Tired

I’ve been experiencing a massive sense of humour failure this week. I have been wicked tired, as they say in Boston. The problem was too much training without enough rest days. I was shockingly exhausted after Saturday’s workout and should have rested Sunday but didn’t, Monday we had the finals of the quarterly challenge at the gym, and then Tuesday was team practice when what I REALLY needed was a rest day. I spent all day dreading going to the gym, which is a good indication that I really need to rest. Luckily the team workout was super fun, and I felt better than I thought I would, possibly just because of how much I really enjoy that feeling of teamwork, communication, and camaraderie.

Not to mention I am having a general annoyance with myself for not finishing projects started ages ago. My aunt is (with justification) nagging me that I should sort out getting my cats imported, and even the car guards are nagging me that I should get the window fixed in my car (someone broke a window over a month ago and I still haven’t gotten it fixed). It was only after about a week of no internet at home when my old contract expired and, what, a year and a half of paying pre-paid mobile rates because I didn’t want to take the time and the hassle of a credit check to go on a contract with one of the local phone companies before I finally dealt with the situation.

Yep, I have a definite procrastination problem. Wayne Gretzky would not approve. But of course, when things are a mission it’s so easy to get caught up in all the little things you can busy yourself with. And, we are all masters at rationalising our own behaviour right? But at the same time, it’s always easy to prioritise what you want to do or what is easier over what is a pain in the neck. Having a smashed car window has some definite advantages. The main reason I’m getting it fixed now is that the rainy season is coming. Maybe one of these years I’ll be mature enough NOT to wait until things actually come crashing down before I motivate.

Yeah, and maybe I’ll start drinking a bottle of wine a night, again, too. Talk about dulling the senses.

I remember when Jobst & Roland were first trying to get me to train less frequently and sleep more. Telling me flat out had the opposite effect: ‘Screw you guys, I don’t need to do that, I’ll do what I want!’ Kinda like I was saying in the last post, I’m sure they could both happily say ‘I told you so’ but the important thing is that somewhere along the line I figured it out for myself. I wonder how many times we act against our own self-interest just because we don’t like being told what to do? Well there are enough cognitive biases out there, hey a day we don’t screw something up is never going to happen.

As I've said before to get someone, including yourself, to do something, you need to have and exploit an intrinsic motivation. And the line between motivating and manipulating is a grey one, huh? So the real question is, how do I learn how to manipulate myself? Or even more basic than that - what is the pattern for when I do break out of procrastination and actually take action? What is different? Geez I wish I knew, because I’d get a hell of a lot more done. In a way, it’s probably as simple as just committing. 

It was funny though. The process of signing up for things like mobile phone contracts just takes so long. I swear it was at least 45 minutes the first day and 45 minutes the second day. And they still get it wrong (no data on my phone and my internet isn’t working because they never RICAd the SIM chip). And ordering the glass for the car? Yeah I could bitch about that too, but actually these things don’t really bother me. They just are what they are. What I resent is the opportunity cost, but hey, part of life is the drag, right? Next up is the monumental mission of calling the 45+ cargo companies that fly out of Boston to survey them on rates & pet handling policies. God help us all.

Speaking of Boston and God help us all, I had quite a laugh the other day when I walked into a local store called Sportsman’s Warehouse and saw a huge poster of Tom Brady (an Under Armour ad). At first I didn’t think much of it. Then I did a double-take, and actually started commenting out loud to the person I was with (who of course had NO idea who Tom Brady was). I just had to laugh out loud. Tom Brady reduced to a fashion model. Wow.

I would say that my biggest achievement of the week was finishing up a time sheet system, as well as some drafts of some marketing collateral and contracts, all of which had been on my to-do list for ages and ages. I also played web developer, which was sort of fun and sort of annoying. Jack of all trades, master of none. One of these months I’d like to be able to do my actual day job.

Happy to report that both my ankle and back/side injuries are much improved (even Dr Lan says so, which means it must be so!). In the team workout Tuesday night we had to do heavy (24kg) kettlebell swings. I was a bit apprehensive at first because that puts strain on the lower back and I hadn’t swung a heavy kettlebell since October, before I got that massive injury (big muscles take a looooong time to heal). But not only did it feel fine, but that kettlebell felt SUPER light in comparison to how it once did. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t practice something for 4 months but get a lot fitter in that time period. It was also my first time doing rope climbs since the ankle sprain, and those also were fine if inefficient because I haven’t had a chance to practice my technique obviously.

But I guess it’s just one of those up-and-down weeks. I get stuff done, don’t get other stuff done, and just generally laugh at myself. Monday’s challenge was funny because it was overhead squats (which are one of my weaknesses) and toes to bar, which I most definitely did NOT feel like doing after Saturday. I was quite happy that I managed to get all my rounds of overhead squats unbroken (for me this is a HUGE accomplishment), and I was literally laughing at myself after about round #4 when I could no longer grip the bar to do the toes-to-bar. I told my judge: ‘Yeah, this is where it all falls apart.’

This morning I had a somewhat disappointing max for day effort at overhead squat followed by an 8kg PR on front squat (I KNEW those percent lifts were far too easy), followed by a few mental fails. Then I learned what workout 12.4 is, which contains three of my weaknesses all wrapped up into a cute little package. Oh well, it is what it is, right? Laugh a bit, suck it up, and move on.

The quote in my friend’s email signature was a good slogan for the week: "Take your work seriously, but never yourself." – Booth Tarkington

• “That was amazing, by the way.” – Chris
• “I can see that you’re tired.” – Jeff
• “I’m very interested to see your reactions to what we’re about to experience.” – Anton
• “If a monkey runs around and breaks all your plates, you can’t very well be angry at the monkey.” – Peter
• “I think that happened a year ago.” – Mandy
• “Have fun with the muscle ups.” – Roland (LOVE that positive attitude!)

On Being Right

Why do we feel the need to be right all the time? Why, when we know full well that who’s right or wrong is long forgotten but when you make someone feel like an ass, they keep that with them for a long time? Why is winning the point sometimes more important to us than keeping a friendship together?

One of my dearest friends and I didn’t speak for nearly … two years? All over something stupid, and both of our pride kept us from reaching out to say ‘I was wrong, let’s make up.’

At the same time, you can go too far the other direction. I once had a particular relationship in which I had to lose every single fight … because there was just no winning and eventually someone had to be the adult and give up. Thank the blazes there was never anything critical at stake.

I suppose in a way it’s all about expectation management. You (or at least I), don’t get mad when something doesn’t go my way. I get mad when I am specifically told or promised A, and then B happens. Sometimes it’s just inexcusable. Sometimes it’s a lack of explanation of ‘if Z, then B, otherwise A.’ I had a couple of big customer service fails this week, including the kind folks at Discover Card putting my international call on hold for 25 minutes. Their IVR should be smarter than that, I’m sorry.

It’s also partly about the insecurity we feel in our own selves and positions. How many times in a week do I catch myself, when someone has an idea, saying something along the lines of ‘Oh yeah I had that idea ages ago, here’s why it’s not done yet, but you’re right we really should do it.’ Or ‘Funny you should mention that, because I was just saying the same thing yesterday!’ Right? Right. Well, my goal for the next week, and we’ll see what happens after that, is to cut that nonsense out. It’s all about the idea, not who gets the credit for it.

Ok sometimes the credit is important … but not all the bloody time, firstly, and secondly, the quickest and easiest way to get or keep people motivated is to give them credit for, and run with, their ideas … even if you had them first.

I suppose it’s also like QA … no one ever pays attention unless QA fails to catch a huge bug. No one ever pays attention to all the things you DO that you say you’re going to do, or all the advice of yours do take, or all the things you are doing well … we tend to focus so much on the negative. In a way it’s healthy, without that sort of critical feedback loop you won’t improve (my rugby player acquaintance reports that his explosiveness on his cleans is much improved, but he’s having problems getting his arms around quickly enough). But too much focus on the negative and you can create or encourage a negative system of self-talk, which actually does create a self-fulfilling prophecy more often than it doesn’t.

Maybe I was just having one of those weeks. “Isn’t your birthday around now?” “Yeah, it was last weekend.” Oops. “Look, I ripped my hand.” “Yeah I stopped doing chest-to-bars because I was afraid I might rip my hand before tomorrow.” “Well, it’s too late for me now.” Yep, open mouth, remove foot.

I did have a bad-good experience this week where I was just in a lousy, LOUSY mood for no good reason and snapped at a co-worker, and then my co-worker told me to get over whatever was bothering me because otherwise it would ruin my whole day. So I did … actually almost instantly. Harden the f*ck up, in other words. But she was right, and also smart to position it like that rather than by focusing on the impact my lousy mood was going to have on everyone else.

Happy times, though – making some decisions about event pricing for the hub, I got MailChimp up and running for our three brands (ahh leverage…), and a couple other things moved the ball down the field quite a bit but until they are done and dusted I won’t count my chickens before they are hatched.

We had quite an interesting discussion about the KONY 2012 video. If you haven’t seen the video, it’s worth checking out. This blog post sums up my responses perfectly. The video itself is nothing other than well-executed propaganda: they used some great classic marketing tactics (us against them, David vs Goliath, right and wrong, removing the unspecified victim bias by showcasing specific, and cute, children), and at the end of the day removed the despair by making it crystal clear how to take action. It is true …. I’ve known about Kony for years from The Economist but this video tugged the hell out of my heartstrings. However, marketing is marketing …. And I’m not convinced that the solution is as simple as it sounds. It never is. And hell, there’s bad stuff going on in a lot of other places, too. But I guess you have to pick your battles, and throwing your hands up that the world is an awful place isn’t a very good solution either, is it?

I managed to balance being more social (movie screening of a documentary about an Eastern Cape rugby team, our monthly women’s media group meeting, got a comp to a magic show Friday night, shopping mission with Hollie, dinner in Gordon’s Bay with Deon Saturday, Sunday brunch), with resisting temptation in the form of chocolate cake and late-night SMSs that spelled trouble. This is the good thing about not drinking – you’re much less tempted to do something stupid when you’re sober!!

Interesting discussion about privacy, and specifically in relation to our online lives on Thursday evening. One of the girls was saying that she had a scare last year when someone on Twitter kept mentioning all these really small details of her personal life … like her cat’s name, where she had gone to high school, etc. It turned out this was a joke but another woman had actually had a bad stalker experience which, of course got us talking. Sharing, in the world of the internet, is inherently about personal lines. Some people are quite closed. I am obviously relatively open … there is a lot of stuff I don’t share, but a lot of stuff I do. For the most part, I am who I am in whatever situations I find myself and as such if you know me, you’re not going to see anything online you wouldn’t see in day-to-day life. The difference, of course, is the number of people that can see.

It’s like the old argument I used to have with Rob about paying in cash vs card. I know that companies can track my buying habits. I just don’t care. It’s not like I’m building a meth lab. But, I suppose, as with the QA example above … it’s all fine and dandy until it’s not. But in the meantime, I’ll carry on.

And anyone wanting to stalk me … well, if you don’t know where I work and train by now, you haven’t been paying much attention.

Speaking of: You know, I love CrossFit. Except for the bits about it that I don’t love; that same competitive side of it that feeds me also gets to be too much from time to time. I don’t *actually* want it to be just a gym where we go and train; I like the part about how we’re competitive within and between gyms. But it’s just a bit much every once in a while … it’s intense. 

It's also a bit much for the ego. It is so, SO easy to get caught up in how you compare, and how you look, and how people outside the gym respond to you: "Good luck on the Argus!" "Um, I'm not a cycler." "But you look so fit!" Yeah, it's an ego boost. Much as I joke about it, every time someone asks if I’m a personal trainer/fitness model/bodybuilder/professional athlete, it feels nice, of course. But at the same time it’s quite tiring … I didn’t get into this CrossFit thing for that, and actually, it’s a bit annoying to be honest. 

Oh, the Open? Well this week’s workout was 18 minutes long … 15 box jumps, 12 push press (75 pounds/33kg), 9 toes-to-bar. My ankle was absolutely fine … it’s doing its just-in-time healing thing again (I could jump maybe 2 days before the burpee workout, and could power clean & snatch about 2 days before the snatch workout, and I was scared to jump on a box on Wednesday but was fine by Thursday). Certain moves still hurt it but it’s definitely nearly better.

Anyway this time, I was actually relatively pleased with my performance. It was fine, fourth best in the region and two of the people who beat me were from our gym. If I had the motivation to do it again, I feel could have done better, but after 18 minutes of hell I had no desire to do any such thing again. Used my arms and shoulders too much in the push press (which I felt Sunday … yowzers!!), but the biggest problem was the toes-to-bar. Here, I must admit I am guilty of not paying enough attention to Carl Paoli. I did have some grip issues because after the first two rounds I forgot that I was supposed to be concentrating on not having a death grip on the bars, so that didn’t help. More to the point, I was using a very inefficient kip, and after the first couple rounds I got hung up there and lost a lot of time. Some practice the next day set me straight, but again – a good learning experience.

Everything’s relative, right? I’m much better than I was last year, both relatively and absolutely. A lot of people have been commenting about my streak of strict paleo + big doses of sleep, mostly noting how amazing my discipline is. Thing is, I don’t see it that way. Life is a series of choices. For me, once I set my mind to something it’s quite easy. A year ago there’s no way in hell I could go for two and a half months without having a latte or a glass of wine. So that level of discipline, if you can call it that, is also an adaptation that it took time to grow into. And when I do make an exception, I’m sure I’ll take it in stride and get back on the wagon quickly, because this is my new normal.

Until I decide to change it.

• “Snap out of it, Ellie.” – Hollie
• “There’s a girl sitting next to you, who’s rowing faster than you are.” – Chris (I had to laugh)
• “Remember, selling is about conditioned responses.” – Peter
• “I prefer gypsy.” – Brett
• “Yeah but you’re comfortable with your place, babe. Most people aren’t, and that’s why this sh*t arises.” – Fiona 

Failure

I was asked, recently, what is my take on failure. It’s a bit of a dual one. I honestly, deeply, to the core of my being believe that failure is good, and necessary, and an important part of how we learn.

At the same time, I have a fear of failure. A big one. Not sure how it compares to the average person, because I suspect most people are pretty damned afraid of failure, which is why we usually play it safe. Tiffany, a recent acquaintance who lives in Geneva, definitely had the quote of the blog post: “Anything that’s worth doing should scare you just a little bit.”

Right? I mean who wants to be in a job where you are never challenged, or in a relationship where you aren’t that attached? Sure, you have the security that you are never going to be caught out not knowing what you’re doing and possibly lose your job, or have your heart completely smashed to pieces. On the other hand … what upside is there? Not too bloody much. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. Play for small stakes, and you’re never going to win the jackpot.

Easy to say, hard to live. In my case, at least, it’s not actually failure that I fear, it’s being seen to fail. Now here’s the odd thing … I learned a few months back that it’s good for leaders to be public about their mistakes and failures, because if people don’t have known flaws, others make up flaws for them that are usually worse than the real ones. Not to mention that there are issues with being put on a pedestal, goodness knows.

So why am I so afraid to be seen to fail? Because goodness knows I’m not perfect. I try to do the best I can but certainly I do slip up and fall short … of my own expectations usually, first. One of the guys at my gym was getting on my case for being so hard on myself in assessing my own performance. He’s partly right. I do have a lot to be proud of, certainly, but my own nature is to quickly celebrate what I did well, but then figure out how I can improve. Critiquing my own performance is an integral part of that. There’s always going to be someone better than you and someone not as good as you. It’s not about them, it’s about you.

I was also realising this at work on Monday when I was getting a bit frustrated at a situation where we were, knowingly, trying to force a situation. For all the right reasons, yes, but a marketer is not a salesman, any more than a running back is a wide receiver (ah, crap, why’d I have to go remind myself of football … *sniffle*). Reminds me of the great quote from the Tao of Pooh:” You'd be surprised how many people violate this simple principle every day of their lives and try to fit square pegs into round holes, ignoring the clear reality that Things Are As They Are.”

Speaking of failure, or success, rather, I’m going to go on record too and say that I look forward to kicking just a little bit of ass at Regionals. No, we’re not underestimating our opponents, or counting our chickens before they are hatched. But I want us to be the CrossFit New England of Africa, and I think we can, and will. Next year, we’re going to need a deeper bench. But that’s next year. And, of course, in the meantime, I still need to MAKE the team. But I’m excited by the group we have, and what we can put together, although I did have a bit of a laugh at the short-notice team meeting called last night. Maybe I was the only one who had to cancel my evening plans to be able to make it, I don’t know, but the cult comes first, right?

I remember last year being super upset that competition season coincided with autumn, and what a shame it was I couldn’t go drinking in the winelands every weekend while it was beautiful. What a difference a year makes, huh?

Anyway. Another aspect of failure is risk taking, of course, and that relates quite well to the above discussion. Of course you don’t try and find a more challenging job … because you might get shot down, or get fired. Of course you don’t ask out the girl you’ve had a crush on forever, because she might say no, or, worse, she might say yes and then your fantasy is ruined (not that you’re in high school any more or named Sean Kisker, who, by the way, is too busy being a Hollywood bigshot to read this blog often or ever … I should ask him!). But I got to thinking about this because I have now encountered a few couples that are doing the long-distance thing.

Not the Cape Town-Joburg or Paris-London or Boston-New York thing. But LONG long distance, and for periods of time that are quite long, when careers or school ‘conspire’ in a way to keep the couples apart. Now it’s interesting because in a way you think well, that could never work, and in some ways clearly it won’t … until the couples are actually able to live in the same place. But is distance a reason to give up? What if there isn’t a finite amount of time involved, like a time until graduation, but you just don’t know how long it will be? What if you could both, in theory, decide to move to be together … but neither one does? What are you actually choosing? Is it more or less easy, or risky in terms of getting your heart broken, to a relationship with someone in the same city?

I certainly don’t have all the answers. One thing I do know is that it’s painful as sh*t, the long-distance thing, no matter how you slice & dice & rationalise it. But my friend was telling me her opinion which is that if she thought there was really a connection then she would move across the world to be with someone. And she has, in the past, and it didn’t work out, and she didn’t regret it. Would I? Not sure. But I doubt it. Inertia is too powerful. Then again, I fell in love with South Africa and moved here, which sounds crazy, and is crazy. So I guess you just never know. Your whole world can change in an instant, and when you least expect it.

Maybe one of these days they’ll invent transporters. But actually I wouldn’t get in one of those if they existed. One of the few things I remember from my metaphysics class.

All right, enough random musings (I should probably rename this blog Adventures in Navel-Gazing). It’s been a productive first half of the week, as we finally got ourselves a logo we’re happy with for Hubspace (yay, let the marketing begin!), and I ticked a couple of things off my to-do list but, of course, added a bunch more as we are now starting the BEE verification process for ourselves and a number of the enterprises we work with. Not that this causes any hair-pulling or anything. Still, a haphazard start to the week as it contained a lot of meetings, which are good for getting everyone co-ordinated but don’t allow a lot of time for your own work.

The old ankle continues to heal, albeit slowly. There are a couple movements I’m still not comfortable doing, but it’s getting there. Today’s acupuncture session was one of those where every needle that goes in feels like a burning poker, and when I get up I can’t walk straight for 20 minutes, but in the meantime I fall asleep on the table, despite trying to concentrate on my meditation. Well that’s how it goes sometimes, right?

Been having fun with the training though, despite the gimpiness, especially the strength portions. Tuesday was all sorts of crazy squats both am and pm (the morning involved front squats 3x5 at 75% and the evening 7x2 @85!). Oddly enough I can still walk just fine today, so probably I didn’t squat heavy enough. Heh. It’s funny, the satisfaction you get out of lifting heavy weights.

Lots of changes: in the weather, new toys at CCF, big move at the acupuncture studio where I will, one of these weeks (!) start doing martial arts as well. Lots of small vignettes making their impression on me these last few days too: the look of the light on the buildings in CBD in the morning, Lion’s Head being lit while everything beneath it was in shadow, the pink of Table Mountain at 6:30am when I left the house, the saturation of the whitewashed walls of my balcony, the somehow the same yet different craziness of driving in this city. You really do have to be in a right brain state of mind to drive safely and happily in Cape Town. Too much stress and you’re not going to enjoy the process. Not unlike most things in life.  

• “Have you BREATHED since the last time I saw you?” – Emma (apparently I’ve been a little bit stressed since, um, Fittest in Cape Town)
• “Anything that’s worth doing should scare you just a little bit.” – Tiffany
• “I’m not going to Regionals to lose.” – Grant
• “From now on, I want to hear nothing but positivity from you.” – Grant
• “It’s certainly unusual. There’s no question about that.” – Peter
• “That’s why all the people that are from the States are quite happy with it, because you know you’re on the winning team.” – Peter
• “Why don’t you have one and when are you going to get one?” – Catherine 

AMSAP

Another week, another disappointing performance in the Open workout. But, at least this time I managed not to injure myself, and my ankle doesn’t seem significantly the worse for wear. The workout had a 10 minute time cap, and was 30 snatches at 21kgs, followed by 30 snatches at 33kgs, followed by 30 snatches at 45kgs, followed (should you get that far!) by as many snatches as possible at 54kgs. A snatch, for the uninitiated, involves a barbell loaded with weight and you must get it from the ground to overhead in one move (i.e. not a clean & jerk where the weight stops at your shoulders).

A LOT of things threw me off in this workout, but I’m not going to use that as an excuse because firstly, I let them get to me, and secondly, my form was just terrible, which was the biggest problem of all. I’m not sure if my ankle was affecting my form; I think it was even though it didn’t hurt. Poor external rotation in my right shoulder definitely does show itself in these high rep situations. I made it through the round of 33kgs with no problems whatsoever then everything just kind of fell apart. Laa-Laa was right: I should have been closer to 70 reps but I ended at 64 which was quite disappointing. If I kind of wanted a do-over of last week, I really want a do-over of this one.

But like last week, I learned a few lessons here that will serve me well in future competitions. There were a couple of external things that really threw me off my game, and in the moment you aren’t thinking about how to problem-solve … you are just trying to move! But just like landing on the rope, there are certain mistakes you do not make twice. Oh, and I do need to work that technique. But what else is, and will ever be, new?

On a more positive note, crazy excitement in the gym as a bunch of people hit snatch PRs (one girl went from a PR of 24kgs to doing about 4 reps at 33!). The energy and camaraderie were great, as they actually have been in the advanced classes in recent weeks. Although in Friday’s I came as close as I ever have to meeting Pukie, not through over-exertion but through an overly-excessive quantity of forward rolls that had me so dizzy I wasn’t sure which way was up!

But Saturday’s Open workout brought to the fore something that I had been peripherally aware of for a while in the advanced classes, which is that we really need more women. We had five or six heats, of seven athletes … and only one female per heat. That is crazy. I guess it mirrors the entire regional competition where the men’s field is really deep and the women’s … not so much.

In other news, I managed to drag myself out to be social a couple of times, for some friends’ birthday parties: one on Friday and one on Sunday. Saturday, another friend had a mini housewarming party down in Nordhoek. That was also super fun, and it gave the opportunity to see some fantastic light and clouds on the drive home. When the South Africans are also stopping to take photos, you know it’s pretty spectacular. I do love where I live.

Sunday was a very chill day. Other than the birthday party I went to yoga, grabbed a coffee at Vida, trained, gave a rugby player some coaching on his power clean technique (which then turned into a discussion of mobility WOD and CrossFit football, but I got to pick his brain about plyometric exercises he knew, so it was all good), re-potted some tomatoes and peppers, and did some experimentation with my protein shake recipes. Since I learned that many of the anti-oxidant benefits of rooibos are not transferred from the tea to the water I have started adding them to my shake. I think that almond milk – rooibos – hemp protein power is a good combo, and cacao – walnut – spirulina is another. Now one of these days if I ever get back to baking I’m dying to make some sort of honey-rooibos-almond flour cookies.

I’m feeling quite boring at the moment, actually. All I want to do is work, read, eat, sleep, and train (and not necessarily in that order). But, there’s some fun stuff going on this week, which may shake me up a bit. Much as I love it here, I’ve recently been afflicted with a burning desire to get the hell out of dodge … so the weekend after next (the weekend of St Patrick’s Day), I’m going on a trip to see a friend of mine who is staying in Joburg for a few weeks. Not sure yet what exactly we’re going to do, but it will be a change and at this point, I’d say change is good.

Focus can be good but too much focus, not so much. When I was a kid I used to get bored all the time and my mother would become very annoyed with me because she would suggest all sorts of activities and none of them would appeal to me. Well, boredom is a mindset, I suppose is what I’m saying. So is tunnel vision, and I suppose I have a case of excessive tunnel vision at the moment. Either that or 10 weeks or whatever it’s been without refined sugar has caused my brain to go a bit wonky and all I really need is some oatmeal raisin cookies.

Naaah.

• “I'm gonna laugh if he's got like a CF Devil's Spawn shirt on next week.” – Lauren
• “Rest days are the worst!” – Peter 

Play Day & Leap Day

Field trips are always fun, right? For an extrovert like me, mix a day out of the ordinary with a couple of networking events and you wind up a lot of fun, although networking is a form of performance, and performance is inherently tiring.

I feel like I’m always saying this, or maybe it’s a form of kaizen, but the focus of the first half of this week in the office has been focus. Pruning out what is and is not important, planning what needs to get done, and writing requirements for tracking systems.

The focus of the first half of the week outside of the office has also been focus, and sharpening the sword. Some of the management staff and one of the founders of COMMON are in town this week, from New York. COMMON is on a mission to become the Virgin of social enterprise, with a stable of house brands that are easily identified worldwide as best-in-class social enterprises. They are also out to make social entrepreneurship cool and aspirational, which I think is very important for the industry in general.

As such, I couldn’t be happier to have made the in-person acquaintance of their CEO. I am busy writing a blog post for the Heart web site all about the COMMON visit, so I’ll link to that when it’s done. But, as usual, what doesn’t make it into the ‘official’ blog was how well I thought the two of us got along. Just like old friends, from the first few minutes. This guy is sharp: grilling me, politely of course, with not only the normal questions but the hard ones: why Cape Town? Why Heart? Why attach your star to Peter Shrimpton? He also gets the CrossFit thing (he has some CrossFit obsessed buddies back home): “What happened to your knee?” “Burpees.” “Are you a CrossFitter?” “Yes.”

We also view the world, the need, and, more importantly, the opportunity, in the same way. It was just a very cool experience, and also to be able to hold my own intellectually discussing my field with a peer from across the world: not an academic, not a government official, not someone from the charity background, but a young, bright, dynamic mind working to make the world a better place through business, design, and marketing. It’s hard not to get re-inspired when you’re around positive, dynamic energy.

Peter and I participated in a mentorship day for the social entrepreneurs. I’ll go into more detail in the other post, but here are the key lessons: having a vision is important, focus is important, knowing what your customer wants is important, and working well with the right team to make it all happen is important. Basic lessons, yes, but worth repeating. Also: just do it. Don’t overthink it, or over-analyse …. Just get started.

It also gave a great opportunity to catch up with old friends Henk and Elodie, meet the guys behind some of the biggest commercial property successes in Cape Town, and a bunch of social entrepreneurs from around the world. Henk, in his usual incisive and blunt manner, pointed out the obvious problem with my plans for world domination; namely that maybe no one else has done it because it’s too hard. I think I did a decent job of making my case, however, time will tell. But I always enjoy catching up with him because he’s an incredibly sharp mind with high aspirations. There are two types of people in the world, as we were reminded: those who make themselves feel better by pushing you down, and those who make themselves feel better by pulling you up along with them.

The property mavens Jody and Nick were particularly interesting; I think attitude has to do with a lot. Jody was also the first person ever to ask me point-blank if my move to South Africa had anything to do with a man (it didn’t). But it’s funny, my first internal reaction was something along the lines of (everything else aside, of course): ‘That’s ridiculous; I don’t form attachments to people that fast.’ Then I realised the irony of that particular thought. Sometimes we don’t know ourselves as well as we think we do, now do we?

Speaking of networking and meeting people as a form of performance, the following words of wisdom were posted to Facebook by the wise, talented, and good looking M.O. Lecko:

“When Jeremy and I started this music thing a year and a half ago, I always used to tell the guys we had to put on bar none our best performance to date at every show because you never know who is watching. I still tell them this.

Why? Well...

Jeremy asked me to try this music thing with him because we were absolutely rocking The Biscuit Mill when we were busking there. I only asked if I could rap with them because they were playing nice tunes.

Rocking The Daisies happened because the event owners saw us kill our 'audition' at Sowing The Seeds 2011. Sowing The Seeds 2011 itself happened because the event organiser saw us kill Rafiki's, and figured we should at least get to 'audition' at Sowing The Seeds 2011.

Assembly happened because we killed Assembly the one time we got a chance through a GreenPop party hosted there.

Our two PMB/Durban gigs happened because the event's company's director saw us at Assembly.

And now talks of really big (I mean MASSIVE) things are ongoing because we killed Sowing The Seeds 2012 in JHB.

You never know who is watching, and you never know what doors you could open by just putting your back into it. We've played for an audience of 10, and we've played for an audience of 3000-5000, and we give equal effort every time. Every. Fucking. Time. No off days. Ever.

My point: people are always scouting in any career. Just, please, show the fuck up, especially if you want it badly. And I don't mean play play badly. I mean really, really want it.”

…. So there. Life is short. If you’re going to do something, try to do it properly. Your job, your sport, your friendships … but also, don’t try to be what you’re not, and don’t try to be all things to all people. You do the latter, you’ll wind up disappointing everyone. I will also add, make sure that you’re receiving as well as giving value. We all have friends, maybe even family members, who don’t quite so much put us down, but don’t pull us up either. You can give someone constructive criticism in a way that builds them up, or a way that tears them down. Enough already? OK.

And as I said the last time, it’s not all fun & games. The hard work, the grind, matters. A lot. If you’re not willing to put in the time doing the grunt work, who the heck are you to expect others to do it for you? I’m the sort of person where I do best playing between the big vision and the weeds. But that doesn’t mean I can’t do the vision thing (actually I’m better at it than I sometimes give myself credit for), and it doesn’t mean I don’t or can’t get my hands dirty with the details. It all matters: where you’re going, how you get there, and every step along the way. Even if it’s hard to remember everything all the time, and you do make mistakes along the way.

Crazy workout Monday evening with rowing & kettlebell swings. By rounds 3 and 4 my legs, far from feeling like strong things propelling me along, felt more like massive tree trunks I somehow had to contemplate moving. Heh. The next morning wasn’t as fun, however; my legs felt like dead weight again on the rower and when I went to go throw the medicine ball to the ceiling it went pretty much everywhere else (forward … straight up … anywhere but the target). Not my best performance by any means.

The ankle was also quite bad on Tuesday, especially after acupuncture. But by Wednesday morning (leap day!) the swelling and pain was WAY down. In the last few days, a memory resurfaced of having this ankle taped so frequently at St Paul’s that I learned how to tape it myself. Funny the things you forget, right? But this right ankle has been a problem before these last three sprains. I guess I must just be more careful.

I also geeked out a bit, by downloading the raw results of the first week of the CrossFit Open, and calculating how many standard deviations my score was away from the mean (the answer: slightly more than 1). This is quite a tight bell curve outside.  If I recall correctly, in a Normal distribution 70% are within one standard deviation, 85% are within two, and 97% are within three. In this case with a total of 18,386 females entering scores, 70.06% were within 1 standard deviation of the mean, and 96.32% are within two standard deviations (if you’re curious and I know you are … mean: 84, standard deviation: 17). For men, there were 31,563 scores entered with a mean of 95 and standard deviation of 17, and therefore 71.62% were within one standard deviation of the mean, and 97.67% were within two. Very consistent, just as you might imagine. Cool, huh? Some other statistics also matched up quite nicely but I’m done boring myself with math.

So many exciting opportunities on the table right now, and people doing such cool things here, in New York, in San Francisco… I wish the world were a lot smaller than it is. I wish I could live in Cape Town, go visit my parents on the weekend, work out of New York a few months a year, get back into the heart of Silicon Valley. But times change, seasons change. The chill of autumn was in the air this morning, and as the seasons change I always fall in love with Cape Town all over again. To me, autumn always signifies harvest and fruition, and one of the things I love most about South Africa is that vividness of experience. Intense heat doesn’t really do it for me; never has.

I’m also getting even more inspired to test my vision for Heart, and to set aside the time to make more progress on my book. So many conversations this week, with so many different people, all focused on the same things. It’s a macro version of the whole conversation: see a customer need, add value, differentiate, make it happen: BOOM.

I’ll end with this quote from the great Gabriel Garcia Marquez:

“One winter night while the soup was boiling in the fireplace, he missed the heat of the back of his store, the buzzing of the sun on the dusty almond trees, the whistle of the train during the lethargy of siesta time, just as in Macondo he had missed the winter soup in the fireplace, the cries of the coffee vendor, and the fleeting larks of springtime. Upset by two nostalgias facing each other like two mirrors, he lost his marvelous sense of unreality and he ended up recommending to all of them that they leave Macondo, that they forget everything he had taught them about the world and the human heart, that they shit on Horace, and that wherever they might be they always remember that the past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth in the end.”

• “I’ve tried to take a stick on the plane before and they don’t like that.” – Jeff
• “It’s our job to make this sh*t cool.” – Richard
• “I’ve met a lot of people who I think are thinking about this space entirely wrong. You’re not one of them.” – Richard (yeah I teased him later for his use of the double negative)
• “He was quite blown away by you.” – Peter
• “What we believe literally governs what we see.” – Richard
• “If you can’t understand other people, you can’t manipulate them.” – Ross
• “I know this sounds very evil but it’s what I do.” – Ross
• “Don’t give people too many chances.” – Henk
• “If you’re not solving a problem, you don’t have much of a business.” – Jody
• “Let me know when you’re done with this non-profit business and are ready to take over the world.” – Henk
• “I can see what your favourite part of your MBA was!” – Brett