Welcome to my blog
| About me - Si Ekin |
| Cape Town |
I hope you enjoy some of my thoughts around goal setting, courage and story-telling.
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Day 89. 28th July.
I went off to get some milk, cash and cough sweets, heading in the direction of Observatory and came back 90 minutes later.
And what a time I had!
Obs was absolutely kicking and vibey and I wondered what I had not been here before.
Did all my talks at the legendary Obz Café where I:
• Met two people I knew. • Encountered two who had attended my talks before (in a bar and at Pecha Kucha.) • Was asked to speak to the owner who wanted to know what I was doing. (Can’t reme... Continue reading ...
Day 80. 19th July. “I will do it today!”
I just headed out and there just seemed to be so many groups to choose from, partly because it was lunch time and partly because it was a beautiful day.
I got chatting with three women. I sat down opposite them on a walkway. They were so great and relaxed. It turned out that one of them needed to have a conversation and resolved to speak to them today. She said they have been talking about them as I had pulled up. I sensed that she really got it and... Continue reading ...
Day 78. 17th July. Great idea for Mandela’s birthday.
I had an interesting thought today, in the shower: “wow, there are some people today, who are going to be sat around and will be approached by me, and who knows what will happen after that. It is quite a thought. I think we change peoples’ lives all the time in ways we can never imagine.)
I headed out for my stock venue of Cavendish Mall and approached three folk at the Seattle Coffee shop in Exclusive Books. They could not have been a... Continue reading ...
Day 75. 14th July. The power of integrity. (Is there anything else worth talking about?)
I walked past St Elmo’s Pizza shop in Rondebosch on my search for my talk and did a quick about turn, as I realised that it was perfectly set up; about 8 staff waiting for customers. I did not hesitate for a moment.
They were utterly delightful. Amidst the wood smoke of the recently lit fire, they just let me do my talk. At the end, I asked them if they wanted a black card or a white card and recited my ... Continue reading ...
Day 61. 30th June. Guided by the milk.
I was guided by the milk. Well, we needed milk, so I headed out and let my journey guide me. I ended up at my old friend the Vineyard. I sat in the car, just thinking, breathing, feeling for what was right.
Finally, I found three Likely Heroes in the smoking section of the hotel. They were waiting to meet their “guitar hero”, Antonio Forcione. We had such a great chat.
Again, there are no strangers, only people I have not yet met.
Continue reading ...
90 Talks in 90 Days. Day 26.
After much Tab-bing (new word, mean Talk Avoidance Behaviour) and Bab-ing (Blog Avoidance Behaviour) I had a cracking night of doing five talks! Still only count as one night though!
So, in relative haste and with great excitement - and yearning for bed - here is what happened:
I pulled up to get fuel at about 20h00 and met the attendant, whose name was Sophie. We had a nice exchange. I did not have any change for her, but I gave her a mini talk about the power of co... Continue reading ...
Get On The Bus - 90 Talks In 90 Days. Day 25. A film crew day today. On home turf again and the first time with film guys from The Fort. The Cavendish staff asked us to make sure we got permission to film. Of course, not! One of my core principles is that it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Asking permission would just ruin it for red tape. This is life in action guys, trust me, you are going to want it going on on your turf!We did three takes. Two were well, not great at all.... Continue reading ...
Get On The Bus! 90 talks in 90 days. Day 24. It is 23h05 and just got back from my latest one yet, this time, again, at the Vineyard Hotel. I had a meeting that ran late and needed to go back to the office to pick up my laptop. I considered my "safe bets" of the local garage, Cavendish Centre (mostly closing up) and The Vineyard, which I settled on, mainly because I think that the people will most probably be influential and will be more of a position to hear my message and possibly act on it.... Continue reading ...
Get On The Bus! 90 Talks In 90 Days. Day 23. I am typing this blog listening to Bob Marley's "One Love" which feels good.
I cruised around Cavendish Square again, with about 40 minutes before my next meeting. Looking here, looking there, none of them seemed quite right. Finally, and starting to feel like a strange wandering man again, I settled on a Virgin Mobile store, tucked away in the corner, almost underneath the escalator. I could not believe my luck - there were about 9 people and all ... Continue reading ...
Get On The Bus! 90 Talks In 90 Days. Day 22.
I decided to spice it up a bit and start talking to people about the "predictable future" of our lives; how most of us live a dress rehearsal for the real life - not this pretend life - that starts tomorrow, or next week, or when the dream job or perfect partner comes along. That which we use to con ourselves out of it is only ever about now.
Engen Garage, Claremont it was, near to the cricket stadium. I had visualised a particular spot - against t... Continue reading ...
Get On The Bus! 90 Talks In 90 days. Day 21.Bit of a team effort going down today. I dashed out to do the weekly shopping and popped in to see my pal Mirinda at The Fresh Stop. She suggested I do the talk upstairs to her three managers who might benefit from the talk, but I have met one of them so I didn't feel like it was a pukka talk. I spotted a group of five women - two probable mums and three probable daughters and their friends - across the street and headed on over. Not before Mirinda ... Continue reading ...
Get On The Bus! 90 talks in 90 days. Day 19.
So there I am, 15 minutes before a meeting in town. I know that I can do the talk in two minutes, so I go on the hunt. Two people there, one person there...and I come round the corner and see a large group of about 20 people. As I approach, they have a foreign feel about them and so I launch right in with a guess, judging by the attire, beetle-stained teeth and Punjabi trousers. Yes indeed, they are from India.It seems natural to talk cricket, espec... Continue reading ...
Get On The Bus. 90 talks in 90 days. Day 18. It was voting today so I knew people would be around. I hopped in my car and did a cruise, heading off towards Starlings Cafe, one of my most favourite spots. I had about 15 minutes - about as much time as it would take my wife to feed our youngest daughter. I had not expected it to be open and was really surprised and delighted that it was, especially as I went round the back and through the curtain that covered the back gate, heard much merriment ... Continue reading ...
A belter of day. Some amazing things happened. Started off with going for a coffee and coming across a young guy called George who was down from Jo'burg with some work colleagues, who was dressed in an impeccable suit, carrying a wheelie suit-case, as was I. I told him that the only difference between us was that, despite us both being men, and carrying cases, he was much better dressed than I. He seemed to enjoy that. I could have counted that as my talk, but my heart was not beating quickly ... Continue reading ...
Today was a rocker! A filming day, so I linked up with Marnus from The Fort with his camera and we walked down to Parliament. A pretty wet and cold day so no one out on the streets having their coffees. Went into a restaurant to ask the owner if he would mind us filming. He did. Okay, great. Next!Walked past the IDASA (Institute for Democratic South Africa) and a large group caught my eye. Perfect, I exclaimed to a surprised Marnus. A group of about 12 youngsters (early 20's) were having coff... Continue reading ...
Met up with my old pal, Roger Norton, a young
man wise beyond his years. I got that the purpose of this project is to gather evidence of courageous actions from people. Thanks
Roger. Again, I got in touch with how passionate I am about helping people
breakthrough their fears.
First day of filming. There are going to be one
per week. The crew from The Fort – Amr, Shukri, Michael and Marnus were close
at hand. It felt good, like we were a team, not me on my own.
We chose Dunkley Square in G... Continue reading ...
After the world cup, I thought, “Wow, if we can do this, we can do anything!” And, whilst I firmly believe that, I think that Big Brother FIFA was actually the reason. Bottom line was that if we did not deliver, there were going to be serious consequences, like, Australia hosting it! So, we delivered it and the rest is history. War largely stopped on the planet as a result. If one life was spared then it was worth it. So, what was it? Attention and accountability - what you put your atten... Continue reading ...
Posted by Si Ekin on Friday, June 4, 2010,
In :
Reality
I spent some great time with my good friend and wise man, Mike this week. We meet every now and then and share stories and exchange ideas and insights. I told him about the GOAL GYM and how excited I am about it and that is it essentially not a lot more than, "what you put “what you put your attention on grows”. He like that, which was good to know! I got that we are either focusing on what works or what doesn't and we can choose at any time to shift our focus. And has we keep our focus,... Continue reading ...
Posted by Si Ekin on Thursday, May 27, 2010,
In :
Stepping out
Today I created as being an "all tick day." A day when I planned it and delivered on what I said. I was mindful in setting up realistic targets but also ones that I knew would be a stretch. So, I get to 21:15 at night and there are still four things I have done that I most certainly don't feel like doing. They will take me about 25 minutes. My mind starts with it's usual monologue and thinks it is a great idea to go to bed now, get up early and complete the outstanding days commitments tomorro... Continue reading ...
Posted by Si Ekin on Monday, May 24, 2010,
In :
Stepping out
Time to take my own medicine, a bit of GRASS in this case and just commit. ("Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, a chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness...W.B. Murray) I suffer with my blog, yet I love it. I love it because I have so much great stuff to share and suffer with it because I get caught in the pefection trap (how can you call something perfect that you have not acted on/ have not got?!) and fart about wondering what to put down. So, I am going back to the old AA quote... Continue reading ...
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Current Projects: 1st May - 30 July - 90 Talks In 90 Days Between 1st May and 30th July I embarked on a project: 90 talks in 90 days. I systematically confronted and shattered my deepest fears of rejection, failure and judgement in the hope of inspiring others to do the same. I blogged about it every day and had a crew film it once per week. It was a remarkable, delightful, challenging and absurd journey.
Why 90 Talks In 90 Days? Some years ago I got on a bus in Brixton, London and my life changed forever. I confronted my deepest fear: conquering my fear of rejection by making a speech to passengers on a packed number 59. I was stunned by the power I had within me and my ability to transform a group of complete, disparate strangers. Before, the crowd was positively funereal, after they were more like a rowdy wedding reception. On my way out, I was confronted by an extremely fearful individual and had an experience that makes me smile to this day. I learned that if you confront your fears (illusions) with courage, anything is possible. My life became about helping people to be courageous in pursuit of what is important to them. Here I am, above, doing the talk one morning on a bus at the airport here in Cape Town. Stand by - it might make your toes curl! For videos from the 90 days, look below. |
