Sir Richard Branson: Einblick­e in das Leben des Virgin-G­ründers

                                                                                                           , K12

Psychological profile
Sir Rrichard Branson

After I have had seen Sir Richard Branson´s video diary of his “around the world in 8 days trip” with his own airline I tried to find out more about this interesting and colourful personality. And here it is: The personality report about Sir Richard Branson, an English industrialist best known for his Virgin brand of over 360 companies.

Sir Richard Branson was born in 1950 at Stonefield Nursing Home in Blackheath in the south of London as the son of Edward James Branson and Eve Branson. His father worked as a barrister and his mother had a job in the theatre as a glider pilot instructor and worked as a flight attendant.

Branson was educated at Scaitcliffe School until the age of thirteen. He then attended Stowe School until he was fifteen. It was there that he set up Student magazine when he was 16. Branson has dyslexia and had poor academic performance as a student, but discovered his ability to connect with others.                                                                                  In 1970 he founded an audio record mail-order business and later on, in 1972, he opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records. The brand name “Virgin” had been chosen because Branson and his colleagues were all virgins to business.                                                                  With his flamboyant and competitive style, Branson's Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s - as he set up Virgin Atlantic Airways and expanded the Virgin Records music label. After this he founded a lot more Virgin businesses. But it would take more than one site to name all of them. Some of the businesses Branson has collected include:

In an intwerview he explained the reason for his success like this:       “My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them...from the perspective of wanting to live life to the full, I felt that I had to attempt it.” He sees his life as a learning curve where he has to try things and take risks to have a success. Also bad experiences are “good experiences” for him because he can learn of his faults and after a setback he picks himself up and has the possibility to try again. He always has a contingency plan. Branson is continuously seeking new business opportunities and loves a good challenge, especially when he enters a market that is dominated by a few major players. That are only some secrets of his success.

Branson is passionate about life and living every minute to its fullest. Since 1985 he has been getting his adrenaline rushes through world record breaking attempts by boat and hot air balloon. Several distance and speed records have been attempted and achieved, but his attempt to be the first person to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon was never achieved. Branson makes each record attempt a media event with his Virgin logo prominently displayed during every launch, which has been an excellent source of free advertising and brand placement for the Virgin Group.
"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.", are his own words about his life.
Branson gets some honours during his career. In 1999, for example, he was knighted for his "services to entrepreneurship" and became Sir Richard Branson. He is also the patron of several charities, including the International Rescue Corps and Prisoners Abroad, a registered charity which supports Britons who are detained outside of the UK.

Nowadays, Sir Richard Bransons is the236th richest person according to Forbes' 2008 list of billionaires, with an estimated net worth of approximately $4.4 billion US dollars.                                                     He is married to his second wife, Joan Templeman, with whom he has two children: Holly, a doctor, and Sam Branson. The couple wed, at Holly's suggestion when she was eight years old, in 1989 at Necker Island, a 74-acre (300,000 m²) island in the British Virgin Islands that Branson owns.

In the future Sir Richard Branson wants to help protecting the environment. He recently announced that the next ten years of profits from his transport business will be used to fight climate change. That will amount to something in the region of 3 billion US Dollars. And with his new Virgin Fuels business he hopes to improve and make new fuels such as cellulosic ethanol and biobutanol.
A quote of him: "I hope oil prices reach a hundred dollars per barrel soon."

After having watched his video diary and my researches I could say that I really like his appearance a lot. I´m really impressed of this man. He seems to be powerful and determined but also a loving father and husband.