It’s been a long, I shouldn’t have left you…

…without a dope beat to step to…(Taken from the Alliyah song I love so much) Anyway, it has been a while since I have been in my own crib. I apologise for the silence. Looking at it now, it has been almost 2 weeks since I posted something here. Please forgive me, the last two weeks have been really hectic for me. The world around us seems to be crumbling with all this financial chaos happening in the US and European markets. Now I am not a financial guru and can not explain to you exactly what is causing all this chaos or even how it started. I do not even know the exact details of the $700bn bailout plan that is causing a lot of tension in the US but all I can tell you is that all this chaos is making us see fire!

And literally were are seeing fire, if you are not seeing fire then you are going to see fire! I deal a lot with businesses in the US and the UK and these financial events taking place are not good for their businesses. I do not need to know why this mess is happening, all I need to know is that clients are saying “we cutting down on spending”. For me that is the bottom line. If they do not spend then we as businesses will suffer. What really got me laughing was when I thought that this financial mess was only affecting businesses across the world but then I saw that it is even affecting whole countries! Iceland is basically seeing the fire I was talking about earlier with their economy about to collapse.

All these banks seem to be crashing and as funny as it maybe, the underlying fact is that it is affecting the whole world. I saw wanted AIG to go down thinking that Manchester United would no longer have a shirt sponsor. That would have been really funny seeing Man Utd playing without a sponsor on their shirts! But business took over my hatred for Man Utd. and it was actually a good thing that AIG was rescued as their downfall may have caused even more chaos.

This past week the JSE has been doing some crazy things! People have lost millions within hours all because shares are dropping in value. Who ever said that the more money you have the more problems you have was correct. Imagine you had R20m invested on the JSE and over night you loose 5% of that? That’s a staggering R1m lost in 24 hours. Now I would be hurt even if I had a lot of money. The big guys are loosing millions and even us small guys who had small portfolios on investments are loosing! And what about the rand? Just last week we were trading at R8 per $ and now we touching the R9.50 mark. If you earning USD or pounds then you laughing all the way to the bank but if you got bills to pay in forex then you in deep water!

It is just tough times all around but one has to remain strong. It is testing times like this which make or break you as an individual. There are just some thing you can not control, such as banks crashing in the US but these crashes play a part in your life. How you adjust to this is how you rise or fall. If you have lost R1m in 24 hours, it is up to you to make a plan to get that R1m back.

I have just finished reading a book called “Innovation” by Tom Gorman which was a very quick read ( I can not read large books!) and it was basically saying that one needs to be innovative if you want to be successful. Look at problems around you and think of ways to solve those problems and your solution could be worth millions! It is a good read and if you can get your hands on it you must. You will be done reading it in a day or two but it will get your brain thinking. And it is at times like this that we are in, you need to be thinking outside the box and be one step ahead of everything!