How Secure Are You?
Article 5/365 of Jacques’s Writing Quest One of our biggest drivers is to feel safe and secure. I remember a story by my teacher, Shaykh Ebrahim Schuitema, that completely changed my understanding of security. He spoke about owning a house which is one of the cornerstones of feeling secure in our perception. He asked me […]
Everybody was kung fu fighting
Article 4/365 of Jacques’s Writing Quest Everybody was Kung Fu fighting. Those cats were fast as lightning. In fact, it was a little bit frightening. But they fought with expert timing. I love this song by Carl Douglas. Listen to it here. It’s certain to uplift your spirits. I practised Kung Fu in the early […]
Envy is the religion of the mediocre
I bang on about mediocrity a lot. Maybe I should interrogate that and see why that is, and what mediocrity in others mirrors for me … but not today. I found a piece by Carlos Ruiz Zafón in his book The Angel’s Game that gives an articulate description of one aspect of mediocrity. It has […]
We are all passengers looking for connection
“What’s lacklustre about Passengers isn’t just that the movie is short on surprise, but that it’s like a castaway love story set in the world’s largest, emptiest shopping mall in space.” When I read this critique, I almost didn’t watch the movie. But, I’m so glad I decided to watch it. The movie is about […]
Ghost
Sunday, 31 May 2020 How long has this lockdown been. 8 weeks? 9 weeks? I don’t know. It feels interminable. I feel like I have no voice in this new world. It has brought the best and the worst out of me. It has united and polarised us. It has unmasked the biases I didn’t […]
The Disillusionment Paradox
Imagine your 80-year-old self reflecting on how you played the game until this point. Looking back, did you achieve everything that you set out to do? Some of it? None of it? Did the promise life or at least GQ, Vogue and Cosmopolitan magazines make you come true? Did you get that perfect life? The […]
Sales Motivational Speakers South Africa
If you’re looking for sales motivational speakers South Africa for your next conference, consider Jacques de Villiers and his argument: The Story You Tell Is The Story You Sell! For the last 20 years, my focus has been on tackling the findings from talent solutions organisation Chally’s study, which revealed that after interviewing 27,000 sales […]
You, the Chosen
My daughter, Rebecca, was around three or four years old – I’m hazy on the timing, but I’m crystal clear on the story I’m about to relate to you. It’s indelibly inked into my psyche. Rebecca reached out her hands to Simoné and I and said, “Mommy, daddy, I want to tell you something.” She […]
The Warrior and the Artist
Have you ever wished that you were somewhere else or doing something else? I used to want to be somewhere else, doing something else until I came across the notion of the warrior and the artist. It helped me shift from wanting something ‘out there’ to being grateful that I was privileged enough to be […]
We Love The Lamborghini More Than The Lamb
Work On The Stuff That Matters Or You’ll Be Left In Tatters (alternate title) I don’t know about you, but when I see a beggar on the street, I feel sorry for him. And guilty. I have so much and he has so little. But when I reflect that my job on this planet is […]