Friendship. Final thoughts. Until next time.

Well, I didn’t accomplish nearly what I set out to do before leaving. But I’m actually quite ok with that, because there were some unexpected time sinks this week. Friends needed me to be there for them, and when the unexpected occurs, you prioritise. That’s about all I can say.

Work highlights:
• The boardroom in the Hub was finally completed and usable. The noise and dust of construction are very disruptive. Later in the week, cabling began. It’s incredibly disrupting to have phone lines down for weeks and wireless up and down, but that should all be drawing to a close now.
• SeeSawDo jumpstart: SeeSawDo paints crèches and sells children’s books. This was very interesting to me; one aspects is obviously much more leveraged than the other. But something that had not occurred to me because I don’t live in this space: how much of what goes into making a properly-functioning adult starts in childhood, and specifically in creative thinking as a result of children’s books and stories. I can completely not result to growing up in an environment without children’s books and with very little adult stimulation. Well, we all know we are a product of both nature and nurture, and as trivial as it might seem (how is children’s books a social enterprise??), well, children’s books that children can actually relate to may be one of those basic things.
• Greenpop jumpstart followups: I had asked Greenpop to think into some implications from the learnings out of their jumpstart. It was great to hear them report back, and see the influence that we had had on their business but that they are making happen. Of course, there’s also just something about Greenpop. Although by the time we finished, all the paleo food from the potluck lunch was done so I had to make myself some eggs (and Jeremy called my diet fundamentalist which is actually probably the best description I’ve heard).
• We had a couple of introductory business development meetings this week, one of which was completely out of the blue but left my mind reeling.
• I also had the pleasure of reviewing & copyediting a Heart Capital intro letter that some of our awesome interns put together. Good to get that done!

There were also quite a few occasions over the course of the week when I caught that my mind was immediately going to the same place as that of my boss. There were a couple of times when we had significant divergences, too. It is interesting to see how such different backgrounds can result in similar gut instincts.

The other thing I was reflecting on this week was that parable of the two shoe salesmen who were sent to Australia. One sent back a telegram about sales potential saying something along the lines of: “Terrible market opportunity. Natives don’t wear shoes.” The other sent back a telegram saying “Fantastic opportunity! Natives don’t wear shoes.” That’s most definitely how I see social enterprise in South Africa. There are people who want to invest and people who want to start companies (actually this is broader than just social enterprise, but point taken). When we and/or others can provide the missing ingredients, really fun stuff is going to start to happen.

Highlights of the last week of full training before the Games:
• Super fun team workout designed by Chris with some complicated rules, designed to test and stretch our team communication.
• Because my hand was still torn up from pullups, I didn’t do the 45 pullups in one of the workouts so instead I did something I’d never done before (in this volume) which was 21-15-9 burpees (or, as Kerry called them, “speed burpees” & ring rows where I had to bring my body from my head about 30cm below my feet up to level with my feet. Always fun to try something new!
• Brought the guy who might come work with us and is the first person I’ve so far met to recruit himself to CrossFit. Now we will see if he signs up. ;) Although I must say it would be quite weird to have someone who I both work with and train with.
• Another BodyTalk session. This stuff is amazing; kind of like Kundalini yoga on steroids.
• Our team workout Friday involved heavy (70kg for men, 48 for women) thrusters. I surprised the heck out of myself in this workout; there were three of us doing it (me and two of the guys), and I essentially managed to do almost half the reps myself. But the boys made up for it on the chest-to-bar pullups and partner carry. Now in an echo of a joke from about a year ago I sprained my finger by stopping the bar from bouncing with my left index finger (resulting in an awesome text from Chris when he asked how the workout was and I told him I sprained my finger: the first word of his text was “Why?” as if I’d done it on purpose!). Heh. But overall I was quite pleasantly surprised with my performance. Getting stronger.
• Saturday morning some good muscle-up practice (my hand finally permitted this, and you don’t need your left index finger for the false grip). I nearly got one, but didn’t want to tire myself out pressing the hell out of a bad position to get my first one then I failed to pull to the right point after that. And so we keep working.
• Saturday afternoon was some of the most fun I’d had in ages! Well even before running the track was actually locked so we had to climb over the fence. Exhibit A in not letting something get between you and something you want. Once on the inside, we did an all-out 400m (72 seconds, I wasn’t thrilled and probably could have gone a bit harder, but still a 3-second adult PR). Then we did an all-out 200m (31 sec). I was much happier with this one. Then I ran death by 200m, in which I added 20% to my max 200m time, and then ran 200m repeats with 2 minutes rest until I couldn’t hit that time anymore. On the fifth repeat I was quite upset that I had just barely hit my time and so had to run a sixth repeat. Yep, it was that painful. Good stuff.

As I sit here now, my finger sprain and hand rip are both healing. Some injuries (the ankle, which is still bothering me a lot), the finger, the ripped hand: some things happen in seconds but the impact lasts for weeks or even months. Other injuries from overuse you can see coming and sometimes you’re smart, sometimes less so. Chris was saying on Saturday that possibly the reason why I’ve seen such dramatic strength gains these last 2-3 months has been that injury has forced me to rest (here’s the kettle calling the pot…), but he also commented that the better you get the more critical diet, rest, and recovery are. It’s all in the decision-making, I guess.

Fun & other stuff:
• Lunch with our two super interns Tina & Jenn. Tina is going back to Germany before I return, but I am glad that I got to know her a little. She is so smart, and such a hard worker. Jenn is American and will be sticking around (hopefully with us). She and I seem to have very similar views on America and South Africa, and I look forward to exploring this further upon my return.
• I made a joint birthday cake for Jaco and Denzil. Paleo, of course.
• Rob’s birthday (the founder of Butler’s Pizza). He had a big party at his house. Holiday Murray was cool, the YouTube of Xander Ferreira in Times Square was about as amusing as Gazelle without Xander Ferreira, I met an amusing drunk guy called Josh, saw a bunch of other people, and ate two and a half coconuts. I also decided on this occasion that while I had been thinking that I wanted to throw a big birthday for myself, actually I don’t. I am not at all sure what I’ll do, but it’s going to be small. Possibly very small.
• Dinner with Pete & Mandy. It had been too long since we’d done this; my schedule had been just insane the last few weeks but I always enjoy catching up with the two of them. Especially because there have been a lot of changes and we hadn’t really had a chance to talk through them in detail.
• Yet another Friday night date with Mona. Amazingly, it had been a week since we’d had a good chat, so this catch-up was sorely needed.
• Babett’s birthday & Jeremy’s show on Saturday. So cool to get to hang out with Babett & Tess a little bit and explain the cult to the fascinated civilians. That was a bit of a weird evening all the way around; a bunch of people didn’t wind up coming who were supposed to, and I started feeling severe guilt pangs because I felt I should rather have been sleeping. Still, fun, and cool to hear Jeremy one last time for a while.

So I’m on my way to LA. As some of you may recall, when I worked at AJI in LA was (until now) my favourite job I’ve ever had. Why did I like it so much? Well, jet-setting around the world and then being an expert on AJUS when I was overseas and on the joint ventures when I was at HQ was both fun, a learning experience (especially in how to practice influence without authority), and an ego trip. But even more important, it was the first time and actually the only time I can recall that I worked in a small, tight team where everyone was highly specialised and highly capable. Peter had made a comment this week about how seeing me at CrossFit made him realise that I actually perform better when there is a strong team around me and I think he’s right. Much as I like being a big fish in a small pond, I do not like having to take responsibility all the time, and working with people who are very early in their career is great in some ways but hard in others because you can’t just trust them to take a complex problem and have the fun of talking through approaches but then rely on them to get stuff done. So I look forward to being able to do that at Heart Capital as well, because I am indeed quite tired and drained of never doing as much as I want to do, because you can only do so much by yourself.

Sometimes the standards of a service provider on itself are higher than those of its customer. The business person might think what a waste of capital to hold higher standards than the customer cares about. But then again, at a certain level as well it’s about the intrinsic motivation of the service provider isn’t it? I recently re-found a fortune from a fortune cookie I had been carrying around. It said anything worth doing at all is worth doing well. If you don’t go as hard as you can, or do as well as you could, you might fool everyone around you but you won’t fool yourself. Now you must obviously pick your battles but at work and in your personal life the important things are usually obvious. And with CrossFit, well, you usually train once a day so on those days when I do feel like I let the pain get to me or something else goes wrong; well, it’s tough because that’s your one chance that day to do your best and you’re not going to get those seconds back, and you’re not going to get that chance again.

Until the next time, that is. Until the window of opportunity closes, because inevitably it always does. Life moves on. Life is short hey.

We will see what happens in the next few weeks while I am away, and what my return will trigger. I’ve said this before but I’m not patient by nature but I really do appreciate belatedly when things happen as they should even if it’s not as fast as I might want. As Steve Jobs was saying, you can only connect the dots looking backwards.

• “Even more than just facebook friends.” – Jaco
• “Cake time! Yebo! Cake time!” – Phumzile
• “I don’t do anything in moderation.” “I know. You’re dangerous!” – Ellie & Phumzile (that one doesn’t miss much!!)
• “Just don’t call me sweet. I’ll punch you. You’ve been warned!” – Ellie
• “You’ve even got JOBST calling me princess!” – Ellie
• “YOU can call me sweet.” “Oh yessss!” – Ellie, Jobst (the difference being he never would)
• "I'm distracted by your arm hey. It's huge!" – Phumzile
• “21-15-9? Good luck!” – Viki
• “When you called me I was in the middle of explaining medium-chain fatty acids.” – Ellie (I say some strange things when I see coconut oil)
• “You’re a bad girl.” – Jobst (don’t ask…)
• “When the miracle comes and dances in front of you, you need to ask for what you want.” – Peter
• “I’m not that bad. Oh, fuck, that’s terrible!” – Rob
• “We have to move the pole.” – Rob (different one)
• “Everybody wants to be happy with where they are at, and it’s fantastic to be able to achieve that.” – Jaco
• “It’s hard not to drool, right?” – Peter
• “That would be the understatement of the day.” – Ellie
• “Yeah, you looked strong!” – Mona (the funny thing was that she sounded surprised. But on the other hand, I suppose it was a bit surprising)
• “Hehe, why do you do as I DO and not as I SAY? ;)” – Chris (… because we’re dangerously similar …)
• “What are you busy doing?” “Practicing muscle-ups.” “Fuck.” – Grant & Ellie (it was all in the delivery)
• “He’s amazing!!” “I know.” “Is he nice?” “ Yes.” – Gabby & Ellie

How to learn from failure

So this post is all about lessons from last weekend’s FutureFit weekend. Well, I find it interesting. If you don’t, well, you know what do to.

If I had to tie all the thoughts I have into a coherent thread it is that firstly, I know I have a lot of issues (who doesn’t, right??). Although apparently knowing this, internalising it, and admitting it are further than a lot of people get, so apparently I’m past step zero. But I do keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Why? Because when I don’t fully commit to something or pay attention, I get sloppy. When I’m too busy I lose discipline (not unlike when I’m too tired in a workout my form deteriorates), and I don’t do things or I get sloppy, or, or, or. So essentially the breakdowns that I see between theory and practice are, mostly, a result of lack of discipline.

Secondly, it’s one thing to notice a pattern of behaviour. It’s another thing entirely to change that behaviour pattern. To change the behaviour pattern you must make a conscious decision to change your patterns or how you go about doing things. After all, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results … well, we’ve all heard THAT one before, no? So, LEARN from your failures or you’ll just keep beating yourself up.

Some time with my wonderful coach helped me actually figure out how to apply this lovely theory in my own case. Will try that out when I get back in late August.

I was thinking how this weekend was sort of like a distilled version of some of my MBA classes on leadership. I was also thinking how much more I would have gotten from my MBA if I were doing it now. Oh well, things are as they are.

One of the metaphors that we learned this weekend was that of the dance floor (where you are working or doing), and the balcony (where you go to observe and draw lessons, before re-engaging in the dance). Three things are challenging here:
1. Realising you need to go to the balcony and making the time to do it
2. Actually being able to draw conclusions, and the right ones, from what you see
3. Applying what you have learned when you get back, when everyone is busy trying to dance with you (and while your muscle memory has you doing the wrong things)

My other thoughts, in no particular order:
• People buy opportunity and hope. This is what Barack Obama was selling. The corollary, of course, is that it’s always best to under-promise and over-deliver. A mistake people like myself who tend to overcommit make often, to our detriment!
• I’m a sprinter (someone even said this in my written feedback). I need to slow down both for others’ sake, but ALSO for myself.
• A couple good Steve Jobs quotes: “Your time is limited to don’t waste it living someone else’s life” and “You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards.” Stay hungry, stay foolish, indeed. Both those quotes really hit home for me, and the second one in relation to the first.
• You must have winter to appreciate summer properly. If it’s not for the bad times in our life we wouldn’t recognise the good times.
• The good is the enemy of the great the same way the great is the enemy of the good. In the first case, we settle (and sometimes don’t even notice because it’s like an insidious descent into a rut). In the second, we under-deliver because we are too focused on perfection, which probably doesn’t even exist or matter.
• Whenever there is a winner and a loser, and whenever for you to be right someone else must be wrong that is an example of the downward spiral, or, put another way, of dividing a fixed pie. One alternative at least is this abundance theory and in some cases at least it’s true. You’d be amazed what people will do if you ask, or, sometimes, even if you don’t. And hey, what’s the worst that can happen? Someone will say no?
• Related, I suppose: are you going to let the potential of a ‘no’ get between you and what you want?
• Don’t forget rule #6 (don’t take yourself so damn seriously).
• It is better to be liked than feared. You catch more flies with honey after all.
• I still haven’t figured out how to be that leader who people trust enough that you actually know what’s going on, when the org gets big enough and people get scared of your position. Funny, this, because people seem naturally to confide in me. I guess because you get the sense I can respect and keep a secret (and I can).
• There is maturity i being able to accept a good idea no matter where it comes from (no ad hominems welcome here, but this is such an easy trap)
• Acceptance is important. People must be comfortable to come out of their shell. On the other hand, there is a step too far (i.e. the American fad where there are no winners and losers and as a result children can’t cope with the realities of the real world)
• Teachers’ expectations inform performance. How we treat people informs how they respond. Another thing I knew but I forgot, but was talking with the beautiful Ingi about: it really is all about how you make people feel.
• Burnout and overtraining are kind of the same thing. Sadly, for me, they also manifest in the same way. I’m great, I’m great, I’m great, … then BAM I wake up one day, and I’m done and need to take a break.
• One of the things in the Touching the Void presentation that really spoke to me: accepting that there are situations where you must rely 100% on others. This is VERY hard for me. But I am actually starting to realize that I not only need that, but want that.
• Being comfortable with uncertainty is necessary in business (and most of all in an entrepreneurial environment!!). There is also a parallel here with CrossFit (haha isn’t there always for me??) where you must be comfortable being uncomfortable. Familiarity helps here; I remember a time when I used to … dread is the wrong word, but fear my workout because I knew it would be painful. Now that thought doesn’t even cross my mind … not that I don’t feel the pain but the prospect of it no longer fazes me. Unless it’s Fight Gone Bad. Or Sandy Helen. Or 100 burpees for time. Or, now, normal Helen! Oddly enough, some of my faves. Hmm… it’s not so much the pain that I like but that in those workouts you don’t hit technique problems or local muscle failure causing you to need to rest. It’s really just you vs the next rep (or you vs you). God I do love that moment where the rest of the world doesn’t exist, your vision narrows, and you know you really are going all out.

When I get bored I make big changes. This has manifested as moves and new jobs. You never know, of course, but I can’t actually imagine anything that would drag me away from Cape Town, and I am pretty sure I’ve never felt THAT before. But what did I say above? Never say never, right?

If I really like challenges I am probably going to wind up like Casper Oelofsen, and when I eventually get bored of my current work challenge (given how much I have to learn that should take many years!), if I had to predict right now I will wind up working something like 60% of my time developing people and 40% building things. People are more challenging but it’s tough to spend 100% of your time doing that, and I can operate in the domain where things are easier and I can see progress because sometimes it’s about also doing those box jumps and burpees (i.e. you need the motivation of doing stuff you’re good at every so often).

Finding our intrinsic motivations is important. Bringing them out in the team is really what leadership is all about. People are most definitely not one size fits all, which makes motivating difficult. The sort of management style, compensation, and reward system that works for me won’t work for the person next to me. That makes scaling difficult.

Sometimes being a good leader means knowing when NOT to lead. One good example of this for me now is how in CrossFit I am team captain, but on our team we have Coach Chris, who is designing team workouts for us and coaching on strategy, leading the critiques, etc, etc. Some people might be threatened by this but for me, he’s actually the expert and it would not only be counterproductive but stupid for me to try and step on his toes and make it look like I know more than he does. We need to function cohesively as a team, and that means aces in their places. You don’t actually have to be the one with the answer all the time.

• “But there’s a reason that’s attractive to you and not to other people.” – Pieter
• “Making things too difficult is what makes people better. “ – pulled from Facebook
• “It’s not like Martin Luther King said ‘I have a dream! But I’m not sure I’m up to it…’” – Pieter (you MUST believe you’re up to it, or you’re going to fail)
• “You’re addicted to water!” – Larissa
• “It’s imperfection that gives us opportunities.” – Roger
• ‎“Be patient. Your fitness level is something that is going to generally take a long time to get to where you think you want it. And when you are there, you will want it higher. Don’t define yourself by your numbers and your times. Define yourself by who you are and what you are about. CrossFit is something that you do, it is not who you are. That can help keep things in good perspective." - Chris Spealler

Excuses only happen because we let them

This was definitely the quote of the week. Off-hand comment but so completely true. How often does that happen, that we miss the most profound things because we’re not paying attention? The beautiful flower growing through a crack in the pavement, or the sideways rainbow, or the way someone looks at someone else. Sam was saying how she likes how my eyes twinkle at people I like. That’s the sort of detail that I love that she notices.

It’s been busy since I last wrote. I did manage to take some chill time after acupuncture Tuesday (I should really learn that that sh*t knocks me out for the evening!!), and then Wednesday after team training. But it was good to get some rest in advance because the weekend was another FutureFit block, on which we concentrated on leadership, so I have a whole post to write on THAT subject. When I make some time.

I did manage to accomplish some good stuff at work last week but I also procrastinated some other things. But I’m sick of making excuses and talking the talk. There are only so many hours left between now and when I leave for L.A. for what is going to be a very intense experience across a broad range of domains (pun intended… if you’re not in the cult … it’s not that interesting to explain), so I’m taking this for what it is: an all-out sprint, during which I need to get 7-9 hours of sleep a night. I’m not planning on leaving anything on the table.

This week was Jaco’s birthday, on which he and I had a good long conversation about America and Americans. And yes, we generalized a lot of things but it’s actually kind of impossible not to. One thing he said that struck me was that Americans are quite diverse (obvious, yes), but there are some patterns he noticed like the fact that we all do tend to be somewhat loud and individualistic and competitive. It’s our culture, and I am most definitely a product of that culture. At least I am “less obnoxious” than some.

A subject that came up quite a few times between that conversation and the party at his place that evening (my paleo eating came to a crashing halt when the chocolate cake with caramel icing came out….) was that he was saying that what social enterprise needs is less advice and more people taking up shovels. Point taken, but actually it needs capital so that entrepreneurs don’t need to suffer in the startup phase, or even quit because they can’t pay the bills while trying to get a company off the ground, and it needs applied advice. Not theoretical advice. We know all this. Now we just need to do what we keep talking about, which, of course requires money. Well, it (along with that Greenpop trailer, and a few other things!) will come. Fun party though, even though like Schrodinger’s cat, I was all the time recognizing how different it would have been had I not been there: the consummate outsider in a way, American and English-speaking. But that degree of outsider-ness is something that you get used to.

Friday morning Misha from Greenpop came through to do a presentation for the Hub and the Harvard students who are here, and then show us how to plant trees. Then he and I talked about the next steps out of their jumpstart, in preparation for a meeting this coming week. Takes one to know one but that man has the weight of the world on his shoulders, no matter how amazing and tough he is. But he’ll find a way; he and his team are not going to let anything drag them from what they want. That is inspiring, and those are the sorts of people you want to surround yourself with. The sort who believe anything is possible but aren’t idle dreamers, either, and are willing to pick up the shovels Jaco was talking about (quite literally in this case).

I also had lunch with my new friend Ingi who is another amazing, strong, beautiful, humble, and insightful woman. I am lucky to know so many. Actually, that’s not true. I didn’t have lunch because Jason didn’t have anything on his menu that I could eat, but he did get his liquor license, and I’ll be stopping by for a croissant on my way back from the airport on August 17th.

Friday night was dinner with Mona at Cattle Baron in Constantia. Somehow a restaurant that was full in the middle of winter! We are so close now that we know pretty much everything about the other, and the most amazing thing here is how fast this happened and how far apart in age we are. But we do share one thing, and that thing defines a large portion of us. Plus, we need each other for support and because we’re more powerful together. I am pretty sure that there is a multiplier effect to visualization. That’s why group prayer can be effective.

Saturday night my friend Babett painted me up for an 80s party. That was quite interesting, fun, and very Cape Town. But I have no idea how some women can wear so much makeup every day! It was almost more hectic to take it off than to put it on!

Makeup has reminded me of my nickname, and one of my focuses for this week has been healing my hand. Because of the rip from Fran, I didn’t want to do pullups on Thursday so Chris had me do ring dips instead, only to have ring dips come up in Friday’s workout (so he made me do burpees instead). That Friday workout was something else. As I got tired I was literally too tired to squat clean with the weight I had, and had to power clean, rest a bit, and then squat it. Well, time was I couldn’t even consistently clean 43kgs, so being able to squat clean it 45 times is something of an accomplishment. So much room for improvement though, in everything!

One insight I had recently was this fear of publicly admitting when I really want something because then if I don’t get it the public failure is something that I fear. For some reason since I came to this conclusion and started talking about it, I’ve been really going for it more at the gym. Trying that 45kg press after the 43 was so hard, and actually I’m at the point now where if I don’t get to the point of knowing for sure I hit my max or actually failing, I don’t feel like I’ve tried hard enough. I improved my 5 rep max back squat by 5kgs to 73, and actually ran out of time. I feel like I could have done 5kgs more. Then Chris really helped me with my overhead squat technique and now I cannot WAIT to get my butt back under that bar (no pun intended in this case) and practice what I suck at. Whatever is going on there, though, it’s awesome, and I’m happy that I’m reacting in this way. Not sure if it’s bleeding over to the rest of my life yet but if I’m facing down my fears that’s how you get stronger, the same way as you get physically stronger by pushing yourself to the limit, being sore, and then recovering.

On a related topic, as discussed before it’s difficult to impossible to turn an absolute weakness into an absolute strength, especially if the weakness isn’t something that you love. But with work and life, as with CrossFit, as you emerge from the beginner level there reaches a time when working your weaknesses becomes critical because one weakness can knock you out of competition (literally, even, if you can’t do something as Rx’d, or figuratively by knocking you super far down in the standings). What is very cool is when you reach the point of maturity or development when you WANT to work your weaknesses (partly maybe because those are the areas where you can still get quick gains??). 9 months ago I would have loved every workout to have box jumps and handstand pushups and burpees. Now I hate when those things come up in workouts, and I can’t wait to get back to the gym in a few short hours and practice muscle-ups.

On a related note, and I know it’s an ad hominem, but one of the girls who trains at our gym, Rika (the ex-Olympic rower), has been doing this thing called BodyTalk with a practitioner in Hout Bay. It’s hard to explain other than a holistic mind-body connection technique. I had my first session on Saturday not out of any real research but because I trust Rika’s assessment (and hey, Janie got her first pullup, which makes me SOOOO proud, since she started BodyTalk, and made it look easy to boot!). I’m a sceptic but the woman knew her stuff both physiologically and the way she talks about a number of things. Not only that, but when she was working on me I could feel the impact on my central nervous system (I know this feeling from such things as yoga and CrossFit). Anyway I haven’t yet trained since the session but I felt some bleed-through positive effects even on Sunday.

Maybe the best way to describe this is like a school of fish or an organisation, things work better when everyone is marching to the beat of the same drummer. When the body and mind, or even different parts of the body are out of sync with each other, things break. This is why I keep having problems with my right knee, for example. Now I really wish I had taken blood and physical tests before starting this, because it wouldn’t much surprise me if some imbalances come “magically” back into alignment.

Or maybe it’s just one big example of the placebo effect. But what the heck, the placebo effect is a real effect so ultimately it doesn’t actually matter. What is reality? What we make it. I met a guy this week who practically recruited himself for CrossFit. That was an interesting experience. I am intrigued; this guy certainly appears to be quite ambitious and fearless, which would potentially make him a good CrossFitter. At a minimum, it makes him fascinating as the easiest potential recruit so far.

So we leave for the CrossFit Games in a little bit less than a week. Along those lines, I will leave this post with an insight that I had at my BodyTalk session which is that I was doing exactly what I got on Roland’s case for doing ahead of Regionals. He was saying ahead of time that he was going to surprise everyone and himself by doing well. I told him if he was going into it thinking he was going to surprise himself, then he was never going to be very successful because he was playing to lose.

People asked me what I wanted to accomplish and I would say something like “Oh I want to go and have a good time, and get some good experience for next year. But I don’t expect to do very well because we’re not going to be very competitive.” But with this attitude, I’ve already lost. So my new goal is to do as Keith suggested two weeks ago and take this opportunity and the competition that will be there to push me to do things I’ve never done before, and not leave anything on the table. The result in terms of place is almost secondary: that will sort itself out. If I and we are true to ourselves and go as hard as we possibly can, then we’ve already won.

But you heard it here first: watch out for us next year.

• “Your only responsibility in life is to be true to yourself.” – Peter (your true self, not your ego)
• “Fuck it, I’m gonna do it.” – Jaco
• “If you move into a condom-” – Herby (he meant commune but it was right up there with Peter’s ‘Jerick’ Freudian slip last week, and this is in a country where no one even knows Derek Jeter!)
• “Every time that I think they’re being crafty, they’re just incompetent.” – Anonymous
• “That’s what I do, princess... ;)” – Chris
• “What I meant to say was, wait, I think you just called me princess and meant it!” – Ellie
• “I’ve been told that for a long time. But I just like drinking.” – Jacques
• “You speak English. But then you get those people who speak American.” – Jané
• “It’s one thing to chat to someone for an hour and play nice. It’s another thing actually to be nice.” – Jané
• “I don’t know if it will work. I believe it will.” – Misha
• “I saw and I was like aaaah cute man.” – Mona
• “My favourite animal is a steak.” – Jason
• “What is reality, anyway?” “It’s what you make it.” “Exactly.” – Ellie & Joh
• “Pain is addictive hey ;)” – Mona
• “The difference is, I suck it up.” – Chris
• “Excuses only happen because we let them.” – Chris
• “Your intuition is very strong. You need to trust it more.” – Debbie
• “You can’t play drums when you’re drunk. But you can when you’re on drugs!” – overheard at a party
• “I told you about my dreams.” – Mona

Helen, Fran, and Diesel Vanilla

Three days, two benchmark workouts, four bands, and some knuckling down at work.

Saturday morning’s team workout of rope climbs and tyre flips (and rolls, and jumps….) was super fun. It was good to see that I can climb the rope again with my ankle, although I need to work on a different foot lock because the one I am using now is way slower than another one but I slip when I try the other one. After this workout I felt like I looked like a video game character from Tekken or some such between the Reebok outfit, the diamond knee socks (for the rope climbs), and the pink tape around my wrists. I had a lot of people staring at me at the Biscuit Mill, I can say that much.

Helen was a lot harder than I anticipated. Helen is 3 rounds for time of 400m run, 21 kettlebell swings, 12 pullups. I’ve been running 400s a lot recently and easily keeping them to about 1:45-2 minutes in one of these workouts, so I figured something about 10 minutes should be do-able. Not quite. Finished in 11:35. Chris had given me the advice to go hard on the runs because most people feel they left something on the table at the end of this workout. All I can say is, at the end of this workout I did not feel that I left anything on the table. Except maybe on getting up to the pullup bar, which is a bit hectic at that venue. But hey, it was also my third workout in 24 hours, but I’m still not entirely sure how it took so damn long. Oh, well, next time.

Fran, last night, did not go so well. At all. 8:38 for 21-15-9 thrusters @29kg and pullups. My judge was quite strict with the range of motion on the pullups, and he called back a lot of reps that I would have thought were ok. But that doesn’t matter and it’s actually a good thing because you can’t actually tell what’s going to happen in a competition standards-wise, first, and second I should probably video my pullups because maybe I don’t actually have a good sense of full ROM which would be a good thing to catch now. What is not so good was that a) I lost it mentally and stopped going all out and b) I ripped my hand open with two reps to go, and it’s a good one too. But at least I now know what to do … straight to the salt.

I’ll get another shot at her during my level 1 certification in a month. Quite looking forward to that, and to the quality of training I know we’ll get in the States. There is a level 1 cert here in Joburg in September but I wanted to learn at the epicentre of CrossFit, which is the USA. It will be cool to learn not just what proper form is, but how to correct errors. I find that I really like coaching and judging and leading so it will be quite cool to build up my skills in that area.

Indian summer is when you get a week of summer weather into autumn. I am not sure what you would call the weather we have now, which is a week of spring-like weather in mid-winter. It’s been in the low-to-mid 20s, and Saturday was properly hot (or so it felt at the time). Nice to get a bit of warmer weather before the massive shock to the system that is going to be the Los Angeles summer! Even though I know it’s not here to last it feels just great. Mona and I had outdoor lunch and coffee on Sunday which felt amazing (as did some fun shopping and a much-needed catch-up!).

But Saturday after Helen and stopping by work to let in the construction crew, I took a nap (!!) then headed out to check the bands at the new Zula. New Zula … not like the old Zula. This is a bar on Long Street where I spent most of World Cup, outside on the balcony chilling. New Zula is much more of a proper concert venue with an upstairs and downstairs stage, and three separate bar areas (in addition to the two bars by the stages). Good stuff, actually: a little rough around the edges at this point but I think the acoustics are quite good. Saw Wolf Town (one of the guys from the gym’s sister is the lead singer), and then a little bit of Holiday Murray, before heading over to Mercury to join up with Jaco & his crew for a bit of birthday celebration at a dubstep show. I had promised Jaco that I would drink with him for his birthday so I did. Not enough that I felt much of anything, but enough that I felt poisoned the next day. … and THAT is my problem with drinking. Either you don’t drink enough and have poisoned yourself for nothing, or you drink too much and wind up making an ass of yourself. Finding that happy medium is actually quite tough.

I was meant to run a trail race Sunday morning but my knee was feeling tender Saturday night and when I woke up Sunday also so, so I bailed and got more sleep. All in all, a good choice because I would have wanted to race and it would not have been good for my knee or my ankle. Shame to have to choose because I love the Trail Series … but coach is right.

That evening I went to a very small show by Diesel Vanilla at the house of some music producers in Vredehoek. Apparently they have some stuff on YouTube but I couldn’t find it easily. Beautiful, though, stunningly beautiful. Also it was quite cool the people that you meet at such events, I met a chef and his girlfriend, who recognized me from Mercury the night before. Apparently I have good hair. I thought it was quite cool to meet people who have music taste that runs the gamut from dubstep to Diesel Vanilla. But wow. I would listen to them again, any time.

Monday night after Fran was dinner with Ray. The most amusing thing was when I walked in and he said he’d made pasta, and was that all right. I thought he was joking until I realised he wasn’t (because that’s exactly the sort of joke that would be really funny). Fun time, though, talking mostly CrossFit and rugby. And no, I didn’t eat any pasta.

There is a lot of disruption at work right now with construction of a new boardroom going on downstairs. The noise and the dust are not really a lot of fun. But I made great progress yesterday and this morning at something that I had been not making the time to do, and I feel really good about that. Just taking the time to do the important things is so crucial, and even as I write this I am thinking of all the other things I still need to do. Which I’m going to get to just now, after lunch.


• “His email just said: ‘The okes are stupid!’” – Chris (oke is South African slang, basically means guy)
• “You’re American! All American girls have tattoos!” – the Dutch Girl
• “Paddy’s worried about the roof.” – Rob
• “AND she’s smart.” – Jacques
• “A hungry CrossFit man is not like a normal man.” – Ellie
• “What exactly do you think is going to happen in LA?” “…...” “Uh-HUH.” – Ellie & Mona
• “A person must just learn not to feel sorry for themselves.” – Mona
• “What did you say? You’re going for your nails? Oh no, wait …. acupuncture!” – Mona
• “‎... If you get a chance, take it!!” – Pierre
• “So the point of this story is that we still have that jail.” – Peter
• “I mean it's not like we run guns for some warlord, neither of us... ;)” – Chris
• “Right now you have to think of yourself as a professional athlete.” – Jobst
• “Oh, look, it’s bleeding again. Cool.” “… Exactly.” – Ellie, Jobst
• “It’s not like he’s Michael Jackson or anything.” – Ray

Coaching

I had no idea where half the places in my last blog post were until I checked the map, so I can’t expect the half of my oddly diverse reader base to. Seriously, I have some strange wallflowers out there. Some of them seem to come from that paleo chocolate cake recipe.

Anyway, here is a Google map I drew, so you can see in more detail. I even pinned some of the key places. And, for the record, here is part of the soundtrack, and the song that spurred the quote: “I think I’m in love. I’m just not sure with who!”

This was an abbreviated work week, obviously. On Wednesday we did yet another jumpstart workshop, then Thursday I had check-ins with BeAfrica, SeeSawDo, my HR intern, and desperately tried to catch up on email. That night was the unfortunately named Girl Geek Dinner (Geek Girl sounds so much better) … where I reconnected with some people and listened to an interesting [female] speaker talk about leadership. Friday we had a speaker from Tyred Furniture and Andy from icologie in to speak to us, in the first of our rejuvenated set of Friday speakers. Then I shared my eggs with Andy and we caught up for a bit before a bunch of us went into a multi-hour Hub meeting.

I must say that I left last night a bit down. I was just thinking about all the ways in which I am falling short of my goals for myself. There are things I wish I had done weeks ago and just because I’ve been busy with other things isn’t actually a good reason. I’ve been so busy taking care of all the small things that I’ve been leaving major things to the wayside, and that’s actually really just not cool. I did manage to book my LAX-BOS tickets and assemble my Buddy Lee jump rope last night though, it was really great to have a relaxing evening at home. Fridays had been my rest nights until all of a sudden they weren’t any more, and in any event tonight promises to be anything but quiet.

But, as usual, my failures have had to do with a lack of total commitment. It is true that I, like anyone, can do anything I decide to do. But I must actually decide, and commit to myself, because if you don’t fully commit, like if you believe you will fail, then you very well might.

The theme of this week for me was leadership and coaching. The main takeaway I had from the speech the other night is that what’s important isn’t so much your own ability to do, but your ability to inspire and lead others. I feel like I knew this quite well a few months ago but forgot it, or at least forgot to apply it more. It really isn’t about what you say, or how much you want to show off how smart or good you are or whatnot, but how you make the other person feel. Apparently people think the most interesting people are the ones who let them speak about themselves. So: again, presence and care.

The Friday meeting at work was quite interesting. I saw some sides of some co-workers that I hadn’t seen, and was by turns very impressed and very frustrated. Interesting, interesting, interesting. I’m certainly nowhere near a perfect leader but there is one thing that I’ve concluded recently and that is that a good leader acts like our CrossFit coach Jobst.

I reacted rather viscerally to this article from the CrossFit Games web site. To save you some time, the author argues (correctly) that the coaches should make sure that athletes going into the Regionals knew the movement standards. This guy A.J. Moore had a bunch of kettlebell swings called back on him during the mid-Atlantic Regionals, and as a result didn’t make it to the Games (the author’s conclusion was that this was his coach’s fault).

To me, that removes the level of personal responsibility a), and b) I think if you get to that point coaching has already failed. In our case, as team captain, I studied the team workouts for strategy, studied the movement standards, walked the team through the movement standards in practice and before the events, and checked all of their forms on the warmups. Did our coach tell me I needed to do that? No. But he was a good enough coach to teach me how to fish, rather than give me fish.

Now he and Chris also offered feedback on strategy for workouts, and they are more experienced than I am at this sort of thing so their feedback was absolutely useful but my point is that had both of them been hit by a bus, I would have known what to do because I was a) conscientious and b) prepared.

In order for this equation to work, however, you need willing participants on both sides. That latter bit cannot be over-emphasised either. The best leader in the world can’t work with someone who doesn’t want to be led.

Now, speaking of coaching, I’m psyched to be going into my third team workout in as many training sessions. Chris is doing a great job preparing our team for the Games, and continues to impress me as a coach. He always seems to give me exactly what I need (well, usually), and always with a smile on his face. Now there’s another good leader. But anyway upcoming is muscle-up practice followed by a team workout, then lunch & some work, and then Chris and I head out to Stellenbosch for a track workout. He’s going to sprint. I’m planning on doing Helen. We’ll see how that goes for me. ;)

I’m still feeling very tired from that trail race the other day. Sorry, central nervous system, but clearly this is good for you.

This trip to America is going to be jam-packed! I’m somewhere between excited, apprehensive, and terrified. It should be an interesting trip, and what happens in the next two weeks before I go should also be interesting. There is a lot that I need to get done! But for now, off to team practice.

• “We need Greenpop to show us how to plant plants? Seriously?” – Ellie
• “Well then don’t turn around.” – Ellie
• “I’m sending all good wishes for all in your life. It seems you are on a wonderful, authentic path, utterly true to yourself. It’s wonderful to witness.” – Elizabeth
• “It will fricking eat you alive. That’s a fact.” – Ralf
• “That is a secret that you shouldn’t know!” – Ray
• "Become so wrapped up in something that you forget to be afraid." – Lady Bird Johnson (pulled from the Heart Capital fishbowl)
• “There is no balance. It’s a fallacy. You make choices; you make priorities.” – Mardia
• “What you focus on you make happen. So what’s your focus?” – Andy
• “Imperfection comes in various forms. Some are deal-breakers.” – Ellie
• “It’s not that you come across as intimidating it’s that you make sure that people understand that you *are* intimidating.” – Jaco
• “You have no idea how excited I am to see Laa-Laa! …. I can’t believe I just said that out loud.” – Ellie

Away weekend #2: Garden Route: Winter in wonderland

More photos than usual because I couldn’t cut it down to 3-5 like I normally do. This was a pretty amazing road trip. I can see now why it’s called the Garden Route, and it actually was quite a lesson in contrasts. The basic set of activities was the following:
• Friday: leave Cape Town before dawn, drive northeast into the Great Karoo (which is basically a big desert of scrub brush). Have lunch in Prince Albert. Take a 72km narrow, windy, single lane dirt road over the Swartberg Pass, through the Klein Karoo (Little Karoo), and to a B&B in Wilderness for dinner with some friends of Keith’s.
• Saturday: run on the beach, visit to one of the best farmer’s markets in the country, drive east into the Eastern Cape to lunch at a cheese restaurant called Fynboshoek, back west to Tsitsikamma National Park where we rented a cabin by the ocean. Eat in (smoked fish, roasted pumpkin, and salad).
• Sunday: travel WOD, breakfast of eggs, tomatoes & mushrooms, smoked fish, avo & berry yogurt (heaven), 2-hour hike, lunch among the wine vines at a wine farm, drive to Knysna via Plett, check in at Rastafarian township B&B (awesome!), dinner at a curry restaurant called Firefly.
• Monday: pre-dawn Rastafarian ceremony, hang out around Knysna, eating & taking photos, browse a used bookstore, eat a dozen oysters for lunch, say hello to the only other American on the fourth of July, dinner at the house of a lady in the township, out to meet some friends of Keith’s.
• Tuesday: up again before the dawn, registration and ferry ride to the start of the Featherbed Trail Run (15km), run through some fantastic scenery (this was the raison d’etre for the trip, after all!), breakfast, drive back to Cape town, train CrossFit, take-out dinner in Stellenbosch with my Babson professor, who taught the course that brought me to South Africa.
• Bed.

Most of the journey I was amazed by how varied the country is, and how much some of it reminded me of some parts of the States:
• Great Karoo reminds me of what I imagine the American desert west is like, including what a frontier town would look like, in the shape of Prince Albert. All that was missing was the tumbleweeds and the Western-style buildings!
• Wilderness reminded me of California, specifically Marin County
• Where we had lunch at the farmhouse resembled Vermont, as did part of the drive back
• The coast at Tsitsikamma is very similar to the Maine coast (with fynbos)
• The massive resort at Plett was like a little bit of South Padre Island in the middle of South Africa
• Knysna is like a big version of Carmel … VERY California

By the end of the first day on the road, Cape Town and all my stresses and worries and hopes and fears felt very, VERY far away. It was actually a nice rest, and time for reflection.

Here are some vignettes, thoughts, and descriptions of what stood out from the trip:
• This country is breathtakingly beautiful. Then again, so is Vermont, and California, and Cambodia, and places I haven’t been like Peru, and Rwanda, and Chile.
• Frakking in the Karoo would be (will be, I’m afraid) a great shame.
• Love the small town feel of Prince Albert, how everyone knows everyone and everyone keeps their exteriors artfully arranged. It’s almost like something out of my vision of 1950s America.
• Definitely, travel with a travel writer when you can. They know all the best secrets.
• I should really get a digital SLR and learn more about photography, because I really quite like it. Of course, I should also really start doing charcoal again. And read some of the dozens of books that I need to read. And, and, and. Well, life is full of choices is it not? But really … I used to enjoy art so much, and it’s important to have a creative outlet that forces you to slow down, and disconnect.
• Driving the Swartberg pass was amazing, especially to the Two Minute Puzzle soundtrack. Glad I got my car fixed, though, a few months back it would not have survived that trip along the rutted dirt road. But wow, what a single-lane road … so glad we didn’t encounter any cars going the other direction along the narrow parts, and glad there was only one muddy curvy section where I was feeling a tad nervous driving!
• The guesthouse in Wilderness was absolutely stunning, and I really liked the town too. Must holiday there some time.
• Running along the beach with the wind at my back was quite fun (apparently I looked like a Reebok ad, especially with the colors involved). Running back with the rain whipping up and rain in my face was fun in its own way.
• This ankle remains too sprained for my liking: running in sand and uneven surfaces is not what it should be.
• Two cool farmers markets in as many weeks … I really wish Cape Town had something similar.
• Lunch at Fynboshoek: definitely worth going off paleo. Brie on toast with honey and thyme, homemade focaccia, selection of something like 8 cheeses (my favourite was the cream cheese, actually), fresh greens salad with toasted shaved goat cheese. And some of the best coffee all trip.
• Alje (the cheese farmer who runs Fynboshoek) is a lovely person; very salt of the earth. How cool to go from studying microbiology to inventing your own cheesemaking methodologies. And the dogs and cats … perfect. Just perfectly chill, and perfect.
• Cabin by the rocks with the surf crashing outside … also perfect. Breakfast outside by the ocean … a plate full of protein, dassies, and sun.
• Love that I can invent my own workouts. Hate that my own ideas are a bit over-ambitious sometimes. Also, 400m runs really hurt. So do burpee box jumps (onto the braai, hehe).
• Outdoor lunch at Bromon would have been much better in a season where the wine vines had leaves. Guess I'll need to come back.
• Knysna is COLD. Like, really, I was unhappy almost the entire time I was outside there.
• Firefly: logo looks a hell of a lot like the TV series, so I had a good laugh about that. The food was art. Definitely want to come back here, too. Yes, this trip was as much a culinary orgy as anything…
• Staying at a township B&B was quite an interesting experience. It’s far too cold to have to take a cold shower. I have a whole new appreciation for township life.
• The music in the Rasta ceremony was absolutely beautiful, with one song blending into another such that I couldn’t even tell the transition. Then again, music has never been one of my talents. When I was at St Paul’s I used to pass by the music building and hear all these amazing sounds coming out and feel like inadequate, and wished I could do that. But of course at St Paul’s to survive even a little bit you had to excel at at least one thing, and my things were sport and art. I can’t say I regret that I never learned music but I have always had a deep respect for it.
• I’ve never seen such big oysters in my life. Tasty, too!
• Dinner at Mamma B’s house was quite interesting. Good to know that she faces the same issues we face in working at the grassroots level, although on another level if a woman living in the townships buts up against a culture of dependency that doesn’t necessarily leave a lot of hope. But we must have hope; without it we’re all in big trouble. All of us.
• In meeting Keith’s friend and her younger brother we sampled a dessert with strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate mousses. Damned if I didn’t prefer the strawberry.
• Driving back into the township through the pouring rain with water everywhere, curvy roads, two guys with a trashbarrel fire … I’m not even kidding, it was like driving through a video game.
• I was amused by how amused Keith was at spending the Fourth of July with a Yank.
• I really do have a problem with not eating paleo.
• I was seriously, SERIOUSLY cold before the race, but it was absolutely stunning that whatever thoughts I had about not running next year are now gone. A couple other things on the race: 1. It was kind of nice to just run, rather than race (couldn’t race because my ankle wouldn’t allow it). 2. It is very annoying to run a trail race with a gimpy ankle. Really took out a lot of the enjoyment. 3. Did I mention that the scenery was to die for? I especially loved at the top, curving single track through fynbos ranging from bright brick red to bright green and yellow, with yellow sand, and views down on Knysna. OMW. 4. The Reebok ZigTech’s actually did quite well grip-wise … my arches weren’t so happy afterwards, but really, the grip was great!
• I hadn’t seen such varieties of shades of green since Vietnam. And the yellow canola blooms … also, stunning. Unfortunately there weren’t safe places to pull over, and I did want to be able to get home to train in the evening so fewer pictures than I would have liked.
• A 15km trail run does tend to tax the central nervous system. When I have to struggle to do 5 pullups and am already tired in the third round of pushups, you know 10 minutes of Cindy isn’t going to be a lot of fun.

So happy on yesterday evening to reconnect with my Babson professor. I discovered some similarities I didn’t realize we had in our personal lives … heck, she even does Kundalini! But that was lovely; it’s one of those stories like the story of how Laa-Laa recruited me to CrossFit that I just wind up telling over and over, because people ask. But the mythology, and the story is important.

I think this goes along with people not learning things before they are ready: we don’t remember facts, we remember stories. We don’t remember narratives, we remember vignettes: a smile, a frown, a look, a touch, a feeling. We also do so much non-verbal communication … that’s why I generally hate the phone. Actually it’s amazing when I can connect with someone well on the phone; it means we have a very genuine connection.

So it’s now about 2 ½ weeks before I head back to the U.S. for 3 ½ weeks. While I am excited, I’m also nervous and there are quite a few things I need to do both to prepare and then once I’m over there. Looking forward to some things as well: seeing old friends, resolving incompletions, and spending some quality time with my team while we’re in California.

• “I can turn almost anything into a competition.” – Ellie
• “Why must you intellectualize it?” – Keith
• “I don’t count those as real people.” – Keith
• “Right here, right now, it’s as good as it needs to be.” – Keith
• “I hate to tell you that. You’re fairly unique.” – Keith
• “I don’t mind being a bad influence.” – Keith
• “No, it’s not that you’re a New Englander. There’s a deeper fundamental crisis.” – Keith (I was saying how I liked Dunkin Donuts coffee….)
• “I can’t hear through the American.” – Keith
• “You’re the captain of our team now. Don’t fuck this shit up!” – Graham
• “You can find miracles. You can choose to ignore them. Or you can look at them and see them for what they are.” – Elizabeth
• “But some things are important enough to try even if you're sure to fail...” – Pierre
• “Farmfest IV: Ellie's in town", has potential to require traffic control :-) ” – Jason (he knows how to flatter a girl … and hey, what could possibly go wrong??)