Day one of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) International fundraising conference started and ended with a bang – tomorrow has a tough act to follow. You can read posts for the conference on Twitter #afpicon.

Marcus Buckingham used “English humor” (a self-admitted oxymoron) telling us how to stand out in life and work:

• Play to our strengths and manage our weaknesses.
• Don’t waste time trying to fix our weaknesses.
• The most successful people built the job they have – they didn’t “find” it. 
• Stay away from emotional vampires at all costs.
• I can write another whole post (and will) on his SIGN acronym to focus our strengths.

Then John Legend shared his passion for using education to lift children out of poverty. His Show Me Campaign is legit and he is well informed and committed to his charity. THEN he did a Q&A and spoke off script about his role models, Bill Gates and his education. Then he shared how he finds time to be creative. “I book the time in the studio to be creative. I know when I go into the studio I will come out with a song.” Being collaborative also pushes him (and us) to go in creative directions we may not have thought to pursue. THEN he sat down at the piano to perform – not 1 or 2 songs but4! Perfect ending a conference day.

And can I say? I enjoyed looking at these two gentlemen throughout their presentations. Marcus’ confidence and all around good looks and John’s smile, dimple and voice were value added to ANY conference! Yes I know Marcus is married with children and John has a girlfriend, but you can’t blame a girl for looking.