When the final Whistle blows pdf

This article was born from discussing many aspects of life with great people on investment and particularly the life of sports women and men.. with diverse people, test the water, burn s

When the final Whistle blows:

Coping when the limelight fades

By VDS Brink Illustrated by Thilo Otterpohl

We live in turbulent times with a world slowly emerging from the worst economic decline in 80 years It will take years to recover the damage It is also a time when a new generation is emerging with a new outlook on life

The shadows of 1994 and the impact of the internet changed all and that current ways of doing things simply will not work in the future

This article discusses it and provides guidelines for coping and using it to create wealth in an uncertain and difficult future

As our personalities differ, our appetite for risk

accordingly, it is critical to be surrounded by people different from you to maintain perspective

This article was born from discussing many aspects of life with great people on investment and particularly the life

of sports women and men

To soar in life is to know that lots of data and information mean very little Greatness and victory is if we can move to knowledge, then insight and ultimately the wisdom To do it is to drown the mind with facts, discuss it

with diverse people, test the water, burn some scars, emerge with humility and only then follow your head.

On every aspect of life, this takes time, lots of it

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TO BE SURROUNDED BY THE BEST

Francois du Plessis and Tom de Lange of Vega Capital, Laurette Pretorius of Sasfin and Hugo Snyman, Christo Luus, Deon Olckers, Louwrence Erasmus, Thilo Otterpohl, Ian Lane, Dewald Scholtz of Third Circle Asset Management

play a major role in my understanding of wealth creation

In their shadows I moved from a salary earning ignorant nobody to a share trader, understanding my limitations, made small fortunes and lost some of it and came out wiser, humbler and understanding my role so much better It taught

me that there are wiser people than me; yet never lose strategic control, to manage my fear and greed and see it all in

a wider context

The world of sport for me was remote and distant Sport insults and humiliates 85 % of the population Sport is not exercise, it is hype and glitz Whether anybody buys a seat at Loftus, it makes no difference, it is less than 5% of their income, the rest is pure media hype

With this cynical view, my roads crossed with wise people on that side of the fence, and a new world opened up

Christo Spies (former Springbok athlete, batsman for

Kovsies plus many others and today the mental coach for both

the Cheetahs and the Eagles), a friend and a daily pillar of strength for the past 5 years.

Elizabeth Reynders (double Olympic swimmer), a friend

for many years and collaborator on the great post 2010 scenario project when she passionately shared her views on the Sydney and Atlanta before and after the Games

Steve Rautenbach (former Olympic coach at Barcelona)

who was a co-soldier in the trenches at the SAPS reserve force and told priceless stories while doing midnight hours on the beat

Greyling Viljoen (clinical psychologist and canoe

champion of global rivers, Springbok for almost a decade and sport administrator), a comrade in arms for many years at Unisa’s MBA as co-lecturer on creativity gave me insight into the world of high performance, and the limelight that shines and fades

Wonderfull discussions recently at SA Rugby at

Newlands with Steven Roos (ex school mate, operations

manager and veteran of 36 years at that holy ground) and

Giepie Nel (Blue Bull centre of yesteryear) who escaped the

final onslaught of fame and professionally qualified as a dentist, gave priceless ideas

A great lecture recently by Dr Sherylle Calder of the

Sport Science Institute on eye-hand coordination brought great new insight

The concept of the fading limelight enlightened by my

brother, Danie who as a doctor witnesses the devastating impact on our lives Johann Coetzee, the industrial

psychologist, and his concept of “when the corporate applause

dies” as seen in real life in my 5 year journey with Allan Heyl

who kicked off a new life with all lime lights glaring and a Hollywood movie (“Stander”) to back him up

We know that 60% of all chartered accountants in the

US of A die within two years after retirement and the rest of

us between the ages of 63-65, a sharp peak in death rate that drops afterwards

Leaving that great mining company after 25 years brought me to my knees and 8 months of emotional living hell (“Why doesn’t anybody phone me”?) An identity destructed, am I still good and competent, worthy of respect?The corporate applause is addictive For the young sportsperson, it dies early and can and will lead to emotional distress and subsequent bad decisions

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CONFESSIONS FROM THE 4th TEAM

80% of all super performing sportsmen & women are born January – March Fact (Gladwell, 2009) Being no exception

as an October baby, I never made beyond the 4th team Ironically today after 4 decades, 90% of my compatriots who sneered at me then, cannot even do one flight of stairs I spend an hour in Virgin Active daily, can do Table Mountain

in 1 hour 15 minutes and a comfortable sub 2 hour half marathon For them, the impact of Gunston, Klipdrift & Coke, Rump and Chips had the last revenge

Even more so, my dear wife, a November babe, never even made the netball team, yet today is a multiple gold medallist for the 10 kms, in the top 10% in this year’s Two Oceans and last year a national 4th place for Virgin Active’s triathlon Her compatriots faded into mid aged overweight ladies so sad

Then, when working at the age of 22 under the baton of the great Dr Craven as the resident scientist on the John van Reenen world record project, brought insight into the world of sport

Eccentric as he was, “Doc” Craven also drove a Jaguar,

in his case a British racing green XJ with a ridgeback named Bliksem who commandeered the front seat

He creatively chose a champion swimmer for the 1960 test in Dublin Attie Baard barely ever played rugby in his life! Attie, a retired doctor and ex superintendent of the Stellenbosch hospital shared his story with me to my delight

He also relegated Andrew van der Watt the Springbok wing at the time, to Maties’s 2nd team to make room for the aging Jannie Engelbrecht

Due to his physical appearance, we fondly referred to him as “The Ape-Man”

I cheated and bribed to get the job to cover my expenses for my sins of not passing my second year maths All funded

by the great Naspers and money was no object

As most post grad students in sport science came from a

BA background, I soon become the resident hero to coach them in the complexities of stats, maths and mechanics An endless stream visited me in my room to complete their assignments, all paid for by Selected Tassenberg (That is the one with the cork.)

One of them the Springbok fullback at the time, Dawie Snyman Respect shown by my mates in the res’s corridors

grew by the day In the same corridors lurked people like Michiel le Roux (Capitec’s founding chairman) and Koos Bekker (today of the same Naspers) Life was beautiful!.Not stupid yet, I coded lengthy FORTRAN programs solving exponential equations built upon the behaviour of a discus in a wind tunnel The mysteries and myths of swinging cricket balls were part of the study This was then discussed with Naspers’s editors They, also BA types, did not understood a word what we said, yet as media moguls sniffed money in the air, nodded their heads in enthusiastic agreement and kept on footing the bill I even bought a car!

Ivor Potgieter was the coach who wisely took the new insight and adapted John’s style slightly In our team was the bow-tie wearing colourfull Dr Jan van Heerden who analyzed poor John’s skeleton by means of numerous X-ray photos Dr Jan was then and remains today a national hero with his groundbreaking book, “What every boy should know.” As Jan van Elfen his books became part of our furniture

The rest is history: we struck gold on 14th of March ’75 when John broke the world record with a huge 50 cm

It was a great moment in the life of a youngster to meet that humble giant These days, at the age of 63, he is world renowned artist exhibiting in galleries as far as New York

John, in the true spirit set by Roger Bannister (of 4

minute mile fame) competed against only one person: John

van Reenen.

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AND THE GENTLEMEN’S GAME?

That brings us to cricket A game played only at a few places, almost all of them in the Colonies Sadly it excludes Canada, yet oddly includes Holland

Where played, it is worshipped, yet the story goes that after 3 hours of sipping diluted tea, the batsman hit a six followed by some applause, the visiting American asked:

“Did the game begin?”

When working with the ex coach of Pakistan and later the Titans, Richard Pybus, he told me how he feared for his life after losing a match and the fanatics building effigies of him, dowsed it in petrol and set it alight

They dress in long trousers and in white The only sport with a rule that you should behave yourself with swearing not allowed Girls LUV it So to steal the hearts of long legged blondes, wear white, be masculine and never ever use four letter words!

My last match was for that miniscule West Coast town, Koringberg, when we played against the mighty Piketberg I batted no 3 and was out after 5 balls for a duck

Yet I love the game and all around it and in my endeavours under prompting of my three teenage daughters, was always on the hunt for autographs

Gymmed in Brisbane next to the great Shane Warne Hotelled in London with Brian Lara and Co and the greatest was on the way back from New York back in ’92 to fly to Bridgetown, Barbados to pick up Kepler and team My seat mate next to me: Mike Procter! At the point over mid Atlantic, a newbie sitting in economy in the back came to speak to Mike and introduced himself to as Hansie, sadly not with us anymore Ali Bacher resided up front in 1st Class Only one survival of that flight these days, a member of the under 19 team; a guy named Herschelle

As a fanatic, I stood on the pitches of Lords, the Oval, Sydney, Brisbane and visited the Brabham museum in Bowral, NSW, twice as I had a project there Down Under Stood in awe on the Melbourne Ground with the highest light poles in the world, fitting +100 000 comfortably and built solely for cricket and the funniest game invented by mankind, Aussie Rules

While talking about cricket grounds; in these days of irritating name changes, we also need to look into the mirror Many years ago, there was a town outside Pretoria, Lyttleton

In a wave of patriotism they renamed it more politically correct as Verwoerdburg

In the mean time, Dr Willie Basson of the Northern Transvaal cricket union made a deal with the city council to build a cricket ground They dreamt of all the hundreds to be scored and named it Centurion Park The Jewish capitalists in Sandton also had to make a move to be politically correct and renamed the shopping complex next door Centurion City.The city council, after many fights, flag waving and debate renamed the whole city, making Centurion it the only place in the world named after a cricket ground!

When the late Dr Albert Herzog turned his back on his cronies, the same fate befell the Hertzog Tower in Jozi to be renamed boringly as the Brixton Tower

To divert a bit, with great guys domineering our history

as General Hendrik Potgieter and Colonel John Graham who both easily wiped out whole towns before breakfast They are overshadowed by Lord Alfred Milner who through his underling, Lord Kitchener cold bloodily killed 27000 children, mostly babies and toddlers (Gilliomee, 2006)

Yet, their legacy is cherished in Milnerton, Potchefstroom and Grahamstown

Not the end of the saga yet as the Titan’s union then succumbed to the onslaught of the Mighty Rand and renamed their grounds: Super Sport Park!! Imagine a future billboard:

“Welcome to Super Sport City”

Will we never learn?

However the most wonderfull was back in ’94 when we opened our office in Brisbane and a guy walked in He was the owner of a civil engineering consultancy across the corridor, Maclean & Chapman As wicketkeeper of Oz and administrator, he was honoured by Queen Elizabeth II for his dedicated service in maintaining the tiny bit what is left of the Empire Sadly he did not attend the sword hitting ceremony as

he could not afford the air ticket His wife almost divorced him!

John Maclean MBE himself John, a humble person, who helped us every bit to find our feet in an odd country speaking

a foreign language by abbreviating everything while drinking Swan beer He kept up correspondence with my 15 year old daughter sharing great cricket stories and gave her something

to brag about on the playground

Listening to Sherylle’s lecture, it struck me that second only to playing the violin; the utmost hand eye coordination

of mankind is found amongst cricketers To read a ball

coming at you swerving in the air at 140 km/h is not for sissies They are indeed special people and lots are to be learnt from them and what they do.

The mind of the cricketer surely is surely different from the rugby player In rugby lots of them at 35 are penniless, desperate, a broken body and an empty mind Working on wealth creation with a great cricketer we need to take all this

in account as it shaped his mind for many years and this unique characteristic just must be used

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PRINCIPLES OF WEALTH CREATION

This is the field for the experts, yet few ideas might help: Every Rand/Pound/Dollar you spend must be earned by somebody (= the root of the subprime debacle?); wait patiently and work hard all your life; beware of scams and promises (if it is too good to be true, it often is!); know how much you earn, spend, save, own and owe, know how much is needed to retire (Luus, 2010, pers comm.)

From Danko’s great book “The Millionaire, next Door” (adapted after many discussions with De Lange 2005-2007):

• Live far under current means: That is within 70% of availability as calculated from the Wealth Index The

WI will be discussed later

• Spend lots of time, money and energy on ways to built wealth: Count your money often, read, think future, talk

to advisors, and take final responsibility

• Financial dependence >>> social standing Live modest and show it The late Dr Rupert drove an ancient Merc and Warren Buffet a 10 year old Ford Falcon

• Children need to be financially independent Give everything for education and ongoing education