If you have conflicts, everything breaks down in society. Kids can't go to school. Basic health can't be looked after. Every aspect of society falls apart.

It's really important to find an hour or two to a day to make sure that you keep healthy, keep fit. It's very easy just to forget that aspect. And if you're feeling really good and fit, I think you can get two or three extra hours a day of hard work in as well.

Sometimes I do wake up in the mornings and feel like I've just had the most incredible dream. I've just dreamt my life

What we are trying to do at Virgin is not to have one enormous company in one sector under one banner, but to have two hundred or even three hundred separate companies. Each company can stand on its own feet and, in that way, although we've got a brand that links them, if we were to have another tragedy such as that of 11 September - which hurt the airline industry - it would not bring the whole group crashing down.

I think great businessmen are more likely made than born. I don't know if it's from your upbringing, your parental background, the struggles you go through. In my own particular situation, I left school at 15 and I was struggling to survive in the jungle and that was a great education. So I think just getting out there, hands on, learning to survive teaches you a lot.

I’ve always had a soft spot for dreamers – not those who waste their time thinking ‘what if’ but the ones who look to the sky and say ‘why can’t I shoot for the moon?’

Allowing my people to have a good work-life balance by working flexibly is very important to me.