Richard Branson left school at 16 and started his student magazine with his friends. At 20, he launched Virgin Records (a future multi-million dollar business) and founded the Virgin Group. At 30, he created Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Mobile, and Virgin Trains. His company Virgin Galactic is one of only two companies in the world involved in space tourism.
On July 18, 1950, Richard Charles Nicholas Branson entered the world in Surrey, England. Edward James Branson Sr. was a barrister and the father of Richard. His mom, Eve Branson, was a pilot’s stewardess. Because of his dyslexia, Branson had a difficult time in traditional classroom settings. He attended the all-boys Scaitcliffe School until he was 13, and he almost dropped out. Soon after, he enrolled at Stowe School, a boarding institution in the English town of Stowe, Buckinghamshire.
Branson, still having difficulty, left school at 16 to launch a youth culture journal called Student. The student-run journal made $8,000 in its first year of production (1966) from advertising sales. Branson covered the cost of the initial distribution of 50,000 copies through advertising revenue.
By 1969, Branson was immersed in British music and drug culture from his home in a London commune. To support his magazine endeavors, Branson came up with the concept of starting a mail-order record firm called Virgin about this time. The business did moderately well, enough so that Branson decided to open a record store on London’s fashionable Oxford Street. The profitability of the store allowed the high school dropout to construct a recording studio in Oxfordshire, England, in 1972.
Richard Branson is one of Britain’s most successful businessmen and an entrepreneurial guru who has written several books, one of which we have reviewed. In this article, an essay writer from paper help review service retells ten secrets of his success.
1. Follow your dream
If you start a business, ensure it’s related to your hobby, passion, or something you enjoy. Start a trade for something other than the money. Many people have great ideas, but only a few can bring them to life.
Many also think that their ideas have been implemented for a long time and will fail, and they will go bankrupt, and generally, such risks are a pointless waste of time. When I tried to get an interview for my student magazine, I wrote to every celebrity I knew. Only a few people replied. But they did!
2. Your business must make people’s lives better
Your business must give people something special – so they cannot imagine how they had lived without it. Remember that business is your opportunity to make a difference in the world. This makes it easier for you and your team to get involved.
3. Believe in your ideas
An idea should become a passion. In addition, you must learn to communicate your love to others. If the argument is excellent, you should be able to describe it in two or three sentences. Also, your idea has to be better in some ways than competitive ideas.
It didn’t make sense for me to create another airline just like the others. So I started an airline that is better than all the competitors.
4. Have fun and respect your team
I am 100% sure that if you don’t enjoy your business, it’s a sign that you need to move on. As we’ve learned from Richard Branson, enjoyment is the most essential part of any job. And enjoyment is not just yours, but that of your team. Ensure your managers care about their subordinates as much as you do.
5. Don’t give up
It’s important not to give up the first time you lose. And there will be losses! When crossing the Pacific Ocean in a hot air balloon, all circumstances were against me, and the desire to give up was very appealing. The life of an entrepreneur is a lot like that of a traveler.
There are many situations where you are backed up against a wall, and the chance of a solution seems slim to none. Do your best to overcome this feeling and return the next day with renewed vigor.
6. Create lists and challenge yourself
I create dozens of lists every day. And this is what separates the successful entrepreneur from the average entrepreneur. The details should be more important to pay attention to.
Setting yourself new goals, however small, is very important. You need both long-term and short-term goals. At the beginning of the year, write down goals for the whole year, at the beginning of the month for the next month, and so on. This will allow you to improve and go further continually.
7. Spend time with your family and learn to delegate tasks
One of the things you need to learn early on in your business journey is how to delegate tasks. Find people who are better at something than you are and delegate tasks to them. This will free up some time for you to think about the big picture of the business and your family. Spending time with your family is very important, especially if you have children.
I know I’m a good entrepreneur, but I wonder if I’d be a good company manager. They are different things. My thoughts are always on the future; my main desire is to create something new, not dwell on the present. That’s why I have found people who run my company while I plan for the future.
8. Forget the TV
“Poor people have big TVs and small libraries; rich people have small TVs and huge libraries.”
My mother taught us as a child not to follow other people’s lives but to live our own, for which I am very grateful. Now, with children of my own, I spend as little time watching TV as possible and devote as much attention as possible to beneficial things.
9. If people say bad things about you, prove them wrong
We are familiar with those who get on the tail of your success or failure and try to cash in on it. If you know criticism is unjustified, do your best to prove it. Or ignore such people.
10. Do what you love and put the couch in the kitchen
Life only comes once, so I will only do what I love. I advise you to do the same. You might think this is funny to hear from someone who owns an island in the Caribbean, but I spent most of my life on the couch in the kitchen. And even then, I was happy.
As we’ve learned from Richard Branson, the secret of happiness is simple: if you have a kitchen that fits a sofa, a bedroom, and a person you love, everything else is unimportant. However, if, on top of that, you do something you enjoy, the results will surpass all expectations.
