LegendaryLife Blog

I don’t normally read books as I got too many other things to get done on a daily basis to be bothered but after receiving this book and letting it sit on the shelf for a week… I decided to read a few chapters. Little did I know that over the next two days I would read through nearly all the books 400 pages!

Richard Branson grew up in a somewhat eccentric family that was focused on self-empowerment. Sure he almost drowned as a child but that is the way things where in those times after the war. He has dyslexia so he learned very quickly that schooling wasn’t in his future, with it’s daily mental torments and beatings. He tried various entrepreneurial ventures from growing Christmas Trees to a Student magazine but he never gave up no matter how hard things became.

His first major success was with him selling records, the student magazine was a hand to mouth existence but he seemed to enjoy that. He has a philosophy, like mine, that profits should be re-invested into a company, not taken out. If that means the entrepreneur doesn’t get paid or further re-negotiations need to be done with the bank to accomplish this, so be it. After the mail order business grew larger, he opened a store, then another, then another while opening a recording studio and signing artists. His first major signing success was Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield which allowed him to fund his other ventures. This lead to him signing the likes of Phil Collins, Janet Jackson and the Sex Pistols. What I found interesting is that he spent the vast majority of his live in absolute poverty, sure he had a house and girlfriends but really, he was always a few months away from bankruptcy on a continual basis. He lived on the edge thanks to bankers who, although he didn’t like dealing with, gave him just enough cash flow to keep things afloat a little longer.

Richard Branson had a number of failures along the way, he had to put some friendships on the line and although he faced death several times, always tried to get the most out of the live he had been given. At any time, a bank could have called a loan on him and he would have failed to achieve the great success he now enjoys today. He never gave up on his dreams, did anything he could to make them happen, from putting EVERYTHING he had on the line to given away a wedding present (car) in order to seal a deal. I find it astonishing that through all this, he kept his relaxed attitude, I wonder if this attitude is the result of all the stress that was created in his life for all those years. He was on the brink, but even there, he took new responsibilities and ventures on. He started with nothing and now has a conglomerate worth close to 25 Billion dollars, not bad!

After reading this book, which I highly recommend, I can easily say this his motto is “you only got one life, live it to it’s full potential”. If more people lived this way, the world would be a far more enjoyable place! I found these two video that summarizes the book rather well. You can order the book for yourself by clicking on this link: Losing My Virginity: How I’ve Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way