It's all in the name....

A couple of months ago I went to the SA Pole Dancing Championships. One of the judges was from the USA; she is a champ pole and silk dancer and she gave a demo that knocked everyone’s socks off. She would put most gymnasts to shame I’m sure, and after watching her I know why there is talk that pole dancing be an Olympic sport….it is not all bump and grind! Her name is Janine Butterfly – that’s right. I am not sure if she made it up but it really suited her (she was like a butterfly) and I was really taken with her name.

Then I saw on facebook that my friend Richard is now friends with someone called Strelitzia Drinkwater….now I am not sure if this is a made up name but it also caught my fancy.

So I have been wracking my brains to think up an alternate name that I would be happy with – It’s not so easy to come up with something you would be really comfortable with….but I found it! A friend of mine has suddenly taken to calling me Lollipop – yes, Lollipop; and I quite like it…Then I had to think of a “surname”….and gazing at the glorious full, butter yellow moon the other night I found it…..

Henceforth I wish to be known as Lollipop Moonshine…..

I have a dream

On the 7^th October I went to an amazing event called FEAT (http://www.featsa.co.za/). Not only was it wonderful because it is the brainchild of my daughter Lisa, but because it provides a stage for South African adventurers to do a show and tell of what they do. Have a look at the website for the format and the amazing (that word again) array of speakers at this first FEAT event, and beautiful photos.

These men and women are awesome and their adventures leave one inspired; I was certainly hell bent on making my reservation first thing Friday morning with the local Everest club for a climb next year. (Lisa suggests I try Killie first *grin*).

The one common theme, though, that each and every adventurer talked about was the importance for them of following their dream and lets face it, they certainly do dream big - be it climbing the 7 summits or circumnavigating the earth…north / south under human power only: they just have to do it.

Old Dreams:

99% of us get on with marriage, children, 9 to 5 jobs and we tuck our dreams away somewhere and they nag and gnaw at us and we never quite get round to them. So what I suggest is: there is nothing is wrong with taking them out and dusting them off every so often…… Maybe, and here is a big maybe…perhaps the dream has passed its ‘sell by date’ and needs to be replaced with a new one. Maybe that old dream is holding us back from doing something spectacular. I know that there were lots of things that I would love to have done: ballet, singing, brilliant artist…. now I sing in the shower and dance in my garden…and sculpt and paint with a modicum of success. For many years I bemoaned the fact that I didn’t have the wherewithal to do these things. But had they really been my dream I would have done them….sold the house, the cat, etc etc. I would have moved heaven and earth to do them. Now I have a lot of fun doing these same things…in my own time, my own pace and I am very happy doing them without all the stress of fulfilling that dream. And I have replaced those dreams with other, new dreams….albeit not quite like climbing Everest (close though!). I have other things now that I want to achieve and do…and they are achievable and doable - for the time being.

I have replaced the some old dreams with new ones…have I given up? NO…not at all. I have changed as I have matured/grown up/gotten older – my needs and desires are different to what they were 20/10/5 years ago.

There comes a time when you need to discard the old, unfulfilled dreams. Don’t let these dusty old dreams hold you back – move on to new exciting things.

Supporting the Dreams:

I said to my friend Judy yesterday, imagine having this conversation:

Judy: My son has just become a CA/lawyer. What is your daughter doing now?

Me: Well my daughter has decided to be an adventurer. She is going to circumnavigate the world, north to south and back again, under human power only and it will take her about 8 – 10 years. She leaves next week.

I am sure there would be stunned silence – it sounds really funny/odd doesn’t it.

But my daughter is following her dream/s, she is an adventurer …and all those adventurers’ at the FEAT talk are following theirs. They are deadly serious about their dreams. This is how they run their lives and how they make their living.

In days gone by Stanley, Burton, Speke et al were the adventurers. They set off to discover new lands and a bit of fame and fortune. Today, the lands have all been found and there is not too much fame and fortune to be got out of adventuring. Today, they find new adventures like climbing the 7 summits and baling off the top of each one strapped to a paraglider - then they write the book, do the film and hope that they will get at least enough to fund the next adventure. They don’t just do it for the little bit of fame or fortune that might come their way….They do it because this is the way they have chosen/dreamt to live their lives. This is their passion and their life. (ditto for artists/musicians/dancers/writers etc)

Being an adventurer is really out of our mainstream norms and the prescribed schedule for how our lives should progress. It is sometimes a little difficult to understand and sure, every parent wants their children to be secure and comfortable and mainstream. But every so often we need to look at ourselves and our children and say “well, why the heck not”; and give all the support we can – help make that dream come true. Each and every one of the adventurers at FEAT says they couldn’t do it without the support from their family and friends. These adventurers are all amazing, mature, clever, nice, stable, serious, sincere, energetic, constructive and contributing members of society – they have just taken a different path.

Being bought off & Customer service

Being bought off

Apropos Lisa’s blog last week about the printer offering her discount (in lieu of fixing up the bad job he did) on her next print job, I had a similar situation on Saturday morning.

Once a month I trek to fabric places all over the place to stock up on materials and things for the gaiters. I sometimes go to a number of shops, especially if we have had a special order or if I am just looking for some new colours. In this place called Dubai Centre (on the very, very far east Rand) I found lovely orange fabric for gaiters and I know this is a winning colour – it’s very popular and also quite hard to get. So I grabbed the roll and when the lady was getting ready to cut I saw a mark that ran down the middle – it was about 12 cm wide at the widest part, tapering to about 1cm wide. So I said I didn’t want that piece and she must cut my fabric from a bit that didn’t have this mark….she reeled off about 4 metres of fabric until she got to a pristine section…she looked me in the eye and said if I took the stuff with the mark she would give me discount…. I said no thanks and she cut me piece from the nice clean stuff. Question: why on earth does she think that one would spend a lot of time making something that might just be unwearable because of the mark…

Great Customer Service

I went to Edgars to buy some new moisturiser. I usually buy Elizabeth Arden and while I was searching the self for the type I use, an assistant came over and asked if I needed help. I was going to say I needed a lot of help and particularly wanted something that would make me look 30 years younger in 7 days..with a money back guarantee.

But she didn’t really look like someone with a sense of humour so instead I asked for my particular type of product. Our conversation went like this:

Assistant: I can’t help you because I do Clarins.

Me: Ahh…so where is the Elizabeth Arden lady? (Thinking she might have nipped off to the loo)

Assistant: She’s on maternity leave.

Me: Ahh….and when will she be back?

Assistant: In about 3 months time.

Me: So do you think I should come back then?

Assistant: Yes please.

Me: exit store, go round the corner and burst into tears.

Are you on my team

This is printed here with Lisa's permission.

Blog written by: Lisa de Speville

Lisa's Blog

---

Are you on my team? Posted: 30 Sep 2010 08:19 AM PDT I love a good story, especially one with a moral. As a child, I treasured my beautifully illustrated book of Aesop's Fables. I would happily read the stories again and again. Well-known tales include 'The tortoise and the hare', 'The boy who cried wolf', 'The crow and the pitcher' and dozens of others. Three months ago my mom was hired by a small company to sort out their bookkeeping and accounts after business partners - who had their hands (up to their friggin' shoulders) in the cookie jar - had created a financial nightmare. In response to my story about an incident related to FEAT, my mom told me a tale. Three others follow. The boss and the accountants In this story, my mom's boss' accountants contact him to say that he must pay R100k in tax to SARS. Ja, just like that. My mom asks them for the assessment where she finds various late-submission penalties, which were incurred because the accountants had not submitted in time, and other errors. She tells the accountants to submit a query to SARS and that the penalties are not for her bosses account, but for theirs - afterall, he pays them to handle this stuff for him. My mom then turns to her boss to explain the situation saying, "These people are not on your team". He employs these accountants to fulfill a much-needed task and he trusts them to look out for his best interests. None of us are experts, qualified or even interested in things we have to do - like tax returns and plumbing - and so we hire people to do these things for us. And, we expect them to take care of us and to do the best for us. Someone who is on your team looks out for you and they do their best for you too. The woman and the little pieces of paper Yesterday evening I went for a run, taking to the roads and hills of my suburb. The weather is perfect - not too hot, not too cool - and the trees are dressed in the freshest green. It is a wonderful time of year for evening runs. A woman, who had been sitting on a grassy verge, stands up just before I reach her. She picks up her backpack and I notice a number of little pieces of paper lying on the lawn. I stop and begin picking them up. "Are these yours?" I ask. "Yes," she says. "Well, they don't belong here. These belong in the rubbish bin, just like the rest of the litter lying around these streets." I gesticulate, pointing at a coke bottle, discarded packaging and other lumps of litter. "I live in this suburb, I run in these streets and this filth is disgusting. And do you know why it is here?" I ask. It's a bit of a rhetorical question because she'll get an answer whether she responds or not. "It's here because people don't care. I do." I turned around, continuing with my route up the hill. The bakkie and the parked car This morning I spent over an hour standing in a queue on the pavement outside SARS, attending to an IRP5 query on my assessment. A guy in a bakkie pulled up, parking in a spot near the front door. The spot was vacant because yellow lines (and a sign) have designated this a bus parking area. He pulled up right up the ah-sss... err... bumper of a parked car, so close that I would not have been able to squeeze my shapely leg between the two vehicles. The parked car didn't have much space in front of him either; more, but not much. I left my spot in the queue to walk out on to the road and around to the bakkie driver's window where I pointed to the parked car and asked, "How is that guy meant to get his car out?". "I'm just going to pay," he replied. "I've been on this section of pavement for an hour," I told him. "And you have to stand in the queue too so this is not going to be a quick process." I suggested that he reverse a little to give the guy in front some space. I walked back to my place in the queue, next to a friendly lady. "I'd like to think that someone would do that for me," I explained to her. The bakkie guy drove away, put off sticking around either by me or the prospective one-hour (or longer) wait. He-who-would-have-been-parked-in returned to his car not three minutes later. The printer and the brochures After deliberating for a few weeks whether to spend R1500 to R2500 on printing 400 brochures for FEAT next week, I decided to go ahead because they will be really special to the speakers and sponsors. I put in a couple of late (very late) nights to work on the design, layout and content. Last week I dropped the artwork at the printers. A friendly call this morning announced that my brochures for my FEAT event were ready for collection. If there is one thing I love, it is seeing something I've written or created in tangible full-page colour. It's one of the reasons I so love writing for magazines... that smell of fresh printing and the delight of colours on the paper... After 10 years I still rip open packaging to get at my articles, just to see what they look like in print. I'd been waiting for that call for a week. The lady hands over the box and my heart drops. In that first glimpse I notice a patch of streaky printing. "Maybe it's only that one," I think. I pick up a few more. Same. I open up the brochure and notice a white border at the bottom despite the 5mm bleed that I'd included in the artwork; a trimming problem. I detect more streaky printing where the 'FEAT green' should be solid and there are streaks across Pierre's face on the back. Yes, the whole box of 400 brochures and the event takes place in exactly one week today. The lady calls over the graphic designer, who submitted my job. I ask for the manager/owner too. They offer to trim the white line from the bottom, if I'd like to wait. I'm not crazy about this solution. I notice that the logos on the front fold are almost on the edge of the page, when they should be centred. It turns out that instead of printing on a large sheet and trimming to A4, they printed to A4 without resizing the artwork accordingly. I mention this. And that's to say nothing of the streaky ink. "That's the printer," says the lady. Hugh, the manager (or owner) apologises for the trimming errors saying that my job should have been printed large sheet and then trimmed. "So, why wasn't it," I ask. He offers me a 20% discount on my next print job. I pay the balance and walk with my box to my car. I put the box in the boot and walk to my door. I hesitate. I walk back to the boot to grab a brochure. I walk inside again, asking for Hugh. "I have a story to tell you," I announce. I tell him about the one about 'The boss and the accountants'. I then explain what FEAT is about and why I created it; because I love adventures and expeditions and I have such admiration for adventurers, many of whom I know; because I believe that these brave and courageous people need an event like FEAT to bring them together to share their tales; because they are important to me; and because this event is something that I have created and that it is special to me. "Every one of your staff here are on your team," I add. "They work hard at their jobs to make this business a good one. I come to you with something that is very important to me and I am spending what I consider a lot of money to print this brochure. When these pages started coming out of the printer why didn't anyone notice these things that I saw in seconds? Why are none of you on my team?" I continue: "I walked back in here because even though people at my event may not notice the streaky printing, the off-centre folds and the white line at the bottom, I did. These brochures, the speakers, the event's sponsors and the audience are very special and important to me and I expect this to be important to you too." Hugh is reprinting my brochures, on large sheets - trimmed to A4. I'll collect on Monday. Hugh - thank you for listening. Thank you for caring. Thank you for being on my team. Readers, care. Care enough to stand up for yourself, for things that are important to you, for people who are important to you and for things that you would like others to do for you. And the people or companies in your life who are not on your team? Replace them whith those who will support you and everything that is important and special to you - not because you are paying them to do something but because it is important and special to them too.