Millionaires offer the key to success
Eamonn & Ruth: How the Other Half Lives
Channel 5, 9pm
WHAT makes the world’s most successful, wealthy people tick? In the latest part of their series, Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford meet fully signed-up members of Britain’s rich list to find out the secret rules they apply to their lives to make their fortunes. First up, the couple chat to Jacqueline Gold CBE, the chief executive of Gold Group International, Ann Summers and Knickerbox, who is estimated to be the
16th richest woman in Great Britain.
The 58-year-old, who was also named the second Most Powerful Woman in Retail by Retail Week, the Most Inspirational Businesswoman in the UK in a survey by Barclays Bank and handbag.com, and one of Britain’s Most Powerful Women by many publications including Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Woman magazines, welcomes the couple into her luxury home.
She explains how she started out working for her father, doing summer work experience in 1979, and how she was paid £45 a week – less than the tea lady.
Jacqueline also emphasises the importance of having a revolutionary idea, before teaching Ruth the ins-and-outs of hosting the perfect sex toy party.
Next up, Eamonn and Ruth meet Sir Jack Petchey.
Born into a poor working class family in the East End of London in 1925, Jack left school with no qualifications when he was 13, and joined the Navy’s Fleet Air Arm in 1943 during the Second World War.
He then worked as a clerk for the Solicitor’s Law Stationary Society, but when he applied for management training there he was told he would never make a businessman.
However, Jack refused to give up, and investing his £39 discharge gratuity from the Navy, he bought his first second-hand car and started a taxi business. He worked long and hard, overcoming adversity and going on to become a multi-millionaire through his various business ventures, which have spanned from motor-car dealing and garages to property, travel and investment.
Now 93, Jack still goes into the office every day, but now it is his philanthropy that is his big passion.
Since establishing the Jack Petchey Foundation in 1999, his businesses have given £100 million to support youth projects.
Eamonn then discovers the importance of taking chances when he travels to the Isle of Man.
He meets billionaire investment guru Doug Barrowman who turned calculated risks into a billionpound fortune via his private investment vehicle, Aston Ventures and the diverse Knox group of companies whose business interests include private equity, property and wealth management.
Finally, Eamonn and Ruth get some advice from the man who claims to be the highest-paid life coach in the UK, Michael Serwa.
The self-proclaimed “life coach for the elite” and author of the book From Good To Amazing commands fees of up to £35,000 a year from each of his rich and powerful clients to help them become happy.
Although it is often said that money can’t buy love, or indeed happiness, it seems that you still have to spend cash to make more.