A billionaire real-estate mogul has written in loving detail about the business lessons he drew after reading Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series of vampire novels.Tom Barrack, a self-made real estate kingpin worth more than $1.26 billion according to Forbes, wrote that the love story between Bella and the vampire Edward inspired him to realise how imagination and creativity were critical to business success.
In his 1700-word letter to his employees, Mr Barrack says "Stephenie Meyer is a total genius", that he was "captivated" by the series and that he found Edward to be a compelling character.
"As I flipped through the pages, I was startled by the lack of detailed description of Bella and the surgical and illuminating development of Edward," he wrote.
"As hard as I tried I could not really picture Bella, but I was grabbed by Edward’s character - gorgeous, super human, super strong, super fast and most importantly encompassing the wisdom of a 109-year-old man in the guise of a 17-year-old boy.
He added: "What I realised is the genius of Stephenie was that she knew that by keeping the (Bella) character generic, any and every woman could climb inside and picture herself in Bella’s shoes. Thus the fascination and deep emotional reactions to what many (including myself) thought was a foolish teenage trashy novel."
Slow down, be creative
Mr Barrack is the founder, chairman and CEO of Colony Capital, a firm that has about US$30 billion invested around the globe.
He is known for writing long memos about his global economic insights as well as folksy advice about relationships that are published on the "chairman's corner" of the Colony Capital website.
The note about Twilight, urged staff to use a public holiday as a chance to "slow down, take a breath, rediscover your imagination and create some excitement in your life". It was briefly posted on the Colony Capital website before being removed, The Wall Street Journal reports.
In the note, Mr Barrack said he had been contemptuous of the novels and never considered reading them until he found himself stuck on a yacht in Turkey with nothing but the sunset and a copy of Ms Meyer's novel for company.
"Alone, on a boat, with no wifi, no satellite, no magazines, no newspapers, just me and this book," he wrote.
"This piece of chick lit, teeny bopper heartthrob stuff. Terror on the high seas! I wanted nothing to do with any of it. Not relevant, not interesting."
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