Richard Branson: The Autobiography

Text (literal) transcript of Richard Branson Biography Analysis video:

Hello and welcome to this new video from the Life-changing Books (“Des Livres Pour Changer de Vie”) blog. I am currently in San Diego. You can see that we have a rather splendid view; it is the middle of January and the weather is nice enough to be in a T-shirt on the beach, or even, for more adventurous, to put on a bathing suit.

“To succeed, you have to test yourself in the world; you have to get started” – Richard Branson

So, I am in California, the land of entrepreneurs. I’m finishing a book that I think is truly excellent, and I wanted to share it with you. Just this once, it is an autobiography.

It is quite simply the autobiography of Richard Branson, which is titled “Losing My Virginity”  and has been translated in French as: Perdre Ma Virginité. The official translation was a little less sexy than the original title since the official title of the biography is: “Richard Branson: The Autobiography.” A little less sexy, but at least it gets straight to the point!

I very highly recommend this book to you. For those who do not know, Richard Branson is the founder of Virgin. He first created Virgin Music, a music production group, then created a lot of companies in lots of different sectors.

Richard created an airline; created a train company; build a biofuels company; and created a lot of initiatives to help poor countries, especially in Africa. He also created a company that is really, really cool, called Virgin Galactic, which aims to develop space tourism.

Richard Branson is truly an outstanding entrepreneur.

Like Steve Jobs, he is quite extraordinary, and he tells in this book everything from his adolescence, with the youth of his entrepreneurial journey, until the 2010s when, precisely, he devoted himself more to philanthropy and to projects that are more long-term, such as the fight against global warming.

“We call it the spirit of Ubuntu, that deep African feeling that we are only human through the humanity of other human beings.”- Richard Branson

It is a book that I started and personally cannot stop reading. It is a “page turner” as our Anglo-Saxon friends say. And it is extremely interesting and very well written.

It reads like a novel except that it really happened. And we have a lot of things to learn from an entrepreneur like that, which is actually revealed in his book. In any case, it has already given me ideas for my businesses.

It is really interesting to note that Richard Branson is an entrepreneur who has seemingly incredible ethics and who, in addition, is a, let’s say, social entrepreneur. That is to say he has a dimension that goes beyond mere economic prowess and genuinely tries to change the world for the better.

So, I really recommend it to you. I’m telling you, it reads like a novel: it’s fast, it’s effective, it’s simple. There is everything: humor, sex, adventure, and in addition, we learn a lot about entrepreneurship. This is a truly must-read book.

Thank you and see you soon for a new video!