When he was still in the early stages of building his business empire, Branson and his girlfriend went to take a break on British Virgin Isles. Somebody told him that when people say they wanted to buy an island, they got to stay in a local villa for free, and so Branson played as if he was going to buy islands. He and his girlfriend toured islands daily, asking whether the agency had any other islands on sale (of course Branson wasn’t going to buy anything as it was far beyond his budget, it was just a way to extend his free stay).
At some point, there was only one island left to watch, called Necker. And here something unexpected happened: Branson liked it so much that he wanted to buy it, and asked how much it was. $6M, he was told. Branson made a counteroffer: $150,000 (he didn't have even this money at hand, but this seemed reasonable to collect). His proposal was not met with a great understanding, and the agent kicked Branson out of the villa straight after.
However, the Necker island got into Branson's head. So when back to London, he found the way to get in touch directly with the owner and repeated his proposal, which was rejected again. However, a few months later, the owner got back to him and said he was ready to sell the island for $180,000 as he was in a desperate need of cash.
The moral of today's story is, never assume you can’t afford something until you tried.
So today we will challenge ourselves a bit to play “Richard Branson” and try your "Necker island" on yourself. Pick one place where they sell something that’s potentially too expensive for you (good cars, luxury underwear, real estate agency). Go there today and try it on yourself. Then describe the experience in the comments. Notice, I am not asking you to commit to buying anything, just to experience what it's like to actually live this life for an hour?
If you feel scared and resistant to do this task, explore this resistance. What exactly are you afraid of? Identify where the resistance is in your body and talk to it, as we've previously done.
Tomorrow - a final post about the whole marathon with some conclusions and recommendations.
Previous challenges here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5 and Day 6.