In the saddle the power of giving and the tell organ donor campaign
April 13, 2019

In the saddle: The power of giving

I haven’t ridden a bicycle for a while, roughly 6 weeks to be exact, as I had a knee operation to sort out a lingering issue in my left knee. When I was mentally preparing for my knee op, I thought that I was going to go mad not being able to exercise… but change is a good thing and I have learnt a lot about myself over the last little while. You will be amazed by what you can learn from shifting perspectives. 

Over the past 12 months, I have experienced a lot of change and shifts in perspective. These shifts have exposed me to a bigger world and allowed me to think differently (it’s serendipitous that one of my favourite podcasts in called Follow your Different).

One of the mind shift changes I have had is around giving. Giving is different for everyone; it comes in different shapes and forms. Giving doesn’t necessarily need to involve money and while in many instances it does, giving can be in the shape of providing someone your time or just being there when a mate or family member needs you.

A profound moment that changed my perception of giving was during my MAD2Run journey in 2018. A running journey from Joburg to Cape Town with 36 other crazy humans raising funds for the MAD leadership foundation. Being part of something bigger than yourself is special and knowing that the effort we put into raising funds for those less fortunate than us, making a real contribution to someone’s future, really hit home. In addition to the money we raised, this journey also taught me that giving is a mindset, one that you need to be willing to embrace. I injured myself in the week before we left on the run and so I was faced with two options. To either be a miserable human for the seven days and feel sorry for myself or to turn things around and be the best supporter that I could be… contributing to the journey in ways that I was able to, driving, packing food or cooking.

If you follow the CN&CO blog you may have seen that I wrote about the Tell Campaign earlier in the month. I came across this awareness campaign while reading the Good Things Guy blog, which by the way if you haven’t checked it out yet you should.

Tell stands for Transplant Education for Living Legacies and the campaign’s aim is to drive awareness, providing holistic transplant education to improve the number of organ donations in South Africa. Being an organ donor is a personal choice and one that sits very close to my heart following some experiences over the past couple of years.

Joining and supporting the Tell campaign, has introduced me to different people and hearing why Sally Mustang Tattoos is involved reminded me how sometimes things in life really do happen for a reason. Tyron from Sally Mustang shares the story of the tell tattoo below:

The tell campaign officially launches on Monday 15 April, so share the story and let’s help drive change. The tattoo symbol is quotation marks… why quotation marks you may ask? Well, because it’s the start of a conversation and one that I hope will help make a really big difference.

While I still have a lot to learn about giving, it has been refreshing and energising to experience its power. It’s different for everyone and you need to experience it for yourself to be able to describe it in your own words. One of the things that I am keen to learn more about is a platform called Kiva, which supports low-income entrepreneurs and students in over 80 countries around the world. I will share more about this in another blog soon.

That’s a wrap for this in the saddle. Enjoy the ride and let’s make this world a better place by giving more.