Young, successful and rich – Piers Daniell, the 26-year-old managing director of telecommunications provider Fluidata, is the kind of person who should make you feel sick.

But rather than feeling the penetrating force of the green eye of envy, Daniell makes you feel at ease – which is nice.

The amiable entrepreneur has some interesting stories about his business, the computer firm he set up at 15 years of age, and other opportunities for fame and fortune.

One such opportunity was when Daniell made the shortlist of the final 40 or so candidates for the first series of BBC TV programme The Apprentice.

He says the decisions made during the final elimination day were based purely on the opinion of TV executives – and perhaps unsurprisingly, Daniell says the “noisy and obnoxious candidates” were selected.

But what of Sir Alan Sugar? He says the business tycoon was not involved in the initial selection process.

And would he have been keen on being Sugar’s apprentice? “I didn’t even know who he was,” says Daniell – although the Fluidata chief admits that his mother once owned an Amstrad PC.

Ever the innovator, he followed our meeting by creating his own blog at http://piersdaniell.com/wordpress.

Daniell’s first post rightly recognises that no one would be interested in reading about just the telecoms industry: “If I am able to include a bit of personal trivia it would actually be a bit more appealing,” he says.

Which brings me to a new study on business psychology from Professor Michael West of Aston Business School, who says you need to be positive about your life to beat the credit crunch.

“Write down three things every day in your diary that you have to be grateful for,” says the press release. “That will promote your health and wellbeing.”

Ever the optimist, I struggled to think of three things. But then I looked at my diary, which is gold and produced by Woman & Home magazine.

I am certainly grateful for the fact that my mother-in-law gave me a diary for free, even if I do look a bit of a mug when I get it out in public.

Further reading

• 'The Apprentice' + Aston Business School = hype
• Men like women in short skirts, says research
• "Glamorous" PR tarred with IT nerd brush
• Be proud of being a technology nerd
• IT skills crisis not solved via death by Powerpoint
• Modernise to beat IT and skills obsolesence

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Want to contact the writer? Email Mark Samuels