Dear Richard.
This is an open letter on the subject of the environment.
First of all a bit of background. I'm a fan of yours. In 1988 my Mum and Dad took my Sister and I on a family holiday to Florida. We spent a few days in London first, and we visited the Virgin Megastore where I literally bought the T-shirt. As a quiet lad from a tiny market town in the country, I was blown away by London, and I was so excited to be in this bustling electric atmosphere with all it's endless possibility. To me you were someone who had made the most of these possibilities.
As I walked around the store I imagined what it must have taken to build up a business like this, from your first small shop to this huge empire. Being 15 years old and an aviation nut, I also knew that down the road in Gatwick you had a fleet of aircraft too. Splendid red and white 747's and an airline that was making BA look like a bunch of stuffy, faceless, establishment suits who were literally drunk on their own entitlement. As I sat down at the front of that aircraft and plugged in my free Virgin headphones and listened to the latest tunes, I gazed around at the stewardesses, who seemed to a 15 year old boy to be the very last word in glamour and style. I was in seventh heaven.
Hours later the aircraft turned onto final approach over a sweltering Floridian landscape and through my headphones came Cilla Black, singing "Anyone who had a heart." Hearing this tune sung in the mid 60's by a very British lady as we drifted down over the orange groves and swamps of late 80's Florida was quite surreal, and as someone who has always adored the surreal and unusual, it wasn't lost on me. The holiday was amazing, Florida was hot, Virgin were beyond cool.
A few years later I read "Losing my virginity" and was riveted to every page as I learned of your fights with BA, the dirty tricks campaign, and throwing a glass of water over Clive Anderson (well done!)
I followed you through the news stories on TV and in the papers, and I saw you go from success to greater success.
But lately something has changed, my respect for you has taken a knock, and I need your help to change that.
You are aware of the beauty of the environment around your own beloved Caribbean island, and your love of that place comes through in your blog posts and tweets. You obviously care very passionately about the environment and you use your position of influence to actively campaign for change, but there is a problem.
It's that airline.
Richard, I'm saying this in the nicest possible way, and with the best intentions. The airline has to go.
You can not possibly say a single word more about the environment while you have anything to do with the airline.
I have a Commercial Pilot's Licence, and I know how an aircraft works, where it flies, and what comes out of the back. It's nasty. I don't care how fuel efficient it is, or how economically the pilots fly it, it burns fuel, and it dumps the remains out of the back of the engine into the atmosphere.
I'm not mentioning your other businesses, or any statistics, or professing to be any kind of expert on the subject. I'm just saying that until you give up the airline, you have got to shut up.
Sorry.
When you've sold it, this is what you must do. You book a massive venue, and I do mean massive, and you invite everyone you know that has influence. Every journalist, celebrity, politician, environmental campaigner, eco activist, writer, pop star, actor, promoter, and you say these words:
"I sold my airline. I sold it because it pollutes the environment. I have other businesses that I'm doing my best to change so they can be more environmentally friendly, but the airline had to go. I couldn't stand here and talk to you about the environment while those planes were up in the sky. It was the ultimate hypocrisy and I'm sorry. I'm a rich man, I'm not embarrassed to tell you that, but that wealth puts me in a unique position, with unique influence.
I'm 61 now, I'm not going to live forever, but I have the chance to do something that will change this planet for the better. I have an island, a beautiful jewel of an island, and my children have grown up loving it and enjoying it's wildlife. But you have children too, and they deserve a chance to enjoy their own island, this amazing place we all call home. My airline spent the last 28 years polluting the atmosphere, I can't change that, but I will make sure that I spend the rest of my days doing my bit to help other people make the changes we need to make. Very soon Virgin Galactic will be sending people into low earth orbit, and in the near future perhaps even further into space, and from that vantage point they will see what many other astronauts have seen. That tiny, impossibly thin blue line that we call our atmosphere. Maybe they too will be seized with a desire to do whatever they can to stop polluting it. They might also see the deforestation, the pollution from new industry in eastern Europe and China circling the globe, the melting ice caps, the new deserts.
They might hope to avoid the fate of the inhabitants of another beautiful island named Easter, whose citizens looked sadly to the horizon even as they chopped down their last tree.
We still have time, and we can make the changes we need to make. The planet doesn't notice announcements, platitudes and excuses, it notices action. My name is Richard Branson, thank you for listening."
Can you do this Richard?
Yours,
Stewart, aged 38
(a fan).
There comes a critical point in any new venture where you ask yourself "Is this working"? And for me that point has come and gone, I'm happy to say that yes, it is working! I started down my current path almost a year ago, and since that point I have learned an awful lot. I can honestly say I feel I have learned more in the last year, than in all my previous years put together.
Questions
I started by asking the really big questions about life, the universe and everything, and kept asking and asking, probing, prying, and delving, and eventually I found the questions came right back to me.
My biggest leap was finding out just what stillness and silence can do for you. Just finding somewhere quiet, sitting down, and just stopping. Stopping thought, stoping action, stopping movement, just letting my inner captain ring down to the engine room with the order 'Full Stop."
To use another analogy, at the fire station we have portable communications radios so we can talk to each other on the fire ground. Often after a lot of to and fro communication they need recharging, so we take them and sit them in their recharging socket, and there they remain until the little green light comes on saying 'recharged' That is how I feel after meditating. I feel like I have stopped operations, plugged into the universe and recharged. My battery is full, I'm reset, and I'm ready to go and communicate again.
My biggest gains have been learning:
- How to really listen
- How to calm my thoughts and meditate
- How to use the law of attraction to bring immediate results
- How to enjoy the here and now
- How to improve my communication
Now I'm by no means fully competent in any of these disciplines, but the thing is I'm now aware of what I'm doing. When someone talks to me I can listen properly, and I'm aware when I'm not!
I can slow down or stop my thoughts, and I'm aware when they feel chaotic. When I talk I'm aware when I'm gabbling, and I can slow my voice down, and start structuring questions, using new skills to get more from a conversation, and find out more about someone than perhaps they'd like to give away, or are aware they're giving away!
Deliberately knowing
I have got to know myself very well this past year, and I'm liking the person I have become, or perhaps I was that person all along, but I needed to do some searching to find him. I have forgiven myself for past events, and released grievances against other people too. This has been hugely liberating. When I encounter people I find annoying, I try to 'find the gold' and realise that it is me where the problem lies and my perception of them, not the other person.
The law of attraction is a huge subject, and I have just scratched the surface so far, but I'm well on the way to changing my vibration and bringing good things into my life. Everyone loves to start with 'programming' parking spaces, and the ability to park right outside your desired shop on a rainy day is amazing and always makes me laugh in surprise! I have MindStore to thank for this, it only works! It's just a little party piece really, but now I'm moving onto bigger things and I can feel the change. For the full picture I will direct you to my friend Melody Fletcher at www.deliberatereceiving.com Melody is the definitive authority on this subject and she will show you the way!
The REAL big society
You see Positive Paradise isn't just about one person, it is about a community of people. In the future I plan to involve writers, artists, musicians, designers, engineers, people with vision. Creative people from all backgrounds who can combine to teach Mr and Mrs average citizen, that by opening their minds and peeking through the curtain, they can see the cogs and gears of the universe, harness the power of the machinery, and use it for good. I will show them that there is more to our world than what they've been taught and conditioned to perceive. Just like in any production, the magic happens behind the scenes. We're all going to take a backstage tour and get front row seats for the performance of our life. Now how exciting is that?!
I'd like to share with you a recent experience that turned a recent trip to the shops into something amazing (and no I didn't have a few sly pints...)
I had decided to pop to the shops to get a few essentials, and while I was in town I popped into a bookshop for a browse amongst the shelves for anything interesting. I found myself looking through several books on spirituality, and came across one that really stood out. 'Top 5 regrets of the dying' by Bronnie Ware. Bronnie has spent time working as a palliative care nurse, and her blog post about the top 5 wishes of dying people became something of a sensation. I had heard of this book and it had been recommended several time to me, and while I skimmed through the pages some of the words and phrases seemed to come out and really strike chord with me. I was really only skimming the contents, but my eyes found little bursts of wisdom on every page I stopped at. I took the book to the counter, but the lady at the till gave me a voucher, and said if I came back in a week or so, I would get £6 off the price, I wanted the book there and then, but sometimes, life throws a little curved ball like that so I went with the flow of things and resolved to buy the book later. I obviously wasn't meant to read it right now.
What happened next was the amazing part. Outside the shop in the high street there were big issue sellers, people with advertising signs, scruffy old men, an occasional drunk, buskers, teenagers, young mothers with pushchairs, delivery men, and pretty much the usual melting pot of humanity that you see in every town centre. On the way to the shop I had looked at these fellow human beings and shown every emotion from mild disinterest, utter disdain, and even annoyance as I walked quickly along in my usual single minded 'on a mission' style. When I left the shop I looked at everyone with new eyes.
I didn't see them as people, but at amazing spirits confined in a crude human body. I saw the good in everyone and wondered what their life story was. I walked more slowly and savoured every moment as I walked along the street in the bright warm sunlight. I couldn't help grinning, and maybe somebody somewhere thought I was on something illegal!
I have to say I walked back along that litter strewn street in a state approaching complete bliss. I felt amazing.
This can happen to you too. All you have to do is change your perception, and accept what you see. See the good in people, see the light shining from within them. They're all spirits just like you, and they're experiencing life. Some of them are having an amazing experience, and some of them are finding their experience not quite what they expected it to be, but in the end both you and they will all become part of the same whole, you will return once again to the same source.
By the time I got back to the car I was floating on air. I had soaked in every smell, the feel of the breeze, the warmth of the sun, and just being alive. Standing outside the supermarket where I parked the car was a lady standing with a pushchair. In the pushchair was a small girl, fast asleep, the lady herself was in her late 40's or early 50's and I think she was having the same sort of day as me. I could feel it.
She was looking so elegant in wedge heels, a flowery knee length pleated skirt, a floaty top and some amazing 1950's style dark sunglasses. I could feel the energy coming from her, she radiated it.
I felt like stopping and just saying "Excuse me, you look ..amazing! But instead I just smiled at her, and you know what? She smiled back a gorgeous 1000 watt smile right back at me that told me I was right.
Some days are just like that!!
Is it right?
Sometimes it takes other people to tell you what you already know.
In your heart of hearts you know the answers to many things, it's called intuition, and generally we tend to ignore it, but it's there for a reason.
For many years I told myself that I was interested in technical things. When I left school I did technical training, and I went into a technical job. I made and fixed things with my hands, and I learned about the inner workings of many machines, but something seemed just not quite right. After becoming tired with working on machines, I stepped up my Fire Service work which to that point had been just an interesting sideline. I threw myself into the job one hundred percent and tried my best to be a leader, I still do, but still it seems not quite right.
A revelation in Bournemouth...
Deciding on a career change I decided to do something about my childhood love of all things aviation and I trained to be a pilot. Some time later I found myself in a hotel in Bournemouth, where I stayed while studying for the 14 examinations for the commercial pilot's licence. As I sat one sunny afternoon in the residents lounge, poring over some technical manuals, I happened to overhear a group of painters in the function room who were recieving a talk from a guest artist who was busy giving them all tips on technique. I listened to them talk about light and shade, reflections, composition, colours and various techniques, and it hit me like a brick. I wanted to be in there with them. What was I doing here with this technical manual in my hand?
Now I'm not saying I want to be a painter, but I understood that I had an urge to create that I couldn't ignore. Not only that but there was something else that was gnawing away at me. I wasn't the person I and everybody else thought I was.
Flying for thrills
When many people learn to fly they look at it as an intellectual challenge, very much a left brained pursuit of order, rules, lists, and procedure. I see something totally different in it. I'm enjoying the feelings of the air over the wings, the sounds, sensations, smells, and exhilaration, the clouds, sunsets, and the beautiful countryside.
It was the same with the machines, I loved the feel of quality tools, the feel of a well oiled machine part, the layout of the wires and switches, ergonomics and the sounds of the engines.
I can change a gearbox, take out an axle, rebuild an engine. I can tell you how an aircraft hydraulic system works, how to calculate track convergency across north atlantic oceanic airspace on a mercator chart. But do I love it? Does it really thrill me? Do I want to do it for the rest of my career? No.
If you see me with my Firefighting gear on, I can take a drill, shout at the top of my voice, get a crew to accomplish a task, and rescue people from all kinds of hell. But I know it's not me. I do it, but it's not me. It doesn't feel quite right.
Now many people would say Stewart, you're 38, you have a partner, and a little boy, you have responsibilities. Find another job, do it, and stop bitching.
But I can't. This is my life, my ride through it, my journey, my happiness, and my decisions. When I die I will take the journey back to energy on my own, and ultimately I answer to me. How can I be true to myself if I can't do what makes me whole?
Beginnings
What you read here at Positive Paradise, is the beginning of my creative project. The start of me expressing myself in a wonderfully creative way. I'm learning to walk all over again, and it's not easy, but the seed of something amazing is there. Already I have helped people, I have made them think, made them happy, helped them to change for the better, And I know because they told me, and they thanked me.
Much to look forward to
Positive Paradise is mine. Totally mine (evil cackle) but the strange thing is, it's also totally yours too. I'm doing it for you and me, because we're all totally worth it. Nobody told me to do it, nobody expected me to do it, and I never thought I would do it! I throw my heart and soul into each and every post. Here I'm laid bare for the world to see if they care to. My innermost thoughts, emotions, and cares. The universe brought me to this point, writing these words, on this blog, for a reason. Positive Paradise will be big, make no mistake. I've asked the universe to deliver and to back me in my task, and it's a powerful ally! And I'm not being arrogant about that, I trust my intuition this time, and no longer are the feelings not quite right. This time they feel so right. So who am I to argue!
I'm a beginner at this, but in time I will be a master of it. Here I can help people without having to lead a crew, pick up a tool, or get covered in blood. I can make a difference in the life of someone in a country I can't even locate on a map. I've talked to people I have never met, and I feel a bond with people I would never normally approach.
I will find a way to do the courses I want to do, I will learn, I will teach, and I will contribute. I will heal people's minds, and change their views, I will release their potential, set them free, and help them to find a way forward.
I have had amazing experiences in my past, I've seen and done things that many people only dream of, and I have really enjoyed the journey, but you know what? the real adventure is just beginning. There is an abundant world of limitless possibility out there, fantastic people I've yet to meet, rich experiences and many paths to travel.
I hope you'll come with me.
