2023 onwards - a road to success

 Many people write about the year in review, or the outlook for the new year, from the desk of..  I'm writing to you from the table in my dining room, with the sound of a water fountain in my central courtyard in the background. Never could writing a Christmas message be easier. With no family around, a simple lunch planned in the form of a braai, only me and my Thai lady at home, and all of my family doing their own thing this year, I have the time, and peace, and quiet, to reflect on the past year, to look at the new year, and to share with you my blessings. It's been in outstanding year when you look at the global picture. Uncertainty driven by Trump on steroids and the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine has seen the gold price reach 4500 USD an ounce, and it's now heading for USD 5000. It means lots of foreign currency coming into gold rich South Africa, with the ZAR (Rand) strengthening, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange reaching new highs, petrol getting cheaper, and o...

 How I long for a sportcar now, not that I don't have a fast car. It's only that my car is a bit like a bus, and I remember the pleasure of my small car with an open roof and an engine at the back, where you can go around bends without really having to slow down, listing to music, while you get to where you want to go faster than anyone else. In a developing country where there is enough traffic in the fast lane to slow you down, the best approach is to keep left. When you learn and practice the little rules of road, then nothing can get you down. For now, I'm on top of the world with my bus, and I don't stop dreaming of getting another sportscar again. Right now I don't have a single house to sell, this for almost a month now. A huge building in my portfolio is the only property I offer for sale, and although I've been unable to secure the right buyer yet, market conditions are becoming more conducive to a successful sale sooner than later. Tomorrow I'm doi...

 It's been almost two months since I'm back, and almost every day is like winter in Cape Town. The weather is guiding my holiday plans for next year, as the goal is to escape this cold. It seems that June, July and August are the cold months, and these months will be the perfect time, next year, to take a break, head to the northern hemisphere, and to please my lady this time, explore more of what Thailand has to offer. Again, I had a client wait on my return from holidays to give me her house to sell, and I sold it in 3 weeks. A second house is also in the process of selling, and while I'm above my target for this time of the year, I feel inspired to just keep going.  I saw the upswing in the market coming, and my financial goals for the year is reflective of this. As the first part of the year exceeded my expectation, I'm now targeting my best year ever in terms of turnover, with the new goal now to get 9 more houses to sell before the year is out. I just got one; 8 t...

 Positive thinking, looking on the bright side, these are the kinds of attitude things that helps you to realize your dreams. Recording new ideas, looking at the things that makes you happy and turn you on, these are the things that help you formulate new dreams. A recent quotation by an Amercian Football player talked to me; "Your discipine is your product, your name is your brand, your habits are your investments." The last four months were all about working smartly, remaining focussed on work as holidays were coming, and settling into life with a new partner. I could have written earlier about how I experience life during this time, but honestly, the commitments of life, riding the wave I was on, just didn't allow time for reflection. Some days I could say that this week I will sell a house or two, and then it happened; I was on top of the world, and remained there until the end.  When asked to sell a house, I will ask for a mandate until my departure date, even when t...

 When writing a blog, in this case me plotting my life going forward, it is not easy when one is going through challenging times. Nobody wants to give the impression of struggling to keep head above water. We all want to be and feel strong in dealing with obsticales in our path. My lack of reporting - it is 5 months since my last post - is a reflection of the difficult times I've been going through. The holiday I had in Thailand at the end of a very cold winter in Cape Town last year, gave me the inspiration I needed, to focus on getting back on track. I lost interest in my work and the cold really got to me, but after 3 weeks in the tropics, and with summer about to start in Cape Town, I had my dream life come back to me. (And that dream life; to be able to not have to live in winter if you don't want to.) Summer has come, and it is almost Autumn again, and when winter is about to set in, I'm off to escape the cold this year, and explore Sicily this time, leaving in the mi...

 So, I've been invited on a holiday to Thailand with a lady I met on Tinder and with a further offer that she'll pay for half of my flight ticket; how could I say no.. My first holiday overseas was also an offer from the parents of a girlfriend; we could go anywhere, and we decided on a package called 'Razzle in Rio' at the time, a week in Brazil. This time around, it was the first time that a 'girlfriend' invited my on a holiday. The timing could not have been better as I've been freezing in this Cape Town winter. I also still had a month of holiday time left for the year, and we left about 3 weeks later, on 4 September, for 3 weeks.   I could understand about 30% of my new friend's English, so the Translator application was going to come in handy. It was the first holiday that I did zero planning, and left it all over to my lady. From the day we arrived, she took control. She could speak the language of the locals, knew the customs, she had a local SIM...