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The Years I Would Have Spent At University, I Spent Building Student Magazine And Virgin Records. For Me That Was Far More Fun And Satisfying. I Have Treated Everyday As The University Education I Never Had And Think I Learnt More About Business And Life Than I Would Have At University In The Process.

-Richard Branson

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The Years I Would

Richard Branson

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The Years I Would Have Spent At University, I Spent Building Student Magazine And Virgin Records. For Me That Was Far More Fun And Satisfying. I Have Treated Everyday As The University Education I Never Had And Think I Learnt More About Business And Life Than I Would Have At University In The Process.

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I Think That You're Going To Get So Much More Out Of Life If You Just Say Yes At Every Opportunity.

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Fortunately We're Not A Public Company - We're A Private Group Of Companies, And I Can Do What I Want.

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When People Screw Up, Give Them A Second Chance.

If You Are Seizing On A New Business Opportunity, Deliberately Move Your Customers' Expectations Up A Few Notches And Consistently Over-deliver On Your Promises - You Will Leave Your Competitors Struggling To Catch Up.

I Don't Think So, In That Virgin Is Already A Global Brand. Brands Like Amazon Have Had To Spend Hundreds Of Millions Of Pounds You Know, Building Their Brands, Whereas Virgin Is Already Well-known Around The World.

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Irreverence Ran On Both Sides Of Our Family...my Parents Brought Me Up To Think We Could All Change The World.

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When Something Doesn't Go Exactly To Plan, Money Is Tight Or A Business Is Struggling - See It As A Challenge Rather Than A Failure. Look Outside The Box And Try And Find A Solution - You'll Be Surprised How Many Great Opportunities And Possibilities Arise When Things Look Bad. You've Just Got To Open Your Mind And Not Be Afraid Of Sticking Your Neck Out!

If You Find Yourself Stuck In The Middle There Is Only One Way To Go, Forward.

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Screw The Competition - Focus On Good Customer Service.

Good Customer Service

Ideas Are The Lifeblood Of Business. Capture Every Fleeting Idea And Drive For Change.

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If You Want To Be A Millionaire, Start With A Billion Dollars And Launch A New Airline.

Running A Business Is Making A Difference In People's Lives

I Have Always Lived My Life By Making Lists: Lists Of People To Call, Lists Of Ideas, Lists Of Companies To Set Up, Lists Of People Who Can Make Things Happen. Each Day I Work Through These Lists, And That Sequence Of Calls Propels Me Forward.

I Definitely Go On Gut Instinct But It Has Always Had The Back Up Of Research And Information.

Have Passion For What You Do; Believe In Yourself And Your Product And Your Customer; Persevere; Delegate; Listen. Have Fun. Today, I Add: "do Good".

If You're Bringing Up Kids, You Just Want To Smother Them With Love And Praise And Enthusiasm. So I Don't Think You Can Mollycoddle Your Kids Too Much Really.

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I Think Bands Will Actually Make More Money Without Record Companies; A Much Bigger Share Of The Money Will Go To The Bands. You Won't Have Record Shops Taking 40 Percent Of The Money. You Won't Have Record Labels Taking 40 Percent Of The Money. So They Don't Have To Sell As Many Albums As They Used To In The Past. So It's Not Necessarily A Bad Thing If Record Companies Disappear.

In Times Of Recession There Are Massive Opportunities And Fortunes To Be Made, So For New Up And Coming Entrepreneurs, This Is The Time To Go And Start A Business.

We All Are Now Very Aware Of What A Connected World We Live In - Connected To Each Other And To The Earth That Gives Us Everything We Have. We Need All Countries And Companies To Step Up And Play Their Part - Setting Strong Goals, Having Clear Plans, And Openly Demonstrating Progress.

Everything In Your Business Can Be Outsourced... If You're Not Emotionally Attached To Doing It All.

We Experiment Endlessly, With New Products, New Methods, New Companies And New Marketing. A Successful Business The Emphasis Is On Experiment And Development, Ideas Are The Lifeblood Of Business.

I Have Learnt So Much Over My 40 Years Of Business Which Would Have Been Valuable To Me When I Was Younger.

There Is No Such Thing As A Boring Person: Everyone Has Stories And Insights Worth Sharing. While On The Road, We Let Our Phones Or Laptops Take Up Our Attention. By Doing That, We Might Miss Out On The Chance To Learn And Absorb Ideas And Inspiration From An Unexpected Source: Our Fellow Travelers.

With Space Travel, [it's] No Different. You Know, In 1990 I Read The Name Virgin Galactic Airways. Loved The Name. And Set Out To Try To Find An Engineer Or Rocket Scientist In The World Who Could Build A Safe, Reusable Rocket That Could Take People To And From Space And We Could Start A Whole New Era Of Commercial Space Travel.

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.

Most "necessary Evils" Are Far More Evil Than Necessary.

Learning And Leadership Go Together. Too Much Credit Goes To Me For What We Have Achieved At Virgin But The Successes Happen From Working And Learning With Some Of The World's Most Inspiring And Inspired People.

Wine, Like Life, Is Meant To Be Enjoyed.

I Think Sometimes When You Come From A Conservative Background, You Want To Rebel A Little Bit. I Dropped Out Of School At 15 And Learned Early In Life That Saying Yes Was A Lot More Fun Than Saying No. If You Have The Opportunity To Explore The Skies And Attempt Something People Haven't Done Before - Well, I Was Damned If I Was Going To Sit Around Watching Television While Someone Else Was Doing It.

There Are Quite A Few Things I've Done That Even I Thought Might Have Been One Step Too Far. But If You Are Willing To Make A Fool Of Yourself And Make People Smile, As Long As You Do It With A Sense Of Fun, You Can Get Away With It.

Entrepreneursh Ip Is Not About Getting One Over On The Customer. It’s Not About Working On Your Own. It’s Not About Looking Out For Number One. It’s Not Necessarily About Making A Lot Of Money. It Is Absolutely Not About Letting Work Take Over Your Life. On The Contrary, It’s About Turning What Excites You In Life Into Capital, So That You Can Do More Of It And Move Forward With It.

If I'm Setting Up A New Business I'll Spend Three Or Four Months Learning Everything There Is About That Business, Everything There Is About That Subject And Then I Will Find Good People To Run It On A Day-to-day Basis, But Whilst They're Running It At Least I Know What They're Talking About When They Come Back To Me.

Colleagues Should Take Care Of Each Other, Have Fun, Celebrate Success, Learn By Failure, Look For Reasons To Praise Not To Criticize, Communicate Freely And Respect Each Other.

What's The Quickest Way To Become A Millionaire? Borrow Fivers Off Everyone You Meet.

Drive, Determination, Passion And Hard Work Are All Free And More Valuable Than A Pot Of Cash.

Take The Competition Seriously, But Not Yourself.

We Hope To Create Thousands Of Astronauts Over The Next Few Years And Bring Alive Their Dream Of Seeing The Majestic Beauty Of Our Planet From Above, The Stars In All Their Glory And The Amazing Sensations Of Weightlessness And Space Flight.

Breaking The Rules And Challenging Convention Is In The Dna Of Every Successful Entrepreneur. Doing Things Differently And Solving Problems With New, Innovative And Fresh Approaches Are The Very Reason Many Start-ups Are Able To Compete And Sometimes Outpace The Established Market Leaders.

I'm A Lad Of The '60s. I Started A Magazine To Try And End The Vietnam War, But It Was A Number Of Years Before I Had The Profile, The Financial Resources And The Time To Do More.

Any Successful Entrepreneur Knows That Time Is More Valuable Than Money Itself.

If You Do Something For Fun And Create The Best Possible Product, Then The Profit Will Come.

It's Obviously Incredibly Important To Keep The Body Fit In Order To Keep The Mind Fit, And Be Able To Find Time For Friends.

My Mother Always Taught Me Never To Look Back In Regret But To Move On To The Next Thing. The Amount Of Time People Waste Dwelling On Failures Rather Than Putting That Energy Into Another Project, Always Amazes Me. I Have Fun Running All The Virgin Businesses-so A Setback Is Never A Bad Experience, Just A Learning Curve.

I Have Always Been A Huge Believer In The Inestimable Value Good Mentoring Can Contribute To Any Nascent Business

I Think It's Quite Great To Set Yourself A Big Challenge And Then You've Got Another Reason For Keeping Fit.

I Will Work Day And Night To Avoid Failure, But If I Can't, I'll Pick Myself Up The Next Day. The Most Important Thing For Entrepreneurs Is Not To Be Put Off By Failure.

You're Offering A Great Service. People Are Tuning In. So Continue To Find Great People, Continue To Do What You're Doing. And Do It Better Than Your Rivals. I Know That's Easier Said Than Done.

I've Been Lucky To Have Survived Balloon Trips, Boating Trips, You Know, A Lot Of Rather Foolish Things In My Life, So I Was Definitely Born Under A Lucky Star.

I Learnt Earlier On That If You Can Run One Company.you Can Really Run Any Company.a Company Is All About Finding The Right People And Inspiring Those People,drawing Out The Best In People

Chance Favors The Prepared Mind. The More You Practice, The Luckier You Become.

People Flourish If They’re Praised.

We'd Love To Be Involved With The Creation Of Something Very Special, Something Quite Large And Something Quite Exciting.

Success Comes From Delegating, Risk-taking And Having A Good Team!

If You Don't Succeed At First, There's No Need For The F Word (failure). Pick Yourself Up And Try, Try Again.

There Isn't A Flight Goes By When I Don't Stare Out Of The Window And Thank My Stars For What I'm Seeing And Feeling.

I Just Like To Enjoy Life And Push Myself. Of Course, There Is Method To My Madness. When You Are Entering Into A New Industry, For Example, It Helps To Do Something To Get Your Name On The Front Pages.

Every Business, Like A Painting, Operates According To Its Own Rules. There Are Many Ways To Run A Successful Company. What Works Once May Never Work Again. What Everyone Tells You Never To Do May Just Work, Once.

When People Warn Me Against Doing Something Once My Mind Is Made Up, I Grow Increasingly Determined To Try It.

Happiness Doesn't Come From Making A Fortune And Owning Lots Of Possessions. 'stuff' Doesn't Bring Happiness. Family, Friends, Good Health And The Satisfaction That Comes From Making A Positive Difference Are What Really Matter.

I'm Not The Sort Of Person Who Fears Failure.

Being An Entrepreneur Simply Means Being Someone Who Wants To Make A Difference To Other People's Lives.

Virgin, Is How Good You Are With People. If You're - If You're Good With People And You've Got - You Know, And You Really Care, Genuinely Care About People Then I'm Sure We Could Find A Job For You At Virgin. I Think, You Know, That, You Know, That The Companies That Look After Their People Are The Companies That Do Really Well. I'm Sure We'd Like A Few Other Attributes, But That Would Be The Most Important One.

When You Are Starting A Business Or Going Down Any Challenging Endeavor, You Are Bound To Encounter Challenges. You Are Going To Hit Many Roadblocks And Obstacles. These Are Obstacles That Would Make Any Sane Person Want To Throw In The Towel And Quit. If You Want Your Business To Succeed, You Can’t Do That (duh).

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Stanley Milgram

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