I recently attended the Wakefield Business Conference and was intrigued to see Brad Burton was a speaker. Unlike many others I have never met Brad and my opinions of him had been formed almost entirely by his twitter feeds and comments about his book – eloquently titled, Get off your arse.
I don’t consider myself to be prudish but I do find bad language on twitter really offensive. Some people disagree and that’s fine but I don’t think it’s necessary at all. Anyway, I decided to go along to this talk with Brad to see what he was all about.
As a self-professed motivational expert, Brad was talking about his journey and how he went from being in some relatively serious personal debt (£25,000) to launching one of the fastest growing networking groups in the country. It’s fair to say I was sceptical.
I shouldn’t have been.
The talk was really inspiring and as someone who is known for getting straight to the point I was really pleased to see that Brad did the same. He was open, honest and said it how it is. It was a refreshing story with bits that made you laugh and others that made you want to cry – not easily achievable in 40 minutes.
What I liked most was Brad’s ability to use his personality to his own advantage and in spite of the swearing I found that I really liked him. You felt confident that what he was saying was fact and that he had nothing to hide.
Some of his comments really struck home with me, particularly that nothing prepares you for being self-employed; that people buy people and you should treat everyone the same, irrelevant of whether they are wearing a tailored suit or ripped jeans.
He also made a very useful comment – he said when in business “Don’t have a plan b, because when you do, you aren’t spending enough time focusing on plan a.” Simple comment but clever and very thought provoking. As a result of the session, I have bought the book ‘Get off your arse’ and look forward to reading more of Brad’s insightful views on business in the near future.
So, Brad, if you ever get around to reading this I owe you an apology. I think you’re a genuine, hard-working kind of guy. You left me with some thinking to do and some actions to put into practice, both personally and professionally. I hate to admit it but your talk was motivational.
Congratulations on a job well done. People may have said that you were mad but as long as you are happy and mad then that’s all that counts in my book.