WEALTH & RICHES
THE ROCKY ROAD TO SUCCESS
ANITA RODDICK
ELON MUSK
A FAIR TRADE
POST-MODERN GENIUS
If I can't do something for the public good, what the hell am I doing?”
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favour.”
Born in England during the height of World War II, Anita Roddick’s life seemed to channel the chaos surrounding that war, as she forged new activist fronts for twentieth-century environmental and social issues. On the way to becoming a success in many facets of business, Roddick was noted for kick-starting her own sustainability movement quite by accident. Roddick herself described how her founding of The Body Shop was a bit of a fluke, as her only intention was to keep she and her children afloat while her husband was out of the country for an extended period. In 1976, she hadn’t started out attempting to be environmentally sensitive with her business; she was merely trying to conserve enough bottles for her fledgling natural cosmetics products line. Her accidental method of conservation quickly began to catch on and take off. Only 15 years later, The Body Shop boasted 700 branches. Just after the turn of the 21st century, The Body Shop was serving over 77 million customers globally and was quickly bought out by L’Oreal. This move gave Roddick the time and resources she craved to devote to environmental and social issues, including aiding Greenpeace and helping underprivileged children throughout Europe. Anita Roddick passed away from illness in 2007, but her legacy of creating and selling cosmetics without the use of animal testing established an ethical standard in the beauty industry that still flourishes today.
It was perhaps the many cultures in which he was raised that drove Elon Musk to push civilisation forward as one people. He was born in South Africa to Canadian and British parents. Proving to have the true vigour of an entrepreneur from a young age, Musk moved to Canada when he was a teenager, intending ultimately to attend college in the U.S. He achieved his goal, receiving two degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. Musk’s first venture out of college proved to be a financial success, netting him millions when the company was ultimately sold. He then went on to found an email payment company known as X.com, but upon merging that brand with start-up PayPal, which provided a similar service, Musk removed any trace of X.com and, along with PayPal founder Peter Thiel, Musk began to grow the businessl by leaps and bounds. Musk has since risen to the heights of fame with the founding of leading edge companies such as SpaceX and Tesla Motors. The former company quickly locked up a billion dollar contract with NASA to fill the holes left by the space program’s grounding of its fleet. And Tesla Motors has brought class and design sophistication to electric and alternative-fuel-based vehicles. Elon Musk has proven to be one of the most brilliant modern minds working to make the world a better place, combining world-changing innovation with imaginative design prowess.
• “ANITA RODDICK WAS A CHAMPION FOR ETHICAL BUSINESS BEHAVIOUR, AND THANKFULLY FOR THE EARTH AND ANIMALS, THIS HAS BECOME SOMETHING OF A TREND. SHE LEFT AN AMAZING LEGACY WITHOUT EVEN SETTING OUT TO DO SO, AND IS AN INSPIRATION.”
• "ELON MUSK IS A PIONEER AND A MAN WHO NEVER BACKS DOWN FROM HIS DREAMS. NO MATTER HOW IMPROBABLE THE TASK, WHEN HE SETS HIS MIND ON SOMETHING, CHANCES ARE IT WILL GET DONE. WE SHOULD TAKE A PAGE FROM HIS BOOK.”
– BERNARDO MOYA
56 | WWW.THEBESTYOUMAGAZINE.CO
– BERNARDO MOYA