What really matters

Can you recall the last moment when you’ve suddenly experienced total bliss? When it feels like time is standing still and you want to stay in this moment forever? It normally happens few and far in between – for me at least.

What really matters to you? Is it the next promotion and that corner office, getting that big order, signing the deed of purchase for your own house, driving a sports car? The Porsche will come, but what really matters to me are those intimate moments with someone very special that I share a lot of time with every day.

You need to pay the rent and having wine on the table every day is a given, but what makes life exciting is discovering, pursuing and creating new things – be it clients, deals, ideas, products, places, trips and relationships. And all of this happens through interaction with people that you really like to spend time with.

With a client from China who is notorious for only letting you know he is in Cape Town once he has arrived and expects you to arrange a winelands visit to several cellars over the weekend, it certainly creates an adrenaline rush.  Fortunately the wineries are very accommodating, especially when Dollars are involved.

Then comes help from France in the person of Juliette, beautiful, poised, quiet and soft-spoken – so much so that when she talks everyone listens. It took me a full month, and asking nicely, before getting her to talk more freely. But was that absolutely worth it, tantamount to conquering a mountain.

After a boring week of month-end, export and logistics documentation for me and clients prospection for her comes a hectic Friday to fix an incorrect export certificate for a shipment that has already sailed to Japan when another such moment arises unexpectedly with no words necessary. It happened when stepping out of a blistery cold wind into the warmth of Villiera’s tasting room. No one is there except for the tasting room manager and a warm inviting fireplace. We edge onto a bench facing the heat, and I suddenly experience an inner calmness. Nothing else matters except us and these moments we share together, talking about what’s in the glass and other trivial stuff. It feels like a reward in itself, altogether worth as much or more as the financial success of the major deal concluded the week before.

Some things just fit perfectly together. Like a good quality cork into the neck of an elegant wine bottle, some people also match perfectly from the outset. So finally, what really matters for you? For me it is relationships with the special people in my life, as this is the stepping stone to build the future on…

 Photo credits: Cape Point, Franschhoek – Anton Blignault

© Anton Blignault, Cape Town