Paul Potts - Nice Guys Do Finish First

Perhaps I'm in the Christmas mood and have become a Canadian version of Jimmy Stewart but I've become transfixed about the Paul Potts story for the last two hours.

For those that don't know yet, Paul is a rather ordinary looking, crooked toothed salesmen from Wales who pulled off the best cinema I've ever witnessed on a reality show. Period. He became Britain's Got Talent 2007 winner in June and now best selling artist in Britain by a country mile. 13.5 million Brits caught his award-winning act, his tryout video YouTube video has been watched 18.7 million times and been favorited 54,000 times and elicited 42,000 comments. His performances of Puccini's Nessun Dorma (None Sahll Sleep) and Bocelli's Con te patiro (I''ll Go With You) are the stuff of legend.

The big reasons - he's just such a great story, he has an undeniably great voice and he's such a humble underdog guy. The secondary reasons - Simon Cowell's absolute turnabout (it's priceless to watch), my newest celeb crush Amanda Holden (she's priceless to watch) and the passion of British fans (say what you want about soccer hooligans but  they put  North American fans to shame by supporting  what they like and getting out of their chairs to mean it).

Back to Paul though - for a portly and ordinary man to make my hairs stand on my back, stir my emotions and leave me a bit choked up and make me even have an appetite for opera (not my normal passion play), now that's word of mouth virtuosity. Total and utter goosebumps on this end...some of which I can't explain why.

When I think about it, Paul Potts, he is a living embodiment of eight of the nine ingredients of great word of mouth storytelling:
- David vs. Goliath - the average guy who gets noticed by the world
- Avalanche about to roll - the turn from undiscovered nobody to bestselling star
- Contrarian/counterintuitive - how can a unknown guy that looks like this perform so well
- Aspirations/belief  - at least for me, the story and the music genuinely stirred my soul
- Anxiety - when I saw it for the first time, I was rooting for him not to miss a note... he didn't
- Personal Story - one of the videos above really tells the unbelievable and emotional story of a lump of coal who became a shiny diamond
- Glitz/Glam - the videos, the audience, the way this segment was shot, enhanced
my viewing experience
- Event-related - these performances helped Paul win Britain's most popular talent show

So do yourself a holiday favour--if you're reading this post...put everything you're doing away for 15 minutes - don't Twitter, don't Blackberry, don't pretend you're working - turn your volume up high on your computer, watch the videos above and I defy you not to be enhanced and moved by the experience (if not, then perhaps your heart may be two sizes too small). Magic exists and dreams do come true...