About Jon

The journey of my life can be described along two different streams. The first presents the basic facts of what I did, which I have shared below. The second adds the value of hindsight, and having now discovered who I really am enabled me to gain insights as to what I was really up to then.

Largely, for a great deal of my life I was on automatic, doing what I’d been led to believe was the expected and right thing to do, what I refer to in my first book, “Can Anyone Here Sing? – the six perspectives of peace” as the Traditional Timeline of Life. This included a fairly strict upbringing which literally included the concepts of: “children are meant to be seen and not heard” and, “you only speak when spoken to.” This was combined with a strong belief in the religious doctrine that had been drummed into me.

And then two events happened, well let’s say three, with the first of these being that I turned 40. At the tender age of 40 the robotic and mindless living bubble burst, and I started to think for myself for the first time in my life. My eyes were opened and I started to wonder, and ask questions. My journey of awareness had started. But, 40 years of bad habits are difficult to even see, let alone overcome. So my journey of awareness was a very long and slow one, because I was still steeped in the idea that I could do it all on my own and I didn’t need help, and for many years to come I was still blind.

5 years after these two events I had a big watershed moment, which also provided a massive change in my life. But first the two events that led to the initial changes in my life.

I read Deepak Chopra’s book, “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success” and I attended a team building course called “Cogmotics.” This course provided cognitive and emotive experiences through the process of participating in physical events and exercises.

After attending this course I knew that I had to get out of the corporate, business world. Two seeds had been planted, one to go out on my own and set up my own business, which I did a few months later. The second seed was that I was a people person. I liked to help, teach, and coach people, and pursuing a career in the business world did not excite me – coaching did.

The second watershed moment, my falling off a cliff moment, was in August 2002, when after 21 years of marriage, my wife left me for another man and went off with him, with my two daughters of 10 and 13 at the time. This broke me.

Two things that my Dad always used to say that had a big impact on me: “there’s only one thing in life that counts, and that’s family” and, “the saddest word in the English language is the word alone,” he felt desperately sorry for people who were alone. At 45 I no longer had a family, and I was alone. My Dad died 3 months later. It took me nearly 6 years to recover.

My actual life’s journey followed two parallel paths:

One path was the education, work, jobs, careers path, and the other was what even I am happy to acknowledge was a fanaticism with sport, exercise and fitness – note that I did not include the word health.

Looking back I realise that my approach to my addiction to being fit was not very healthy. Also, many times getting out there to do exercise and long runs was my escape, and initially this too did not add to my mental health, but it did later in my life, after I’d woken up.
Education, Work & Career

I went to a boys only, Catholic, Marist Brothers school finishing with a university exemption pass, at the age of 17 years and 3 months.

I immediately joined the South African Navy permanent force going straight into the 11 month Officers training course, and passed. I spent 14 years in the SA Navy during which time I studied at the University of Stellenbosch, and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, and achieved the Higher National Diploma in Electrical Engineering (light current).

I left the Navy and joined the corporate world for 8 years, 7 of which were at a Fortune 500 company, Old Mutual where I continued my studies and achieved a Diploma in IT Project Management from the Faculty Training Institute, and an MBA short course (Programme for Management Development) from the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business.

I then left the corporate world and started my own business, Promacon (Project Management Consultants), which I ran for 13 years. During the latter part of these years I got divorced and then bumbled and bounced around for a few years doing the odd bit of project management work here, there, and everywhere.

I studied and achieved the roughly 15 month course for my Life Coaching Certificate and dropped the IT Project Management and started life coaching formally (I had been doing some coaching informally, as in not charging for it).

I have been coaching ever since, with small spurts of consulting back in the project management and business field in between.

Throughout the above journey I also studied at the University of South Africa (correspondence) and passed 6 of the 12 credits required for a BComm.

I passed the first 2 modules, Touch For Health 1 & 2 in the Kinesiology qualification.

I have passed the Mindfulness Practitioners Course Level I, II, III, and Master.

Sport

It started at the age of 17, as soon as I was faced with the immense physical pressures that you are put under whilst doing military basic training, and I discovered that I was good at it. Many, if not most, youngsters become good at it physically. You’re not really given much choice to do otherwise. My surprise discovery was that I was good at it mentally.

I was an avid participant in cricket, field hockey and golf, and reached a 5 handicap, was chosen for the South African University of Technology Hockey Team, and took 7 wickets for 42 runs in the final of the National Cricket Club Championships.

In my early thirties I was part of a team that achieved a record in the Guinness Book of World Records for playing field hockey non stop for 36 hours.

I also played rugby, football, and tennis at University level and in the local league teams.

I then moved into long distance running, doing my first marathon in 1985. Then to doing triathlons, and from there started to focus solely on trail running and in particular multi-day endurance events.

In 2015 I became the first person in the world to run across the continent of Africa. I ran 2,600km running in effect a marathon every day for 3 months. I did this to try and raise awareness and funds for elephants and water.

Throughout this journey I have also acquired the qualification as a Personal Trainer Level 1, 2 and 3.

I still exercise, go to gym, or run 6 days a week, and also play tennis.

Qualifications

Higher Diploma in Electrical Engineering (Light current)

Diploma in Information Systems Project Management

MBA

Certificate in Life Coaching

Personal Trainer & Gym Instructor Level 1, 2 & 3 (London)

Kinesiology – Touch For Health Modules I & II

Certificate in Animal Communication

Mindfulness Practitioner Level I, II, III & Master

 

Coaching

Cricket

Hockey

Multi-day trail running

Personal Trainer

Life Skills

Leadership

Executive

Lifestyle

Mind

Success

Better Life (Workshops)

 

Sport

Cricket – 7/42 in final of National Club Championships (South Africa); SA Navy; SA Defence Force

Golf – 5 handicap; SA Navy

Hockey – SA University Colleges; B Inter Provincial Tournament 5 times

Played Rugby, Tennis, Soccer, done Triathlons, Road & Trail running

Multi-day endurance trail running – Cape Odyssey (5 days); Namib Desert Challenge (5 days); African X (3 days, 3 times); Southern Cross (3 days)

Guinness Book of Records for playing field hockey non-stop for 36 hours.

First person on the planet to run across the continent of Africa, a distance of 2,600 km, running in effect a marathon every day for 3 months – in aid of elephants and water

 

Places I’ve Studied

Stellenbosch University

Cape Town University College

University of South Africa

Faculty Training Institute

University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business

Lifetime Training

South African College for Applied Psychology

New Insights Coaching

The Pennsylvania State University (online)

Uppsala University (online)

University of Dublin (online)

Udemy (online)

Integral Health Kinesiology

 

Companies I’ve Consulted To & Written Blogs For

Old Mutual (SA)

Sanlam (SA)

Ernst & Young (SA)

Dimension Data (SA)

Vodacom (SA)

First Rand Group (SA)

Liberty (SA)

Registry Trust Limited (UK)

Amerada Hess (Algeria)

Tim O’Hanlon Strategic Management Solutions (UK & SA)

Clear Commercial Solutions (UK)

Emtac (UK)

Ecolex (France)

Burton Waters (UK)

Tribe Sports (UK)

Playwize (Canada)

 

Inspirational Speaking Venues

Springfield Convent

Wynberg Boys High School

Nedbank

Riscura

The Executives Club

Trail and Tar Running Club

6 O’clock Club

Abbots College

WESSA (Wildlife & Environmental Society of South Africa)

Bookham Wellness Fair (UK)

Leatherhead Rotary Club (UK)

Learn Grow Create Tutoring Centre (UK)

Western Province (SA) U19 Rugby Academy, and Hockey & Tennis Academies

Chrysalis Academy

BHC School of Design

 

Writing

I have written over 70 blogs

I have written and published a book: “Can Anyone Here Sing? – six perspectives of peace”

Synopsis – After leaving secondary and tertiary educational institutions many young people find themselves at a loss in life. They are faced with uncertainties; decisions to make; choices. Who has prepared them for this? What training have they had? Where do they find the answers they seek?

In this work Jonathan O’Hanlon provides insight into the nature of these problems. Not only does he provide the advice needed for each individual to find their answers, but also a frank, sometimes humorous and even scientific journey to finding a new awareness, a greater understanding of oneself and the ability to move forward peacefully, knowing where to go and why.

1991 – I was working at a company called Old Mutual as the Manager of the Computer Human Resources Department, providing recruitment, selection and training for all the computer staff in the company. I created a programme consisting of 7 steps or phases aimed at mitigating the damage done by the Apatheid era to the Black people of South Africa. This programme was to be implemented in the Western Cape, I called it my AABDEO Programme. At that time there was little idea and much confusion as to how to start including Black people (the term referring to all people who were non-White and was later to be replaced by the term ‘previously disadvantaged’) into business, particularly into the IT industry. Three descriptions that were used, and little understood, to describe what was required were Affirmative Action, Black Development, and Equal Opportunity – hence my anagram AABDEO.

The 7 phases, or projects, that I created were designed to try and provide assistance in the computer and IT field to the following levels of Black society:

1. Pre-school children of employees (holiday time games and instruction.)
2. Primary school children (basic computer skills and games.)
3. High School children (careers in the IT industry and how to compile a CV.)
4. School drop outs and the uneducated lost generation (see below.)
5. University students (a graduate bursary scheme.)
6. The unemployed (see below.)
7. Parents (2 adult education facilities and programmes of courses were created.)

All 7 projects were launched in 1992 – it must be remembered that Nelson Mandela only became President of South Africa in 1994.

All 7 projects achieved success with by far the most successful of these being the combination of numbers 4 and 6 above.

I gathered a group of representatives from the top companies in the Western Cape (Old Mutual, Sanlam, Southern Life, Caltex, Mobil, Shell, Liberty Life, Metropolitan Life and others) and formed a committee on which I was the Executive Chairman. We all provided funds to a central account which I controlled. I brought a Cobol programming computer training company down from Johannesburg, a 100% Black owned company called Zakheni Computing as well as a young Coloured graduate to run the training programme that I then set up.
I provided business premises, accommodation, hired vehicle and salary, and I gained commitment from the committee to not only provide funding for the programme but also to commit up front to take a certain number of graduates from the course.

I then mentored the young manager of this programme to move the business from being funded by the committee to becoming self-funded. Again this was very successful to the extent that an overseas partnership and funding was formed and the business continued to be highly successful for many years thereafter.

I have been told by graduates of Zakheni that I met recently, that there is at least a network of 500 of them out in business in SA all of them very wealthy and successful business men and women.

2013 – For nearly 2 years I provided free life skills coaching and talks on behalf of a charity called The Goodsport Trust to the following groups:

1. The Chrysalis Academy.
2. The WP U19 Rugby Academy.
3. The Goodsport Hockey Academy.
4. The Goodsport Tennis Academy.

2014 – In the Western Cape in South Africa there are a number of townships that were created during the apartheid era and which house the poor and under privileged of that time. There is high crime and gangsterism in these townships. By far the most dangerous and worst of them is called Lavender Hill.

Through the contact of my then bank manager I connected with a group called Mother’s Unite that were positioned in the centre of the Lavender Hill township.

Mother’s Unite have created a safe and secure training centre for young school children to go to after school to keep them off the streets – many have either parents who work until late at night or who have no parents at all.

By combining with Mother’s Unite and with The Goodsport Trust I created a Sport Coaching Training Programme, using the existing material and resources of Goodsport, for 20 young school dropouts and unemployed from the township, aged between 20 and 35, to build them into sports coaches for schools in the Western Cape.

I was directly involved in the programme providing life skills coaching, talks, physical training and excursions into nature, communication and liaison between all parties involved, and managing the group.

This was an extremely challenging project and the circumstances and difficulties experienced were unique and at times insurmountable, even more so for the participants from the township. So much so that the fact that there was only one graduate is actually a major and credit worthy success.

2015 – On the 18^th June 2008 through a sequence of synchronistic events I arrived at the idea and made the decision that I would do something to try and raise awareness in the world, and funding for, the plight of elephants that are nearing extinction.

The decision that I made was that to do this I would run across Africa, from coast to coast.

During the many years of planning for this event I realised that I needed to and wanted to add to my cause an even more critical problem that elephants, and the world, faced and so the run then was for elephant conservation and water sustainability.

On the 21^st June 2015 I started running from the West coast of Namibia, I ran 2,600 km running in effect a marathon every day for 3 months, and arrived on the East coast of Mozambique on the 18^th September 2015.

 

2010 – Over the years since approximately 2010, as an Inspirational Speaker, I have given many talks at various business institutions, schools, sports clubs, business clubs and charity organisations for no charge.

In the main these talks have covered two themes:

1. I speak to the younger people of the world, between the ages of 18 and 35, and the young at heart, providing them with guidance and tools to achieve peace of mind for the task that they are about to face, the choices and decisions that they have to make, in going out there into the world for the first time really … on their own.

School, College, and University graduates are faced with this daunting task for the first time no longer having the safety and security of voices of authority and institutions behind them.

Young adults who have reached beyond this point now question the choices and decisions that they made. All of these young people I help.

2. The starting point is a description and pictures of the task that I faced when running a marathon every day for 3 months, during which I lead into the most crucial and primary requirement to even consider seeing it through to the end – mental strength.

I then draw a parallel to the lives that we lead and how equally it is mental strength that provides us with the wherewithal to make it through the hard times and suffering. And how essential it is that we need to train our minds … yet where do young people find role models and mentors to do that.