This is bigger than us!

Last week we celebrated International Women’s Day and the Sunshine Coast Business Women’s Network brought Samuel Johnson to town to speak at a breakfast that was attended by nearly 500 women and men.

Samuel is known for his tireless campaigning to “kick cancer to the curb” and raise money to fight the disease that took the life of his beautiful big sister Connie last year. There were tears and laughter as Samuel recounted stories of how his “blue sky”, big picture sister came up with ways to raise money, create awareness and lobby for cancer research. She reminded Samuel along their journey that her cancer was “bigger than us”. In doing so they raised over $1.4 million for cancer research when Sam rode his unicycle around Australia. Together they founded the charity Love Your Sister which has now raised in excess of $7 million dollars and Samuel has put his acting career on hold until they reach the $10 million milestone. 

Somehow, I don’t think he will stop there and won’t be surprised to hear the next goal is $20 million. Samuel is a truly amazing, approachable, beautiful human who connected with the audience because he was so genuine.

I was reflecting on Samuel’s talk following the event and for me there were two very valuable insights I gained from what Samuel had to say.

Our differences are our individual strengths

The first one was that he referred to Connie as being the “blue sky”, big picture person. She came up with the idea to ride the unicycle around Australia which Samuel freely admits he wasn’t too keen on at first for obvious reasons. Connie was the strategist and Samuel was the marketer. Their differences were their individual strengths and together they were a formidable team that created the Love Your Sister charity which has resonated with and reached millions of people worldwide.

This is bigger than us

The second insight was “this is bigger than us”. Samuel said, that when he finally understood that sharing their own painful story in such a public manner could raise money to “kick cancer to the curb” he immersed himself fully. In order to make a difference in the world and the lives of others, whether it be in business or for philanthropic reasons, you have to be prepared to collaborate and share. You have to surround yourself with people who are on the journey with you – those that share your vision and belief even when the goal posts seem so far away.

Collaboration is the key to a greater outcome

The Sunshine Coast has become a region attractive to investors; a region that is creating opportunities like never before and a region that is attracting world-class talent. It hasn’t happened by accident as there are many people behind our transformation including the strategists (blue sky, big picture) people and those who communicate to the world what we are doing, enticing people to visit and see for themselves.

But this is bigger than us and we must continue to widen our circles and explore new ways of doing things to ensure we are fit for purpose for the next generation and beyond. We have to create new networks and work with others collaboratively to create future opportunities – opportunities that have yet to be thought of but will eventuate in time. We have opened the door and now we need to bravely walk through it into a whole new exciting world that awaits us.