Can I Meet John Chow?
Have you ever tried to meet someone well known in person before? Me neither. Until now.
First, let me tell you a bit more about myself. I am 25 and have recently moved to Vancouver from Australia so that my Canadian wife can be close to her family. My only friends I have at the moment are through my wife. Once I have been here a bit longer and start a “proper job” I expect this to change (my working visa is in the final stages of being processed). However, I have a ridiculous dream that one day I will make a decent living from this site and be able to ditch the supposed proper job.
Vancouver is a city buzzing with activity, and I am sure it is the home of many well known, and not so well known, bloggers. I, however, only know one blogger who lives in Vancouver. That blogger is the infamous, but always entertaining, John Chow. Who better to seek for advice on blogging than someone who is one of the 50 Most Influential Bloggers and whose income from blogging was $17,828 in August 2007.
You may be wondering where I got the inspiration for this personal challenge? Funnily enough, it was from another Canadian - Robin Sharma (if you don’t know who Robin Sharma is, stop reading this post now and go check out his site - he knows a lot more than me). Anyway, in his podcast Get Brilliant At Asking, Robin tells a story of being in New York city for just one day and trying to meet Scott DeGarmo (editor of Success magazine at the time). He has to sell himself to the receptionist and 2 assistants before finally being given 10 seconds to leave Scott a voicemail message. And guess what? Scott called him back, they had lunch, and are now good friends.
My favorite line from this podcast episode is: “if you try, you might get exactly what you want.” So here I am, putting myself out there and trying something new. I have typed the below message to John, which I will submit on his blog at the same time I publish this article:
Hi John,
I’m a big fan of your site. I know you love food, so I would love to meet with you for lunch, dinner, or even just a drink sometime.
I have just moved to Vancouver recently from Australia. My wife is Canadian (hence the reason for moving here) and we have a 7 month old boy.
I have a blog called thechangeblog.com which has been growing quickly in recent times. I have 500 RSS subscribers, a Technorati authority of 150, and have over 50,000 pageloads this month to date. Whilst the site is not monetized at this stage, I do have a crazy dream of one day earning a decent income from it.
I have posted an article called “Can I Meet John Chow?” on my blog. Apart from a future restaurant review, this may also give you an idea for an article in regards to being proactive, sharing personal challenges on your blog, networking, etc.
Hope to hear from you soon,
Peter
And guess what? Even if I don’t meet John Chow I will be happy. Why? Because, as Robin says in his podcast, “failure is the price of ambition”. If you are not failing regularly, there is a good chance that you are not growing.
Lets hope he gets back to me though 
.
13 Comments
September 14th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Great Idea, Peter. I will hope for you and Mr. Chow to have a fascinating lunchtime conversation!
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September 14th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Good luck… hope you get to meet him. I work at a TV studio in Hollywood, so I get the chance to meet celebrities all the time… but I’ve never cared about celebrities, so it doesn’t really matter to me. The one person I went out of my way to meet was Bill Engvall (a comedian, if you don’t know). I’d been listening to/watching him for years, and he’s the funniest comedian I know, so that was sort of neat. Oh, and I got to go to Ozzy Osbourne’s house and meet him in person… that was odd.
Anyway, I also want to congratulate you on 500 subscribers. Way to go! Hopefully I can figure out how to do something that will kick my site off like that, too.
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September 14th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
You should hear something. I did something simular to this a while back to get the attention of another blogger/internet business person that I wanted to learn some things from. It took about a week, but the word got to him and I got an email.
My site was nowhere near as popular as this site is at the time so you chances of reaching John are exponentially higher. Let us know when you hear from him.
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September 14th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Thanks guys! Jason you have a great blog - I have seen your subscribers significantly grow in the last few weeks and I’m sure this will continue.
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September 14th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Off topic…
I believe that by just being a part of “Priscilla Palmer’s Personal Development list” suggests that each of us post this list. You like me (Killeris at “Attitude, the Ultimate Power”) are on this list. If you have already posted it, THANK YOU. If you have not posted it, I am officially putting out a challenge that you add additional sites that fit the theme and post the entire list. This is my opinion only. If you disagree I respectfully understand. If you do agree with me this list can be found at: http://mondaymorningpower.blog.....lenge.html
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September 15th, 2007 at 4:17 am
*** Update ***
“If you try, you might get exactly what you want.” It only took John a few hours to reply to my message. He invited me to lunch for Dot Com Pho (anyone know what that is?) tomorrow with another blogger. Unfortunately I can’t make that time, but I’m sure we will arrange something in the near future.
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September 15th, 2007 at 11:21 am
have i ever told you…you rock my socks?
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September 15th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Dara,
.
Coming from anyone else I would take that comment as sarcasm
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September 16th, 2007 at 3:33 am
hehe…i’m glad you took it the right way! this medium can be hard to communicate in especially when one has a pre established ‘real life’ relationship. sometimes the text just isn’t enough? because you know i really wanted to give you a big hug too, smile warmly, and poke you in the stomach! you are so brave, and so conscious of what you are aiming for. i admire your forethought prometheus
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September 17th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
I’ve been following the progress of John Chow’s blog for several months and there’s no arguing that it’s a great resource and a massive success, enriching the pockets of John Chow and his legion of readers alike.That being said, I feel as though John is starting to lose significant credibility and slip into the same category as the same unscrupulous ebook marketing gurus that he denounces on his blog. A recent post on my website expands on this.
Jonathan Ouellet
http://www.ouelletblog.com
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September 22nd, 2007 at 3:00 am
Any news Peter? I’m really looking forward to seeing what each of you writes afterwards
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December 18th, 2007 at 1:50 am
So did he get back to you?
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December 18th, 2007 at 4:02 am
Yup - met John and a few other bloggers probably about 2 months ago now. Funnily enough the job I got is very close to where John lives, but I have just been so busy I haven’t made an effort to catch up again.
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