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.

A New Year and the Change Continues

What are you going to achieve this year? Will there be a change or more of the same old, same old…

This time last year I thought “I hope something interesting happens this year” as I had most years and like most years I was dreading that like at the end of ‘06 nothing would change. But what would I have to do to create that change.

Then the concept of doing this podcast was just starting to form out of the mist of my mind and I didn’t really know about it. I felt optimistic that something would happen but that’s how I feel every year.

Well it was a different year. the first different year in many years.

First I dreamt up the idea of this podcast then I had the reinforcement of everytime I moved I received another bit of motivation from things that seemed to pop out of the ether to remind me that this is a good idea for me much like when your looking for a new car you see them everywhere because that is where your focus is.