Books: Losing My Virginity by Sir Richard Branson

“Only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about“- says Richard Branson, the one who is very often talked about.

However more interesting to me are his stories which are less talked about. His college stories, pre virgin stories are quite inspiring and amusing at the same time. He is one man who set himself huge, apparently unachievable challenges & tried to rise above them. He proved that passion & hard work are the primary factors. Everything else like education, background, culture are secondary and most of the time immaterial.
“The goal is to become better & better everyday while still being same passionate, risk taker in everyday life”

Richard was unbelievable adventurous & daring man. Stories about his boat trip, hot balloon adventure just took my breath away. After reading his adventures, I felt ashamed that I get scared in bumpy plane rides. He had a humanitarian side to him as well. I could not believe he actually made a trip to Iraq to save women & kids. His efforts prove that people should act in whatever capacity. Action is any day better than silence.

During one of his adventures when he was almost near death, he had a “spiritual” moment.
“I don’t believe in God but, as I sat there in the damaged capsule, hopelessly vulnerable to the slightest shift in the weather or mechanical fault, I could not believe my eyes. It was as if a spirit had entered the capsule and was helping us along“. I am sure all of us have experienced such moments one time or other when an invisible power made things right for us.

Something specifically I want to learn from Richard is to forget about the past. It just takes too much energy to remember it.
“I hate living in the past. I particularly did not want to think about the lost friendships“.

And of course, there is no secret to success other than lots of hard work and some good luck ;)
“You can not clearly define our business success & then bottle it as you would a perfume. It’s not that simple: to be successful, you have to be out there, you have to hit the ground running; and if you have a good team around you and more than fair share of luck you might make something happen. But you certainly can’t guarantee it just by following someone else’s formula”

In essence a great book about an entrepreneur’s journey of trying again & again and succeeding.
Here are some of my favorite lines from the book:

“If we had not invented ourselves we would have gone bust. There was no choice”

“It may have been up a dark, narrow flight of stairs above a shop and have consisted merely of some shelves and a shabby sofa but in its own way it taught us all we now know about retailing”

“It’s just a matter of scale but first you have to believe you can make it happen”

“I may be a business man in that I set up and run companies for profit but when I try to plan ahead & dream up new products & new companies I am an idealist”

“I am too informal, too restless and I like to move on”

“By the nature I am curious about life, and this extends to my business. That curiosity had led me down many unexpected paths & introduced me to many extra ordinary people. Virgin is a collection of such people & its success rests on them“