Like many people, I think Sir Richard Branson rocks.
I got my first impression of Richard when I was two months pregnant with Beau, my youngest. For those of you that don’t know, I was pregnant and alone and scared, with two other young children, a twenty month old girl and a three year old boy. Given that I was pregnant, alone and scared, I figured I had nothing to lose in attending an, ‘I Can Do It’ conference, courtesy of the positive mindset doyenne, Louise Hayes. I brought my notebook with me, perched it on my growing belly and furiously scribbled out the words of the emissaries of the ‘you can do anything you set your mind to’ philosophy of the times – early 2007, “The Secret” was all the rage. Richard spoke all the way from Necker Island. I was captivated by his verve and his ‘make it fun, make it happen’ speech. Later on in the program, a certain someone named Donald Trump also spoke. The Donald delivered a harder hitting speech extolling ten of his life lessons. Boiled down to its simplist, Donald espoused, “smile, even when you are at the bottom, befriend your enemy and above all else, get even”.
Yes, I still have my scribblings of both Richard and the Donald speeches. I hauled them out of my box of scribblings just before the U.S. election. When I read the Donald’s speech over again, I knew that he would triumph. Polls be damned.
Fast forward from 2007 to 2015. Eight years. My kids are now eight, ten and twelve. I am still alone and scared. It is not easy to raise three kids on your own. Every day is a test of faith and of the ‘I Can Do It” mindset. I set goals for them, and for me. I write them down and go about with steely resolve meeting these goals. I post them on my wall and look at them, beckoning these goals into being. The Secret lives in my house.
I also look at a list that a client actually sent me of Richard Branson’s creed:
Just Do It, Have Fun, Be Bold, Challenge Yourself, Stand on Your Own Two Feet,
Live the Moment, Value Family and Friends, and Have Respect.
Each of these headings has under it, many subpoints, but the headings pretty much capture Richard’s creed which is the same as the speech he delivered straight from Necker into my pregnant brain: ‘make it fun, make it happen’.
When my daughter was in grade four, her class studied the ocean and it’s perilous state. She grew very passionate about the plight of the fish and lectured me nightly at dinner, imploring me to help in some way. We live in landlocked Toronto. I didn’t know what I could do. I turned to Google and found a great organization MaiTai Global that essentially united kiteboarding entrepreneurs with the ocean cause. I learned that MaiTai Global worked with a number of groups, both in fundraising and hands on: the OceanElders, Mission Blue, Unite BVI, all to support environmental causes related to the ocean and related ecosystems. I reached out to MaiTai Global and asked if they would Skype with my daughter’s Grade four classroom, and bring to life their ocean preservation ways for this group of 9 year old landlocked Toronto’ites. I didn’t get a response at first. But as a trained litigator, I always go back and ask again, and sometimes again, and again. Eventually, I started a dialogue with Susi Mai (she being the Mai in the MaiTai, and one incredible professional kiteboarder, and social entrepreneur who ‘makes things happen’.)
This dialogue led to an invite for me to attend a MaiTai Global event in the Hamptons in September 2015. I was completely charmed by this brilliant group of people who were united behind all things ocean. Social entrepreneurship in action: MaiTai’erswere welcoming, intelligent, funny and humble. There were so many talented and successful people in the room but everyone, bar none, was grounded. Group yoga, kiteboarding, and dancingall night long kept us going, that plus tech talks (focused around music at this MaiTai Hamptons) and an abiding concern about our ocean. Keeping it blue.
I felt as if I had found my tribe. Completely at home. Maybe I can chalk that up to spending the first decade of my life on the West Coast of Canada. An ocean girl at heart. Plus, everyone there seemed to live life with the same creed I had taped to my wall:
Just Do it, Have Fun, Be Bold, Challenge Yourself, Stand on Your Own Two Feet,
Live the Moment, Value Family and Friends, and Have Respect.
It was no surprise to learn then that Sir Richard Branson is an esteemed member of MaiTai Global . His ‘screw it, let’s do it’ approach permeates so much of MaiTai Global.
I was thrilled to be invited to the first Ocean Gala by the OceanElders and MaiTai Global. We raised over $600,000 for keeping our oceans blue blue blue. There, I met even more phenomenal and like minded people, including one of my daughter’s heroes, Dr. Sylvia Earle, a ‘mindful person’ whom my daughter’s class studied at school.
When 2016 kicked off, I thought to myself, time is ticking. You will be 53 this year. What are you going to do this year? Once more, I put pen to paper and ‘wrote it down’. I taped goals to my wall, beckoning them into being.
I gave speeches. I wrote more. I travelled more, well, actually, I travelled lots. I got bitten by the spirit of adventure and challenge. I even jumped at the opportunity to go to Red Bull Ragnarok in Norway. I was going to attend the world’s biggest snow-kite marathon!
Screw my age, I was going to learn how to kiteboard. I heard rumour that Sir Richard himself took to the sport in his fifties and now at 66 is fitter and more capable than most at kiteboarding. Where there is a will, there is a way. Heck, I even jumped on the back of a professional kiteboarder while he did tricks – living life on the edge. I was, of course, inspired by the iconic photo of Sir Richard Branson kiteboarding with a naked woman on his back. Though I did keep my bikini on while I was Jesse’s back!
I even gutted it out and did a two mile open ocean water swim (I had no idea there may have been sharks there….) I came pretty much dead last, but ‘screw it, I did it!’
I ventured more and more away from my comfort zone of criminal defence work and did more and more venture capital/tech work. I even got myself invited to the Second BlockChain Summit on Necker Island, and from there, yes, I even found myself quoted in Forbes for my comments on the transformative power of the BlockChain.
Life was good in 2016. Oktoberfest in Munich with many MaiTai Global friends made sure that 2016 was not just good, but great. And to finish off the year, I attended the second Ocean Gala, again put on by the Ocean Elders and MaiTai Global. This time, I believe we raised even more money than last, all to keep our oceans blue blue blue.
So now it is January 2, 2017. What goals am I setting for myself for 2017? What am I writing down on that piece of paper that I tape to my wall? What am I beckoning into being?
Daily writing is one goal. I intend to write at least 1000 words a day and post it. I intend to exercise my writing muscles and hope to gain a fluid mastery of the English language. Apparently if I write 1000 to 2000 words a day, I will write the equivalent of four to eight books this year.
I used to speak a smattering of different languages. French, Italian, Spanish, German, Vietnamese and some Mandarin and Cantonese. I want to kick start the linguistic brain – keep the aging brain at bay and work away at my old base of languages and add to it. I would love to speak Russian, Arabic and Hebrew. I learned many of my smattering of languages just listening to clients from all parts of the world, and trying to converse with them. Sometimes just sitting in the courtroom while they were being assisted by an interpreter, I would strain to understand and thereby started picking up bits and pieces of one language or another.
I love hockey and would love to spend more of my professional time working on hockey matters. I have read about China’s growing fascination with the sport. Shall I merge my desire to travel, learn other languages and my love of hockey in 2017? I think so.
I am working with a group of dedicated people to bring to life FLOW, an event centred around access to capital for women, bringing together First Ladies of the World, to discussthis timely topic. Access to capital makes the world go round. Without it, you can not go very far at all. I have seen first hand, both with my female clients and in my own life, how important access to capital for women is, both here and afar.
Access to capital is a defining issue of our times. Indeed, this was the thrust of why I was brought to the Blockchain Summit in Necker Island, to explore using my legal skill set to unlock capital using the BlockChain, based on the ideas of Hernando de Soto Polar, and in particular, his work, The Mystery of Capital. In 2017, I want to continue to build on these ideas, further develop my relationships in this area, and help galvanize change.
I am inspired by Sir Richard’s work on Necker Island where he has brought together the Elders. I would love to see a space, a sanctuary for women with Women Elders. I would love to use the transformative power of BlockChain and alternative finance models to allow women to lease/buy an island for ourselves. Think of Virginia Woolfe – ‘all a woman needs is a room of her own’, and put it instead this way, ‘all women need is an island of their own’. We could bring together Women Elders to lead and shepherd and galvanize positive change in these times. Women could attend and be buoyed up by the energy of their own space – and learn amongst themselves to be the creative, courageous, confident heroines of their own lives, and forever change the community they return to, after their stay on the Island. Think big. I think so. I have a picture of a heart shaped island taped to my wall.
I’d like to bring my friend, Eric Waugh’s art installation, a tribute to peace, echo’ing John Lennon’s Imagine, to venues here, and afar, perhaps Necker Island. Tomorrow, being January 3rd, is the day Eric Waugh’s work featured in Forbes, hits the newstands. I am thrilled for my friend, Eric Waugh, from middle school.
Scarlett and I are going to do more together with her love for fashion. I think of merging her love for fashion with our mutual concern for our blue blue blue oceans and being like Vivienne Westwood, “Rebels with a Cause” and using our clothing line to inspire position action.
I want to speak more. Write more. Adventure more. Travel more. Love more.
This year I turn 54. I think of Sir Richard Branson and the year he turned 65. He asked for 65 challenges. He got them. He did them. He wrote about meeting each of these 65 challenges.
54 challenges. Ideas? Send them to me #challengeKaren !
To a great 2017.
Write it down!
