Who is Richard Branson
British entrepreneur Richard Branson launched Virgin Records in the early 1970s, eventually building his business into the multinational Virgin Group.
Richard Branson struggled in school and dropped out at age 16 — a decision that ultimately led to the creation of Virgin Records. His entrepreneurial projects started in the music industry and expanded into other sectors, including the space-tourism venture Virgin Galactic, making him a billionaire. Branson is also known for his adventurous spirit and sporting achievements, including crossing oceans in a hot air balloon.
Richard Charles Nicholas Branson was born on July 18, 1950, in Surrey, England. His father, Edward James Branson, worked as a barrister. His mother, Eve Branson, was employed as a flight attendant. Branson, who struggled with dyslexia, had a hard time with educational institutions. He nearly failed out of the all-boys Scaitcliffe School, which he attended until the age of 13. He then transferred to Stowe School, a boarding school in Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England.
1. Respect is how to treat everyone, not just those you want to impress.
2. If you don’t succeed at first, there’s no need for the F word (Failure). Pick yourself up and try, try again.
3. Life is a hell of a lot more fun if you say yes rather than no.
4. To me, business isn’t about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It’s about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials.
5. Fortunately we’re not a public company – we’re a private group of companies, and I can do what I want.
6. Building a business is not rocket science, it’s about having a great idea and seeing it through with integrity.
7. My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently un-achievable challenges, and trying to rise above them.
8. Education doesn’t just take place in stuffy classrooms and university buildings, it can happen everywhere, every day to every person.
9. Right now I’m just delighted to be alive and to have had a nice long bath.
10. Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines won’t make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa – and it’s about getting a balance.
11. Screw it. Let’s do it.
12. Entrepreneurial business favors the open mind. It favors people whose optimism drives them to prepare for many possible futures, pretty much purely for the joy of doing so.
13. The best way of learning about anything is by doing.
14. I think it’s quite great to set yourself a big challenge, and then you’ve got another reason for keeping fit.
15. A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.
16. Learn from failure. If you are an entrepreneur and your first venture wasn’t a success, welcome to the club!
17. If you spot an opportunity and are really excited by it, throw yourself into it with everything you’ve got.
18. Once a changemaker, always a changemaker but only a few swim against the tide.
19. My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day. I never do anything with a feeling of, ‘Oh God, I’ve got to do this today.
20. You never know with these things when you’re trying something new what can happen. This is all experimental.
21. My definition of success? The more you’re actively and practically engaged, the more successful you will feel.
22. Don’t become a slave to technology – manage your phone, don’t let it manage you.
23. Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.
24. Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.
25. There’s nothing like the endorphins from being fit, and the incredible endorphin rush that goes with that.
26. You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.
27. Engage your emotions at work. Your instincts and emotions are there to help you.
28. I don’t think of work as work and play as play, it’s all living.
29. I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn’t really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going.
30. Like getting into a bleeding competition with a blood bank.
31. We, we – as I say, we go in and shake up other industries and I think, you know, we do it differently and I think that industries are not quite the same as a result of Virgin attacking the market.
32. Well, I think that there’s a very thin dividing line between success and failure. And I think if you start a business without financial backing, you’re likely to go the wrong side of that dividing line.
33. Life is a series of ups and clowns. Make it worth your wild!
34. If you want to be a millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline.
35. Happiness is the secret ingredient for successful businesses. If you have a happy company it will be invincible.
36. You’ve got to take risks if you’re going to succeed. I would much rather ask forgiveness than permission.
37. You can’t do a good business with a bad person. Find the right people to work with and you can’t go wrong.
38. So I’ve seen life as one long learning process. And if I see – you know, if I fly on somebody else’s airline and find the experience is not a pleasant one, which it wasn’t in – years ago, then I’d think, well, you know, maybe I can create the kind of airline that I’d like to fly on.
39. My philosophy is that if I have any money I invest it in new ventures and not have it sitting around.
40. There is no greater thing you can do with your life and your work than follow your passions – in a way that serves the world and you.
41. If you’re hurt, lick your wound and get up again. If you’ve given it your absolute best, it’s time to move forward.
42. Don’t think what’s the cheapest way to do it or what’s the fastest way to do it…think ‘what’s the most amazing way to do it’.
43. Well, the odds must be against anybody being able to fly around the world in a balloon on the first attempt. All of us who are attempting to go around the world in balloons are effectively flying in experimental craft because these craft cannot be tested.
44. The funny thing is people won’t let me pay for things. I’ll be in a restaurant and the manager will say, ‘Oh no, it’s on the house.
45. Whatever business you are in, every company can shoot for the start in their own way.
46. Take a chance. It’s the best way to test yourself. Have fun and push boundaries.
47. The best advice I could give anyone is to spend your time working on whatever you are passionate about in life.
48. I cannot remember a moment in my life when I have not felt the love of my family. We were a family that would have killed for each other – and we still are.
49. A business is simply an idea to make other people’s lives better.
50. For a successful entrepreneur it can mean extreme wealth. But with extreme wealth comes extreme responsibility. And the responsibility for me is to invest in creating new businesses, create jobs, employ people, and to put money aside to tackle issues where we can make a difference.
51. Through the right people focusing on the right things, we can, in time, get on top of a lot if not most of the problems of this world. And that’s what a number of us are trying to do.
52. With the casino and the beds, our passengers will have at least two ways to get lucky on one of our flights.
53. When you’re first thinking through an idea, it’s important not to get bogged down in complexity. Thinking simply and clearly, is hard to do.
54. Entrepreneurship is about turning what excites you in life into capital, so that you can do more of it and move forward with it.
55. The balloons only have one life and the only way of finding out whether they work is to attempt to fly around the world.
56. Nobody’s ever called me Sir Richard. Occasionally in America, I hear people saying Sir Richard and think there’s some Shakespearean play taking place. But nowhere else anyway.
57. My mother was determined to make us independent. When I was four years old, she stopped the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields. I got hopelessly lost.
58. If you don’t have time for the small things, you won’t have time for the big things.
59. Remember it’s OK to be yourself.
60. Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.
