terrylevin

I've been listening to this lady. She's the leader of the Conservative Party in Britain. I don't know her personally, have only seen her speak in person at two London conferences. Her name is Kemi Badenoch and she's solid. Really solid. Thomas Sowell's ideas have had an enormous impact on her, she’s said. I wish South Africa could produce conservative leaders as solid as Kemi. I wish. Especially in the black community. The likes of Herman Mashaba and Mmusi Maimane have been a huge disappointment. I hope she becomes British Prime Minister one day.

#2026 Medium-Term Budget: "R200bn infrastructure pipeline must unlock youth employment" bizcommunity.com/article/dt-… @Biz_Construct #ConstructionSectorJobs

Bird Watching at the Loeries: More big names, big ideas and big creative conversations. Bird Watching at the Loeries, the official podcast of @loeries Creative Week, with @VML_ZA and Bizcommunity, is back for a third year! bizcommunity.com/article/bir… @Biz_Marketing

The Bougainvillea Principle I’ve never managed to grow a bougainvillea successfully. I’ve planted them. Watered them. Fed them. Given them every chance. They’ve rewarded me with remarkable consistency. By dying. Which always puzzled me. One of the most beautiful bougainvillea I ever knew grew outside my childhood bedroom window. It was enormous. Every year it erupted into a riot of purple. I can’t remember anyone watering it. I certainly don’t remember anyone fussing over it. It simply got on with the business of being a bougainvillea. Since then, I’ve noticed the same thing everywhere. And I am fortunate to live in a suburb that has tons of them, in different colours and shades. The most magnificent bougainvilleas rarely seem to be found in immaculate gardens. They’re climbing over neglected walls, spilling out of forgotten verges and somehow bursting from cracks in pavements where no sensible plant should survive. Let alone thrive. They don’t just survive neglect. They almost seem to reward it. It made me wonder whether we’ve got some bigger things, backwards. We live in an age of optimisation. There’s an app for almost everything. A coach for almost everything. A podcast, a supplement, a shortcut, a hack and a system promising to improve every corner of our lives. We measure. We tweak. We optimise. We intervene. Above all, we fuss. Sometimes I wonder whether we’ve confused effort with adding value. Whether we’re so busy trying to improve everything that we forget to ask a far more important question: Will this actually help it bloom? I’ve come to think of this as The Bougainvillea Principle. Many things don’t reach their full potential because life is made easier. They reach it because life demands more of them. Nature seems to understand something we’ve almost forgotten. Challenge isn’t always something to eliminate. Sometimes it’s precisely what helps develop strength. That applies to plants. It applies to people. It applies to organisations. As parents, our instinct is to remove every obstacle from our children’s path (snowplough parenting). As leaders, it’s also to solve every problem for our teams. And as individuals, we search endlessly for easier, quicker and more comfortable routes. Of course support matters. Care matters. Love matters. But there is a profound difference between supporting something and smothering it. Between nurturing and overprotecting. Between helping and constantly interfering. Perhaps resilience isn’t something you can give. Perhaps it’s something that can only be earned. Every time I drive past one of those outrageous explosions of orange, white or crimson climbing over an old wall, I smile. Nobody is standing there with a watering can. Nobody is measuring its progress. Nobody is trying to optimise it. It simply blooms. Perhaps the bougainvillea has been trying to teach us something all along. Sometimes the wisest thing we can do, for our children, our colleagues, our businesses and even ourselves, is to stop fussing quite so much. Because some things don’t bloom despite adversity. They bloom because of it.

Beyond borders: Why 2026 should be remembered as Africa's World Cup bizcommunity.com/article/bey… | @Octagon #BizPressRelease @Biz_Marketing @Bizcommunity

The State Capture Commission estimated that more than R57 billion in public funds was lost through state capture.   As I reported yesterday, recoveries by law enforcement linked to the work of the Commission now stand at over R17 billion.   As a result of Presidential Proclamations, the SIU has recovered R1.3 billion in cash and assets in the past financial year alone.   nitter.gq/i/broadcasts/1yKAPPRWP…