Review of "Losing my Virginity" by Richard Branson
Book title: Losing My Virginity
Author: Richard Branson
Place of publication: Rainville Road, London, England
Publisher: Virgin Books; Rev Ed edition
Year of publication: June 27th 2002.
Number of pages: 672
ISBN-10: 0753506483
ISBN-13: 978-0753506486
Synopsis:
Richard Branson takes the reader on the adventure; which is his life. The author openly discusses his family, friends, sexual escapades, life threatening attempts to fly around the world in a hot air balloon; he also covers his many business endeavors ranging from Virgin Records to Virgin Galactic. Richard Branson offers us an insight into his own unique business philosophy which most of the time contradicts the stuffy nature of traditional business academia.
Background of the Author:
Richard Branson was born in 1950 and educated at Stowe School. In 1966 he borrowed just £4 off his encouraging mother to start up what was to be his first business venture student magazine'. In 1992 Richard reluctantly sold the Virgin Music group to Thorn EMI in a record $1 billion dollar deal. This huge cash flow allowed Branson to embark on many new business ventures such as Virgin Mobile, Virgin Galactic, Virgin Money, Virgin Hotels, and expand old ongoing ventures such as Virgin Atlantic. The Virgin group employs over 50,000 employee's world wide and is a widely recognized and respected brand all over the world.
In 1999 the Queen awarded Richard Branson with a knighthood for his services to entrepreneurship'. Married twice and proud father to a musician son and pediatric doctor daughter, Branson alternates his time between his homes in London and Oxfordshire. Special occasions and holidays are spent among...
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...just interested in finding out more about this inspirational man. Although the book is a chunky 672 pages, it's a real page turner, a book you will be reluctant to put down.
Conclusion:
Richard Branson's autobiography makes for an exciting, riveting and inspirational read. Branson comically but fondly recollects his past business ventures, love affairs, youth, family, death defying adventures and many famous and influential friends. This is a book that I recommend to all students of business, Branson is eager to teach the reader "the business rules they don't teach you in business school". Refreshingly Branson does not try to force his views on any subject upon the reader, nor does he claim to offer advice or disclose any hidden secrets of success. His informal, rewarding and caring management style is one that I feel should be emulated by more business people.
What is the difference between effective or ineffective communication skills when working with children, this essay is determine to find out the appropriate ways to communicate with children by analyse, the video clip ‘Unloved’ by Tony Grison, where a young White British girl aged 11 was taken into care, due to her father being abusive towards her and mother not wanting to see her.
Krames, Jeffrey A.. What the Best CEOs Know : 7 Exceptional Leaders and Their Lessons for Transforming Any Business.
The fundamental characteristic of magical realism is its duality, which enables the reader to experience both the character’s past and the present. In the novel, Monkey Beach, Eden Robinson uses this literary device to address the the trauma and mistreatment of the Haisla community in Canada by unveiling the intimate memories of the protagonist, Lisamarie, and the resulting consequences of this oppression. Monkey Beach illustrates how abuse in the past leads to another form of self-medication in the future - a neverending, vicious cycle for the members of the Haisla community. Many characters in Monkey Beach are scarred from childhood sexual abuse and family neglect, and resort to drug and alcohol abuse as a coping mechanism. These appalling memories are an account of the impact of colonization on the Haisla territory which continues to haunt the Aboriginal community throughout generations.
An Uncommitted Child The novel, High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, describes the life of a man who lives through his music and his childish ways. Rob Fleming is a man who struggles with commitment when it comes to what he needs, yet commits to what he wants. This lack of commitment leaves Rob struggling with the relationships with the people in his daily life. Living his life in a careless and childish manner, Rob Fleming burns the bridges with those who are close to him, and as a result realizes how much he truly cares for them when it’s too late. There were many jobs that Rob had taken over over the years; with each job he has there is a lack of passion and drive which results in his lack of commitment.
author of this book. He has also has written many other good books such as The Grapes
The word “bullying” can be defined as the use of superior strength or influence to intimidate someone, typically to force him or her to do what one wants. In the novel Nineteen Minutes, written by Jodi Picoult, the high school students prove the definition to be true. The forms and effects of bullying have no real limit, but are always going to be negative. Children, or even adults being bullied is extremely common, and can often get out of hand. A lot of the times there nothing is done to prevent bullying, which is a huge mistake that should be corrected as soon as it could be. Through the extremely emotion filled novel, Nineteen Minutes, Jodi Picoult goes deep into the face of a small town to find out what it means to be truly different in society. Jodi Picoult uses the social issue of teenage bullying to create a realistic story about the effects of verbal and physical abuse, leading to a tragedy for society. This novel is a great example of how bullying no only affects the people who are involved, but many others as well. Bullying in teenage children not only has an effect on themselves and their peers, but on society as whole.
We all start someplace and for Robert Edward Turner III it started in Cincinnati, Ohio at the McCallie School. He was a National Forensics League member. (NFL) It was at this school he won the Tennessee debate championship. Robert Edward Turner was also call and what he is known as today as Ted Turner. His dad, Robert Turner II also known as Ed Turner, bought a billboard company he changed the name to Turner Advertising. Ted learned every aspect of the outdoor advertising business at his father’s insistence. He learned from maintenance to finance, but not all he did was work sailed his dinghy that his father gave him. “At age nine, he began sailing and soon developed a passion for sailboat racing. By age 11, he was competing in the junior regatta of the Savannah Yacht Club.” (Achievement). Ted’s father wanted him to attend Harvard, but his grades weren’t high enough for him to get in so Ted attended Brown University. After school, he returned home to his father’s business where his father gave him the assistant manager of Turner Advertising’s Atlanta branch position. Ted inherited the business at 24 when his father took his own life after the business took a turn for the worse and went into debt. By the end of the decade Ted had turned the business around into the largest billboard company in the southeast. (Achievement).
In the first scene of Paul Morrissey’s 1968 film Flesh, the viewer is taken on a brief journey through the streets of New York City. The perspective taken is that from a passive observer looking into the life of the main character. The camera does not tamper with the images nor try to impose new meaning on them – we see the sequence of events as it actually unfolds. Throughout the film clip, a main theme is centered on the banality of the protagonist’s existence, and his restless state is reflected within both technical and organic aspects of the clip.
Saunders, George. "The 400-pound CEO." Harper's Magazine Feb. 1993: 52. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.
Shortly after, he married his college sweetheart Betty Stocker, and began Engelstad Construction in Grand Forks; the buildings he constructed are still standing and serving well. After making a quick fortune there (vowing to become a millionaire by age 30, he achieved his goal at 29), he moved his company to Las Vegas, to build FHA-financed housing for the federal government and began buying property with money he had made as a building contractor in Grand Forks (Westman).
In the book “Think and Grow Rich,” the author, Napoleon Hill, provides a set of principles that he calls the key to financial success. The idea at the center of these principles is that one becomes what he or she frequently thinks about, in this case success (i.e. rich). Hill lays out a method he created to translate one’s thoughts into reality, creating an insatiable hunger and drive within an individual to succeed. Using the examples of his son and some of America’s legendary iconic business leaders, of which Hill studied and interviewed, including Edwin C. Barnes, he demonstrates that anything one puts his or her mind to can be produced and conceived.
Having over 400 companies must take a ridiculous amount of time to manage leaving little time to enjoy the wealth Branson has earned or at least one would think. Branson is different from most CEO’s; there isn’t enough time in a day, week, month or even a year for him to manage every aspect of the Virgin Group so he has taken a different approach. Branson commonly refers to Steve Job’s, his entrepreneurial hero, style of leadership saying he was autocratic and made Apple a great company by selecting employees that were like-minded and would follow his every instruction, but this isn’t how Branson leads. Instead of managing everyone and being a somewhat of a dictator within his companies, Branson believes in his staff and gives them a lot of control over the business. His priorities in his business is to put his employees first, customers second, and investors third. He shows this by carefully selecting people within the company who he thinks can run a specific company within the Virgin Group better then he himself, then he delegates the particular business to this person or persons (Vries, 2003). This allows for people to in a sense be there own boss, call the shots and if something fails he pushes his employees to keep trying and to never give up. Richard says, “that if you are not always there, it forces other
These words guided Bob to his riches, until one day he asked Rosalina a question that he had wished he had never spoken. “Rosalina, although you help me with my financial decisions, I am curious to know how my business’ prosperity appears in the years to come.”
Richard Branson prides Virgin on the positive environment he sets for employees. Delegation, listening and the value of employees are key to being a good leader. These three assets to being a great leader have proven to assist Richard Branson in success. Mr. Branson approaches negotiation the same way he approaches her personal life, adventurous and boisterous. His negotiation approach is untraditional and unconventional in business. Perhaps Branson may be
The difficulty with attempting to analyze the leadership style of Branson is that everything that has been written about him prefaces his achievement with his larger than life personality. There's no denying that Branson is fun and passionate, but he's also very bright and very hardworking. I think that if Branson took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Profile he would discover that he is ENTP: an extroverted, intuitive, thinking, perceiving human being. From his autobiography, Losing My Virginity it's clear that Branson is action oriented, enthusiastic and seems to work well in an every changing environment. When he was 15 years old he founded a magazine called Student with another classmate. They worked non-stop for years to make the magazine successful. His intuition was clear even at that young age. He talks about the work they put in, not to make money in the short run, but just to keep the magazine afloat until the next issue. For Branson it was more about the creative process. He says, "I can honestly say that I have never gone into any business purely to make money A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts." He realized that at some point there would be breakthrough and he could attract the advertisers he needed to really gain monetary success. At that moment he was having a great time just doing it.