SA’s best & brightest : reversing brain.drain?
Newly returned from some wild.ass pilgrimage – traversing between sleek conference rooms with ergonomic chairs and mountains in the winelands – I introduced my new series I’ll be doing in the regular Monday slot at SA Rocks. Celebrating some of the wonderful inspiring people who make the land at the bottom of Africa their home. Those who make it worth staying in South Africa. Worth pouring our talents into, to generate sustainable growth and maybe inspiring a daring pitch for the impossible.. peace?
Sharing their vision is exhilarating – and refreshing – especially after the numbing effect of news. The news presented by mainstream media, (TV & papers particularly) is largely reactive, and leaves us feeling impotent to change the outcome of almost everything we’re offered.*
No wonder so many of us are disproportionately stressed. We’re operating on hair.trigger fight or flight. Pumping our adrenals, pushing blood.pressure and flooding our blood with redundant cortisol. Not a foolproof recipe for creative healthy problem.solving. And yet the world is demanding that we operate at higher speeds, learn faster to keep up with technology, innovate, take on multiple projects just to get into the game.. aah yes and then we have to bloody well be remarkable too!!
It’s frankly exhausting.
So who the hell are the brilliant ones who get it right? The ones who determinedly live out their dreams & follow their hearts & minds into places most of us won’t dare. Curiosity drove the hunt, love drives the connection: gratitude that these power people exist. Each is a thought leader, as well as expressing their being in their doing.
My choices may surprise you.. but you’ll surely know why soon enough ;-)
* [hunt down a copy of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death if you haven't yet - it made a ding in my perception of the media/publishing/ entertainment industry years ago - it's still right on the mark]
“argely reactive, and leaves us feeling impotent to change”
That’s it! I’ve always hated the sensationalist ‘this one got that bit cut off’ so-called ‘news’ that the mainstream media seem to focus. Never been able to quite get what about it irks me so, ’till now – thank you. Looking fwd to your whole series.
[...] us the stuff that sticks out, the sore thumbs of life. I love the observation Max Kaizen makes in reversing the brain.drain… “… especially after the numbing effect of news. The news presented by mainstream [...]
The old publishing law: “Bad news sells” has been taken to new levels in the last decade or so: more local papers, tv- and radio stations when the previously ‘exclusive’ technology became available to every H, D & T(v).
Internet added a new dimension to ‘news-making’: by lack of enough items, news is regurgitated or just created out of events that were no news previously – only to feed the constant hunger for “news” – resulting in overkill and those nagging feelings of impotence (indeed) and global pessimism – but we watch and read it anyway – probably because we want some affirmation that our own lives are not that bad, after all: compared to famine, war and nature’s harm. Or just because we love the misery of others. But then, that realisation doesn’t make us much happier, after all…
So, ditch your TV (and internet, for that matter) – if only for the weekend: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/06/0601_europe_entp/index_01.htm
Then, when the productivity and creativity start flowing – this is what you are up against to: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/06/0601_europe_entp/index_01.htm
But don’t see it as competition – use it for inspiration.
*Oops……….
Please replace the first link in my post with this one:
http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/the-amazing-effects-of-a-weekend-without-televsion/
Sorry & thanks
S
[...] IM’ing Max Kaizen, SA Rocks contiributor, about how awesome TED Global 2007 was and how I’d like to get the [...]
costumes…
an interesting take on a fun topic….
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