Your Story Ep 6 : Juan Mann, Free Hugs & Oprah is a Career

Welcome To Episode Six of Your Story.

To listen to the podcast please go to Your Story

Today we talk with Juan Mann of Free Hugs fame. You have probably seen the video, if not here it is.

A runaway viral success that has lead onto things greater than anyone could have imagined

It all started for me when I saw on Twitter that Richard Giles had gone to visit Juan and I thought well there is a story in that! So I found his Welcome To My Home site and asked if I could drop in, seeing how I was in Sydney. Generously, he agreed.

We talk about the runaway success that the video has become for him and what it has lead on to, including appearing on Oprah and Andrew Dentons Enough Rope along with opportunities that you would never write into a business plan.
Surprisingly this has lead to him developing a career as a public speaker enabling him to continue to get his message out there and to motivate others to follow their passion.

This is the Most Peaceful Time in History?

It’s around us everywhere. Violence, destruction, mans inhumanity to man. We’re told not to go out, to barricade ourselves like a medieval fort from the barbaric hordes that are about to descend onto us. But sorry I don’t see that around me. Sure it’s on the box and in the papers but I live in a peaceful community where everyone I know isn’t threatened or harmed. Am I naive?

Well it looks like I may be right just check out this TED presentation by Steven Pinker and you may get why I don’t feel fearful. It’s just not there. The points that Steven makes at the end of his talk about empathy rings profoundly true for me.

I’ve always thought that we probably don’t live in particularly violent times but there is still some violence going on and I feel that the lack of empathy is why we continue to allow it.

As I mentioned in a previous post it is my goal with this podcast to allow people to develop some empathy with others through their stories so that we can see that we are not that different from them.