I wanted to do a couple of interviews this year, with some pro athletes, some mates doing amazing things, and some companies really on the forefront of tech which makes our lives easier. We start with a mate doing amazing things. Ironman finisher, entrepreneur and the guy who looks after me when I am in that stealing-stuff-after-10-snakebites mood, is Collin Allin. Purely on the last point does he deserve merit to be on the blog. Always out there making a statement, he entered the Bar One Manhunt and I was in the car with him when he got the call to say he was on the show. Very groovy indeed. I asked him 10 questions. Enjoy…

1. Why did you enter the Manhunt?

Because I think that I represent the SA male, Living life to the fullest, making the most of every opportunity that comes my way.

2. What will you do with the cash & prizes if you win?

First thing I will do is have a huge party for everybody who supported me through the show, take my girlfriend away on a holiday. I will drive the Nissan X-trail that we win as I have been driving it during some of the shoot days and it’s a awesome car.

3. Why should anyone vote for you?

I live my life on the edge, squeeze every drop out of life. I am laid back and easy and a great competitor, only want people to vote for me if they dig my vibe…OH…and because I have some other business ideas with the cash I win which I would like to do.

4. What’s been the most amazing part of the show?

Just how well everybody gets along on the show, I have made 10 great new friends, which make the amazing things we doing on the show even more special when you have a great bunch of people to share it with. Plus getting to tick things off your bucket list every time you do a shoot and have somebody else pay for it

5. Where can people find out more about the show?

They can go to the Bar-one website www.barone.co.za or join the facebook group and twitter under the Bar-one Manhunt.

6. Where can people find out more about you?

Follow me on twitter or my blog www.collinallin.com or get me on the Book of Face.

7. Who’s the strongest competition in the show, and why?

All the guys are strong, but Clinton is going to be hard to beat, he has a great fan base, mentally the guys are all tough and we all want to beat each other, great competitive vibe on show.

8. What’s your favorite flavor of bowling ball?

Grape, of course, isn’t everybody’s?

9. Beyond the Manhunt, what will you do with your new found fame?

I would love to present a TV show or do some MC work, like brand launches, Fashion shows etc.

10. A set of socks, bubblegum, dental floss and 3 pens. What can you build us with that?

Anything I wanted and remember if you build it they will come

So that’s it really, to vote for Collin send an sms with the following details: Bar-one Collin A to 34704 and watch the show on SABC 3 at 8:30pm every week. There are skydiving, Red Bull Fighter Plane trips and other amazing experiences on offer in the next few weeks.

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with looming challenges I find it’s more and more important to laugh. I initially saw this on Twitter the other day and it made me giggle like a schoolgirl. Having a mate who can make sure you “keep it real” is very important. Lance Armstrong is a guy who has every need catered for him, but his buddy College seems to be the guy who keeps him down to earth as much as possible. Probably why he is part of Lance’s very small inner circle.

We get so caught up in out sports routines, especially this time of the year, it’s important to remember why we are doing sports, that it is supposed to be fun. That life is not always that serious and not everything revolves around Epic/Ironman/Sani/Xterra/All of the above.

People are always suprised when they find out that maybe 2 guys out of the 12 or so guys who make up my inner circle are into any of the sports I am. In fact, most of them tell me I am crazy and stupid. It keeps me down to the ground, as their skills (tequila consumption, boyband dancemove routines, hysterical bouts of laughter) keep me well balanced.

Who in your life keeps you down to earth? Makes sure you stop taking yourself so seriously all the time? That’s a good person. Call them and give them a hard time, you might just be that person to them too…

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The song has been everywhere in the last while for me. It’s been in my car, on the radio, I asked questions about it on twitter, facebook, etc. The message was suited to the week that ended in Valentines Day, but more so suited to a year where people are going to experience major change. I believe this year people will go through huge change. The year of the Tiger commenced on Valentines Day as well, and the Tiger symbolizes peace and protection, so again, quite fitting in message and meaning.

Raw and powerful, I am not going to lie to you, this song has at times in my life had me emotional to the point of a trembling bottom lip as the question goes beyond the obvious relationship one. We all want to give someone the very best of ourselves, its in our inherent nature.

Societies rules and the hurt from previous relationships may hold us back, but this is the year where giving your all is going to give massive results.

This applies of course to your work relationships as well. Are your company, your boss or your co-workers getting the best of you. Are you clear minded enough and present enough in the moment to give them the attention they deserve to reach potential. Are you giving people with a vested interest in you the best of you?

Lots of questions around an amazing song, theme, and time of our lives. Now go back to work….

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That is Die Antwoord, the latest version of Watkin Tudor Jones and his amazing persona shifting. You may remember him as Max Normal. He used to look like this;

and he used to sound like this:

No video, just a very much chilled version. Even then he was considered different and shocking. Die Antwoord live in the block of apartments where my Cape Epic partner resides, and the progression to a harder, more shocking version coincides with shock media I guess. No longer does anything positive make the news, it’s always shocking.

Like a list of Die Son coverstories, Die Antwoord is a very well thought out project and I have to give it to them, they are fully into it. Tattoos et al and how and where they find all that 80′s clothing is amazing. You`ll notice some vintage Puma gear in there, its a connection that’s been there for a while.

I have to wonder though, as amazing as I find this project, if this is really where we are going. How do you stand out, and make a name for yourself, in a world where Die Antwoord are the latest, greatest thing on the Interwebs, gaining approval from mass audiences literally around the world.

Watkin Tudor Jones is a genius, so don’t mistake me on that. An artist in the truest sense, totally committed to his passion, and that gets translated in it as well. People can feel and feed off his energy for success. He is a chameleon and a fantastic one at that.

Change is inevitable, and in current society that means a harder change for most people. More ruthless at work. Shock media to get your name out there. Visual imagery that stands out is tough to achieve in a society where we are bombarded with thousands of brand messages a day.

How are you going to change to stand out?

What would you change to stand out?

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If you’re a hunter, are you wasting your gift chasing shiny but ultimately worthless objects?

And if you’re a farmer, are you wasting your resources by planting and nurturing a crop that’s fashionable but without real value?

It might be fun to win a Grammy or dominate your category in terms of market share, but what’s it worth if it doesn’t support the actual goal?

Marketing is more powerful than ever. We have more leverage than ever before. Which makes picking your milestones and your goals more critical than it has ever been. – Seth Godin

There are just more and more things to do, places to go, and fortunes to be made these days, aren’t there? How in a world so open and so complex and so jam packed full of marketing can we ever expect to come out tops? We are told we can achieve anything and everything, that we can marry a supermodel, make a hundred million real dollars, live in a 15 bedroom mansion and live care free.

But why doesn’t marketing give us the in between steps. Why only the end dream and not the step by step guide to getting there? Surely in world where secrets are told every day, where everything is there to be read on the Internet, we should have a step by step, easy guide to having all of this.

Here are some of the inherent problems with this:

1. People do NOT listen.
2. We are bad at taking orders.
3. We question more than what we do.

Add those 3 and you know, it doesn’t matter if we get hit in the face with the simple facts, 99% of us will never get it done because of that. So like the cartoon says, don’t give a Dinosaur meteors.

I find with this particular blog that people are getting sick and tired of being told how to change their lives. My advice will not ever really make any difference to about 999 out of 1000 people who read this.

Am I ready for that?

What motivates me to keep writing? It’s surely not lucrative enough to call it a job, so it has to be a passion thing?

This blog is my way of not giving the Dinosaur a meteor to buy. Its my way of checking up on myself that my goals are realistic, that I am benchmarking as I go, and that I can get to my dreams. Without dreams, I am nothing. Without hope, I may as well stop wasting your time.

I hope to find each 1 out of the 1000 of you, and connect with you, properly.

Connect with me. That’s what the contact page is for. I actually enjoy hearing from you, no matter how random you think you are.

This is a part of my leverage, in some way.

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“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” - Socrates

I have had a mild obsession with Magnum White Almond for the last week. I have managed to eat one every second day, even though I am lactose intolerant and know I shouldn’t. It got me thinking about why I love this silly thing so much, and how I should go about maximising the experience whilst not passing wind 24/7. Here is my solution, and its pretty brilliant, I’d say.

I would like to chat to you about the capacity for enjoying less. Before you buff off to another site as that may offend you, note that I am not saying get rid of stuff you like. I am saying, enjoy less time wasting rubbish, and maximize the experience on the good stuff.

Is it difficult to enjoy less? No, not really, but it takes a change in mindset, which as with many such changes takes time and adaptation.

If you enjoy Magnum White Almond (drool), as I do, when confronted with a fridge of it would you also enjoy eating as much of the entire fridge as possible? I know that’s what many of us do when faced with delicious food. Eat as much of the stuff as possible, until we are so full, that we feel ill for a day afterward.

But what if you learned to enjoy just a few bites of the ice cream? And with each bite, savor the flavor, the coldness, the creaminess, the almonds wrapped in the decadence of the white chocolate?

If you love clothes, instead of buying more and more each weekend, can you learn to cull your wardrobe into a few quality, beautiful pieces that you can wear often, and enjoy more? How many of us have a cupboard full of clothes that we hardly wear? Shoes that we hardly wear?

The same applies with anything we love … including online reading and communicating (email, Twitter, Facebook, forums). We often seem obsessed with more of it. But instead, consider reading just the quality stuff, and if a blog or Twitter feed doesn’t deliver quality consistently, consider dropping it. I sat at a networking thing today where everyone was on their phones all day. I check my phone alot when I am not busy, but when something interesting is going on, skip it, just for an hour or two. Turn your phone off for a weekend, go to the beach, walk up a mountain and forget about what other people are doing, and focus on what you are doing…

Learn to love less television, movies, chatter, spending, shopping, eating out, junk food, technology, consumption, productivity. You get the idea.

When you focus on enjoying less, you focus on full enjoyment. You learn to be content with little, and when you do that, a life of happiness is at your disposal. The only limit to your happiness, then, is how much you can learn to enjoy less.

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So you know about Puma’s Love = Football Campaign…

Not? Seen these around town?

naughty naughty.

In support of PUMA’s Love = Football campaign and Valentine’s Day, a video e-card has been created with football “hooligan” fans singing a love song.

You can customize the e-card with a message and email them to your sweetheart for Valentine’s Day. You can also post the e-card to your loved one’s wall on Facebook.

The e-card is available on www.pumahardchorus.com.

Here is the intro screenshot…

This leads you to a group of English men singing “Truly Madly Deeply” to you. It’s very groovy. Some would say revolutionary, but in the end, it all relates to Puma’s Love = Football campaign. Like it? Send it via email or Facebook to a loved one, on one easy screen, which looks like this:

Easy peasy. Now go out there and spread the love…

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“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” ~Lao Tzu

Ok, so the quote is not a direct reasoning on the title of the post, but its my party, and I`ll post randomness if I want to. I have wanted to talk about this incessant need we have to say sorry for everything all the time, for a while now. It’s something I truly despise.

Sorry is directly related to regret, and the Wikipedia definition of regret you will find here. Its quite an intense definition and the associated emotions are quite negative. What gets to me is when people say sorry for everything, all the time. For bumping into someone in a queue, for doing something the way they wanted to, but not quite the way someone else may have wanted them to. For putting an extra sugar in my coffee. For not getting an email to me in 3.4 nanoseconds. For being 3min late.

If you aren’t truly remorseful, then don’t say sorry to me. I am generally not going to take things that personally that you need to apologize to me anyway. I got over “sorry” a while ago, and I don’t use it with such vigor anymore. If I bump into you by accident, I will greet you with a “hello” rather than a “sorry”. That way I may make a friend, instead of immediately inserting negative comment into a non-existent relationship.

This is the week to stop saying sorry. Not later in the week, but NOW.

Start with the “hello” exercise. Bump into someone, by accident, say HELLO!

Do it on purpose if you want, just to say HELLO!

Who knows who you might meet….

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I am getting quite a few emails lately about where you should be in your training and I know my guys and girls are all feeling the pressure of the upcoming event.

Worry not Ironmen and Irongirls, you will be victorious! Your task is easy. Think of all I have to get through before I get to IMSA 2010 and you should feel very, very calm. Here is my schedule:

5-7 Feb – training camp Ceres
13-14 Feb – Lighthouse to Lighthouse MTB race
21 Feb – Xterra SA Champs
5-7 March – Sani 2 C MTB Race
20-28 March – ABSA Cape Epic MTB Race

That’s all before I get to rest up for IMSA. I am racing all of those races. Now if I watch my weeks carefully, I should be super strong going into IMSA, but this approach is not for anyone. I have spent 3 years building mileage to be able to handle this kind of schedule, so I would watch it if I were you.

Back to you, of course. Your stresses. Let’s check where you are:

1. Can you bike 150km quite easily, around your IM intensity (not pace) and have a normal afternoon after that?
2. Can you run 25km quite easily, without too much pain?

If you can manage those two, then you are right on track. Here are some common thoughts at this stage:

1. I am slow. One of my guys said to me after our long run the other day that he felt his run sucked. I mentioned that he had just run a half marathon close to his PB in training and that he looked pretty comfortable to me. You are ALL overanxious about your form at the moment.

2. I am tired. Um… no s**t. You should be doing mega miles, and being in the hurt locker right about now. Your weekends should breeze by in a haze.

3. I need to do more. You can always do more. Even the pro who goes 35 hours a week, can do more. Its NOT about more. It’s about the quality of everything around your training. Here is a quick checklist of those:

a. Is your home life in check?
b. Is your personal life on track for non-destruction?
c. Are you managing your niggles?
d. Are you sleeping regular hours?
e. If your work life in check?

If those are all good, then you are on the right track. There is life the day after Ironman, you know. Sure, until then we are, from this day until then, going to give it our all…

But you want to make sure you have friends and loved ones around the day afterward. Many people lose those in the process.

So from here on in…

+++ Train Smart
+++ Live Smart
+++ Eat Smart

If I don’t see you until then, read my schedule, and you`ll know why.

RokThis launch is right here, I can smell it. You will know more about why I am doing this crazy schedule then.

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I have had a bit of an arb day. I guess that my weekend of excess (2 races in one day, travel, langarm in Langebaan till 4am) is paying out bad dividends. Only my fault, isn’t it. Not that I have any regrets.

I managed to take roughly 6 minutes off on the same course as we did in the first week of December. Progress where I was hesitant is a great thing. We then took out, for fun, the 3 man teams in the super sprint relay. That just felt good, albeit super painful at the time.

This on 6 hours sleep, after a long week and a nice drive up the west coast. I then topped it off my having a few local brews and dancing till 4am without a wink’s sleep. The Bar-One men on SABC3 can eat their hearts out.

This did take my deep fatigue to a new level though, and I slept quite a bit on Sunday into Monday, but am really paying the price today. Our morning ride was not quite the quality it normally is, and I had to sleep over lunch today, as I am just tired.

Last night I also had sweet cravings. Never a good sign. Always a sign that I am pushing it a little. Eating, sleeping & exercise habits are the first things to do when I am overdoing it (in that order). But least there is quite an easy equation that precedes the bad habits:

It goes something like this.

1. I am responsible for how I feel right now.
2. My decisions are mine and I am in full control of them.
3. When I make bad decisions based on a lax attitude towards being responsible for myself, cravings come.

Being responsible for myself was quite a revelation for me. Everything is so easy in this world. Access to crap is everywhere. Look around you – fast food, credit, wonder make-up to hide bad habits, products to make you thin for a while (but which ruin your body’s internal systems), instant love, etc are all crap.

Gordo always says “There is no easy way” and my synopsis of what he means is that for you to be responsible for your body, your mind, you heart and your soul, the quick, easy decision is not the one which gets you there.

Once you have gone the route to eat “clean” it’s hard to go back to feeling bloated and tired, but you would never have known the difference if you just continued to do it.

When I started ME intervals people laughed at how silly they looked. I was doubting them as they really hurt, and really made me tired. Now, looking back, for roughly 6 months of focussed work, I could have made the change 5 years ago when I first heard of them. I tried it then, but it was too “hard” for me then.

What stimulus do you know about that you are not applying because its too “hard” ?

Everything seems hard right now, but when you look back you are generally quite stoked about it. Some of these for me:

1. Letting go of my ego as much as possible made me a human being instead of a human doing. I became real. I was open to much more real emotion but the world was a more colorful place. The cold hearted machine was gone.

2. Changing my diet to eating real food. I reckon 100% more energy, 8-9kg less body weight. Amazing not only for that but because I picked up smell, taste, I learnt to love to cook and I eat more than I did before.

3. ME intervals on the bike. The sole reason I am able to do what I can now on the bike. It helps that I am 8-9kg lighter as well, but I am far more powerful out there. My run has improved as a result as well.

4. De-cluttering my mind. I used to think ALL the time. I couldn’t switch off. I was chasing money, fame, prowess, popularity. It consumed me. I broke down. I sold just about everything I owned. I started living more of a minimal life. I now sleep within 5 minutes of getting into my bed. I now have space in my mind for me, for friends, for loved ones. For life.

Responsibility is not always easy, and going back from where it takes you is not always a great place, but the choice is yours.

Right here.

Right now.

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