Whilst I have no truck for self help books, I do enjoy reading the odd business biography or books on the psychology of investing.

It’s fair to say that Gerald Ronson’s autobiography, with the above title, will never rival Branson’s inspirational rhetoric or the psychological insights into investing of George Soros’ books, however it clips along at a fair old pace and covers clearly a long, but a lot more varied career than I had, at first, assumed. 

Some might say he can come across as chippy, painting himself as an outsider, when from many peoples’ perspective he is the epitome of a property establishment figure and I agree with his wife, he is clearly far from the simple man he claims to be.

What else would you expect in a man who has fought in street battles against fascists, mixed with celebrities and royalty, lost a billion, gone to prison and then made back a billion for his investors.

He is also a committed developer, which is my background and is often derided as a mugs game by successful property investors.

Apart from a few diverting hours on a sun lounger in Ibiza, I have taken two things from this book; first is the confirmation of my suspicion that I am not an entrepreneur, I don’t have the stomach or inspiration to run other businesses, I am a business man in property and second is to stop agonising of what other people think of me, if I am sure I am doing the right thing by my own principals. 

So watch out world.

I’ve been more than a little remiss in posting recently, but I’m happy to say that it’s a reflection of how hard we have been working; I’m quite confident that the volume of opportunities we’re now working on will lead to some very exciting business towards the end of the year.

Thankfully I was shaken out of my blogging torpor by Julia Cahill’s “Leader” in this weeks Estates Gazette.

It must come as some relief to workers in the most reviled of jobs, estate agents, traffic wardens, MPs and even journalists, that they can now hold their heads high at dinner parties and say “well at least I’m not a banker.”

However it takes some chutzpah to use your weekly opining to firstly “dis” Gerald Ronson’s views and then go on to brand most of her readership as infantile.

Using the lazy metaphor of “kids in candy stores” not only displays woolly thinking and a profound lack of understanding of how property finance works, but is pretty patronising to most of the industry.

Heaping further aprobrium on banks is yesterday’s story, perhaps the property press should speand more time trying to understand the dynamics of what drives the issues that they print and move beyond “top and tailing” corporate press releases and regurgitating them as “news”?