Looking beyond the interface

Like most people (I am assuming) my camera setting tends to stay on Portrait or Macro, and I very rarely have it on the ever elusive Landscape, unless I am in the mountains and realise it may help - although to be honest, most of the time I am not really sure of how or why it helps. Recently I have come to conclusion that my camera settings could say more about me than initially suspected.

They tell me that I spend a lot of time focusing on small things in great detail (Macro focus is my best friend) and rarely look out to the bigger aspects of life. BUT while my camera settings may be difficult for me to change, every once in a while I like to sit in a crowded room and "un-focus" my hearing, allowing all of the sound to wash over me without allowing my mind to focus on any of it singularly, but all of it at once instead. The world is alive with sound...

The genius of our design allows us to selectively focus only on that which we feel must occupy our attention. We are built to be able to thrive in Macro Focus. But are we supposed to live there? Along with "un-focusing" my hearing, I also enjoy testing myself to see whether I am observant enough to be able to recall objects in a room once I have left it, or if I would be able to describe someone to a sketch artist. Sadly, this is a test I am yet to pass. It does however, serve to highlight the fact that while I live in Macro Focus, I only focus on things that are of immediate interest or perceived matters of importance to me.This is the basic premise that most illusions are built upon - people focus on small matters of immediate interest to them, and seldom are aware that there is a larger game afoot.

Our Macro Focus default may be affecting our lives in more ways than simply our ability to be duped by illusionists.

It is so easy to know all of the in's and out's of our own industry, or interest group. We feel that connecting via social networking etc. is a way of expanding horizons, and learning about things that we would not have otherwise known about, but truthfully - we all use the search bar to look for things that are relevant to us, or that match with our desires, interests and beliefs. I don't know of many (if any) people who actively search for information on things that don't currently interest them. And I know only one person who actively researches opinions and beliefs contrary to his own so that he can better understand people and form his own thinking from a more balanced perspective.


The only way we tend find out about things that we are not directly involved in, or do not directly impact or influence us, is through face-to-face interactions with those very inconvenient things called people. People, unlike screens, cannot be minimized, and if you spend enough time around them, they will introduce you to their interests. Whether or not those match up are your interests is irrelevant.

Perhaps it is time to turn off the Macro Focus, and look up from the screens. Three inches above the safety of the retina display are actual retinas. Flawed though they may be. We are all around each other. All in our own little bubbles. living life on Macro Focus, when there are vistas to be taken in and mountains to be scaled. If we can tear ourselves away from our screens from long enough we may just realise that the world is out there, and it is waiting to meet us.

Just Go With It - and other life lessons from Mozambique

A little over a week ago I had the opportunity to travel to Mozambique with a small team, to teach on Leadership and Entrepreneurship.

I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it, and felt like I had won some kind of lottery in being given the opportunity to share my thoughts with people, who were in effect a captive audience.

I was thoroughly amused (maybe bemused would be a better word) by the fact that when I told people what I was speaking on, almost every person was shocked, when they are actually the two topics that are closest to my heart.

I suppose that you could count that as lesson number 1: there will be people who will say things that will make you doubt yourself and your abilities. Remember that you don't have to be the BEST, you just have to be able to engage people. Be brave. Step off the ledge, and hope to fly. If you crash and burn at least you can say that you tried.

And try we did! We seemed to succeed as well, which was an added bonus. We didn't simply teach though, we also learned quite a lot while there (and not just how to order coffee in Portuguese - which was obviously the 1st thing to master).

These lessons include, but are not limited to, the following:

• When you are expecting 30 people and 300 show up, and you don't have a microphone...just go with it.

• When you are sweating like a little piglet that is standing in a sausage factory, due to the the stifling heat while presenting, pull your hair up in to a bun and...just go with it. There is no such thing as photo ready, when you are being candid about leadership failure.
• Sweating can be a good thing, because it minimizes your need to use the available toilet facilities in your accommodation. Never take anything for granted.
• When using said toilet, standing on the rim is the safest - do NOT just go with it. If you don't stay healthy, you can't enjoy the adventure.
• When you get tired of explaining, tell the interpreter your general thought, and let him just go with it. Sometimes others can explain things better than you. Don't try to go it alone.
• Warm water is a luxury, and after getting all soaped up in cold water, you can find out that  you were lucky to have water at all. Conserve it.
• A towel will remove soap foam. Use what is available.
• Double ply loo paper is absolute decadence. Love it.
• Curling irons will burn the skin right off your forehead if you are sweating while attempting to curl and accidentally make contact. Avoid the unnecessary pain.
• If someone will only take you to eat street food at night, don't look at the floor...always keep your head up.
• Chicken on a stick may be the tastiest thing you will ever eat. Enjoy it.

• Spider webs really can take over an entire tree and house 100 GIANT spiders. Run away from the danger.
• It is possible to feel more at home in a country where no one speaks your language than you do in your own back yard.
• You can live 100 lifetimes and never really be worthy of knowing the people that you get to meet. Value relationships.
• No matter where you travel, business people will always know each other. Network.
• Business people will always have a spot where they seem to all hang out for coffee or drinks. Find it.
• People want to get to know you more than you think they will. Speak to them.
• Get to know the people staying in your accommodation with you. They can be a source of many valuable things like electrical converters (thanks Jamie)
• Sometimes an architect-bakery owner-waiter can make your morning. Especially when they order for you. Befriend locals
• There are business managers who really will change the face of their nation (Cesar, Cynthia)
• People are more willing to learn than you think. Share your knowledge.
• If your waitress doesn't speak your language, prepare to get what you did not order. Smile, and Just. Go. With. It.
• At the end of the day people will always be more important than the place.

A moment...

History serves us moments. Moments in which we are given the opportunity to choose between greatness and mediocrity.

Time and time again we seem to choose mediocrity, because we are holding fast to the belief that greatness is beyond us. We do not perceive that the very act of reaching for what we are not convinced is attainable, is the very stuff that greatness is made of. Even if we never reach the goal, we have shown that greatness resides within us; not beyond us.

As long as we live reaching forward, we will live out our greatness.

The Cry

Thruth's echo resounds with adventure that lives unbridled within my heart. It reaches to the depths that I have not yet plumbed and awakens the cry within.

The cry is mine, but it does not belong to me, for it is everything I am, and yet more than I can hope to become. It is the call of Eternal flawless design, bursting forth from every fiber and sinew within. It is the cry of freedom in a chained down world. It is the birth of flight. It is the capture of the shadow of the moon. It is the song of light in the breeze. It is the secret, hidden in every eye. It is Truth.

Some days the cry resonates from the ancient place, hidden deep within me. Some days I find that I am the one enveloped within the chorussed folds of the Cry. I breathe the cry in... it obliterates me. I am at last face-to-face with who I am, who I was; who I am created to be. I breathe in the death of "me", and breathe myself back to life.

The cry is more than I can hope to contain within me, but I am designed to carry this cry. This cry is a question that I cannot answer, for it is a solution I cannot fathom. I do not know if I can live up to the Truth inside of me. Can I get myself far enough out of the way, so that people will be able to see me? Can I love boldly enough? Can I love passionately enough? Can I speak the words that creation is crying out to be said? Can I live fully alive, and in so doing allow others the freedom to hear their own heart's cry?

Sometimes my fear of others prevents me from living the truth that will set them free.

If I fail to live in the breath of each moment, I become the warden, when I am supposed to be the warrior.

I heard my cry at midnight in the wild lands, where danger and adventure walk together hand-in-hand, upon the echo of the wind. I heard the cry You gave me; Your Voice like driving rain. A call to the Sacred space where I hear You speaking my name.

Make your life a story worth telling...

Walking Away

We've all been there, that moment when we either need to commit to something for the long haul - even though we suspect that it may kill everything inside of us, and the thought of things not working out are more than we can bear - or we need to walk away. The question is how do we know which one to do?

Sometimes it seems that the whole of life can be summed up by the decisions to either stay or walk away, in some form or another. I'm going to focus on the decision to walk away for now.


Life seems to be made up of a lot of walking away. We walk away from school, jobs, friends, first loves, many mistakes, and sometimes even our own happiness. Why we make the decisions we do are as varied as the circumstances that those decisions are made in. But make the decisions we do - for better or worse.

As this year has begun, I have found myself wondering whether to stay or walk away in a number of areas in my life. In terms of work, I have two jobs and am studying toward my Masters degree, and I cannot help but feel like I should be walking away from something (please not the Masters, please...) because there is only so much I can reasonably hold on to.

Relationships - those too. Do I stay and hope for change, or walk away and force change, even if that change hurts me?

What it comes down to, is that walking away (from whatever it is) induces change. I am a fan of change. I get easily bored, and even more easily distracted, so change is a constant in my mind, even if it does not always find expression in my life. If I am thinking the same way about a problem, or situation (or anything really) today as I was three years ago, I have stagnated. Change is a good thing. Change can bring freedom.

The problem is when we allow circumstances, thoughts, lies, fears and insecurities to keep us somewhere - be it in our minds, emotions, or geographically - instead of walking away from them and allowing freedom into our lives.

But we can overcome these things. I admittedly own more books than anyone possibly should. I love books. I love everything about them. My favorite books are autobiographies and biographies, particularly those of explorers and adventurers. The thing that strikes me every time I read one, is that the things that should have held them back, are the things that many of these great men and women credit with driving them forward. They purposed in their hearts not to let their circumstances, or people's ideas, hold them back and that changed the balance. What had previously limited them, ended up being the very thing that drove them onward. Funny how that happens... An impoverished child who dreams of breaking free from poverty and being a great adventurer, gets sponsors who are willing to fund his expeditions precisely because he was impoverished. But he first had to decide that his circumstances didn't define him. He first had to walk away from the lie of "I can't" and then, the circumstances that trap so many others, became his springboard for international success.

We all have dreams, but dreams only warm our hearts for a short while, and if we don't act on them they become cold and die within us, never having life breathed in to them. And in that space in our hearts where we hold our dreams, tiny scars begin to appear where dreams once were. Sometimes God will work a miracle, and where the scar resides a small ember starts to glow again and with it the hope of a dream alive. But how much better would it be if the dream had never been allowed to die in the first place? How much further would it be to fruition if I had not allowed fear and insecurity to hold me back? Sometimes God will ask that we allow a dream to die, it is true. But I think we often give Him too much credit in that department, because the reality is that He has asked us to believe for it, but we trusted our own fear instead.

If we are going to live our dreams, we need to embrace change. We need to walk away from the status quo. We need to walk away from our fears. We need to walk away from relationships that are damaging to us - even if it hurts. Walking away from what we know can be one of the hardest things we ever do. But you and me, and the dreams that live in our hearts, are too valuable to the world to let them die within us. Walk away and, like the explorers, let your fears and circumstances become the very things that propel you forward to greatness. You were born with greatness inside of you. Let it be seen.

Walk away from your supposed limitations, and walk toward your dreams. If you are only ever walking away without anything to walk toward - it can look suspiciously like running... Walk away by all means, but walk with a purpose.

Change - not the kind in your pocket...well maybe that too

For most of us in the Southern Hemisphere we are coming to the end (or in my case crossed the finish line and avoiding work by blogging) of our long summer holiday season. How fortunate for us that we have the joy of Christmas and New Year's celebrations on beaches and soaking up the sun in swimming pools instead of trapped indoors by fluffy ice. We like the idea of a "white Christmas" but relish the reality of a beach braai (barbeque) instead.

While mentally preparing to get back to work, after such a long reprieve from the demands of the regular working life that can seem to drone endlessly on, one can begin to suspect that all of the little things that changed in you over the past season will also have changed in others. You have let go of all of the petty irritations of the previous year, and feel like you are a better person, and you assume that when you waltz in to the office everyone will be changed people too. But as you make your grand entrance, only to be met by the sound of keyboards instead of the rapturous applause that you were expecting (because everyone should be grateful to have you back - right?) you realise that these are the same people you left in the office before your holiday began, and you start to wonder if they can see the change in you? Because you certainly cannot perceive a change in them.

We always think of change as a big thing, but in reality it is usually a small thing that is barely perceptible. It is only when all of the small changes start to join forces that people notice a change in another person. In some ways, personal change really is a lot like the change in your wallet (or pocket). It always starts with that one 5 cent coin that you can't find a charity box to get rid of it in. Your jeans can go through the wash 10 times and that sucker will still be in there. Soon however, more coins get added until you realise that your pocket is bulging and your one pants leg has been pulled a bit lower. Now everybody knows that there is change with you - as though the sound of the coins jingling in you pocket as you walk wasn't enough of a give away. For us women who tend to collect coins in the bottom of our handbags, that most essential of accessories, eventually gets much heavier than it was when we bought it! After much rummaging through the year's after dinner mints that you have stashed away for emergencies (what these emergency situations are has never been defined, but you know that you need to have them all) you discover to your joy a stockpile of coins, and you realise that you can now pay for your parking and escape from the mall. Small change, leading to the great escape?

So here's to celebrating the little changes that no one will ever notice - the fact that you take half a spoon of sugar now instead of a whole one; that you have decided to always give old people the right of way and not get angry when you are driving behind them; that you have woken up with a smile on your face for the past week and walk your dog every evening instead of every morning...I celebrate with you when you look in the mirror and decide not to hate what you see, even if you can't bring yourself to love it yet; I celebrate with you where you have made the decision to look inside yourself to discover who you really are, because that decision took courage.

Change is here, it's happening all around us all the time, you are literally changing the atmosphere just by breathing. Never think that your life is not enough to effect change in this world. We are made to change things. We are agents of change. As the parking pay point at a mall close to where I live states "Change is Possible".