Richard Branson told someone that even after building hundreds of brands, he hit dark periods. He got through them by staying anchored to purpose and surrounding himself with honest people. Occasional down days are normal, but prolonged lack of motivation means it's time to reassess or pivot.
Is it okay to have periods where you don't feel passionate or feel passionate about doing nothing?
Yeah, well, I don't— I just don't actually— I was on the stage with a guy called Sir Richard Branson, who—
a guy called Sir Richard Branson, what a dude he was as well.
He's so humble. He's got such a sense of humility. He's so grounded. Oh, it was amazing. But I just think I think, and I asked him the question, you know, he was, his first business was when he was 16. He's now, I think, 66, 50 years of being an entrepreneur. And he's had hundreds of brands across what Virgin America, all these music, Virgin Music, signed people like the Rolling Stones, Sex Pistols, all of these bands, and so many businesses. And I asked him, there must have been times where you had really dark periods of your career. And you lost that, you know, sense of how your sense of passion was doused and your heart, you know, struggled. So how did you overcome that? How did you bounce back? And I think it does come back to what we talked about. You've got to have that sense of passion, that sense of purpose, that mission, the noble cause that you want to create, the reason why, you know, you see a gap in the market, you're angry or there's pain and you can solve that. And inevitably, you know, we're all human beings and we all have some bad days, and sometimes we get knocked off our kind of mission. When you do that again, I think you need some people around you where you can just have the honest conversation. And you always find when you talk stuff through, it's never as bad as it seems. And then that gives you the courage to come back and pursue your noble cause.
Yeah, I think it's okay to have some down days. Like, I don't want to paint it to be this rosy picture that everything is amazing all the time and you always win. But if you are down for too long, like if you are not motivated for too long, if you look in the mirror and you're depressed for too long, then something probably has to change. You know, I have down days in my business. You know, the video that we put up, I didn't like as much as it could be. You know, perfectionist, and I want things to be better always. I want to have a bigger impact always. But I still love what I do a lot. And then I get lost in the work again. So back to like loving the craft, pounding on it, beating on it, loving what you do and not being so attached to the results. So yes, you're going to have down days, but if you don't on the surface, like if that happens too many days in a row, then something probably needs to shift in your life somewhere.
Yeah. And always I think about life, we only get one shot, don't we? I don't know. But it's great to be optimistic. And I think your optimism, particularly when you start employing people and you're growing optimism is contagious and people will look to you. And when you walk in on a Monday morning or leave on a Friday, they'll know whether you're walking with a bounce in your stride or whether you walk with your head down and your heart sunk. They'll feel the energy. And I think as a leader, inherently, typically there is a correlation between optimism and success. And you've got to obviously not just customers, partners, people in social media, but ultimately your colleagues. If your colleagues love your mission and your passion, they'll follow you to the ends of the earth. And if you actually praise them and give them the tools to be successful and surround them with optimism, then— and I'm not kidding you, you kid yourself— but genuine optimism is a great power and a force of good.
