I’VE often wondered why I haven’t made millions, why I haven’t got a fabulous country house, and a second home in Provence, and why I don’t travel everywhere by private jet.

Now I think I know why – I’m too nice. Not that I’m brimming over with niceness – with my family I’m generally horrendous – but with everyone else I try my best to be kind, considerate and friendly.

It’s a sad fact of life that these are qualities that don’t seem to hold much sway in the world of business and money-making.

Watching The Apprentice recently, I was appalled when Lord Sugar admired one candidate for being ‘ruthless’.

“She will walk over and tread over anyone. She will eat them up and spit them out for breakfast. That’s what I like about her,” he said.

The woman – who clearly models herself on Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada – behaved in a totally selfish way, completely disregarding her partner in order to gain more for herself.

Yet it paid off. Lord Sugar immediately warmed to her frosty disposition and cut-throat attitude. It made for depressing viewing.

He clearly isn’t looking for ‘nice’ people, who care about the feelings of others. He wants people who will do anything to succeed. And he’s not the only one.

When I was training as a journalist we spent an exciting night at Gatwick Airport, where a plane crash was staged in an extremely realistic mock-up of what could happen.

The trainee who won the most plaudits from the harsh national tabloid editors would, said one of our group: “Push her own grandmother out of the way to get a story.”

Needless to say, I didn’t win much praise – in fact I got yelled at for not fighting hard enough for stories – and briefly wondered that night whether I’d made a mistake in my choice of career.

Being nice in business doesn’t seem to get you very far these days. Websites abound on the hazards and pitfalls of being too nice at work, and their content is quite disturbing.

Apparently, employees who are too nice cost businesses time and money. Asked about the impact of ‘being too nice’ on their business, a survey of 50 chief executive officers found that being nice costs them eight per cent of their revenue.

Yet I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that having worked for the nice and the nasty, I far prefer working for the former, and am certainly more eager to do well to please them.

Being nice doesn’t always mean being weak.

There are one or two ‘nice’ people left in The Apprentice. I hope they win through.