I was brought up in a home where anger was the abiding language. This left my mother, me and my two siblings scared and scarred. The ghosts of that time still slither around my mind and sometimes affect the way I deal with things.
My stepfather’s inner journey could only have been one of pain and suffering. I know that he had lots of reasons to be angry, and today I am able to empathise with what he was going through.
As a child, not so much. Empathy towards him was not a word that was in my lexicon. Fear, shame, guilt and anger were on my playing field.
Look What You Made Me Do
I still recall the words he used after an episode: “Now look what you’ve made me do.”
Those words imply that one is blaming outside circumstances for one’s behaviour.
By now, you already know that if you blame outside circumstances, you go straight into the victim zone. It means that you don’t have control and mastery over yourself and that you react based on a programme within you.
I used to get angry at situations that I thought caused me discomfort. My hair trigger temper sent out daggers of devastating words that destroyed all in their path.
The daggers came back as Cortisol and made me feel defeated, drained, anxious, guilty, and ashamed.
I quickly learned that anger was not helpful; I lost friends and myself.
At a practical level, anger is a useless emotion. Let’s say that your geyser bursts and messes up your home, and you lose the plot. There’s no point in getting angry because all it’s doing is making you ill. If people are watching you, it makes you appear as an ill-tempered, undisciplined brat who cannot control your emotions. It weakens you. And, after anger, the problem still remains. You still have to sort out the burst geyser. If I were channelling Yoda, I’d say something like, “After anger, problem still.”
Become aware that every time you get angry you are blaming an external situation for your woes. If you do that, you lose your power and become a victim of circumstance.
You and I are not ill-mannered children that react unconsciously; we’re adults with a level of maturity to be able to respond consciously and courteously. Let’s choose that because “After anger, problem still.”
One of our biggest drivers is to feel safe and secure.
I remember a story by my teacher, Shaykh Ebrahim Schuitema, that completely changed my understanding of security.
He spoke about owning a house which is one of the cornerstones of feeling secure in our perception.
He asked me to imagine that vandals would come to my house and trash it. When I come home from work and see the damage they’ve done, I’m appalled and upset.
I spring into action to make sure that this doesn’t happen again and that I protect my home. I sign up with my neighbourhood protection service, get an alarm and an electrified fence. And, for good measure, I bought an attack dog.
He then asked me to imagine that I’m walking in the street and getting mugged. I put up a fight and got soundly beaten up. I limp home battered and bedraggled. As I enter my home, does my house say to me, “Good grief, Jacques, what happened?” “How can I help you?” “I’m going to hunt down those muggers?”
Of course the house doesn’t say anything. In fact, if someone murdered me and slept in my bed, the house wouldn’t give two hoots.
Who is protecting whom?
We live in an impermanent world. Nothing is secure and everything can be taken away from us in a heartbeat. No marriage is completely secure. No job is secure. Health is never guaranteed. Possessions aren’t secure.
From one perspective, this is a depressing thought. From another perspective, this is liberating.
Don’t take anything for granted. Live each second as if it’s your last. Appreciate every moment. Be grateful, generous, and kind.
I feel that the Buddhists have it right when they talk about non-attachment. Attaching to anything makes one feel less secure, that’s for sure.
If you think about your average day, you probably do 90% of the things the same. Shower the same, eat breakfast at the same time, take the same route to work, etc.
If you want to change your life, doing the same things every day won’t lead to different results.
Einstein was spot on: No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
Making the changes you desire requires courage. This is because they will require effort and involve some level of suffering, such as the learning curve, overcoming obstacles, and setbacks. Change also takes us into the unknown, which can be a scary place. Or a place of wonder and adventure. It just depends on your perspective.
When things get difficult and the road is too hard, many of us go back into our comfort zone. Our safe zone. Unfortunately, our safe zone becomes our danger zone because it becomes a prison preventing us from reaching our goals. In my experience, nothing ever changes for me when I’m in my comfort zone prison.
It is only when I venture into the unknown that I can truly create what I want for myself. Is it scary? Of course, it is. Is there risk? Yes. Could there be something wonderful in the unknown? Yes, and there is. The unknown can spark an entirely new adventure. Something that makes my heart sing and brings me closer to the enlightenment I seek.
No path to becoming the best version of you is ever easy. If it were, what would be the point? Creating a diamond requires immense pressure. The crucible of adversity, suffering and challenge is what forges you and me into the powerful beings that we are becoming.
We have the choice to either shine like diamonds or remain dull like stones. Accepting the challenge to step out of our comfort zones and into the unknown will determine that
When I was a soldier in the 80s humping my kit from ambush to ambush, from patrol to patrol, through interminable heat, sand, boredom and futility, Sixto Rodriguez (July 10, 1942, Detroit — August 8, 2023, Detroit) was our guy. Sugarman/Cold Fact/I Wonder were the anthems that carried us through our 17 months (1982 – 1984) in South West Africa (now Namibia).
Rodriguez should have been a massive superstar; his lyrics are sublime, haunting and deep. He wasn’t because ‘papa don’t allow no new ideas here’.
He is beautifully broken, authentic and raw. He works in construction and ekes out a living. He is a simple, humble man. He’s a poet. He’s an artist. He’s beautiful.
Image is AI generated.
There are many Rodriguezes reading this piece of text. Hell, you’re probably one of them. You who are rotten with talent, you should have be a superstar in your field, but like Rodriguez, you may never crack the nod.
I see your self-pity showing as the tears roll down your cheeks.
Rodriquez
Don’t feel pity for yourself. If you’re still in the game and still swinging for the bleachers and leaving it all on the field of failure, you’re amazing. You’re an artist. You’re beautiful.
Keep on going. The world needs you. Don’t play small. Show up every day. Keep humping your kit. Keep swinging for the bleachers. You’re an artist. You’re beautiful.
I’ll slip away …
Rodriquez
And, it doesn’t matter if no one recognises your worth. It doesn’t matter that your plans aren’t working out. What matters is that you play your best and that you take this masterpiece that is you, and create a master-work. Even if no one notices your worth, there is one that does. And, that one is happy with you. That one has always been happy with you because that one made you perfect just as you are.
Have you ever been happily going about your business, when something unexpectedly brings you down? Where life throws you a curveball and ruins your day?
In the Hero’s Journey, it’s called an inciting incident. Movies often have an inciting incident, which is typically a dramatic event such as a child being kidnapped, a bomb exploding, a spy being caught, a murder, or a robbery.
For us, it could be something small like a burst geyser, a staff member not showing up, an argument with our spouse, or many other trivial things. There are a lot worse things out there that can trip us up.
I’ve found a way to keep one’s equanimity when things are conspiring against you: Respond. Reframe. Reset.
On Monday, November 13th, I was having dinner with a friend at a restaurant in Kyalami when a huge hailstorm suddenly occurred.
I knew this one was going to be devastating, and I knew my little car in the parking lot wouldn’t survive it.
I said to my friend that we should continue eating and having a good time. We’d have plenty of time after the meal to assess the damage.
Eina! My car had really taken a beating. The car had a broken wind shield, damaged headlights and tail lights, and numerous dents from hail.
Eina
I think my pulse went up two beats when I saw the car and I started spiralling towards a pity party. It was touch and go for about 30 seconds. I took a deep breath and found my centre.
Respond, Reframe and Reset
Respond
The breath that I took helped me calm down. I have long since realised that getting angry doesn’t solve the problem; it’s better to remain calm. All anger does is get my cortisol levels up and make me feel sick. I’m convinced the cumulative affect of anger can take years off one’s life. Normally, I would shake my fists at the heavens and shout, “Why me?” “F*ck.” “Why did I come out tonight? I wish I had stayed home. Typically, I’d be spiralling down into regret, remorse, blame and shame.
I always ask, “What is being offered here?” What is the gift in this chaos? In this instance, I was afforded the opportunity to test to see if my positive attitude could stand the pressure. Would I crack and lose my temper as is my nature? I managed to stay calm. I even had the decency to tip the car guard who was looking so forlorn. It was hardly his fault now, was it? I went home, and had a great night’s sleep. I would deal with this in the morning.
Reframe
Reframing is about finding the positive in the situation. Have a look at the ultimate reframe below:-)
At the battle of Thermopylae, a Spartan warrior, Dienekes was told that the Persian archers would blank out the sun with their arrows. He said: “Good then we shall have our battle in the shade.”
It took a week and a bit for the windscreen repair company to come replace the windscreen. I won’t lie, it was frustrating not to have a car for a week.
However, over the last month I haven’t been productive with my writing at all. I had to write because I couldn’t go anywhere. And this week I’ve got so much done. There was a positive aspect to this.
Reset
If you fall off a horse, they say you should get back on the saddle quickly in case you lose your confidence. I reset almost immediately. After contacting the insurance company on Tuesday, I continued with my work as usual, trusting them to handle it properly. Life goes on, after all.
And, there’s bound to be another curveball soon. If I became debilitated every time I made a mistake or stumbled, I wouldn’t be able to achieve much.
When curveballs are thrown at me, I don’t always get it right and I lose the plot. But I do it less and less these days. And, I’m better off for it. So, try to respond, reframe and reset and see how it works for you.
There are two types of people that drive the world: ᴄʀᴇᴀᴛᴏʀꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ᴘʀᴏᴍᴏᴛᴇʀꜱ.
These people are the star actors, and the rest are the supporting cast. All other roles are subordinate to them. They’re the trees that supply us with oxygen.
There’s a pecking order between these two stars, however. There’s a notion that being a creator is sexy. Being a promoter, not so much.
Creators are ‘artists’ that don’t want to sell out by resorting to marketing and sales.
They’re kinda like Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams: “Build it, and he will come.”
For mere mortals like us, if we don’t embrace promotion, “He’s not coming.”
If you’re a creator, and you actively market and sell, be proud because this is noble work.
There are people that need what you have, but don’t know how to get it (you). Who are you to deny them that privilege?
If you feel uncomfortable about promotion, consider this. There’s not one dominant religion, philosophy, product or service that hasn’t thrived because of marketing and sales.
Imagine if Nikola Tesla had great promoters, we’d have more than a car, wouldn’t we? We’d have a dominant ecosystem that would have been good for us and the planet.
Thomas Edison had better promotion and fewer scruples, and now we sit with that mess.
If you work for a company, pop into your marketing and sales departments, and shake their hands. They feed you and me. After all, nothing happens without a sale.
If you work for yourself and haven’t embraced marketing and sales, think again.
You are valuable, and there are people that need what you are selling. Don’t deny them.
The work you and I do is art. This work allows us to navigate this canvas called life, where we make a small mark until the inkwell runs dry.
But sometimes it’s hard, isn’t it? There are days, days when I ask myself, “Why bother” or “What’s the point” or “Who cares”?
Maybe you have those days too?
There are days when I look at photos of me on stage or past scribbles I’ve made and think, “What right do I have to do the work that makes my heart sing?” “And, who wants to listen to your song anyway?”
Then there’s the doubt. Most days I think I’m an empty vessel making a loud noise that just irritates everyone. I feel embarrassed and ashamed that my creators went to such an effort for me, and I’ve fallen way short of the mark. I rail against myself for this.
But I keep doing this work because I’m compelled to. I wonder if it’s selfishness, self-involvement and ego that keeps me at it. Because, seriously, who cares about the clumsy scribble I make on this page called my life? Does it all matter?
But there are days when I feel what I do does matter.
I published an obscure piece of text in 2019 that sold less than 100 copies. But, even now I get notes from people telling me that my brief scribble meant something.
“Thank you for calming my soul.”
“Some pages felt like a homecoming and others made me uncomfortable as they tore and ripped at the fabric of my heart, breaking me open for the light of consciousness to enter.”
“Your extraordinary book invites multiple readings.”
You see, you can’t know the effect of your work, who will read it or who will care. Maybe no one. Maybe one person.
If you and I, at this moment, touch just one person, then that scribble of ours is a bridge of meaning that makes all the difference. It’s a conversation that can lead to courage. And, who knows where courage can take us?
Keep on doing your art, whatever it may be, because it matters. You matter.
The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.
Joseph Campbell
For as long as I can remember, I’ve collected stuff. It first started with Enid Blyton’s Noddy books around 1967. It exhausted my mother because she had to keep reading them to me.
Around 1973 (I was 10) I collected soft toys, particularly bunnies and bears. My stepfather was deeply troubled by this.
At 12, I was collecting photos of Paul Newman, and still had the bunnies and bears. This raised alarm bells with my stepfather. “Let’s toughen you up,” he said as we went to his favourite bar. I’m not sure if I should have been given a whiskey then, especially not at 9am. But, now that I think of it, I suppose that’s where my love of whiskey came from.
I grew out of Paul Newman and the bunnies. Not the bears so much … I still have my teddy bear from my first birthday, (he’s 59 years old).
That’s me at a year old, and the bear, of course.
My Biological Father
In high school I collected The Hardy Boys. I met my biological father around 14 for only the second time in my life. He asked, “So, what are you currently reading my boy?” I answered, “The Hardy Boys. The Missing Chums.” He was deeply troubled by this. I suppose it must have been terrifying for him to have an intellectually-bereft child.
He probably memorised the entire works of Kierkegaard at 14, the smug prat (not Kierkegaard, my father). Look, there’s no doubt he was smart … with his double doctor’s degrees from Zurich University, both sommer cum louder (I mean summa cum laude) and hanging out with Jung, and all. And, he got a music degree, and a bunch of other things from Stellenbosch University. He played the violin. With all that talent, he decided to become a pastor. There was hardly any money in it in those days (1955 – 1960), so he really must have believed in saving souls. If he was around today, he’d have made a fortune as a pastor, and I wouldn’t have to write for a few pennies every day. Damn you, dad.
High school (1977 – 1981)
I was at boarding school for the entirety of my high school journey. Between studies, sport and hiding away from the matriculants and masters, I didn’t have time to collect much. Come to think of it, I did collect some things: Hidings, beatings and insults. In those days, school had a real Lord of the Flies vibe about it. And, at least I was smart enough not to bring any bears and bunnies with me to boarding school. That could have been ugly.
PW & Sons (1982 – 1984)
I got out of high school relatively unscathed and probably only needed five years of therapy. But there was no time for that because I ended up working for PW & Sons for the next two years. And, that was a shit show. All I collected were bugs, bullets and bodies. And, one Dear John letter.
After I turned 21, I started taking an interest in eccentric, intelligent and eclectic things like women. They were fascinating to me then, and are still fascinating to me now. I was woefully unsuccessful as a collector in that regard.
So, I embraced intellectual pursuits. I’ll show that prat, I thought; not Kierkegaard, my father. Perhaps, I should have considered therapy then, daddy issues and all. At least I didn’t have an Oedipus Complex … I don’t think. Thanks for making that a thing, Sigmund.
I have a woeful social life, so I read a lot.
I collected books and read them all. Ironically, I never got into Kierkegaard. But I ate Jung, Plato, Homer, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Homer, Dumas, Greene, Fitzgerald, Hubbard, Breytenbach, Brink, Bosman, Coetzee, Krog, Stein and Smith for breakfast. No, not Wilbur Smith … Topsy Smith, author of Trompie en die Boksombende.
This is by far my most loved, and read book. It’s always nearby.
Commonplace Book
It turns out that I was a collector then, and one now. Over all these years I’ve jotted things that interested me from all the reading and experience into what is known as a commonplace book. It’s a place to jot down anything you find inspiring, thoughtful or interesting.
I’ve got a bunch of them. These days my musings are quite tame. I write a little about chess, a lot about my man-crush, Carlos Castaneda, some about Sufism, and my favourite subject: me! I think a lot about dying, and how to make the most of my time here. I’m still trying to figure out how to navigate this journey elegantly and eloquently, and failing royally. I worry that I’m a deadbeat dad. I’m still difficult, and despite that, I have some awesome friends who see a spark of something in me, and stay with me.
From Commonplace Book To Blog Post
I’m trying to write a book about my father. Turns out he wasn’t only a prat, smart, and musically-inclined, but also a spy. Some of it is in this suitcase. I don’t think I have it in me to write it.
There’s some interesting things in this suitcase. Like letters to John Voster and his run in with Lang Hendrik van den Berg, Voster’s spy master.
But, what I do have in me is a modicum of talent to write blog posts. I’ve written over 12 million words since 1996, and some of them come in the form of books, speeches, articles and others in the form of blog posts.
And, this whole gemors above was leading up to this moment, below.
Sign Up To Get My Blog Posts
To receive my eccentric, eclectic, and sometimes interesting writings from my commonplace books, enter your email address under ‘Never Miss A Post’. It’s somewhere on the top right of this post.
There’s a tool called FeedBlitz that’s like voodoo for me. Evidently, if you put your email address into ‘Never Miss A Post’, then whenever I write a blog post, it magically appears in your inbox.
By the way, I write a lot about sales and marketing, my real passions in life. I’ve spent 20+ years of my life studying, speaking and writing about these subjects. This may be useful to you because it can actually help you make money.
How to navigate this life elegantly and eloquently is a tougher nut to crack. And, you’re smart enough to know that only you can figure it out, not someone who likes bunnies and bears.
So, if you think that’s cool, and you’d like to get more of my commonplace stuff, go and sign up.
He posed a question around why some entrepreneurs are successful and why others end up in the graveyard of failure.
He mentioned those individuals who are considered “successful” in society … Gates, Branson et al. There are people that have had more opportunity, are better qualified, are smarter and started with more money than those that we view as the epitome of business success. Yet they never reached the heights of these titans.
He distilled the difference between success and failure in business (and, perhaps, in life) into one word.
Randomness.
For someone like me who used to believe that effort = reward, that was a hard pill to swallow. Seriously, our success hinges on a bit of luck?
The irony is not lost on me that a mathematician believes in a bit of luck ;-).
According to Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers: The Story of Success, luck happens when knowledge (specifically, 10,000 hours of it) and opportunity dissect.
I like that definition of luck. There’s a distinct Fortuna Eruditis Favet vibe to it. Fortune (and randomness) favours the prepared.
So, if you buy Taleb and Gladwell’s construct (and I do), then you have to see the value of networking.
It stands to reason that the more people and experiences we expose ourselves to, the more chance we have of getting lucky.
I’ll unpack the power of networking in a discourse called “Connect For Success” at the Eagle Canyon Golf Estate Business Breakfast in Roodepoort on Wednesday, September 13.
Come network with business owners and sales professionals just like you, and enjoy a bang-up breakfast. Who knows, this random event may just change the trajectory of your life.
PS. Since this is being held at a golf estate, I leave you with this quote which I think is appropriate to this endeavour: “The more I practice, the luckier I get.” Gary Player.
My PTSD crawled out of what I thought was my impregnable hurt locker the other day. It was the silliest thing that triggered it. It was the word ‘ambush’ that I used in marketing copy for Hamilton Wende’s Frontline Afghanistan story for the Salon we hosted the other day.
A quote by Frida Kahlo made me realise, I cannot run from this thing that eats me, I need to deal with it: “I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim.”
1984, somewhere in Namibia (formerly, South West Africa)
The unmistakable cloyingly sweet smell of fear oozed out of my pores, mixing with the dirt, grime and sweat; a consequence of being unwashed for 15 days.
All 10 of us stank of fear as we lay flat on the ground in our ambush, our rifles aimed at the kill zone.
Contact and probably death was imminent. >>>
At that moment, a romanticised notion popped into my head. Death and fear smell the same. It’s the smell of soul. In death, when the soul is released to go home it’s sweet. When we anticipate death, it’s not fear, but excitement that we feel because the soul finally gets to go home.
No matter how I try and romanticise fear and death, it’s an unpleasant smell for me, probably because I’ve experienced too much of both.
>>> The footfalls on the barely discernible path are close, too close. My finger tightens on the trigger, my eyes squint and my breathing slows.
They appear. Two souls. Time stands still. My brain registers something out of place, and my heart stops.
A wizened, weather-beaten old man, holding the hand of a young girl-child wearing a ragged faded yellow dress, came into my sights.
The 10 of us connected to a Hive Mind that has been forged from being together for 17 months, acted as one. Ten fingers removed themselves from their triggers.
Our haunted eyes welled with tears and our hearts wept with relief. No one died today.
The old man, a grandfather of the young child as it turned out, looked at us, his smile beaming from ear-to-ear. He said, “Welcome. We saw you come here, and we thought that you might be hungry and thirsty. We brought you food and water.”
It was more than I could bear, and it still haunts me today.
In the border war (SWA/Angola – 1966 – 1989) around 20 000 civilians and soldiers from South Africa, SWAPO, ANC, Angola, Cuba and Russia died. Countless others were injured.
The survivors sit amongst you (some may even be reading this). You’ll know them: they’re your fathers, husbands and grandfathers. They’re anywhere from 55 upwards. But they’re all going on 100, haunted, lost and traumatised.
Be kind to them because they can never be kind to themselves.
