I got to spend an inspiring morning with my team who are working on a lovely project.

Our endeavour is to address HIV and Aids in our country.  In our current project, we have a training and counselling programme on HIV that will roll across South Africa in waves.  It starts with some Avo trainers who are training 30 master trainers from many AIDS organisations across the country.

Once we’ve taken them through the content, process and activities; they will, in turn, train 600 people in South Africa on how to deliver the content. These 600 will then train and counsel thousands, and eventually millions of South Africans!

The numbers are mind boggling, and it makes me think of the classic metaphor of the pebble dropping into a still pond, and then the rings growing wider and wider as the impact spreads.

So whilst on the one hand, Jacqui and team are having to get their minds around training content that involves a lot of condoms, vibrators and bananas, on the other, there is a roomful of incredible human beings who have chosen to use their life journey to bring messages to people that can so easily save lives!

This felt so connected to the philosophy and name of Avocado Vision: we plant trees in whose shade we may never sit, and whose fruit we may never eat!  I am so proud that we have had the opportunity to contribute in this way!  Well done to the Avo team in this journey!

Raelene and I share a hero role model.  We have both pored over her articles, hung on every word in her radio interviews, and fantisised about what we would actually say to her if we ever met her.  When I heard our team was booking her to speak at our annual SAB MDP dinner, I was over the moon.  And even though Grant was going overseas that day, and all my sons were sick as anything, I just had to go to the dinner to hear her speak in person. 

When I got to the dinner, I decided to pick a random table to sit at, and see who would join me.  And beyond my wildest dreams, no sooner had I sat in my chair than Mamphela Ramphele herself came and sat down next to me!  I had to pinch myself, although I did have enough presence of mind to sms Raelene with the inevitable ‘you will not believe who I am sitting next to….!!’ message.

It was so inspiring to watch a powerful leader woman in action, both on the stage, and as she interacted with us all at the table. She has the courage to continually challenge people to step up.  She has strong clarity of thought and intent, and is just not afraid to engage with people around her, demanding they share their light with the world.

Of course, with the Universe conspiring so to put us together, there is no way I could not take her through a brief synopsis of our Footprint dream and what we want to create in this country.  I asked for her help.  She said she would not help me, but rather, this would be something we could work on together!

Thanks, Mamphela, for challenging me on my own insignificance.  I do hope we will be able to find the opportunity together to create a strong vehicle for growth, empowerment and education in South Africa! I,  too, am challenged to step up!

In light of the previous article, I thought I’d post some ‘hot off the press’ client feedback on a new Team Leader programme that we ran for SAB last week. We were teaching SAB team leaders to practice what we preach. Just take a look at what they said…

• The course was brilliant and informative
• The world revolves around me! The right mind set, emotional intelligence will spin positive energy to those around and back! thanks
• Awesome, marvelous
• The material was very informative and very useful in my daily engagement with people
• It has been an eye opening course which allowed me to reflect on aspects of my personality
• World class leadership course
• The course made me do some introspection, I have now realized that everything starts with me.
• An eye opener into my personality and my team’s personalities. Useful course in managing people and dealing with people in general
• The trainer was able to effectively engage each and every one of us without making us feel inferior to the other. Every opinion mattered and was used effectively
  Captivating, awesome and engaging
• Great to learn with my peers!!

Well done Grant . Helping managers become better managers of people is the way to helping South African companies to build the resilience to survive tough times!!

We were really sad to hear the news of the passing of Kate Jordan’s baby Zach on Wednesday morning.  Baby Zack was born really premature in November, and he and his family have been fighting for life for the past six months. 

Kate, there are no words at a time like this. Losing a child has to be the hardest thing any human being ever has to face. Please know that we are all praying for peace and healing for you and your family.  We wish you well as you all work to heal the hole in your hearts, and the family that Zach has left.  Kate, Glen, Tim and Dan: our love and thoughts are with you all.

I remember this day, 13 years ago.  I was sitting in front of my new computer.  I had no idea what to do - it needed software installed, and the computer guys at work at the corporate job I had just left had always done that stuff for me.  I felt completely helpless.

Its the reality of starting your own business: you get into a world where you’re good enough at some stuff that people are prepared to pay you to do it, but it comes with a whole pile of other stuff you haven’t a clue how to do, but you simply have to figure it out!  I must be a really slow learner, because here I am, 13 years later, still finding stuff I don’t know and trying to figure it out!

I wish I could say that some of those 13 years were easy.  But I can’t. Every one of those years has presented a pile of new challenges to surmount and a hectic learning curve of it’s own.  I can’t remember many months in those 13 years that haven’t presented me with at least a couple of sleepless nights.

But last night I turned my mind to wondering about my children, about when we actually stop worrying about them.  My little boys are 5 and 8 - I can’t go a day without fretting about whether they got picked up from school on time, did they evade the school bully?  ANd I’m terrified my teenager will have his heart broken.  Or crash my car.

And then I realised what the last 13 years of fretting have been.  Avo is another child of mine: 13 years on and it is still such a precious thing for me.  It has helped me build life connections with amazing people, and has generated income that hs helped me achieve my life pupose of empowering people all along that journey.

So I am resigned to never being able to completely turn off the worry about this Avo child of mine.  I’ll take on the frettings as I take on the joy, as I do with all my children.  This one has just become a teenager after all.

Oh, and that computer software….?  I called up my old mates at the corporate IT help desk where I used to work, and asked them to talk me through it.  Haven’t really looked back since then…

Precious Grant outdid himself in resilience today - he suddenly got a whole lot better last night, and by this morning was well enough to come home!  We’re all so happy to have him back!  Thanks, everyone for prayers and love!

Just letting you all know Grant has just been moved out of ICU.  Still feeling grim, but definitely on the mend.  Having a lot of sleeping recovery time.  Still feeling visitor-shy, but appreciating all your love and support coming through on sms.

I am so pleased to be able to say my precious husband made it through his op last night!  The anaesthetist came out of the op with wide eyes - seems like his pheochromocytoma behaved in typical text-book fashion and gave his doctors a run for their money - he had some very scary blood pressure spikes during the op.  But we did have the best doctor specialists in the country on his case, so he was carried through in skilled hands!

So he felt pretty grim afterwards, and is in the ICU while they try to help his body adjust it’s blood pressure to levels that normal people are used to, without the pheo pumping hectic stuff into the blood.  He’ll probably be there for a few days yet while he recovers. 

Both of us have been completely stunned by the amount of care and love standing around us through this time.  I can’t tell you how much it has meant to us to have all your messages of love and hope coming through on voicemail and sms.  Grant says he thinks this is one of the lessons he is to learn through this journey - to accept the love people offer to him so freely! 

He has asked that he not have any visitors for now - his mom and me are doing the family vigil thing, but I know he would really enjoy some wheat-free, sugar free snacks to enjoy when he gets back home and starts raiding the pantry when he gets bored!!

Thanks to friends and angels who have carried us on their hands and prayers!

It feels like Vanessa has been pregnant for YEARS already!  But at last, I am just so happy to announce, little Sarah Louise Lowndes was born early yesterday morning!  So all the Avos are walking around with puffed up chests as proud uncles and Aunties, and Gareth and Vanessa are just in awe of their new little one!  And Granny and Grandad in Constantia, and Aunty Claire and Uncle Adam - well, I can’t even imagine how thrilled they are all feeling today!  Wish I was there!

Blessings to you, little Lowndes family in Hout Bay!  All the Avo love comes to you through cyberspace.

Avos, Avo clients and friends alike have been following the Grant health saga for a while.  He’s being having weird ‘wobbles’, going pale and struggling with heart pain and hectic headaches for the past few years.  He’s been to all sorts of health practitioners over time and had opinions that range from ‘low blood sugar’ to ‘arrhythmia - needing pacemaker’.

But thanks to a very gifted and intuitive cardiologist, we have finally found the condition: Pheochromocytoma.  That’s a very big word describing a rare tumour that has been growing in his adrenal gland for years.  It causes the gland to pump a potent cocktail of peformance-enhancing chemicals into his bloodstream, completely explaining his lean and gorgeous bod, and his ants-in-pants behaviour!  Sadly, it also spikes his blood pressure to life-threatening levels, and sends his heart into weird contortions, making his life quite miserable at times….!

So we are now on the ‘fixit’ trail.  The tumour has to come out ASAP. Surgery is risky, but necessary.  He’s on drugs now to try manage the blood pressure to the point where it is safe to operate, which should be in early April.  As one of our key resources, it will be tough to run Avo in the short term, but we’ll do our best to manage around that until he is strong enough to get back into the training room.

Thanks to all of you who have supported Grant, me, and our family through this tough time.  Your love, prayers and support remind me of how very special it is to be part of the Avo family!