QUOTE APPRECIATION AND INSPIRATION: Richard Branson

He is the man with the cheeky chops smile but as most of you would be aware, Sir Richard Branson is a highly successful and flamboyant British entrepeneur who has built his Virgin empire to include over 360 different companies. 

I really admire the way he does business, he doesn't believe in doing things into the traditional business sense that they teach at universities, he believes a lot of that is rubbish, he believes in people having fun and enjoying themselves in their work - when he first started out people used to get offered almost double their pay to work for other companies but they refused because they just felt so good and fulfilled working for Richard Branson.

Now I won't go into his extensive background and biography, if you want to take a further interest you can view that here and view his own blog or this article is fabulous too. But I would like to inspire you with a few fabulous quotes by him:

• Right now I'm just delighted to be alive and to have had a nice long bath.

• I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn't really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going.

• A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.

• I have always lived my life by thriving on opportunity and adventure. Some of the best ideas come out of the blue, and you have to keep an open mind to see their virtue.

• Fantasizing about the future is one of my favourite pastimes.

• Well, I'm somebody who is just living...living life, and if I get frustrated by something, then I like to try to put it right

• Business opportunities are like buses, there`s always another one coming.

• Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines won't make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa - and it's about getting a balance.