I listened to entrepreneur Duncan Ballantyne on Desert Island Discs this morning. What a charming man! Unassuming, happy, kind, self-deprecating. For anyone who doesn't know who he is, Mr Ballantyne has a self-made fortune of several hundred million pounds and gained a level of fame on The Lion's Den. Despite this, his values system appears to be rooted firmly in family and he seems to be remarkably un-spoiled by his success. Ok, it was only forty-five minutes. He did, however, come across really well and I think he's probably a great role-model on all sorts of levels.

Go and listen to him on the Radio 4 website.

It's interesting how many people I come across in my job who have a problem saying 'no'. It tends to be a big factor in work/life balance factors - saying 'no' to one more drink or an extra assignment at work could both have a remarkable effect on quality of life.

So if you find yourself doing too many things that you don't really want to be doing and you don't really know how to say no, what's the answer? I recently gave a client who virtually never said 'no' a baby-steps strategy. She had to say 'no' to a request just once every day (in her case it work related). I got her to model her delivery on someone she knows who has absolutely no problem in saying 'no'.

After three short weeks her work load is much more manageable. All down to one little word.

I caught up for lunch with my friend Sarah Young today. Sarah was the distant cousin of my friend Yvonne, who passed away nearly two years ago following a series of strokes. Today was one of the first times that Sarah and I spent time alone together and it was fun, finding our own level and watching how our interaction has changed since the passing of Yvonne, who was in her 80's.

Sarah also works in personal developement and her company is called Rambutan (http://www.rambutan.biz). We went to an Italian restaurant on the Southbank for lunch and came up with one or two pearls of wisdom to use with clients and in workshops and talked about work in general. It's always good to exchange ideas and I look forward to seeing Sarah again soon.