​Seize The Day - Have No Regrets

Do you have a history of missed opportunities?

Life has no sliding doors and no second chances to go back and do things differently. Therefore, try to leave this earthly place with minimal regrets. What's done is done. Seize the day!

Carpe Diem

I wasn't taught this so I don't really understand why I am like I am. Maybe it's due to my parents parting ways when I was very young and my looking to impress my father. Who knows?

What I do know is that throughout my life I have always grabbed at any opportunity that comes my way. The minute I hear of something that piques my interest, I am on it. Here are a few examples that will hopefully encourage you to do the same (if you don't already).

Ski Train

My earliest "seize the day" memory was as a 22 year old just starting out in the corporate world. I was working in the finance department of a publishing company in Surrey.

The job was ok. I was in charge of analyzing and recovering historical debt which I loved. However, I was still just 22 and full of life...office life could be dull at times.

At that time, my brother and a few friends worked for a Ski Holiday company in Surbiton, Surrey. Word got to me that they were looking for someone to help run the bar on their fabulous ski train.

I jumped all over it before anyone else. The job was mine if I wanted it so I asked my boss if I could have the next 16 Friday's off work (my entire year's leave) so that I could work for the whole ski season. I was already a skier and loved the mountain resort way of life.

And?

Well, he said yes so I spent that ski season:

I recall only earning £80 for the weekend but that was made up for by all the free skiing and healthy tips we received along the way. What an experience. Seize the Day!

Gran Canaria

You may have seen elsewhere on this website that I used to skydive. In 1997, I had just come out of a long relationship, my friends were all settling down and I was starting to really hate the corporate world. I felt lost.

This was a few months after my malfunction and I was working in the Midlands in a job I really didn't like. The office gossip was unbearable, there were no possibilities of promotion and I had taken a pay cut. However, I had moved there to be nearer Langar Airfield where the planes threw us out much higher than in Kent.

Anyway, one day a friend called me and asked if I fancied living in Gran Canaria where they had found a cool job. Plus there was a small dropzone there where we could jump and land on the beach. We spent hours talking about it and deciding how we would go about it and finally made our minds up...to go.

Before I could speak to my boss, some of the office gossips had already complained about me being on a personal call for so long (not like me at work). When he asked me what I was up to, I just said I was planning my move to Spain and could I please give my month's notice. He accepted and wished me well.

If I hadn't made that decision there and then, I would never have gone to GC, I would never had met my wife and my kids would not exist. Seize the Day!

Real Estate

When we left Gran Canaria and moved to the mainland of Spain (Marbella), neither my wife or I had jobs. As we drove from the airport to our new apartment, I saw a British run real estate company, screeched to a halt and went inside.

After a few minutes, I had an interview for a job and subsequently got that job in the Nueva Andalucia office near Puerto Banus. I got my first sale THE DAY BEFORE I started.

I had gone into the office on the Sunday to meet everyone, answered a call and sold a €500,000 villa to a guy from Liverpool. He flew out that night to buy it the very next morning. That was €6000 commission + a €400 bonus in the bag!

A few months later, I became incredibly busy with quite a few sales under my belt. I foolishly gave away a client to a new salesperson in another of our offices. The long and short of it is that she made a sale, my boss got incredibly angry as he lost commission and stats for our office and sacked me.

Taking it on the chin, I went straight to a solicitor and set up my own Spanish real estate company. I had a person in London that was feeding me multiple clients and I sold to pretty much every one during the last years of the property boom on the coast.

Rather than making 20% of the previous company's commission, I was now making 100% of my own commission (between 5% and 12% per property sale). Seize the Day!

Enduro Africa

I have a few more of these examples of seize the day but I want to keep this page relatively short so I will finish with this one.

I'm a biker at heart, I've had motorbikes since the age of 15 and still love them today. After moving back to the UK in 2007, my wife and I were watching "A Long Way Down" with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman. I said to her "I would love to do that one day"...

Before I could finish my sentence, she threw the newspaper at me open at a page she just happened to be reading at that moment. It was for a 1000 mile motor x trip across Africa called Enduro Africa.

I grabbed the paper, went to my computer and signed up by paying a deposit there and then.

Eventually I raised the £5,000 charity money needed, did the trip and had the time of my life. All in all, we raised half a million pounds for 4 fabulous charities in Africa whilst making some lifelong friends along the way. Seize the Day!

Seize the Day

Hopefully some of my ramblings have inspired you to seize the day and make some life-changing decisions and incredible memories. At the very least, have some fun and adventures along the way.

Having an online business and residual income (money that comes in whether you work or not), will allow anyone to do this stuff whenever you want. You could even work on your business whilst doing it. Many people earn a living from travel blogs these days...what a way to live!

The whole point of this website is to inspire, teach and motivate others to grab life by the b*lls and make a difference. Whether it is a difference in your own life, your family's or someone else's. You only live once so make it count.

What memories have you made so far and what memories do you want to make in the future? Please add your comments below and share this article with anyone you think may be inspired by it. You can see more about one or two of these adventures on my About Us page.

If you haven't done so already, get on our free internet marketing course and see if that can help you start to live the life you love!