Hard times or Opportunity

It's hard times. For the first time since I left varsity as a qualified journalist (Sunday Times trained), I find myself unemployed. Qualified, skilled, experience and innovative + unemployed.

Finding myself in this position makes me revisit my ideas of starting up my Co. Now here I sit at this desk in my study (in a 'tin dladla', huge mahagony desk from antique shop, entrepreneurial and marketing books all round the shelves, a candlelight by the laptop, no electric supply or phoneline) and trying to start a Reached Communications/ Reached People. And the energy, with this coffee bucket on the desk gives me hope that I will start this company.

Although it was never planned that I be unemployed, with two kids and a homemaker wife, I just gotta live with the fact that if I can't get into some other position as an individual, then I better get in to the game of business. Last week I chose to crawl under and die. But today, now, I chose to climb up and, bust and shine.


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The business of masterpieces

I like what the guys of the Jumeirah Group – the creators of the world’s most luxurious hotel, the Burj Al Arab (in Dubai) are doing. I like what Sol Kerzner, of Kerzner International, the developers of Sun City (and now the Tower Marina – boasting a R100m penthouse) is doing. These guys, their teams and others, are involved in what I call ‘the business of masterpieces’.

These companies and their leaders have the kind of minds not made in this world. At least because their limits are only up as high as the skies can stretch. They not only dream it, but they dream it big. I mean, DAMNED BIG. And big and extra unique they make it.

These companies, these individuals pour themselves into their projects – even though they are told by professionals and experts/critics that it cannot be done. And they always come up tops and deliver even beyond their own wildest dreams. Their successes are never ordinary. They are beyond extraordinary. They’re, for lack of words, ‘grande’ unique.

Why won’t any of us get inspired and motivated by what these companies and the individuals behind them dream up and create? If we could achieve at least only 50% of the marvels that they take years and years putting together, then we would be able to produce masterpieces out of our own projects.

I want a piece of mastery in my life. A creation, be it a book, a building, a graphic design piece, a poem, a photograph or anything else worthy of my hand. If only that little much I can create, then I should be able to sit back in admiration of achieving a masterpiece. Being part of the business of masterpieces.

But one thing I know for sure is that the business of masterpieces doesn’t involve shortcuts and run-of-the-mill thinking. It requires long term effort and dedication to deliver on a large scale commitment. Something of a legend, one may say.

Waiting for a perfect shot

Most of the time we wait for a perfect moment to make things happen. To print our mark on the planet. Truth is, as evidenced by so many succesful characters in history, a perfect moment is just never coming. This means that the wait will only become longer and longer, and then eventually become infinite - a way of life. The time, if a perfect one at all, is NOW.

I pick on this weakness today because I realised that lately, I have just summoned my energies back. Not that they were never there, I just didn't tap into them deeply and consistently. With such energies, focused and robust, I achieve daily some of the things that I just kept putting off for later.

The other thing I realised about rather doing it now, without waiting to be perfectly ready, is that most successful people have made getting-things-done their way of life. Their second nature. It's something that they hold themselves too until it all seems automatic.

Where do you stand in the endeavour to make things happen. To leave your personal mark wherever you interact, wherever you strut?

I choose to make consistent tries to get it done, realistically, 80% of the time.

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