Brad Burton is the founder and MD of a business networking company that runs 5,000+ events every year in the UK alone. Noted for his ‘take me as I am, or not at all’ approach, he’s also written the highest rated and reviewed business books on Amazon.
 
Skype interview 21.4.14
 
Audio
http://tori-ufondu.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/brad-burton.mp3
 

 
Transcript 
 
What do you think is the difference between a successful career and a successful life?
Brad: I think they’re one in the same, this is what I’ve realised. In life, this whole myth about the work life balance, that you work and you close your laptop at 5 0’clock and then you go and do this – you know, I think this is an out and out myth. If I wanna work at 3 0’clock in the morning I will do, if I wanna play computer games until 3 o’clock in the afternoon I will do. That to me is the secret of success and the fact that I can go to my kid’s sports days and I don’t have to ask anyone’s opinion as to whether I can go do this or that. The success I have now is the ability to do what I want when I want, a business that sustains a life rather than a life that sustains a business, which is what most people end up doing, they end up with this wonderfully successful business at the expense of their own personal life.
 
What’s the main difference between you now and the you 10 years ago?
Brad: Ten years ago, if you’d have asked me what my life was about, what my goals were about, I wanted a ten bedroom mansion, I wanted an Olympic size swimming pool, an apache gunship with hellfire rockets. But now, I think my goal is to do what I want, when I want. It’s fundamentally less about stuff, it was always about stuff, my barometer of success was always about stuff, based on the car I’ve got, on having granite kitchen surfaces, or just shit. But now that focus is about me doing what I want when I want and that’s what true life is about. I think I’ve moved away from stuff and now it’s more about my legacy, what I’m creating, what positive I’m doing. My motivation is to make a positive difference and I seem to be doing that now with my speaking and my books and what have you, so I think that’s what it is, making a positive difference and if you make some money on the way and you create a life that you want then you’ve cracked it, and that’s what’s happened now. So rather than it all being about money and ‘I want business success, a Porsche’, now it’s ‘yes I want success, but I’m not prepared for it to be at any cost’. There’s a personal price to pay for success and I think I’ve paid that price. I was ill a couple of years ago, I realised then that actually what’s important in life isn’t the material things, isn’t stuff, it’s health and relationships, and actually wealth is so far down the pecking order. So that’s the difference I think, so if you consider you’re captain of a ship and over on your left here is an island of health and relationships and on your right is an island with wealth, which one would you full-speed ahead towards? Because 10 years ago I was full-speed ahead towards business success and wealth at the expense of my health and personal relationships. I think I’ve got that balance now, I’ve cracked it on that front.
 
Fill in the blanks:  If I didn’t have _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ life so far would have been a lot harder.
Brad: Tenacity. If I didn’t have tenacity. And I’ll tell you what, the other thing, business naivety. That’s carried me beautifully, this almost unwavering self belief that actually has been misguided at times, has carried me.