It's far more difficult being a small-business owner starting a business than it is for me with thousands of people working for us and 400 companies. Building a business from scratch is 24 hours, 7 days a week, divorces, it's difficult to hold your family life together, it's bloody hard work and only one word really matters - and that's surviving.

Having a personality of caring about people is important. You can’t be a good leader unless you generally like people. That is how you bring out the best in them.

All you have in life is your reputation: you may be very rich, but if you lose your good name, then you'll never be happy. The thought will always lurk at the back of your mind that people don't trust you.

Life is a helluva lot more fun if you say yes rather than no

I never really felt secure until I was well into my 30s, because anytime I had success, I would invest in new projects.

And you know, I've had great fun turning quite a lot of different industries on their head and making sure those industries will never be the same again, because Virgin went in and took them on.

Your brand or your name is simply your reputation, you have to fight in life to protect that as it means everything. Nothing is more important.