Jordan Wade | Why Storytelling Matters

The publishing for profit podcast is brought to you by Ghostwriters & Co. Earn more money by publishing better content and learn how do we increase your thought leadership so you can build your brand. Head over to ghostwritersandco.com for more information that’s ghostwritersandco.com. And now your host, Joel Mark Harris.

Joel: Hello, and welcome to the publishing for profit podcast. This is your host, Joel Mark Harris. Today we interviewed Jordan Wade who is the founder of Storyhero Media. It’s a video production company that focused on businesses, nonprofits, and social causes. Jordan has a background in journalism so we spend some time talking shop about how he got into the journalism field, and then how he used his journalism skills for his production company.

We have a great conversation, wide-ranging topics. He delves into his time covering the last five Olympics, which is pretty cool and what he learned and the stories he covered there. So hopefully you enjoyed this episode. I enjoyed it. Welcome to the show. How are you today?

Jordan: Hello, Joel. Thank you very much. Great to be here. Honoured to be guest number 36, my lucky number.

Joel: I want to start off with your company Storyhero. How did you start it? And I’m really curious about the name.

Jordan: Sure. I’ve got a journalism background and for a few years, I was bouncing around doing a lot of freelance work. And then I had an opportunity to get a government grant from work BC to start my own business.

And when I heard about it was a $10,000 grant that helps you start a business. I was actually more interested in the $10,000 than I was starting a business, but I went through all the hoops and I was able to secure a place in the program and through the program, which I highly recommend. It really kind of took this cazy colossal mix of ideas and help harness it in a much more, focused way.

I would say able to come up with the video company. I wasn’t just going to focus on journalism, which is again my background and my main interests going into this, but expanding it to, make promotional marketing videos for others who needed my skillset. And yeah, when I was thinking about it, I had a few different names in mind.

One was I almost called it cultural impact productions because, I’ve travelled quite a bit and I’ve actually done a few different, reporting projects in the last few Olympics. And I was not so much focusing on the sports, but more on the cultural and social impact of the games on the host city. But I workshop that name around with a few friends and colleagues liked it but it sounded a little bit too stodgy for you. You need something a little more fun. Because you’re a fun guy. And it’s funny. I did this 10-day meditation retreat and I ever thinking, I’ll just meditate on the name while even some retreat. Meanwhile, like it was a silent retreat too. I didn’t think about it at all.  It just didn’t, it didn’t come up at all. So then a few days later I was at the beach with a friend and he was like, Oh, so how was the retreat? Did you think about your name? I’m like, Oh, I totally forgot. As soon as he meditated. And then he said, well, you know, maybe, you know what, then we can workshop a name here.

This is like a beach on a gorgeous, hot Sunday. I was really appreciative that instead of just wanting to drink beer, he wanted to help me work through this thing. And I was like, well I really want to include the story in the name and I want to help, you make people feel like they’re the hero.

They can become the hero of their own stories. So something with like heroes and stories. And, I was like, hero’s story and like, no, like story hero. And I almost thought it was, instead of it being like two words, like story and hero, putting them together. I almost saw it as being like a character almost seemed like, like a knight named Story Hero, riding in on his horse to save the day exactly. Or to help save your video in distress or the damsel in distress could be that your, your, your marketing message is going down the tubes and story hook comes in and give it like that, that mighty boost to, to make it a much more engaging, captivating story.

And, and then so ever since I came up with that name, the logo and all the branding as much more been, indicative of my character, my personality, my goals and my, just a makeup that kind of, makes me who I am. And I was, it was kind of liberating. I feel the name has allowed me to tap more into like that fun side of myself that I maybe felt a bit limited by what I thought before I became an entrepreneur, I was like, Ooh, entrepreneurs live in this box. So I have to be like a business person and it’s allowed me to be more of my authentic self.

Joel: What, so what’s so important about storytelling?

Jordan: Stories are in everything and you know when you’re thinking, but when you get together with your friends, you’re catching up, but people are telling stories and, rather than just having a marketing message. I wanted the messages to be, to be colourful and full of the great details of the story.

And I didn’t even really realize this until after I sort of became a journalist, I had this natural, gift as a storyteller. So, you know, for a long time I wanted to be involved in broadcasting. And when I was a kid, it was sports. And then in my early twenties, it was music and then sort of late twenties, it was more news.

But, now just, you know, around the 40 mark, I realized that it’s actually, all those things combined is storytelling. and you see it everywhere. You know, you look at the marketing messages that are really, that are really being impactful are the ones that tell a great story and are not just giving you a line or an image.

You know, I think about, Tom Shoes, for example, you know they were founded by a guy named Tom and it was kind of a little garage operation. And they’ve now grown to become, you know, one of the biggest, shoe companies in the world. And one of the great things they do is for every pair of shoes they sell in the West, they donate a pair of shoes to, a child in need in the East.

So, you know, it just like that story of how they started and I’m, you know, I’m leaving out lots of details there, but that’s kind of the basic, idea is so much more engaging than like, You know, a store, a shoe company that just like, you know, we make discount shoes or we make leather shoes, or so I feel finally now in the last five-ish years, brands are starting to really recognize the power of including their own story.

In their marketing message, as opposed to just having some zinger motto or some, glossy images.

Joel: I want to talk about your journalism background. Cause I, you know, I have a journalism background as well, and so I’m always very interested in other people’s perspectives. How did you get into the field?

What drew you to the field? And maybe, you know, this will be a three-part question, but, what do you see in journalism today? And you can add to any of those parts that you like, you can pick and choose if you want.

Jordan: I’ll try and go in order because the third one’s going to be tough. But, yeah. As mentioned as a kid, I always was fascinated with radio and again, initially it was, it was sports radio. And I got older. It was, it was more music like the latest alternative or indie tunes. And just like these great storytellers would tell them sports stories or stories behind the music. then when I was ironically, I was actually working, for the Olympics, as doing the torch relay in 2010.

When, unfortunately, I won’t get another details, but unfortunately I was asked to leave the torch relay tour. Me and my manager were kind of butting heads. And, you know, I had, you know, had four months of work planned to be touring all across the country and making X amount of money. And now suddenly, November, 2009.

So literally 11 years ago this week, which was still three months until the games were going to start. The rug was kind of pulled out from under me and I’m like, Oh, I, now I, I was kicked off the tour or sent home to Toronto. And I was like, well, now what? I just thought long and hard about what I wanted to do and thinking about all my experiences with, with broadcasting in, recognizing that I was much more interested by this point.

I’m much more interested in current events and pop culture. What was happening in the world, especially because what the Olympics that was. You know, it wasn’t just the sports. I mean, there was so much happening around Vancouver, 2010, politically, socially, economically, physically the space of Vancouver was evolving spiritually, just like when you have such a convergence of so much energy in one place at one time. so that really got me interested in looking at the games in a more holistic fashion and then thinking about my own interests in a holistic fashion. And I think that it was, it was when I came home and I had that time to sort of sit in my films about like, what’s my next move going to be.

It’s like, no, I really want to make sure that I can continue this, this broadcaster itch. to tell stories at the time, I didn’t know, it was telling stories and, and go into. the next evolution of that. And when I looked at other opportunities, there was no other master’s programs for radio and television arts, which I did in my undergrad or, or communications like journalism was, was the only master’s, option that kind of resonated with, with my interests.

And I spent a good chunk of time researching other graduate programs because I wasn’t, I don’t know. I felt like at that point I’d already done an undergrad degree. I didn’t want to just take another diploma. And you know, my dad was a professor at Ryerson for 48 years. He was in the hospitality and tourism program at Ryerson and he actually was a student there for three years before he got hired. After he graduated. So technically he was with the same program for over a half, a century, 51 years.  With his academic, chops, he was like, don’t, don’t waste your time doing, you’ve already got an undergrad, make sure you go do a masters.

That’s the next logical step. And the only one that really, as I spent a lot of time looking at MBAs, I was looking at maybe doing some urban planning because I have this interest in, in, in, in cities, but not journalism was the one that kind of ticked all the boxes and I was quite nervous going into it because I wasn’t actually sure if I wanted to be a news reporter. And I think that’s what I sort of saw journalism as I didn’t, it was for me, I had a very like narrow window going into it. and when I got in the program, I realized it was actually, I could, could carve out my own niche. And, even though there wasn’t an abundance of opportunities that were available, like a lot of other programs, you know, engineering, for example, or finance, it seems like these jobs.

There’s it seems to be an abundance of opportunity upon graduation. Journalism is not necessarily the same thing, but I really was grateful for the experience for the network. and just being able to kind of find out what it is that I’m interested, interested in and seeing how I could, take that into the next phase of my life.

Cool. That was a very long-winded answer. Thanks for your patience on that.

Joel: And so do you keep, the pulse on what’s going on in journalism today? I know you’re you do a lot of marketing videos, but you know, I believe you still do a lot of journalistic pieces. So what do you see out there today? you know, both positive and negative.

Jordan: Yeah, that’s interesting. you know, with, with story hero, the media I’ve, I’ve had to, evolve a little bit of what I wanted to do, in order to, in order to keep the business machine going. So that’s why now, you know, our number one product is, is the mini hero I call it, which is kind of a chance to kind of.

Get your feet wet in video for, for entrepreneurs or solopreneurs that haven’t had much experience in video. but you know, so marketing and promotional videos has been, what’s been kind of keeping the economic engine going, but again, my passion has been storytelling, social impact, especially stories around inclusivity, sustainability and positive stories.

They want to hear a lot of that in the news. I’ve been keeping my eye out and I also want to give a, give a nod to Novus community TV. Cause I’ve been a, a host and participant them for the last five years. And you know, they’ve pretty much given me almost carte blanche in terms of like every time I pitch a story there, they usually are say, yep.

Okay. We’ll back that. And I’ve just noticed at the beginning, they had me doing these really weird. I was doing like the zombie apocalypse, like all these kinds of quirky stories, but as the years have gone on, I’ve really taken more of an interest into, again, the same value, as I mentioned before, stories of social impact, the inclusivity.

And, so I try and make sure that even though we’re doing these business videos that I’ve been doing at least one video segment a month, which is now a co-production of Novus TV and story hero media. Which usually involves focusing on something that is happening locally, that has more of a global impact, you know, like black lives matter, for example, we’ve we actually did three separate segments on three rallies that they had this summer in black lives matter.

We did, you know, last year we did the global climate march. We’ve done stories on all the different elections, the Canadian election. The BC election then of course the election, we just had a couple of weeks ago and it’s always been interesting hearing all the different perspectives. And what’s interesting is that some of my colleagues are telling me that should be marketing more of my, the videos for promotion that kind of get more clients, but my heart is like, no, I really want to like tell these stories. So if you look at our, our limited social media, I’ve been posting much more of the social impact, journalistic the pieces that I have been the marketing pieces. And it’s something that I’m probably going to have to reconcile if that as going forward, but just between you and me, I still have that, that heart and journalism, even though I’ve got my, you know, I’m kind of wearing my entrepreneur hat.

But there’s still like, there’s this journalist a cart that wants to be telling those, those stories.

Joel: Yeah. No, I’m the same way for sure. I still am very passionate about journalism. And even though my, yeah, I guess kind of, I do my, my foot really isn’t in the game anymore. I still, you know, it’s still something that I pay attention to and I think it’s, it’s very important then to the way.

Journalism is viewed how stories are told in the media, I think are super crucial and it doesn’t get enough attention, but in the general public, at least that’s my, my 2 cents on the, on the subject. I don’t know if you want to comment on that or we can move on.

Jordan: Sure. Well, I also would, I would let I’m curious too, when you said you still keep your foot on the pulse or your finger on the pulse, I guess, foot in the door, whatever the metaphor you’re using. What sources are you keeping abreast with regularly?

Joel: So they’re not the best, but you know, just reading a lot of, the major newspapers, global mail, guardian, you know, magazines for claims and just seeing what’s out there and what is being published, I think is the most important thing for me, you know, it’s, it’s probably, again, not the best, but, it’s interesting. And then of course, you know, social media being such a huge influence, everybody’s life. So seeing what people are posting there is very, very interesting and I think very important.

But I don’t think these types of conversations are being had where like, okay, what’s, you know, how, what is the media landscape look like today? You know, and how can we improve it? I think a lot of people say, yes, it’s bad. That’s, there’s a lot of division between the left and right. Or what have you. but there’s not a lot of conversations on how can we improve it?

Like what can we do going forward to make sure that these stories, the stories that you’re telling are told more and they’re getting a bigger platform. I think that’s, what’s really missing in today’s, conversation. And I don’t see that happening a lot. you know, especially, you know, even more so now, like the journalism industry has been shrinking for such a long time.

And it’s, it’s, we’re just kind of accepting that’s the reality, but I think there’s a way where we can see journalism thrive. And I don’t know, I don’t have the answers, but I think there’s definitely a way we can see where, you know, we can have journalism thrive. We can tell those stories you know, essentially I just see how people are getting old, you know, special people, people in power, especially. No, not naming any names, but, how people, you know, they’re, they’re exploiting this gap in the journalism realm because there’s no one there to hold them accountable. There’s, there’s not that Intrepid reporter hounding the heels to get that story and to uncover, you know, whatever it may be.

Like, I kind of I’m of the opinion that if Donald Trump had been the president 50 years ago, somebody would have done a story about his taxes and covered his tax situation a lot sooner than they actually did. And I think the fact that there are just no resources out there in the newsrooms.

Joel: to go after these stories and to, uncover these details. That is what we’re missing today. And I guess again, that’s, I’m now on my soapbox and preaching a little bit and I’m supposed to be interrupting you.

Jordan: so, no. I did, answer to your question. I agree with a lot of what you said there. especially the part around like 50 years ago, like. It, it never, there’s no way it would have happened.

There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that a Donald Trump of 2020 or even 2016, would, would be elected in 1970. even though Nixon was a crook, once the Watergate scandal. was exposed. You only really had like three major networks at the time you had like NBC, CBS and ABC, that were all kind of on board with like reporting the news, to the, to the best of their ability.

And most of the country was kind of, onboard with like, okay. Yeah. Th they’re obviously. They’re cheating. They’re trying to get, they’re trying to get secrets on the Democrats. This is an ethical and moral. Like he’s a cheater. Let’s get him out of there. And you know, his, his approval rating was some below 20% and it was like, I think something like 74% of the country was like, agreed with him being impeached.

because we only really had those three, major networks. So we’re all kind of on the same on the same page. obviously 50 years later, the moral code of the world, especially. America has like, you know, I don’t want to stand on my soap box here, but like, you know, what we held is as, as morals in 1970 is very, very different to what Holden and 2020.

And, it’s, that’s been, that’s been a real, a really hard, it’s been a hard gap, a huge. Chasm, that’s been, almost impossible to reconcile the fact that you’re looking at different sources. The fact that we have, you know, I wouldn’t, I would never want a law of the death of Prince, but one of the great things about, journalism going online these days is that with a click of a click of a mouse, you can be looking at sources from all around the world.

And I found myself looking at. You know, generally, I was, when I was watching the U S election, I was just looking through Google. It was the easiest click, but I found myself after a while, also going into the guardian to see what the view from the UK was, from the BBC and from Fox, you know, I’m definitely, I’ve considered myself more on the, the left side of the spectrum and I wonder how that was being reported on.

And, some of it made my blood boil a little bit, to be honest, some of the stuff target Tucker Carlson was saying, But then, you know, you also, you mentioned about these, these standout, investigative journalists that are, that are, you know, putting, putting their ethics ahead of, I’m not exactly sure how you phrase it there, but I thought about a guy at Fox news, whose name is escaping me right now.

I think it’s Carl. I wish I had this name. I just, I actually just retweeted this recently, is that when all the allegations were going on about, About where is it? He’s a guy from a guy at Fox News, basically as a lot of the popular narrative at Fox was saying that it’s, it’s all been, it’s all been voter fraud.

He had  the, I guess the tenacity to stay true to his, his, his morals and reporting the news as he saw fit with it, there was actually no reporting of fraud, even though there’s all this hoopla. And the hoopla is just fanning the flames. And you know, now we’ve seen, and you know, some people who are staunch right-wing supporters, my ganglion for saying this, but, you know, it’s been challenged in the courts over the past couple of weeks, even the closest States, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia has even after recounts has all been proven that it’s blue.

But I think you’re still going to have, you know, a good chunk of those 70 million Trump supporters. They’re going to say it was rigged because that’s the, that’s the narrative they’ve been fed and to, you know, to their, to their credits. I don’t tell your credit, but just to, you know, you know, in a way it’s not that they it’s like, that’s what they know because that’s the immediate they’re consuming.

And if you’re only consuming one, one narrative, then that’s what you’re, you’re going to believe is truth. So even though some of us that are a little more educated and have a little more of a zoomed out view of what’s happening in, you know, from different perspectives, if you’re only reading that one news source, you think that’s the truth.

So you’re going, you’re going to die with, your that’s the Hill you’re going to choose to die on no matter what. the other narrative says. We kind of went a bit off-topic there, but,

Joel: like I said, I, I find this super fascinating. So let’s, get back on track and I want to talk a little bit more about video and what, what exactly makes a good video, especially I think, with so much distraction out there. I think most entrepreneurs realize that they need to do some sort of video, but they’re not really sure how to do it. You know, you’ve got these great video cameras, with high pixel rate and Sue and all that works. Right. But they still don’t know how to produce fake videos.

So can, what are some tips that you can give people so they can. create those videos that get them, you know, the likes and shares. What have you,

Jordan: that’s funny because I much more prepared to answer why video as opposed to how video, but I’ll do my best. You can answer that too. I did a presentation at BNI a few months ago where I talked about why video and, I just actually pulled it up here.

So I, it would be fresh for our chat, but there was five really interesting reasons why, why video is, is the, the online marketing wave of the future. You know, one is science, you know, humans, we’re a visual species. People are 12 times more likely to watch a video than they are to read it. Piece of text.

number two, it communicates the message faster. The best videos are short to the point. It takes way less mental effort to watch a video than it would to read the exact same text and print. And the best marketing is going to nail those senses as a way to get us to pay attention and stay focused. number three, it encourages shares on social media.

According to Forbes, Facebook posts containing video produced 1200%. More shares compared to videos with, sorry, compared to posts without, and of course the more videos you share on your Facebook page, the more people will share them in return, which means more exposure and more engagement for you.

A number of reason. Number four, it gives you better SEO. It’s a fact that websites with videos show up more frequently in Google searches and because watching them is a cause of visitors to stay on your site longer, it sends a signal to you that your content is more trustworthy. And then number five reason, it simply converts better video marketing is the highest converting medium.

And you can use from what your business online, 71% of businesses, business owners say that video converts better than any other tool. And another reason why video converts better is it ties that emotional impact, the stories it tells, which ultimately brings a personal touch and creates greater trust in the brand. It was a five whys and we can talk about how’s, but I also I’ll let you I’ll let you steer the ship.

Joel: I was just going to say, you know, like I know a lot of entrepreneurs, they get that, right. They get that. There’s a lot of good reasons to, to use video, but they’re a little bit, you know,  the entrepreneurs I talked to the, a little bit stuck in their head.

They don’t want to be on, you know, they don’t like the sound of their voice. They don’t like how they look. What are some easy ways people could start with video?

Jordan: Yeah, well, you know, it’s one thing, I mean, we all have with our I-phones, we have the ability at any moment to just hold up our iPhone and talk to the camera and you know, it can be published within minutes instantaneously if you include Facebook, Instagram lives.

But a lot of us, we know we can, but we don’t, you almost need that accountability of, scheduling it. And if you don’t want to hire a professional video crew, that story here, a media or many other great companies in Vancouver could provide, it’s good to have an accountability partner there. so rather than just holding the camera, like if you’re going to do it on your own, rather than holding the camera up to yourself and just saying it over and again, I would almost like have a friend there and have whatever message you want to get across.

Ask your friend to ask you so you can have a chat with him. You know, what’s interesting is in the videos we do, we now offer a service. and this is something that I do as well as I actually like to meet with the client ahead of time for a very thorough 60 to 90 minute video consult session, where I asked them a bunch of pointed questions about, you know, what messages they want to get across and why they want to do this.

And. And I actually record the conversation, get it transcribed. And I come up with a, a loose script that I think would be the most engaging way for them to share it. And now keep in mind, this is 98% their words. I’m just kind of picking out some of the best sound bites I think would, would sound. Better together.

And so what we’ve been doing recently is giving them the option of bringing the teleprompter. We have that option now where they can read the script that I’ve created through their words from our initial interview. or just show up to the day without the teleprompter, most are choosing the teleprompter option since we introduced it this summer.

Well, what I’ve noticed is that they kind of stand there, but flat they’re pulling their hands there and there, you can see their eyes going back and forth and it, it doesn’t come across nearly as effectively after three or four takes I’ll then say, okay, now just let’s, let’s put the teleprompter then just, just tell me, like, you know, who, who are you guys and what do you do?

And then you see them relax and they use their hands more and they get more engaged. And that makes a much more. Credible likable and engaging video because they’re talking to their friend where in this case they’re talking to me and I try to be their friend during the shoots. so if that, if that real person interaction, reading from a script, you know, just looking at the camera, try and do a script is not it’s, it’s a little, but too mechanical.

And the mess you’re really skilled in. and there are some, I mean, I have had the odd client. That’s really good at reading the teleprompter and they add a lot of inflection, but generally having a friend, either there with you and then a friend is not available. Here’s another trick. get a picture of a friend and stick a picture of the friend.

If you can’t get a physical photo, get a digital screenshot of your friend and hold it up close to where your, your script’s going to be and pretend you’re talking to them. Because we want to have that human connection and that, that definitely makes the story much more engaging and relatable than just reading lines off script.

Joel: And then, okay. So after you’ve shot the video, you edit it, you load it up to social media. What is there some good next steps that you can do to help promote that video?

Jordan: Again, because I think we’re sort of talking about two different things here because what we tend to do is we know I’ve got a really great team of skilled editors and cinematographers.

And you know, my, my main focus is a story and I’m working with the client to make sure that we get the best, the best, nuggets sound bites. To share on video, but then again, thanks to my amazing team. I’m able to help, you know, make it look really, really glossy and, and have them come across even more engaging.

so that’s, that’s what we do. And that’s what a lot of the professional companies will do as well is then you’ll kind of give it to the video lead and they will, they will make it nice and pretty for you. If you want to do it, DIY version. you know, I think you need to have obviously make sure the video is make sure you know, your audience and that the two most important things to make sure you know, what’s w who is the audience and what’s the purpose, you know, what is the purpose of this video you want to share across?

Is it like a, a seasonal, is it like a seasonal, a marketing campaign for, you know, it’d be something to do with black Friday is happening this week, but I’m not really a fan of Black Friday so let’s say Christmas is coming up soon. You know, so you wanna make sure that you have the audience intact and what the purpose is.

And if you can identify those two things, it should at least help you to narrow your message. make sure you have an engaging caption as well. Especially making sure that all the particulars, in terms of like the website is where to go to are in there. It’s good to have a call to action at the end of the video, or there’ll be like, you know, check out our website, give us a call, send me an email, click on the link below, as opposed to just having a message and allowing the audience to, to feel.

And I mean, a lot of really great. Films gives you that opportunity to just like, ah, you have that great feeling afterwards, but the real powerful documentaries are the ones that give you a course of action to take afterwards where you can donate or go to the website and learn more or see how you can get involved in a certain cause.

so again, audience and purpose. Make sure. You know, that call to action, good captions, lighting is important, but not essential, audio is important, you know, there’s lots of things. Great. When I say the lighting also with the lighting, not being essential right now I’m just at a window, but it seems like the light is pretty good on me.

So just make, make sure you kind of have those things intact, but if you’re doing a DIY, you know, you can do it with your phone. if you have a little, they have various audio recorders that can, can improve the quality of the audio as well. like a zoom mic and you’ve had to use a lab, or you could just kind of hold it as a microphone again, when it comes to the DIY stuff.

It’s not really my forte because we are doing more professional videos and the guys I work with are all. Amazing cinematographers gear junkies. So we do it more that way, but those are some basic tips. Yeah. I feel like I’ve been rambling a little bit here, but yeah.

Joel: Oh, why, why don’t we move on? Cause I really want to talk about your average traveller. You’ve been to, I don’t know the last, how many Olympics?

Jordan: five.

Joel: The last five Olympics. Perfect. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience?

Jordan: Yes. well, funny, I mentioned earlier about getting fired from the Olympic torch relay. it was actually, it w it was, it was, that was kind of a sad part of the story, but it has a happy ending because I was able to find a job working at a fan zone for the games.

You know, again, I was, I was cut from the tour in November. I still have three months. And now when you hear in Vancouver in 2010?

Joel: Certainly.

Jordan: What do you ever doubt on Yaletown at an interactive fan zone called Yahoo fan Uber?

Joel: Most likely, yes.

Jordan: Okay. It’s actually currently the distillery on, on Hamilton street there or mainland, I guess, the interest on mainland at the time.

It was a Yahoo branded fan experience that you could enter from Hamilton street. They had like about a dozen, computer terminals. So people could like check their email. We had some screens showing some of the events that was happening. We had a free, hot chocolate and free popcorn. We had a photo souvenir booth with like kitschy, Canadian hockey, helmets and myths and hockey sticks and stuff.

And, yeah, I was able to get the job as the manager of that, of that experience. So I flew to Vancouver to, to be here for the games, very grateful that I could, you know, catch and be back involved in the Olympic spirit, despite what happened to me a couple of months earlier. And it was, it was working in that fan zone.

And then again, seeing. Well, we were getting thousands of people a day to there and just hearing their stories of why they came to Vancouver and you’re hearing, you know, whether it be the, you know, relatives of, of, athletes that came from, I remember talking to a relative of, finished skier. It was, I was chatting with, with one of his cousins who’d come to, to, you know, Vancouver to support his cousin, or just people that had driven out from the Prairie’s cause they wanted to be in Vancouver, like taking the bus and.

There was such a, such a great mix of stories, that I realized it was so much more than just the sports. As I mentioned earlier, like, you know, politically, socially, economically, spiritually, financially, there’s just like such a convergence of energy in, I mean, it’s kind of like the Olympic host city almost becomes like world city for those couple of weeks.

And in doing so you’re going to have so many great stories. And I realized that I wanted to focus, you know, now that I was applying to the journalism school at UBC, that was my new course of action that I wanted to focus on. the, not just the sports, but like the cultural and social impact of the games and serendipitously, during the opening ceremonies, we had a private event at our at our space. And I met somebody who actually was working for Yahoo in Toronto at the time, but she went to the journalism school and it’s kind of a, it’s a great story, but I’ll say it for another time because I want to keep this somewhat brief. is that she, she happened to be at the UVC journalism school.

I told her I was applying. She’s like, Oh, Wow. She’s like, let me see, let me see what you’ve done. I actually, the next day at the space, I brought in a copy of my resume. She goes, Oh yeah, you’ve done some great stuff here. She goes. Let me see if I can put a good word in for you. And you know, my grades were not good enough to get into a master’s program.

But I think because of her meeting her serendipitously at the space opening ceremonies, we’re watching Wayne Gretzky with the flame going through the rain together. We had that connection. She then called the school where she was a recent alum and said, yeah, check, you know, let’s sort of check out this guy’s portfolio.

And the school called me after the Olympics and said, yeah, your grades are not masters worthy, but if you’re willing to go back to undergrad, take five upper-level courses and you get straight A’s well, we can look at you again next year. And at that point, I was willing to take the ABO olive branch because I felt really inspired that this was my new path and I really wanted to take it.

So I went to UBC, Okanagan and Colona, and I worked hard and I got my five. A’s just barely, but I got them and I was able to get into the program the next year. and then from there, both the fact that I fell so much in love with the cultural and social impact of the games, along with the fact that I, it was like this serendipitous Olympic connection.

I wanted to go follow the games for the next. Well for the next foreseeable future. And the next games was the London Olympics. And it just so happened that from my journalism internship, that, they gave me the opportunity of going to London and, just trying to make some magic happen on my own.

I actually had a paid internship with global TV that I turned down because my heart was like, no, I just, I feel a calling to go to London. And then I went there with, a friend who’s a TV producer in Australia. She met me in London and very shoestring ask. We just kind of stayed on friends, couches, but we were able to, and because I had done an internship at CBC a few weeks earlier in Toronto, we actually put together six different mini videos that was focusing again on the cultural and social impact of the games on London.

And the London games was a very exciting time because London was. You know, it was, it was the, it was the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth that year. And it was just, the weather was incredible. And London was, it was a very different London that we’re seeing now in COVID and in Brexit, but in 2012 it was an amazing time for London.

So a lot of the stories we did was very like uplifting stories, but what was great is that the CBC and, saying yes to three of our videos and put them and publishing three of our videos. and then they kind of made me there. They’re like, Kind of cultural reporter in London, where I was like going to the closing ceremony concert with like blur and new order on stage.

Meanwhile, they were showing the open, the closing ceremonies and I’m going to call and I’m like, okay, tell, describe the scene. And here I am like, you know, with my friends watching new order play and like describing like the scene and it’s going on CDC. And so it was kind of like an Olympic dream come true.

And that was, you know, twice where I felt like I didn’t really know. You know what it was going to look like, but I just felt this compelling urge to go to Vancouver, even though I was fired from the torch, relay this urge to go to London, even though I had a paid internship in Vancouver. from there.

And again, I want to kind of wrap this up and I feel I’ve been talking about this for too long. The next few host cities, which was Sochi Russia, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and chain Korea were not quite as exuberant as Vancouver and London. And some of course, NIR says Vancouver had a lot of issues and it wasn’t the ideal place to host the games.

And I agree with some of those sentiments that on a, you know, you look globally, you look at a place like Sochi, Russia, Rio, Rio, Brazil. I mean, these places have serious social problems. So when I went to those Olympics and I did a crowdfunding campaign to get myself to Sochi in 2014 and then a journalism buddy, we did a web series.

To get to, Rio in 2016, the tone was much different. We were still doing the cultural and social impact, but you know, the big story in Sochi 2014 was, was gay rights or lack thereof. Hooten had his anti-gay law. and so I ended up doing a 30 minute documentary about. Not only gay rights in Russia but about human rights in sports.

And, it was, I mean, it was intimidating at the beginning because there was a lot of fear, but it was an amazing experience to go to LA to go to Russia. And I, luckily I had, I had a few friends that live there from other places, you know, a guy that I had met in Korea years earlier, he was an English teacher there.

And so I stayed with him for the first couple of nights. And. And I met somebody through Facebook who came to meet me in Sochi and she began, it kind of became like my fixer and I, again, it was all very shoestring ex, but, along with the help of a friend, Sonia resonate, ski. Who, who is Russia actually lives here in Vancouver?

We co-produced the film, a friend, Kevin Hawkins. He came on as the editor, and then, it was beginning. It has had a 30-minute film and ended up, making it do a couple of film festivals. It was how does debut in New York and then my true colours festival. And it was good timing too because that was summer of 2016.

So we used the proceeds from that film to then get me and my colleague Armin, Kazimi, who I went to journalism school with to get to Rio for the 2016 games for our web series. And then, and then in 2018, with finally as officially started here a media, I went with, colleagues, Connor Ling. And, live UNE of UBC.

And we did a documentary called Mount Gary Wong, an Olympic, an Olympic, Oh my God. An Olympic Olympic travesty casualty, Mount Golliwog and Olympic casualty, which was a story about, A mountain that they basically destroyed 50,000 trees of this old-growth forest, just to build the Alpine, course for the young gen games and all this talk that they were going to rebuild it, rebuild the forest.

But, you know, it’s almost impossible to build an old-growth forest plan. It was. And they haven’t used that site since. So, as a quick recap, and again, I, I know I’m a bit long-winded here, you know, London and Vancouver were very like fun exuberant experiences. So cheap Rio and Pyong Chang were much more, I had to kind of wear my, I had to kind of take off my like, you know, party, raw Olympics hat, and put on much more of a, kind of a critical eye.

Create a critical eye hat. If I had to focus on, the stories at hand, because, you know, again, the social and cultural impact has been, has been the through line through all of the reporting, but just because of those hosts, those hosts nations and the apparent problems were, were so much more intense in those locations that, you know, I have much more critical eye.

Toward the Olympics. Now, I still love the, the idea of, you know, countries getting together and celebrating, international brotherhood and, national pride and in sport. But, you know, it’s, the IOC is, is, is, it’s a corrupt organization and there’s a lot of money can be spent other places. And I just wish there was a way that.

That we could use the spirit of togetherness and unity of the Olympics. Be able to use that for more than just padding the pockets of the IOC, but actually making real social and cultural impact on the places that hosted. So

Joel: Will you go to the next Olympics?

Jordan: I certainly hope so. I’ll be honest. When I heard that Tokyo was, was pushed back a year, I was actually a little bit relieved because. Last spring, there was so much coronavirus stress that I was like, Oh my, how is how’s this going to happen? So, you know, right now we’ve got a couple of ideas of stories we’d like to focus on. I mean the IOC says it’s going to happen, but not knowing if it’s going to happen.

Makes it a little bit hard for me to really set my North star to Tokyo. But, you know, I would definitely love to. I don’t know if I want to do this for the rest of my life doing the Olympics, because it is, I mean, there’s a lot that goes into it and I’ll be honest. Like it hasn’t really up to this point.

It hasn’t really wielded. The monetary wins that I had hoped it’s been much more great for the soul and it’s been great for my portfolio. But it’s so much time and energy has gone into, you know, I almost have to take six months off. It becomes my kind of full-time job for six months to plan for this project and then go to the games.

so we’ll have to see how things go in the coming months, but if all works out well, I would love to be able to go to at least Tokyo. And maybe this would be one more Olympic project and maybe taught, you know, wrap a bow on a decade worth of Olympic reporting. And, and we’ll see how that project goes and, and make, you know, and make a future plan from there.

Joel: What story or experience stands out through all these Olympic? I guess, yeah, what story stands out?

That

Jordan: story stands out. I mean in terms of, is there a theme that stands out of all the Olympics, or maybe like one particular story like that I could tell that, you know, maybe highlights?

Joel: Whatever. Yeah. Whatever you want to go with.

Jordan: It’s that’s the question I wish you would have sent me ahead of time. Cause there’s so many, well, in, in Rio, Okay, so we get quickly, here’s the theme, the theme across the board is that a lot of the mainstream reporting just focuses on, especially the latter three hosts. There’s been a lot of negative press around the things that have not gone. Right. at least again, maybe the circles that I tend to tend to be in, maybe have more of a critical focus on the Olympics, but all of the places that the locals have always been.

Even though they haven’t had the same critical eye. Like they’re just so happy that, that there’s this, big worldwide event coming to they’re coming to their town. Even the kids in Rio, in the favelas in Rio, you know, we’re pretty, excited to know that all this hoopla was happening, even though they weren’t necessarily getting to go and see the games themselves.

Joel: So they don’t mind. But their government or other, all this money being poured into something that they didn’t experience or didn’t benefit them?

Jordan: directly. Typically what happens is there’s a lot of pushback in the days leading up with lots of pushback up until about maybe five days in. And then at that point suddenly, and people would kind of catch Olympic fever and everyone comes around.

I shouldn’t say everyone, but the masses tend to come around and people end up, you know, even the biggest naysayers. I remember, especially in London, they did London’s Londoners. Typically the stiff upper lip British were a little bit like, you know, poopoo the Olympics, but then found themselves just like, you know, catching the Olympic buzz, a hopped up on Olympic excitement.

you know, in Rio, I remember seeing that the papers, The days leading up there were, and I had, my friend helped me translate. It was a lot of, there were protests. There was like, you know, there were armed guard protests, clashing with each other. and then the same paper that was putting on that as reporting on like Olympic city, you know, after the, after the closing ceremony.

So then what happens is typically like things go back to normal and people kind of realize, Oh actually, maybe we couldn’t spend that money. A better way, but there’s this almost like amnesia that happens during the second half of the games because people get so caught up in the excitement. but yeah, the, on the theme, generally, the locals are, have been so lovely, so welcoming, Even the ones that are, are, not for the Olympics have always just been the most accommodating, lovely, warm, welcoming people.

And I found that in all and all those places, Korea, Brazil, Russia, the UK, one story that stands out from, from Rio that I will share, was the fact that so one of the big oil companies in Brazil is called Petro brass. And they were a major sponsor of a brand new museum called the museum, the museum down on.

Yeah. Which translates into the museum of tomorrow. It’s a really impressive structure right up on the port of Rio and where a lot of, you know, they had a lot of cameras set up during the, for the Olympics because they had like, they had like the big Rio, 2016 sign there that’s it was the same it’s right next to this big city square where they were showing the opening ceremonies on, on the big screens.

So it’s a really great gathering place and it’s this really impressive museum with all modern technology and just like incredibly impressive architecture. But and again, I want to give Arman Kazimi my real Rio co-producer credit for this because he’s the one who did most of the research on this story.

we came across, this other, a museum, a few blocks away called, the Museo the practice novos, which is the museum of the new black facts. And when we investigate it a little bit further, it turns out that what this was, it was just a woman’s home. And when they, when she was trying to renovate her house, they, they dug and they actually found some, they found some bones, as she was trying to renovate.

And she’s like, they thought that it was just. Could this be like some, some old, maybe some old dinosaur bones or something or some animal bones. but no, it turns out that it was actually human bones and after they went and did some forensic testing, it turns out that it was some slaves who were buried in this place.

from hundreds of years earlier. Now, keep in mind, Rio, or Brazil was one of the last. Countries, I think it is the last major country to abolish slavery. And even though we all know about the slavery story in the United States, Brazil has a very, storied past of slavery. What’s really interesting though, is that the main port of Rio is where literally millions of slaves.

First, disembarked on South America when they were taken from Africa, hundreds of years earlier. but instead of acknowledging this big part of Brazil’s past, it’s kinda been like covered up a few blocks away to this tiny little, space. It almost looks like it just could be, you know, the size of a retail shop, called the museum of the PrintOS Navos the museum of the new blacks, which talks about their history.

Meanwhile, on the exact same port where all these slaves first disembarked to start this huge chapter, in, in a, in a huge cultural shift for Brazil, it’s just been covered up and there’s been no mention whatsoever. You know, they’ve got the giant museum of tomorrow, so it’s like, let’s forget about the past.

Like tomorrow, tomorrow. It’s all good. See a new. You know, and Brazil likes to pride themselves as being the country of tomorrow for decades. That’s been their motto, like the country of the future, the country of tomorrow. And they really like shine that waving that flag brightly with this, this museum. meanwhile, the museum of new blacks is, you know, gets no funding and is kind of forgotten about.

So I found that to be. and it really was. I found to be very eyeopening story about, Brazil’s past and kind of, and I think it, it, it speaks to like the, the divide of how marginalized people continue to be marginalized. Whereas the big corporate machine that helps fund the Olympics continues to do their thing.

with. Relatively little checks and balances, because, because of all the hoopla and excitement.

Joel: Yeah. Well, Jordan, I want to ask you one last question and it is, and this is something I ask all my guests and that is, do you have a favourite book that you like to gift or you just like to read? And I’ll also add that you can, you can, instead, if you don’t want to name a book, a favourite podcast maybe, or a video series.

Jordan:  I do want to give a shout out to the edge of a sports podcast with a guy named Dave Zairean a lot of the stuff that I, that really like lights me up in terms of like the sort of political side of sports he covers this wonderfully and the edge of sports podcast, the host Dave’s Irin, and a lot of every Olympics, he’s always done stories around.

what’s happening outside of the sports focus in at least in the last few Olympics. So, highly recommend checking that out in terms of a favourite book, not related to journalism at all, but, I’ll mention two. One is a book called The Celestine Prophecy. Did you hear of it?

Joel: It’s just interesting. I was just talking about that yesterday.

Jordan: The sales team, prophecy is kind of my first foray into like spiritual awareness. And I discovered that book when I was about 18 years old, but it’s got it really helped. and I actually read it every five or six years to kind of refresh myself with the concepts.

It’s pretty easy. Read. but it really, it, I felt that kind of, a lot of the things we kind of maybe know instinctively, it helped to articulate, it’s a great little adventure book, and again, it’s pretty easy to read. It’s only about maybe 240 pages. The self-esteem prophecy by James Redfield. but the book I also get to mention is, that I’ve been reading recently here is called the Game of Life.

Joel: Game of Life?

Jordan: Yes. Have you heard of this one?

Joel: I don’t think so.

Jordan: No. Florence Scovel Shinn, wrote this book in 1925 and many say it’s, you know, the book, the secret or the movie, the Secret, that was like a big buzz about, what was that? 15, 13 years ago.

Joel: Was it that long ago? Oh, wow.

Jordan: I think it was 2006,

Joel: 2007. Yeah. It doesn’t feel that long ago.

Jordan: That’s true. Time has gone by way too quickly. but yes, a lot of the principles of secret are based on this book here. And what I didn’t like about the secret is how it was. I mean, I thought it was very kind of, they made it for like a capitalistic American audience.

Like if you want on a car, just picture your brand new car, you know, no, but I mean, not in my, not in my experience. I think that a lot of the principles in the secret are great, but I just didn’t like how it was marketed there on a very kind of capitalistic consumeristic, lens. Whereas this book is similar principles around, you know, trusting your subconscious too.

to help guide you in the right direction, but also asking for guidance too, you know, so if you’re going through, you’re going through something, if you’re going through like an episode, you know, you can ask for guidance, you’re going to ask, like for, for some divine light to help, help, help guide you, helping, you know, help you on your path.

And almost like believing that the answers are. within you, both in your subconscious and the superconscious, or like the higher mind, maybe we get a little too woo here for some of your listeners. but it’s, I felt like a really great way of kind of tapping into both again, the subconscious and the superconscious to help you achieve the things you want to achieve in your life.

And she so wonderfully tells it. And how, you know, if you look at it this way, life can be like a game and have a lot of fun with it. In the meantime.

Joel: Awesome. I’ll check it out. Well, Jordan, thank you so much for being on the show again for people who want to get in touch with you, where can they find you?

Jordan: Thank you. sure. well Storyhero Media is the company. we’re storyheromedia.ca. We also got the domain story hero.ca Or you personally can find me on Instagram at Wade’s to gram with two M’s, and story heroes on Instagram as well. And story here. It was all one word. Yeah. So Joel, thank you so much for the time for the great conversation and and for your patience as I blabbered on about some of these topics.

Joel: All very interesting. I found it fascinating. So thanks again and take care.