Taking a sabbatical

I am going to take a sabbatical for a month. I have been writing this weekly, more or less continuously, since late 1999 - and it's time to take a breather.

One of my core reasons for wanting some space to think things through is the increasing amount of noise on the Internet. And the noise is not only getting louder, but more strident. I have always had a bent towards the more Japanese type Zen approach, and maybe it's just me being in hypersensitive mode, but if I get another email from another person offering to "mentor" me, I might just have a bonsai conniption.

A mentor is a trusted friend, counsellor or teacher - a more experienced person. The experience is a deep, close relationship - not something that you can do with long distance phone calls, mailed DVDs, or a flood of emails. It's a two way street in which the mentor guides the mentee; in which the mentor does not try to suck every last cent from his mentee's bank account using web analytic technology, upsales, downsales, and cross sales, combined with hypnosis, or whatever. (Gosh! As I said, I may be suffering from too much noise from too many experts all of whom seem too hungry.)

I began looking at some of the issues that sparked so much adrenalin over the past 7 years -- Telkom, the South African government messing in the small business arena with all the playful enthusiasm of a hungry elephant, and I am not sure whether any of my writing added value other than in helping me understand the changes.

So, the next month will be spent looking at where I can add value to the Business Warrior community, drinking far too much coffee, tightening my spam engine to reject any offers of remote-mentoring as well as from Russian girls who assure me that they really enjoy ironing, as well as getting fit while I slow the world down to my pace again.

I will be back in November, just in time for all those seasonal offers of Yuletide mentorship.