Tag Archives: Tarzan

You need the energy of a Tarzan.

Tarzan has swung back into action. As the Mail said: “Still bursting with ideas at 79, Michael Heseltine makes many ministers half his age look burnt out by comparison…. If this near-octogenerian has infected them with one ounce of his dynamism, he has done us all a service.”

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His Growth report, like the man, is bursting with ideas. Whether you agree with them or not, and whether Cameron can act on any of them or not, is almost secondary to the sheer impact of the energy he brings onto the scene.  Interviewed on Radio 4, it was this sense of energy, rather than any particular remark, that made you feel optimistic that some positive change was in the air.

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Right now few politicians are blessed with conspicuous energy. Although more energetic than most, David Cameron’s is being sapped by infighting and incompetence and Obama’s dipped, perhaps disasterously, in the first television debate.

And yet in any pitch, political or business, energy is fundamental to success.

In his remarkable book, It’s Not How Good You Are. It’s How Good You Want To Be, the great Paul Arden wrote: “energy is 75% of the job, if you haven’t got it, be nice”.