Branded Blog

On Sunday evening my barefoot man and I took his barefoot fox terrier, Phoebe, down to the beach at the end of a beautiful day. The sun was nearing setting and, having been slightly softened by the hazy streaks of clouds across the whole sky all day, glowed as if lit from within and sent out a broad golden stream of light across the sea to us as we sat on the beach at Pringle Bay and watched.

The sun settled slowly downwards toward the quiet purple shapes of the mountains in the Cape Point Nature reserve directly across the bay from us, and the silvery green sea rocked gently, turning its dark green belly up to us with each swell and then dropping down in a rush of white foam and stopping just short of our toes before receding smoothly leaving just a silver trace of glistening sand until the next wave took its place.

A black seal played in the surf just a few metres from the shoreline, hunting the best waves just like a surfer and then careening along the inside length of the wave just ahead of the crashing curve of foam. At one point he came up to check what was going on and spotted us, so every now and then between waves he’d pop up to see if we were still there and even seemed to wave goodbye before heading off again.

It was so calm and so serene that even after the sun had set, we had trouble breaking back into the silence and picking ourselves up from the sand to walk back.

One of my favourite ways to spend a weekend is visiting the parentals in Pringle Bay, which is an hour round the coast towards Hermanus from Cape Town. It’s an almost inconceivably idyllic place with a perfect curve of white beach found in the midst of the Kogelberg Biosphere which protects the wonder of Fynbos, the most prolifically diverse ecosystem left in the world.

The parentals made the inspired decision to buy this plot of land in 1981, when we were all still growing up freely in the flat beautiful expanses of the Free State Goldfields, for the princely sum of R6,000 – granted a lot of money in those days, but still.  They, in fact, bought the land not even knowing exactly where Pringle Bay was – it must just have sounded right to them. And right it certainly was. That purchase was what ultimately allowed them to build and retire at the coast – a lifelong dream of my mom’s – where she now lovingly tends her Fynbos garden & walks briskly down to the beach each day with her intrepid walking ladies while my dad plays golf in Kleinmond or reads his book on the balcony, watching the Francolin bring her string of 8 babies by to say hello before disappearing back into the dense leafy vegetation.

This weekend past we got to spend in Pringle Bay again, much to the delight of Phoebe – the aforementioned barefoot fox terrier. Phoebe used to run great distances with my barefoot man, but has since grown older and rather more rotund and now quickly ascertains whether an invitation to go out means a nice walk around the mostly dirt roads or an energy sapping run, in which case she simply turns around and heads back up the steps to watch him run off down the dirt road. The only time she is ever happy to see him go without her!

Now Pringle Bay is not a place where things happen fast – even driving is done at a sedate 30 to 40km an hour. When you live in such a beautiful place, why would you want to rush through it?  And compared to Cape Town, not to mention Joburg (from which I still don’t consider myself totally weaned, having been away for only 9 months now) it is very sedate indeed.  Cape Town drivers still bring out my worst Vaalie cowboy driving!

This Sunday, though, life conspired to make us take it even more slowly in Pringle Bay than usual.  Pringle Bay had a power cut. From 9am to 11pm. On a Sunday. Now lets be clear, it was really well communicated and the parentals had planned around it and no disturbing crises arose as a result, so kudos to the council for the information sharing on that one.  We had a leisurely morning, making tea on a gas burner and watching the birds in the sunshine. And then the barefoot chef and paternal unit made a delicious fillet stuffed with cream and smoked mussels on the Weber and we all shared a lazy lunch which, combined with a couple of glasses of organic sauvignon and the amazing quiet of a powerless Pringle Bay on a Sunday afternoon, had a markedly soporific effect on the entire family who were soon napping variously on beds, couches and in the sunshine all around the house. And later on the barefoot chef and I took the walk to the beach and found that most beautiful sunset just waiting for us.

There are very many worse ways to spend a warm Sunday in August.

And what really struck me was how much more I noticed, heard, saw, laughed, shared and enjoyed my Sunday.  There was no TV to distract us with an infinity of new “it” programmes; no internet to fill up every minute with vast quantities of new information; no malls to visit; no movies to catch; no things to buy. It was just us, at home, enjoying being and being together.

And it made me realise something about how my style of working has also changed since I went rogue a year ago, and especially since I moved to Cape Town last November.

Now don’t get me wrong, I loved working in Corporate. I had an amazing 12 years of learning from fabulous, strange, inspiring people (and being driven crazy by others, but that goes without saying), and I loved the buzz and interaction and seeing my teams learn and grow, but I just have not for a single second missed navigating the politics and hierarchies and vested interests that also constitute Corporates, not to mention the myriad of other things administrative and rule-bound that both make Corporates work and sap huge amounts of time, energy and passion from the people who ultimately constitute them.

But since I’ve the freedom and space to decide when and where and how I work, I have rediscovered the much vaunted but mysteriously elusive business concept of “time to think”.

I realised, watching the sun set over the sea in Pringle Bay, that in the last year I have spent far more productive time thinking and helping other people think through their businesses and brands than ever before. Which is not to say I wasn’t allowed or encouraged to think in Corporate, but I just didn’t ever have the time!   Or perhaps more accurately, and more tellingly, if I made the time to sit and think someone would either take that opportunity to fill my time with their needs and issues, or take offence that I “wasn’t working” and send more work my way.

And that’s the thing about business, really. We’re often so busy making business that we don’t stop to think through it all clearly enough to make the journey a little less frightening and a little more on our terms and, perhaps even more importantly, towards a goal we have actually chosen rather than wherever we happen to end up.

Henry Ford once said that “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”  And I tend to agree. I think that we’ve become a generation of “busy-ness” people, instead of thinking business people, and it has become a badge of honour to tell everyone how terribly, terribly busy we are and how much work we have and what long hours we are spending in the office.

We’d rather be and be seen to be busy, than thinking.  And our brands and businesses are showing the impacts.

I think we need to take some pages from the Pringle Bay book, and set aside some real time to do Ford’s hard work.

Another business great, and a good friend of Ford’s also commented:

“Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.” – Thomas A. Edison

So I have no “to do” lists this time round, I don’t want you to DO anything that looks like busy-ness. I think we all need to really try and find some time to think about what we do, why we do it and what it is we’re really trying to achieve in all our busy-ness.

Can you slow down a little and make some time to give forethought to your business?

You might spot the seal surfing in the waves, or remember what you love about what you do, or find some perspective on where your brand is trying to take you with all the busy-ness.

You might even, while making time to think, find yourself again in a place you love and remember why all the other stuff is worth it after all.