During my early days at Supercool School, one day Steli entered our newly leased office with 2 books and asked me which one I’d like to read. More than the books, I was impressed by his gesture and I picked  “Ask & it’s given”. He said I would like it.

The book is based on a central theme called “law of attraction” which essentially says that your  thoughts &  emotions have a certain vibration and that similar vibrations attract each other.

“You are a vibrational transmitter, and you are broadcasting your signal in every moment of your existence. Your feelings are representative of your guidance system – the way you feel is true indicator of your alignment with your source & of your alignment with your intentions. Your powerful beliefs were once gentle thoughts. The longer you think thoughts, the stronger the become. With your practiced attention to any subject, the law of attraction delivers circumstances, conditions, experiences, people and all manner of things that match your habitual dominant vibration. And as things begin to manifest around you that match the thoughts you have been holding, you now develop stronger and stronger vibrational habits. And so, your once small & insignificant thought has now evolved into a powerful belief – and your powerful belief will always be played out in your experience.”

“Journey – a path full of optimism, positive expectations and joy no matter what your goal is because that source of energy flows through you all the time. You are the source.”

The “Source of energy” concept is very similar to “Aham Brahma Asmi ” (meaning I am the creator)  in Bhagavad Gita. However I always interpreted Gita in the sense that we create our lives through our actions. Definitely having a plan which glues these actions in long term is critical. However this book adds another dimesion to planning and acting. It talks about  thinking & dreaming about your goals and it says if you do that you will get situations/people/things which will take you closer to your final goal.  Thinking & dreaming seems to be ranked higher than acting towards those goals.

There are certain things suggested to put you in “right vibration” e.g. don’t be conflicted within yourself; if you are in a negative emotion don’t try to hide it by acting out positive; think about your goal, how it would feel when you reach that goal etc. It even talks about gathering pictures, texts about your dream and put it in front of you so that you have “positive vibrations”.

Even though I agree about clarity of thoughts & goals , I would still like to believe that my actions will help me more towards reaching those goals than dreaming about it. Though would be nice if I can just sit & dream and things will come to me – I’d start by dreaming about an apt by the bay,  lots of romance,  a chef, a fitter body and of course million dollars  :)

“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“

It’s a story of a simple man who lead millions by his strong character and great leadership.

Though I have to be honest that some of the characteristics of Gandhi; like his experiments with home medicine; are kind of hard to swallow. His small seemingly craziness however is instantly forgotten when you read his adventures esp the ones before he was well known. He was a definitely a shrewd man who knew the value of networking with key people in the society – he was very well connected with both the Indian leaders and British officials at his time.

However none of his adventures would have been so successful if they were not backed by Gandhi’s strong character and genuine love for people & most importantly his belief in the righteousness of his work. “disinterested service of the people in any sphere ultimately helps the country politically”

If he did not get something one way, he tried another way and yet another way till he got what he wanted. In spite of his strong perseverance, he was a simple man with a simple life. “Truth is like a vast tree which yields more & more fruit, the more you nurture it. The deeper the search in the mine of truth the richer the discovery of gems buried there in the shape of openings for an ever greater variety of service”

Like every great leader, he always led people by example. First time when he attended Indian Congress annual event, he was shocked to see how dirty toilets were at the event so he started cleaning them. This is just one of many examples when he did things with out worrying about how people would judge him. He was always guided by his own principles.

He loved everyone the same regardless of nationality, religion, gender. “What barrier is that love can not break” He had this extra ordinary ability to see people/situation in a positive & forgiving light. “God can never be realized by one who is not pure of heart. Self purification therefore must mean purification in all walks of life. Any purification being highly infectious, purification of oneself necessarily leads to the purification of one’s surroundings“. “But the path of self purification is hard & steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech & action; to rise above the opposing currents of love & hatred, attachment & repulsion.”

He was a disciplined person who had complete control over his mind, body & soul. “No matter what amount of work one has, one should always find sometime for exercise, just as one does for one’s meals“. “How heavy is the toll of sins & wrongs that wealth, power & prestige exact from man!” “civility does not mean the mere outward gentleness of speech cultivated for the occasion, but an inborn desire & gentleness to do the opponent good”

And of course, he believed in non violence. After reading this book you can see how one man can actually change the world and people around him with out using any weapons. We need many more like him in today’s world.