The Power Within Toronto Event

Today was one of those days. I had the pleasure of attending The Power Within event in Toronto. I woke up at 3:30 am to make a 6:00 am flight. You might find me complaining about that on any regular day, but the energy, new found passion and enlightenment I get from these full day Power Within events conquers whatever may be lost by the lack of sleep.
I’m actually typing this in flight – close to 10:00 pm as I jet east back to Montreal. The energy is still pumping. There are two sides of me after events like this. The first side is the guy who can’t wait to be back up on the Power Within stage (next chance to see my presentation on Personal Branding is at The Power Within event in London, Ontario next Tuesday, September 19th, 2006), but the second side is the person who grows more and more with every word spoken by the fascinating people that The Power Within are able to gather in one room.
I had the chance to not only hear the presentations by people like Tim Sanders (who was once partners with Mark Cuban, then moved on to Yahoo! before becoming the best-selling author of The Likeability Factor and Love Is The Killer App), ex-Disney dude, Michael Eisner, and the real Virgin, Sir Richard Branson, but because I am a part of the Power Within’s speaker’s bureau, I had the opportunity to have lunch and hang around with these captains of industry.
I was able to grab a couple of distinct learnings from seeing these top performers. Most of it has to do with personal comfort. Through achievement, luck, brilliance or mistake each one of these great speakers has accepted their role in society and, from what I can see, are doing everything possible to suck the marrow out of the bone of life.
It got me thinking about marketing (what doesn’t?). How are we making consumers comfortable with what our products and services can (and can’t) do? Are the products and services we market truly comfortable in their own skin, or are they trying to be something they’re not?
After hearing the inside story on Yahoo!, Disney and Virgin from the people who led those incredible companies from the front, it’s easy to piece together the success as it ran from passion to execution to knowing what they stood for… and why.
It made me think about what Twist Image is… and now I’m working on some words to define “it”… and it’s not your standard marketing jargon.
Final message (and I am not preaching): if you ever get a chance to attend an event like The Power Within or another kind of workshop, presentation, conference, etc… don’t let it pass you by. For years I’ve argued the power of personal development and, after all of these years and attending events like this, I still grow by leaps and bounds. I hope you have similar experiences like I had today.