Friends 2

The last two days have been…I am not even sure how to describe it – A weird blend of excitement, fear, great deals, great friends, a showing up of my negative traits (as if I need reminding) and a lot of learning experiences.

But I want to focus on friendship again.

Friends, good friends can put up with a lot of stuff.  Over the last two days, I have contemplated what action to take with regards to a property deal.  In this situation, it turned out that the property was hiding a wide range of faults that became obvious when furnishings were removed.  So suddenly, what I thought was a great deal became just a good one.   A sudden realisation that I had become far too emotionally involved in the seller and had not looked at the bare figures enough.   I am running a business after all!!

Anyway, for me contemplating anything involves a whole lot of talking and talking and talking to anyone who will listen and who I trust enough to give me good advice.  For instance, I spent some of yesterday with a great friend of mine (who incidentally has been a business woman and so therefore has relevant insights on my business concerns) and most of my conversation in some way came back to the pros and cons of buying this house at its current price.  Even when I decided to give her a break from the house chatter, I would somehow find myself going over the same ground incessantly.  She graciously put up with this.

In the evening and intermittently through the day, I kept speaking to Tloml about the same issues over and over again.  I did say I love to talk.  I had also reopened negotiations with the seller at this point, I promise I was not ONLY talking about it.  The problem was standing my ground through it all as the agent working on behalf of the seller kept trying to bamboozle me – although at the time I was too close to the situation to see it for what it was.  Thankfully, Tloml refused to allow me budge in terms of the sum of money we were to offer.  And  I was weak, I probably would have fallen for the nonsense.

During the evening before, on a phone call to another friend who has selflessly given of his time on numerous occasions to helping me price up works to be done on various properties, he too was with Tloml on not budging on price with this property.

Finally, today another new but amazing friend gave me sound advice over the phone that became the final push to help me hold my ground when negotiating with the agent.  Amazingly, I got the result I wanted at the end of all this.

So what is the point of all the talk above – It all leads to the fact that no great thing can be achieved alone.  I am so thankful for the people I have around me who aid me in making better decisions and who stand with me even when I feel weak or fearful.  I am grateful to have people remind me of what I am trying to accomplish, and in some cases to kick me up the bum and help me stay on course.  This is just to remind myself and anyone reading that friends are never to be taken for granted but to be applauded and they can be a source of inspiration.

Just to end this, I will refer back to my last post and ask again, what kind of friend are you?  And what kind of friends are you surrounded by?  It can be the difference between growing in maturity or staying stagnant or worse.  Choose well!

“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.”

Bernard Meltzer.