Another Confession To Make

Happy Heritage Day (for yesterday).

I’ve got another confession to make.

It’s about yesterday, my favourite public holiday of all of South Africa’s holidays.

Here goes:

I did not have a good time. I did not enjoy myself. I did not relax into the spirit of the occasion.

I saw on social media that most of my friends were braaing, enjoying the sun and relaxing with families.

A few folks put up meaningful interpretations of their own customs and traditions.

I tried to partake. I braai’d delicious burgers. I drank some wine.

I paid homage to both my Danish and South African roots in the food that I prepared.

By mid-afternoon, I remarked to my partner, “I’m not having fun.”

She replied, “Me neither.”

We realised that we were both feeling equally anxious. We were both weighed down by thoughts of our overloaded task lists.

Let me explain. On the weekend, my partner and I decided to do something unique for Heritage Day. She is a therapist, starting out her practice. She is hustling to carve out a unique niche in a nascent category of healing called ecotheraphy.

Both of us work very hard, almost every day. I work on Heavy Chef. She works on her practice.

We chatted about the fact that we should take some time off. We decided on something we’ve termed a ‘DND’: a ‘do-nothing-day’.

The rules of a DND go something like this:

No digital media. No phone calls. No external stimuli. Everything on a DND needs to be analogue. We can cook, draw, paint, write and listen to vinyl records. The only concession is that we could stream a movie if we felt like it.

Sounds great, right?

It wasn’t.

Around two hours into our inaugural DND yesterday, I started to feel the silent pull of my iPhone. It was sitting in a basket on my kitchen table. I felt drawn to it like Frodo to the Ring of Power.

I cracked about three hours into the morning. First, I checked my email. I saw ten or so work memos. Client stuff. Community stuff. Opportunities and reminders. All seemingly critical.

Then, I checked my WhatsApp. Holy heck, it was glowing bright green with urgency. I started to reply to some messages, then berated myself. I put the phone down before I could properly break our DND contract.

Later in then day, I reflected, “What is it about entrepreneurs that we cannot relax without worrying about every pressing task on our list?”

Look. We’re on a spinning rock hurtling through an infinite expanse of nothingness. Most of us will be dead by the end of the century.  

In 1,000 years from now, very few people will remember our names.

Why is that email so important?

Why does that WhatsApp message burn a hole into my retina?

Why is that sales spreadsheet more important than spending some time in the newly sprung Cape Town sun?

Later, it occurred to me that this ‘doing nothing’ thing is a bigger problem for me than I anticipated.

Perhaps, I reflected, my driving/striving compulsion is related to my own Heritage?

My father, a Danish immigrant to South Africa in the 50s, was the MD of Novo Nordisk in Africa. You may recognise the name. Novo is the company behind Ozempic, set to be the top-selling drug in history.

(By the way, if you’re interested in the Novo story, listen to the Novo episode on the Acquired podcast. It’s a fascinating slice of big pharma history.)

My dad was also work-obsessed. I remember him always at his desk. When I was a young ‘un, I created a little Fred-sized desk in his office to be closer to him.

My partner will perhaps point to the relationship between my distorted father-son experience and my own entrepreneurial vocation.

Either way, I am now aware that turning off my calendar is something that I need to learn.

I have a profound anxiety around ‘switching off’.

One tool that I’m using to embrace this challenge is to deploy what Oliver Burkeman calls ‘the law of finitude’. In his book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Burkeman encourages us to recognise that the limitedness of life is what makes it valuable and precious.

This finitude can nudge us toward living more meaningfully in our limited time.

Warren Buffett, who knows a thing or two about the disproportionate return on focused time-investment, urges us to zero in on our priorities.

Buffett suggests we make two lists. The first is a list of 25 priorities. The second, a list where we circle the five highest priorities in the first list. “Everything you didn’t circle just became your Avoid-At-All-Cost list,” says Buffett.

“No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top 5.”

This is not about ‘work-life balance’. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, refers to this phrase as debilitating. He prefers the term ‘work-life circle’.

In other words, everything is connected. If I have a fight at home, I’ll arrive at work grumpy and abrasive. This will have a knock-on effect on my colleagues, affecting the quality of production - making me even more grumpy and abrasive. And so on.

At the heart of it, I believe that entrepreneurs will change the world for the better. Therefore, it’s important we look after ourselves.

It is for this that Heavy Chef exists. The reason why I started this platform is to inspire entrepreneurs to start new businesses and empower them to succeed.

An important part of being empowered is Bezos’s elusive harmonious work-life circle. For me, it also means modeling to my family more than just workaholic tendencies.

It is, of course, unlikely that I will achieve anything close to ‘perfection’ in my quest for harmony.

However, it won’t hurt to try.

I believe the reward is worth it.

It’s time for me to eat my own (Heritage-honouring) food.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Peace -