Riding the BMW Motorrad R 18
For the eventual reveal of BMW Motorrad’s new cruiser, the R18, BMW created “A Bavarian Soulstory” video series with a guy called Tommy Kerns as the guide through the journey of the bike, from inspiration and heritage to design and engineering. I watched the final online reveal, which took place in Cape Town, and, throughout the process, have...
You are the words you tweet
Recently, I downloaded my Twitter archive and have been going through twelve years’ worth of every tweet I have posted, drawing inspiration from the thoughts, ideas, experiences, etc expressed for my upcoming book, to be published in 2021 by Pan Macmillan South Africa. “Study the past if you would define the future.”Confucius It has been a...
How important are photographs today?
Remember the days when we used to take photographs with cameras that used film roll? You would take your pictures without knowing how they would turn out, take the film to a photography shop and then wait about two weeks to pick up your photos. The closest we got to immediate images was with an instant camera, of which Polaroid was the brand name...
Strengths versus weakness. Where’s your attention?
Perhaps the flaw is in how I interpreted it. Throughout school, the focus always seemed to be on my weaknesses. Subjects that we were good at were given minimal attention, while the ones we weren’t as strong on was where the focus was. To become balanced and progress, we were encouraged to improve our strengths. Perhaps that makes sense for...
A day riding the Triumph Tiger 900s
In this social distancing times, the back of a motorcycle is probably the best place to be. Recently, I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to go on a media ride with Triumph South Africa to experience the two new Tigers – the Tiger 900 GT Pro and the Tiger 900 Rally Pro. I must confess that, while I do enjoy the dirt a bit, I always...
The entrepreneurship life can be a hustle
In a recent Q&A with health entrepreneur, doctor and founder of Proactive Heath Solutions, Dr Fundile Nyati, I asked the following question, “would you say entrepreneurship attracts people prone to struggling with mental illness or does it cause it?” Dr Nyati had just given a talk on “The Importance of Holistic Health as A Key Success Factor...
The curse of so-called original ideas
As Nas said, in his track No Idea’s Original, “No idea’s original, there’s nothin’ new under the sun, It’s never what you do, but how it’s done.” He was not the first to say it and he won’t be the last. Yet….it is often hard for us to accept that ideas are a dime a dozen. Personally, I am sitting with multiple notebooks from over 15 years with...
Having different views can be constructive
I have always been fascinated by how you can have, say, five people hear or see the same thing, and each have a very different view of what is going on. That is what makes us human, I guess, and, sometimes, that is what helps us progress. I’ve been watching the documentary series about Monty Python on Netflix called Monty Python’s Almost The...
Finding your daily ritual in work + life
Mason Currey's book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work gives great insight into the routines of a range of artists, writers, musicians, etc. In the introduction, Currey recounts how he came to putting this book together - while working on deadline for an article for an architecture magazine that he worked for. "...I started searching the Internet...
Do you read books promiscuously?
Austin Kleon’s blog is a go-to space for me. And not just for substance and creativity of his blog posts but how he creates and curates the blog itself. I must admit I have borrowed from how he runs both his blog and his newsletter in what I am doing with mine. He did write the book Steal Like An Artist so I don’t feel guilty about it. I tend to...
Learning how to say ‘no’.
It's always interesting how things will come into your space, repeatedly. Yesterday, I was listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast in which he was chatting to author Elizabeth Gilbert. One of the things they chatted about was saying 'no'. Not even two hours later, my son wanted a piece of my daughter's sandwich and her response was 'no'. He was now...
The stories we tell ourselves
“Who are we but the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, and believe?”Scott Turow Life can be messy. It is by no means a linear trajectory with one thing after the other. Amidst the cacophony, we seek the meaning of it all. And we search for who we are. That identity, the self that we manifest is one that is influenced by many things -...
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