Jul

Inspired by Sir Richard Branson

By Luanne

Last Friday morning I awoke at 5am very excited to be joining 1800 other women for a Business Chicks breakfast to hear none other than Sir Richard Branson.

The breakfast started at 7am and held in the very plush Palladium room at Crown Casino Melbourne. As it takes me around an hour to drive into the city I left myself enough time to get there (oh and to put my heels on when I parked).

Its a small ask to rise at 5am to go see one of the most successful & inspirational businessman/entrepreneurs in the world.
After reading his book Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way (See all Biographies & Memoirs of Business Professionals) I knew I had to go see him.

I posted on my facebook page that I was off to see him and there was such a great buzz about it – so I wanted to share with you some of the wisdom he shared.

There was almost a shyness in the way he started off, and it was mentioned that he was in a room of 1800 women (and some lucky men) so we had a bit of a chuckle. It just made me feel he was even more “human” as we all put him on a pedestal (and he deserves to be there ). I felt he showed such humility and I knew I was in for an inspirational morning.

He was being interviewed and sorry I can’t remember her name but she’s from channel 10 and most of the questions were great ones.

Here are some of the nuggets he shared and I hope they inspired you too.

He discussed how he spent a week with a successful group of women entrepreneurs and they had a discussion about women on corporate boards. 90% of corporate boardrooms still did not have more than 2 women on a board.
One country had just made it compulsory to have at least have the board made up of women. With that he also mentioned that although things are changing for women holding more high powered positions that are traditionally men, there was still a long way to go for us. He totally supported that at least 1/2 of all corporate boards should be women because they create, connect and support people much different to men.
One point though he said that lots of women did not want to be on those boards …. I thought that an interesting fact. He asked the room who would be willing to be on a board and to my surprise (my hand was up) there wasn’t as many as I thought. He did say it was more than he expected.
He talked about employers should support and help women who work for them by job sharing or part time as lots of us are mothers and it would make their family life a lot happy. That absolutely resonated with me and I have no understanding why lots more employers don’t or won’t support it. As I mentioned in my comment on facebook that is how we work in our businesses loving employing mums who want to work part time. I know as a mother myself when I was an employee that would have been well received. My husband quite often used the term Happy wife, Happy life … and I know that our part time team members (I dropped the word staff years ago) appreciate their days off to spend with their family.
A great question was asked of him about risk and business which was answered that yes with big risk comes big returns but that in all the “risks” he took was he always worked out what the “worst case scenario” was before he took it.
When asked when he would retire – he answered that this is not “work” and he just plays and enjoys the journey (I am paraphrasing) – to which I know that if you are living your life purpose then you are never just “working”.

The interview was really only around 1/2 an hour and I could have listened to him all day as you can probably well imagine. I am sure there were much more nuggets he shared and one of his passions was all the Virgin charities he has created. “The Elders” was one that he would be proud to be part of his legacy.