Richard Branson is a guy about whom almost everyone had heard about. Everyone knows that he is a Rags to Riches guy, flamboyant, owns an island blah....blah...blah
So when I picked up the book I was expecting another ’’I-Told-You-So’’, ’’Repeat-After-Me-This-Author-Is-A-Genius’’ kind of story which is the heart and soul of every SUCCESSFUL Businessman’s biography. Instead what I got was the secret formula to success:
Guts, Guts, Guts and then some luck !
Guts is what Richard Branson is all about and he holds nothing back in his biography. He admits mistakes, taunts the people who said he couldn’t do it. In a nutshell he makes you FEEL that the people who went up against him were nothing less than GODS hell bent on taking the FIRE back from Man. With this guy (Branson) nothing is business, everything is personal ! Thats what makes you love him. The sincerity, honesty and hard-work that goes into creating a business group the size of VIRGIN is clearly potrayed through the book.
If that was not all, Branson also happens to have a great support writer/editor in Edward Whitley. The combined effort, Branson’s life and Whitley’s plot, is simply outstanding !
There are chapters in the book that would make you clutch your stomach and roll on the floor (scene: Branson making love, girlfriend has an asthma attack, Branson thinks she is making sounds of pleasure).
There are scenes that would make you gasp in horror (Virgin Atlantic’s first plane’s engine blew off one day before launch).
There are scenes that would make you cry with joy (Branson finally gets married, hangs from a chopper with chocolate and roses in mouth).
There are scenes that would make you wanna hit people in anger (British Airways saga of dirty tricks against Virgin Atlantic).
There are scenes that would make you cry (Branson’s sale of Virgin Music under distress to EMI).
In short the book has everything that should be in a honest biography with the added plus of being the biography of perhaps one of the MOST COLORFUL people of our times.
Branson believes in living life to the fullest and perhaps thats why the book is nothing less than a roller coaster.
There is a saying,
One would grow only by the company one keeps and the books one reads !
I am sure not ALL books help one grow (there are always those by Jackie Collins) but if you can come out of this one without learning something......well.........<MS won’t let me write it !>