June 2006 marks a complete turning point in my life. From this time on, my interests changed radically. You became my focal point, my anchor and through your help, I have become a very different person than I was before. I have continued to do everything I can to help Pablito and Nico grow and achieve their ambitions, but as with everything else in my life, you strongly influenced the way that I have approached my children.

I have no longer, as was often the case during the time before 2006, cared much about the kids’ manners—it has not been important to me how well they hold their knife and fork at the table or whether they respond correctly in German. Since 2006, I have focused almost exclusively on how their interior lives are evolving, what kind of people they have become and, most important, whether they are happy. From 2006 onwards, I decided to become their number 1 fan, their cheerleader—not their instructor or disciplinarian.

The transition to the new, post-2006 Daddy, wasn’t always easy for Pablo and Nico, but I take it as a compliment that one of them said to me, around 2007, in an exasperated voice: ‘You know Dad, the problem with you is that you don’t behave like a father anymore, you act like a friend.’

Yes, I have tried to be their most supportive companion and friend. I feel very good in this role, and I think that as they grew older, it helped them too. I now have relationships with them that I never had in the time before you arrived in my life.

You moved to Geneva only about eight months after we first met. Our first home was in 8, rue du Simplon, a small but beautiful apartment very close to both the centre of Geneva and the lake. We bought a chalet at 2787, route de Coupeau, offering breathtaking views of the Chamonix valley and the Mont Blanc, and only a few minutes’ drive from my previous chalet, which stayed with Josée.

As soon as you entered my life, you awoke my spiritual side, which had lain dormant. You began to read books to me from authors that I had never heard of, like The Four Agreements from Don Miguel Ruiz. Together, we started to listen to The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho or The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I started to eat more slowly, to spend a much longer time at meals and to enjoy my time at the table. Our conversations became more and more interesting. I learned how beautiful it is to be in total communion and to grow together with one’s partner. Over time, we started to eat only twice (sometimes only once) per day, in part because with a three-meals-a-day schedule, we would have probably spent our entire day sitting at the table!

From 2006 onwards, my first priority was no longer my professional career—it was you, our life together and of course Pablito and Nico. My focus shifted towards developing as a human being, on becoming a more awake, whole and better person.

From the outset, we learned from each other. Our exchange of ideas became constant and we rapidly became each other’s preferred intellectual partner. We fed each other with a daily content of insights and ideas. We stimulated and awakened in each other a never-ending thirst for understanding. Despite the amount of time we spend together, there has never been a moment when I was bored, or I felt that there was nothing for us to talk about.

I certainly continued to do my job at Saatchi, and by all accounts, I did it well. After my time as CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Simko, I was promoted to Client Director for Europe, Middle East & Africa, as well as European Head of New Business. I also continued to be on Saatchi & Saatchi’s Worldwide Executive Board in New York. And I successfully continued to run the global Novartis business, which grew and grew. In 2013, I was asked by Maurice Lévy to run Publicis’s business in Western Europe, the network’s largest region and I was appointed to Publicis Worldwide’s Executive Committee. 

But more and more, it wasn’t my business achievements that I wanted to be remembered for—I just couldn’t imagine one day telling my grandchildren that Grandpa had been a remarkable person because he had founded an ad agency that had won more prizes than any other, or that they should be proud of him because he had run Publicis’s business in Western Europe.

My interest in material objects began to decline sharply, to the point where I developed an aversion towards going into shops. I gradually became totally uninterested in buying anything, and found shopping incredibly boring. Increasingly, whenever we’ve travelled, you’ve had to go into shops by yourself, usually when I was in meetings or otherwise occupied. Or you would ask me to take a book along, so I could sit in a corner in the shop and be occupied, while you bought what you needed.

My loss of interest in buying material goods has one big exception: books. I have always been an avid reader, but with your arrival, my interest in reading skyrocketed. Our conversations almost inevitably led to an author or a subject that tickled my interest and I would order a book. Wherever we have travelled, bookstores have attracted me like magnets, and it wouldn’t be rare for me to return home from one of our weekends in London with twelve books in my suitcase. After a while, we had to buy an additional library at home, and books started to cover all the walls of our chalet.

As you and I have embarked on a more spiritual path, one in which you were much more advanced than I, there was a moment that acted as a catalyst for me. It was my visit to Ladakh, India.