Happy 31st Birthday South Africa

I was 31 in 2011. It was a watershed year for me in terms of assessing what was important. I dived into a “Project Mojo” to get myself back on track. I was living in London and started renting a lock and go studio at Wimbledon Art Studios. When I chose what to study, it had been a very pragmatic acceptance of the idea that, “Not all good ideas are good business ideas”. I loved art and maths, but it was more likely that I could monetize maths/business than art. I kept up at least one painting a year, but that was all I got round to. I had always prioritized later, but decided I need to bring some of that prioritizing into fruition. 

Every Saturday and Sunday, I would head to my studio for a couple of hours. I specifically chose to spend the year focusing on abstract expressionism. Trying to turn my mind off and focus on automatic, glutral painting, that came from somewhere else in me. Color and texture. Layers and energy. What makes you an artist? Renting a studio? Selling a painting? Believing you are one? Making a living from painting. I have always loved art. My mother was an art teacher, and I did take it as a Matric subject. Turning creativity, directly and conspicuously, into a career is something I considered… but always felt like a path with lots of resistance. These two or three hours, twice a weekend, had none of that baggage. It wasn’t for anyone else.

Wimbledon Art Studios has two open studios each year. Most of the artists clean up their studio and turn it into a gallery. There is a huge range and plenty of deals on offer. It was also very humbling for me, as you sit for hours with people poking their head in and making snap judgements of whether it is worth coming in. I did sell a few… but certainly nowhere in the range of convincing myself that this is a better career option than Asset Management. Art remained something “for me”. Not something that I would bend and twist into the mould required for paying the bills.

We all need to pay the bills. Even South Africa has to figure out a way towards economic prosperity if it wants to have these indulgent “finding yourself” years I was able to afford. Sometimes you do what you want to do. Sometimes you do what you have to.

Happy 30th Birthday South Africa

The more you can have a focus on something bigger than yourself, it allows you to stop the wrestle of "Am I good enough?". I had a difficult year both professionally and personally when I was 30. A year that forced me to look deep at what was permanent, and what mattered. A year that forced me to detach from some of the existential turmoil of my 20s.

I had a particularly difficult month that I still think of as "Red October". A three week roadshow around South Africa where I was explaining a challenging period of underperformance. Fundamental Investors track themselves against passive "just buy everything" benchmarks. This means that the facts can demonstrate that over a long period, you have unambiguously added no value. That can be hard to stomach when you are a stock/business picker and that is your primary point of motivation. There are all sorts of hoops you can jump through to wiggle out of that truth mirror, but hanging your identity and inner worth on "alpha" (a measure of outperformance of the alternative) is a recipe for a world of pain.

I made a commitment to myself to "detach". To find other sources of inner strength. I booked a Yoga Teacher Training Course for the following December/January (during which I turned 32), and I started renting a lock and go art studio, that I would go to on weekends.

I am someone who wears my heart on my sleeves. I like caring. That is likely a deeper source of my identity than outperformance. I still wanted to be motivated. Coming to understand that detachment doesn't mean apathy, and can release you to perform better was part of my 2010 lesson.

South Africa is also at an existential crossroads politically this year. A ruling party that looks like it will lose its majority, and a populace that has to soul search. To realise that all of us are trying to make a life, as we enter a period of consensus building... so that genuine building can proceed. Holding onto something better than the individual containers we fight so hard for. 

A 30th Birthday Treat

Happy 29th birthday South Africa

The goal of the teacher in my very first yoga class was for us to walk out feeling “introduced to relaxation”. I was 29 years old and was in my first year of having moved to London from South Africa. I was looking for something in doors (normally cold and wet) and close. 

The road I was renting in had a yoga centre I walked past… with taster classes for those wanting to see what was going on. I had resistance to overcome… the centre seemed religious. It was run by Swamis wearing orange and volunteers. The classes included chants and omming, and no Lycra and energy drinks. But I gave it a go. 

I did come out of it feeling relaxed, and curious. The exercise was gentle, but nudges you from wherever you are. That remained a key lesson for me when I became a yoga teacher. The temptation is to dump learning on students. To correct everything. If you try correct everything, you normally correct nothing. A willingness to nudge patiently means you can take things from where they are. 

Turns out the centre and yoga in general are not religious in the sense I was brought up… and I was able to apply the Bruce Lee approach of “take what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own”. Start from where you are… is useful. In 2009, I was 29, and in the same road as a yoga centre. I started. Happy 29th birthday South Africa.

Happy 28th Birthday South Africa

I was supported through university by Old Mutual. It was part of why I chose the career I did. Pragmatically sitting on a bench in London during two gap years between school and university, I took the decision that life would be harder if I didn't do something that made money. There are certain choices that are easier to get support for. I found a course and a company that would put me on a path to financial security. It wasn't romantic. I worked for 1.5 years for each year I was supported... then aged 28, got itchy feet. Old Mutual were supportive. I looked at jobs internally, but also got support and positive recommendations to look externally. I then headed overseas again, and back to the UK (via Bermuda). I did feel loyalty to the company... but in reality, that meant to the people. Those who had backed me. But that didn't mean my choices couldn't look beyond the container. As it turned out, I came back to work at Old Mutual 12 years later when I returned to South Africa. How you treat the people who leave says a lot about who you are. The containers we use to build each other up are there to build rather than constrain. Today those who stay, go, or arrive, celebrate the fall of the Apartheid that separated us... and pretended that it was our containers that defined us.

Warm Bermuda Welcome - 2008

Happy Birthday South Africa - 27 - 26 - 25 - 24 - 23 - 22 - 21

On Repeat

My understanding of South African history and the clashing introduction of Europeans was very different from the “New World” rushes where adventurers were promised a land of plenty. Almost everyone at that stage was working the land of the VERY old world in some form. None of this modern “what do you want to be when you grow up?”. 

Some people did well out of that, but the vast majority were struggling along. The “teach a man to fish” parable probably still worked because all the fish weren’t *explicitly* owned. On top of struggle, there was war. 

The Xhosa Wars/Cape Frontier Wars were a series of nine conflicts from 1779 to 1889. After the Napoleonic Wars, the English got more involved. Britain was facing serious unemployment problems, and sent a group of poor “1820 Settlers” to set up in the middle of where this conflict had been. 

A bunch of wars followed to set up various people’s dreams of unity. To create identity. 

Fast forward to the question, “why spend so much time thinking about history?”. Why not move forward? Leave the past in the past. I spend a lot of time thinking, and rethinking, through my history. I believe it frames how we think and decide. 

Learning history is like group therapy. Decisions and behaviours all happen in context. Many of our choices are simple repetitions of what we saw done. Repeated, repeated, repeated, till they are a part of us. Even if we can come up with made up justifications if challenged, we don’t understand why we do everything we do. 

Most of our choices are automated. Life is too complicated and intricate for us to constantly reflect on everything. A lot of our wisdom and bias is inherited.

amathole mountains

a setting for war

Understanding Connections

What we do, matters. What has been done, matters. History plays out its consequences. For me, being (randomly) born in South Africa at the tail end of Apartheid had, and has, consequences. 

I come from a family where politics was discussed, but I can’t remember the Rubicon speech. I was just starting to form memories, and that was not one of them. I do know it was a difficult time. 

As a kid, you are really just aware of being a kid. You gradually gain consciousness of the world that you are in. In the first few years after you are born, you don’t even have the place to store your memories. You are just experiencing. It takes time to realise that your parents are separate individuals from you. 

We all go through the terrible twos and tantrums, and discovering our Ego. Discovering that we don’t necessarily have to listen to all the instructions we are given. There is a process too of realising that there is a world beyond your family. A world beyond your school. A world beyond the groups that you are a part of. Gradually we get the chance of understanding our place, and our history. 

There is a concept called the “veil of ignorance”. What rules for the game would you create if you didn’t know which character you were going to be? 

I was 14 in 1994 when the first democratic elections took place in South Africa. Part of grappling with my story has been the existential crisis of being a white male South African. Without falling into the trap of self-flagellation, what is the balance between playing the cards you have and understanding your connection to the rest of the world?

Me, in a group in the year Apartheid ended

Intricate Knots

We constantly unpack as we move, rebuilding our spoken and unspoken contracts of how we agree to work with each other. Negotiating complex relationships that we grasp at an understanding of. Meeting and not meeting each other’s expectations. 

Our decisions and approaches have both intended and unintended consequences, and sometimes we explode. We need new agreements. 

There are multiple ways of looking at the two World Wars. The simple one is the defeat of Fascism. Another way is first the controlling Empires punching themselves in the face till they couldn’t sustain/justify Empires, then a couple of decades later Colonial Powers punching themselves in the face till they couldn’t sustain/justify Colonies. Ideas of Nationalism and Self-Determination, that also sowed seeds of xenophobia, protectionism and Apartheid. 

Another part of my story is a Romeo & Juliet marriage across the aisle of angry Boers fighting in one of the Anglo-Somebody wars. Descendants of people fleeing the European wars of religion, famines, or heading on civilising missions because of delusions of grandeur. 

South Africa becoming a single country on a Canadian model that was the response of British diplomatic architects reacting to the American war of independence. 

Layer upon complicated layer of people building up and unpicking the knotted mass of strings of who they are and want to be. Deciding on a path with limited information, and controlling a slice of limited resources to make that happen.

Unpacking

A cornerstone of my personal story is having grown up in South Africa during Apartheid. I was born in 1980. Nelson Mandela was released in 1989. 

One of those events where everyone remembers where they were. Like seeing the Twin Towers coming down, or hearing about the death of Princess Diana. I can remember being at close family friends, sitting on a big, puffy, pink cushion. That was where I watched on television as Nelson Mandela left Victor Verster (now Drakenstein) prison with his fist raised. 

The 80s were a tumultuous time in South Africa. A collective existential crisis. Who were “we”? In 1985, P.W. Botha delivered the “Rubicon Speech” as the world’s objection to white minority rule reached crescendo. He attempted to say there was no turning back. Nelson Mandela would not be released. He was wrong. 

We constantly have to renegotiate the way we interact with each other. Our agreements. Who we see ourselves as. What we include in our identity. What we exclude. Who we support. Who we hold down. Who we are. 

Some of these stories are inherited. We have to do the hard work of unpacking the consequences of past decisions. Unpacking shared stories. So we can raise our fists and walk forward.

Happy 27th Birthday South Africa

Democratic South Africa turned 27 today. 

We experience life as a controlled hallucination. We interpret our experiences and the information we gather through the stories we have soaked in. It takes about 25 years to settle into our own adult perspective. 

I think you get a few more years, maybe a decade, where you have some grace to work through all the baggage that entails. Sins of the father leaking into the next generation. Stories colouring stories that are not our own. If you do the work. If you unpack all the obstacles that obscured your way of seeing. If you want to release burdens to look with fresh eyes. Relooking. Relearning. Reworking. Reinvesting. 

A 27-year-old is verging on being able to claim their story. Claim their community. Claim what it is that matters to them. But Freedom is not the ability to impose yourself on others. It is not the ability to do whatever you want. Freedom includes the messy work of caring what others think, and respecting that freedom. No adult is unconstrained by the past if they want a future that matters. A future linked to the freedom of others.  

Happy 27th Birthday Democratic South Africa. The messy work of building Freedom continues.  

How do you see?

Building an Engine

If you want to still the waves of money anxiety, you need to start with some fact finding. Where are you? For me that has changed in a pretty fundamental way. Quite often big life changes are a catalyst for relooking at your situation. I moved back to South Africa in December. That means thinking in Rands rather than Pounds. I spent the early part of my career getting my money jobs around the world. Building what I call an Engine. You don’t have to be the sole breadwinner. Your money can work too. Especially if you squeeze some space in between your hand and mouth. To create space, you need to have an idea of what you are spending. So for me, now... I have to wait for the dust to settle. As I adjust, the numbers are way bigger (thanks inflation!) than 13 years ago, and some of the basic ways things are done differ from up north. After a few months of paying attention, you can get an idea of the things you can expect. Then you can start to add space for the surprises. Then you can start building (or repairing) your Engine.

Mechanical Repair

 

New World. Old Vines.

 “If South Africa wins, we all win”. Ian Naude was responding to a question about whether he supports young, up-and-coming, winemakers or sees them as competition. Wealth is made in containers around supply and demand, and the temptation is to forget that we exist in bigger containers. Wine containers. South African containers. Global containers. In “The Art of Learning”, Josh Waitzkin talks of a martial arts teacher of his who was very open with what he knew. His belief was that if other people were obsessing over what he was doing, that was to his advantage anyway. The great insight of Adam Smith was that win-win beats the gunboat approach of mercantilism every time. All containers provide is shape and form to our problem solving. They make for clear asks and clear offers. They are a communication tool, but they don’t have to define or separate us, or our learning. Secrecy is lose-lose. Grow the bigger container and we all win.

craft wines that tell a story

Good Green Vibes

Two of my referees for my return to Old Mutual were the same two referees when I left the company and ventured overseas 12 years ago. As part of my first day reading, I was going through the Annual Report to Shareholders which referred to the 175-year-old company motto of “a certain friend in uncertain times”. The line between colleague, client, and friend can become very fuzzy given how much time we spend dedicated to work. I like that fuzziness. I like the fluidity which recognises that we are not just cogs in the machine. I think the warmth with which I have been welcomed back reflects well on the company, in a world where we have to acknowledge that wealth is created in containers. That can sometimes lead to excess competition, secrecy, and dehumanisation. Old Mutual is both a 175-year-old institution and a large publicly listed company. It isn’t a human and doesn’t own the humans in it. I don’t want to deify or anthropomorphize it, but I do look forward to seeing the people in it again and working with them, and the various stakeholders affected by buildings with green roofs.

Touched with Green

Greener Pastures

I am on the job hunt after a gap from the corporate world. I stepped off the ladder in August 2014 with the intention of letting my engine be the breadwinner, while I focused on things that did not make money. My motivations for returning are complicated. I am also returning to South Africa. Again, a complicated decision. There are always trade-offs, and the grass is seldom greener on the other side. Or if it is, it is because of the fantastic manure you cannot see at a distance. I am not naïve about the challenges of a corporate environment. You can also sell the entrepreneurial world too hard. A lot of people who have rejected the world of money, and the world of work, to pursue their passion… struggle. We hear stories of the successes, but unfortunately not all good ideas are good business ideas. Often advice is what the giver would do in that situation, but forgets that it would not be the giver in the situation. What we know is the world is random, complicated, and ambiguous. The best you can do is put yourself in a position to be able to change your mind.

The Cotswold Way

Hopping the Pond

I am navigating all the hoops involved in country and continent hopping. I did it in the other direction in 2008, aged 28, when all I had to do was pack a bag and jump on a plane. That, and get permission. In a world with borders and restricted movement, I had to get a work visa based on qualifications, language, age, and proof that I could self-support. Like borrowing money, where you need to prove you don’t need to borrow it. In the other direction, I am a citizen. This time, the lottery of birth works in my favour. My British wife is going through the process of getting a visa. Thanks to Social Media, in many ways I never “left” South Africa. During Lockdown, does it matter if you are reading Sindile Vabaza’s musings on your computer in the Cotswolds or in Claremont? In other ways, I have been a Scatterling of Africa and am returning home. Everything is temporary. The body regenerates every 7-10 years. We choose what we want to keep, what we want to discard, and what we want to add. Reinventing. Reinvesting. This time, I am “not leaving” the UK. I am not leaving the old colleagues, clients, neighbours, artists, dancers, yogis, family and friends who are not defined by the random location they were dropped on this planet.

Putney, London, United Kingdom, 2008

Freedom of Movement

I moved to the UK from South Africa in 2008, via Bermuda. My high school Maths teacher used to tell me I always did things the long way (my answers went “via Cape Town”), so it was time to up my game. I spent six months in Bermuda because it was easier to organize a work visa, and the company I was with was based there. The goal was to move to Putney, which was where my brother would be with my new niece. Reverse-Colonisation, my sister-in-law called it.  On the day the little lady was born I was still in Bermuda, strapping a celebratory cake onto my scooter to take to my colleagues. I am a supporter of the Four Freedoms of Movement (Goods, Capital, Services, and Labour). Having grown up during Apartheid, I have never understood why the lottery of birth should play such a big role in determining the container in which people are able to build their financial security. Whether the container is nationality, race, gender, or any other form of discrimination.

Via Bermuda

Hiding in the Shire

One big shift for me to become a true Soutie is getting used to the seasons. I grew up in Durban where Winters are warm enough for beach weather, and Summers are boiling. The seasons here on Mud Island are distinct, and there are very much four of them. Gardens that disappear completely and burst into life. Particularly where Gem and I have set up home in the Shire. Straight out of the story books, there are hobbits everywhere gardening and farming. Endless Summers have their appeal, but I love the changing character of this corner of the globe that makes weather so topical. It has strengthened its hold on my heart during the Covid Lockdown, when we are all cut off from each other. By ocean, border, or car being immaterial. The lessons of Autumn and Winter seem apt. Unlearning and stillness. Creative destruction. Reskilling. Survival. Time to reflect on what truly matters and what is permanent. Moments when we can’t do anything, because there is nothing to be done. Moments to acknowledge those who have to do, because they have no other choice. Moments to be grateful for our ability to survive challenges and connect seasons. Till we can hold each other once again.

Gem Sketches the Shire

Unpacking Constructively

We haven’t got shared words. Words are imperfect, but useful if they connect us. If they move the conversation forward. Words are models of reality. I am a Soutie with one foot in South Africa, and one foot in the UK. After “persistent problems with salient collective terminology” (Peter Aspinall), the UK office for national statistics defines ethnicity as “something that is subjectively meaningful to the person concerned”. I reluctantly tick White African with half a nod to the colourblind dream of the Rainbow Nation, and half a nod to the reality of persistent bias in all the companies I worked in, and both countries I have lived in. The latest stab at a word for ethnicity that doesn’t sit well for me in the UK is “Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic”. BAME. “Black” people are not a minority in South Africa, and they are only a minority in wealthy countries because our Nations were consciously constructed by race. Creating minorities. Borders don’t interest me much. Religions, nations, companies, races, numbers, and words are imperfect models of a much more complicated reality. The key is unpacking constructively.

2011 UK Census Ethnic Group

Tiny Bubbles

I went to school in the same neighbourhood for 15 years. 3 years pre-school and 12 years “big school”. We didn’t all like each other. There was no escape hatch. Being “like” each other (and most of my schooling was during Apartheid) doesn’t mean you are like each other. At times we were buddies. At times we were cruel. The guys I was with the whole way saw me wet my pants as a 9-year-old. They saw my rabbit teeth. My four eyes. My tin grin. They saw me cry. They saw me try too hard. They saw me not try hard enough. When I was 16, I joined the Durban Youth Council with kids from various parts. Westville is a tiny slice of Durban. I started fresh. A new context. I could be seen. I was still at school in Westville, but I got new confidence. Sometimes, realising your bubble is just a tiny part of the world lets you release the rubbish. Realising the people you are most like are probably the people you clash with the most. “Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own.” (Bruce Lee).

Tiny Bubbles

Shared Words

“Do you believe in God?” This question had an easy answer in Westville where I grew up. We had a shared vocabulary. Yes, the people who went to the Catholic Church by the Robots (Traffic Lights) at the top of Westville Road thought a little differently. But God was still an old white dude with a beard. Then schools opened up to other races and suddenly Youth Group on Friday wasn’t necessarily all my buddies cup of chai. Vocabs expanded. I moved on from Christianity, but if I ask friends I grew up with “Do you still believe in God?”, I have to be prepared for a deeper conversation. The God they likely believe in now, is not *identical* to the one I grew up with. Or at least the one *in my head*. The word doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. The same is true in other hard conversations. We don’t have a shared meaning for the word “Racist” and “Privileged”. We do seem to have progressed to where Racist is an insult. Something no one wants to be. An accusation worthy of defence. Increased cultural understanding and cooperation is a fundamental part of wealth creation. Social Capital is the backbone of any ability to generate an income or capital. No one is self-made. Self-empowerment starts with shared words and hard conversations.

Words are Created

White Knight

It is a privilege to be treated as an individual rather than a category. To be seen. Part of that comes from not having to be standardised to fit into a system (a job, a role, an income). Capital doesn’t care about you. In a good way. Capital compounds just like Privilege. Money makes money. Social Connections make Social Connections. In my 11 years of earning a salary, most of my colleagues were white and English speaking. Most South Africans working outside South Africa are White and English Speaking. But that isn’t how I was seen. I was Trevor. An individual. Yet, behind the majority of my colleagues (and clients) were family and friends that helped. Get the CV to the top of the pile. Skip the pile altogether. Pay for the university. Be a role model. Be a mentor. Josh Waitzkin talks about “Numbers to leave Numbers. Form to leave Form”. He is talking chess and martial arts at an elite level, but what he means is Structure disappears when knowledge is embodied. Racism may no longer be explicit like when we were learning how the horse moves, but it doesn’t disappear just because we start liking each other.

"Numbers to leave Numbers. Form to leave Form."

Josh Waitzkin on embodied knowledge