I am a million miles an hour before we take on Double Century this weekend and I am struggling to settle down to get it all into a blog post. Some weeks are blissful, flowing and others are like this, where I have eaten lunch in my car 4 times this week driving back from chores and collections. C`est la vie.

So I thought I would jot down some random thoughts which have passed through my mind this week, questions which I wondered about and ideas which irked me a little.

I recently wondered about the fact that people with disabilities have heightened other abilities. So those who may be deaf, or cannot speak, become super strong, or ridiculously good sommeliers (smell). I wondered how far in years to come this would be exploited once genetic doping becomes a reality. Will athletes deliberately have their hearing removed to gain extra power or extra brain power should they be in sports like Chess (yes, a sport) or where an athlete would gain enough to become a world champion.

It’s a question which irked me. I am completely against all forms of doping, cheating, et al. But where do you draw the line? As the lines become more and more blurred as the options open up to would be cheaters, how do we govern our sports to remain clean of these people. Then you have to ponder, for a kid from the poorest family in Russia who isn’t raised with the same sense of morals as you and I – is it even cheating to them?

What is your view?

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Then onto something else – the crutches we carry to keep us busy. Everyday I deal with people who are busy for the sake of being busy. It’s ridonkulously easy to get caught up in this busyness, which becomes the crutch that keeps you moving, perhaps from dealing with your problems, issues which you are in essence, running from. I think Ironman attracts these people who can stay busy all day training, discussing training in forums and with coaches and hanging out with other athletes just talking about training, never dealing with their problems. THIS is a great post on the matter. As the holidays are approaching, I urge you not to fill them with chores, busyness and avoiding the things which have bugged you all year.

They are holding you back.

Break free. Walk without the crutches.

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All to recently, I discovered that I need to be better at asking for help. As someone who loves to achieve (not like – I freaking love this stuff) it’s often tough to ask for help because your success has often come from a set of self-made decisions, so you have success.

As an athlete, it’s important to work with other people. I have read I`m Here to Win in the last week. It reminded me to ask for help, so I am working with a functional strength specialist, a pilates genius and seemingly, soon, one of the smartest people in the sport. It’s not easy for me to let others take control but in ways, that is the lesson for me to learn.

Letting others run with things is the fundamental core of my job. I lead by serving where I am and trust the team 100% that they are doing everything possible. I have almost no control on many of the outcomes and this has been not a breeze of fresh air, but a tornado of crisp west-coast sea awesomeness. I am trying to carry it into other arenas.

Watch this space.

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Kaizen is on my mind this week. Small improvements, continuously. I am at a point in my life where, unless I start a new sport, career or attempt to get as fat as possible, I am going to be making small changes, little improvements. But if I make them continuously and in various arenas, they can add up to a somewhat sizeable gain.

But never again will I enjoy dropping 30sec/km in a block of running, or 15sec per 100m in a week or two of swimming. I won’t take 20min off my Argus time, ever again.

I think so many newbies to all sports forget this vital part. Relish in the changes, the current change, compared to where you were. You are all so obsessed with a future number, where the margins of improvement get so much smaller towards that number, that you forget the amazing gains you are making right NOW.

Stop it. Sit up and smell the freaking roses mate. They are good, filled with craft beer and bacon and may never ever return again. Right now is pretty awesome. Remember that.

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That’s it for now. Time to breathe out, properly. Not much left to do between now and 6am tomorrow morning when I`ll be riding with an immensely talented bunch of guys for around 6 hours, relishing in the moment, dreaming of bacon and craft beer for dinner and smiling at the beauty in the pain.

Practice what you preach. Watch me go…

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I have just been on a 2 day course to improve my work skills. As a project manager working with incredible, yet corporate clients, my job is to take the pressure off my teams in the office so that they can produce the best product, and by that, I mean the best value, for the client.

Simple. We develop in Agile methodology and it’s worth noting the Agile Manifesto and relating that to my sport of choice, Ironman.

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

If I had to imagine the endurance athletes manifesto, it would look as follows:

Individuals and interactions over teams and equipment
Results and Performance over smack talk & speculation
Sponsor collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

When I clicked those simple things, a massive pause occurred in my mind. I had to rethink the way I went about everything. I consulted my peer group for the smartest info, worked with a coach, a strength coach and developed working collaborations with my sponsors instead of race reports and negotiation. Today, I got the go ahead from a sponsor for 2012 on just what is says in the manifesto there. Collaboration, Interaction, Change, Performance. I am so excited about the future at the moment because the present is filled with opportunity.

Next year, I plan to race 3 Ironman races. Stupid? Read THIS FIRST. Add in 3 Xterra races, Sani2c, Wines2Wales, 70.3 Buffalo City, 2 Oceans Half Marathon, possibly African-X and who knows what else, right? Does NOT mean I am racing them all to win, but whilst I can, I am going to race as much as possible, before life settles into the routine where it’s not possible to race AS much.

Whilst the pause for the end of the year is approaching rapidly, I urge you to find a space to truly pause before the year resumes with a bang in January. Recharge fully, breathe deep and for a week or two, walk slowly, ride with open eyes and run some new trails like a kid. The pause is coming quickly, are you ready?

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Rapha Continental USA Pro Cycling Challenge Stage 1 from RAPHA on Vimeo.

Another beauty from Rapha. Applause…

Indeed, a day for a broad and dextrous waffle from the host of the blog. A day where he can let his mind wander and let you be the recipient of it all. Where all and nothing may make sense as he returns from a week in a antibiotic hum where everything had that horrible taste in there, somewhere. As I am returning to health, so my mind is returning to creativity. I am exercising lightly again and life beyond the tarmac is just easier again.

This morning I read a FASCINATING article about being your best. It perked me up about the tough choices I have to make daily to be my best. That dreaming is just that and that getting there is much harder. It requires a lot more. Dreaming is no good if you actually want it badly enough. If you are happy enough to just dream it – well then you don’t want it badly enough, do you?

As we are planning Epic Unsupported Tour 2011, I am little obsessed with details at the moment. On a trip where a lack of details means possibly sleeping next to the side of the road being the big spoon to an Epic Unsupported Aussie First Timer as he wonders if he`ll make it back to his wife, I need to go the extra step. Considering the route I have in my mind, which is now plotted 99% of the way on the Garmin Edge 705, I am going deep. The trip is 3 days shorter and only 50km shorter, but this year will be a lot more fun. There is a hike-a-bike section on the last day, which I need to go scout to see if I will have rocks thrown at me by this guy for being overly ambitious about what constitutes “adventure”.

Although this trip will never be open to the public (currently the application includes a set of mixed random tasks involving tactical application of your ability to emulate an Alpaca doing Pavarotti on LSD), this year we will be doing live tracking with THIS awesome little toy. Family, friends and yes, stalking blog readers unite, because you will get random SMS at random times telling you where we are (should there be signal). Taking stalking to a new level, you can also track live, at any time, if the device is charged and in reception areas.

Now stop and read this.

While you`re at it, also read this. See – you`re smarter already.

Let’s celebrate some South African’s doing it in style this weekend: Greg Minnaar for yet another win at the World Cup. Ray Tissink for his 2nd at Boulder Peak 70.3. It’s awesome to see the guys flying the flags on the world stage. If I missed someone – please let me know.

Talking of races, here are two galleries you should look at today:

1. London ITU where collectively, the rest of the field must have slept badly knowing how far behind they are. Ali Brownlee is the best triathlete in the game at the moment.

2. Norseman is on my list to race someday. Along with Embrunman. Yes…you think I am stupid, and yes, you are very, very wrong.

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Simply beautiful those 2 images and the galleries they link to. Opposite ends of the experience – one very solo, one very much thriving with chaos, but both utterly beautiful in terms of the talent and rockstar performances that came from them.

Me, I am currently searching for the solo moments. Not that this is a new thing. I prefer the quiet to the chaos. I prefer to suffer mildly for extended periods of time, rather than suffer harder for shorter periods. I find this to be true in my work, my sport and in my relationships as well. So much we can learn from the sports we choose, or sometimes, the sports that choose us, seemingly.

Tomorrow is a public holiday. I am doing a full day of training in prep for O till O. Long, slow mileage across 3 sports. Should. Be. Fun.

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“Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.”- Hardy D. Jackson

I am sick and at home today, finally having given in to the sinus infection doing the rounds after a 3 week valiant fight. Today I wanted to share this, because when I am sick, I am always looking towards where to improve processes to avoid this. Today is the first time in 5 years I am on anti-biotics for being sick (having stitches and it being mandatory to take them doesn’t count). I want to make it 10 to the next round, if ever again, but I need to be in tune with my passions to make that happen. I found this article on Zenhabits. It spoke of igniting your passion. An absolutely essential part to any life of real meaning. An essential block to happiness. Read on…

For the past 8 years I’ve run experiments on myself and others to better understand what makes us come alive.

This has taken me on ultra-marathons, to the tops of mountains, the bowels of bookstores, around the world and in front of some pretty fascinating people on some very deep soul searching. Finding passion and helping folks do work that embodies it has become a bit of an obsession of mine and has turned up some interesting results.
It turns out passion is not as elusive as we think. Just like daily exercise leads to a more fit and healthy body, there are habits that lead to fire in your belly. If we are to cultivate such a lifestyle we must act accordingly.

1. Surround yourself with passionate people. This is the foundation. Most people don’t believe you can do work you love because they’re constantly around people who hate their jobs and don’t know what excites them. This has to change. Those around you have everything to do with your success and your belief of what’s possible. You’ll either rise up or sink down depending on who’s next to you.

Passion is contagious. You must have an environment that embodies it. You need a support crew who believes what you believe. People who dream as big as you or bigger. Not only will they give you ideas but they’ll condition the belief that doing what you love is the norm. They fuel our passion and make the unthinkable possible, even normal. You’ll begin to expect the same of yourself.

It’s crucial to get this right. It’s why Leo and I get out on barefoot runs in San Francisco every week or so and why I’m on a quest to document 1,000 people across the world living their dreams. We all need encouragement.

Look around you. Do the people you see inspire and motivate you? Are they doing epic things? Do they love their work? Learn how to make genuine connections with new people doing interesting things. Check Craig’s List, MeetUp, coffee shop bulletin boards, Chamber of Commerce, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Find people in your own town and online. Befriend them. Make them a part of your life. Get out on adventures together. Schedule a weekly dinner or drinks just to talk about what’s exciting. Environment is everything.

2. Create space. If you don’t give big ideas room, they’ll never show up. Purpose and passion are no different. Lack of space creates pressure – the ultimate killer of creativity. And nothing requires more creative juices than passion. Start small with five minutes each morning. Schedule downtime. Start walking to work instead of taking the bus. Don’t multitask. Get out in nature. Just be, let things flow and see what comes up. Give yourself permission to dream. Passion thrives in emptiness.

3. Help someone in a way only you can. We all have natural strengths and talents that can dramatically help those around us. What comes easy for you is no doubt challenging for others. We tend to take these for granted, often hardly noticing our own gifts, and rarely share them with others. Passion comes from using those on a routine basis. Ask yourself, What do people thank you for? What do people routinely ask for your help with? Most people’s passions help others in one way or another. Perhaps for you it’s knitting, teaching children math, cooking a good meal or leading a yoga class. Devote time each day to sharing your talents.

4. Keep a journal of what inspires and excites you. Let your thoughts run wild. Most importantly, keep a running list of what inspires you. Books, magazines, movies, people, products, music, stories, careers, everything. Most people have a brush with passion almost daily, unfortunately we’re often too busy thinking of our 97-item todo list to take in the education. Anytime something catches your eye or excites you, open up your journal and get it onto paper. Over the years you will have a running story of how you might enjoy spending your time.

5. Challenge the norm. Ask questions. Don’t take things as gospel just because that’s how they’ve always been done. Don’t aimlessly listen to those around you. Question everything you’ve been doing and are about to do, especially if you don’t enjoy it. Is it really what you want? Is it in line with who you are? Perhaps there’s a better way. There often is.

6. Scare yourself – Live outside your comfort zone. Passionate people thrive off uncertainty. If you aren’t doing things that give you a few goose bumps you’re either not learning, dying or bored out of your mind. None of which are good. Do something at least mildly uncomfortable daily. This could be as small as making a phone call or sharing your art with someone. Be vulnerable. There’s a pretty direct correlation between pushing limits and epic living.

7. Find the right reasons. If a passionate person gets fired, they brush it off and get excited about the opportunity the lost job must be presenting. You can’t control what happens but you can control your reaction to it. What challenges have come up today? How could you reframe them? The juiciest possibilities often have the best disguises. Notice them.

8. Learn something new. Become obsessed with learning everything you can find – new skills, approaches, ideas, you name it. If it interests you then it’s important enough to get in your brain. We have to fuel what excites us. Grab a magazine or book that interests you and read a few pages on the way to work or before bed. Passionate people almost always have a book within reach. Ideas can be found anywhere. Start looking. Be a sponge.

9. Start at blog. Surprise, surprise, right? But blogs are much more powerful than most realize. They’re a simple way to explore and share the thoughts and beliefs you’re excited about and for people to immediately see and provide feedback. Don’t worry about whether you’ll make money from it or who will read it. That’s not the point. The point is to constantly fuel something that interests you.

For years my wife has loved to cook vegetarian meals. Then last month she started a simple blog and the most fascinating thing started to happen. Her cooking changed from something she simply did, to something she eagerly shared and talked to others about. She suddenly had an audience to teach something she cared about. People started to thank her and cook her meals. Now she wants to do something more with it. Maybe private cooking classes or a recipe book.

This would have never come if she hadn’t taken her interest to the next level. It didn’t have to be a blog. That just happens to be one of the easiest ways of doing it these days. Seriously start a blog. It takes a few hours max. Write about what excites you and nothing else. Publish it for the world to see. Do it daily or weekly. Give your passion room to breathe.

See what happens.

Your life’s an experiment

Everything you do, everything you try, everything that does or doesn’t work out, whether you like it or not, it’s all an experiment. It’s up to you to decide to learn from it. That’s the ultimate daily practice.

Test how you can help people. Test what excites you. Test what you like. Test what scares you. Realize that if you do what you’ve always done, your results are never going to change.

Living a life of purpose and passion is just that, a way of life. Those who wake up excited aren’t just the lucky ones, they condition themselves to experience and deserve it.

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How incredible was that. Find the original HERE.

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Swimming upstream into a river of molasses this week. There has simply been very little time to get to writing. Sure, it’s an excuse, but it’s the one I will stick to this week as friends, quality time and work simply took priority. You are important and I will be back next week with everything owing to you (thanks for all the email reminders).

Have a great, calm quiet weekend. I am off for a short break from the city to hopefully return with refreshed energy and the oomph required for what promises to be another incredible week.

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Will yourself there…

The best version of yourself is out there. Go and be that version. Greatness is waiting for you to grab it by the horns and indulge your every dream.

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So people think we are strange. So what. They smell their farts. They worry about the germs on a shopping trolley and sanitize their hands on the way in but use the card machine at the till and the ATM machine on the way out. We all justify, we all do strange things. Be proud of who you are.

I choose being stared at, ridiculed and/or waved away any day of the week over squeezing myself into the small box that society presents me as “normal”. I choose to disassociate myself with that word. Normal. Almost as bad as calling yourself and settling for being average.

I don’t care if you come in 1587th or if you come in 10minutes ahead of the field. Just be yourself.

Fitting in and lying to yourself about who you are just doesn’t float my boat. It makes me weak in the knees with regret. Regret for never having tried going to the extra mile, for taking the leap of faith into the unknown unidentifiable world that is my potential. I refuse to accept the version of myself that you want me to be. I will stand up and defend what I know to be one the most true things in the world – what my gut tells me I really am. Deep down we all know who we are. Beyond the material self worth our possessions delude us to, beyond the clothes, the bikes, the job, the 2.25 children and the white Prius.

Be yourself.

There is no faster way to happiness than being yourself. If you are wild, reign it in a positive direction. If you are as smart as the guys in my office, do what they do and BE a nerd. They are more true to that than any office I have ever worked in and man, I learn from them every day.

Smash the box, blow your supposed ceiling of potential out the water like a Mythbusters experiment and walk proud. Own it. Be the rockstar I know you are. Release yourself and stand tall.

If you achieve one thing this year, let this be it. Forget the hype, ditch the toys and sit alone with yourself in silence comfortably, knowing that what you are is more than enough.

Be yourself out there and support those who are stretching the very fabric of what’s real to be themselves.

Have a great week out there. This is your time.

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That’s all I ask of you today. Let it load, let nothing distract you while you watch this. I am demanding 20-25minutes of your day because it might change the rest of your life. If the first 4min bore you, turn it off and stop coming here. Those 4 minutes touched me. Perhaps it is because I am doing more talks and taking Urban Ninja into a spoken word arena. Just tomorrow I am talking at Huddlemind on “What is takes”. I am nervous and excited because I am hoping to reach one person who is there to stop the excuses and start living.

“Getting the wind knocked out of you is the best way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air”. Sometimes we have to go deep.

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There is a flow lately that is hard to put a finger on but it’s there and undoubtedly a positive one. The hard work done, I am able to enjoy the last few races of Phase 1 to 2011 and really just vibe out during the weeks, riding easy with mates and enjoying the experience. Today was just such an example. I got up early to start the ride in the dark with good mate Marc Perel heading towards Chapmans Peak on what can only be described as an artists brush perfectly flowed onto the morning where there was not a breath of wind and only the cream of the crop sunshine was allowed to rest on our backs.

We spoke cycling, we spoke life and piano pedaled out way up the hills and over, with only a few small digs to prep for Grape Escape on the weekend where the entire Pure Planet Racing crew will be in action for the first time.

I found an amazing list of carbon footprint documents yesterday in a random search where one click lead to another and another and this great set of variables was placed in front of me. Check them out below:

Link 1: Carbon Emmision Visualisation
Link 2: Google Docs List of Emmisions

Amazing what you think and what is the truth, sometimes.

I feel inspired by the people around me and driven by my teachers to improve, to better myself all the time. I keep learning about myself in the last few weeks, which is a refreshing thing really. Just when you think you know yourself, you can surprise yourself in the best ways, finding levels of depth you knew you were working on but not quite sure they had evolved just yet. There are a few guys and girls out there training for Ironman at the moment who I am sure are experiencing the exact same thing. If I think back about 5-6 weeks to go, you are tired, emotional but having breakthrough sessions a few times a week. The hard work is paying off just as much as it throws you into the gutter but the overall feeling is positive and energetic and expectant of great things.

The race this weekend should be amazing not only in the quality of racing that will take place but in the scenery and the camaraderie that will spill over the brim and into all our lives out there. It’s my first solo 3 day race, so I am a little nervous but quite anxious to get it under the belt.

I hope you are finding the same flow in your life lately, the same excitement for what the next 10 months of 2011 have on offer.

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I started Urban Ninja to inspire people. It has been much more successful than I ever anticipated.

As such, over the last 3 years, people who follow the blog, my twitter and are involved with me have, as such, ramped expectation of me immensely. I really like this. I believe that we should expect the most of people, for they will always disappoint, no matter how low we set our expectations. Nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes.

Around 9 months ago I was juggling so many balls that sure, I let quite a few slip in the process. It was a messy time. Just yesterday something surfaced from that time which led to me majorly disappointing someone very close to me. It was a vicious reminder of a time where I was not 100% myself. Where I had just come off the 5 craziest months of my life and was very much not living the ethos I put out on this site and try impose on my entire life.

I am human and to be too hard on myself for it is not the way forward. You take the disappointment on the chin, suck up the consequences for what, at the time, was pretty slack action and hopefully, you move forward without looking back too often. Sure, there is trust to rebuild. Sure, there is more work to be done. Absolutely, you have to prove yourself again, no matter how much work you have done in the middle to prove that your trust is well placed. Apologies have been offered and really, I am focused on the present to show that it was an episode, not a series.

C’est la vie. And life is beautiful.

The last week has been an ample reminder of me becoming wrapped up in my complicated life. It has been a reminder to simplify, to continuously unclutter and to avoid the age of distraction, which is what we currently find ourselves in. There will be times when I muck up. I accept that. In the age of perfection often I get lost expecting that from everything when I know that it’s not a possibility and that at some point, there will be disappointment. It does not, however, mean that I don’t strive to get as close as possible.

Strive on people, the highs are higher and lows come fewer and further between…

The errors in training will become less.

The disappointment of falling majorly short of your expectancies, those will become fewer.

The days when you feel that you put in all the effort and it accounts for nothing, it will be months, then years, between them. Strive on. Starting today.

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