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Mar 03
Love0

If you are the jealous type, stop reading this now. #SnowClub15

By Lifestyle Motivation Photography No Comments

snow

19 friends on a snowboarding holiday is the stuff dreams are made. Most of us are business owners and love talking about how our businesses are performing and what growth challenges we face from the white slopes of Val Thorens, Saint-Martin-de-Belleville, France.

We are eating, sleeping, partying, working and boarding at the brand new Club Med Val Thorens Sensations resort.

Most of us have been boarding several times but there are a few newbies in the crew who dont know what to expect or even what yellow snow tastes like, yet!

For those people I have prepared a list of essentials that must be packed for this epic trip.

 

For the Skiers:

  1. No one cares.
  2. See point 1 above.
  3. Seriously, why bother.

 

For the Snowboarders:

  1. Snowboard, bindings and snowboard boots. Most of us will be renting gear from Club med so don’t stress too much about this if you don’t have these items.
  2. Goggles.
  3. Sunglasses.
  4. Helmet – you can also rent this from Club Med.
  5. Jacket (waterproof).
  6. Pants (waterproof).
  7. Gloves (waterproof).
  8. Gloves for the evening – its cold walking back to the hotel after a few beers!
  9. Now these are not the @Nicharrystyle socks, but proper thick socks specifically made for snowboarding.
  10. Beanies, neck warmers and buffs.
  11. Wrist guards, knee guards, bum guards and condoms. Trust me on the bumguards.
  12. Pain medication and anti inflammatories. Take some Deep Heat rub too.
  13. Rehydrate sachets.
  14. Sunscreen.
  15. Lip balm with SPF.
  16. Contact lenses for the non 20-20 blind folk.
  17. Chargers for all the tech you need.
  18. Camera lenses for your iPhone.
  19. Spare memory cards for your cameras.
  20. A swimming costume for the jacuzzi. READ: NO SPEEDOS.
  21. Some loose fitting clothing for yoga after the day is done.
  22. You WON’T need a shovel or GPS location finder gizmo. None of us are that good that we will be hitting the back country slopes.
  23. Don’t bring casual shoes that will be damaged if they get wet like your blue suede shoes.
  24. A cheap watch because you will bang your wrists about and that TAG will be worthless.

 

You will only need a few t-shirts and long sleeve t-shirts for the day under your jacket and then a few warm items for the evenings.

Pack light – you will use less clothing than you think.

Follow the trip on Instagram and Twitter #SnowClub15

If you have any other suggestions please feel free to comment below or hit up Club Med on Twitter!

Nov 25
Love0

Let’s recap. #EverythingIn1 #iPadAir2

By Business Lifestyle Motivation Photography No Comments
Last week I was challenged to use the new iPad Air 2 for everything I would normally use my iPhone and laptop for; from Microsoft Excel to Instagram with the exception of making calls.  The thought of relying solely on the iPad Air 2 was more challenging than it really was.  Editing my spreadsheets was a breeze and syncing them with Dropbox was seamless.  This process has inspired me to back up my work more regularly.
#iPadAir2 Spillly

 

Some of the features I love are as follows:

  • Size:  The iPad Air 2 is super thin; it weighs under 500 grams which is great for taking to meetings as well as watching videos.
  • Display:  The Retina display is far superior to the previous iPad 1.  It uses more contrasting colours and has almost no reflective display.
  • Battery:  The battery lasts up to 10 hours, which keeps me from having to plug it in at awkward times.

Features I miss:

  • Whatsapp isn’t there.  This week without the use of my phone made me realise just how much I use this app.
  • The Silent button isn’t there; I was unable to ‘silence’ my iPad Air 2 as the button is no longer on the device.  This comes in handy during meetings especially.

 

In summary, I won’t be getting rid of my Macbook Air any time soon as it simply has all the features that I use on a daily basis.  The iPad Air 2 is perfect as a lightweight, good-looking and efficient piece of hardware that I believe can be used in conjunction with my iPhone.

Apple has done it once again!

 

ps.. the camera and slo-mo function is epic!

 

Jan 08
Love0

Why I love Jo’burg so much and a little less every day.

By Lifestyle Motivation No Comments

living_in_johannesburg

 

I was born in Hillbrow in 1975. For the first year of my life my family unit lived in Berea on the eastern outskirts of modern-day Hillbrow. We moved shortly after to the now, much greener northern suburbs, where my mother has lived in the same house for 37 years. I am a true Jo’burg boy. My accent reveals this truth.

Except for a brief stint in London I have not lived anywhere else in the world for an extensive period of time. I love Johannesburg. I preach my love on the interwebs and to friends and foreigners, alike. I defend Jo’burg in the great war between Johannesburg and Cape Town and I take pride in the fact that I live in the greatest city in Africa.

But something is slowly changing.

There is the great anecdote about the boiling frog that I have always believed to be true of the people who live in South Africa and Jozi in particular. The last 2 years of my life have been spent working in the inner-inner city of Johannesburg, where the melting pot of cultures and lack of space is obvious. Crime is rampant and local government service delivery is poor. These are not new revelations and I have been aware of this from as early as leaving high school, which I attended near Joubert Park, in the city centre, twenty years ago. What’s become more worrying is the ease at which my fellow neighbours and I are now accepting this slow decline.

I recently returned from a two-week break in Cape Town over December where I was deliberately looking at how well the city runs in comparison to Jo’burg. Cape Town is quite literally a different country. Yes, there are litter and crime and unemployment issues but the traffic lights all work, recycling waste is easy, the street curbs and island don’t have weeds growing out of them and the distinct lack of potholes is staggering. How can they have got this so right when Jo’burg has far more tax payers and a larger economy?

I am not one to talk politics but clearly at some level the Democratic Alliance (DA) has managed to grapple with problems and resolve them where the ANC is failing fantastically in central Johannesburg.

I’m considering “emigration” to the fairer Cape as an alternative to being boiled alive in Jo’burg. I fear that the path we take in Jo’burg is slippery, downhill and full of greased politicians.

I love my city. My tree-lined city. My non-windy city. My  vibrant city. My city that I know so intimately. It saddens me to even consider leaving my network of friends, family and local businesses but the right hemisphere of my brain is winning this fight of leaving.

All that was won in the great fight to freedom is slowly being lost. I should end this post with “Vote DA!” but the problems are way deeper than sheer politics and are now engrained in us all. I, like many others, feel that staying and fighting this battle is now a waste of energy and that’s clearly half the problem.

May 31
Love0

TWO THINGS CHANGED

By Coaching Lifestyle Mentoring Motivation No Comments

Tel Aviv promenade

I recently spent three days in Tel Aviv, Israel, with a good friend of mine. It was a short, spur-of-the-moment, holiday trip combined with 3 days in Istanbul. I was last in Tel Aviv in 1994 when I was 19 years old. Israel was the first country I ever visited outside my home country, South Africa. I hated it.

 

I was never keen on going back to Israel and particularly Tel Aviv, as I just remember it being a dusty, dirty old city with run down buildings and possibly the worst architecture I had ever seen. I discovered that the style of architecture is now called “Brutalism” – a word that accurately describes the ugliness of the block-like buildings. Tel Aviv was a brutal place to see from the inexperienced eyes of a 19-year-old boy, who had only seen the best of South Africa during the dark apartheid years.

 

Nineteen years later and I arrived in a city that was going to be severely criticized by my jaded views and me. I was more than pleasantly surprised of what I found. Tel Aviv is a thriving multi-cultural city with an amazing beach and café culture. The buildings are mostly as I remember them, but having studied and experienced the world in greater detail since my last visit, I appreciated the intricate history of the Bauhaus movement and the move toward the Brutalistic era. I saw people, who are mostly middle class, enjoying a very pedestrian city filled with quaint streets, restaurants and multi-level retail spaces. The sea winds and the large trees that have been imported from Australia nearly 100 years ago cool the epic heat on the streets.

 

The public transport systems work efficiently but even more satisfying was renting a bicycle and cycling the streets with no fear or apparent danger. It’s a very livable city with a very non-religious feel, which again, surprised me.

 

The city had certainly changed a fortune in the gap between visits. Or had it?

 

I’m starting to think that the city today was actually very similar to what it is was twenty years ago. I’m starting to think that what has changed the most, was in fact, myself. Ones outlook on the environment will determine the experience they have and the level they enjoy it. My life has changed radically in the last twenty years and the cities I have visited, in many countries, have changed the way I saw Tel Aviv. It’s no longer a shit hole, but that’s because I was not looking at it in a comparative negative light.

 

We view our lives the way we want to see our lives. Looking at it from a positive and favourable standpoint makes all the difference. You can read this in any light you wish.

May 14
Love0

Reincarnate yourself while you are alive.

By Business Coaching Lifestyle Motivation No Comments

On the 22nd May 2012 I walked out my office, which I had occupied as the ‘boss’ for 17 years, never to return. It was a moment that took about 5 long years of mental abuse; jaw clenching sleep and exhaustion, to reach.

 

My business was all I knew. It was an integral part of who I was in my life and how people portrayed me. After a few months of insomnia, tears shared in sadness and pain it was finally over and I packed my car with what little trinkets I wanted to take with as a reminder of what was, and drove off.

 

I was petrified of unemployment and finding a “Job” and starting again. I had lost millions of Rands, a large part of my ego and friends. For the first few weeks I could not sleep through the night and even though my 5:30am alarm had been turned off, the seventeen-year cycle, of waking up in the dark, could not be broken. I would wake up and look for something to do; anything would do, as long as it took my mind off what was. I avoided all phone calls as the liquidated company owed money’s and old customers demanded services that were no longer deliverable.

 

I found myself pulling out weeds in my driveway, drinking coffee alone at the local roaster or sitting in friends’ offices using their free Wi-Fi just so I could get out the house. I dabbled in a few small businesses and helped out people who needed help – no matter what it was they needed. I was fighting depression, guilt and loneliness. All my friends were trying to cheer me up with the fact I was free to do what I wanted – something I wanted for many years, but freedom is not what you think it is. Freedom for me is being able to make a difference in my life at my own pace and having an impact on people around me that I cared about. I was not any freer than I was in the business I hated being in.

 

I committed to holidays I could not afford and bought clothing I did not need in order to fill the gaping void in my empty existence outside my business. My true friends and family in their wisdom kept reminding me that all would work out, that I was a bright young man that could start again and would find my feet and hit the ground running. In hindsight they were right. It just took me a few months to realize this for myself.

 

I am now working for someone in his business. I picked a new career that makes sense to me, that fits in with my life requirements of time, flexibility, answerability and creativity. You may think I am lucky now, but it’s a decision I made. I took the time to find what gave me pleasure and allowed me to wake up in the morning with a sense of purpose. I never understood how people could love their job or how they could work for other people and not be the owner or leader, until now.

 

I am not a religious man but I believe I have been re-born, re-incarnated, rejuvenated and re-invented in the past twelve months and I love the new me. I am not a motivational speaker or preacher but I have seen that at any stage of your life you can step away from whatever you feel is shackling you and start again. It’s nerve-racking and breathtaking but wholly worth the risk.

 

Risk everything for your happiness, I did, and now for the first time in years I’m a toddler looking into my future with new eyes, scared of nothing, ecstatic with all the newness and change in the world.

 

 

Thanks to Mom, Kim, Hammies, Jo, Mark P, Don & Rich, Spratty, Rodders, Shpronkles and the Bermans. You saw me through the worst and I love you all in my own way.

 

 

 

 

Dec 10
Love0

Stokefest | The Moments

By Lifestyle Motivation Photography Surfing No Comments

I like holidays. Who doesn’t, right? But why do you like going away, putting up with travel arrangements and leaving the comforts of home?

I travel for one purpose and one purpose only: The hope of having a “Moment.”

A moment when life slows down, you are clear and living in the moment. A few seconds in time when life has meaning, the daily stress is vacant and a serene bliss settles in my soul. I’m not a religious man at all, but every once in while, a feeling will come over me, giving me clarity of thought, and for me – this is my discovery of God. My Moment.

A few weeks ago, a group of mates and strangers (who have since become mates) embarked on a week long surf trip from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town arranged and co-ordinated by Stoked Surf school . In this week I was fortunate to experience several moments as described above. It wasn’t that I discovered the Zen of surfing and my inner hippy. It was the relaxation of a sporting holiday followed by more childish giggles that I care to remember. It was as some may say an EPIC week that I will with out doubt try replicate in the months of 2013.

Here is the Video that Craig put together. Its not a surfing video. Its a video about friends enjoying the most beautiful country in the world. Its a video about life and our need for escapism. Its a video that will allow me to re-live some of those “Moments” that give me cold shivers.

Hope you enjoy.

Spillly.