A Big birthday for Richard Branson

Richard Branson, Photo from LinkedIn.com

One of my all-time favorite entrepreneurs is Richard Branson, (Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson to be exact) the UK Billionaire who dropped out of school at 16 years old to later launch Virgin records.

His birthday is tomorrow, July 18th, so let’s all wish him a VERY happy 65th. Not that he’ll EVER retire!

Branson  founded Virgin Group, which includes 400 companies in 30 countries. His personal net worth is $4.8 Billion, but his influence far exceeds his wealth. For example, on LinkedIn he is the #1 influencer there, with 8,137,000+ followers.

His latest ventures include suborbital space tourism, and writing witty books. He may even have a few more books coming, having recently penned The Virgin Way: How to listen, learn, laugh and lead.

Career and Entrepreneur Skills
Like Benjamin Franklin, one of Branson’s first ventures was launching a magazine, called Student. he knew early on that publishing was a fast way to success.

By the time he was 23, his publishing ventures had turned to music, when he launched Virgin Records and signed his first artist Mike Olfield, who had the smash hit ”Tubular Bells.”

Branson’s key career skill is defining his unique career identity, which expresses itself in his many roles: adventurer, entrepreneur and now philanthropist. His values guide his career path. He talks a lot about his values and  how the Branson brand thrives by having purpose

This is why one of the longest chapters in Define Your Career Destiny Course is about vetting your values – so you can clarify your business purpose to guide your career choices, like Branson has done so spectacularly.

His sense of adventure permeates everything he does, in both business and personal ventures. You can sometimes find him high above the earth in flight.

To learn more about Branson – including some great photos – go to  Virgin.com/richard-branson

Enjoy the ride.