Time to start waking up

Recession time has hit us. South Africa was until recently being relatively unaffected, but clearly this will not continue. The SABC has announced that they have become dependent on government subsidies to sustain themselves as they have taken a R700 million loan. Old mutual found itself in trouble recently announcing that they have used their reserve to recover losses.

People are being retrenched all over the world and the country. Companies have put the alarm bells on and have stopped expanding and have stopped employing, yes the future looks pretty bleak. However there are a few select companies who are doing fantastically. Gijima for example had an 83% profit growth this year, car tracking companies have been on the up and up.
What does the recession mean for us?

It means opportunities have to be found because they are not going to land in our laps anymore. I got sent a quote the other day which read, “Opportunities are never lost, they are simply taken by someone else.” Go out and make it happen, I’ll be honest although the recession has caused uncertainty in my life, it has also brought me great hope. Five years ago I was thinking that it would be impossible for me to buy a house, now with the prices going down I think I have actually have a chance. The interest rate has dropped as well, which means I pay less for car and less for my credit card. These are all positives.

We need to continue, we need to keep moving. The whole problem is that everyone is slowing, people have stopped trading and are holding on to what they have. The problem with this is it slows down the whole process. Trade would be fine if people simply continued. In my opinion this is a media generated recession, Although on a personal note it’s about time that executives started to realise that they have been paying themselves too much.

My company has recently been doing damage control and have started to look for new opportunities as a backup plan, we need to have contingencies for ourselves, and we need to grab at opportunities. A friend of mine has started nine to fiving while he owns his own business. He is basically saying stuff you recession, I’ll be fine.

Have you woken up. Hard work will always bring success, laziness and negatively will achieve nothing. What are you doing to secure your future, are you indispensable?


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