Jannie Mouton: And then they fired me

People laugh when I say this, but it’s true. I’ve overdone delegation to the extent that I do almost nothing. I don’t really work at the office. It’s a singular privilege. I want time to think. I want to philosophise and I want to come up with opportunities. There are people who like being involved everywhere, as if that would make them seem import

Many people will tell you your house is your greatest asset. For me it’s your greatest burden. As I said in part 1, I always just wanted to pay it off. I was itching to do more useful things with my money.

have a list of what I regard as the characteristics of successful people, probably an obvious bunch of traits. People who are well read, have well-considered opinions, are honest, can communicate and stick it out, are self-confident and care for people and on top of that can think, are the best. Clear goals direct all these characteristics.

One of the major challenges and most exciting aspects of the business world remain identifying opportunities.

The assistance to entrepreneurs or management firstly consists of striving to help someone focus on their goals. Directors have to see to it that a business plan is carried out.

A negative person has never started or established anything positive. The people at PSG also know they shouldn’t come and tell me something doesn’t work – they have to come up with an alternative.

There’s something else to the art of empowerment. If you trust others to take good decisions, you also have to respect your employees and give credit where it’s due. Labour can never be rewarded with money alone.

At present my children and I own more than 30% of PSG’s shares and, along with the shareholders mentioned above, Thys du Toit (former KWV chairman) and Christo Wiese have huge stakes.

opinions until you’re blue in the face, but show me your balance sheet first. In a nutshell: start with about four or five good shares in the long term, diversify your investments across more shares for less risk and forget about short-term speculation. Five or six shares are optimal for diversification, as long as you invest in fairly diverse sect

So many people who come to present an opportunity uhm and ah so incoherently that I now ask beforehand whether someone would just like a cup of tea or sell or buy something so I can focus. My patience runs out with a wishy-washy presentation – does one really need more than ten minutes to explain how a business works and maybe ten minutes for a pos