A bit of an eccentric is how one might describe Sam Broadley, but a man who sets big goals to change people’s lives, both close to him and beyond. His book, ‘I’m Your Man’ – in which Sam applies for outrageously ambitious jobs, ranging from Prime Minister to Galactic Pilot to Pope – is the plight of a character under his real name that is a manifestation of his real ambitious personality. Only their respective motivations are quite different!
I'm Your Man
1/ Sam played football for Ipswich Town FC’s academy as a teenager (a fact he put at the forefront of his application to become England Manager) before being released at 16. Whilst that put an end to hopes of a professional career in the game, his football story was far from over.
2/ In 2004, his football team, Lenton Griffins, achieved a Guinness World Record for the Longest Ever Football Tour when they travelled to 12 countries across Europe and North Africa – by retired Post Office vans. Driving 5,000 miles across the continent, including the Alps and Pyrenees, they playing a match in each country in which they stopped. Starting with a game in the Millennium Stadium of Wales, highlights included winning a penalty shootout against the Germans (hurrah!) and losing 21-0 to Morocco’s Raja Casablanca – the Manchester United of Africa! The stories from this trip could easily have hit the big screen. The whole event raised several thousand pounds for the Bobby Moore Fund, a bowel cancer charity.
3/ Later, in 2008, Sam and a friend arranged an audacious challenge – to travel to 138 professional football stadiums in 138 hours across Britain! And so a group of lads set out in a minibus and travelled virtually non-stop, culminating in a visit to Wembley – achieving their goal with 18 minutes to spare! This also raised money for the Bobby Moore Fund as well as the Royal Marsden Hospital.
4/ At the now grand old age of 38, Sam’s life is a little more settled, living with his partner, Melloney, and four-year-old son, Max, in his hometown of Ipswich. He earns a living from investing in property, creating brand-new homes for people through renovating run-down houses, adding to the depleted housing stock in this country. He gains a huge amount of pleasure by knowing he has improved the lives of people who have moved into the homes he has created and has big ambitions to change the lives of far, far more people in this way.
5/ Sam is very much into amateur dramatics as well, having performed in many pantomimes, straight comedies, farces and dramas. He rediscovered his love for the stage in his late 20s. He played Jesus in Jesus Christ – Superstar in a high school production, but very little over the following years. But he rebuilt his stage confidence in the last decade, culminating in creating a one-man show based on his book, which he took to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2018.
6/ The character in his book is one who seeks worldwide fame and notoriety by applying for jobs in the highest echelons of society. He is utterly deluded in his sense of self-grandeur, as proven by the ridiculous levels of overconfidence in his letters.
7/ The message of going out into the world and becoming the best you can be is what the real Sam Broadley utterly believes in. It was this attitude shift years after leaving school that has led him to help many people to alter their beliefs about themselves and encourage them to get out of their comfort zones and achieve more.
And this is exactly how he is molding Max. The character Sam Broadley may be full of self-delusion – but the real Sam says that if Max shows a genuine desire and personal potential to become Prime Minister or a Galactic Pilot or Chief of the Metropolitan Police or Chief of the NHS or a Formula One racing driver or, yes, even James Bond, then it’s about creating the mindset and actions to give him the best possible chance of making it happen.
https://www.facebook.com/SamBroadleyImYourMan
bit.ly/ImYourManLetters