From the Richest Man in the Village to the Poorest

In 2007, my business partner and I were in Dubai preparing to float a company.

We had properties across Spain, a château in France, a palace in Granada and a substantial portfolio in the UK.

We were told it would be one of the easiest flotations of the year.

Then Northern Rock faltered.

The financial crisis began gathering pace and, almost overnight, everything changed.

One day, my wife was sitting in our local pub when she overheard somebody talking about me.

They said I had gone from being the richest man in the village to the poorest.

That sentence has stayed with me ever since.

Success can disappear remarkably quickly

I was fortunate.

I rebuilt my life and went on to make a success of the businesses I became involved with afterwards.

But I never forgot what happened or what it taught me.

The companies that survived the financial crisis were not necessarily those with the best products or the cleverest directors.

They were the ones that had prepared.

They understood that, however well things were going, the ground could shift. They had put protection in place before they desperately needed it.

The warning signs are appearing again

Nobody can say exactly when the next major shock will arrive or what will cause it.

But in 2026, many businesses are already feeling the pressure.

Trading is difficult. Costs remain high. Margins are being squeezed. Some companies are working flat out for a profit that simply is not there.

When conditions become uncertain, preparation stops being a luxury.

It becomes the difference between having choices and having decisions forced upon you.

Learn from history before it repeats itself

I love what I do.

I have decided to spend the rest of my career doing it well and helping other directors avoid the experience I went through.

That is why I wrote Before the Wave.

It takes the lessons I learnt the hard way and turns them into simple, practical steps you can use to make your business stronger before the ground shifts beneath it.

There is nothing needlessly complicated in it. I wrote it to be straightforward, useful and easy to understand.

Because history has a habit of repeating itself.

You do not have to repeat my mistakes with it.

Before the Wave, available on Amazon.