Laptop death. All I have to say is thank God for Dropbox. I
lost some stuff but it wasn’t the catastrophe that it would have been were it
not for automated backups. Probably the worst loss was my CrossFit workout log,
which I had saved on my desktop which, oddly enough, was not backed up to
Dropbox.
That and my meeting notes from a two-hour Saturday session
with an interesting prospect. Oh well, thank goodness for the old gray cells.
I lost a blog post somewhere in there as well. It probably
wasn’t that interesting anyway because my state of mind was not that good. I
was stressed.
I was stressed because I was structuring my life in an
unhealthy way despite knowing better. Even at the qigong lecture we were
learning about the difference between body, intellect, and spirit/soul. You
cannot just train two and neglect the third.
It’s like when you know you shouldn’t eat the chocolate cake
but you do it anyway. Yes, yes, yes.
So my laptop is still in the shop, I’m running off an old
one, nothing is where I want it, and I’m even further behind. But I’m less
stressed about it.
I think it may actually have been bad karma or something.
But man the day it happened I was a wreck. Stressed to begin with, and this did
not make me happy, one little bit. But it may just have been the kick in the
ass I needed.
In the last week or so since I posted, a lot happened.
My friend Kara came to visit me (and South Africa!) from
Chicago.
We went away for the weekend to Montagu.
I finally saw Cape Agulhas (the southernmost point of the
Africa continent.
Jeremy had his first American shows, in LA and NYC. So happy
to see him on the trajectory he’s on.
A piece of my feedback made it into new draft regulations
from the national regulator.
A new employee started at Skyrove.
We won the Burger King account, I had my first Burger King
burger (before the store opened, just because I could), then went to CrossFit
and wanted to puke. Well, 3x30 wall balls with a men’s weight ball is hard
enough if you haven’t just eaten something you’re not used to.
Three of the girls at my gym got their first muscle ups, and
I got my first non-false grip strict muscle up.
There was a Justin Bieber concert. No I didn’t go to it. But
I had a laugh about it. In New England, you see, at certain times of year we
would plan our day around expected snowfall: ‘I have to leave before the roads
get bad.’ In Cape Town on that day it was: ‘I have to go before they close all
the roads for the Justin Bieber concert.’
I went to a friend’s housewarming party.
I TWICE had dinner with some other friends I hadn’t seen in
ages. Different sets of friends. Amazed they are still friends with me.
I met some very cool creative boys, and drooled over data on
two different occasions. I WISH.
Made my sales guy happy a month later than he would have
liked, but I think we now have a formula that works. Slowly, slowly, re-working
things as I’d like.
One lesson that’s hard for me to learn, as a perfectionist,
is that my version of perfect is not the only one. What for me is imperfect
might be perfect to someone else. I somehow never thought of it that way. But
it also comforts me to know that little glitches aside, I’m on the right path.
Outlook is everything.
Hes came by Cape CrossFit on Saturday and for some reason I
looked at her and said that the reason she always looks so good is that she’s
happy. I mean, sure, she’s also gorgeous. But she’s nice, and she’s happy, and
loving life. And she said well of course. You really have two choices in life:
you can be happy or unhappy.
And of course, she’s right. But when you’re in the depths of
unhappiness or stress, it’s hard to see your way out.
So. Burger King. I had wanted this one ever since I heard
they were coming to South Africa. I had actually not been out selling that much
myself since my sales guy started being so awesome, because I was busy with a
bunch of other stuff. But I learned a couple things along the way and the new
approach I’m taking really seems to be working.
What a super group of people to be working with, and this is
not the first time in my career I’ve had Burger King as a client. So it’s back
to familiar territory for me. It is hard to explain, to people not in South
Africa, how much attention this has gotten. It was the first Burger King to
open not only in South Africa but in all of Africa. They gave away free
Whoppers to the first 1,000 people in line, and there was a very long line as
you can see from the photos. It was great fun for me to get to go there and be
a part of it, I’m not going to lie.
Also this week they revealed the workouts for the CrossFit Regionals.
You’ll hear all about them, don’t worry. But you know what? I can actually do
all of the exercises in them.
There are rope climbs and 61kg squat cleans, 50 handstand
pushups, 100 chest-to-bar pullups; dumbbell snatches, pistols, burpee muscle ups,
and an overhead squat ladder. And the only thing I’m worried about is how my
double-unders still suck and how high on the rings I land in my muscle ups.
I was telling some of the girls at the gym the other day
about how I didn’t know if I could snatch that 32kg dumbbell last year and even
until that day I had never done it on the left arm, and I failed the first two
or three attempts on that arm and I could see the concern on the face of my
teammate, my judge, and I could almost feel the worry of the crowd. But I did
my 10 reps, and that taught me that I could do things I didn’t know I was
capable of.
You know what? I have one and only one goal, and that is to
push myself out of my comfort zone. I have no illusions about winning; I have
too many weaknesses right now.
But I sure as hell am going to give it all I’ve got, same as
I pretty much always give everything.
Now, back to these contracts.
- “Are they out of their minds?” – Stefan
- “For me, smashing is the ultimate.” – Grant
- “It’s paleo. No. No it’s not. Not at all.” – Ellie
- “I don’t start small.” – Ellie
- “What about kidney?” – Shirfu
- “Do you want to eat my fat?” “Absolutely.” – Kara & Ellie
- “Oh my God. You’re right. The Wi-Fi really does suck!” – Kara
- “Well, it starts with a three rep max overhead squat.” “I hate when they do that.” “You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you?” “No.” – Ellie & Adam
- “It’s in Montagu.” “Montague Gardens. Not the same thing.” – Adam & Tim
- “You’re a really good client when it comes to feedback because you actually give feedback.” – Sam (some things just blow my mind)
- “Never let me say you never do anything for me. I never say that, do I?” – Ellie
- “I was looking at photos of Justin Bieber today – WAIT. That came out wrong.” – Ellie
- “You can do a burpee. You can do a muscle up.” – JP
- “I’m sorry. Sometimes I talk to myself when I’m importing data.” – Ellie
- “How can a legal obligation be a gesture of goodwill?” – Ellie
- “Well obviously you don’t!” – Dale
- “How did you think of that??” – Bronwyn (healthy right brain)
- “It’s a bit surreal.” – Claudia
- “It’ll be good for you.” – Conrad
- “it’s all in your head.” “Vertigo?” – Sebastian & Ellie
- “Maybe you can say a kitten up a tree was been attacked by an evil North-Korean chef and you threw a Ruckus AP at the Korean Chef and saved the kitten and they all lived happily every after.” – Mike
- “I’m sorry. Did you just say Herschelle Gibbs was wearing an entire outfit in that colour orange?” – Ellie
- “So do you also think he’s a porn addict?” “Yeah. Heavy.” – Ellie & Adam
- “We should be forgetting about the bloody pie. We should be setting up the bakery.” – Christiaan
- “That’s a pretty incriminating photo. Good thing you’re a CEO.” – Kara (she hadn’t seen the photo, but she knows the boys involved)
- “I don’t think they have a war right now so you’re fine.” – Kara
- “There’s some rice.” “No, I need to lose weight.” “No, it’s cauliflower.” – Kara & Aya
- “I’m quite a nerd, actually.” “Well, you don’t look like one!” – Ellie & Aya
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