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bear-grylls-business

What I Learnt from Bear Grylls About Business

I watched two episodes of Bear Grylls’ latest show yesterday.

Bear Grylls is the adventurer who takes celebrities into the wilderness: surviving, camping overnight, and crossing dangerous terrain in order to get to an extraction point before the end of the show.

Each episode is a story of fear and personal endurance as the guests are challenged physically and emotionally. And they invariably end up eating some weird animal or insect as well, to add entertainment value.

But more fascinating are the moments of fear. In every single episode I watched, the celebrities face crazy, scary challenges as they climb down cliff faces or slide over waterfalls. And they often get really, truly scared.

As viewers we learn about people in these moments. When challenges come, we see how they react. Do they run away? Do they freeze on the spot? Do they joke and laugh it off?

It surprises me how many different reactions there are. Despite the fact that every single person overcomes the challenges along the way, they have wildly different emotions and responses on the journey.

I believe that how we respond to challenges in our own lives is an indicator of our internal state and shows how much success we will achieve.

And something else I noticed – the celebrities always pay respect to Grylls. They mention again and again that the reason they got through is because they relied on him, followed in his footsteps, used his instructions to reach their goals.

In business, many of us take our clients on a journey. We move them from where they are to where they want to get to.

Who relies on you? Do you take your clients on a journey? How can you make it more exciting? How can you show people the challenge they have in front of them? And then walk with them through it?