Posts

Learning with the rats in my garden

I'm big on recycling, or to put it differently, I try to keep my contribution to landfill to an absolute minimum, and hardly throw anything in my black municipal bin. The city of Cape Town handed out free composter about a year ago, and this is where my organic waste now goes. This was a welcome contribution to my recycling efforts as my banana peels and leftover organic stuff ended up in the corner of my garden before.  Notwithstanding my best efforts, sometimes there are leftovers from cooked meals that do not work in my composter. I therefore found a place in my garden for leftover food and bones, meant for the birds and animals visiting my garden. The Cape Robin is one of my most frequent visitors. I do have cats that come at night, but as I'm not a fan of cats, I found a way to make it more difficult for them to visit. The biggest consumers however are rats. I'm not a fan of rats either, and by attracting them, I got my opportunity to reduce their numbers and monitor h

Up and down

The life of an entrepreneur - in my case at least - consists of high times and low times. High times usually mean that you are up to date with your financial targets, while you are feeling down in the dumps when business is not coming your way as expected. The challenge is to deal with these low times in a way that you can uplift yourself in spite of the fact that 'no-one wants to do business with you'.  A great way of empowering - for me - is to get out of bed early and go for an hour run. The blood running through my brain during this time usually gives me strength to get more than the usual amount of work done in a day. It gives rise to high productivity, and in the long run, earlier or easier access to the business that feels elusive. When down in the dumps, following through on commitments like writing a blog also becomes a challenge. Notwithstanding this, here I am feeling confident that with experience and knowledge gained over the years, that I can get on with my life a

On the go

It is now exactly a month since I'm back from Brazil, and my working life is starting to take shape. With the sale of only one small little house since the start of January, the stress should start building up, but with me striving for happiness rather than money, life is completely different from what it used to be. Even though I have unexpected aches and pains, my exercise regime is taking shape with now 2 or 3 walks up Lion's Head in the morning, and a regular run on the beach in Noordhoek over weekends. I'm trying to adjust my eating habits and making good progress with only a small meal at night, and a good and healthy breakfast in the morning and a hearty lunch, usually a bit later than normal. My visiting friend and holiday partner was such a big smoker, that I thought of learning from the experience of having her around. I have cut out smoking during the week, with only a puff now during weekends. It is boosting my self esteem, and giving me now more time to catch u

Getting started

 I've been good at setting goals, especially money target goals, always in the beginning of the year. Last year I achieved 90% of my target. Other than money goals, the other targets I set for myself is usually less successful.  This year I want to be different. I first thought of having no money goal at all, but after concluding my first sale, I decided to up my target by 30%. This time around I want to achieve my financial goal with less stress and less worries about where the moneys / commissions will come from, and to rather focus on being happy and enjoy the things I keep myself busy with. In my plan for my life going forward, I cannot realistically imagine what it is like to retire. I've been enjoying my work, except for the stress part of it. Getting rid of the stress part - which is usually feeling scared about running out of money - will surely change my life for the better. Talking about changing my life for the better, this is what I hope to achieve once I have a goa

Happy new year 2024

 I've had a Blogger account since November 2005, but I haven't published anything until now. What inspired me to start this blog was the course I did through Cambridge University, a 6 weeks intensive study focusing on creativity, problem solving and design thinking. Just as I finish this course, I received this message from noreply@blogger.com;  " This email address has a legacy Blogger account associated with it that hasn’t logged in since 2007. In 60 days it will lose access to the account and associated content; the data will be permanently deleted unless migrated to the Google Account system at Legacy migration page ." I could hardly remember opening a blogger account, neither had I any idea of where to find it. So, no need to start from scratch, I already had an account set up, and like a bolt from the blue it arrived in my Inbox. My short course was inspired by the idea to invest my time and money to do new things that I enjoy and that can add value to my life.