Nice but dangerous

Apparently Yogi Berra once said: “In theory there is no difference between practice and theory. In the practice, there is.”

This week I was busy making a budget. If this sounds hard, it’s because it is. I have learned a few lessons from this.

The first one? It’s the same as the first rule of startups. Everything’s going to take twice as long as you think. The second rule of startups? Double the first rule. I wasn’t expecting to be floating in and out of illness and I also wasn’t expecting to spend an entire day in sales training. Although I’ll admit that I learned a thing or two at the sales training. Or fifteen. I also learned that I rely on getting work done on my weekends a bit too much.

I have always been one of those people who laughed at overly optimistic sales projections. So I tried not to do that. And yet. I certainly don’t trust anything more than three months out, but that’s the nature of the beast. And an interesting comment was that it can actually be more conservative to have smaller budgets for operating expenses or discretionary expenses. Makes all the sense in the world; it’s the budgetary equivalent of sandbagging, and I have learned a thing or two about sandbagging over the years.

Because I’m a numbers nerd (I tease myself endlessly for this), there is actually very little that I like more than digging into the numbers. If this, then this. Drilling down into why certain costs varied month to month, what’s buried under here, why is this number in opex when it should be in COGS. Nerdy business stuff.

I think what makes me the happiest, actually, is that to develop a budget I actually had to develop a spreadsheet business model of how sales projections and assumptions around margin, close percentage, inbound leads, sales targets, etc would flow through to the business. I now have my business in a spreadsheet and I can adjust it as we go. It’s a wonderful thing to see how changing certain assumptions impacts the numbers.

There is certainly an intensity to me; a competitiveness that I tease and others tease. I like to think I am pretty reasonable and have a pretty long fuse, and at the end of the day … I really am a nice girl. I’m honest, I really do want to do the best thing for the customer, and my staff, and vendors, etc.

Stupidity, dishonesty, and apathy make me really, really mad. Just like I once wondered how good of a salesman I really am, I also once wondered just how tough I’d be as a manager. I’m pretty well starting to figure that out.

Here’s the thing. I don’t think you get the best results by scaring or berating people. Something goes wrong, you figure out why not for the purposes of punishment (usually…) but so you can make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Nice, but dangerous to outsiders. Tough, but fair: that’s how I’d like to be as boss. I want everyone to have an opportunity to learn and grow, just as I was given. But they must sink or swim.

Of course, there are many reasons why I’m dangerous. I don’t try to be dangerous, but I’m a salesman. Salesmen are dangerous. Charisma is dangerous.  

I think I forgot to explain before why being a fangirl is so unusual for me. I like to think I take a balanced view. There is good, and bad, and ugly, and indifferent, in most or all things. To make a fangirl out of me I have to be really impressed. It doesn’t happen that often. Or, I suppose, you must just resemble me. We tend to like people who are like us.

But I’m just a little crazy, and I’m human. Watching myself this week was …. Interesting. It was another nutty understaffed week in which I was sick one day, sorta kinda well the next, definitely didn’t sleep enough, baaaaaaaaaaaarely managed to stick to my non-drinking commitment but did have some evil sugar. That’s how you can tell I’m mentally exhausted. I was also a super moron to go do a 30-minute metcon at CrossFit after having been sick the day before, only eating a salad, and on an absolute emotional wave. What happened? I had a sugar crash about 10 minutes in. I can be SUCH an idiot sometimes.

Although I learned, through adversity, that pushups are easier if you tighten your core. Imagine that. You know perhaps ALL of CrossFit would be easier if I’d just keep my core tight. Well, at least I got the coach to laugh at my silliness: ‘I’ve been doing this three years now and guess what I just learned?’ Carl Paoli would not be impressed.

Speaking of stupidity and adversity. There are a few people I know who tend to bring out parts of me that I don’t care for so much: the one that would rather be negative than positive, and who can’t just let things go. It doesn’t last forever, I think I only stay snarky while you’re actually hurting me and the wound is fresh. Once I move past that, I turn to condescension and indifference (mixed with a biting comment here or there).

Oh well, we all need to vent. I think perhaps finding people whose company we really enjoy, who share some of the same frustrations, and who are in the same industry so we can trade war stories …. Well, it’s like we’re brothers in arms I suppose. I’ve had this before with some co-workers at Ask Jeeves and Exit41. There was this one guy, to remain nameless, at a company also to remain nameless … we used to go out drinking about once a week, essentially to bitch about other people. Oddly enjoyable hours spent in bars over beers. Like a guilty pleasure.

I have said before that I am waging war on negativity. Mental exhaustion makes me tend towards being more negative. I’ve said before that I am a bit of an intellectual snob. Well, I’ve met my match. And then some. It’s a little bit scary.

So I can go a bit too far sometimes, I suppose in either direction. Emotions make me stupid. So does lack of sleep. But that was not the case Monday or Wednesday. That was just me being emotional.

So this post didn’t start with ‘I love Doug’ (disappointing, I know) but I will talk about him because he’s awesome. On Friday I was telling Doug that what keeps me going back to CrossFit is that intrinsic motivation of wanting always to be stronger or faster than before, or to do something I couldn’t do before. I can now do kipping freestanding handstand pushups. That is super cool. There’s a ton of other things I can’t do or can’t do well …. But they are as much reason for me to keep going back as that 100kgs is now a ‘safe’ heavy back squat for me. I’m pretty sure my max was 97 about three months ago.

Business is the same thing. What motivates me is seeing stuff that wasn’t there before. The signed contract. The revenue numbers ticking up. Hitting targets. There’s nothing as empowering as a motivational tool than to throw a goal up and, as an individual or a team, try and hit it.

On the flip side, nothing makes me more upset than not achieving things as fast as I want to. Not that I’m the slightest bit competitive or anything. Takes one to know one.

Back to Doug. Earlier in the day I had just been reminding him that you have to get people in the right frame of mind for constructive criticism he later called me at 6pm with constructive criticism on my budget when I was utterly exhausted. Criticism VERY WELL TAKEN, I need critical feedback, and it was probably the most useful feedback I’ve gotten in six months. His timing sucked but he pointed out another lesson. Your model needs a key, and it also needs the ‘if-thens’ to be called out explicitly. Goodness knows I may not remember why I made various assumptions back in February when I was doing my forecasting, or that certain things must happen before certain other things can happen.

I really do like my team. I love to see them get fired up and excited, and working really hard. I was having one of those happy dance moments on Tuesday when we did a brand identity workshop in order to inform our style guide for the web site redesign. I had a very vivid flashback to my first day at Babson where we did this business simulation in small groups, and I, uncharacteristically at the time, completely took over the room. Because someone had to do it. I was usually the one who thought I could lead better than the leader but didn’t actually want the responsibility of leading. Reminds me a bit of a story that Adam told when I interviewed him. But I digress.

So, here, I specifically stepped off to the side and let the team do their thing, only sometimes contributing. I was very happy to hear general consistency around not only that we want to be fun and funky and innovative and exciting but that we want to be process-oriented and data-driven. It is great to have some form of validation that it’s not just me pushing what I want onto them, but they seem to want it too. Perhaps my all-too-obvious excitement at insights and showing them how we can make decisions based on data is having its intended effect.

I changed my Skype status this week to something awesome: ‘the plural of anecdote is not data.’ True.

Exciting times ahead. I was really feeling a bit besieged on Wednesday, between everyone seemingly wanting a piece of me on the one side and cold, hard reality on the other. Hence, part of the emotional overload. Interesting times, at least.

Trying to separate the good ideas from the bad? Sometimes it’s easy. Actually it usually is. Sometimes you know something is a bad idea and you do it anyway. It’s like that awesome Alice in Chains line: ‘no one plans to take the path that brings you lower.’

Busy week. Monday night: dinner and out way past my bedtime with one of my favourite Wi-Fi boys. Tuesday: Nasty cold & WebAfrica reseller event. Wednesday: going away dinner for Helen. Thursday: qigong lecture & dinner at Orinoco Flow. Friday: Dinner & drinks @&Union with Sam, and a chance to catch up with Jason Lilley who looked about as exhausted as I felt after my four and a half hours of sleep.

This next week is going to be very, VERY interesting. As is the week after, come to think of it. The CrossFit Open starts that week.

It is not that hard for me to make a rule for myself not to drink or not to eat any grains during competition season. What I’ve known all along would be way harder is sticking to a bedtime, especially when you’re in a moment and just don’t want to go home.

So time to up the ante. 8 hours a night, minimum, starting now. I’m done with this hangover of exhaustion mode. Not. Cool.

Why the Yogi Berra quote? Because play time is over. Not that I was playing around before, but you hit a point at which you’re ready to go and then nothing gets in your way. No one puts pressure on me like me.

• “As you said data now, I was busy typing it.” – Adam (yess!! I am winning!)
• “We need a relationship that’s based on –“ “– not lying?” – Rudolph & Ellie
• “It was the best idea since bottled beer. Ouch. Bottled beer – “ – Rudolph
• “Stefan’s not feeling violent today. It’s a Monday.” “It’s coming.” – Ellie & Stefan
• “Open source is getting to me.” – Stefan
• “Have you met me? I’m not very patient.” – Ellie
• “I am getting excited for you now.” – Rob
• “That’s not what I meant by behave.” – Lance
• “Did you bring me here on purpose?” – Rob (no, I brought him there on accident!)
• “Wow. That’s like …. The definition of a hubristic statement right there.” – Rob
• “Are you a sports model?” “No, she’s actually the CEO of a company. It’s weird.” – waitress & Rob (I’m still not sure what exactly he finds weird)
• “You’ve taken this photo to a level of analysis that no one else has.” “I know. But it’s so cool!” – Ellie & Rob
• “You wouldn’t want your successor’s job.” – Rob
• “I stretched them yesterday but I didn’t use the stick because I was late for dinner.” – Ellie
• “He’s from Kraaifontein. He knows what he needs to bring.” – Rudolph
• “Now I’m gonna call the prospect. Because that wasn’t actually the sales call I was expecting to take!” – Ellie
• “I don’t play.” – Bronwyn
• “I woke up and realised it was just a dream. And then I thought about it and realised that actually it probably wasn’t!” – Ellie
• “I can’t even remember that photo being taken!” “You weren’t even drunk then!” – David & Ellie
• “Wi-Fi is a drug in Africa.” – Allister
• “I think you’re very nice. Dangerous, but nice.” – Lance
• “You can’t steer around interference. This isn’t Bend it like Beckham.” – Rob
• “Americans don’t understand the Oxford comma.” “Some Americans.” “I forgot there was an American in the room.” “An American who knows proper punctuation, that is!” – Rob & Ellie
• “Do you see why I like this guy?” “Uh-huh.” – Ellie & Adam
• “So Mike tells me: ‘You’ve gotta meet this chick Ellie,’ and I’m thinking ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me.’ Then I met you.” – Rob
• “They’re just like us!” – Ellie
• “Come for the wireless, stay for the snark.” – Rob
• “Only behind your back.” – Tim
• “I liked that comment directed at you … about the stickers.” – Adam
• “I don’t know if you’ve looked at yourself in the mirror lately, but you’re a big sack of mostly water. And water absorbs Wi-Fi really well.” – Rob
• “What’s a ‘Ronnie list’?” – Steven
• “You can’t have your stickers until you sing happy birthday.” – Ellie
• “What’s wrong with the oranges, Bronwyn?” “They are green.” – Ellie & Bronwyn
• “I’d rather have a broken arm than a sick mind.” – Shirfu
• “Being healthy takes time.” – Shirfu
• “I should go meditate in a cave for all of you!”  – Shirfu
• “We must all find our nemesis and thrash it.” – Shirmo
• “I expect you to deliver the deliverable, not the miracle.” – Doug
• “I’m not really patient enough to be in my position either. But I don’t really have a choice.” – Ellie
• “Perception is reality. But it’s also perception.” – Ellie
• “Well, you’ve sold me on Skyrove!” – Jade
• “They don’t seem to care how the standards are. They just make stuff that works.” – Tim
• “He does come across as pretty clued up.” – Tim
• “If you’re going to be a salesman, you need to be charismatic and you need to be tenacious. It sure as hell doesn’t hurt to be good looking, either.” – Ellie
• “The problem I have with him is that I believe everything he says.” – Ellie
• “That was boss, that whole conversation.” – Jason (I get philosophical when I’m sleep-deprived)

Strategy, likeability, & the judging of books

I love Doug, my VC. I love when he goes all hard core on me, and I love when he strokes my ego (this is more validation because what I’m doing is quite the stretch for me, even if I don’t always admit that). I also love when we just talk about STUFF, like what makes a good entrepreneur.

He said that having a sense of humour must be an important part of it. After the last few days I am now going to generalise his input to be that you have to be just enough of miserably f*cking crazy.

My contribution to the discussion at the time was to say that you had to be good at both seeing where to go and how to get there. An offhand comment from Lance over chat made me double-down on this one. He, like I, flatters himself a great strategist. But it came up because I was talking about my attention to detail, and he said that he had that too, and it was what made him a great strategist.

It actually makes a lot of sense to me. A lot of people can see the forest but not the trees, or they can see a vision but get lost on how to execute. A lot of people can see the details but get overwhelmed by the volume of details and lose sight of the context and what it all means. To be able BOTH to see a big vision AND how to get there, is, apparently, a very rare combination.

It’s that same thing that makes a good salesman so rare: a salesman is really just a good people person. You’ve got to be able to handle the fast-talking guy who claims he’s not technical but really is as well as the actually very technical CIO, and the customer who really doesn’t even know what she wants but knows what she doesn’t like, all without missing a beat.

Strange the routes we take in life, but you know what? Having been a product manager for ten years taught me both of the above. Nature, nurture …. Can’t tell. Doesn’t matter. I am who I am and where I am.

So I said in the last post that if you’re a fan of something or someone, you’re biased, and you have to watch out for that both in the time of infatuation, and then if that person, or thing, or company, or whatever, disappoints you in any way.

I was also thinking that we’re obviously more forgiving of people that we like. At least, I am. Here’s the secret, by the way, of how to get me to like you: be intelligent, be engaging and think laterally, make me laugh, accept criticism well, don’t lie to me, and be positive more often than you’re negative. Not that hard.

I mean, being likeable is one thing, and there most definitely is such a thing as being too charming …. But being likeable does have its advantages.

Speaking of advantages, I’ve also been thinking (not sure how I find the time for all this thinking!) about the advantages and disadvantages of being physically attractive. I seem to recall that there were studies somewhere that people who are better looking have higher wages, on average. But the thing is, it can cut both ways: we shouldn’t, but do, judge books by their covers. I was relaying the story of my recent underestimation of a certain person who I presumed was ‘just’ a pretty boy. Big mistake. It may not matter; most people will figure out what’s going on sooner or later.

Or not. My friend Sam, who is lovely, and gentle, and beautiful, and a model, had a throwaway comment on Christmas. We were talking about a mutual friend who is super smart, very insightful, hard working, strategic … the exact sort of employee your company wants. And his isn’t listening to his ideas for improvement. I was expressing some frustration to her, like ‘what is wrong with those people, why don’t they get it?’ and she said something along the lines of: ‘Well that’s easy for you to say: YOU are good looking!’

Beware the ad hominem. That is all.

Beware the charismatic leader who doggedly sticks to his or her worldview. Hell, beware the leader who doesn’t listen. I’ve learned more by listening to Adam’s questions in his first two weeks of sales than I did selling by myself in all of January. How much more would I learn if I would shut up every once in a while? I’m quick to shut down the pointless bitching in others but not in myself. Doug is right.

One of the people I follow on Twitter had this gem that Riaan and I were talking about while swimming in the river at his farm on Saturday morning: ‘Most people don’t reach their goals because they lose focus, can’t stay dedicated, and get tired of making sacrifices.’

Then my awesome boss from the early Exit41 days, Ed Boudrot, who always gave me good advice but not necessarily advice I was ready for, came out with this: Willpower – excuses = discipline.

As I said above, if you’re going to be an entrepreneur or, hell, a successful athlete at your chosen sport, you’re going to have to struggle through all sorts of stuff that would make someone less dedicated back off.

That’s why I don’t commit to too many things: between Skyrove, CrossFit, qigong, and trying to have some semblance of a social life, I have my hands more than full.

So I am going out to dinner on Monday night. I really want to have a glass of wine or two, because it would be fun, and there’s a certain level of relationship-building with vendors and partners that happens over booze. It just does.

But I won’t. I’m in my second year now of not drinking during CrossFit competition season (also, no desserts, or grains, and cheese only VERY rarely). Last year, this may not have been the healthiest thing for me but this year I’m handling it a bit better as I’ve realised that this is partly about how awesome I feel when I am ‘strict’ this way but also because it’s a good exercise of self-discipline.

It’s not because I feel like I HAVE to do this or else it will impact my performance. That’s part of it, sure, but really, the difference in a given workout isn’t whether I had two or three glasses of wine on a random night in February. Probably I’d do better as a competitor if I quit my job and led a stress-free life, but that sure as hell isn’t going to happen. I’m doing it as an exercise of emotional control and that’s why I have nightmares in which I, horror, consume a cocktail to get over nerves. Weird.

Not weird, though, because as much as I can be disciplined, I can also be extraordinarily un-disciplined. If I have one drink, I’ll probably have five. If I have one cookie, I’ll probably have ten. Best just to abstain, sometimes, especially when that old pre-frontal cortex is tired.

Well, there will be some drinking in London in June post-Regionals. I also decided that I’m going to take a mini-European vacation then because damned if I’m ever going  to take leave if I don’t just decide to do it. I bet I can do some awesome blue sky thinking while drinking espresso in the cafes of Marseilles or Seville or Lisbon or Barcelona. Or Athens or Alexandria or Istanbul. The right place will come to me. Europe. How romantic.

I’m right now nostalgic about the spring ephemerals of New England: the trilliums & Dutchmans breeches & wild ginger & bloodroot. There is just something about the place I grew up that is absolutely magical and that will stay with me forever, no matter where I am living.

I have definitely been struggling with consistently putting it all out there at CrossFit lately. I think there are two reasons for this. Firstly, my job. I’m not making excuses, and I’m trying to get enough sleep, but that ambient stress really does take it out of you. Secondly, I’m busy trying to fix my technique. My deadlifts have never been good; Grant is literally deconstructing and re-constructing my clean, my pullups aren’t very efficient, I need to go deeper on my squats. Oh and then there’s those double-unders.

So you have a workout and you must choose between form & intensity and lately I’ve been choosing form (usually, at least…). Which I think is the right choice for me right now but it feels like a bit of a cop-out, like I’m not actually trying my hardest, and just decent isn’t actually good enough. It’s time for one of those workouts where form doesn’t REALLY come into play and you just have to keep going. You know, like 7 minutes of burpees.

But you know, it’s cool when something  finally clicks. What I love about Grant’s coaching, or at least Grant’s coaching of me, is that he not only shows what but explains the biomechanics of why. And he’s patient. You know it’s not in any way a pleasant thing to have someone completely change your form on a technical lift you’ve been doing for nearly three years. But at least I’m motivated.

Love this concept: ‘The only two people you should ever compare yourself to is the person you used to be and the person you want to be.’

I love it more in the abstract, though, because I’m far from it. I wish I wasn’t, but I’m still the one who gets annoyed at shocking movement standards that I see around me. When, really, why do I care? It’s one thing in competition when you can, rightly, be annoyed if the same movement standards aren’t being applied to everyone. But in the normal gym why do I care if someone’s chin isn’t over the bar on her pullups or half the people are either doing snaking pushups or not even touching the ground?

Meh. I’m not perfect. But I am a pretty damn good strategist.

I had this other insight this week. I’m all worried about creating sustainable competitive advantage, which of course you want to do to the degree possible. But it’s not always possible. It may not matter, however. You can copy where I’ve been. You can’t copy where I’m going, unless you can copy my brain and my team. Good luck with that one.

• “Sometimes … you just don’t listen to the truth.” – Riaan
• “Oh, so you know what type approval is? That puts you ahead of [someone who should know better.]” – Ellie
• “I grew maggots already since the last time I saw you but I had bacterial contamination so I had to restart it.” – Riaan
• “As soon as I’m back we’re going to lock you up in the chamber.” – Riaan (not what it sounds like)
• “Luckily they were all nerds so it was OK.” – Ellie (not what it sounds like)
• “That’s why this is the perfect lift.” – Grant

Stickers and a fangirl

Looking back on this week, I am unlikely to remember the magic in the air from the summer rains, the excitement of some potential new prospects, budgeting for the next fiscal year, the absolute joy of dinner with my friend Anton, Adam closing his first deal, the beginnings of some hard core data analysis, getting giddily over-caffeinated with the boys from Ruckus, meeting a digital loyalty guru, taking a sales call from my CrossFit gym, taunting Joburg boy with photos of Cape Town, literally flying through the 27 80kg back squats on Monday; or, on the less positive side, the weakness I exhibited on Friday at the gym (turns out I was getting sick) and the occurrence of a weird shoulder issue that probably just needs a little bit of rest.

What I will remember? Stickers.

Well, that and coming out as a fangirl.

Look, I think you can tell a lot about a company by its employees. I think you can also tell a lot about a company by how it handles criticism. Chalk and cheese, as they say. But I tell you what, I was literally feeling like a seven-year-old girl getting obsessed with stickers. Stickers!!

Thursday was a nutty day. Between the whole Oscar Pistorius thing (he shot & killed his girlfriend, verdict is definitely still out on what the hell happened here, but super sad for her and her family), the State of the Nation address and opening of Parliament that shut Cape Town right down, and my throwing my toys, as they say, at every vendor in sight about these stickers … it was almost a tempest in a teapot.

I mean, I take my job responsibilities very seriously, but some bits more than others. Fiduciary responsibility and regulatory compliance are pretty well the top of the list. Customers and staff come next.

Our new financial year starts on March 1^st. To prepare, we need to produce budgets and we also need to change the financial reporting categories to fit my new view of the world. It’s a bit mind-numbing to go over every single category for income and expense. Definitely un-glamorous, but very necessary. I have a bit of an attention to detail which can be annoying at times, but on balance is probably a good thing.

My love affair continues: no day or week is like the last. Never boring. Just like CrossFit.

Speaking of CrossFit, I was definitely having one of those head-over-heels in love moments on Monday when we were doing heavy back squats. There’s that moment when you have just chalked up and you watch the little bits of chalk dust fall through the air and you know the bar is going to feel heavy, and light, at the same time. Just like when you approach a new movement like a freestanding kipping handstand pushup without fear or expectation, and somehow everything just goes right.

Love that. Like I love my technicians make me laugh out loud almost every day of the week. Maybe THAT is how I pick the vendors and partners and friends that I love; the ones that make me laugh?

I was definitely thinking this week about emotions, emotional reactions, and rationality. I know it may be unrealistic, but I like to think of myself as being pretty calm, cool, collected, and rational. I’m the one who keeps a calm head when everyone else is panicking. I’m the one who, when the milk spills, goes to get something to clean it up. My mother tells this story of when my brother was tiny and he burned his hand and while she was still freaking out, I had already gone to the sink and gotten a bowl of cold water for his hand. That sounds like something I would do.

But I’ve also got this vindictive streak. Do not hurt me or my people. I’ll give you every chance in the world, but I draw the line at unethical and I really don’t care for stupid.

But here’s the thing. We know, now, that I’m a salesman. Outside of the places I’ve worked, most of which I’ve sold hard, at least for a time, there are a few things I rave about. TiVo. The Economist. Sichuan Gourmet. CrossFit (although that one’s been tempered down because it’s not right for everyone and there are some things about it that are definitely pretty stupid). Cape Town.

I was chatting to this guy I met recently, who is seeming to be like another J to me, in that it’s almost like I’m talking to myself when I talk to him. It’s easy to get along with such people, and I’m happily building networks of super smart, super insightful, super connected people to be my friends and advisors in the industry. Yes I know, you do need a diversity of opinions but you also need people on the same wavelength. But I digress.

Anyway Lance was about as fascinated by my coming out as a fangirl as I am. From my side, I am interested because it doesn’t happen that often, and in this case I’m proud of it and embarrassed by it at the same time. Fandom, by its very nature, is a bit irrational. But hey, we’re all irrational and we’re all biased. At least I admit to mine, if only to myself, and only the degree to which I’m actually self-aware. That’s a lot of caveats, I know, but hey: just remember: people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

Here’s how it works: at the end of the day, I try to be as professional as I can when it comes to customers. Their needs come first. If some customer has a specific set of needs, I will bring to them what I think is the best solution. But all else being equal, I’m going to sell them the solution I like the best.

It all comes down to this, right? We don’t buy from companies, we buy from people. Some products are so good you’ll buy them even if you don’t much care for the company or the people.

So I’m a fangirl.

You know the other thing about fans? They are the ones who are the most betrayed if you screw up. Irrationality and emotion cuts both ways.

This post was too long so I broke it into two. This one is more what I did, the second more how I felt. One last thing to mention here is how utterly fascinated I remain by the human body. So Saturday I wake up feeling a bit under the weather. I drive out to Stellenbosch anyway to meet Riaan and go to the river, because I won’t be seeing him for another month or so, and I wasn’t feeling THAT bad (cold, not flu). So now that I’m up and about, I went to open gym. I wouldn’t have gone to that either except that I was having a skill session with Grant (more about that in the next post, too).

But then afterwards I raced off to acupuncture. It was a bit of a shame because it looks like I missed some gymnastics practice. I mean lifting heavy weights is cool, but what’s cooler is watching people do backflips and cool stuff!

In case you’re not aware, I have this therapist called Byron who does the most amazing things to help me heal and reconfigure my body, and he does it all through stimulating the central nervous system. I can, at this point, literally feel the CNS get fired up, and it feels just like a cup of coffee or three, but when the body actually starts processing what’s happened, I crash, and I crash hard. Normally I see him at 7am and by 6pm I am a bit of a wreck (Byron happens on recovery days, obviously).

And we talk, and one of the things we talk about is how I have the body awareness to be able to tell soreness pain from injury pain from sensitivity at the attachment points. Similar to how with the fascial release, not only do I have an apparently impressive pain threshold, but I have a very good ability to tell the type of pain we’re looking for (it’s a burning pain from the fascia getting unstuck from the muscles) apart from the other type of pain.

So this acupuncture session was fascinating to me because when I’m really needing acupuncture it knocks me completely on my ass. I was drifting in and out of sleep, but I was peripherally aware of what my body was doing, in phases. First, that weird acupuncture sensation that if you’ve felt, you know what I mean, and if you haven’t …. Well, try describing the flavour of a banana to someone who’s never had a banana. Second, the CNS stimulation, and hard core at that. I’m glad I was asleep or it might have been a bit intense, even for someone who is used to it. Third, my right arm, the one with the shoulder issue, had a BIG involuntary muscle contraction. Fourth, when it was time for the needles to come out the CNS stimulation was gone and I woke up without a hint of drowsiness. But I had to wait for a lecture on the transcendental soul to end before I had the needles removed (Saturdays are TCM lecture days, so you can learn some interesting things if you’re not snoozing).

We humans are like machines. Actually, we are machines. Emotional machines, sure. But boy is it interesting to step back and observe what is happening to your physical and emotional self.

Eve6 had it right: It’s sickening how comforting the privacy of the mind can be.

• “The mind also had to be ready.” – Byron
• “That’s not really a fair fight.” – Bryony
• “Unfortunately the actual regulations are seemingly impossible to find.” – Dominic
• “So that’s gonna be rough. And then …” – Grant
• “I liked his eyes.” – Adam (not what it sounds like)
• “What’s the male equivalent of Hello Kitty?” – Ellie
• “It’s a spring. Your ass is like a spring.” – Coach Grant (not what it sounds like)
• “I don’t know what’s up with them.” “That guy is dodgy.” – Ellie & Rudolph (what else is new?)
• “I’ll save you the R2 it would take to call them. Just call Rob.” – Mike
• “You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.” “But you can.” – Ellie & Mike
• “Not that anyone from [company name omitted] has ever said anything REALLY stupid. But if you were to do so, I wouldn’t laugh in your face.” – Ellie 
• “So much for NDA.” “Hehe. Yeah. So – “ – Ellie & Mike (NDA falls away if the idea is stupid and company goes under)
• “Naughty is such an unprofessional word.” – Rob
• “Don’t pick unnecessary fights.” – Doug
• “You’re becoming much more in demand from my side.” – Doug
• “You’re telling me my life is hectic?” – Ellie
• “You’re telling me there’s opportunity in my industry?” – Ellie
• “Oh my God Ellie …. They have you!” – Anton
• “OK let’s not kid ourselves. I can be unprofessional too.” – Ellie
• “You can’t have seven different income streams and no CEO.” – Anton
• “So it’s not just me going crazy over stickers?” – Ellie
• “I think we should affix Hello Kitty stickers to all our devices  and see if anyone notices. …. I think I might be losing it a little bit.” “It is possible.” – Ellie & Rob
• “Just about every decision made by a human being in the history of the world was an emotional one.” – Rob
• “If I believe in you I’ll be selling you.” – Lance
• “Input. OMG.” – Dominic
• “The fact that you’re a fangirl piques my curiosity.” – Lance
• “That’s a lot of income, income, income all in one place.” – Bronwyn (it was actually three places)
• “Being vindictive and being hot are mutually exclusive.” – Lance (he meant not mutually exclusive)

Simplicity and the snake

Doug says my best attribute is my enthusiasm. I’ve been saying recently that I’m a salesman. Same thing. Maybe?

Prior to Doug, I had always thought my best attribute was my ability to make order from chaos and to communicate between different groups of people. I always thought that’s what made me such a good product manager: I could talk to sales, customers, marketing, AND engineering. I like all of them but I preferred the smartest ones, who were often, but certainly not always, the engineers.

The notion of a single best attribute is probably a stupid one anyhow. My worst attribute? Well at the moment probably I’d have to call it as overestimating my own capacity. My stupid ass decided it would be a good idea to do multiple workouts at the opening of a friend’s CrossFit box on day 4 of training.

Somehow I apparently forgot that would have been my fourth consecutive day of training, which is the stupidest thing ever because my cardinal rule of training is never train more than three days in a row. Especially when you’re coming off the work equivalent of Hell Week. Fun opening and cool to catch up with some of the guys and actually, come to think of it, while it may not have been the smartest thing, fatigue can cause weaknesses that I usually hide to manifest. And that mantra from the martial arts studio about leaving your ego at the door and not acting like a fool could be much more aptly applied to the rest of my life.

You would have thought I would have figured it out on Thursday. I was laughing at myself, having caught myself in the middle of that awkward moment where you realise that a) for at least the third time in the last hour, you have no idea what your coach just said and b) you just said a really, REALLY stupid thing. My mind only gets un-focused like that when I’m exhausted. At least my 1K row times were not as pathetic as they could have been.

But enough of my stupidity. Back to the subject at hand. This week I had a meeting with a guy who I was trying to sell Wi-Fi to, and this somehow led into a 20+ minute nutrition discussion. He kept saying that I should be a personal trainer or nutrition coach, because I sounded like I really knew what I was talking about, and when he asked questions I had good answers, and I clearly spoke with a passion.

But here’s the thing. It’s not my passion. Garth & Hermann: this is their passion. You can see it when you talk to them. Me? The salesman in me can project enthusiasm. What this guy didn’t realise is that I could care less whether or not he adjusts his diet as the result of what I tell him. I strongly suspect he won’t.

My parents teach at university, and one of the pieces of advice I recall them giving me was not to become a teacher, for a number of reasons but mainly because most students don’t care. And when you care about what they are teaching and they don’t care about learning, that is going to eat at you. Some people are better than me, to be motivated by the people they do teach and help. Me? No I’m definitely of the tough love sort. One friend was complaining about her coach who goes too far in the tough love direction and she may be right, I don’t really claim to know. I guess each athlete has a way that’s ideal for them to be handled.

I don’t even know what my ideal way to be handled as an athlete is; I suspect it changes based on my mood. I know what it is NOT, which is to say: ‘You’re doing it wrong’ without telling me, specifically and non-judgmentally, how to fix it. But figuring out the best way to coach every person who would walk in my door? Hell, it’s hard enough to run my company where I can boss people around if I want. As I’ve said many a time, forget carrots and sticks: the best carrot is carrot cake. Find someone’s intrinsic motivation and go from there.

To that end, I must say, potential bossiness aside, on Thursday morning we did the morning meeting a little bit differently and started off by listing our top priorities for the day in the technical team. There were about twelve. By the end of day Friday, almost all of them were done, including, much to my excitement, a chance to see how this Ruckus gear actually performs in a hostile environment. Honestly, that ain’t bad. My team is kind of kick-ass, and I really kind of love them. We just can’t operate at this pace forever.

You know, it was just an emotional rollercoaster of a week. I think that takes it out of you more than anything. Not unlike the insulin spikes we try and avoid!

I seem to keep getting off track in this post! I think it’s because my body is still very tired, and I’m about to go through to Byron who is, no doubt, going to knock me on my ass as he always does. Great plan for a Sunday night: get that CNS in repair mode, cook some fish, train qigong, fall asleep.

Speaking of sleep, yesterday afternoon I was literally fantasising about sleep. Then I took a nap, and recovered enough for the Chinese New Year celebrations at the martial arts studio. I wish I hadn’t been so tired, but on the plus side my exhaustion let me excuse myself after dinner rather than having to explain why I wasn’t drinking. You know, rules are rules, and that may actually be one of the situations where I would have made an exception. You do not want to offend your master for a reason that is, at the end of the day, arbitrary. Maybe I’ll just make sure I’m similarly exhausted when Kim’s birthday comes along (isn’t his mom beautiful, by the way??).

It’s a funny thing. I really do enjoy what I do, and when I enjoy something I really, REALLY go at it. But as I was walking to be a very, VERY late attendee at a dinner at Hudson’s on Friday night I was looking at all of these people having a good time in the restaurants, and bars and wondering what on earth I was doing. Skyrove isn’t everything. Even I will get burnout if I’m not careful.

This, now, is the year of the snake. The year of the dragon brings with it lots of dynamic change but it’s all the animals in one and it’s actually quite an upsetting time, apparently. The year of the snake is supposed to have a lot of the positive energy of the dragon without as much of the hectic.

Speaking of hectic? Regionals this year is going to be held in Joburg. As we all know, I know enough about training at altitude to be very, VERY afraid. After a bit of research it turns out that to acclimatize you need between 4-6 weeks, and 2 at a bare minimum. Well, I’ll head up there a week early for work and see how that goes. Can’t stress about things you can’t control, now can you?

Look, I don’t really know what my passion is. I was thinking about this. I used to love product management. Then I got bored. Then I was super into social enterprise. Then I realised I’m far too impatient for idealists or a world that doesn’t actually get blended value yet. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m actually not sure it matters too much what I am doing so long as it’s mentally stimulating.

Skyrove is definitely that. It’s a technical industry with a bunch of super smart kids. I think it came to me when we were meeting with Kerry-Anne on Friday and she said I had an unusual talent for making the really complex simple, but without dumbing it down.

Making the complex simple: that’s what a good product manager does, and in reading Doug’s latest email to me, that’s essentially his feedback about what I’m doing best. So my passion, as best as I can articulate it from where I’m sitting right now, is to avoid boredom by bringing elegance and simplicity from confusion and chaos.

Sounds so nice when you put it like that. But I’m definitely more passionate about not being bored than I am about helping people change their lives.

• “I’ll leave the unethical behaviour to him.” – Ellie
• “When Merakis have problems, they have complicated problems.” – Tim
• “I would urge you to be prepared.” – Shafiek
• “How long have you been in sales?” “Fourteen years.” “Uh-huh. Takes one to know one.” – Ellie & Arthur
• “Your biggest problem it outside of your control.” – Doug
• “And you can sell like a mother*cker.” – Doug (I just get more and more dangerous I’m afraid!)
• “I love it when I’m proven right.” – Doug
• “That’s definitely a lot to start with.” “Welcome to our industry.” – Kerry-Anne & Ellie
• “I wonder how you’re able to pull it all out, sometimes.” – Adam
•  “Yeah …. We’ll just keep that part between us.” – Tim (I love when my guys do stupid things and then actually tell me about it rather than try to cover up!)
• “I don’t like him very well.” – Gina
• “You can't use that excuse every week!”  – Bronwyn
• “I'm all for being customer-focused. But I'm not a doormat.” – Ellie
• “I’m going to be doing this for the rest of my life.” – Hermann
• “You had the biggest smile on your face afterwards hey!” – Nick
• “There’s nuances to everything.” – Chris
• “Positive energy and negative energy are both contagious.” – Jeremiah
• “The Grand Master is here!” – Kim
• “You must work for your luck.” – Shirfu 

No one else I care about

Is allowed to be rushed to hospital.

So I like to think I’m all tough. You learn how not tough you are when you leave the hospital all choked up, not because anyone’s life is in danger but because things could have been so, SO much worse.

A lot going through my head at the moment. A co-worker, friend, and someone I rely on emotionally as well as professionally, in the hospital. A coach, a friend, and one of the few that I confided in about how upset I was about the other guy …. Also winds up in the hospital. I was feeling a bit jealous of him on Saturday as he was saying he was getting back to double and triple workouts in a day, and now he’s obviously not training at all.

Both will fully recover, so far as I know, and I’m getting back to the dual training from next week, after a REALLY bad scare this week. I was afraid I’d re-injured my back after Monday’s workout. I am still not sure what exactly I did, although that workout made me crazy sore, or how you can go from fine to ‘holy crap I can’t touch my toes without excruciating pain’ to nearly fine again and doing deadlifts in the space of 48 hours.

OK, I know part of the answer, and his name is Byron. He’s a damned miracle worker although I’ll admit to disliking therapy days because I know my CNS is going to shut down around 6pm. Cure is sometimes more hectic than the disease. Thanks to Byron my eyes started to glaze over during a webinar about integrating carrier Wi-Fi on the mobile network. No, it wasn’t the subject matter: I just couldn’t focus!

But I guess sport mirrors my work life. 9:35am Monday morning I had customers blowing up right and left. By 11am customers were fine and I had two huge new inbound leads. You know, you win some, you lose some.

Adam, our new sales guy, is literally chomping at the bit. He’s about to be released into the wild. The world better get ready.

A new intern arrived from France and in his first few hours plugged a lot of the holes in our customer database. I can only imagine what’s going to happen next.

But it’s been rough, most of our technical staff were out of the office for one reason or another most of the week and things have been manic. Just, plain, manic.

And yet, things manage to get done. Lots of things. Had our product kickoff meeting, and Stefan’s head didn’t explode. Had a conference call with a company I found overseas, and I think I may even have impressed him a little bit. Took Adam along to a few customer meetings, both of which were great, and one of which involved a road trip. I even learned about a new kind of backhaul: lasers!

What else happened? Got myself a tentative speaker slot for a conference in July, had lunch with the lovely Michelle Atagana and discussed how to get Wi-Fi knowledge to the masses (and possibly wound up with a lead on a conference), and had one of those weird moments when I was chatting with two people in Sunnyvale at the same time: one about romance and the other about, you guessed it, Wi-Fi.

Here’s the thing: as much as I like change and innovation, I also like routine. I like my people around me. I say all the time that my co-workers and gym-mates are like family. It’s not until you miss seeing some of them every single day that you learn how much you not only rely on them for what they contribute to your life, but how much you need them emotionally.

What’s up next? Big prospect meeting, company meeting, board meeting, possibly more recruitment, definitely getting Adam launched into the field, managing the new intern, kickoff meeting for our new web site, and financial budgeting & modelling. And all the stuff I didn’t get done last weekend can now happen this weekend. I hope.

Yes, this is hell week for me. I’m also managing 7-8 hours of sleep. It may be manic, but it’s manageable manic.

Honestly, I’m having the time of my life. Now if only I could sort out those blasted double unders my life would be perfect.

Almost.

• “What’s that?” “Kale.” “What?” “Kale.” “Parsley?” “Kale.” – Bronwyn & Ellie
• “We have an interesting puzzle on our hands.” “Yes we do.” – Ellie & Stefan
• “Well, it seems like a much better direction than the one we have at the moment.” – Stefan
• “How are your glutes?” – Grant
• “That came out all wrong.” – Rob
• “The wheels turn slowly. But they do turn.” – Renier
• “First I Googled ‘why is Wireless G called Wireless G.’ That wasn’t terribly helpful.” – Adam
• "If the subscriber can't pick up a reliable wireless network, nothing else is going to matter." – Steve Hratko
• “You know that unobtainable goal? That’s Shaolin.” – Shirmo
• “I wish I knew why!” – Ellie
• “He’s never been my favourite person.” – Stefan
• “It’s expensive for everybody.” – Eran
• “It would work for about a month.” – Stefan
• “Either something’s wrong with your diet, or you’re not as fit as you think you are.” – Howard (that or I just really suck at deadlifts, which is my theory!) 

Being a salesman

So my first sales hire started this week, on Friday. I am excited for the reasons I described above, but also because now we get to see what happens when you prime the pump with a young, motivated person who I can train, who has real sales targets, and whose commission structure is very generous after he hits those targets. So now we see.

We also got the unexpected news late on Friday that an intern that we weren’t expecting for a month was going to be arriving next week. So now we have some more resources to throw at our customer care initiative and at prospecting.

The biggest problem remains not having enough hours in the day. I keep wishing I were superhuman and could do more than I am. But, I am what I am. I suppose the same goes for my team; I wish our technical staff were bigger. But we aren’t. Yet. I guess it’s a good thing that everyone is over-busy as it beats the alternative, but we do have to be careful not to get so caught up in the day-to-day that we lose sight of the big picture.

Our main task for January was staff recruitment in sales and admin/operations, and for me, to wrap my head around the finances, which I now know better than I did but I want to be knowing some of these metrics by heart. February is going to be budgeting & financial planning, sales, account management, and product month. I put up a white board with our top 5 priorities on it, next to the office announcements board. I wrote up six priorities as I wasn’t able to stop at five.

So this week I was recovering, mentally and physically, from the competition last weekend. Firstly, I saw my miracle-worker Byron and then I went to acupuncture. The latter was absolutely epic; I fell asleep on the table within 10 minutes, and when I came to it had knocked me so completely on my ass that I was barely able to concentrate on qigong and then couldn’t do any work at all later that evening so I went to bed. Healing is training, too, of a sort. Sometimes the healing is more hectic than the training!

Not more so than Thursday’s session, though, where part of our workout was five rounds of 40 second sprints on the rower. I was very proud of myself for not holding back, although my body did give up and my power output decreased from the first to the fifth round, but after I finished I did indeed fall off the rower not to stand up again for a good five minutes. THAT is the Ellie I was missing last weekend. I finished and I actually kind of wanted to cry a little bit. Which is weird, that feeling had never come across me before.

Er, at least not like that. I must say it was interesting to hear the response from some of the folks at the gym to my competition, and in particular that last event. Interesting indeed. Also amusing to watch someone nearly fall over because of a rower but for different reasons than mine.

I managed to have a somewhat social week, too, which is probably a good thing. I made a new friend called Lance. What happens when  a sales guy meets a sales girl? They try and sell each other stuff. Like advice about work/life balance.  And talk about CrossFit. But he’s very cool, and what really makes me smile is the story of his young daughter who misheard ‘Cape Town’ and thought he was flying to ‘Cake Town.’ Can you imagine? Like a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory writ large. Cake Town!

But, as an ex-ISP guy, I was happy to hear that he approves of my strategy, even the more extreme bits. I suppose I’m a bit ruthless when it comes to core competencies, but what the hell: go big or go home. I don’t have the time to mess around.

This subject came up again a few times this week: with Kelsey at breakfast at Arnold’s, with Michelle at Alex’s birthday, with Juliet at dinner at her place.  You know, it’s easy to say that people should break out of their ruts and get over their fears and shit. But then again how many of my deepest darkest fears do I really face? Normally I just avoid them, or tap out. For me the bigger ones aren’t work-related, they’re personal. I have no problem in the boardroom or at the negotiating table; I have problems admitting what I want.

This is the best quote from this blog post that I love about overcoming your fears: Like George Clooney said in Three Kings, “The way it works is, you do the thing you’re scared shitless of, and you get the courage AFTER you do it, not before.”

No further comment required.

I love that my friends seem to find me inspiring and charming. But it’s not actually me, it’s the salesman in me. And, perhaps, that I’m genuine in my compliments. And that I genuinely like people.

I’m also loving this feeling at this time of year. The results of a full month of clean eating are showing themselves. The body image issues I had last year have not recurred [yet]. OK, I lie, but at least not as bad as before. I’m almost fully healthy, and it feels so nice to train like that: solid, balanced, stable, but with the added benefit of a heightened focus on form.

I learned a lot from last year. I learned that this strict diet is for me, and not for my team. It’s annoying, yes, to go to the coolest bar I’ve been to in Cape Town, by far, with the best mixologists (apparently), and have to turn down free drinks five times in an hour. Well, somehow the ratio of male to female at Knock Knock was a bit out of whack on that evening. But nonetheless, I really wanted a strawberry mojito, but I wanted even more not to keep to my commitment to myself for the second year in a row.  

But wow what a great week of friends and conversation! Everything from the confidence of sport with Kelsey to talking about the guy she’s been seeing to talking with Michelle who was wondering out loud how one finds the time to be seeing anyone [indeed], to eating disorders, overtraining, and my plans to Wi-Fi the world with Juliet.

Speaking of Juliet, she’s a kindred soul. She was telling this beautiful story of becoming frustrated with a co-worker because said co-worker was not able to see a situation multi-dimensionally. It was this frustrated: ‘But how can she not SEE!?!’ that I thought was actually quite cute. I mean, you can’t get frustrated with someone who doesn’t see what you see. Obviously, they miss it. Not everyone is a broad, strategic, lateral thinker.

On the subject of such people my VC is getting hardcore on me! The honeymoon’s over and he’s asking the tough questions very bluntly now. As he should be. That’s what a good Board does, is watch out for your blind spots and hold you accountable. Doug may be the most incisive person I know. In most cases I have the answers; I just remain frustrated that there are not enough hours in the day.

As a product manager, I used to pride myself on being able to talk as easily to sales as to engineers. That skill and underlying nerdiness has served me well so far in sales, business development, and relationship building in what’s a very technical industry at the end of the day. But opportunity and potential is one thing; execution is another. Now comes crunch time in becoming Skyrove product manager.

We had an Olympic lifting seminar on Saturday. Somehow I wound up feeling physically weak that morning and my poor hands were hurting (whine, whine). But something is definitely happening: between what Grant taught me the other week and something that kind of came together with my tall snatches or high hang snatches or whatever you want to call them …. It’s a process, fixing ingrained crappy movement patterns. But when that first pull is right, the bar flies. When you get that full hip extension, the bar flies. Now if I could only put the first pull and second pull together I’d be all set.

That feeling of the bar being weightless, for that split-second: it’s magic. Kind of like getting your balance right and walking on your hands, which I’m practicing more now. Because it’s fun. And because I can.

So is getting to the bottom of your to-do list. Mine had 18 items on it Saturday afternoon when I started. As it stands now it’s down to about 12, most of which are, in fact, critical to get done before the end of the weekend. 3, 2, 1, go!

• “Human beings are strange with these things.” – Rudolph
• “It’s an extreme interpretation. But it’s not invalid.” – Lance
• “It does mean you’re a salesman.” – Lance   
• “He’s probably more angel than human.”  – Mom
• “That’s the beauty of IT. It does what it wants, when it wants.” – Scott
• “No man! You can’t take the good looking one!” – Bronwyn
• “Because it shows autonomy.” – Doug
• “I liked that it seemed organised.” – Adam
• “So, I wanted to tell you that I’ve hit the first problem of the day.” – Bronwyn (always a Friday!)
• “I’ve never seen it like this!” – Bronwyn
• “It’s a hobby.” “Not with you guys!!” – Ellie & Alex
• “What about liquor and men?” “Bad combo.” “Oh. Yes.” – Ellie & Michelle
• “What did you do to poor Andy?” “I called him a toy.” – Laurie & Michelle
• “I’m afraid all the time. But I do stuff anyhow.” – Andy
• “Ellie isn’t drinking because she’s in a cult.” – Rob
• “You have to get comfortable with the idea that it’s not going to kill you.” – Jean