When I was preparing to go on that trip to Asia, I knew I wanted to make a big shift in my life. I was 26 and had just quit a very intense job; and the whole world had just been totally shaken up by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I wanted to do something completely new. To mark this shift, I shaved off all my hair. It helped symbolize a completely new phase in my life. Little did I know that a much bigger shift was about to happen – I was going to get together with my future wife!

The first thing that ever struck me about Samantha was how attractive she is; both in looks and personality. Initially, I only thought of her as Chris's little sister, though, and it wasn't until we went travelling that Samantha and I bonded as friends through spending so much time together.

The Chinese side of Samantha's family are from a different part of Malaysia to mine. Samantha's father, Samuel, was originally from East Malaysia (Sabah), although she and her siblings were born in the UK to their Malaysian father and British mother, Valerie, who is from Manchester. My dad gave a lovely tribute to Samuel and Valerie in his speech at our wedding. He thanked them for welcoming me into their English home and treating me like a son. It was a huge comfort to him and my mum when they were so far away living in Malaysia. I think it was always important to me, too, that Samantha came from such a close-knit family like I did. She is very close to her parents, brother and younger sister, Charlotte.

The first big thing that Samantha and I connected over was our sense of humour. We both found the same things funny… quite silly things really. It's always nice when someone else finds the same things funny as you do, especially when you know they are rather silly! But, in time, the thing that really cemented our relationship was the fact that we were absolutely on the same page in terms of our future personal goals.

We both wanted a large family. We were also both ready to settle down; we were on the same path in terms of timing. I'd worked and played extremely hard: I remember the days of going out five nights a week, often until the early hours of the morning, and still making it into the office for 8 am – sometimes after only an hour's sleep – and doing a decent day's work. But by the time I met Samantha, I'd got my partying days out of my system and had built up some decent financial security. Even though Samantha was seven years younger than me, she was ready, too. She was ready to become a mum.

I know it's a real cliché to say it was a case of “right person at the right time” but clichés are only clichés because they're true. Samantha and I are so lucky that we found each other… at exactly the right time. Timing has to be right for everything in life: relationships, careers, business, education… it's always all about the timing. Samantha and I were both ready to have children when we met. I didn't want to start having children when I was approaching 40. I was ready; I'm so glad that she was, too. And that really made the age difference disappear. She was 22 when we had our first child and I was nearly 30, but we've never felt like we have an age gap.

The difference between what you think it's going to be like being a parent and what it is actually like being a parent is pretty huge, as I'm sure most parents out there will agree! I think with most things in life, if you project too many expectations onto it before it's happened, you can get a pretty big shock.

What really helps, when you are going to be parents, is being a team. Samantha and I discussed at length how we wanted to raise our children. We found we both had similar values and were generally on the same page. Mostly we want our children to be healthy and happy. I'm definitely traditional and have that sense of Chinese pride where I would like to see my children be successful. But I would never say to them “I want you to be an accountant, doctor or lawyer.” I think if you put that kind of pressure on your children they are bound to rebel. Even my parents never pushed any specific expectations on me. I sensed they wanted me to join a serious profession, but also felt the freedom to make my own choices. I hope my children will always feel the same. We try to teach them lessons in life and encourage them to enjoy what they are doing and be independent. But there is definitely a focus on studying hard and doing well at school. We impress upon them that, if they want the best opportunities in life, they need the solid foundation that comes from a good education.

Once we started a family, one of my biggest goals was to give my children as many opportunities as possible, as my parents did for me, and that included providing them with the opportunity to go to private schools. It's not about being elitist; it's literally about the increased number of opportunities this gives them. They go to excellent schools and we know that we are extremely privileged to have that luxury. They do so many different activities. They play piano and other instruments and do a huge range of sports. They are immersed in history and culture on school trips. I am confident that their experiences will give them the best chance of doing well in life.

Obviously I am not suggesting that you can only be successful if you've had a great education, I know many successful people who left school at 16; but it can help open doors if you've had a very good all-round education in academic subjects, arts and life skills.

Brandon and Ryan recently took part in a school entrepreneurship project. All the children were given £10 to start a business. They could do anything they wanted, but the competition was to see who could turn that £10 into the most money. Amongst other things, it gave them their first taste of business competition, management, negotiating skills and bookkeeping. I was so proud of them as I watched them make their decisions. They may or may not decide that building a business is for them, but at least they will be making an informed choice based on experience. Obviously I would be thrilled if one of my children wanted to follow in my footsteps and get into business, but the priority is that they feel independent and capable – and that they get the grades to give them choices in life. I say to them: “You don't have to be an investment banker or a doctor, but get the grades to give you the options to pursue those careers if you decide you want to at some point down the line.”

Our decision to educate our children privately also came about after we experienced how they might fare in state education.

When Brandon first started school, it was 2008. We were in the middle of the credit crunch and Ryan was a baby, so money was tight. Thus, Brandon's first couple of years were spent in a state school. We watched how, although he was very bright, the state system didn't allow the brightest students to achieve their full potential because the core curriculum focuses on bringing the weaker students up. We felt that the more academic children didn't have enough room to grow. As soon as we could afford it we sent Brandon to a private school, and it has been a joy to watch how much he has achieved – both in his academic studies and extracurricular activities. He's into the less traditional sports these days, like climbing, shooting, skiing and ice skating, and that's a direct result of him being given the opportunity to try them at his school. We initially pushed him towards the typical, traditional sports like football, badminton and cricket, but when he showed more interest in the individual sports than the team ones, we supported him. There would be nothing gained from trying to force him into pursuits that he didn't enjoy.

Ryan is much more into the traditional team sports. He particularly loves football, which is great because it is such a universal language. We were on holiday in the Netherlands once, and there was a group of Dutch boys his age playing football. Ryan and another French boy started playing with them and they all had a great time despite the fact that they couldn't communicate using words. I love the fact that he is discovering, like I did, that football really brings people together. He loves supporting Liverpool with me, too.

Hayden is a very well-rounded boy who has a lot of interests. He loves football and enjoys supporting Liverpool as well as kicking the ball around with Ryan. He's also into swimming and running; he loves doing official “Park Runs” at the weekend. And he plays the piano. He's into construction, too; his greatest joy is building a marble run. Hayden is a very gentle soul, is generally a well-behaved child, and has a really inquisitive mind.

The reason I believe sport is so important is that it gives children transferable skills. Whether they are achieving in individual or team sports, they are learning about discipline, goal setting, overcoming obstacles and accepting disappointments – as well as celebrating their wins. Whether it's Ryan learning a new skill on the football pitch, or Brandon getting up an incline that he's never scaled before, or Hayden building a complex marble run… it's a life lesson for them. And learning from sporting achievements doesn't stop in childhood.

When I ran the London Marathon in 2016, I had a whole new set of challenges to overcome. I had never known that level of discipline. When you want to give up the training, you can't; you know you have to keep going because the date for the marathon is set in stone… you can't postpone it! And there is no one else to fall back on: it's just you and your body. You become your own manager.

The marathon day itself was incredible and worth every second of training. I loved the atmosphere, with people shouting my name all along the course (because it was displayed on my running vest along with my number). The only problem was that when my own family were trying to get my attention, their voices joined in with all the other people shouting my name at that point and I missed them. My children shouting, “Daddy! Daddy!” didn't work either because there were probably 20 other “daddies” in a 5-metre radius of me! They even started running alongside the course trying to catch up with me, which obviously they couldn't do. It was also my fault; I was in my zone and wasn't looking out for them properly. They did manage to get my attention at one point in Canary Wharf and it gave me a huge boost to see them. That's shortly before you go through the tunnel near Blackfriars Bridge, where you get a short breather. Because there are no crowds under the tunnel, everyone uses that stretch to get a little break. We all started walking, and then broke back into a run once we were coming out of the tunnel and were running past people cheering us again. One of the best parts of the day, for me, was gobbling up the free sweets (like Haribo and jelly beans) that people kept handing out.

I was surprised to discover that the greatest skill you need in order to run a marathon is not physical but mental. You have to have rock solid discipline and mental strength to keep getting up and doing your training runs. As they get longer and longer, you often have to get up ridiculously early on a Sunday morning in order to complete it before attending to other commitments. And you have to keep going even in the snow and freezing rain. You can't give it a miss just because there's a downpour, or you won't build the necessary stamina to get through the actual race on the day.

It's great to be able to do things for charity. As a company, we work with many. Charity work bonds people together. It creates a good culture of “giving back.” I try to focus on the smaller charities that struggle to get attention when competing against those with huge campaigns and corporate style branding; for example, the Ollie Young foundation, which raises money for paediatric brain tumour research and support. It's named in honour of Ollie Young, who lost his fight against an incurable brain tumour just one day before his 6th birthday and only 12 weeks after first displaying symptoms.

With smaller charities, you can see the direct difference that a decent donation makes. We also work with “Reach Out”, a mentoring charity that works with young people in disadvantaged communities, helping to put the kids on a better path in life.

As a parent you can't ask for anything more in life than for your children to be given the tools to create a good life for themselves and to end up happy and healthy. I try to give my children as much exposure to what the real world is like as possible. Both Brandon and Ryan have come to work with me so they can see how a real company operates. I sometimes give them some filing to do, and they also absorb so much information by observing people in action. That's a benefit of having a big, open-plan office… people learn from observing each other. I'm also very proud of the fact that they took our in-house aptitude test that all the team do when they join. They both scored 100%, which very few people do (most score around 70–80%; we won't recruit anyone who scores less than 60%).

When you ask Hayden what he wants to be when he grows up (he is 7 years old at the time of writing), he says, “a shopkeeper!” I'm pretty impressed by this. I don't see this as a sign he aspires to have a corner shop (although I'd support him if that's what he really wanted to do!) but that he is inspired by the concept of trading. This encourages me, even if it's just that he likes the idea of people giving him money all day.

Obviously, I want my children to be proud of my achievements, too, but my biggest desire is that they learn from watching me and feel inspired to go after their dreams. Of course, they are the people I would most want to benefit from reading this book. Whatever they choose to do, I want them to be ambitious and push themselves to their full potential.

I do appreciate how lucky Samantha and I are. I know that there are couples who long to have children, but it just doesn't work out for them. That must be so heartbreaking. We are so fortunate that we were able to have a big family of healthy children. We never take that for granted.