Tubular Bells is one of those iconic 1960s songs that summed up the mood of its time: laidback and non-conformist. This is no doubt the quality Richard Branson was so taken by when he signed songwriter Mike Oldfield to his fledgling music label – Virgin Records – in 1973, a year after the label was formed.

Like Oldfield, Branson was a little different, unfazed by British conservatism and unwilling to listen to those without vision. But through his ability to see what others couldn’t – and indeed his faith when there was none – Branson kickstarted his career and made stars of both men.

Never mind the bollocks
The Branson legend was born on the banks of the Thames river. The Sex Pistols, another band nobody was prepared to touch, floated down the Thames blaring anti-royalist tune God Save the Queen. Sitting in the wings was the entrepreneur, champagne in hand ready to count the money the publicity would generate.

It would seem that Branson holds an anti-establishment attitude, but it is not so much about thumbing the nose at established values, it is about challenging those values. For Branson, personal growth, development, whatever you like to call it, is about going beyond your boundaries. “And obviously, from our own personal point of view, the principal challenge is a personal challenge,” he says.
His personal challenges began early. Branson had started his first business at age 15, a magazine called Student. He was encouraged by his family in all facets of his growth. Family is an entity he still holds close to his heart. “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.”

And although his mother never killed her children, she was determined to make them fiercely 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.”

Early encouragement was found on school grounds also. The very stoic Stowe School is famous for nurturing individuals and independence and known for celebrating the values of English Enlightenment.

It was 1984, when the next big challenge emerged: Atlantic Airlines. Critics said it couldn’t work, Branson proved them wrong. But how many of us know about Virgin’s limousine companies and wine business and trains, and its enterprises that rent bikes, make cosmetics, operate bridal shops, run health clubs, sell holidays,
offer balloon flights, and market lingerie.

So many diverse industries couldn’t possibly come under one banner. Said one prominent academic: “A brand can’t stand for music stores, airlines, mobile phones, colas, financial services, and on and on. There’s no brand on earth that can do that. That’s ego.” Yet Branson doesn’t see Virgin as a specialist company, instead he refers to his interests as branded venture capital and the intellectual property he has amassed is part of his evolving learning curve.

However, headmaster at Stowe found Branson to be an enigma even then, telling the schoolboy that he would wind up either a millionaire or in jail. Branson believes it was jail first. He has been behind bars twice, the first time after being charged under the 1889 Venereal Disease Act for publicly displaying the words “venereal disease”. The fact it happened to be for a centre that helped underprivileged children didn’t seem to have any impact on a conservative government. The second time was for using the word ‘bollocks’ on the Sex Pistols album. At trial it was revealed that ‘bollocks’ was a word that was used to describe priests. The key witness was an academic priest, who explained that linguistically the title of the album was Never Mind the Priest, Here Comes the Sex Pistols. The judge had no choice but to reluctantly dismiss the case.

Although he was a high school drop-out (at 15), and by his own admission dyslexic with a failure to understand school work, an enlightened Branson had begun three businesses before the age of 20 and was already the subject of a television documentary. He says of starting up his magazine, “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 to keep my magazine going.”

That knack for seeing what others couldn’t and for going places that others wouldn’t was evident in the many successful signings to Virgin Records: Simple Minds, Bryan Ferry, Phil Collins, Steve Winwood and even the Rolling Stones helped Virgin Music Group become a billion dollar company: in 1991 Branson sold to Thorn EMI for US$1 billion.

Glittering prizes
Virgin Music was the tip of the iceberg. Not one to rest on his laurels, and not one to count the money, the next challenge, and the next, and the next would transform the entrepreneur into one of the world‘s most successful entrepreneurs.
It was 1984, when the next big challenge emerged: Atlantic Airlines. Critics said it couldn’t work, Branson proved them wrong. But how many of us know about Virgin’s limousine companies and wine business and trains, and its enterprises that rent bikes, make cosmetics, operate bridal shops, run health clubs, sell holidays,
offer balloon flights, and market lingerie.

So many diverse industries couldn’t possibly come under one banner. Said one prominent academic: “A brand can’t stand for music stores, airlines, mobile phones, colas, financial services, and on and on. There’s no brand on earth that can do that. That’s ego.” Yet Branson doesn’t see Virgin as a specialist company, instead he refers to his interests as branded venture capital and the intellectual property he has amassed is part of his evolving learning curve.

“I see life almost like one long university education that I never had – every day I’m learning something new. When you talk about a company, it is a living, thriving thing and it keeps the world going around.

“And for me to learn about everything there is to learn about life, whether it is how the airline business works, how the music industry works, how artists tick, I just find it all absolutely fascinating.”

The growth of Virgin mirrors that of its creator: as Branson transcends and grows so too does Virgin. There is however one constant in this growth, it is the opposition to conventional wisdom. He told Inc. Magazine, “The conventional wisdom is you should specialise in what you know and never stray from that, but no other brand has become a way-of-life brand the way Virgin has. And it wasn’t us setting out to become a way-of-life brand, it was me continually being interested in learning new things. We’ve got people all over the world who are coming up with great new ideas, and trying them doesn’t actually cost us a lot relative to the overall size of the group.”

No jacket required
If Virgin is synonymous with being innovative, Branson is synonymous with being an innovative stuntman. Since 1985, Branson has actively engaged in his vocations and been involved in a number of record-breaking land and air speed and distance attempts.

In 1986, his boat, ‘Virgin Atlantic Challenger II’, crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the fastest recorded time ever. One year later, the hot air balloon called the ‘Virgin Atlantic Flyer’ was the first hot air balloon ever to cross the Atlantic Ocean, and was the largest ever flown at 2.3 million cubic feet capacity, reaching speeds in excess of 130 mph.

In 1991, Branson crossed the Pacific Ocean from Japan to Arctic Canada, the furthest distance of 6,700 miles, again breaking all existing records with speeds of up to 245 mph in a balloon measuring 2.6 million cubic feet. Then there was the time he drove a WW2 tank into Times Square, New York, donned a wedding dress for the launch of Virgin Brides. In Pitt St, Sydney in 2000 he hung from a helicopter for a press conference and repeated his tank stunt. In the ultimate irony he tore up a cheque he claimed was from Ansett Airlines declaring Virgin Blue was not for sale.
The stunts may attract an inordinate amount of publicity for the business, but there is no doubt he does it for the thrill and challenge. And though the growth of his businesses has afforded him a certain luxury, he has maintained the philosophy he began with.

“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.”

He is known for what he terms capitalist philanthropy; he has no problem sharing the wealth with the myriad causes he supports. There is nothing sinister behind the support, like all his ventures he has gone with his gut, he has challenged himself to make a difference and has taken conservativism and turned it on its head.

His success and personal growth are unified because he has something that is of incalculable value – a never ending supply of ideas and the bollocks to implement them.