It is done! Whoop Whoop!

Dis official, ek het ‘n graad! Moet erken, ek het nie gedink hierdie dag gaan ooit aanbreek nie!

Nou, vir die volgende groot vraag?…. what’s next?

And now we wait…

Dis gedoen, dis klaar, dis verby, al wat oorbly is die wag…
al die opdragte is in, die begroting gedoen, en teen die einde van die maand sal ons weet of ek ook nou eventually ‘n graad het…

Hou al jou duime vas!

Say it in a song…

Ek weet nie, dalk is ek moeg, dalk stress ek te veel, dalk is dit ‘n midlife crisis… ek raak benoud as ek dink in hoeveel songs ek stukkies van myself deesdae raak hoor…

As ek eendag kan uitfigure hoe om youtube links te publish as die blinking server geblok is, sit ek ‘n hele paar videos op. Wou byvoorbeeld gister vir julle Hallelujah opsit, soos gesing deur….. Jon Bon Jovi. Jy kan hom hier kry… (weet nie hoe dit lyk nie, of wat die kwaliteit is nie, Google het die link gegee en ek kan nie gaan kyk nie, die server is geblok, hoop dis ‘n oraait ene)

Vanoggend die ene op Rippel gehoor (toevallig? in die 5 minute wat ek tussen 2 cd’s probeer besluit… ) het ek al gemention dat ek nie in toeval glo nie???

The balad of Lucy Jordan

The morning sun touched lightly on the eyes of Lucy Jordan
In a white suburban bedroom in a white suburban town
As she lay there ?neath the covers dreaming of a thousand lovers
Till the world turned to orange and the room went spinning round

At the age of thirty-seven she realised she?d never
Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair
So she let the phone keep ringing and she sat there softly singing
Little nursery rhymes she?d memorised in her daddy?s easy chair

Her husband, he?s off to work and the kids are off to school
And there are, oh, so many ways for her to spend the day
She could clean the house for hours or rearrange the flowers
Or run naked through the shady street screaming all the way

At the age of thirty-seven she realised she?d never
Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair
So she let the phone keep ringing as she sat there softly singing
Pretty nursery rhymes she?d memorised in her daddy?s easy chair

The evening sun touched gently on the eyes of Lucy Jordan
On the roof top where she climbed when all the laughter grew too loud
And she bowed and curtsied to the man who reached and offered her his hand
And he led her down to the long white car that waited past the crowd

At the age of thirty-seven she knew she?d found forever
As she rode along through Paris with the warm wind in her hair

Anyhow, daar is ek darem nou by poging 2/365 van daai idee van om weer te blog… so far so good I guess…

Tot wederom!

J

Welkom terug, Happy 2012 en al daai dinge…

Goeiemore, goeiemiddag, goeienaand, Voorspoedige nuwejaar, gelukkige vaaltyn, enjoy die Paasnaweek, hoop nie jy kry te koud in die winter nie, Jippee die Lente is hier, geniet jou vakansie, en Merry Christmas… Als op een dag, net vir incase ek nie kans kry later nie… die lewe is besig om teen 100myl per uur te beweeg, en ek hol nog teen 5 miles a fort nite! As iemand weet waar die “pause” knoppie is, stuur GPS koordinate seblief, ek gaan nie hierdie jaar maak teen hierdie spoed nie!

Maar okay, genoeg gekla. Gaan dit goed? Hoe was jou vakansie?

Sien, die saak staan so:

Ekke wil bittergraag hierdie graad waarmee ek nou al ad infinitum besig is, klaarkry, maar heelaas het die Finansiële Bestuur-dosent dit nie reggekry om genoeg wyse woorde in my eksamenantwoordstel bymekaar te skraap om my poging suksesvol te maak nie… Okay, oraait, dan doen ons maar ‘n ander module ne.Genadiglik vir my (ek wonder oor daai een, om eerlik te wes!) besluit Unisa toe darem dat aangesien dit die laaste ou moduletjie is, en aangesien hulle nou al hoe lank geldjies uit my maak, en aangesien hulle die plekkie wat ek opneem vir ‘n presently overadvantaged student nodig het, hulle my nog ‘n kansie sal gee, MITS ekke ‘n hengse groot werkopdrag teen volgende vrydag kan inhandig en actually deurkom… hou duime vas…

Geniet jou dag, tot ons weer gesels!

 

Geseënde Kersfees!

In konferensie met myself besluit dis tyd vir ‘n blogvakansie (Jaaa, okay, wat is nou eintlik die verskil, since ek in elk geval so lanklaas geblog het ne, Sal probeer opmaak in 2012, promise)

Hoop julle het ‘n heerlike vakansie, en ‘n Geseënde Kersfees vir julle almal!

Haloda!

Gaan dit goed?

Die lewe move ‘n bietjie vinniger as wat ek kan byhou op die oomblik, ek’s nogal bly my naam is nie Jannie nie, want dan was dit properlies “Swem Jannie, Swem!” maar ek kla nie, nognie.

Hoop jy het ‘n lekker maandag!
Tot later!

19 Steve Jobs Quotes and Life Lessons to Live By

1. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”

Embody your why. Have a reason for being. If you can communicate a compelling enough reason, you can influence anyone. How else do you poach a CEO from Pepsi to run your business when you aren’t even 30? Live and breathe it. And as Simon Sinek says, always, always Start with Why.

2. “Focus and simplicity…once you get there, you can move mountains.”
Keep it simple. Stay focused. Two of the most valuable tools in business. Also some of the most underused. It wasn’t until I dedicated my focus solely to my two passions: helping people do work they love and helping people own good businesses through the stock market, and dropped all the other side projects, did the pieces start to fall together. That’s when the community here at Live Your Legend began to form. That’s when the impact started to be clear.

3. “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.”

Believe things will work out. How was I ever to know that the girl who broke my heart in university would lead to my soulmate? How was I to know that the ‘dream job’ I was rejected from out of college would lead me to a year of entrepreneurship and adventure in Spain? How was I to know that taking a miserable job back in the states would be just the push I needed to vow to never do something I wasn’t passionate about again? Everything works out. I mean everything. As long as you believe it will. When you do, you will find the silver lining. That will take you to the next level.

4. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”

Do what you love. Need I say more? From the first day my dad gave me a copy of What Color is Your Parachute to the birth of Live Your Legend and the creation of How to Live Off Your Passion. All the actions, all the decisions to move on to greener pastures in the past decade come back to the belief I have, thanks to Steve, that doing what you love is not something for the lucky few. It’s for the ones willing to work their ass off. The ones who want it badly enough. Those who refuse to settle. Just like all you…

5. “Death is very likely the single best invention of life.”

Don’t wait. The second you realize how fragile and short life is, is the second you get your ass up and start doing what matters. There will never be a good time to do something. There is always a reason to put it off. The timing is never perfect. Do it anyway. Later turns to never too quickly.

6. “And no, we don’t know where it will lead. We just know there’s something much bigger than any of us here.”

Create something bigger than yourself. Don’t do it for you. Do it for them. Do it for the people you will help. Do it for the impact you could have on the world. Live Your Legend has become what it is because it is bigger than I could ever hope to be on my own. It is what it is, because of all of you. The path to doing great things is uncertain. It always will be. Walk it anyway and do something epic.

7. “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”

Don’t cut corners. This goes as much for business and products as it does for friends and loved ones. Do you know the easiest way to stand out? Simply take pride in what you do. Put your heart into it. Sadly many people don’t. Excellence will always be the biggest differentiator of all. Know your excellence and own it.

8. “It comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much.”

Focus. Thirty minutes in the sun is refreshing. Thirty seconds under a magnifying glass will light you on fire. Don’t under estimate the power of focus. With it literally anything is possible. People sometimes ask how I am able to run the two businesses that I am. They don’t understand how I have the time. What they don’t realize is that I don’t piss away time on things that are meaningless to me. It becomes a lot easier to do that when what you’re doing actually matters to you.

9. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”

Be different. It’s easy to copy someone. And in many cases modeling makes the most sense. But never give up who you are. Adopt a successful framework but find your own way to be different. Or turn everything on its head. Our investment partnership only charges investors fees if we make them money. We don’t do our job, we don’t get paid. Sounds obvious until you realize less than 1% of funds operate that way. Be different. You’ll be noticed.

10. “Our goal is to make the best devices in the world, not to be the biggest.”

Know what you want (and what you don’t care about). Most people want it all. The problem is when you try to accomplish that, especially at the same time, you get nowhere. Have the type of pride in what you do to know you can’t be everything to everyone, and instead commit to being something meaningful to someone.

There are a million ideas that came through my mind when launching this site. In the end I left all but a couple for the others out there to keep doing. I had my own idea. Thank you for supporting it. You don’t need as much money as you think. You don’t need as many followers as you think. You don’t need as many customers as you think. Focus on what matters to you. The results will be obvious.

11. “Things don’t have to change the world to be important.”

Make your own impact. I don’t care how big or small it is. All that matters is you do something unique to you that helps people in a way you care about. Don’t be intimidated by the big and famous successful folks. Be inspired by them. If you believe it’s important. Then it’s important. Do that enough and the world will agree.

12. “We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and everyone should be really excellent. Because this is our life.”

Be good at something. Every one of us is excellent at something. The sad thing is that most spend the majority of their life doing something else. Know what you’re awesome at. Know what you can help people with more than anything. It’s a waste to you and a waste to the world to do anything less. It’s never too late. You can’t put your dent in the world if you’re sitting in a cube doing work you’re not even good at.

13. “We hire people who want to make the best things in the world.”

Be attractive. Have pride. Like Warren Buffett says – the best defense against a nasty economy is to be really good at something. Once you figure out what you want and how you want to change the world, stop at nothing until you find a company who believes the same. It will be love at first sight. Or find a partner or start a business that embodies it.

14. “We’re just enthusiastic about what we do.”

Excitement trumps everything. If you can’t get excited about what you’re doing, you have to leave. That’s why I fired myself from corporate hell only seven months into my first official job. Excitement is contagious. But so is depression. With enough enthusiasm, anything is possible.

15. “Half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

Don’t give up. That’s the only way to ensure you never fail. If you can keep charging forward, no matter how fast or slow, over time your competitors will find ways to defeat themselves. It would be embarrassing to divulge to you the number of times a fleeting thought of giving up has flashed in my mind. A few years ago it used to stick around for minutes and even days. But I loved what I did. And I knew it mattered. So I kept going. And I keep going. Love motivates like nothing else.
And a few others:

16. “I’m as proud of what we don’t do as I am of what we do.”

17. “I’m the only person I know that’s lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year. It’s very character-building.”

18. “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

What’s Your Legacy?

30 years ago Steve Jobs said he wanted to put a ‘dent’ in the universe…

Then he got fired from a company he created by a man he hired.

What’d he do?

He kept going.

He built another company. Two in fact.

One gave us Toy Story.

The other got him back to Apple.

Then he changed the world.

He had a Reason Why that the world could get behind. He stood for challenging the status quo, expressing creativity, empowering the individual.

He stood for not settling. For doing work you love and stopping at nothing to achieve it.

Not even the threat of death.

He was determined to make a difference.

Even after he was given 6 months to live. He changed the world for another 6 years.

Steve always planned to leave a legacy.

He grew up dead set on changing the world. He wasn’t sure how he’d do it, but he was pretty sure he would.

A lot of people told him he was crazy.

He did it any way.

It’s sad to see such a Living Legend pass on but the beauty is not just what he created but also in what he left with us now that he’s gone.

It begs the question.

What legacy are you leaving?

Are you putting the dent in the world you know you can be?

It doesn’t have to some grand world-changing idea. It just has to matter to you.

If not then why not? How can I help?

Is what’s holding you back really that powerful?

If you haven’t started, now’s the time to begin planning your legacy. And Living Your Legend.

Don’t waste your time living someone else’s dream.

With the loss of Steve, we need you now more than ever.

So… what legacy will you leave?

“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” – Steve Jobs

Geleen by Scott Dinsmoore, hier

Novemberitis…

Dis die 3de laaste werkdag van Oktober, oor minder as 2 maande is dit kersfees, en …
Ek het nie krag hiervoor nie!

Gelukkige Sekretaressedag!

Vandag sou ek nou baie graag vir myself hierdie:

in hierdie paar arms wou sit:

maar ek’s nie vandag fluent in fotoshop nie, en ek het ooknie die regte software hier nie, so hierdie moet maar doen.

Vir al julle dames, sekretaresses of te not, geniet die dag!

Tot later…

(okay, okay, ek weet… oor 2 dae begin die wêreld beker in NZ… ek sal ophou om oor Dannyboy te drool teen dan, Promise !

Onthougoed

Snaaks hoe sommige goed vir jare in ‘n mens se kop bly saamry, maak nie juis saak waar jou pad jou vat of wat in die lewe gebeur nie, op een of ander manier bly stukkies onthou by jou… of so werk dit met my, in elk geval.
Hierdie gedig het die mynkaptein van die myn waar ek jarre gelede gewerk het eendag vir my gestuur, en op een of ander manier het dele hiervan nog altyd saamgeloop.
Hoop daar staan iets hier wat vir iemand iets beteken, dit doen vir my.

Ithaca ~Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon — do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)