Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson prides himself on passing key pieces of life and career advice down to his children.
Branson's oldest child, 36-year-old Holly, has taken those lessons and applied them to both her career and her personal life. In her new book, "WEconomy," co-authored with planthropists leaders Craig and Marc Kielburger, Branson describes the impact that business leaders like her dad have had on her search for a purposeful career.
Growing up, Holly says she watched her dad grow Virgin into the business that it is today.
"We were used to people coming and going, constant phone calls, the beeps of fax machines, paper everywhere," she writes. "We had no idea that the people coming and going to meetings were the likes of the Rolling Stones, Janet Jackson, the boss of Boeing or a distraught bank manager (on more than one occasion)."
But even with a front-row seat to the life of one of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, Holly set her sights on becoming a doctor.
She took a gap year before medical school to volunteer at an orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya. It was during this time where she tried to convince her parents to allow her to adopt a seven-year-old boy name Kelvin.
"My dad was keen, but it was my level-headed mother who finally convinced me that, at 18 and about to enter medical school, I was in no position to take on a seven-year-old," she writes. "We decided that the best way to help was to sponsor Kelvin and his education."
Holly graduated from medical school at University College London in 2008, and quickly found that surgery was not her calling.
"I preferred drawn-out conversations," she says. "I preferred to use my bedside manner while the patient was conscious."
So when she discovered that year two of her rotation would focus mostly on surgery, Holly decided to take a break from medicine and give working for her dad's company a try. She joined Virgin as an intern.
"What's great is that everyone is treated the same at Virgin," she tells CNBC Make It. "We don't have a hierarchy. Everyone sits in one big open office. So it helped in a way because it meant there wasn't any room for me to be treated different than anyone else."
What started as a one-year break from medicine turned into 10 years, with Holly working her way up the ranks of the Virgin Leadership team, where she now manages people, culture and purpose.
"I really want to make sure that Virgin has the best policies and best culture of any company out there," she says. "From the very beginning my dad's purpose was to make sure employees were happy. If you treat your employees right, then in turn, your customers will be happy."
She says her years at Virgin have taught her that you can have just as much impact as a business leader as you can as a doctor. She writes that her father's motto has always been that "business should make lives better."
She adds that employees at Virgin are always "tasked with driving forward a strategy for [the company] that formalized dad's gut instinct that business was placed to answer some of the world's most difficult social problems."
In 2004, Virgin launched their non-profit, Virgin Unite. Holly serves as the chair of the organization, and is also the founder and trustee of the non-profit Big Change. She also co-chairs We Day UK, an annual event that celebrates young people making a difference in the world.
Holly, who is also a wife and mom, says her dad has taught her that it's possible to be a financially successful business leader who services the community and treats people right.
"For years," she writes, "my dad and his trusted colleagues had built a business based on people and culture, engaging employees in a social mission that permeated every aspect of the business without sacrificing the bottom line."
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