His words tumble out slowly and at times repetitively, without the groomed articulation that one might expect of a global magnate whose job is also to be the poster boy of his empire. He continuously fiddles with a sugar pot. Up close, he seems wirier than in pictures, and save for the iconic long hair and beard, the 65-year-old Brit on the other side of the table looks nothing like one of the world's most influential billionaires.
Sir Richard Branson poses with members of his Virgin Radio staff.
But looks can be deceiving and within the half-day that Sir Richard Branson was in Bangkok, (his first visit to Thailand) two weeks ago, he energetically gallivanted around town in high spirits. Branson met bigwig investors, gave a televised press conference, caused some mischief down at Virgin Radio, frolicked around with hundreds of his staff at Virgin Active, spared Life a few minutes for an interview, took hundreds of selfies with adoring fans and received a tour of EmQuartier, before jetting off to lobby for the conservation of some endangered animal species in Vietnam.
So, just imagine what Branson squeezes into six months of travelling. His schedule tends to revolve around flying all over the world to make media appearances, fighting for various social causes, and, of course, checking up on his Virgin conglomerate -- which consists of over 400 companies in various fields of entertainment, hospitality, aviation and the fitness centres that are popping up like mushrooms on Bangkok turf.
Another six Virgin Active clubs will be opening in the next three years, with three already up and running at Empire Tower, EmQuartier and Central WestGate. He's going full-throttle in the direction of health and fitness in Southeast Asia, but hints that his airline, Virgin Atlantic, and chain of hotels in the US, Virgin Hotels, will also find their way to Thai shores soon too.
Sir Richard Branson.
To keep his drive as the king of fun and feel-good, factors all his businesses flaunt, Branson's secret is to simply practice what he preaches. Faithfully sticking to his mantra that an active lifestyle equates to happiness, the catchphrase his club pumps out religiously, the entrepreneur exercises daily even though there is no Virgin Active club on the Virgin Islands, where he lives.
Kitesurfing and a bit of tennis are his cup of tea, but even when he's on trips, he tries to find the time to get at least an hour in every day. "If there's no gym where I'm travelling, then I get on a bike or go for a long walk," he said.
"Every year, my son and I set ourselves a big challenge. Last year we went on a big adventure across Europe biking, walking, hiking, running and climbing mountains. We also kitesurfed across the English Channel. Having an adventure to train for is good. If you can just feel physically ready and fit, you can get an extra three hours a day whatever you're doing."
By "Disneyfying" the working out experience, Branson's clubs are a popular wonderland -- and it seems to work well here, with Thai customers visiting the clubs two-and-a-half times more compared to the other Virgin clubs around the world. He fondly attributes its success to a strong team, which he appreciatively stresses many times during the conversation.
"I think basically finding and surrounding yourself with people who are better than you or balance you and giving them lots of freedom to create wonderful things leads to success," he reflects.
"Generally, the best will always succeed because you're not going to find another club around the corner that will put you out of business. You've got to be the best and you've got to get the best people. If you create the best, all your people will be highly motivated and proud to work with you."
And success can be contagious. Following the success of his clubs that first opened in the UK, Nelson Mandela rang Branson up, asking him to come rescue the clubs in South Africa in 2000.
"He said, 'A lot of health clubs are going bankrupt in South Africa and I want you to get on the next plane to come and rescue them'. We did end up rescuing them, by reinvesting into them and re-inspiring the team of people who were very demotivated when they went bankrupt. If you're successful at one thing, it makes it easier to become successful in the next. Otherwise, Mandela may not have phoned us in the first place."
Without a doubt, Branson's degree-free success makes him the lighthouse Gen Y-ers want to swim toward, much like how other school dropouts, like Gates and Zuckerberg, also inspired a new era of business start-ups.
Asked whether it really is plausible for anyone to drop out of the system like he did and make it big time, he's careful to not suggest skipping education.
"College is really an insurance system against failure," said Branson, who's also dyslexic. "But if you want to be an entrepreneur, I suspect the best way to become an entrepreneur is to just get out and create things in a real life situation. And you're not necessarily going to succeed, but you're going to learn a lot more than in college by trying. But it's difficult, I don't want to advise people to not go to college."
Drawing on his own experience of starting his first venture at 16, a youth-culture magazine called Student, he concludes that it's all in staying gutsy and starting early.
"If you do go to college, the most important thing is that when you leave college at 22, you don't become conservative. At 16, you don't have anything to lose: you don't have a mortgage, a girlfriend/boyfriend and you can just try and be brave. By the time you're 22, you may have a mortgage and you may start having children so you become risk-averse. The sooner you start, the bigger risks you'll take."
In 10 years from now, the grandfather of three sees himself as an astronaut, with hopes that his space programme will get back on track next year. But in the near future, he shows no signs of slowing down, mostly so profits he gains goes to crusades he believes in, from gay rights to drug reform.
"I think with wealth comes great responsibility," he states, after sharing his plans about meeting up with Elton John back in England to influence countries that "do not behave well towards gay people".
"It's an enormous responsibility to reinvest that wealth, trying to sort out problems of the world in your local community and country. It's important that entrepreneurs understand that, because they can transform so many lives, and not just by using their money, but using their entrepreneurial skills to look at how best to solve a problem they might have in business. Problems in this world can be solved if you think of them in an entrepreneurial way. If every business can be a force for good, most problems in this world can be solved."
