Richard Branson's Top 10 Rules for Success

Being dyslexic, I learned very early on the art of delegation. Now, I would say to anybody who's doing anything in life, and particularly running businesses or building businesses, whether you're dyslexic or not, you must learn the art of delegation. You must realize that you can't do everything yourself. You must really run your companies as if you've been run over the next day, and that you've got fantastic team of people to run the day-to-day running of it. I'm a great believer in getting a company set up And then 2 or 3 months later, you leave the building, you put somebody else in charge. I used to go back to my houseboat. If there's somebody else in charge in the building, then a lot of their time is going to be spent— people always want to see the top person in the company— just being polite to people. A lot of time is wasted being the top person, whereas you now are out of the building and you can start thinking about the bigger pictures and move into the next venture, or jumping in when there's firefighting that really needs you to fix it, or jumping in to put the company on the map. Unfortunately, I think I've managed to surround myself with great people over the years.

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Watch the Top 10 with the Believe Nation.

Hey, it's Evan Carmichael, and I watch these videos every day because I need them for motivation. Being around successful entrepreneurs every morning helps me believe that I can do great things too. It's like your morning coffee, but for your goals, kickstarting your day with a blast of positivity. So here is a challenge for you. Try watching one video every morning for the next 30 days, and let's find out together if they help you do great things too. If you're in, leave a hashtag #believe in the comments below so I can celebrate celebrate with you. So today, let's learn from one of the best, Richard Branson, and our take on his top 10 rules of success. Believe. Rule number 2 is develop your people skills.

I think the people skills is the most important skill. I think just giving, giving, you know, giving things a try. Screw it, let's do it, obviously, is a phrase I made years ago, and I've used that phrase many a time. Somebody comes with an idea and I like them and, yeah, just say, let's give it a go. And sometimes we all fall flat on our face. Sometimes it succeeds.

Rule number 3 is think globally.

People are apt to think that the world is the village they live in, or the town they live in, or the country they live in. In this day and age, the world is one world to a large extent. Obviously Trump's trying to stop that, but I mean, to a large extent, barriers have come down. The world is one world, and as business people, you should Try to think globally as much as you can, and if you come up with a brand and a product that is a global product, you know, try to make sure that your brand is going to work anywhere in the world. And, you know, if you've got a product that succeeds in one country, you know, take it overseas, and your market— the marketplace is enormous. And don't be frightened of going overseas. I mean, you know, Jamaica is no more frightening than Barbados, Barbados is no more frightening than London, London's no more frightening than Paris, and so on. In the end, it all depends on the people you find. And so when Chris Blackwell said to me, you know, stop being a pirate, become a legitimate business, and I said, okay, we'll come and compete with you legitimately. And actually, I think we built an even bigger record company than him. So it was a big mistake of to say that. But, you know, we were signing artists in the UK, but artists in the UK needed distribution in France and Germany and America and so on. So we went and set up companies around the world. And then, of course, we started signing local French acts and local German acts and local American acts. And in time, the record label became the largest independent label in the world. And if we hadn't thought globally, you know, we wouldn't have done anywhere nearly as well.

Rule number 4 is be optimistic.

There's a lady called Dr. Susan Albers who's done a lot of research into luck, and her findings are that optimistic people are luckier. Optimistic leaders get more luck. What do you think of that? I think that's almost definitely true. I mean, I'm a born optimist. I always look at the positive side of anything and everybody. I always look for the best in people. If there's somebody who works for Virgin, I will never criticize, always praise, always look for what they've done in a positive way. If they've done something which is, you know, which I'm not happy with, They don't need to be told. They'll know that they've messed up or something, and they'll make sure they don't do it again. So I think just general optimism is a really positive trait. And I think you'll be much more likely to fulfill your dreams if you look for the positive in everything.

Also, to make sure you're actually taking action after watching this video, I've designed a special free worksheet just for this video. The worksheet will highlight our favorite lessons from the video that will inspire you to remember what you learned today and actually apply them. The worksheet will also give you space to write down what your key takeaways are and your specific plan of action to make sure you're getting results. If you want the worksheet designed specifically for this video, absolutely for free, there's a link in the description below. Go click on it and start building the momentum in your life and your business. I'll see you there. Rule number 5 is believe in what you do.

If you believe in what you're doing, you know, many people will tell you, you know, why you're mistaken, why it'll never work, you know. But if you really believe passionately in what you're doing, just, just, you know, keep going, you know, keep pushing on, keep pushing on until you either succeed or at least you've, you know, you realize that, you know, it's just it's just not going to happen. And then if you don't succeed, pick yourself up and, you know, try again. And ultimately, you know, if you're that determined, you will succeed in life. And if you don't, you'll have a hell of a lot of fun trying.

Rule number 6 is aim for the top.

What are the weaknesses that you've kind of observed in yourself, or the things that you tend to delegate to other people? I actually read something which said, which is a quote of yours that said, I once did an IQ test at 8 years old. I don't think I filled in anything. Going forward 30 or so years, I was running Europe's largest private group of companies, but I didn't know the difference between gross and net profit. But it didn't matter.

Yes, I was in a board meeting when I was about 50 years old and And the director said, and I think I said, "Is that good news or bad news?" And one of the directors said, "Come outside, Richard, a minute." So came outside and he said, "You don't know the difference between net and gross, do you?" So I said, "No." He said, "I thought not. Anyway, I brought a sheet of paper." So he brings out this sheet of paper and he has some color pens and he colors it in blue and then he puts a fishing net in it and then he puts a little fish in the fishing net and he says, "So the fish that are in the net, that's your profit at the end of the year and the rest of the ocean, that's your gross turnover." And I went, "I've got it." And ever since then, I've been name-dropping net and gross to people who obviously know full well what it is. But the point of the story is, It really doesn't matter. I mean, it's a good idea most likely if your chief accountant knows. But, you know, for somebody who's running a company, what matters is can you, you know, can you create the best company in its sector? You know, if you're going to create an airline, is it going to be palpably better than the rival airline? If you create a cruise company, is it going to be palpably better than the other cruise companies? If you're going to create a train company, is it going to be palpably better than what's gone before? And if it is, then at the end of the year, it's likely that more money that will come in than goes out. And then somebody you know, somebody else can add up the figures. So I think, you know, to run a business, you know, yes, it helps to add up, it helps to subtract, it helps to multiply. I don't even think you need to worry about division. That's it. So, you know, so if you can do those three things, you can run a business. If you can't do those three things, I wouldn't worry too much. Find somebody else you can, but just go out and create something that's gonna make a positive difference to other people's lives.

Rule number 7 is screw it, just do it.

I'm a great believer in just, you know, just saying screw it, let's try it. I mean, as I was walking in, somebody was telling me that a friend of theirs called Rowan Gormley, you know, many, many, many years ago was in a, meeting with me and they were talking about, you know, he said, well, why don't we do financial services? And everybody in the room looked at him and went, you know, why on earth would Virgin be in financial services? And then Rowan said, because it's a, you know, because it's, you know, it's a dreadful industry. They try to rip you off. You know, it would be ripe for Virgin to go in and shake it up. And I went, "Yeah, let's do it." And Rowan went, "What do you mean let's do it?" I said, "Yeah, let's start it. You're now managing director of Virgin Financial Services, so go ahead and do it." And that's what he did. And many years later, yeah, Virgin Money grew and has been very successful. So I think, you know, just that screw it, let's do it mentality is very important.

Rule number 8 is use failure to self-educate.

For young people who are considering taking a leap when they have very little responsibility or think, you know, very little to lose, throwing themselves in that kind of— throwing themselves in a situation where they'll fail their way to an education struck me as being so important and so underrated. You don't have kids or you don't have a house or a mortgage, and it seems like that's exactly what you did. You used like failure and risk as a way to self-educate?

Yeah, I mean, it's difficult for me to recommend it to everybody listening to this program because not everyone's going to be successful. And obviously you and I have been fortunate that we have had success doing it that way. Some people, and I'm going to put my conservative hat on knowing that the parents may be listening as well, You know, some people will benefit from having an education, you know, degree or whatever to fall back on if they find that they just can't make a go of it in business. But anyway, I think for the two of us, I think the— yeah, being out in the real world, I mean, I learned so much and And it's held me in such good stead throughout my life. You know, in running a magazine, of course, you're going out interviewing people, you're learning every time you interview somebody. I think being a journalist or being an editor, it's not so different from being an entrepreneur. You're out all the time. Meeting new people in different sectors, just learning, learning, learning. Um, and, um, and, you know, through the magazine, uh, a lot of people would write with problems. Young people would write with problems. So we ended up setting up a student advisory center where we would, um, uh, give people advice on venereal disease or gay people, the gay population, or or contraceptive advice, abortion advice, psychiatric advice, you know, and, you know, just meeting all these people with all these different problems, suicidal, suicidal mental problems, really opened my mind. It was just a fascinating, fascinating education. And throughout my life since then, I've spent a lot of my life trying to address some of these issues in a, first of all, in a wider sense in London and now more on a global scale. And, but that was, you know, that education was so important. You know, for instance, I remember when I was 15 in London, somebody who was gay came to me saying that they wanted help. Maybe I just turned 16, and I thought very naively that when they said they wanted help, that, you know, they didn't want to be gay. Of course, you know, within a month or two, I realized that, you know, that people are born gay and they don't have a choice in the matter. And what they desperately needed in those days was to meet other gay people and 'Cause if they came from some remote place in the UK where gay people weren't accepted, they would come to London desperately seeking love or seeking friendship. And so, you know, just little things like that I learned from just being out there listening and doing.

Rule number 9 is live life to the fullest.

One time when you were doing hot air ballooning, you weren't sure whether you would survive. With the ballooning adventures, I was doing something that, um, that nobody had done before. Uh, I was, um, you know, trying to, you know, fly across the Atlantic or the Pacific or go around the world in a balloon. I was flying at, you know, 40,000 feet in the jet stream, um, you know, with one other person, Per Lindstrand, um, and And, you know, the technology was completely unproven. We were the test pilots. That was more dangerous. Things could go wrong and they did go wrong. You set a number of Guinness World Records for that. But in hindsight, do you have any regrets about taking those risks on the hot air balloon? It's interesting. You know, my son and daughter now are setting themselves big adventures every year. Dragging their dad along on some of them. You know, and I think as a family we feel, you know, live life, live life to its full. And, and, you know, you can, you know, you can, you can, you can die in a road accident, you can die on just a normal bike ride. And quite often when you're actually completely focused on an adventure, the— it's less likely in some way that you you're going to die in an adventure because you're ready and sharp and know how to deal with it.

And rule number 10, the last one before a very special bonus clip, is be a problem solver.

There are so many problems in this world. And trying to prioritize which problems to solve and which you just feel you don't have the energy for or the resources for is a really tough one, which is why we're trying to get every single business in this room, even if you're a really small business— I love this kid of whatever it was, 8, coming up to me and pitching me earlier in the corridor and giving me one of his products. He shouldn't give away the products. He must have sold them.

Anyway—

You're going to have trouble getting out of here now that someone knows that you were pitched in the corner. But I think that if every single person in this room can adopt at least one problem, and if it's just trying to find a roof over the person you keep walking by who's sleeping in the street every day, you know, going to your office, you know, something, you know, but just a, a problem in this world. Um, I think, um, you know, the— every single person in this room will feel, you know, that much better for it, you know, uh, in 50 years' time when they've looked back on their life and their careers. And, um, and obviously, as you— as businesses get bigger, you can, you can, you can, um, adopt bigger and bigger and bigger problems, and you can and use your entrepreneurial skills, your resources, your teams to take on some of the really big problems of this world. And I think we cannot let government try to sort the problems of the world out. They haven't got the entrepreneurial skills generally to do so. And it's great fun. I mean, you know, we have something called Audacious Ideas Gathering on Necker every year, where we get some of the more successful people together, and we get throughout the year, with TED, we get maybe 300 companies— sorry, 300 organizations to pitch, and then we choose 10 of the the most important things in the world to try to resolve, and then we go out to try to resolve them every year. You know, it could be a particular kind of blindness in Africa. You know, it could be, you know, how do we sort out methane leaks around the world? And, you know, can we use satellites to spot them and then alert the companies to these methane leaks? And so on. So, you know, so as you get— as your businesses get more successful, you become more entrepreneurially aware as to how to look at situations in this world. Then you get into a position where you can actually start tackling some of the bigger issues. Have you ever thought about going into space, Richard? I'd love to go into space. I think there have been It could be nothing nicer. So if you're building a spacecraft, I'd love to come with you on it. Welcome to witnesses. You're clear to unstrap. Welcome to space. To all you kids down there, I was once a child with a dream, looking up to the stars. Now I'm an adult in a spaceship with lots of other wonderful adults looking down to our beautiful, beautiful Earth. To the next generation of dreamers, if we can do this, just imagine what you can do. All right, everybody, look out the window. Don't miss Apogee. Oh my God. Woo! Oh my God, oh my God, oh, this is unbelievable. This is too unbelievable.

For 10 more amazing rules from Elon Musk, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there.

Failure. Never heard of it. There's your answer. Well, there's a ton of failures along the way, that's for sure. For SpaceX, first 3 launches failed, and we're just barely able to scrape together enough parts and money to do the 4th launch. If that 4th launch had failed, we would have been dead.