Excelsior Hotel Gallia in Milan is so centrally located across from the train station that you can't miss it no matter where you come from in this incredible and multicultural city. The vast square in front of it and the hotel lobby are almost the same size.

I was exhausted from flight connections, delays, and all sorts of travel inconveniences, already dreaming of a short nap when the smiling Italian woman at the reception handed me a small open envelope with my room card. Inside was a tiny piece of paper, carelessly torn from an old-fashioned spiral notebook, with just two lines written with an elegant pen, which I bet was a "Montblanc."

"Monsieur Behar, I would be delighted to have a brief business lunch at 1 PM in the restaurant on the second floor." And under this text, a single word: "Attali."

Just this name, even without the text above,

was enough to wake me up and energize me in an instant. I hurried to shower and was right on time at the entrance, where Jacques Attali, the legendary advisor to President Mitterrand and founder of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, was waiting for me. Loved, criticized, read, and rejected, he is undoubtedly an exceptional talent, an expert often having the final say in many political debates and predictions.

The next day, I was to moderate the main panel at the annual conference of the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA), and it featured "only" three speakers - Attali himself and two university presidents - from Bocconi University and Peking University. I accepted WAIPA's invitation with great honor. Still,

I was certain another Bulgarian would hardly ever

have the chance to speak about our country in front of representatives from 197 countries in the same hall. But all three participants were such high-caliber figures that I don't remember ever preparing so carefully for any of the hundreds of conferences I have moderated or spoken at as a leading participant.

And to top this excitement, now in the second-floor restaurant, Jacques Attali stood before me, dressed in a slightly old-fashioned gray suit, without a tie, and with a finely striped shirt. I would have said he was French even if I didn't know him.

"Very kind of you to accept my invitation," Attali said, absentmindedly looking at the menu as if it didn't matter what he would order. "I wanted to meet you, of course. Behar and Attali are surnames that might have some distant familial connection. I also wanted to see you before tomorrow morning's meeting and discuss how to make the panel more interesting..."

We both randomly picked the first light pasta on the menu, and without even asking questions, Jacques Attali, in a very quiet and calm voice, leaning towards me almost to my ear, began to explain in a melodic French-English language.

"There are great concerns that

democracy is seriously stalling, and I see a lot of hesitation

about where to go in a united Europe. Now, even Bulgaria is in, other countries will follow, and this will probably happen in the Western Balkans as well, and then we will truly become a force."

I carefully objected, trying not to interrupt him rudely, but reminded him of his theory in his global bestseller "A Brief History of the Future," that "everyone will become a warden of their prison" and how hyper-surveillance and control could seriously threaten the free market. He raised his eyebrows in surprise and smiled slightly, showing how surprised but slightly pleased he was that I had read his book. He immediately reassured me that these somewhat exaggerated theories are on the verge of coming true, but they are not so scary. They will not seriously affect the free market.

"Look, Behar, I fully understand the risks of new technologies, the development of which will grow yearly. But I don't believe anyone can come up with a better political system than democracy as a guarantor of free trade. I also believe in the power of money as the best, honest, and fair balancer of human relations.

I know many people lean heavily toward money, and quite often, it changes them,

making them more evil and greedy, but just as many examples exist of how many people become better and quite ambitious philanthropists with their honestly earned money. However, how should I put it? I prefer philanthropists to invest their money in new and exciting projects rather than giving them away for donations, thus making more money, paying more taxes, and creating jobs. That seems fairer to the system itself."

I had abandoned my pasta without even starting it, nodding eagerly and

taking notes like a first-year student

in a lecture with a professor before a serious exam. And it was exactly like that because the entire hall applauded the three speakers for a long time the next day, but if we had to measure success by how long people were standing up and clapping, Jacques Attali would genuinely win.

And not just this one time. With all his books and fulfilled theories, he continues to show that he is not only a politician and analyst, a lecturer and professor, a writer and debater, but above all—a perfect financier.

One of the already disappearing kind.