I am often accused that I work too hard on dreams. That even when projects are not confirmed yet, I already prepare everything that has to be ready once they are. And today is no different.
I have started this blog for Linda and me. A blog in which we share the thousand and one things that we have to do to create our dream: a permanent location where I can prepare all the adventures that are necessary for our Adventures APP and where we can offer a home-away-from-home for Chinese students who study in Europe.
In 2020, we found a unique location in the centre of France. Surrounded by wine fields and picturesque villages, we found an estate for sale that has a mansion, many people say ‘castle’, that has 12 bedrooms and that is surrounded by 360.000 square meters of grass fields, forest, a lake, and even a herd of deer. An ideal place for scouting activities and to offer people a retreat from the often hectic world around them.
Even though we had less than 10% of the purchase price, we did an offer but we were told that the mansion had already been sold to another person. In hindsight, that was a blessing for us. Both Europe and China entered periods of brutal lockdowns to reduce the devastating effects of Covid and without any reserves, we would have quickly run out of money.
Running out of money we did anyway. The lockdowns severely limited my ability to earn an income and eventually, Linda took on heavy freelance jobs in catering while I stubbornly kept focusing on the Adventures APP which didn’t yet bring any income in at all.
In the meanwhile, nothing happened in France. I had kept in touch with the mayor of the village and Linda even received a surprise call from an acquaintance that she got to know during our 2-day visit in 2020. Both contacts told us that nobody has used the mansion since our visit in 2020.
We might have had little money in 2020, but now, after all Linda’s savings were used to get us through the Covid period, we had no money left at all. However, now that we knew that the estate was still not used, our dreams came up again.
It was not easy to locate the new owner, but this month we finally succeeded in that. E-mails, phone calls and even registered letters had not succeeded in getting in touch. But now we know where he lives and I am preparing to visit him in person. After all, owning an estate where he never comes does also not seem very worthwhile for him.
The current owner lives in Switzerland and in the coming week, I’ll go to see him. He might close the door in front of me and without money in the bank, you would say that we have no chance. But nevertheless, I already made a video for the youth camps this summer, made our sales channels enthusiastic and even started this website. For those who know me, it is a familiar story. It is an impossible quest, with no real chance of success, but I act as if the purchase is already done and Linda and I will start realizing our dreams.
I have an interesting week ahead and next week I can either report glory or I have to tell my family and my business partners, that it was all only a dream.
Paul
PS (post scriptum):
“Success = quality + chance”
A quote from Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate in economics.
