Trust Your Instincts

Sometimes when you have an extraordinary idea you just need to hold on to in. Trust in your instincts, and have the courage to act on your intuitions.

What might an American music teacher, a Japanese CEO, an eccentric film producer and a World War Two pilot have in common? They have all proved that being bold, outrageous or rash could ultimately lead to that big idea.

We Have Lift Up

He was an adventurous pilot, movie producer and eccentric recluse, but Howard Hughes, whose life story is told in the film The Aviator, also elevated female fashion to new heights.

It was Howard Hughes who discovered Jane Russell, working as his dentist's assistant, and launched her acting career with the film Outlaw, which he produced. It was also Hughes who said, "There are two reasons why men go to see her, both of them are enough."

Apparently for Hughes, however, Ms. Russell's natural assets were not quite enough on celluloid. He used his experience as an aeronautical engineer to design a "cantilevered bra" for the star. Jane Russell's resulting decolletage enraged censors but Hughes's instincts proved to be correct.

Viewers rushed to see the movie and it became a great success, if not for it's cinematic value then certainly for the controversy that surrounded it. Today, it can be safely assumed, men (and women) all over the world are grateful to Howard Hughes for following his 'instincts' and giving the world the push up bra.

Hitting A Wavelength

She set out to entertain a minority niche market and ended up a billionaire. Sheila Johnson went from obscure music teacher to billionaire, thanks to a pioneering cable TV channel she set up with her husband. Now she's enjoying giving her millions away.

She is the first black female billionaire and - after Oprah Winfrey - the second richest black woman in the world. Sheila Crump Johnson knows she will never be as celebrated as the garrulous Oprah, but she seems to prefer fortune to fame.

Without much fanfare, she is building a cosy empire for herself and her two children in the small Virginia town of Middleburg - or, as some locals have been calling it 'Sheilaburg.' Set among the rolling hills, her sprawling estate is in the heart of Virginia's horse country. It's a long way from Johnson's origins in the Midwest, where she began her career over 35 years ago as a classical musician with a good education at a state university but with very little money.

How does an obscure violinist become a billionaire? She and her former husband, Robert Johnson, borrowed money and started a tiny cable channel in Washington, DC, called Black Entertainment Television (BET). It is a roaring success, combining rap videos with more high toned cultural and news programs created by Sheila. Four years ago, the couple divorced and sold BET for a whopping $3 billion, which they split in half.

No one is more amazed than Sheila at the course her life has taken. Bob and Sheila were young and idealistic students when they met, each imagining a life together in public service. She wanted to teach the violin and play in orchestras, he wanted to join the State Department. "When we started thinking of creating BET, Bob was working in the cable industry. There was a guy he knew who wanted to start a senior citizen channel, but who couldn't get funding. This guy was going to throw his proposal away, so Bob asked if we could have it and we revised it by crossing out 'senior citizen' and replacing it with 'black.'

She laughs now at the audacity of this move, but it worked. On the strength of the proposal, cable mogul John Malone gave them a loan, and they borrowed the rest of their capital, using her income to secure credit. In her view, owning BET was not merely a chance to make money. She saw it as a historic opportunity to give African Americans a broadcast outlet of their own that would inform as well as entertain them.

When the entertainment giant Viacom, came along with it's huge offer for the company, neither she nor Bob thought twice about selling. She promptly left Washington and settled with her children in neighbouring Virginia. She quickly made herself a force to be reckoned with in the area, acquiring various properties and starting new businesses.

So far, she has opened a food market and restaurant, a handmade linen business and is building a luxury inn and spa. She often gives generously to local charities.

But she has greater ambitions than conquering Middleburg. She wants to become a great philanthropist and has set up her own foundation making major grants to schools and orchestras. A report in the New York Times recently hailed her as the 'philanthropist from heaven' after she gave 47 million to Parsons School of Design in New York, the largest donation it has ever received. Ever the teacher, she now has the money to influence the lives o thousands of students everyday.

Sounds Good To Us

There were many who thought his idea was folly, but Akio Morita changed the way we listen to music.

When Akio Morita co-founded the Sony Corporation, he named it for 'sonus', which means sound in Latin, and for 'Sonny', popular American slang at the time.

Since Sony's inception, Morita had been proved to be a visionary who understood the need for brand identity and a global outlook. He noticed how people enjoyed listening to music in their cars and carried large stereos outdoors to the beach and park. In particular he noticed the way his own children played music from morning 'til night.

In 1979, calling a meeting of Sony engineers, Morita held up a modified version of a bulky tape recorder.

"This is the product that will satisfy those young people who want to listen to music all day. They'll take it everywhere with them. It'll be a hit."

Morita staked his personal reputation on the success of the product, and against all odds Sony introduced the first Walkman to the Japanese four months later.

It was a resounding success. Less than two months after its release stores across Japan were sold out. The Sony Walkman also went on to great international sales, proving to be a huge money spinner for the company. As for the Walkman itself, it can now be found as an entry in dictionaries across the globe.

Flying High

His audacity was ridiculed, but time has borne out Roy Farrell's vision of flying people across the Pacific.

It was June 24, 194. Two World War Two pilots, Roy Farrell and Sydney de Kantzow, were having a drink in the bar of the Manila Hotel in Hong Kong. Both had been decorated during the war for their successful missions flying supplies from India to China across the perilous Himalayas. Now in peacetime they saw an opportunity to start a commercial enterprise doing much the same thing.

It was at the hotel bar that Roy Farrell suggested the name 'Cathay Pacific Airways', 'Cathay' echoing back to the ancient name for China and 'Pacific' because it was Farrell's great belief that someday their budding enterprise would carry passengers right across the Pacific Ocean. At the time Cathay Pacific owned one battered old DC3 plane, lovingly nicknamed Betsy, which flew cargo from Shanghai to Manila and Bangkok.

Over 50 years later Cathay Pacific is a multi-billion dollar enterprise that flies to 47 destinations around the world. The airline carries over 1 million passengers across the Pacific Ocean every month and the name, chosen in 1946, is very much deserved.