A company is simply a group of people. And as a leader of people, you have to be a great listener, you have to be a great motivator, you have to be very good at praising and looking for the best in people. People are no different from flowers. If you water flowers, they flourish. If you praise people, they flourish. That's a critical attribute of a leader.
Richard BransonI also know, as an entrepreneur myself, you face new obstacles every day and you need to have the perseverance to see them through.
Richard BransonPerhaps my early problems with dyslexia made me more intuitive: when someone sends me a written proposal, rather than dwelling on detailed facts and figures I find that my imagination grasps and expands on what I read.
Richard BransonI've used the Phoenix Centrifuge to replicate what the body's going to go through on the flight up. I've also done some gravity tests with ZERO-G [a charter-flight service in Arlington, Va., that uses modified Boeing 727s to simulate weightlessness], which went great.
Richard Branson