The Suspense is Killing Me

Posted by Gabe on April 23, 2009 under Kids are Heroes, Social Media | Read the First Comment

Yes the suspense IS killing me, but I’m loving it.  We are facing our largest opportunity for Kids Are Heroes to date.  This also just happens to be one of the coolest things to happen to our family in quite some time. Of course I am speaking of our pitch to Richard Branson for his brand new Pitch TV concept.  Sometime soon after Monday, April 27th we will discover whether or not we made it to his first “Pitch TV” show.  Not only will this show be offered online, but it will also be part of the inflight entertainment for all Virgin Atlantic flights.  Mr. Branson never ceases to amaze me.  This is a man who drinks every drop of the life that was bestowed upon him.  He is always challenging himself and others to push beyond their own perceptible limits. This is how human greatness is uncovered. He devotes a huge amount of his time and resources to better the world.  And now he is extending his hand in an innovative way to help budding entrepreneurs.  Ok, by now you must think I’m sucking up to him so that he will help my pitch make it through somehow.  (Like he ever reads my blog posts…)

It is really funny how life turns out sometimes.  The same man who inspired us to “do something more” in February of 2008 could be the catalyst in launching that same project to a global level one year later.  Just the buzz that has been created by our pitch being on his blog site has raised our awareness immensely.  I have met new Twitter friends who have seen the pitch and reached out to me.  Even one of my “competitors” on the pitch site extended his sincere well wishes.  We are now pulling for each other.  I lay in bed awake at night thinking about what may happen.  Mostly I think about the newfound opportunities for the kids on our web site.  Increased exposure for us filters right down to them.  Since the start of this project I have wanted to stand up on a mountain somewhere and tell everyone to come visit our site.  The reason is not self centered; it is because I know people will be inspired in some way, and then bring their children to be inspirited as well.  One of the comments on Sir Richard’s blog site under our pitch reads, “My 10-year-old sat and read ‘hero’ profiles for a half-hour on KAH…”.  At the time of this writing there were 52 comments on our pitch and all of them were positive.  But that particular comment was my favorite because that’s exactly what we want to see.  Once kids see what others are doing and see how “cool” and easy it is to do it, they dream up their own passion and start their own project.  I bet that 10-year-old will be featured on our site someday.

So, this is Thursday.  Four more days until we discover our fate.  Regardless of what happens, we will have come out ahead just as a result of the experience.  But of course we don’t want this fun to stop.  So, if you have a mind to and you support what we are doing, please vote for our pitch at http://richard.virgin.com/vote.  Thank you.