Richard Branson’s 65 lessons learned in business [Virgin]

Alana George submitted a ChallengeRichard request asking me to tweet 65 lessons learned in maintaining and/or starting a business. This is by no means a complete list – here are 65 of my top lessons learned in business.

1. Be passionate

2. Love what you do and do what you love

3. Dream and strive to achieve your dreams

4. Be your own champion

5. Be true to yourself

6. Treat others like you would like to be treated

7. Listen

8. Say what you mean and mean what you say

9. Get to the point, fast

10. Don’t take yourself too seriously

11. Be curious

12. Be alert and receptive to opportunities

13. Embrace the unplanned

14. Be optimistic

15. Share your ideas

16. Remember there’s no such thing as a bad idea

17. See a problem, fix it

18. Think like a customer

19. Say yes!

20. Screw it, just do it

21. Know when to say no

22. Challenge the status quo

23. Find a gap in the market

24. Produce something of use

25. Disrupt the market

26. Get the essentials right

27. Nail your executive summary

28. Treat business as an endurance race not a sprint

29. Think of innovation as an endless quest

30. Don’t get caught up in what’s trendy

31. Challenge peoples’ perceptions and possibilities

32. Take the constructive criticism and use it, and ignore the baseless cynicism

33. Think of failure as a hurdle not a dead-end

34. Learn by doing and failing over

35. Use past failures unlock future successes

36. Don’t focus on the past, plan for the future

37. Regard opportunities like buses – there’s always another one coming

38. Zag, occasionally

39. Make bold moves

40. Stand out from the crowd

41. Make sure your advertising is new, different, playful, and above all memorable

42. Tell stories

43. Celebrate your wins – big or small

44. Always respect, but never fear your competition

45. Play fair

46. Spend more time smiling than frowning and more time praising than criticising

47. Surround yourself with great people

48. Hire attitudes

49. Put your staff first

50. Empower your employees, don't rule over them

51. Support diversity in the workplace

52. Think of people as change-makers, not resources

53. Listen to your employees’/colleagues’ ideas

54. Understand and you will be understood

55. Lead from the front line

56. Give second chances

57. Delegate

58. Say thank you

59. Invest in employee wellbeing

60. Avoid making decisions in isolation

61. Work with family and friends

62. Operate with purpose

63. Make a difference

64. Find time to play

65. Remember the to-do list, but don't forget the to-be list

Curated from “Richard Branson's 65 lessons learned in business [Virgin]“