My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself

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.

Flowers flourish when they're watered, and shrivel up when they're not. People are no different. The best leaders are the ones who look for the best in people.

Meet regularly with your business team and brainstorm. Intricate business problems are mostly resolved at brainstorming sessions.

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 you get into entrepreneurshi p driven by profit, you are a lot more likely to fail. The entrepreneurs who succeed usually want to make a difference to people’s lives, not just their own bank balances. The desire to change things for the better is the motivation for taking risks and pursuing seemingly impossible business ideas.

Seek out strategic alliances; they are essential to growth and provide resistance to bigger competition.