Been Busy

It has been a while. Adventure, intrigue, excitement, hard work, and a whole lot of international travel! You cannot believe what gets in the way of blogging.

Every day filled with amazing stories, yet time permitted not a word to be written. That and the fact I do not like to advertise my away from home time for obvious reasons.

Just over a month ago, I left our sandy shores for numerous cold and busy cities in America. Months of planning had culminated in a very special trip. A business trip on behalf of our Awestruck project (www.awestruckgobal.com) in order to benchmark similar industries, spread the word, and attempt to raise funds.

Then things got really busy...

Lip smacking deep pan pizza’s, breakfast of waffles and ice cream at the Waffle Hut, running in the dark in New York City in freezing temperatures, meeting more people, time in prayer, an hour interview on an EWTN television programme, Mexican fast food, taxis, burgers, trains, more meetings, aeroplanes with no allocated seating, a Wendy’s burger and then a sprint to the plane, very close encounters with security, Ave Maria, a growing pile of business cards, providence at work, more pizza, more burgers, more meetings, Southern cooking, the coldest day in Florida, ever, checking into the wrong hotel, moving into a motel, religious inspiration, deep conversations, local beers, a 52 hour trip back home...

Every day brought forth new experiences, and a business trip became a pilgrimage. I find myself filled with a sense of hope, a hope that as humanity, we can find our way back to better values and morals. That anyone can change the world!

Valueless values

The other night we watched a DVD. Friends had recommended it, saying it was absolutely brilliant.

Theoretically the movie was a comedy about a divorced couple getting back together. Not your usual laughing matter! It was not a great movie at all. Instead in typical Hollywood fashion, it gave its thumbs up to a number of questionable practices.

Even I left my couch feeling that divorce was fine, affairs are cool things, breaking up marriages is spot on if they are not great marriages, and the smoking of marijuana is to be recommended, if not demonstrated to one’s children!

Have I missed the latest memo from society? How on earth can we expect our children to grow into strong, intelligent, useful members of society if we condone issues that rip it apart at the seams! Drugs are drugs; there can be no distinction between soft and hard drugs. That is just drivel made up by people who want to justify their own habits. As is any concept that an affair with a married person is OK. It simply is not!

As is typical of movies, the overall message was loud and clear; anything goes so long as it makes you feel good! Is it not time we got over ourselves and started to realise that we are not the centre of the universe. That by denying ourselves, we may do heaps of good as opposed to simply finding pleasure?

Four little wheels

It has been six months since it started serving our family as a tool of rapid acceleration toward bodily injury but it received its own share of abuse last night!


About 16 teenagers from a group called Son Surf descended on our half pipe. Son Surf is a Christian group for surfers, and is very active in our area. Skating and surfing go together as they require similar in strengths in balance, core muscle strength, and careless abandon!

These kids set that ramp on fire! Well not literally! I had no idea that the stunts I saw could be pulled off on my ramp; airs, reverses, and long grinds off the top. The skating madness encouraged me to keep my poor skating skills well hidden; and instead I compensated by sticking a big flash on my camera and documenting the mayhem! There were of course some spills. One mad kid after being dared to get some air into a bush without his shirt, thought nothing of doing it twice! A number of other kids dropped in for their first time, making my own mental inability to do just that look pretty stupid!

What a wonderful group of youngsters. Excitable, energetic, and full of madness! They were also polite and friendly, and certainly seemed to be the kind of kids that I would like my children to have as friends growing up.

Luke got into the thick of things, dropping in and pulling off some tremendous top turns. He almost seemed to grow as the crowd cheered and applauded him. A tremendous boost to his self worth that no money could ever buy!

Chalk up another win for the half pipe!

New Business

Today is another exciting day. It has taken forever to get here, but here we are!

My new partner and I sit today to discuss our new business. The thing about our business is that we have a very different mindset. We intend to do what we can to create a business that has real values. Some of them go without saying like ethics (driven from deep Christian values), honesty, integrity, and fairness.

Others will be things that many companies out there talk about but never nail down. One of my previous employers used to talk about people all the time and yet this was just talk. Our challenge is to make sure that staff feel really valued and that their work adds a significant dimension to their lives. Integrating family life and time is something that we both feel strongly about. Another challenge is to incorporate our social aims and desires into the workplace, i.e. giving back to our communities and putting charity into action.

Real business has scant regard for this stuff. They are all optional extras! I believe there must be a way to build a sustainable business that really cares for its people and those less fortunate whilst turning a profit. That my dear friends is of course the key. If you want massive profits, there is no way that one can afford to focus on real values.


There is an old adage, ‘if you are not in business for profit or pleasure, get out!’ Our choice is to make our profit through adding incredible value to the lives of all of those that will be associated with this organisation. Perhaps it is time that profit was more than just cold hard cash.

Time will tell if we can make it work...

I had one of those weeks last week. A week where my life started off full of chaotic home based mayhem as most do. My book was only one chapter behind on my latest book plan and more than two thirds complete. My running, Xhosa and surfing were on track as were all of my other commitments. I was hoping for another simple week of writing. Instead I got a call;

‘Please do some work for us on a project in Africa!’

‘Huh??????’

This was not in my plan for my life at all. Well, at least not for the next 6 months. I have always known that management consulting would possibly be a fall back position next year when it was time to start earning the mighty rand again. But not now!

My first reaction was that I have things to do. There are all of my commitments, my family, my photography and of course my book. And yet, here is an opportunity of fantastic proportions that could kick start that elusive income into the future as I build a consultancy. So this could work for me! More than that, this is a test of whether all of the stuff that I have been writing about balancing your life can work in reality, rather than in my imagination while I sit in my comfortable high back office chair. Is it possible to run a professional and successful management consultancy that fits into my core value of family first? Will I be able to balance my time effectively so that I continue to give my children and my wife the best parts of me? Do I have the ability to sell and implement my skills in the open market place? What a challenge to my abilities and deepest thoughts. This is a challenge I cannot refuse!

And so my week was filled with all sorts of thoughts, apprehensions, plans, internet searches, and deep soul searching. Shamefully, not a word was written!

My last 6 months have been spent writing in English, speaking lots of Afrikaans and learning Xhosa. I have never been a languages person and yet somehow have managed to access a very different part of my brain to be just that. Yesterday, my old brain kicked into gear. Yes, it was a frightening moment, but suddenly the ‘where do I start?’ fear was replaced by a cold certainty that I knew what to do!

It is time for my theory to hit the road. Is true balance attainable? Can one turn one’s life on its head and make it work? I hope to show you that anyone can!

I am enthralled and exuberated! Neurons in my brain are firing at unprecedented speeds. Thoughts coalescing, growing and then diverging again. Many of them! Synapses are firing with force and energy. There is a new idea in the old grey matter and it is causing mayhem. This idea feels right and worthy and even worth while. Perhaps I am at the start of something wonderful and beautiful. Something that will grow into a reason for my being. Perhaps this idea is worthless and will fizzle and die in time. There is risk but there is possibly huge reward. A reward so big that I am wondering if I am the right person to try and grasp it. I know I should be, must be, but am I?

Last year, a friend and I took our two boys on a boy’s weekend. The idea was to spend good time with our sons on their own. Added to that we wanted them to experience something completely alien to their way of life, to their experience, and to their accumulated base of knowledge. We were going to have fun! We camped in Augrabies Falls, we saw the Sishen Iron Ore Mine, and toured the Kimberley Big Hole. I loved watching my sons face light up and his eyes grow big as he saw and experienced stuff that blew his mind. The time we spent together was precious beyond measure.

This morning saw me on the road doing a short run (Two Oceans is soon). I then dropped the kids off at school and joined a mate for breakfast. Waffles and ice cream, mmmmmm. More exciting than the syrup high, far more fascinating than the news or weather was the idea!

I have long been concerned about the moral fibre of society. My kind of role model seems to be non existent although role models of all varietals are everywhere. I do not want to abandon the upbringing of my children to their school teachers and their friends and their parents. I do want to do all that I can do to assist my sons to grow into decent, loving and good human beings. I want to try and build a relationship with my sons that will help them through their difficult teenage years. I also want to provide them with a network of local role models that they can go to when in need and learn from at any other time. Until today, I had no idea how to get this right. Truly speaking, I still don’t, but there is an idea!

My friend suggested that we create a group of like minded dads and their sons. The mental, spiritual and emotional well being of our children must be one of our highest priorities. We then invest time and energy into creating experiences for our children that revolve around specific issues that they are experiencing or specific values that we would like them to attain. We would include some new rituals / traditions to make this an exclusive and special experience, something that they will look back on and remember with pride and joy. We will hike, we will camp, we will play games and we will solve some cleverly crafted puzzles all directed at building special father / son relationships and instilling deep values into their little spirits.

This is going to take a lot of effort and time, but the outcome is so important, it is worth the investment of my life. My description does not explain exactly what we are going to do, that will all evolve with time. Nonetheless it is all about quality father and son time in a world that is madly busy. It is about sharing the real joy of life with our children.

The idea is just an idea. Either way the investment will mature in a couple of years and the return will be priceless.....