2024-06-18
29 分钟Sir Richard Branson has spent his lifetime taking dreams and making them reality. As the founder of the Virgin Group, he's built more than 400 businesses spanning from retail to music to transport. In his spare time, he’s advocated for human rights and sustainability — and set world records for hot air ballooning and kitesurfing. Richard talks with Adam about what he’s learned about courage and risk-taking in more than half a century of entrepreneurship, unveils his distinctive view of competition, and shares what he thinks great leaders have in common. Richard’s new audiobook, "Losing and Finding My Virginity: The Full Story," is out now.Transcripts for ReThinking are available at go.ted.com/RWAGscripts
TED audio collective.
We don't live forever, and we might as well throw ourselves wholeheartedly into our lives.
And if one ended up going earlier, at least we've lived very, very full lives.
Hey, everyone, it's Adam Grant.
Welcome back to rethinking my podcast on the science of what makes us tick with the Ted audio collective.
I'm an organizational psychologist, and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.
My guest today is Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group.
He's built more than 400 businesses from music, radio, and mobile to airlines, rail, cruise, and space tourism.
In his spare time, Richard's been a passionate philanthropist and an advocate for sustainability and human rights.
Naturally, he's also broken world records in hot air ballooning and kite surfing.
I think most people want fun.
They want to enjoy themselves.
They want people to be human.
I got to see Richard being human a few years ago when we spent a week doing strive, an endurance challenge his family leads to support education.
My kids organize these extremely challenging trips where it's extreme biking and hiking and climbing of mountains and with fascinating groups of people.
And we do talks on each of these trips about reforming education.
Richard has a new audiobook out called losing and finding my virginity, which tells his life story and offers a wealth of lessons about entrepreneurship, risk taking, and leadership, which are some of the themes of our conversation today.
Okay, let's give it a go.
Thank you.
You've hired quite a good voice double.