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The Growlersworld Interviews is an ongoing quest, bringing you closer to successful and creative people in all walks of life. Rawle Austin presents... A conversation with Eddie Croft - Palming his way to Greener Pastures
I am the Head of Investments and Securities in a government department known as the DCA where I have worked for 4 years. Before that I worked as an Investment Adviser for the Public Trust Office for 8 years, and before that I worked in Jobcentres and Immigration. I also operate a small garden plant business from my home growing and selling exotic plants as a pastime. RA: How and when did you first get into gardening as a pastime?
People like Alan Titchmarsh, Rachel de Thame and Chris Beardshaw have moved gardening on in the last ten years and now it is much more a younger persons interest because of the variety of plants you can buy. With the boom in property prices, people now want their gardens to reflect the lifestyle that the inside of their homes shows. This means that they want landscaped gardens with patios and big bold plants such as palms, tree ferns and bamboo and other exotics that are generally low maintenance but look great year round. The appeal of gardening for me is growing exotics outside in the UK.
What
would be nice is to get a contract to do the landscaping and planting
for a big housing development for example. Its every amateur's dream to
break free from the shackles of the nine to five in order to run their
own business. EC:
When I was on holiday in the early 1990s I started to notice the different
varieties of palms but at that stage I didn't think about growing them
in the UK.
The
products of palms that most of us come into contact with are coconuts
and dates but they are also used for their wood, to produce a type of
wine and the leaves are used for thatched roofs. EC: Stick to it. Its a competitive business these days but there are jobs in everything from hedge cutting, retail, design, growing, importing and journalism/broadcasting.
EC: 1. South Africa is an unbelievable destination. I went to the Western Cape in 2002 and it was one of the best holidays I have ever had. Within the space of a few days you can see penguins on boulders beach, whales in False Bay, wildebeest above Cape Town, take a cable car ride to the top of Table Mountain, visit Nelson Mandela's prison cell, experience life in the townships around the city where there is extreme poverty and crime, visit the vineyards and sample wines, go on safari a or go Great White spotting. I believe that there isn't another place on earth where you can see so much within a few days.
Herm,
in particular, is the most perfect place with soft white sandy beaches,
green cliff tops and a tiny community living off of tourism and agriculture.
I love it because of its barren landscape, parched dry by the sun. I often go there in winter and notice how superb the light is on the golden desert sands and blue waters in contrast with the dull greys of home.
But the place I would most like to visit is Africa because you learn more about the world in a day there than you can on 5 package holidays to the Med. I
think I'll try another trip to South Africa next year but I'm also keen
to go to New Zealand. EC: Tony Robbins is a motivational coach who has built up a massive following in the US and more recently in the UK and Europe.
RA: How do you keep yourself motivated to achieve your goals and ambitions? EC: I am by nature someone who gets up early and likes to be busy. I motivate myself by a particular method whereby I set goals for myself and target dates, whether its for what I want to achieve during a day at work or what I want to achieve over the course of a year. Although its important to have day-to-day goals and targets, its even more important for everyone to have longer term drivers that your day-to-day goals help you achieve.
You can use this approach too by simply writing down the things that you want to acquire or achieve during the next 12 months, 3 years and 5 years and then identifying the reasons why you absolutely must achieve those objectives. Pick out the three most important ones under the 12 month header and then determine what you need to do to move toward your objective. Timetable those actions and make a commitment to follow through. Tell someone that you are going to do whatever it is so that you can't back out or get lazy later on. Take
action today, no matter how small, to move towards your goal. They inspire me because sometimes when things are tough and something else goes wrong, there are a few team members that pull together to think of a way around the problem. They'll commit to whatever it takes to resolve the problem I am pleased to be part of that team. My wife and daughter are a special inspiration for me to get up in the morning too and I love to do things with them in my free time. To
see your baby's first experiences such as crawling, walking, talking are
fantastic. Learn more about Tony Robbins on his website.
Lu Qin Ming - Introducing China to the World> <Eric
Quartey - Aspiring to an Entrepreneurial Destiny
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