Since dropping out of school at age 16 to start his first business, billionaire Richard Branson has overseen hundreds of companies. Along the way, he's met and worked with brilliant leaders and entrepreneurs.
"No two successful entrepreneurs are the same," the Virgin Group founder writes on his blog. "In fact, it's their individuality and different ways of thinking that make them successful."
That being said, over his 50-year entrepreneurial career, Branson has noticed that the greatest entrepreneurs do share five distinct skills.
They take calculated risks
"The luckiest people in business are those that are prepared to take the greatest risks," Branson writes. "We can all create our own luck by taking the necessary risks to open the door to change, progression and success."
It's similar to the advice PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel gave Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, according to Zuckerberg: "Peter was the person who told me this really pithy quote: 'In a world that's changing so quickly, the biggest risk you can take is not taking any risk.' I really think that that's true."
