{"id":1021,"date":"2016-11-09T06:00:34","date_gmt":"2016-11-09T10:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ronspencer.com\/?p=1021"},"modified":"2016-11-08T15:17:59","modified_gmt":"2016-11-08T19:17:59","slug":"billionaire-richard-bransons-favorite-quote-helps-explain-why-hes-so-successful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ronspencer.com\/?p=1021","title":{"rendered":"Billionaire Richard Branson’s favorite quote helps explain why he’s so successful"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Richard Branson<\/a> left school at age 16 to start his first business<\/a>. Today, the 66-year-old entrepreneur has overseen hundreds of companies<\/a> and built a fortune of approximately $5 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a recent blog post<\/a>, the Virgin Group founder shared his favorite quote, from famed singer-songwriter John Lennon:<\/p>\n

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“[Lennon] said: ‘When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.'”<\/div>\n
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Branson, like Lennon, measures success by his happiness<\/a> \u2014 not by the amount in his bank account. “It’s a common misconception that money is every entrepreneur’s metric for success,” he wrote<\/a>. “It’s not, and nor should it be.”<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But happiness isn’t just a metric to measure his level of success \u2014 it’s also the key to it, he emphasized<\/a>: “Most people would assume my business success, and the wealth that comes with it, have brought me happiness. But I know I am successful, wealthy and connected because I am happy.”<\/p>\n

Branson is not the only established entrepreneur convinced of this secret to success.<\/p>\n

As Matt Maloney, CEO of GrubHub<\/a>, told Business Insider<\/a>: “If you are truly effective at what you enjoy, money usually follows your passion. Passion drives interest, which in turn drives focus and commitment. Both qualities are requirements for success.”<\/p>\n

Plus, research suggests that successful people tend to follow their passion<\/a> and do what makes them happy.<\/p>\n

“To the average person, it looks like the rich are working all the time,” self-made millionaire Steve Siebold, who studied 1,200 of the world’s wealthiest people, wrote in his book “How Rich People Think<\/a>.” “But one of the smartest strategies of the world class is doing what they love and finding a way to get paid for it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Kathleen Elkins<\/a> | @kathleen_elk<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>