Striding up towards me
with an entourage in tail is a guy most of us have heard of before, he goes by the name of Sir Richard
Branson. I shake his hand, then give him a quick brief of what’s to come. “Mate
we’ve got an hour, the Vice Chancellor will introduce us, I’ll then talk for
about 15-20, then I’ll do a Q&A with you before we open it up to the crowd.
The audience is a mixture of high school kids and uni students, and some other Uni
peeps.” We’d cleared all of this with his staff before the event, but in 6
words the whole landscape changes as our session gets cut in half when Richard
responds simply, “okay sounds like 30 minutes will suffice.” Righto Jacky Boy
30 minutes it is, roll with the punches, let’s cut the speech back and get this
show on the road.
We walk in and there
is a rock star style round of applause when the crowd sees Branson. We hit the
stage and away we go (I was just hoping that I didn’t have any snot in my nose,
that happens sometimes). To view the
AIME TV 20 minute exclusive Q&A click through here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoXq6uNnc2s).
Then as quick as it
kicked off we were done, we wrapped up, snapped a quick pic together, he was
whisked away and then the final play of the game was Richard published an
amazingly flattering piece on his blog about the event (http://bit.ly/18tjbGK). That was that, and I had a plane to get onto to get to Perth, the show
must roll on.
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| Kickin it with Sir Richo |
The reaction of people
to fame has always puzzled me. I find myself looking at people, respecting what
they’ve done, often being inspired, but never do I drift into the land of
adoration. I think in that moment, you suddenly lose a little bit inside of
yourself that says, I can be as good as anyone out there.
And it’s also not fair
on the people we cast our dream narratives around. For example a few people
said that Richard was not that inspiring in the session… and I couldn’t help
but think maybe the lad was a bit tired after 40 years of travelling the world
telling his story to all and sundry, and then becoming a symbol that people
attach themselves too.
If you want to be
inspired by Richard Branson, look at what he does when the cameras aren’t on,
look at the 15 year old who just started writing, and will now help lead
civilisation into space. That’s the inspiration. Is he perfect? Nope. Are any
of us? Nope. But all we can do is wake up each day and try and be that little
bit better. We can also try to give those people we adore or look up to the
same chances we wish for, the chance to be human, to be flawed, the chance to
make mistakes, and the inspiration and support to get back up off the canvas.
At the end of the day,
the cocktail for success is a mixture of timing, luck, and a serious amount of
hard work, drive and desire, and most importantly a willingness to make
mistakes, and to learn from them. I often say to our team, it’s only a mistake
if you make it twice, and I love the way Rocky Balboa captures this when he
says in a scene with his son outside a diner in Philadelphia, “kid, in life
it’s not about how hard you can hit, its about how hard you can get hit and
keep going.”
Over the last couple
of weeks I’ve met a seemingly endless supply of classy people, I went to see
our new team kick off the program in Western and South Australia, shared a
stage with the global popstar of business, received funding from the Minister
for Higher Education, Sharon Bird, who was really impressive. I’ve checked in
for the launch of MayDate, a new online dating service trying to raise money
for charity. This is a really interesting business model, and the founder Dan
Joyce is a seriously talented dude who also set up RedRoom DVD (http://www.maydate.com/). What I love about Dan, and people like him that have impressed me so
much over the last few weeks, has been their willingness to think creatively,
to explore the full gamut of options life has on the menu, and to do it all
with a serious dose of integrity, honesty, humbleness and determination.
 |
Like David Lloyd, the Irish Vice Chancellor of University of South Australia, who in his late 30s is the youngest Vice Chancellor in Australia, and as one of his 1st moves he’s bringing people from all over the world together for an online UniJam facilitated by Microsoft to take in all the feedback, ideas, and views of everyone connected with the Uni… (http://w3.unisa.edu.au/unijam/). Innovative, visionary, funny and also he does the little things right, like replying to every email I flicked him last week within the hour, including on weekends, and he also followed through on every offer to connect me with someone he made. Often it’s the little things that add up.
I also saw success in the form of Tomzarni Dann and Marlee Hutton, two Indigenous Uni students in Western Australia who are working for AIME as casual national presenters. After the Branson mayhem, I found myself in a room at Curtin University for our 1st ever mentor training for AIME… AIME in Western Australia… When did that happen!
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With the Curtin Crew for Mentor Training One!
|
I looked around and
saw the shirts everywhere, the hoodies ready to be handed out, the great bunch
of young people streaming through the door. And then watched as these uni
students were captivated by the stories of Tomzarni and Marlee who were reaching
out to bring these uni kids with them. I couldn’t help but smile. If we can
do this in Perth, we can do this anywhere in the world. Two other team members
over there connected with the Curtin Program, Reece Harley and Lauren Cramb are
also seriously impressive operators and a great example of the future this
country can have when young, smart, driven and balanced people commit to
working and creating a world that’s better for everyone around them. A world
that’s left in better shape after they leave it, then when they arrived.
Branson is in a class
of his own in terms of what he’s done, but I think the lesson I’m learning is
that fame fades and class lasts forever. The world will always have impressive
individuals who rise to the top and become beacons of what we think we can be,
the popularised images of Oprah, Obama and Mandela spring to mind. We can learn
from these people, but their messages are spread so thinly across the world
that when we look at their posters on our walls, we almost forget they are human.
We can’t seem to be able to fathom where to find the ladder that will help us
be able to climb our way to a point where we can even imagine the lives they
live. So we search, we reach, we tweet, but in the Tomzarni’s, the David
Lloyds, the Marly’s, Reece’s, Lauren’s, and Dan’s of the world, we have our
heroes on our doorstep. We have greatness in front of us every day.
You just have to look
around you. Search for those diamonds in the rough. Search for those people who
cling pigheadedly to hope and steadfastly to their integrity. Search for the
people who within an instant of meeting them you want to be around them. And know
that it is these people that can help you shine the light on the person you
want to be.
They can help you take
off the face paint you feel obliged to adorn every time you leave the house so
you can reach for that person you think your meant to be. Put positive, honest
and driven people around you, and you will find that the greatness that you are
reaching for, the fame that seems so tantalising, the magic aura that the
Branson’s of the world deal in spades. All of this starts with you being
yourself, and loving the chance you have to tell the world a story no one has
ever heard. Because the only thing that you have that is unique in this world, in this whole
universe, is your story.
So don’t try and
replicate the Branson’s, don’t feel intimidated by the greats, be yourself,
write your own story, and put people around you that love you for that, and
then watch the magic unfold.
