For many of us, weary travellers in the journeys of our lives, I am sure we have experienced many snags and jams and derails. Thinking of brilliant solutions to emotional, financial and physical situations, a lot of times, lead us to dead ends. But then a simple idea can bring us back to our feet.
Take the story of Sir Richard Branson , the ultimate poster boy for school dropout turned good.
At
16, Richard Branson, who is dyslexic, left school and, with the help of a
friend, founded a magazine for students. He made money by selling
advertisements to local businesses and ran the operation out of the
crypt inside a local church - the first of many enterprises.
But
it wasn't until years later when he was in his late twenties that Sir
Branson really started making his mark as the entrepreneur we know and
love today.
According to legend, the youngster was on his way to the Virgin Islands to meet a pretty girl, and was impatient to get there. But
he was out of luck - on arrival at the airport he was told flights to
the Virgin Islands had been cancelled.
He decided to charter a private
airplane, picked up a small blackboard, wrote 'Virgin Airlines: $29' on
it, and sold the remaining seats to other people who had also meant to
be on his flight. The idea for Virgin Atlantic was born.
Sir
Branson's get-up-and-go attitude is an inspiration to start-ups across
the world. It has not always been plain sailing and the billionaire has
picked himself up after a number of failures throughout his career. But
they have never stopped him.
His
Virgin Group now holds more than 200 companies, including the recent
Virgin Galactic, a space-tourism company - proving that if you're armed
with a can-do mentality, anything is possible.
There are perhaps thousands of other stories which seemed so plain and simple, yet solved many big problems.
Pause. Think.
