Recently I paid my Brother a visit at his home in Douglasdale , Sandton.
As always I appreciated our long talks about life, a mindset that needs to be acquired and most importantly the notion of Delayed Gratification.
for the longest of times whenever I’ve had to think about my future, when my career starts taking shape and when I start making the real money all I had in mind was what I would do with this money.
It had never struck me to think twice about getting myself a Volkswagen scirocco R , have the nicest suits and drink the finest beverages , shopping at the finest shops. That to me was perfectly normal, a life of affording and buying because I could.
The question then became , what real value do I gain from that? What tangible outcome do I see from all these materialistic views I had?
The high end vehicle may get me attention, the high end suits may increase respect but the question still remains what is the true value of all of that?
He continued to tell me how he bought two cars in succession just because he could, he left and became a lawyer in New York , lived in an apartment in the Upper East side of Manhattan and life afforded him all the luxury he could have dreamed for at the time.
Now 6+ years later what could he really say was a tangible investment of the returns he yielded when his career started to peak? At the time it was 2009 after an economic recession he asked me had he bought an apartment in Tableview or Blouberg in Cape Town where he resided at the time how much more value would that property be worth now.
A lesson he shared with me was nothing beats Priority and a long run view. Nothing beats having sight of your aspirations at all times and making sure what you do today is yielding you closer to the future you imagine.
We lose so much because we are obsessed with fulfilling an image that will not last in the now rather than investing in a life beyond the now.
He went on to say we lose 100% of the opportunities we don’t take.
We are the people we project ourselves to be only when we take time and effort into being what we want.
A few things he mentioned was its okay to drive a polo and stay in a reasonable apartment and using the large amounts of money wasted splurging on entertainment and material things and invest in your future…
You will thank yourself for it later.
Know yourself
keep yourself accountable
be resilient
persist
and always maintain a mindset of excellence. Your time is coming employ an attitude of delayed gratification , no one will remember you for temporary pleasure.