Necker Island Page

This One Idea Won Me A

$65.000 Prize

on Richard Branson's Private Island

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It's 2012. I've been building businesses for over 12 years. Successful in the Netherlands.

Multiple companies.

Good life.

But I had one dream: Necker Island.

Sir Richard Branson's private island in the Caribbean. The kind of place most entrepreneurs only dream about.

When I finally got there, it was the most magical experience of my life.

The incredible people I met.

The conversations.

The environment.

It changed me as an entrepreneur. It shaped everything that came in the years after.

So when I got invited back in 2014, I knew what to expect.

Another transformative week.

Another chance to be in that magical place with world-class entrepreneurs.

I arrived on the island and caught up with Richard.

Then he told me about a new challenge.

Everyone had to give a ten-minute presentation. An idea or strategy worth at least $250,000. The winner gets a prize valued at $65,000—a week with Richard Branson at Ulusaba, his private resort in South Africa.

No pressure...

And here's the kicker: the presentations would be recorded and distributed on the Virgin platform. Millions of entrepreneurs worldwide would see it.

Oh, and Eelco? You're going first.

Tomorrow morning.

Great!

What do I choose?

But there was one topic that had been on my mind for the last couple of months. The topic nobody seemed to care about. The topic that had changed my life but that I couldn't get anyone interested in.

Internet Fasting.

The night before my presentation, I couldn't sleep. Literally. I was tossing and turning under a mosquito net in my suite, thinking about the talk, worrying about the talk.

At three in the morning, I went outside for fresh air. Something stung me. I went back to bed. At five in the morning, I felt my forehead.

There was a massive bump. I looked in the mirror. A bump the size of an egg on my head.

I briefly considered asking if I could present another day. Then I remembered:

"80% of success is showing up." So I showed up.

Next morning, with barely any sleep, I stood there in The Temple, the magical building at the highest point of Necker Island. In front of Richard Branson, fifteen top entrepreneurs and camera livestreaming to millions of entrepreneurs.

Even though I hadn't slept, I thought I'd be fine. You just perform when you're there, right?

Wrong!

I talked way too fast and delivered the shortest ten-minute talk in history. I was done in six minutes.

But there were four minutes left, so Joe asked if there were any questions.

Several hands went up. One of them? Richard Branson.

He said, "Interesting speech. Maybe you can help me with something: I spend more than an hour a day reading and answering my emails. What can I do about that?"

I jokingly said, "Then you need to organize your business better."

For the rest of that week, something special happened.

Participants kept coming to me with questions. They were intrigued.

They wanted to know more.

Every day, new questions.

In the end, I'd talked to almost everyone about it.

That's when it hit me. Back home in the Netherlands, I couldn't get a single person interested in this idea.

But here on Necker Island, surrounded by the top one percent of entrepreneurs?

They were all over it. Every single one of them understood immediately. This wasn't a nice-to-have. This was the missing piece they'd been looking for.

Internet Fasting Is Changing Lives Already.

Halfway through the week, TJ, one of the participants, came up to me.

"I think you have a chance of winning that $65,000 prize."

I dismissed it.

After such a poor presentation? But he said, "Maybe so, but everyone is talking about it."

The last dinner arrived. The winner would be announced. I was nervous.

Even though I didn't think my chances were very high, I'm competitive.

Halfway through dinner, Joe took the floor to reveal the winner.

And to my surprise...

I had won.

My presentation on Internet Fasting had earned me a prize worth $65,000 and a trip to South Africa.

That was a very special moment. Not just because of the prize.

But because of the recognition. My idea was right.

It would help people. And that recognition came from people I have enormous respect for.

People among the world's elite.

After that week on Necker Island, I knew I had to write this book.

That ten-minute talk was just the beginning.

My new book Internet Fasting is the complete system I've developed over 25+ years of building successful online businesses.

This is everything I've learned about running multiple companies, making millions online, and actually having a life worth living.

Not the fake "digital nomad working 80 hours from Bali" freedom everyone sells you. Real freedom.

The kind of freedom where you travel for months every year.

Where you finish marathons.

Where you're actually present with the people you love.

Where your businesses grow while you sleep.

Where you have time to think. To create. To live.

Internet Fasting isn't about going off-grid or abandoning technology.

It's about using the internet without letting it use you.

It's about building businesses that serve your life, not consume it.

In this book, I share the exact principles, strategies, and workarounds I use to: