Author: MH3

Okay, Canada. Now is our chance. It’s our time to shine. The world needs us.

Just when you thought the world couldn’t get any crazier. It did. What we hoped would go away after 600 days of drama, has just been granted a 1,460-day extension. Brace yourself.

But the good news for us is that it wasn’t our election. Though we probably followed it more closely than most Americans did. So now what?

Now it’s time to stop worrying about what we can’t control and focus on what we can. Our country. Our provinces. Our cities. Ourselves. Our Canada.

The world has delivered a golden opportunity into our laps. County after country wants to put up walls, discriminate against religion, stop free trading, hurl insults at cultures, not share currencies, ignore refugees, pollute irresponsibly, and lie without recourse. Now is our chance.

Now is the time for us to go further than ever before as a global leader. Once we get our immigration website up and running again, (sorry Americans we don’t accept faxes), we can get back to business of being Canadian. As Air Canada says, or maybe it was Obama, “The world needs more Canada.”

Let’s give it to them.

Let’s give the world a country that helps people leave their war-torn homeland. A country that uses its personal wealth to support their path to safety, then embraces them and their culture when they are here.

We can be a place where artisans and cultural leaders can ply their trade without the fear of interference.

Definitely we should build walls. Climbing walls for your children. New homes with bright coloured walls for those who are displaced. Walls of Fame where we recognize our achievers. Walls of Shame where we hold the worlds villains accountable. Walls of new businesses, new schools, new pools, new museums, and new community centres.

We should be a country that brings civility to discord. It’s okay to have your own political affiliation. Let’s just stick to the focus of improving our communities. More importantly, get involved. Volunteer. Coach. Teach. Lobby. Campaign.

O Canada we have been given a gift horse. We are having a little party next year for our 150th birthday. We should all invite people to come visit. Even people we don’t know. We should all spend 100% of our vacation dollars here. Travel the country. Celebrate our birthday with our fellow citizens. See Newfoundland, run across the Prairies, or discover the North. Open your homes, your businesses, your lives to the world.

A perfect storm has been created for us to take advantage of. We can be the Number One country in the world. If we aren’t already. In fact we don’t need to be Number One. We just need to be us.

What is that?

It’s whatever you want it to be. Because you have a country that wants you to be free. You live in a nation where opportunity is unlimited. You live on a land that has seen mistakes made, but is trying hard to repair them.

O Canada, let’s do this.

I Dare You, America.

I Dare You to elect the Republican candidate for President. Now that you have confused the investigation of a pervert with a presidential election, you seem to be teetering towards insanity. You seem to be content with throwing all common sense out the window.

So if you want him so badly, go ahead. Make Your Day.

I Dare You to elect a man who believes that voting for him as President also grants him the power to be judge, juror, Supreme Court justice, District Attorney, and Sheriff.

I Dare You to elect a man who will abolish human rights in a way that will place your country in the annals of history alongside countless other dictatorships.

I Dare You to elect a man who will soon make Russian your official second language. The only question is whether he does before or after renaming his official residence the White Kremlin.

I Dare You to elect a man who will waste your tax money suing people who apparently didn’t paint his lobby the correct hue of pink.

I Dare You to watch new levels of Washington gridlock emerge.

I Dare You to have a leader who refuses to pay his own taxes.

I Dare You to enter his altered state of reality.

I Dare You to trade Michelle for Melania. At some point she will have to read her own speeches, won’t she?

I Dare You to elect a man who is going to lock up Hillary.

I Dare You to watch the butt kissing from all the Republicans who denounced him, but now need him.

I Dare You to allow international terror groups to run free with no fear of the world’s “police force” stepping in.

I Dare You to pull the A out of NAFTA. NATO (I know it’s “Atlantic”). The G8.

I Dare You to see how prosperous your economy is, trading with yourself.

I Dare You to watch the ineptitude.

I Dare You to watch him wear the nuclear keys around his neck like a Mr. T ornament.

I Dare You to whitewash the American Dream.

I Dare You to watch your entire high-tech community move to Vancouver, Waterloo, and Mexico City.

I Dare You to elect a man who believes that every woman in America is now his chattel and will find him irresistible. Didn’t you kill a guy in Waco who operated like that?

I Dare You to demand a re-vote as soon as possible.

I Dare You to try to immigrate to Canada. You won’t pass our vetting.

That was one of the most unique questions I have ever been asked by a student when I’ve made a guest appearance in a post-secondary classroom.

It was one of many that was posed to me during my visit to Nancy Spotton’s Applied Business Communications – Personal Selling class at George Brown College last Friday. If you have never met Nancy, there is no more ideal person on the planet to be guiding the development of tomorrow’s sport business leaders. I can’t really do justice to the course she has created, but stealing from her Strat Plan it’s all about establishing your personal brand and building on your strengths.

I was honoured that Nancy asked me to attend and share my story and advice for these young students. I assume the intention was for me to impart some wisdom or counsel to these youngsters, along with a dose of inspiration. I assume they wanted to understand how to go about pursuing that first vital role in the industry and what their expectations should be of that job or internship. There was some great dialogue and excellent questions, even beyond the canine inquiry.

Their questions triggered a flow of memories for me that swamped much of my thinking over the weekend. I guess its been a long time since I shared stories of being a paper boy at 12 and the relevance of that role with what I do today. It inspired me to imagine what I would say if I were to write a letter to my younger self about pursuing my first job.

Remarkably, it seems like yesterday that I developed a list of some 50 companies ranked by my desire to work for them and started to target them for interviews. Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to go down very far on that list before I was hired. Unfortunately for me, I was subsequently un-hired when they lost the client before I even started. Fortunately for me, the hiring manager was both horrified that she had to renege on me and compassionate enough to provide some leads for potential employers. One of them, somewhat remarkably, hired me. Remarkable not that I am being self-deprecating (because pigs really can’t fly), but in the fact that I ended up at a company that had never hired someone right out of school before. Let alone someone who was still in school, me, and would actually start working part-time. I owe a big part of that achievement to my mother, who coached me to write a pitch like document to get the job.

Here we go!

October 27, 1987

Dear Much Younger Mark,

It’s time for you to move to the next stage of your life.

The current stage of your life I would call the nickname stage. Some of your friends call you Herschel (as in Walker); others call you Brunswick (as in the bowling ball manufacturer…due to a horrible haircut one day); your best Black Canadian friend calls you Dark (as in appropriate as they may be); you call yourself Mh3 some days and Herschel others (because you are self-absorbed); and your boss at the University of Guelph calls you “Student” (because you are the only student on the Athletic Department Management Team). But young man, it is time to move on.

The world awaits.
Employment is to be gained.
It’s time to put that big mouth of yours to rest and see some action.

Fortunately, I can provide you with 29 years of foresight into what you should do. As I look back at you, you did some things right and some things poorly. Perhaps if I write these things down you may share them with some friends, new or old, to help them along as well. Even if you feel you have done all these things, perhaps you have not recognized them consciously.

1. You need to develop a personal brand. What is your Mission in life (your value to the world? What is your Vision (where you will be in ten years)? What is your Brand Promise (the commitment that a future employer can expect from you)?

2. Have you clearly articulated your strengths and your weaknesses? Have you done so in a way that a future employer can understand the benefit of hiring you?

3. Have you been working on this for a long time? I don’t mean to scare you, but starting to position yourself as employable in fourth year or late during your post-grad, is going to put you behind others.

4. Do you truly understand the definition of Passion? I really should have put this first. Passion trumps (sorry the word trump has a different meaning in 2016 than 1987, so maybe I shouldn’t have used it) everything in my mind. Allow me to repeat, Passion is the most important quality in any team member, each and every day. Whether it be in the workplace, on a team, in a relationship, or during alone time. Passion. Hunger. Commitment. Motivation. Inner Drive. Resilience. All the same thing.

5. Only pursue jobs you will be passionate about.

6. Find a great boss. A friend of mine speaks the truth when he says, “You don’t work for a company, you work for a boss.” I have seen lots of great people at bad companies and I have witnessed many bad people at great companies. Interview your potential boss. Check them out. Find someone who has worked with them. Understand how they work, what is the boss-employee relationship. Be prepared. It’s not like having a Coach, or a Mom, or a Professor.

7. Show me how you can make my company money. Want a job anywhere in the world? If you can demonstrate your role in boosting the bottom line, you will have an offer from any company you wish.

8. Show me you want to start your own company. I am biased. I love entrepreneurs. Maybe we will end up starting it together.

9. Don’t just sit their and Listen. Listen and ask questions. Listen and probe. Listen and offer an answer. Listen actively. Listen to build. Listen to engage. Listen passionately.

10. Be Your Passionate Self.

I am sorry if you wanted me to tell you where to find a lead or who is hiring today. I have a simple answer. Everyone is hiring. Every company that wants to succeed is hiring. Every boss in the world needs another team member. Every organization is short staffed. When they say they aren’t hiring, what they mean is they aren’t hiring YOU.

Best of luck. If you have read this far, I will give you at least a better than average chance of securing that dream role.

Talk soon!

Much Older Mh3

Why does Donald Trump brush aside his well chronicled sex video comments as “locker room talk”?

Is it because he believes they are harmless? Is it because he believes that a locker room is a cone of silence? Is it maybe because he doesn’t understand what a locker room is?

From my seat, it’s answer number three. There is no way that Trump understands the sanctity of the locker room. If he did, he would not dismiss the impact of his comments, let alone his attitude towards women, in a place that for many holds near religious importance.

How would you define the Locker Room to Donald Trump?

First you would let him know that a Locker Room is not a room. It’s a temple. Because unlike an ordinary room, a Locker Room has a purpose. That purpose is to bear witness to extraordinary accomplishments of triumph and even more extraordinary moments of anguish. That purpose is to build a bond, a sisterhood, a brotherhood, a warring spirit. To meld together a roomful of strangers into a unbreakable unit. To take individual pieces and meld them into a team. To fashion a bond that is unbreakable. No mere room can do that.

Then you would tell him to honour the Code of the Locker Room. Every Locker Room has its own code. Where you sit. How you speak. Who you sit next to. What music is played. Who gets to shower first. Who gets the sauna last. When the coaches are allowed in. When the media is shown out. When you are allowed to invite in a worthy opponent. When it’s okay to cry. What is okay to wear. What topics are permitted. What topics are taboo. How disagreements are solved. How wagers are paid. How debts are forgiven. There is a court of honour and a court of appeal. There is a ruler and the unruly. But there is a code.

If he allowed you to carry on, you could tell him some of your personal Locker Room stories. Recalling the first time you entered after making the varsity team. The last time you were in one, especially if it was to tie your child’s skates. Your painful moments on the trainer’s table. Your anxiety while waiting to find out from the head coach if you were starting or riding the bench. The curiosity around meeting a new teammate. The empty locker of an injured one. The disgusting showers and the nearly unusable toilet. The light that never stopped flickering or buzzing. Watching your team cry after a championship loss. Watching your coach cry after a championship win.

You would also tell him that a Locker Room has superpowers that last forever. Those powers are more powerful than mere words. A locker room can turn heated rivals into brothers in arms. Where the tap on the door from a visiting team may be welcomed with an invitation to share words, a sauna, a beer, a pop, or a postgame message from an opposing coach. A locker room can turn girls into women, boys into men, and men into boys. It can be the motivational source for amazing comebacks and devastating collapses. It can be the room where racism dies, class lines are destroyed and homophobia is vanquished. It’s a place where friendships are built, broken, and repaired again. It’s a classroom, a war room, a waiting room, a triage room, an operating room, a prayer room, a therapy room, an escape room, a conference room, and a bedroom.

Finally you would tell him about the language of the Locker Room. Unlike his assertions, the Locker Room is not a place where men hide behind a door to make childish boasts of clearly imagined sexual prowess. No, the language of a Locker Room isn’t a sound made by human voices. It’s a place where the ghosts of the many games of past are heard. It’s a place where the sound of a stick being tapped or a cleat on the floor is as soothing as a gentle ballad. It’s a place where the true message of your coach is communicated by the lines emerging on her face, not the words emitting from her mouth. It’s a place where you can talk to yourself out loud and no one will notice, unless you stop. It’s a place where the chalkboard pre-game reminders are like a book read by your mother when you were an infant: loving, cautioning, soothing, teaching, inspiring, yet comforting. It’s a place where an apology can be issued with a nod and an explanation can be saved for another day.

In a real Locker Room, words don’t even need to be spoken for a powerful message to be said. Only a person who wasn’t welcomed in a Locker Room would blame it for their own shortcomings.

A little update about football and life for you this week, as I take a break from ranting about measurement, fair agency compensation, and anything to do with a certain U.S. presidential nominee. Small ‘p’ intentional…

Yesterday may have been close to a perfect day for me. Why? My life is surrounded by football and my football is surrounded by my life. I’m lucky enough to work in marketing football, to volunteer in football, and have an unquenchable appetite for consuming football. I probably watched seven full games this weekend…

So you can understand that it’s not hard for me to come to work when we do so many cool things in the sport. Yesterday, I was chatting with one of our interns who just returned from executing some Nissan Kickoff Project events at high schools in Abbotsford and Calgary. It was her first time overseeing a live execution so it was satisfying for me to hear her relay both her nervousness and her sense of accomplishment. Earlier in the day we announced at our weekly team pep talk (staff meeting) that our impressive field coordinator, who has been overseeing the Argos Tailgate program, has been rewarded with a full-time role at T1. Later I was getting an update on Grey Cup activation plans for one of our clients.

But my real joy lies on the field. Right now, a typical weekday for me is a day like yesterday. At 6:30AM I printed out my practice plans for the two teams I coach. During the day I exchanged emails with a few coaches. One had feedback on the practice plans. A few others were weighing in on last week’s Player of the Week selections. At 3PM I left work for Lawrence Park to coach my senior team from 3:30 to 5:30. We worked the crap out of them. I loved it. We need to push these kids harder. At 5:35 I left LP to race home and grab my 13-year-old for the 35-minute drive to northwest Toronto for a 6:30 to 8:30 Toronto Jets practice. I ended up running it a bit late, so it was 8:53PM before we got out of there to do our traditional post practice stop at South Street Burger, for my son’s chocolate shake and french fries. Feel free to judge me. I dare you. At 9:35PM I was on my couch with my microwaved leftovers and a glass of Riesling, ready to watch Minnesota inexplicably go 4-0.

More than once during the day I checked online for past scores of this week’s Panthers opponent (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), as well as my Jets’ opponent in two weeks (Hamilton Jr. Tiger-Cats). I do that far too often. Check on scores. Check on standings. See how our future opponents did against our past. Extrapolate what that means for us. As bad as a predictive index that it is, I somehow believe the numbers speak to me. They shed insight, they communicate and elaborate. I know it’s crazy but I have always felt that way. The results of a game. The statistics of each team, each player. The inputs and factors that may have caused that. Numbers don’t lie. They just don’t predict. Maybe some day I will learn that. One week the numbers (vs. Philadelphia) say my Steelers suck, the next week (vs. Kansas City) the numbers say they are world-beaters.

My two teams are also an interesting story told by numbers.

Story one is my Lawrence Park Panthers. You may recall that this past winter the team faced near death and was dramatically saved by a group of earnest parents and community supporters. Many of whom don’t even have kids on the team. This little crisis actually resulted in some amazing and unexpected chemical reactions. Out of the crisis, new friendships, fundraising groups, and relationships were born. Personally I met some amazing folks who stepped up on the team’s behalf. A fundraising effort has been started, though equipment wasn’t the primary issue, and we are raising thousands to secure the program’s future. But of all the numbers, the most important one is on the field.

For years we have struggled to field teams with more than 24-26 players, which meant that on any given week with 5-6 absences due to work, school, or injury we couldn’t run proper scrimmages, drills, etc. But the threat of extinction resulted in many kids coming out of the woodwork and we now have a pool of 36 players. Which seems small to many powerhouse teams, but is a godsend for us. It also makes it much more fun for the kids and builds their confidence. Coming to practice with ten players, which has happened to me, is a killer.

At the other end of the number story, is my Toronto Jets bantam team. Up at 5:30AM on Saturday (guess hockey isn’t so bad after all), we packed a whopping 16 players on a school bus for a rainy trip to Brantford. There we were joined by three more players, to face a Brantford squad twice our numbers, and many times our skill. While the “Good Sportsmanship Police” froze the scoreboard at 21-0, the real damage was 62-0. That puts us at 0 & 5 for the season, with 44 points scored and 218 against! Remember the quarterback I told you about previously? The hidden gem. Well he quit two games into the season. He didn’t like losing. He’s right, we are losing.

But what the standings don’t show is this. Every kid on my team loves football. In the dressing room after the game I had 19 smiling faces. That’s the real scoreboard. I have 19 kids, and four dedicated coaches, who love this game. I have 19 kids who would rather lose 62-0, than not play at all.

We have one more regular season game. We are playing at Tim Hortons Field. The kids are thrilled. A real CFL stadium. None of them have seen it. My son played in the old Ivor Wynne once, wait till he sees this new gem. Last night they thought I was serious when I joked the game would be on TSN. They laughed when my son said, “yeah, TSN Collingwood.” But for a moment they really thought, we had hit the big time. No TSN, maybe some home movies. The numbers will show that we are going to lose this game. The numbers don’t lie. Hamilton dumped us 39-6 last time we played and I am pretty sure they eased up on us around 18-0.

But losing won’t quell my love for my Football Life, nor will it quell it for my Jets.

I swear when I wrote my Purchase Order blog last week I didn’t know about the upcoming Wall Street Journal front page story regarding a massive audit of advertising agencies by some of the biggest marketers in the United States.

The article, entitled Big Marketers Launch Audits of Their Ad Buyers, is a strong condemnation of the media buying side of the advertising industry, based on a report by K2 Intelligence. The report’s findings have convinced J.P. Morgan Chase to suspend its $250 million in annual media buying until a full audit of its agencies’ practices can be conducted. At the crux of the issue is the lack of transparency and suspicion that I referenced last week. Unfortunately, this type of situation and publicity casts dark shadows across all stakeholders in the marketing world.

This is not to suggest that all, or even many, media agencies are trying to hide something. Quite frankly, if a media agency makes money because it takes the business risk of commuting upfront to media buys and then reselling it to its clients, why should the client truly get the discounts the media agency achieved? Perhaps the issue is the client needs to look at whether it wants to buy from its agency or buy directly from the network. In fact, that is a big crux of the issue. Supporting that crux is the fact that most clients, even very sophisticated ones, don’t understand the issue.

I can’t blame them. It’s so coursing these days, and the era of online media has made it even more bizarre. Ownership structures, venture investments, and unique collaborations have blurred the lines beyond belief. They are only going to get more blurry. Digital platforms, as amazing as they are, are becoming increasingly hard to label. Are they media outlets? Advertising platforms? Video channels? Social hubs? TV channels? Movie producers? Journalistic guardians? All or some of the above?

Then when you add additional concerns, such as last week’s revelations that Facebook has been accused of over stating the average length of video watch numbers for the past two years, your head spins even further. Facebook responded to the accusations by changing the label of its video metrics. Maybe I am a sucker, but I believe Facebook meant no harm. It’s too smart of a company to pull a fast one, and it has too much to lose. Perhaps Facebook could look at how it communicates these issues, but I suspect it’s an unfortunate case of human error, proving once again that no matter if we want to turn the planet over to the robots, the machines are going to need us.

The challenge for all of us is to provide better numbers, information, and evaluation. The reconciliation of budgets isn’t just a financial matter. “Spend it wisely” were the words of one email from a client’s purchasing manager when she released a large Purchase Order. Her words were both a request and a command. I find that motivating.

“Spend It Wisely.” We all should obey that command. If you take a sponsorship from a large partner, invest it wisely. If you are in control of a client’s budget, do more than treat it like your own money. Treat it like it’s your child’s money. If you have an opportunity to consider alternative ways to build sales, do so. If you are wise, heed the word’s of IMI’s Don Mayo who in a September 26th memo to the industry regarding metrics stated clearly, “Do not allocate a sizeable amount of your marketing budget if you don’t have third party reliable facts (impressions/views link to ?!?!?). Not to mention bots.”

If we all “Spend It Wisely”, if we all measure what we spend, then maybe some of these issues will be solved. Perhaps even the words Creative Accounting won’t be considered a sham.

I was recently attending an industry function where a group of agency people were complaining endlessly about the purchasing departments of their major clients.

It’s a well documented shift in the marketing industry that in many cases, brand directors alone are not responsible for determining who they should partner with or how the agency should be compensated. For well over a decade, purchasing departments, marketing services teams, and supply management experts have been more and more involved in screening, selecting, evaluating, and compensating agencies. To hear the agencies’ take on this shift you would have thought that our industry had been taken over by masked terrorists. The criticism runs the gamut from insensitivity to incompetence on the part of purchasing groups. How can the person who is responsible for ordering the pencils also be in charge of requisitioning creative work? Regardless of whether or not a pencil could be highly involved in both situations.

It seems somewhat misguided to me to complain and moan about the fact that our clients are changing the ground rules in how they work with us. First of all, our compensation models in the agency world didn’t totally make sense in the past and could have bordered on unfair. Essentially, we lived in an era for decades that when a clients budgets went up, our fees went up, even if our work effort or outputs didn’t. Let’s admit it. That’s a pretty strange model and a pretty good one for the agencies. It also, unfortunately, created a misaligned approach to negotiating. Because the discussions focused around the percentage. It also provided a very easy and obvious target for any buyer worth their salt to provide a quick cost savings win for their company.

But that’s too simplistic of an approach to be sustainable for the long term, and we are now seeing an evolution of the role of the Purchasing Group interaction with agencies. It has progressed far beyond cost. It has less to do with the absolute reduction of expense and more focus on value creation. There is still a tremendous desire for transparency and accountability, it’s not something we should be offended by. Let’s face it, everyone knows an agency or two who has taken advantage of clients with unnecessarily steep fees, markups, padding, and outsized profits.

In my opinion, the easiest path is to be prepared.

• Be prepared to be asked for budget detail much earlier in the process than you are used to. The brand team may nod understandingly when you say $$$ has been set aside for signage or Snapchat filters. The purchasing team will want to know how much signage. Or what is a filter?

• Be prepared to have your math checked. Let’s face it, we are an agency not an actuary. But our math still needs to make sense. During the quotation period you would be shocked at how many times what seems defensible, isn’t to someone who has never built a program before. So prepare yourself by looking at your own budget upside down and ask yourself the basic questions. Like why spend three dollars shipping a two-dollar lighting rig? Why not just buy a new one in town X? Maybe the purchasing team doesn’t realize there are none to be bought in Town X or for 100 miles around!

• Be prepared to have your math checked. You won’t be the first agency who submitted a budget with an error.

• Be prepared for ridiculous questions. I’m sure you know full well how many t-shirts your field team needs for a tour and why. So don’t be offended when you’re asked to justify it. Preempt the question with detail in the budget.

• Be prepared to educate. Most purchasing people just want to know. They aren’t really doubting you. They just want to be informed. They are in the business of due diligence. So help them due their duty. (I meant that misuse of the word due. Get it?).

If you’re prepared, open, and willing to learn, you will be pleasantly surprised at how purchasing teams are actually on your proverbial side. They aren’t out to get you, unless you deserve to be got. Plus, we shouldn’t assume they know nothing about our business, just because they come from a department that doesn’t sound glamorous or exciting. In fact, they often have former marketers embedded in their teams or as advisors.

Another serious consideration is to think of Purchasing as a gateway to more business for you. Often they alone have enterprise in wide knowledge of budgets and there may be a department you never imagined needing your services, who needs your services. A great relationship with purchasing could turn into a great referral for you.

The bottom line to me is simple. If you’re a great agency, shouldn’t you welcome scrutiny and assessment? Doesn’t it provide for you a unique level of security and longevity with your client. Built by the client themselves. I recently had a lead on an RFP with a minor client, that we got shut out from because Purchasing advised Marketing they wanted their vetted suppliers involved. That’s great news for the incumbents and even harder on those of us on the outside.

There is no reason to moan and complain. We are all better off building our plans on how to get in the inside, and stay there. Because I can tell you there are no sweeter words in this day and age of agency life than “We got the P.O.!”

If you have ever met my friend Norm O’Reilly, the word “trooper” may not be the first word that comes to mind.

You might start off with passionate, super smart, motivating, dedicated, enthusiastic, kind, super friendly, loyal, tireless, engaging, selfless, considerate, excitable, or maybe just amazing.

Norm is a trooper, and so much more. He’s a leader. He’s a dreamer. He’s a teacher. He is also an unfailing supporter of support and a tireless contributor to the Paralympic movement.

His contribution and commitment to the para movement was rewarded with him being named the Assistant Chef de Mission for Team Canada at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games. As you read this he is in Rio, alongside Chef de Mission Chantal Petitclerc, helping our Canadian athletes participate in the most important competition of their lives.

The Paralympic Movement has changed dramatically over the past two decades. Country after country has invested much more significantly in building programs, pathways and participation for their para athletes. The result has been a dramatic shift down the podium for Team Canada in terms of results. But while that’s disappointing for us as a sporting nation, it also is a powerful and positive global societal change.

Let’s not leave it all to Chantal and Norm to cheer on our Paralympians. Let’s give them the same, or more, support we gave our Olympians. What was great summer TV, will now be great Fall TV. What makes for great water cooler talk, will make for great coffee chats. What made for social sharing, will be even more exciting.

We can all be ParaTroopers like Norm!

Today we say goodbye to August.
Today we mourn the end of summer.
Today we exit vacation mode.

Where did you go Mrs. Summertime? You loved me so brightly. You hugged me so warmly. You made me oh so hot and sweaty.

Nary a day did you frown on me with storm clouds. Hardly at all did you cry on me with your tears of rain. You were so polite in rarely interrupting my plans. Instead, you rejoiced along with me and made them better.

It was a summer to remember.

You provided us with a national celebration of athletic triumph at the Olympics. You shone on the greatest Canadian Olympian ever, 16-year-old swimmer Penny Oleksiak. You triumphed the power of our female athletes with medals in many sports including rugby and soccer, again. You took a country that prefers winter and made them to proud to say we have ice in our veins.

Summer brought a bright golden lining to the ugly clouds that were cruelly hung over Rio by the media and experts all over the world. No one got Zika. The terrorist stayed away. The highest profile crime was by an American. Athlete. Medalist. Dancer. The stadiums, though empty, did not collapse. The government, though embroiled, did not collapse. The Russians, though booed, did not dominate.

The summer began with some interesting changes in the Toronto sports landscape. The Argos moved “home” to Exhibition Place. Football is meant to be outdoors. The Leafs had the number one pick for the first time in a generation, giving one more reason for the brainwashed faithful to celebrate a non-achievement. The Blue Jays have been winning in front of thousands of new fans, with the playing of our two Sluggers impacting the team forever. Bautista’s poor play probably rendering him an easier player to not re-sign. Encarnación’s unreal play probably rendering him too expensive to re-sign.

Summer has also shone unfortunately brightly on tragedy. Global terrorism has seen tourists senselessly run over by trucks, children at weddings blown to bits, priests guillotined at church, mothers with strollers gunned down on sidewalks, refugees drowning daily, pregnant women butchered by machetes, and earthquakes crushing entire families in their homes.

As a black man, the senseless killings of innocent people by police in the USA make it scary to imagine myself driving a car there. Yet, the tit-for-tat revenge assassinations of officers in the line of duty makes me even more sad, as does the Canadian Black Lives Matter group who irresponsibly hijacked the Pride movement attempting to denounce our police services. Given those events, I chose to dedicate my summer to those who Serve & Protect us. Wherever you are reading this, raise a glass – your coffee, your water, your beer, your milkshake, to the police in your community.

Summer made me realize how lucky we are to have Justin Trudeau. I don’t understand the haters who don’t like him eating poutine, hiking shirtless, or crashing a wedding in Tofino. Isn’t it great to have leadership in this country who wants to sing the praises of our land and our people? Yes, I am a bit awestruck by Trudeaumania II, and candidly I am no political expert, nor am I very political. I don’t know if he is doing a good job or a bad job, I just appreciate his enthusiasm for being Canadian.

If you don’t like Trudeau, you are welcome to move south, where the Summer of ’16 will be forever immortalized by candidate Trump. I have come to the conclusion that it really isn’t the man who scares me. It’s the millions and millions of people that believe in him. Maybe we should build our own wall?

Summer wound down on a sad note. Though word is that his treatments are going well, the country shed many many many tears for Hip legend, Gord Downie. It was like everyone was witnessing a best friend die at the same time. It’s amazing our ability to grieve publicly, for someone most of us will never meet privately. Perhaps when we see someone famous dying, we think of it like the end of summer.

The end of summer tells us we are all getting older. The change of seasons sadly makes us feel we are all closer to our own death. The end of August saddens us as we all have one less summer to cherish.

I just got back from an “Olympic” Run.

Unlike the Pope, I don’t think Rio 2016 will get on my case about the liberal use of the “O” word.

By my standards, my run this morning was Olympian. Under a scorching hot sun I pushed this 213-pound, 51-year-old mass across Toronto’s famous Bloor Viaduct and back for a 10.8K trot. Not bad considering I clocked it at 56 minutes.

So pompously I sit on my butt, albeit one that discarded 1,046 calories, and encourage you to do the same. Go on an Olympic Run.

Why Olympic? Well you can’t underestimate the power of motivation. Motivated I was. Right before my run I had a look at The Globe and Mail’s female medal domination video. Then I read an uplifting story about Desiree Scott’s impromptu radio interview with her mom. I closed the loop looking at the best video clip of the week when rugby captain Jen Kish put an Olympian hug on her cancer-battling father after our women beat Team GB for the bronze medal!

(If you want a legion of inspiration and reflection on our female athletes’ successes read Bill Cooper’s super-cerebral piece, #HerGames.)

The inspiration doesn’t just end with old men. As some T1ers headed out for a social game of beach volleyball last night, one commented on how the day’s action had him elevated to play. The wall-to-wall multi-channel coverage provides endless conversation points with my barbers, my sons, and even perfect strangers at an inhabited Muskoka resort over the weekend. I don’t ever recall talking to perfect strangers at a resort when a hockey game is on.

The Olympic Run can extend to your day. Your meetings. Your lunch date. You can fire up instant motivation by watching the amazing Canadian Tire ad, #StepUpStandTall. I think it’s another beauty from Neil McOstrich at Cleansheet. Though I haven’t verified it. Every day, Canadians take the podium in Canada.

Or, crank up the SportCheck #WhatItTakes spot. I am unabashedly stealing every word from that script for my next pregame speech.

The Olympics are only every two years, and that is what makes them both so amazing and so aggravating. Why can’t we have a season of Olympics? I could easily listen to Scott Russell weekly, tell stories about great Canadians. I know, it just wouldn’t be the same.

So far Rio hasn’t messed up the Games the way the world’s media said they would. So far Michael Phelps has continued to amaze. So far the Russians have received the reception they deserve. So far it has been an Olympics to remember.

I can’t wait for the rest of the run!