The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (Oliver Sacks, Summary)

    
'The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales' is a 1985 book by neurologist Oliver Sacks describing the case histories of some of his patients. Sacks chose the title of the book from the case study of one of his patients who has visual agnosia, a neurological condition that leaves him unable to recognize faces and objects.

The book comprises twenty-four essays split into four sections ("Losses", "Excesses", "Transports", and "The World of the Simple"), each dealing with a particular aspect of brain function. The first two sections discuss deficits and excesses (with particular emphasis on the right hemisphere of the brain), while the third and fourth sections describe phenomenological manifestations with reference to spontaneous reminiscences, altered perceptions, and extraordinary qualities of mind found in people with intellectual disabilities.

Book Information:
Subject : Neurology, psychology
Genre   : Case history
Publication date : 1985

PART 1: Losses

1 % 
"The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat", about Dr. P, who has visual agnosia; however, before that diagnosis is reached, Dr. P consults an ophthalmologist when he develops diabetes, thinking that it might affect his vision. The ophthalmologist tells him that he does not have diabetes and instead refers him to Dr. Sacks (the author), to whom Dr. P describes his symptoms of visual agnosia.

Dr. P was supported by his wife and he had a special talent with respect to music. He was able to listen to the sounds and remember them, then use them in situations such as to identify the person in the room from noise he or she makes. The chapter ends with lines: "And this, mercifully, held to the end—for despite the gradual advance of his disease (a massive tumor or degenerative process in the visual parts of his brain) Dr P. lived and taught music to the last days of his life."

2 % 
"The Lost Mariner", about Jimmie G., who has anterograde amnesia (the loss of the ability to form new memories) due to Korsakoff's syndrome. He can remember nothing of his life since the end of World War II, including events that happened only a few minutes ago. He believes it is still 1945 (the segment covers his life in the 1970s and early 1980s), and seems to behave as a normal, intelligent young man aside from his inability to remember most of his past and the events of his day-to-day life. He struggles to find meaning, satisfaction, and happiness in the midst of constantly forgetting what he is doing from one moment to the next.

The postscript of this chapter has two lines that describe how Jimmie might have spent rest of his life: Such patients, fossilized in the past, can only be at home, oriented, in the past. Time, for them, has come to a stop. 

3 % 

"The Disembodied Lady", a unique case of a woman losing her entire sense of proprioception (the sense of the position of parts of the body, relative to other neighbouring parts of the body) due to vitamin b6 toxicity.

The woman named Christina in the book learns to live life alongside a body that is 'blind and deaf to itself' by coordinating her movements through careful observation through her eyes, her vision.

4 % 

"The Man Who Fell out of Bed", about a young man whom Dr. Sacks sees as a medical student. Sacks encounters the patient on the floor of his hospital room, where he tells Sacks that he woke up to find an alien leg in his bed. Assuming that one of the nurses had played a prank on him, he attempted to toss the leg out of bed, only to find that he was attached to it. Although Sacks attempts to persuade the patient that the leg is his own, he remains bewildered in an apparent case of somatoparaphrenia.

5 % Hands 

This chapter is about Madeleine J. who was admitted to St. Benedict’s Hospital near New York City in 1980, her sixtieth year, a congenitally blind woman with cerebral palsy, who had been looked after by her family at home throughout her life.

The patient had not used her hands the entire life and this rendered the patient in a situation where she compared her hands with 'lumps of dough'.

To fix her condition, the doctors tempt her into making movement to get her own food as stated in these lines:

‘Leave Madeleine her food, as if by accident, slightly out of reach on occasion,’ I suggested to her nurses. ‘Don’t starve her, don’t tease her, but show less than your usual alacrity in feeding her.’ And one day it happened— what had never happened before: impatient, hungry, instead of waiting passively and patiently, she reached out an arm, groped, found a bagel, and took it to her mouth. This was the first use of her hands, her first manual act, in sixty years, and it marked her birth as a ‘motor individual’ (Sherrington’s term for the person who emerges through acts). It also marked her first manual perception, and thus her birth as a complete ‘perceptual individual’. Her first perception, her first recognition, was of a bagel, or ‘bagelhood’—as Helen Keller’s first recognition, first utterance, was of water (‘waterhood’). 

6 % Phantoms 

A ‘phantom’, in the sense that neurologists use, is a persistent image or memory of part of the body, usually a limb, for months or years after its loss.

Regarding a 'phantom' Dr Michael Kremer writes: ‘Its value to the amputee is enormous. I am quite certain that no amputee with an artificial lower limb can walk on it satisfactorily until the body-image, in other words the phantom, is incorporated into it.’

7 % 

"On the Level", another case involving damaged proprioception. Dr. Sacks interviews a patient who has trouble walking upright and discovers that he has lost his innate sense of balance due to Parkinson's-like symptoms that have damaged his inner ears; the patient, comparing his sense of balance to a carpenter's spirit level, suggested constructing a similar level inside a pair of glasses. This enables him to judge his balance by sight and after a few weeks, the task of keeping his eye on the level became less tiring.

Opening lines from the chapter read like this:

‘What’s the problem?’ I asked, as Mr MacGregor tilted in.

'Problem? No problem—none that I know of... But others keep telling me I lean to the side: "You’re like the Leaning Tower of Pisa," they say. "A bit more tilt, and you’ll topple right over."'

‘But you don’t feel any tilt?’

‘I feel fine. I don’t know what they mean. How could I be tilted without knowing I was?’ 

To help himself from tilting, Mr MacGregor (through consultation with Dr Sacks) develops an engineered frame of glasses that tell him of any tilt in his body through respective tilt in a part of the engineered spectacles that he can moniter through vision.

8 % 

"Eyes Right" is about a woman in her sixties who has hemispatial neglect. She completely forgets the idea of "left" relative to her own body and the world around her. When nurses place food or drink on her left side, she fails to recognize that they are there. Dr. Sacks attempts to show the patient the left side of her body using a video screen setup; when the patient sees the left side of her body, on her right, she is overwhelmed with anxiety and asked for it to stop.

This chapter about Mrs S. who is unable to see anything on the left. Her disorder is named as 'hemi-inattention'.
"She has totally lost the idea of ‘left’, with regard to both the world and her own body.": a line in opening paragraph reads.

Through consultation with Dr Sacks she is able to manage her life as shown by the lines below:

Knowing it intellectually, knowing it inferentially, she has worked out strategies for dealing with her imperception. She cannot look left, directly, she cannot turn left, so what she does is to turn right—and right through a circle. Thus she requested, and was given, a rotating wheelchair. And now if she cannot find something which she knows should be there, she swivels to the right, through a circle, until it comes into view. 

9 % 

"The President's Speech" is about a ward of aphasiacs and agnosiacs listening to a speech given by an unnamed actor-president, "the old charmer", presumably Ronald Reagan. Many in the first group laughed at the speech, despite their inability to follow the words, and Sacks claims their laughter to be at the president's facial expressions and tone, which they find "not genuine". One woman in the latter group criticizes the structure of the president's sentences, stating that he "does not speak good prose".

This is important chapter that shows how easy it is to deceive the general public through careful manipulation of words, expressions and body language, but there are people with certain diabilities who only hear tone and see the expressions and cannot be fooled by the manipulation of words. A quote from this chapter: "Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur".

PART 2: Excesses

10 % Witty Ticcy Ray 

In the chapter title, Ray is the name of the patient.
This chapter is about the Tourette's Syndrome. It starts with the lines that also says so:

In 1885 Gilles de la Tourette, a pupil of Charcot, described the astonishing syndrome which now bears his name. Tourette’s syndrome’, as it was immediately dubbed, is characterized by an excess of nervous energy, and a great production and extravagance of strange motions and notions: tics, jerks, mannerisms, grimaces, noises, curses, involuntary imitations and compulsions of all sorts, with an odd elfin humor and a tendency to antic and outlandish kinds of play. 

The chapter has references to a chemical called L-DOPA, so here is a note about it: Does L dopa increase dopamine?
L-DOPA is a precursor to dopamine that passes the blood-brain barrier and is mainly taken up by the dopaminergic neurons that convert L-DOPA to dopamine and increase their dopamine production and storage.

Ref: sciencedirect

Another important note from the chapter:
As lethargic Parkinsonian patients need more dopamine to arouse them, as my post-encephalitic patients were ‘awakened’ by the dopamineprecursor L-Dopa, so frenetic and Tourettic patients must have had their dopamine lowered by a dopamine antagonist, such as the drug haloperidol (Haldol). 

On the other hand, there is not just a surfeit of dopamine in the Touretter’s brain, as there is not just a deficiency of it in the Parkinsonian brain. There are also much subtler and more widespread changes, as one would expect in a disorder which may alter personality: there are countless subtle paths of abnormality which differ from patient to patient, and from day to day in any one patient. Haldol can be an answer to Tourette’s, but neither it nor any other drug can be the answer, any more than L-Dopa is the answer to Parkinsonism.

A note from Wikipedia - Dopamine Antagonist:
A dopamine antagonist, also known as an anti-dopaminergic and a dopamine receptor antagonist (DRA), is a type of drug which blocks dopamine receptors by receptor antagonism. Most antipsychotics are dopamine antagonists, and as such they have found use in treating schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and stimulant psychosis. Several other dopamine antagonists are antiemetics used in the treatment of nausea and vomiting. 

11 % Cupid’s Disease 

Note 1: Syphilis is a bacterial infection usually spread by sexual contact. The disease starts as a painless sore — typically on your genitals, rectum or mouth. Syphilis spreads from person to person via skin or mucous membrane contact with these sores.

Note 2: Neurosyphilis is a bacterial infection of the brain or spinal cord. It usually occurs in people who have had untreated syphilis for many years.

A note from the postscript:

Excited elaboration: The drawings of patients with Parkinsonism, as they are ‘awakened’ by L-Dopa, form an instructive analogy. Asked to draw a tree, the Parkinsonian tends to draw a small, meager thing, stunted, impoverished, a bare winter-tree with no foliage at all. As he ‘warms up’, ‘comes to’, is animated by L-Dopa, so the tree acquires vigor, life, imagination—and foliage. 

12 % A Matter of Identity 

This chapter talks about William Thompson. 

A paragraph in the book indicates what he might be suffering from:

Mr Thompson, only just out of hospital — his Korsakov’s had exploded just three weeks before, when he developed a high fever, raved, and ceased to recognize all his family — was still on the boil, was still in an almost frenzied confabulatory delirium (of the sort sometimes called ‘Korsakov’s psychosis’, though it is not really a psychosis at all), continually creating a world and self, to replace what was continually being forgotten and lost. 

This chapter has references to Jimmie G, who was our character in Chaper 2, with anterograde amnesia.

13 % Yes, Father-Sister 

The chapter is about a patient with: Witzelsucht

You can see in the chapter title that she is refering to a person with the words "Father-Sister".

Note from Wikipedia:
Witzelsucht (German: "joking addiction") is a set of pure and rare neurological symptoms characterized by a tendency to make puns, or tell inappropriate jokes or pointless stories in socially inappropriate situations. It makes one unable to read sarcasm. A less common symptom is hypersexuality, the tendency to make sexual comments at inappropriate times or situations. Patients do not understand that their behavior is abnormal, therefore they are nonresponsive to others' reactions. This disorder is most commonly seen in patients with frontal lobe damage, particularly right frontal lobe tumors or trauma. The disorder remains named in accordance with its reviewed definition by German neurologist Hermann Oppenheim, its first description as the less focused moria (pathologic giddiness or lunatic mood) by German neurologist Moritz Jastrowitz, was in 1888. 

Few lines from the chapter postscript:

The sort of facetious indifference and ‘equalization’ shown by this patient is not uncommon—German neurologists call it Witzelsucht (‘joking disease’), and it was recognized as a fundamental form of nervous ‘dissolution’ by Hughlings Jackson a century ago. 

14 % The Possessed 

This chapter talks about a woman whom Oliver Sacks suggests is having 'Super Touretter's Syndrome'.

PART 3: Transports 

In the first half of this book we described cases of the obviously pathological—situations in which there is some blatant neurological excess or deficit. Sooner or later it is obvious to such patients, or their relatives, no less than to their doctors, that there is ‘something (physically) the matter’. Their inner worlds, their dispositions, may indeed be altered, transformed; but, as becomes clear, this is due to some gross (and almost quantitative) change in neural function. 

In this third section, the presenting feature is reminiscence, altered perception, imagination, ‘dream’. Such matters do not often come to neurological or medical notice. Such ‘transports’—often of poignant intensity, and shot through with personal feeling and meaning—tend to be seen, like dreams, as psychical: as a manifestation, perhaps, of unconscious or preconscious activity (or, in the mystically-minded, of something ‘spiritual’), not as something ‘medical’, let alone ‘neurological’. They have an intrinsic dramatic, or narrative, or personal ‘sense’, and so are not apt to be seen as ‘symptoms’. It may be in the nature of transports that they are more likely to be confided to psychoanalysts or confessors, to be seen as psychoses, or to be broadcast as religious revelations, rather than brought to physicians.

15 % Reminiscence 

This chapter is about two women named as 'Mrs O’C' and 'Mrs O’M'.

Few lines from chapter seem to indicate what Mrs O’C might be suffering from:

‘Musical epilepsy’ sounds like a contradiction in terms: for music, normally, is full of feeling and meaning, and corresponds to something deep in ourselves, ‘the world behind the music’, in Thomas Mann’s phrase — whereas epilepsy suggests quite the reverse: a crude, random physiological event, wholly unselective, without feeling or meaning. Thus a ‘musical epilepsy’ or a ‘personal epilepsy’ would seem a contradiction in terms. And yet such epilepsies do occur, though solely in the context of temporal lobe seizures, epilepsies of the reminiscent part of the brain. Hughlings Jackson described these a century ago, and spoke in this context of ‘dreamy states’, ‘reminiscence’, and ‘physical seizures’:

It is not very uncommon for epileptics to have vague and yet exceedingly elaborate mental states at the onset of epileptic seizures... 

The elaborate mental state, or so-called intellectual aura, is always the same, or essentially the same, in each case. 

Note from epilepsysociety.org:

Musicogenic epilepsy is a rare form of complex reflex epilepsy with seizures induced by listening to music, although playing, thinking or dreaming of music have all been noted as triggers. Music may be provoked by different musical stimulus in different people. 

16 % Incontinent Nostalgia 

This chapter talks about "forced reminiscence induced by L-Dopa".

17 % A Passage to India 

This chapter talks about an Indian girl of 19 with malignant brain tumor who also developed 'grand mal convulsions'.

A grand mal seizure causes a loss of consciousness and violent muscle contractions. It's the type of seizure most people picture when they think about seizures. A grand mal seizure — also known as a generalized tonic-clonic seizure — is caused by abnormal electrical activity throughout the brain. [ Ref ]

18 % The Dog Beneath the Skin 

"The Dog Beneath the Skin", concerning a 22-year-old medical student, "Stephen D.", who, after a night under the influence of amphetamines, cocaine, and PCP, wakes to find he has a tremendously heightened sense of smell. Sacks would reveal many years later that he, in fact, was Stephen D.

19 % Murder 

The chapter starts straight on with the patient and the problem:

Donald killed his girl while under the influence of PCP. He had, or seemed to have, no memory of the deed—and neither hypnosis nor sodium amytal served to release any. There was, therefore, it was concluded when he stood trial, not a repression of memory, but an organic amnesia—the sort of blackout well described with PCP. 

Later in the chapter, we see that after an accident and brain injury, he seems to have a recollections of the murder event.

The chapter ends on a positive note with the lines:

But the final, the most important, thing is this: that Donald has now returned to gardening. ‘I feel at peace gardening,’ he says to me. ‘No conflicts arise. Plants don’t have egos. They can’t hurt your feelings.’ The final therapy, as Freud said, is work and love. Donald has not forgotten, or re-repressed, anything of the murder— if, indeed, repression was operative in the first place—but he is no longer obsessed by it: a physiological and moral balance has been struck.

But what of the status of the first lost, then recovered, memory? Why the amnesia—and the explosive return? Why the total blackout and then the lurid flashbacks? What actually happened in this strange, half-neurological drama? All these questions remain a mystery to this day. 

20 % The Visions of Hildegard 

Varieties of migraine hallucination are represented in the chapter "Visions of Hildegard". The hallucinations take the form of paintings and art. The chapter also takes us through interpretations of those paintings.

PART 4: The World of the Simple

21 % Rebecca 

The chapter talks about a retardate patient named Rebecca.

We are going to take you through the postscript of this chapter that shines some light on how to take care of people like Rebecca.

The power of music, narrative and drama is of the greatest practical and theoretical importance. One may see this even in the case of idiots, with IQs below 20 and the extremest motor incompetence and bewilderment. Their uncouth movements may disappear in a moment with music and dancing—suddenly, with music, they know how to move. We see how the retarded, unable to perform fairly simple tasks involving perhaps four or five movements or procedures in sequence, can do these perfectly if they work to music—the sequence of movements they cannot hold as schemes being perfectly holdable as music, i.e. embedded in music. The same may be seen, very dramatically, in patients with severe frontal lobe damage and apraxia— an inability to do things, to retain the simplest motor sequences and programmes, even to walk, despite perfectly preserved intelligence in all other ways. This procedural defect, or motor idiocy, as one might call it, which completely defeats any ordinary system of rehabilitative instruction, vanishes at once if music is the instructor. All this, no doubt, is the rationale, or one of the rationales, of work songs. 

What we see, fundamentally, is the power of music to organize— and to do this efficaciously (as well as joyfully!), when abstract or schematic forms of organization fail. Indeed, it is especially dramatic, as one would expect, precisely when no other form of organization will work. Thus music, or any other form of narrative, is essential when working with the retarded or apraxic—schooling or therapy for them must be centered on music or something equivalent. And in drama there is still more—there is the power of role to give organization, to confer, while it lasts, an entire personality. The capacity to perform, to play, to be, seems to be a ‘given’ in human life, in a way which has nothing to do with intellectual differences. One sees this with infants, one sees it with the senile, and one sees it, most poignantly, with the Rebeccas of this world. 

22 % A Walking Grove 

Martin A., aged 61, was admitted to our Home towards the end of 1983, having become Parkinsonian and unable to look after himself any longer. He had had a nearly fatal meningitis in infancy, which caused retardation, impulsiveness, seizures, and some spasticity on one side. He had very limited schooling, but a remarkable musical education—his father was a famous singer at the Met.

He lived with his parents until their death, and thereafter eked out a marginal living as a messenger, a porter, and a short-order cook— whatever he could do before he was fired, as he invariably was, because of his slowness, dreaminess or incompetence. It would have been a dull and disheartening life, had it not been for his remarkable musical gifts and sensibilities, and the joy this brought him—and others.

He had an amazing musical memory—’I know more than 2,000 operas,’ he told me on one occasion—although he had never learned or been able to read music. Whether this would have been possible or not was not clear—he had always depended on his extraordinary ear, his power to retain an opera or an oratorio after a single hearing.

The great sorrow of Martin’s life was that he could not follow his father, and be a famous opera and oratorio singer like him— but this was not an obsession, and he found, and gave, much pleasure with what he could do. He was consulted, even by the famous, for his remarkable memory, which extended beyond the music itself to all the details of performance. He enjoyed a modest fame as a ‘walking encyclopedia’, who knew not only the music of two thousand operas, but all the singers who had taken the roles in countless performances, and all the details of scenery, staging, dress and decor. (He also prided himself on a street-by-street, house-by-house, knowledge of New York—and knowing the routes of all its buses and trains.) Thus, he was an opera-buff, and something of an ‘idiot savant’ too. He took a certain child-like pleasure in all this—the pleasure of such eidetics and freaks. But the real joy— and the only thing that made life supportable—was actual participation in musical events, singing in the choirs at local churches (he could not sing solo, to his grief, because of his dysphonia), especially in the grand events at Easter and Christmas, the John and Matthew Passions, the Christmas Oratorio, the Messiah, which he had done for fifty years, boy and man, in the great churches and cathedrals of the city. He had also sung at the Met, and, when it was pulled down, at Lincoln Center, discreetly concealed amid the vast choruses of Wagner and Verdi.

23 % The Twins 

"The Twins" is about autistic savants. Dr. Sacks meets twin brothers who can neither read nor perform multiplication, yet are playing a "game" of finding very large prime numbers. While the twins were able to spontaneously generate these numbers, from six to twenty digits, Sacks had to resort to a book of prime numbers to join in with them. This was used in the 1993 film House of Cards starring Tommy Lee Jones. The twins also instantly count 111 dropped matches, simultaneously remarking that 111 is three 37s, an ability demonstrated by Dustin Hoffman's autistic character in the 1988 film Rain Man. This story has been questioned by Makoto Yamaguchi, who doubts that a book of large prime numbers could exist as described, and points out that reliable scientific reports only support approximate perception when rapidly counting large numbers of items. Autistic savant Daniel Tammet points out that the twins provided the matchbox and may have counted its contents beforehand, noting that he finds the value of 111 to be "particularly beautiful and matchstick-like".

24 % The Autist Artist 

"The Autist Artist", about a 21-year-old named Jose that had been deemed "hopelessly retarded" and had seizures; however, when given Sacks' pocket watch and asked to draw it, he composed himself and drew the watch in surprising detail.

The chapter ends on a very positive note about what else life might have to offer to him:

This brings us to our final question: is there any ‘place’ in the world for a man who is like an island, who cannot be acculturated, made part of the main? Can ‘the main’ accommodate, make room for, the singular? There are similarities here to the social and cultural reactions to genius. (Of course I do not suggest that all autists have genius, only that they share with genius the problem of singularity.) Specifically: what does the future hold for Jose? Is there some ‘place’ for him in the world which will employ his autonomy, but leave it intact? 

Could he, with his fine eye, and great love of plants, make illustrations for botanical works or herbals? Be an illustrator for zoology or anatomy texts? (See the drawing overleaf he made for me when I showed him a textbook illustration of the layered tissue called ‘ciliated epithelium’.) Could he accompany scientific expeditions, and make drawings (he paints and makes models with equal facility) of rare species? His pure concentration on the thing before him would make him ideal in such situations.

Or, to take a strange but not illogical leap, could he, with his peculiarities, his idiosyncrasy, do drawings for fairy tales, nursery tales, Bible tales, myths? Or (since he cannot read, and sees letters only as pure and beautiful forms) could he not illustrate, and elaborate, the gorgeous capitals of manuscript breviaries and missals? He has done beautiful altarpieces, in mosaic and stained wood, for churches. He has carved exquisite lettering on tombstones. His current ‘job’ is handprinting sundry notices for the ward, which he does with the flourishes and elaborations of a latter-day Magna Carta. All this he could do, and do very well. And it would be of use and delight to others, and delight him too. He could do all of these—but, alas, he will do none, unless someone very understanding, and with opportunities and means, can guide and employ him. For, as the stars stand, he will probably do nothing, and spend a useless, fruitless life, as so many other autistic people do, overlooked, unconsidered, in the back ward of a state hospital. 

A point the author makes while contrasting autism and schizophrenia:
Autism was once seen as a childhood schizophrenia, but phenomenologically the reverse is the case. The schizophrenic’s complaint is always of ‘influence’ from the outside: he is passive, he is played upon, he cannot be himself. The autistic would complain—if they complained—of absence of influence, of absolute isolation.

Screw it, let’s do it (by Richard Branson) - 15 minutes long summary

This post is about the book “Screw it, let’s do it” by Richard Branson. We are going to cover the best lessons that are presented in this book by the author.

The first lesson that Richard talks about is “Take The First Step”.
Plato once said, 'The beginning is the most important part of any work.' A journey of a thousand miles starts with that first step. If you look ahead to the end, and all the weary miles between, with all the dangers you might face, you might never take that first step. And whatever it is you want to achieve in life, if you don't make the effort, you won't reach your goal. So take the first step. 

Second is “Believe It Can Be Done”.
Richard’s mum, Eve, is a perfect example of this.

During the war, she wanted to be a pilot. She went to Heston airfield and asked for a job. She was told only men could be pilots. Eve was very pretty and had been a dancer on stage. She didn't look like a man. That didn't stop her. She wore a leather flying jacket and hid her blonde hair under a leather helmet. She talked with a deep voice. And she got the job she wanted. She learned how to glide and began to teach the new pilots. These were the young men who flew fighter planes in the Battle of Britain. 

After the war, she wanted to be an air hostess. Back then, they had to speak Spanish and be trained as nurses, but Eve chatted up the night porter at the airline and he secretly put her name on the list. Soon, she was an air hostess. She still couldn’t speak Spanish and she wasn’t a nurse. But she had used her wits. She wouldn’t say no. She just did it.

Third is about the “Birth of Virgin Music” and the lesson “Have Fun and Money Will Come”.

Throughout 1977, Richard had been working on making something out of Virgin Music. By the end of the year, Richard needed a break. His girlfriend, Joan and he had split up. He was sad but he likes to make the best of things. He always likes to get away from London in the winter. Music, sun and sea makes him feel good. 

The distance from London gives him the space and freedom to think and plan out fresh ideas. He went to Jamaica. It was part holiday, part work. He swam in a worm sea. He sat on the beach. He listened to some great reggae bands. Then he heard a new kind of music. It was made by local DJs and radio jocks, who were known as `toasters'. It was a kind of early rap, so he was at the start of something big. Jamaican musicians won't take checks so he signed up almost twenty reggae bands and some toasters from a case filled with cash. They went on to sell lots of records with them. It was a perfect example of his motto — have fun and the money will come. 

Now a touch of reality:

If you do have to work for a boss at a job you don't like, as almost everyone does at some point, don't moan about it. Have a positive outlook on life and just get on with it. Work hard and earn your pay. Enjoy the people you come into contact with through your job. And if you are still unhappy, make it instead your goal to divide your private life from your work life. Have fun in your own time, you will feel happier and you'll enjoy your life and your job more. 

Next is: Be bold. Calculate the risks and take them.

In 2004 Richard made a TV series, The rebel Billionaire. The final episode had a twist at the end. Richard offered the prize winner, Shawn Nelson, a check for one million dollars - but there was a catch. He could take the check or toss a coin for an even bigger mystery prize. If he lost the toss, he would lose it all. Richard held out the check. Shawn took it and saw the long line of zeros. Then Richard took it back, put it in his hip pocket and held out a silver coin. 

'Which one will it be?' Richard said. 'The coin or the check?'
Life is full of hard choices. Which one would Shawn go for? Shawn looked shaken. It was a huge gamble. All or nothing. He asked Richard, 'what would you do?' 'It's up to you,' Richard said. Richard could have told him that he takes risks, but they are calculated risks. He weighs the odds in everything he does. Instead, Richard said nothing. 

Shawn had to make up his own mind. Shawn walked back and forth, trying to decide. It was tempting to gamble. It would make him look cool. Also, the unknown prize might be amazing. At last, he said he couldn't risk losing that much money on the toss of a coin. He owned a small company. He could use the money wisely to help his business grow. It could change his life for the better. It would also help the people who worked for him and believed in him. 'I'll take the check, ' he said. 

Richard was pleased and told him 'If you had gone for the coin toss, I would have lost all respect for you'. 

He made the right choice and didn't gamble on something that he couldn't control. He got the million dollars but not the mystery prize. The big prize was to be president of Virgin for three months. Virgin has 200 companies so Shawn would have learnt a lot. It was a golden chance. Richard does say that 'Believe in yourself. You can do it' but he also says, 'Be bold but don't gamble.'  

The next lesson is: Challenge yourself.

Everyone needs something to aim for. You can call it a challenge, or you can call it a goal. It is what makes us human. It was challenges that took us from being caveman to reaching for the stars. If you challenge yourself, you will grow. Your life will change. Your outlook will be positive. It's not always easy to reach your goal but that's no reason to stop. Never say die. Say yourself 'I can do it. I'll keep on trying until I win.' 

Ricky’s First Big Challenge:

Ricky’s first big challenge was when he was five years old. He went to Devon for two weeks one summer with family and relatives. When they got there, he ran onto the beach and started at the sea, he couldn’t swim and his aunt Joyce bet him ten shillings that he couldn’t learn to swim by the end of the holiday. Ricky took the bet.

Most days, the sea was rough and the waves were high, but Ricky tried for hours. Day after day, he splashed along with one foot on the bottom. He grew blue with cold and swallowed a lot of sea water but still he couldn’t swim.

Ricky had lost the bet and his aunt told him to never mind as there is always a next year.

As they set off for home in the car, Ricky gazed out of the window. He wished he had learned to swim, he hated losing the bet. And, the family hadn’t got home so they were still really on holiday. Ricky thought, now was his last chance.

“Stop the car,” he shouted. His dad followed as both of his parents knew about the bet and they obviously knew their son. Ricky jumped out of the car, stripped quickly, and ran across a field to the river. When Ricky turned his head, he saw everyone standing and watching him, his mum smiled, waved and called out “You can do it, Ricky”. As soon as Ricky got in the middle, the current caught him. He went under, choked, came up and swept downstream. He put one foot on a rock and pushed off, and soon he was swimming. He swain in an awkward circle, but he’d won the bet.

Next: Stand on your feet.

‘IF YOU WANT MILK, don't sit on a stool in the middle of the field in the hope that the cow will back you up.'

An old recipe for rabbit pie said,' First, catch the rabbit.' Note that it didn't say, 'First, buy the rabbit, or sit on your bottom until someone gives it to you.'

Lessons like these, taught to Richard by his mum from when he was a toddler, are what have made him stand on his own two feet. He was trained to think for himself and get things done.

Stand on your feet (The Virgin Story)

Although Richard relies on himself and believes in his goals, he lost faith in himself once. In 1986, Richard was told that he should take Virgin public. Two of his partners who knew him well, were not very keen. They said he would hate losing control.

But the bankers said it was a good idea. It would give him more capital to work with. Other big private companies, like Body Shop and Sock Shop, had gone public. They were doing well. Pushed hard by the bankers, Richard launched Virgin on the stock exchange.

Around 70,000 people applied for shares by post. Those who had left it too late lined up in the city to buy shares in person. Richard writes he will never forget walking up the long line of people to thank them for their faith in him. He was very moved when they said things like, 'We're not going holiday this year, we're putting our savings in Virgin' and, 'We're banking on you, Richard.'

But it wasn’t long though that he realized he had made a mistake. Now instead of having casual meetings on his houseboat to discuss what bands to sign, he had to ask board of directors for a meeting for which he would usually have to wait for four weeks. Plus, these people had no idea what music business was all about.

They didn't see how a hit record could make millions overnight. Richard could not sign someone who was hot before his rivals did. Or they'd say things like, 'Sign the Rolling Stones? My wife doesn't like them. Janet Jackson? Who's she?'

Richard has always made fast decisions and acted on his instinct. But now, he was stifled. Most of all, he no longer felt that he was standing on his own feet.

Then, there was a huge stock-market crash. Richard felt that he was letting down all the people who had bought Virgin shares. Many were friends and family as well as Virgin’s staff. But many were like the couple who had given him their life savings.

Then, Richard made up his mind. He would buy all the shares back — at the price everyone had paid for them. He didn't have to pay that much, but he didn't want to let people down. He raised the £182 million needed and Virgin became private company again.

After this Richard writes, “I felt nothing but relief. Once again, I was the captain of my ship and master of my fate. I believe in myself. I believe in the hands that work, in the brains that think, and in the hearts that love.”

Next: Live the moment!

Richard’s grandmother lived life to the full. At the age of 89 she became the oldest person in Britain to pass the advanced Latin American ballroom-dancing exam. She was ninety when she became the oldest person to hit a hole in one at golf. She never stopped learning. In her mid-90s she read Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, which may make her one of the few people to have read it all the way through! Shortly before her death at the age of 99 she went on a cruise around in Jamaica wearing only her swimming costume. Her attitude was that you've only got one go in life, so you should make the most of it.

About having regrets, Richard writes:

In a way, regrets are like wanting the peach you have thrown away. It’s gone, but you are filled with remorse. You wish you hadn't thrown it away. You want it back. Richard believes that the one thing that helps is to have no regrets. Regrets weigh you down. They hold you back in the past when you should move on.

About living in the future:

Always living in the future can slow us down as much as always looking behind. Many people are always looking ahead and they never seem content. They look for quick fixes, like winning the lottery. Goals are important. Money is important. But the bottom line is money is just a means to an end, not an end in itself. And what is going on now is just as important as what you're planning for the future. So, even though Richard’s diary is full for months ahead, he has learned to live for the moment. 

Next: Value friends and family.

If anyone asks Richard what he believes in above all else, he would say his family.

And it is true that sometimes families split up. Then, some people don't have anyone. But close friends can be like a family. We all need a strong support network.

Even though Richard was taught to stand on his own feet, Richard writes, “without my loyal family and friends, I would be lost”.

Next: Have respect.

One time Richard had to go to a meeting. He was already late, so he grabbed some papers and jumped into a taxi. On the way, the driver got very chatty. He had recognized him and said “I know you. You're that Rick Branson. You've got a record label.” And after that, the cabby would not shut up. He told Ricky that he might be a cabby by the day but he was also a drummer in a band.

He asked if Richard would like to hear his demo tape. Richard’s heart sank. People were always playing tapes to him in the hopes they would be discovered. But Rick didn't want to be rude. 'That would be lovely,' he said. The cabby had house around the corner and he had got Richard to accept his offer for tea, and just outside this house when Richard heard 'I can feel it, coming in the air tonight...' coming from the speakers. Cabby jumped out of the front seat and held the door open for Rick. The cab driver was Phil Collins, laughing like mad.

When Richard made “The Rebel Billionaire”, he copied the idea from Phil. He made himself look like an old cabby and drove the young contestants to the manor house. Rick had his ears peeled and listened to what they said in the back. Rick also noted how they treated an old man who couldn't lift heavy cases. Rick learned a lot about them from that, much to their dismay. Respect is about how you treat everyone, not just those you want to impress.

It is very important to always keep eyes and ears open and to be polite. They say that you never know who might hear or see you.

Is money root of all evil?

It's said that money is root of all evil, but it doesn't have to be. Money can be used for good.

The biggest charities in the world were started by rich men and women, but some were begun with next to nothing.

Harvard, the wealthiest college in America, is a charitable trust. It started with a few books and just £350.

IKEA started in a garden shed. Its parent company is a charitable trust.

The man who dreamed up the Big Mac started life selling paper cups. His company now gives $50 million a year to charity.

And, you don't need to be rich to do good. Children used to collect silver paper and empty cola tins to raise money for good causes. There are many ways of helping others.

That was all about the book, hope you liked it and thank you all very much for visiting.

An excerpt from Chapter 2 - Be Bold:
Richard writes:
I get sent thousand of ideas each week – they are people’s goals and dreams. There are too many for me to look at. My staff read them first and weed them out. I look at the best ones.

One plan I was offered ended in disaster. I was young. My urge to try anything almost killed me. Sadly, it killed the inventor.

A man called Richard Ellis sent me a photo of his ‘flying machine’. It had a three-wheeledbike beneath two large wings. It was powered by a small outboard engine. There were rotors above the pilot’s head. The photo showed a man soaring above the treetops. I was curious and I invited him to show me how it worked.

When he came, we went to the local airfield with Joan and some friends. He took his machine to a landing strip. You had to pedal like mad to get speed up. Then the engine would cut in and start the rotors. He said I would be second person to try it. But he didn’t want me to fly.

‘You need to get used to it first,’ he said.

It looked like fun. I sat on machine. He gave me a cable with a rubber switch at end, which went in mouth. I had to bite on the switch to make the engine cut out. I would stop at the end of the runway before I took off. ‘Ok! Go!’ Ellis shouted.
I put the cable in my mouth and set off down the runway. I pedaled like hell. The engine kicked in. I went faster and faster. When it seemed fast enough, I bit into the switch to stop. Nothing happened. I went even faster. I bit harder. Nothing. I reached thirty miles an hour. I could see Joan looking at me at the endof the runway as I got closer. Suddenly, I rose into the air. The flying machine took off, with me hanging on. I was flying.
I soared over some trees. I rose higher. When I was at one hundred feet, I knew I had to stop it somehow. I tugged at wires and pulled them out. I burned my hands on the hot engine but at last the engine cut out and I spun down to the ground. At the very last moment, a small gust of wind flipped the machine over. Flipped the machine over. A wing took the Impact. I fell out onto the grass. I was safe but shocked. 

A week later, Ellis took off in the flying machine. It crashed to earth. He died on Impact. His death was sad, but people with vision do die. Mountain climbers fall, and test pilots crash. As a child, I knew the war hero, Douglas Bader. He was a friend of my aunt Clare’s. He lost his legs in a flying accident. He learned to walk and also flew again. You can take care and try to avoid the risks, but you can’t protect yourself all the time. I am sure that luck plays a very large part. It’s easy to give up when things are hard but I believe we have to keep chasing our dreams and our goals, as these exciting people did. And once we decided to do something, we should never look back, never regret it.

Lessons from chapter 1: HAVE FUN
- Have Fun, Work Hard and Money Will Come
- Don’t Waste Time – Grab Your Chances
- Have a Positive Outlook On Life
- When it’s Not Fun, Move On

Lessons from chapter 2. BE BOLD
- Calculate the Risks and Take Them
- Believe in Yourself
- Chase Your Dreams and Goals
- Have No Regrets
- Be Bold
- Keep Your Word

Download Link For The Book: Screw it, Let's Do It (GitHub)
Tags: Book Summary, Management, Non-fiction