The world needs more of us to be Warriors

After a two-year, Covid enforced hiatus, the largest obstacle course race in South Africa, the Warrior Race, was back – and the team from EasyEquities was there in full force. Our Carel Nolte tells us why …

EasyEquities is the proud headline sponsor of the iconic Otter Trail Run, owned, alongside the inspirational founders, by the Faces group – a brand described best as follows: “Faces is about exceptional people and greater than experiences. With great partnerships, we challenge convention and innovate. Faces is ultimately the convergence of life-changing and personal experiences in and through challenging and iconic sporting events.”

With Purple Group’s traditional year-end function postponed at the end of 2021, and again at the beginning of this year as the CEO Charles Savage underwent knee-surgery which left him relatively immobile (he is fully recoverd by the way!) , we settled on 26 March as our date. And, as is often the case when you are open to it, fate and syncronicty did their thing!

In my monthly catch-up with Faces founder and CEO Clark Gardner (someone I have known for around two decades via our shared insurance industry past and many mutual friends) he mentioned the Warrior Race and that it would be happening on the 26th of March. He rather crazily suggested we consider getting involved and, like many crazy people – Charles starting EasyEquities with the idea that millions of people deserved easy, fun access to financial markets jumps to mind – the “crazy impossible” becomes easy with a great team.

At this year’s Easy party – also a time where we recognise our annual award winners (Top Agilist, Top Innovator, Best Team Mate, Best Team, Best Rookie and the CFO and CEO awards) – we were joined by our friends and colleagues from RISE (50% owned by Purple Group who owns 70% of Easy), EasyCrypto (now 100% owned by Purple and where I get my EC10 and crypto fix!), EasyProperties (jointly owned wth Narrative) and the legends from Entelect (these guys have been our tech and dev partners since Easy was launched and many have walked the journey with us from day one) – a fabulous, diverse group of South Africans.

With JP and his team from Faces, organising entries for over a 100 of us, getting the food and drink sorted, a VIP tent with showers for the participants, everything happened seamlessly. Add in Rikus from CN&CO events to handle a few of my irritating 🙂 requests, Llewlelyn to sort trophies and a lekker band, some great merch from Jono and the day was bound to be fun!

I really shouldn’t have been as I am a realistic optimist at heart and know that people are bloody brilliant, but I was again hugely inspired yesterday. Over 100 Easy folk pitched up, took part in a challenging but AMAZINGLY FUN obstacle course – most have never done a Warrior Race, many wouldn’t described themselves as sporty, some can’t swim, a few (inclduing me!) are overweight, a couple have injuries – but EVERY SINGLE person finished – and loved it. As I often say – there is no such thing as “can’t”. It may take time. It may be hard. But anything is possible – and certainly more fun and way easier if a shared experience with people.

The mud obstacle I found very, very hard (with my weight, you sink in immediately!) – and I may still be scraping mud from under my toe nails for a few days … – but so very, very fun. Helping others and being helped was very special and created many new memories I will cherish.

A few key take outs and reminders for me:

Show up. Start. In anything in life, that’s often the most important;
Trust yourself and know that you are brilliant and that you CAN;
Help others. Let others help you;
Laugh, especially at yourself;
Diversity is one of the greatest gifts in life;
Work & partner with and for people who want you to succeed and get their success from that;
Mud can get into every orifice.