I am currently in the process of winding down my various businesses and establishing myself as a private business, marketing & sales consultant. For further information please call 79498142!

This will give me a more relaxed lifestyle and above all it will allow me precious time for writing.

Although I have only just started this, I have already landed myself a few clients and according to one of my jealous so called friends, I have always been very lucky in everything I do. To whom I immediately pointed out that I don’t have blue eyes but grey matter…

My most recent client is a delightful, young, talented and enterprising women called Emily Grimaud, who very enthusiastically hand makes the most delicious and healthy granola bars on this side of the galaxy. These are sold under the brand Oh So Yummy, so please go and like her page and put in an order.

Now that I’ve earned the 2.5 million Euros which Emily pledged for that advert, I can proceed with my main story here. But as you will see it is all very relevant to my general train of thought.

This morning I managed to land myself a new client who is based in Mumbai. Yes Mumbai in India. It’s called the Internet and it actually works even beyond your village to communicate with other people and make new contacts.

So this morning my Indian client phoned me and we spoke for the very first time, and I must admit that until today I was a virgin insofar as Indian clients are concerned. And if you were wondering, no, it didn’t hurt at all.

His company sells boxes and packaging materials both to offices and to individual consumers, of which there are one million of the former and 21 million of the latter, in the Mumbai metropolitan area alone. So his first question was whether we should limit ourselves to such a small market, or extent our services nationwide to the the 1.3 billion people throughout India.

I easily anticipated what his main concern might be, so I cleverly asked him whether he had the ability of producing boxes and running a similar company outside of India. He went on and on about how easy that would be and proceeded to talk about the millions of successful Indians living in Europe and elsewhere who run their own businesses, and in his own words – making boxes is making boxes and knows no borders and was obviously based on the same principles anywhere on earth.

So sure enough, when that crucial question came, asking me whether I felt qualified enough to assist him with marketing in India, I tried not to snigger when I put on my very best wisdom voice and told him in a profound manner, that marketing was just like making boxes and if he could do it anywhere, then so could I.

The few moments of contemplative silence which followed, immediately confirmed that the deal was mine!

So we chatted a bit more until finally he started to end the conversation. And this person with whom I had never spoken to before and with whom my only association until then was purely of a business nature, went on to say, “Alex, I now consider you as my friend. I want us to make a lot of money together because that is good. But besides the money I also want us to be friends. It is more important to have good friendship and to enjoy your life than to make lots of money and be miserable. I want us to enjoy each other in friendship and respect and I want you to come to India with your wife, with your family and to stay at my house. For my house is yours. What I own is yours. What belongs to me I will gladly share with you. Because you are a friend and you want to help me. And through your expertise I will make money for my family and they will be happier, so I want you to be part of this as well.”

Yes, that is exactly what he said!

Now tell me, how on earth could you not be touched by this? What extraordinary insight into the real fabric of life. Why shouldn’t even business lead to this, each and every time? Why are we, in the Western world, so terribly stuck in our rigid ways of doing things?

I have always been very interested in what is referred to today as cross-cultural business behaviour and communication and have also recently read quite a bit about it. It is a fascinating subject for anyone who, like me, has been in business and who also has a keen interest in humankind. It combines the seemingly cold and harsh business world with the warm, intriguing phenomenon of cultural understanding and diversity. But what this man had just said to me was truly extraordinary.

I had only spoken to this person once for a few minutes, yet already he was asking me to be his close friend and opening his home to me.

Through my many experiences in life, both in Malta and directly abroad, I have dealt extensively with foreign clients. Besides the greedy Maltese, I am also used to the cheating Italians, the obnoxious French, the heartless English, the demanding Germans, the ruthless Dutch and the brash Americans. But throughout my many years, I have never come across this exceptional attitude and enlightened approach to life, emanating purely from a business contact.

The closest I ever got was with this mad Polish investor, when I was organising international conferences, who attended a world business congress I had handled. On his last evening in Malta, he suggested that I, in turn, hold congress with his wife, whom he soon intended to divorce, and this purely to collect evidence of her infidelity. I immediately declined, not least because of her scary muscular physique and terribly hairy armpits. She was truly one intimidating Polish lady. I wouldn’t Lech her Walesa if he paid me, although she probably had quite a Solidarnosc.

But I digress… I learned a lot today. I learned that even in the seemingly ruthless domain of business there can be more, so much more. Yes it all boils down to money in the end and any business which is not making good money is destined to fail. But whatever you business case, this in no way should prevent you from making friends, appreciating and respecting each other and enriching your life not only financially but also spiritually. Yes I think that here in the West we still have a lot to learn…

I must admit that each time I meet Emily she always insists on paying for my coffee, but is this enough? Shouldn’t I also be able to assure myself that if my wife ever kicks me out, I would be able to go and stay at her place for a few years at least? And to set the record straight, I say this purely as a misbehaved father, who needs setting straight by his level-headed daughter.

To conclude and based on my interest in these cultural business affairs, I will dare to say that this might be a prime contributing factor to the relative success of Jewish businesspeople. Many of them somehow combine shrewd, cunning and clever business skills with strong traditional values of family, friendship and loyalty. This only makes them better businesspeople and better people in general too.

Nurturing a skill in life does not necessarily have to be detrimental to another. We can be excellent businesspeople and excellent people too.