Will Smith decided to celebrate his 50th birthday in a big way. He bungee jumped from a helicopter just outside of Grand Canyon National Park. The jump was live-streamed on the actor’s YouTube channel, hosted by longtime friend and former co-star Alfonso Ribeiro. The outrageous stunt was a challenge from Yes Theory, a YouTube channel that makes videos of people doing activities out of their comfort zone and it also raised money for charity.
In the live stream, the actor admitted he was terrified of making the jump. “I’ve had an interesting relationship with fear my whole life. When I was younger, my family and I drove to the Grand Canyon, and I remember having a deeply meaningful experience of how beautiful it was, but I was terrified of walking to the edge. All my family walked up to the edge but I stayed back, too scared to take in the beauty. I’ve made it a point in my life to attack anything that I’m scared of,” said the actor.
Once he was back on the ground, Smith couldn’t stop raving about the experience, telling his family upon seeing them, “Nothing, nothing will ever be scarier than that. It goes from complete, absolute terror to the most magnificent bliss you’ve ever felt in your life.”
Will Smith has been a long advocate of the fact that people should live with purpose and get out of their comfort zone if they want to change their circumstances and the world around them. According to branding marketing strategist Sashka Hanna-Rappl, this is a principle that is applied by all top performers, no matter what their field is.
“I believe in putting purpose first, before profit. If you don’t focus on your purpose you will end up being stuck in your comfort zone and you will never have the chance of going from fear to bliss, like Will Smith did,” says Hanna-Rappl.
“I always ask my clients what they want to be known for, what they want to influence generations with. I don’t believe in settling for whatever life gives us, I believe our ideas need to be big and crazy enough. Traditional marketing focuses on the product or service, but it’s only when you put your life purpose at the center of your entire marketing that the results are like never seen before,” Hanna-Rappl adds.
“Will Smith knows a lot about marketing and branding. But he also puts his life purpose first. This makes him disruptive and helps him truly make an impact. This is what makes people stop scrolling and pay attention. And he knows that authenticity always wins the game, when you’re following your life’s purpose and your vision with commitment and belief. On-purpose leadership is not what tradition says it is, but it challenges all that tradition says. Will Smith lives his purpose of improving lives wherever he goes. This makes all of us stop and question ourselves about what is our purpose and how are we going from fear to bliss,” adds Hanna-Rappl.
Sashka Hanna-Rappl is a leadership accelerator and branding-marketing strategist, edutainer, author and speaker, serving creative visionaries in the lifestyle market, who want to go from no-name to brand leadership without selling their soul but leading with it. She’s been featured on Forbes, Buzzfeed, Natural Born Coaches, Trafeze, Steven Aitchison, various virtual on-and offline summits and more. Born and raised in South Africa she now lives in the Alps in Austria and travels frequently to London (UK) and abroad for business and events.
To learn more about Sashka Hanna-Rappl visit Www.brandsashka.com/souldoutbook