form or another, from multiple sources along your personal development path.
“It was a speech by Robbins that Joel attended four years ago that got him thinking about his own choices.”
The first time I saw Robbins speak was at The Power Within Ottawa event, which took place on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007. Four years ago was when I first attended a Sales Mastery program from The Power Within and it was one of many things that got me much more interested in spending some time on my own personal learning and development. As a former Editor for a newspaper, I can see how those wires got crossed.
It then goes on to say… “‘I started making 90-day plans,’ Joel said. ‘I wrote down the story of my life and figured out what I do best are the things I like doing. Then, I asked myself how I could do more of those things.'”
This was actually two separate discussion points. The “90-day plan,” is just one component of a group I joined called the Goal Cultivator Community, which is presented by Dan Sullivan at The Strategic Coach. Dan is a coach for Entrepreneurs and his program is done in modules where every 90-days you spend a couple of hours on exercises that focus on “cultivating” rather than “setting” goals. It’s been an amazing experience. Here’s my initial post on it from 2005: Dan Sullivan Goal Cultivator Community Montreal.
The part about: “figured out what I do best are the things I like doing. Then, I asked myself how I could do more of those things,” is really all about understanding what your unique abilities are (this is a main concept I learned from Dan Sullivan’s materials). We spend most of our day focused on tasks that are not in our unique ability. I’ve spent the better part of the past four years trying to understand what my unique abilities are and focus my energy there, while delegating the stuff I’m not great at to people whose unique abilities are in the areas where I am lacking.
It’s actually interesting to reflect on the conversation I had with The Montreal Gazette journalist and contrast it to how it fits in with his context for the story, the other interviews and what the editors do with the story for final press.
If you compare this Montreal Gazette story to another one that appeared in Hour Magazine this week: Rock n’ Roll Joel written by Jamie O’Meara (who is also the Editor of Hour – any my former employer), you can see how content reads when it’s transferred from many hands to fewer hands and how that affects the tone and flow. When you get to the Blog level of writing, it’s fascinating to note the first-person spontaneous insights that occur without the mediation.
This is not a Blog posting to correct an article for accuracy (I’m quite honoured just to be a part of it). This is a Blog posting to illustrate the democratization and decentralization of content. Through these channels new conversations can (and are) occurring because we all have equal voice. To me, this is really motivational speaking.