Richard Branson’s Case for Never Learning the ‘Right’ Way

Most people spend years studying the correct way to do things before they ever attempt them. Richard Branson did the opposite — and says it’s the reason he sleeps well at night.

“The fact I was never indoctrinated into the ‘correct’ way of doing something is why, come what may, I seldom have trouble sleeping at night.”

— Richard Branson, Like a Virgin

There’s a quiet confession buried in this line. Branson isn’t bragging about ignorance — he’s pointing to something most founders wrestle with but rarely name: the psychological weight of knowing all the rules you’re breaking.

When you’ve memorized every framework, absorbed every case study, and internalized every best practice, deviation feels like a violation. You second-guess yourself not because the decision was wrong, but because it was unconventional. That gap between what you did and what you were taught to do becomes a source of anxiety. Branson never had that gap. He dropped out of school at sixteen, never earned a business degree, and built a conglomerate spanning airlines, music, telecom, and space travel. Without a mental rulebook telling him what he should be doing, every decision was simply a decision — not a departure from orthodoxy.

This isn’t an argument against education or preparation. It’s a reminder that knowledge comes with a hidden cost: the burden of convention. The more you study how things have always been done, the harder it becomes to try something that hasn’t been done. And in entrepreneurship, the untried path is often where the value sits.

The practical takeaway here isn’t to stop learning. It’s to hold your knowledge loosely. Study the frameworks, understand the principles — but don’t let them become doctrine. The moment “best practice” becomes “only practice,” you’ve traded creativity for compliance. And compliance, as Branson suggests, is what keeps people up at night — not the bold moves, but the nagging feeling that you should have made them and didn’t.

Sleep well. Break the rules on purpose.