You've seen it. There's the grin (not smile), the goatee he's worn since decades before everyone else did, the still-leonine head of hair that even at age 54 gives him the appearance of always plowing through the wind like a man on the prow of some very sweet ship. He's short, but people say you don't notice it because he never stands in one place long enough for the necessary comparisons. He's one of those fearless, twinkling guys you hear about who's always certain that the next thing — the very next — well, that will be something else, that'll be the best. Branson for better or worse is brio personified. Everything about him seems propelled. That figure he cuts is anything but irrelevant. The more you look, the more you realize it might be the most important of several important things about him.

…In the end it's not the deliriously ambitious branding ploy or even the deliriously ambitious appetite that attracts us to Branson and braces us, and offers us inspiration. It's something about the figure itself, the way it is not just sensible and straightforward but steadfastly alert and delighted and fun.

When is Branson working? When is he not? It all appears so seamless and so authentically pleasing. Unlike many of our most vaunted and imitated entrepreneurs, Branson forever strikes one as not compulsive or haunted or even, strangely enough, driven — though no one ever questions his drive. No, instead he just keeps looking like he's on the prow of that sweet boat, grinning because he knows a secret, happy because he doesn't know exactly what's next but is absolutely sure that it won't be dull and will quite possibly be a good deal better even than that.