Backpacker's guide to Necker island

I recently had the privilege to be invited to Forming Impact's annual retreat on Richard Branson's Necker island. This incredible opportunity selects 40 impact-driven entrepreneurs to spend 5 days on the island alongside Richard himself. This was a truly transformational experience for me and a single blog post does it no justice — however I will aim to share some of my key impressions below, with more to follow in the coming weeks — there's a subscribe button if you want to get notified 😄

The selection

People say an organisation is only as good as the people within it, and this stands even if you throw an exotic island or two into the picture. What impressed me with the selection criteria for this event is that we weren't primarily assessed based on the scale of our companies, KPIs, number of exits, etc. A certain level of success certainly played a role, but the biggest factor was the person you are — your ambitions, your impact drivers, your motivations. Your values, your fears, the challenges you've had and the ones you're struggling with now. You are assessed to display vulnerability, openness, and humbleness — because in the end, we're all human beings. This already started setting the stage of what kind of an event that is.

A networking event

...for fostering genuine relationships

All of us seek a place of belonging, and entrepreneurs aren't exempt from that. Although one might think that high-impact individuals, going to many places and meeting loads of people, find it easier to have a closer inner circle, I would say that it's the opposite. If the combination of frequent travelling, moving where the business takes you, and less time hanging out doesn't disconnect you socially, you might find that whatever closer friends you still have will not resonate with your ambition, challenges, and sacrifices you're making.

In this context, this event focused on helping you rebuild your inner circle better than ever — with people who inspire you and whom you mutually inspire. This wasn't a networking event — it was a friendship building exercise, which just somehow managed to convince 40 incredibly busy people to drop everything and fly to the BVI for a week. And those people just so happen to be filtered in a way that it'd be hard not to resonate with them!

I cannot stress how incredibly valuable that is — to have a close inner circle of friends, who resonate and inspire each other, and who genuinely connect with each other on a human level. I have never managed to achieve that out of a networking event and I doubt that it'd ever work. If you're finding it hard to call a group of people your place of belonging, it might be worth organising a retreat with people you like, and focus on talking about anything but work. It might just do wonders 😄

Kindness goes a long way

Regardless of your wealth bracket

One of my first, and still yet strongest, impressions of meeting Richard Branson is just how kind, humble, and caring he is. He certainly has all the potential justifications to pretend like he's above that, but he just doesn't do so. One example that left an impression was that when I was playing tennis with a couple others on the island, occasionally one of us would offshoot the ball into a nearby bush or tree. Richard, walking by on his way to somewhere, would go around a few bushes and throw some of the balls towards us. There were plenty of staff members around to whom he could have delegated this "chore", especially as busy as a man like him is. Doing so himself, however, signalled to everyone: "Hey, we're all in this together and none of us is above the other. I'm just doing my bit".

More than the benefit of the action itself, kindness is a way to tell another human being that you're not pretending to be above them in a fundamental level, and that you're treating them with the respect they deserve. In turn, they'll lower their guard, open up and trust you, and treat you with similar respect. That's the magic of little acts of kindness.

They're all normal people

I was curious to understand what made people like Richard, as well as the 40 outstanding entrepreneurs around, as successful and beautiful as they are. On the outside, you see highly accomplished individuals, who probably don't sleep, eat, or defecate from grinding, together with having the answer to most questions about our world and where it's heading, and have already figured what life is about. Or at the very least, some minified version of a superhuman, superior in ability and skill to the layman.

I may say that I was a little surprised at the outcome... When you turn the work mode off and just hang out, they all really seem to be normal people — with their fears, traumas, challenges, insecurities, uncertainty about life, psychological patterns, and, well, not knowing everything 🤣.

However, I noticed that high-impact entrepreneurs have a few, very slight, character traits which propel them hugely forward and provide an asymmetric return. In no certain order, that is:

• Curiosity — the desire to understand something new when you see it
• Growth mindset — the desire to get at least slightly better at something on a regular basis. It compounds!
• Discipline — when you decide that something be done, it gets done
• Ambition — the simple wish to create something bigger and better than what is easily achievable

Note, that none of that sounds so extraordinary. But it gets you moving towards the right direction, and eventually, slowly but surely, you'll get somewhere 🚀