AHHHHHHHH IT IS DUE TODAY AGAIN!!

Every Sunday night for the last couple of weeks I have convinced myself…

‘don’t worry, you’ve got this.’

You already have a vague idea what you want to write next week…

Just follow the template this week

Like you said you would do last week

And again… I sit here Sunday evening writing my Newsletter.

—

It’s Monday Morning.

Well that didn’t go out as planned.

8-10pm blackout with a 5am car ride in the morning I did what any sane person would do… I went to bed!!

Sometimes you just can’t outwork poor planning.

South Africa has also been another challenge in itself. It does not always have the strongest wifi connections and not everywhere has generators for load shedding.

Load Shedding - When the demand for electricity exceeds the available supply, planned supply interruptions may have to be carried out.

How crazy is that… there is an electricity crisis happening over here, have you heard about it?

It’s amazing how personal issues tend to get put into perspective very quickly when you travel.

Sometimes its up to 8 hours per day - In slots of 2 hours. The electricity shuts off.

Most homes and businesses are equipped with a generator that they run during the work hours to stay connected, but a lot are not.

The catch - the generators don’t work to power all your household objects. Anything with an element doesn’t work, e.g your Stove and Kettle.

Here are the two schedules for stage 4 load shedding that we have alternated through most of the time we have been here.

Now it gets better - The schedule changes on a daily basis and the electricity company can actually change the stage whenever it wants.

It goes from Stage 1 to Stage 8!!

But just think about it for a second…. Power Outage!

It’s so much more than just not being able to turn your lights on and off or being disconnected from wifi for a couple of hours.

• Traffic lights stop working.

• POS Systems can’t connect for payments

• Not all ATM Machines are equipped to work through blackouts.

• Fridges turn off

• Water tanks stop filtering (Think of the fish)

If you are a restaurant that means your kitchen can only operate on gas during these times of the day. What does that do to your menu?

The amount of times I’ve been standing in the grocery store as the power cuts is truly a unique experience.

Everyone freezes in their spot as they wait for the generator to kick in.

That got me going down this little rabbit hole of Fridges & FOOD!

In the news recently:

“dairy farmers are being forced to discard 12 000 litres of milk because it has gone sour”

“Financial results from several food companies indicate that fuel expenses to run generators during load shedding are skyrocketing. These costs cannot be absorbed in the chain and are, to a large extent, passed on to consumers.”

Frozen foods run the risk of defrosting which means they have to be sold asap otherwise go straight to waste.

But if you track the cycle back it is effecting every aspect of farming not to mention huge product line equipment is not designed to be shut off at the mains that regularly!

Remember the old computers where you just hold in the BIG BUTTON to force power off and it always took ages to reboot.

Everything is rebooting at least 2 - 3 times throughout the day. If not more

Electrical appliances are failing faster due to this - not covered in in the warranty.

[Insert Rabbit hole of issues linked to electricity - my brain exploded]

Zoom Out

Now I don’t know about you but suddenly my issues about not being able to get my newsletter out once a week become quite trivial.

Throughout my travels over the last year the one thing I have noticed, especially after this pandemic is that…everywhere has its issues!

Weather its something wrong with the

• People

• Food

• Weather

• Area

• Neighbourhood

• Government

You name it… There is always going to be something.

This brings me to a powerful quote I heard at the end of a Joe Rogan Podcast episode, the original quote.

Its not your lack of time, or money or [insert current excuse you have]

It’s that you are still thinking the grass will be greener on the other side.

When you have ‘x’ then ill be able to get it done

Or

you can’t be happy until you have ‘y’

Something I have found to be true as of the year 2023 - _{Pssssst its been true for way longer}

You are able to turn a FREE social media account into a form of INCOME.

Enter - The Creator Economy.

If you’re reading this I think you are also on a journey of finding a way to “do what you love” for a living.

The Creator Economy is making it possible but in a world full of distractions how do we break it down and make it work for us?

Whether you have a Product, Service or Personal Brand you want to build it all comes down to your content creation.

How do I break my big ideas down into individual posts and a content strategy that works for me?

… Stay Tuned

Maja Howard