Welcome to Chez Cliff!

I’m amazed at the blank stares I receive when the words “Croatia” and “vacation” appear in the same sentence.  It’s true: when my friends first mentioned going to Croatia all I could think about was war-torn country, bullet-holes in the churches, and ethnic cleansing.  After all, the Bosnia-Serbian conflict was just 10 years ago.

What I was not prepare for was the resilience of the people of Croatia.  This region has been a region of conflict for centuries.  Unfortunately I fear that this may be once again another region of conflict sometime soon.  But because my understanding of this country, these people was so limited (and laughable) it made this the perfect place to take a vacation.

My friends took the liberty of renting a 45 foot yacht for us to sail around the islands that do make up Croatia.  Over 1,100 islands.  Obviously in our four days on board we couldn’t see every island.  But the best way to get around Croatia is by boat.

First, let’s start with the water.  The sea was so clear, it made Hawaii look dirty.  Pristine, untouched and simply gorgeous.  When our yacht would drop anchor, you could see the anchor on the bottle of the sea.  Very clear.  The next trait about the water: the salinity was so high it was impossible to sink.  That is an odd sensation, considering Michigan’s fresh water swimming permitted one to sink indefinitely.  No, hold your breath and try to go under and it won’t happen.  The furthest I could get was just above my eye brows.

Next on the list was the seafood.  The first place we held up for the night had four seafood restaurants.  When we got off the boat, a fisherman was cleaning the largest grouper-fish I had ever seen.  I believe this was the same fish that swallowed Jonah from the bible.  Not sure.  One of my companions made a comment about how delicious the grouper looked and I agreed.  That night, the restaurant, convienently located right next to our yacht, told us the specials.  The lady finished with “Oh, and we have fresh grouper.  The fish is so large you could probably all share it.”  Having the fish go from the ocean to your plate within the span of two hours definitely means it’s fresh.

If it’s true that you can tell more about a culture by its cuisine then what we tasted spoken volumes.  During our stay aboard our version of the S.S. Minnow, our captain was about to show us what true local Croatians were all about through their cooking.  And it was an interesting story.

Sometimes you have to be impulsive.

My vacation is being extended by another week.  The country-side is beyond words.  Everything that everyone has said about Tuscany is true.  Believe it all.

For those of you in love with the movie “Under the Tuscan Sun” we visited Cortona.  Our timing couldn’t have been better for it rained and hailed, thus pinning us under the awnings outside the shops littering the medieval town.  The only thing we could do was sit on the curbs and drink red wine.

As I type this, we’re sitting in Bari which is along the west coast of Italy.  Somehow we’re going to get on a boat to take us to Dubrovnik.  Half of our crew insist Croatia is beautiful and we must go.  Ok!

I do have to say that while we were in Tuscany, the villa we were staying at didn’t have the advertised internet.  So we drove around, with my iPhone scanning away, until we found a free hotspot.  What a site we were: having four people parked in their car alongside the road of this old town of Monterchi and using our Macs.

I haven’t had a vacation in over a year and a half.  And I’m feeling it.

I’ll be back in a few weeks.  Check back from time to time whereas I’ll probably be writing about my experiences.  Travelling makes me do that. 

Number three on my list of Self Help books that actually helped me would be “The Four Hour Work Week”.

While the book may be chucked full of great information, only a few items actually stuck with me.

Concept 1:  Automate your life.

This is cool.

Keeping my life in Quadrant 2, everything was getting taken care of except those unforeseen emergencies which life throws at you.  But some tasks are about as fun as watching paint dry.  Those tasks, Tim argues, can be assigned to a personal assistant.  I did one better: I completely automated them.

The results are incredible.  No longer am  I spending time taking care of bills each month.  Everything is automated.

A side benefit to this was discovering I could cut down on the amount of paperwork coming to me.  I hate paperwork.  My accounts are now all tracked electronically, thus eliminating the time needed to file paperwork.

Concept 2:  Hire out to freelancers

I had never heard of eLance.com or Guru.com until I read his book.  Suddenly assigning out these little tasks that I had no idea how to do made sense.  You could pay via credit card and have people carrying out these designs.

Suddenly I realized I could spend more time managing my business rather than doing all the technical aspects of it.  Those technical duties suck up a lot of time simply because I’m not great at it.

This has created a great pool of resources that I can now draw on and get results within a matter of days.  Granted, most of my resources are located on the other side of the world.  But that’s ok: I use that to my advantage.

The second self-help book I read which had an impact on my life was

The Richest Man in Babylon

Even though this book existed for many moons, I never bothered to read it until my mentor verbally flogged me about it.  Then I read it.

Two concepts of this book reached me.

Concept 1:  Save 10% of your income, no matter what that income might be.

Yes, I also understand this tidbit of wisdom has been around for the longest time.  But it wasn’t until I read the book that I decided to truly act on it.

Before, my concept was to always have 3 months worth of living expenses saved up.  Now I just wanted to continually expand that number.  But it was hard to try and figure out how to cut 10% and stick it into a savings account when rents are coming in, paying mortgages, receiving paychecks . . . and that is when I figured out the Bread Crumb savings plan.  It’s still going strong, by the by.  A few months back, I increased the amount going into my money-market accounts.

Concept 2:  Lady Fortune favors those who take advantage of opportunities.

Sure some lucky person could win the lottery or inherit a large, wealthy estate.  For the other ninety-nine percent of us who achieved their personal desires and dreams did so by actively pursuing those ambitions.  I’m not talking about researching something to death but rather making something happen.

The more you are actively working on your dreams, the more opportunities will present themselves.

This is one of those undeniable truths I’ve discovered, since changing my direction all those years ago.