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The Tim Ferriss Show

#272: Sir Richard Branson — The Billionaire Maverick of the Virgin Empire

The Tim Ferriss Show

Tim Ferriss: Bestselling Author, Human Guinea Pig

Lifestyle Design, Business, The 4-hour Workweek, Productivity, Timothy Ferriss Show, Startups, Tim Ferris, Entrepreneurship, Longform Interviews, Tools Of Titans, Timothy Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show, Tim Ferriss

4.617.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2017

⏱️ 83 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sir Richard Branson (@richardbranson), founder and chairman of The Virgin Group, is a world-famous entrepreneur, adventurer, activist, and business icon. He has launched a dozen billion-dollar businesses and hundreds of other companies.

His new autobiography, Finding My Virginity, shares the candid details of a lifetime of triumphs and failures and provides an intimate look at his never-ending quest to push boundaries, break rules, and seek new frontiers.

I loved our conversation, and we covered a lot, including:

  • Richard's thoughts on "clean meat," block chain, and cryptocurrency
  • How he's coped with dyslexia, and how his parents helped make him resilient
  • Behind-the-scenes stories of deal-making, PR stunts, big wins, and big losses
  • The habits (and life decisions) he's used to maintain high energy levels for decades
  • How Richard masterfully caps/limits downside risk, even though he's perceived as a risk taker
  • How and why he takes regular 1-2-month (sometimes longer) breaks from alcohol
  • Favorite books
  • Lessons learned from Nelson Mandela and other mentors
  • And much more...

Enjoy!

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Whether for personal use or business, you're in good company with WordPress.com — used by The New Yorker, Jay Z, Beyonce, FiveThirtyEight, TechCrunch, TED, CNN, and Time, just to name a few. A source at Google told me that WordPress offers "the best out-of-the-box SEO imaginable," which is probably why it runs nearly 30% of the Internet. Go to WordPress.com/Tim to get 15% off your website today!

***

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Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

I'm the optimal mineral.

0:02.0

At this altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

0:06.0

Can I also see the person question?

0:08.3

Now I just sit in the perfect time.

0:10.5

What if I did the opposite?

0:12.0

I'm a cybernetic organism living this show where metal and piscote.

0:16.0

Leading to Paris show.

0:23.6

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens.

0:26.5

I get asked all the time what I would take if I could only take one supplement.

0:31.2

The answer is invariably Athletic Greens.

0:34.0

I view it as all-in-one nutritional insurance.

0:36.4

I recommended it, in fact, in the four-hour body.

0:38.9

This is more than 10 years ago and I did not get paid to do so.

0:42.5

With approximately 75 vitamins, minerals, and whole food source ingredients,

0:46.8

you'd be very hard-pressed to find a more nutrient dense and comprehensive formula on the market.

0:51.2

It has multi-vitamins, multi-mineral greens complex,

0:54.6

probiotics, and prebiotics for gut health and immunity formula.

0:57.7

Digestive enzymes, adaptogens, and much more.

1:01.2

I usually take it once or twice a day just to make sure I've covered my bases

1:05.4

if I miss anything I'm not aware of.

1:07.5

Of course, I focus on nutrient dense meals to begin with.

1:10.8

That's the basis.

...

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