Of course you know about the extra­or­di­nary global entre­pre­neur Sir Richard Bran­son; who started with two empty hands and who has built a busi­ness empire span­ning from music to space ships, made bil­lions and suc­ceeded against the odds. And who has nearly 500,000 fol­low­ers on Twit­ter — wow!

Some­one thought I could use some inspi­ra­tion from this entre­pre­neur guru, and gave me a copy of Screw It, Let’s Do It; Branson’s 2007 book. I even got ‘the Expanded Ver­sion’ — I guess my friend thought I need to shed all inhi­bi­tions and dare to act the Bran­son way: be big, bold and focus on just doing what­ever it is that truly inspires you; believe it can be done and that, if oth­ers dis­agree,  try and try again until you achieve your goal.

It was a fun read. I am of course very respect­ful of his busi­ness achieve­ments, but most impressed by all that he is doing for to com­mon good: fight­ing HIV/AIDS, war and cli­mate change. That is wealth and enrepre­neur­ship put to good use.

The image that really stayed with me after I put the book down, feel­ing invigourated,  is one one where Bran­son tells about what he did on one story night, when he was stay­ing on his pri­vate island Necker in the Caribbean. It wasn’t just any old storm — it was the largest hur­ri­cane in the last 50 years that was com­ing his way. Of course he’s built a storm-proof house able to with­stand wind speeds of 300 kms/hour. I guess most peo­ple would have closed the shut­ters and rid­den out the storm safely behind the closed doors.

But what does Bran­son do? He decides to expe­ri­ence the storm in the swim­ming pool. It is a once-in-a-lifetime expe­ri­ence, he rea­sons, not to be seen from the side­lines and hid­ing behind closed doors, but to be grabbed, as an unique oppor­tu­nity to exe­prience some­thing unique — some­thing to be LIVED! If noth­ing else for the sheer inten­sity of feel­ing alive. The way he talks about sawying about in the water, com­pletely giv­ing him­self over to the forces of nature and with his nose barely over the water, is a great image I think. In his own words, a good illus­tra­tion of hav­ing the pas­sion and ini­tia­tive to expe­ri­ence the storm — out­side, where it really hap­pens — and the sta­mina and self con­fi­dence to sur­vive it.  This, and his relent­less focus on peo­ple, in and out­side of his own pool, is inspir­ing what­ever your focus and goal in life.

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