What I learned from reading about Hans Wilsdorf and the founding of Rolex.
The book I'm going to talk to you about today is nearly impossible to find.
It was first published in 1946.
There's only 1000 copies ever made.
It's called Rolex Jubilee.
And then the subtitle is actually in Latin, but when you translate it from Latin into English, it literally means go with me.
And so it's a tiny four volume, like History of Rolex.
And volume one was written by Hans Wilsdorf, who is the founder of Rolex.
And so he tells the founding story of Rolex in his own words.
There's a lot of things that'll surprise you in this story.
The first one being that he was a sole shareholder of Rolex, but the second one was that he was an orphan.
So he goes right into his early life, and in one sentence, he sets the entire stage for us.
He says, I was born on March 22, 1881.
My mother's early death was soon followed by that of my father's.
And at age twelve, I was an orphan.
And there's a decision made by his uncles that is going to change the trajectory of Hans entire life.
They decide to sell the family business to pay for boarding school for the kids that are left behind.
So he says, my mother's brothers decided that it'd be wiser to liquidate the prosperous business which had belonged first to my grandfather and then later to my father, believing that in this way, we children could be better prepared for life without having to call upon anyone for help.
His life would have been very different without his uncles and that decision to actually liquidate the business and then take that money and actually send him to boarding school, which I'll get into why that's so important for the founding Rolex in 1 second.
But he talks a little bit about the fact that one of the best things his uncles ever did for him and his siblings was that they taught him self reliance.
But keep in mind the words I'm reading you.