Saw Clinton and Lance speak yesterday

[JCL]

I attended a motivational/leadership seminar yesterday in Vancouver. Approx 6000 attendees. Fourth tour date in Canada; they were in Montreal/Ottawa/Toronto earlier this week. Headline speakers were Bill Clinton and Lance Armstrong. A couple of very powerful messages. Clinton stayed away from politics entirely, and delivered a speech about what each of us was doing here on this planet. Whatever you may think of his politics (and as a non-American, I never spent much time thinking about his politics), the message was incredibly well delivered. He is a very powerful speaker. He basically used his foundation's work as an analogy for personal involvement. Greenhouse gases, security issues, Iraq, Indonesian relief, US/Canadian relations, a lot of topics were touched on, but all were brought back down to "Whether you agree with me or not, fine, but what is your own opinion? You need to have one" He was followed by Lance Armstrong, who spoke more about cancer than the Tour. Not a great speaker, in terms of being relaxed on stage, but great in terms of the heartfelt honesty. Doesn't hurt that he had a great message.

Also on the agenda were Loretta LaRoche (funny); Peter Guber of Mandalay Entertainment (seems like a bright guy, but a poor speaker); Stephen Dubner (Freakonomics author, entertaining); Mary Lou Quinlan (woman power); and a few more.

Worth attending if you get a chance. The organizers of this one were The Power Within.