This week Richard Branson tells me shows me how to jump into life.
I can’t profess to know Richard Branson intimately. That said, we have shared two plane trips and a chicken sandwich together. And tap-danced, hand-in-hand, down the stairs of one of his Virgin Blue Boeing 737-800 in front of a bunch of TV cameras and journalists. Based on this I feel I can say with some (OK, shaky) authority that Sir Richard is no Anthony Robbins. He doesn’t talk in sound bites. He doesn’t do motivational bootcamps, instead requesting a Q &A format when he does find himself plonked at the front of a large auditorium. And he doesn’t look you in the eye when he talks; I’d describe him as quite shy.
Instead, what he does do – rather famously – is divert attention from this shyness by doing bodacious, OTT things – like fly a balloon around the world and jump off the Palms Casino Resort in Vegas in a dinner suit. For that particularly expectant subset of the community who flock to motivational “summits”, donning notebooks, Toastmaster memberships and bags of power within-unleashing DVDs bought at the desk on the way in, this might be disappointing to learn. But me, I find it refreshing. We expect a lot from our business entrepreneurs – spiels, chiselled jawlines and, oh yes, success secrets that come packaged in new (!) and inspiring (!) ways.
Which is like expecting barely pubescent men who herd a leather ball around an allotment of grass for a living to be mentors to our children.
Admittedly, when I meet with Sir Richard, I front up with a notebook and eagerly expect wise motivational words about overcoming fear.