You can have some of the best friends in the world and still have nobody nearby to grab a drink with on a Friday night. That’s something I’ve had to get used to after spending much of my adult life moving between countries. France, China, Argentina, the Netherlands, the UK. Every move comes with the excitement of a new city, new people and new experiences. But it also means starting parts of your social life from scratch. And I’ve learned that meeting people is easy compared with making actual friends. You can have a brilliant evening with someone, exchange numbers, promise to do it again, and then somehow never see each other. Not because anyone did anything wrong. Life just gets in the way. People have partners, children, careers, established friendships. And as you get older, building the kind of friendship where you can call someone at the last minute becomes more and more difficult. - When I was younger, I assumed I’d eventually have a close group of friends wherever I lived. A few people to watch football with, go for dinner, meet for a drink without having to organise it three weeks in advance. But it doesn’t always work out that way. Some of my closest friends live in different countries. People I’ve known for decades, who I might only see once or twice a year. And in some cities, I’ve had a much smaller social circle than I imagined I would. I’ve genuinely become comfortable with that. I enjoy meeting people, but I no longer feel the need to turn every acquaintance into a friendship or recreate the same social life everywhere I go. Would it be nice to have all my closest friends living twenty minutes away? Of course. But I’ve chosen a life that involves moving around, and I’ve accepted that this is part of it. Having friends everywhere doesn’t necessarily mean having friends around. And I’ve learned to be okay with that.

In my twenties, I was impressed by people who worked ridiculous hours, took calls on holiday and always seemed to be rushing from one meeting to another. I thought that was what success looked like. I’ve spent years building a business, worked plenty of long days myself, and I still get a lot of satisfaction from working hard. But the older I get, the less impressed I am by people who have absolutely no control over their own time. I’m far more interested in the person who can take a Wednesday afternoon off, spend a month abroad or turn down an opportunity simply because they’d rather do something else. Not because they’re lazy. Not because they’ve lost their ambition. But because they have the option. There’s a difference between having a full life and having a full calendar. And it would be a shame to spend your whole life working towards freedom, only to find you’ve become too busy to enjoy it.

I grew up thinking my parents had very little to worry about. Turns out, they were just very good at making sure we didn’t. I come from a working-class family. We didn’t have much money, but I had an incredibly happy childhood. My parents worked hard. Really hard. And looking back, they made sacrifices for us that I probably still don’t fully appreciate. But growing up, I never felt any of that weight. Our home was happy, full of love, and whatever worries they had about money, work or life in general, they did their best not to make them ours. It’s only when you become an adult yourself that you start putting things together. The things they went without. The worries they must have carried. The decisions they made that you never even knew were decisions. And yet, I never grew up thinking adulthood looked miserable. I saw two people who worked hard, loved their family and still found plenty of reasons to enjoy life. - Which brings me back to something I’ve been thinking about since writing this reply. We spend so much time preparing children for adulthood. Teaching them to work hard, study, be responsible, get a good job and build a life. But I wonder how often we think about whether we’re making that life look like something worth looking forward to. I’m not a parent yet, and I’m certainly not going to pretend I know how difficult it is. But I know what it felt like to grow up in a home where happiness wasn’t dependent on how much money we had, and where my parents never made their sacrifices feel like a burden we owed them for. I hope that if I have children of my own one day, they’ll remember their childhood the same way. And perhaps, like me, they’ll only realise years later just how much went into making it feel that.

The best thing money has ever bought me is not having to think about it. Not when I’m doing the weekly groceries. Not when I’m booking a holiday, choosing a restaurant or going out for the evening. I remember when all those things involved calculations. Checking prices, planning ahead, occasionally deciding something wasn’t worth the expense. And there’s something incredibly liberating about no longer having to do that. It’s not about spending thousands on extravagant things. It’s about being able to enjoy ordinary life without money constantly sitting in the back of your mind. - And don’t get me wrong, I love expensive things. I own a few Rolexes and a Patek Philippe. I’d love a vintage Porsche, an oceanfront villa in Florida, a French countryside home and a townhouse in New York one day. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But I’d give up the idea of owning any of those things before I’d give up the peace of mind that comes from knowing my everyday life is taken care of. Because there’s a big difference between being able to buy something expensive and being able to afford it without changing the way you live. If I can have both, fantastic. But if I have to choose between the dream garage and never worrying about the restaurant bill again, I know which one I’m taking. Every single time.

I’ve lived in five countries, but one of the places where I feel most at home is somewhere I’ve never actually lived. New York City. I landed at JFK yesterday, got into a taxi and realised I had a massive grin on my face. Nothing particularly exciting had happened. I was just looking out of the window. The traffic. The noise. The lights. The buildings getting closer. And that feeling of being exactly where I should be. I dropped my bags, went for a walk around the block and felt it all over again. I’m back. The funny thing is, I’ve never officially lived here. I’ve spent months at a time in New York over the years, but I’ve never had a permanent address. Meanwhile, I’ve lived in China, Argentina, the Netherlands and the UK, having grown up in France after being born in Algeria. I’ve started from scratch in unfamiliar places, made friends, learned how things work and built a life in different countries. And it’s taught me that living somewhere and feeling at home somewhere aren’t necessarily the same thing. There’s something about New York that just makes sense to me. The pace, the chaos, the ambition, the fact that everyone seems to be doing their own thing. I don’t feel like I have to adjust to the city. I feel like I slot straight back into it. Maybe that’s what home really is. Not necessarily the place where you were born, grew up or spent the most years. But the place where you get out of a taxi, look around, and can’t help smiling because you’re back where you feel you belong.

You can’t go to all the weddings and none of the funerals. I’ve always liked that saying. And after years of running a business, I think it sums up entrepreneurship better than most business books. Everyone wants the good days. The big deal that finally closes. The client you’ve been chasing for months saying yes. The feeling that all the risks you took are starting to pay off. But those days are easy to handle. Nobody needs to teach you how to celebrate a win. It’s the other days that matter. When a deal falls apart after months of work. When money you’re owed doesn’t arrive. When you have to make a decision you know someone isn’t going to like. And the worst part isn’t necessarily the problem itself. It’s knowing that you’re the person who’s supposed to figure it out. You can ask for advice. You can lean on people. But ultimately, the responsibility doesn’t disappear. I used to think running a business was mostly about making good decisions. Now I think just as much of it is about how you behave when things aren’t going your way. Because anyone can enjoy the weddings. It’s who turns up for the funerals that tells you something.

I’m flying to New York tomorrow. Again. I’ve genuinely lost count of how many times I’ve been, and somehow I’m still excited every time. The funny thing is, I barely do any of the things people normally associate with visiting New York anymore. I have my favourite coffee spots, my gym routine, neighbourhoods I keep returning to, restaurants where I already know what I’m ordering. Some days I do absolutely nothing remarkable. And I love that. At some point, New York stopped feeling like a holiday destination and started feeling like somewhere I could just live my normal life. But then I’ll turn down a street I’ve never walked before, find a restaurant I didn’t know existed, or spend an afternoon exploring a neighbourhood I’ve barely visited. And suddenly I’m a tourist again. That’s what I love about the place. I’ve been enough times to feel comfortable doing nothing, but not nearly enough times to feel like I’ve seen everything. Tomorrow I’ll land, unpack, go for a walk and probably end up doing exactly what I did last time. And I genuinely can’t wait.

I can spend 35 years building a life, a reputation and a career. And some idiots smashing up a shop in Paris can make strangers look at me differently. That’s the part of the riots in France that really gets to me. I was born in Algeria. I grew up in France. I know the country, its culture, its contradictions. I also know what it’s like to grow up with a name and a face that don’t necessarily match everyone’s idea of what a French person looks like. France has always protested. Strikes, demonstrations, people marching through the streets because they’re unhappy with the government. I grew up around all of that. It’s practically a national tradition. And these demonstrations included people with real grievances. Students asking for better conditions. Ordinary people struggling with the cost of living. Things worth protesting about. But does anyone even remember that now? Because instead of talking about education, living standards or what the government should be doing differently, we’re watching videos of smashed shop windows, looted businesses and streets full of chaos. The original message has been completely buried. And the people who actually had something worth saying are the ones who’ve lost their voice. There’s a difference between protesting and using a protest as an excuse to rob shops and destroy somebody else’s livelihood. I’m tired of people pretending there isn’t. - What makes it particularly uncomfortable for me is watching some of the footage and recognising people who could have grown up in the same communities I did. Young men who look like me. I watch them behaving like complete idiots, and I already know what comes next. The videos spread. The far right gets another week’s worth of material. The conversation shifts from what happened to who’s responsible for everything wrong with France. And suddenly millions of perfectly decent people with immigrant backgrounds are back to defending their right to belong to a country they’ve spent their entire lives in. It’s exhausting. Because I don’t want to defend the people doing this. I think their behaviour is disgraceful. But I don’t want to defend the people who use it as an excuse to treat every Arab or African immigrant as a potential criminal either. Both things can be true. And here’s what I find particularly frustrating. Some people seem to believe that criticising bad behaviour within your own community is somehow disloyal. I think the opposite. If you care about a community, you should be able to call out the people damaging it. Not make excuses for them because you’re worried about who might agree with you. And if you’re French and angry about what you’re seeing on television, I understand that anger. I’m angry too. But the person who smashed that window is responsible for smashing that window. Not his parents’ country of birth. Not his surname. And certainly not the millions of people who happen to look like him. I shouldn’t have to choose between condemning the people destroying French streets and condemning the people who want to blame an entire population for it. I refuse to make that choice. France is my country too. And I shouldn’t have to defend my place in it every time somebody who looks like me does something disgraceful.

I grew up in France. These days, when I go back, I’m visiting. Not because it feels any less like home. I still know the streets. I remember the shortcuts, the shops, the little places that meant something to me long before I ever thought about leaving. But life has carried on without me. My friends have routines I’m no longer part of. People have got married, had children, changed jobs. Restaurants have opened where my favourite places used to be. And I arrive for a few days, trying to squeeze months of conversations and years of friendship into a handful of evenings. Then I leave again. Back to the life I’ve built somewhere else. A life I love, with its own friendships, routines and places that feel like home. - That’s the part people don’t always talk about when they romanticise moving abroad. You don’t necessarily miss the place you left every day. Sometimes you go months without thinking about it. But then you return, walk down a street you’ve known since childhood, and realise something has quietly changed. Everything is familiar. And yet you’re no longer part of the everyday life happening around you. It’s a strange feeling, being both completely at home and slightly out of place. I don’t regret leaving. Not for a second. But I’ve come to realise that building a life somewhere new doesn’t just mean gaining another home. It also means learning to visit the first one.

I see some of my best friends about twice a year. We’ve been friends for over 30 years. And somehow, those two things aren’t remotely contradictory. We met in kindergarten when we were three years old. Before any of us knew what a career was, what money meant, or where life would eventually take us. Since then, we’ve grown up, moved cities, moved countries, built careers and started families. These days, getting everyone in the same place at the same time is practically a logistical operation. But when we finally manage it? Within five minutes, it’s like we saw each other yesterday. Same jokes. Same ridiculous stories. Same people who can make you laugh about something that happened 25 years ago. There’s something quite special about having friends who knew you before you became whoever you are today. Before the job titles, the responsibilities, the ambitions and all the different versions of yourself you’ve accumulated along the way. They don’t care what you’ve achieved or what you’re working towards. To them, you’re still the kid they grew up with. - I used to think maintaining a friendship meant seeing each other regularly. Now I think some friendships are so deeply rooted that they don’t need constant maintenance. At 35, seeing an old friend twice a year isn’t necessarily a sign you’ve drifted apart. Sometimes it’s a luxury. And the best part is knowing that when you finally meet again, you won’t have to pick up where you left off. Because in some strange way, you never really left.

You can move countries, change careers, learn new languages and reinvent your entire life. But a football club you fell in love with when you were 7 can still ruin your Saturday afternoon. Think about how ridiculous that is. The players you grew up watching have retired. The managers have come and gone. The owners might be people you wouldn’t trust to run a corner shop. You probably don’t even recognise the club you originally fell in love with. You spend half your time complaining about the transfers, the tactics, the substitutions and the people running it. And yet the idea of supporting another team is completely unthinkable. There’s a famous line associated with Eric Cantona about being able to change your wife, your politics, even your religion, but never your football team. The older I get, the more I understand it. I’ve lived in different countries, spoken different languages, built a career, got married. Almost everything about my life has changed. But put me in front of a football match on a Saturday afternoon and I’m right back to being that kid who cared far too much about eleven men kicking a ball around. Some loyalties don’t grow up with you. They just grow old alongside you.

Britain might be the only place where you can take your newborn baby to the pub and nobody thinks it’s remotely strange. I grew up in France. I’ve spent years in Paris. I genuinely cannot remember ever seeing a baby in a bar. Move to London and suddenly it’s completely normal. Saturday afternoon. Four pints on the table. Two dogs underneath it. A baby asleep in a pram. A toddler eating chips while his dad watches the football. Nobody bats an eyelid. And the strangest part is that after ten years here, I’ve started to think the British have got this one right. Because the British pub isn’t really a bar. It’s a community centre that happens to serve alcohol. First dates, Sunday roasts, birthdays, football, family lunches, catching up with friends. Three generations around the same table. The pub is simply where life happens. And somehow, in a country where people will apologise to a lamppost for bumping into it, nobody feels the need to apologise for bringing a screaming toddler into a room full of people trying to enjoy a pint. I love that about Britain. Still not entirely sure the French are ready for it.

Some of the most knowledgeable people I’ve met in business are terrible at sales. And some of the most charismatic salespeople I’ve met are terrible at their jobs. After nearly a decade running a brokerage, I’ve seen both. The first group knows everything. Every product, every market movement, every technical detail. They can answer questions most people wouldn’t even think to ask. But speaking to them feels likes a chore. No warmth, no curiosity, no real interest in the person on the other end of the phone. I’ve watched people like this lose business to competitors who knew considerably less. Then there’s the other group. Funny, charming, confident. They can walk into a room full of strangers and leave with everyone’s phone number. But ask them a difficult question about their market and suddenly there’s not much behind the personality. That works for a while. Until someone actually needs your expertise. The best salespeople I’ve worked with understand that neither extreme works. Being knowledgeable isn’t enough if nobody enjoys dealing with you. Being likeable isn’t enough if nobody trusts your judgement. And the interesting thing is that there’s no single personality that gets this balance right. Some brilliant salespeople are loud, energetic and naturally sociable. Others are quiet, thoughtful and understated. Neither needs to become the other. You don’t have to be everyone’s best friend. You don’t have to be the smartest person in every room. But you do need to know your stuff, understand people, and give them a reason to want to work with you. The best salespeople don’t all have the same personality. They’ve figured out how to make their personality work for them.

When I moved to Buenos Aires in 2011, I expected Argentina to feel completely foreign. I was 20. Instead, parts of it reminded me of North Africa. The obsession with football, for a start. Not just watching it, but organising your weekends around it. The arguments, the emotions, the way a result could change the mood of an entire room. Then there was family. The noise, the conversations, the way people gathered without needing a special occasion. And food. Not necessarily the same dishes, but the same understanding that a meal is rarely just about eating. It’s an excuse to sit together, talk for hours and turn an ordinary afternoon into something memorable. I’d grown up between Algeria and France, and somehow found familiar parts of my upbringing on the other side of the Atlantic. - I’ve thought about that experience quite a bit in recent years, particularly given the conversations around race and identity in Argentina. The country has a complicated history on both, and some of the criticism is entirely legitimate. People have described experiences very different from mine. I don’t question them, and I certainly wouldn’t use my own experience to dismiss theirs. But I also can’t pretend I experienced something I didn’t. I was a French-Algerian living in Buenos Aires, and what I remember most is feeling unexpectedly at home. Which, as a Frenchman, has become slightly inconvenient. Losing the 2022 World Cup final to Argentina was painful enough. I’m still not entirely over it. But that’s the thing about places you’ve lived. You can disagree with aspects of a country’s culture, recognise its problems, and still feel a genuine affection for the people and life you experienced there. A country isn’t one thing. And neither is your relationship with it.

My wife has watched me negotiate difficult deals, handle stressful business situations and stay completely calm when there’s real money on the line. Then she’ll watch me lose my mind because eleven millionaires can’t complete a five-yard pass. Apparently I can handle financial pressure, uncertainty and difficult decisions. But a misplaced pass in the 87th minute? That’s where I draw the line. I can see why she finds football difficult to understand sometimes.

According to the internet, if you’re not making $500,000 a year in New York, you’re poor. If you’re not making $1 million, you’re apparently one missed paycheck away from starvation. Meanwhile, 8.6 million people actually live there. The median household income is around $80,000. Median individual earnings are roughly $55,000. Millions of New Yorkers go to work, raise children, see friends, fall in love and build perfectly meaningful lives without ever coming close to becoming millionaires. Yet spend enough time online and you’d think anything less than a luxury Manhattan apartment, $400 dinners, constant Ubers and three international holidays a year is a life of deprivation. Of course New York is expensive. Housing is a serious problem. Plenty of people genuinely struggle to make ends meet. But the internet has completely lost the ability to distinguish between financial hardship and not being able to afford every luxury you want. Not being able to live in the West Village doesn’t make you poor. Taking the subway doesn’t mean you’re struggling. Cooking dinner at home isn’t a sign you’ve failed financially. It feels like people online started presenting their lifestyle preferences as basic human necessities. And an entire internet culture started treating those expectations as normal. That’s what bothers me most. It’s not just that these people are disconnected from reality. It’s that they’re constantly moving the goalposts for everyone else. Convincing people on perfectly respectable salaries that they’re failures. That a decent life isn’t enough. That unless they can afford the lifestyle of the top 1%, they’re somehow falling behind. New York doesn’t require you to be a millionaire to live there. The internet just wants you to feel poor until you are one.

In Britain, you can become rich without ever becoming the right kind of rich. You can build a business, make more money than someone born into privilege, and still find that their surname, school or accent carries more social weight than your achievements. After more than ten years living here, it’s one of the things I find most fascinating about British society. Britain is remarkably open to people making money. But its social hierarchy can be much harder to break into. You can earn a fortune in one generation. The right connections, manners and sense of belonging can take several. Money can buy you access. It can’t always buy you acceptance.

The French will shut down an entire country over something the English would complain about quietly for the next 20 years. I grew up in France and have spent the last decade living in London. And I still find the difference fascinating. In France, when people are unhappy, they take to the streets. They strike. They make everyone else’s problem their problem. In England, people are just as capable of being furious. But they’ll complain about it at the pub, write a strongly worded email, and then turn up to work on Monday. For years, I thought the French were exhausting. Always protesting. Always demanding something. Never satisfied. Then I moved to England and discovered that the opposite can be just as frustrating. There’s something admirable about a country that refuses to accept things quietly. And something admirable about a country that doesn’t turn every grievance into a national emergency. But sometimes I think the French could do with a little English restraint. And the English could do with a little French outrage.

We’ve become very good at turning things we enjoy into things we measure. At work, it’s revenue and targets. At the gym, it’s weights and times. At golf, it’s scores and handicaps. Even a morning run becomes a pace to beat. I’m guilty of it too. But some of my favourite runs have been the ones where I wasn’t trying to achieve anything. Just heading out, exploring a neighbourhood, taking a different street, clearing my head. No personal best. No training plan. No particular destination. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to improve. I love getting better at things. But not every part of life needs a scoreboard. Sometimes enjoying something is enough.

I speak multiple languages and I’m convinced I have a different personality in each one. My French self, English self, Spanish self and Arabic self are not the same person. Different humour. Different confidence. Different ways of arguing, joking and showing affection. Some jokes only work in one language. Some feelings are easier to express in another. And sometimes I know exactly what I want to say, just not in the language I’m speaking. Being multilingual is basically having several personalities and letting geography decide which one shows up.