My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long University education that I never had - everyday I'm learning something new.

Coming up with the bucket list is the easy part, but ticking off the list is the challenge. I love a good challenge, which is why I strongly advise everyone to come up with a bucket list. It doesn't have to contain out of this world tasks. But once you have written down the list, screw it, just do it!

Well, the odds must be against anybody being able to fly around the world in a balloon on the first attempt. All of us who are attempting to go around the world in balloons are effectively flying in experimental craft because these craft cannot be tested.

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.

In the same way that I tend to make up my mind about people within thirty seconds of meeting them, I also make up my mind about whether a business proposal excites me within about thirty seconds of looking at it. I rely far more on gut instinct than researching huge amounts of statistics.

I never learned the rules in the first place. To change the game is at the heart of what Virgin stands for, so the company culture has always been: "Don't sweat it: rules were meant to be broken."

So I became a publisher by mistake - well, not quite by mistake, because I wanted to be an editor but I had to make sure the magazine would survive. The point is this: Most businesses fail, so if you're going to succeed, it has to be about more than making money.