The family fortune didn't survive my grandfather's death. The Trustees who took over managed to lose most of it. I had been right to strike out on my own.
Several years ago I decided it was time for me to move on. Letting go really is the hardest thing to do. I've noticed a lot of entrepreneurs cling on to their businesses when it's healthier for everyone for there to be a new boss. I also wanted to do something different. I'd always had an interest in politics, and with friends in all three main parties, I wanted to find a way of getting involved.
Beyond this, I had always enjoyed writing. I'd often send silly stories to my friends or pen a funny poem for my son Alessandro. One friend suggested I write a book. Within a few weeks all the thoughts, ideas and frustrations which had been churning inside me for years spewed out in my first book Tomas, a satire about greed and corruption in the modern world.
Writing is more revealing of oneself than walking nude down the street. You're laying bare innermost thoughts and beliefs. But for me the process requires just as much discipline as building a business. I write early in the morning from about 6.00 am onwards, my concentration falls off sharply as the morning progresses. By midday it's game over for me. I marvel at writers who can start in the early evening having had a couple of cocktails.
I can't just sit at a keyboard and begin bashing away. Each sentence has to have a purpose and a cadence. Sometimes I agonise over a single word. A page will go through multiple drafts. Writing is exhilarating but also excruciating.
Luckily Tomas received some good plaudits as well as some stinkers - I'm amazed by people who write pages excoriating one's work, then end by saying, "I've wasted hours of my life on this"! It was also a reasonable commercial success so I decided to write another.
This was a lot more difficult. The fear is have you got another book in you? There's no question, the more you write, the better you get, but I still need a lot of help from friends - my old university professor, an ex-banking colleague, my agents' editor. I've gone from self-satisfied businessman back to school.
Tancredi is part satire, part fairy tale, part science fiction. It tells the story of a man who travels the Universe seeking a cure to humankind's addiction to short-term thinking. It's something I'm very worried about at the moment. It seems that everywhere you look - politics, business, even health care - nothing is properly thought through. It's all about instant gratification, quick fixes, the here-and-now.
There are so many excellent books by economists and other thinkers on this subject. I wanted to do something with a different angle - light, funny, but still raising the questions. The book has also been beautifully illustrated by the talented young artist Rohan Daniel Eason. If you read it I really hope you enjoy it.