Mike Abel

How I’m Managing My Exposure to the World (Without Losing My Mind) (My new, but rather late, realisation on how to stay informed, without being overwhelmed) It has taken me far longer than it should have to see something obvious. Information overload isn’t just exhausting. It’s deeply corrosive. I’d already dealt with rolling news channels. That was an easy call. I have business to run, a family to be present for, a life that won’t manage itself. Endless news cycles and I were never going to be entirely compatible. What I missed was the subtler version of the same problem. WhatsApp groups. Good people. Smart people. Friends. Well-meaning people. Sharing, debating, forwarding. Breaking news as it breaks. Feels valuable. Looks valuable. But it’s a drip feed of the world’s chaos. Relentless. Unfiltered. Toxic. On someone else’s schedule. You’re at your desk. In your home. In your actual life. And then, mid-thought, mid-meeting, mid-breath, you’re pulled into a war zone, a political crisis, a tragedy unfolding somewhere you can’t reach. Not once. Dozens of times a day. The effect is insidious. A low-grade anxiety that never fully lifts. A helplessness about things outside of your control. A quiet erosion of your ability to deal with what’s actually in front of you. Two weeks ago, I made a simple change. I archived the groups. Didn’t leave them. Just moved them out of my eyeline. I check in once, maybe twice a day. On my terms. When I decide. Not when the world interrupts. Same with X. I haven’t left. Probably won’t - sadly. But I now treat it like somewhere you visit, not somewhere you live. In. Out. No lingering. Nose pinched closed. The difference has been immediate. Lighter. Calmer. More present. More in control of my own head. And, as I said upfront, I’m not less informed. I’m just less overwhelmed. We’ve talked ourselves into believing that constant awareness is a new form of responsibility. I’m not buying that anymore. Being informed matters. Being consumed by it, doesn’t serve anyone. If you’re carrying that low hum of anxiety, like I was, that never quite switches off, it might not only be the state of the world, but how often you’re letting it in.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Some people can handle all of this, with ease, as it doesn’t penetrate their psyche or emotions as deeply as it does mine - or possibly yours. But if you, like me, feel things keenly, hate injustice and prejudice, and let it get to you, the only way to survive is by engaging strictly on your own terms and timelines 🫣

Just to stay sane whilst scrolling 💔

BREAKING: The Islamic regime in Iran hanged the 19-year-old wrestler and anti-regime protester Saleh Mohammadi today

@AlinejadMasih @BillAckman @realDonaldTrump Nothing can bring them back 💔💔💔

Today, in Iran, in the middle of a war, the regime executed a 19-year-old national wrestling champion for the crime of joining January protests. 💔 After signaling to the world, including President @realDonaldTrump, that they would halt executions of protesters, the regime has done the exact opposite. Three young protesters, Saleh Mohammadi, Mehdi Ghasemi, and Saeed Davoudi, were hanged in Qom after a sham trial. Reports indicate torture. Forced confessions. No access to chosen lawyers. Closed-door proceedings. No right to appeal. I call on @GlobalAthleteHQ to stand with Iranian athletes who are being silenced, imprisoned, and executed simply for raising their voices. This is not just about sports. This is about human dignity.

@visegrad24 @simonmontefiore 💔💔💔 just unbelievably heartbreaking. It’s 2026 not 1226

@ward_shane Am I at the Oscars?

@abelmike Not too different to those who virtue signal why they won’t watch the Oscars 🤷🏻‍♂️

I fortunately never watched the #AcademyAwards this year. That makes it at least a decade of avoiding vacuous virtue signalling by deeply privileged people, who make a living by, well, pretending to be other people. Don’t get me wrong. I love movies, but I can’t see why for instance, Top Gun earns a ton more for pretending to be a fighter pilot, than a fighter pilot earns for actually knowing how to fly the plane. But maybe I am just silly. I also have no interest in hearing the personal political bias of an actor, producer or director etc when accepting an award for a movie 🎥🍿 Yes, they say they using their platform: - the same one none of them chose to use in January, or earlier this week, when tens of thousands of young people were being slaughtered by their own theocratic regime… #SitDown Anyway, I hope to watch #TheOscars again one day, when it’s about the movies (the actual purpose of the glittering tinsel town event) and not just highly selective virtue signalling… If I want to watch geopolitical speeches , I’ll tune in to the UN.

@historyinmemes Unsurprisingly he has a collie. They exceptional at rounding sheep 🐑 Political or otherwise.

The President of Ireland is known for bringing his dog along almost everywhere he goes.

@KenVarejes Thank you Ken. Appreciate the kind words my friend 🙏

I hear you Mike - reality is that we just see the presentation bot and don’t know all the prep that goes in. In your case the presentation is always superb

I’ve realised (possibly too late) public speaking is a bit like running a marathon… except the training happens at 3am in your head the night before. That’s my unwanted mental alarm time 🫣 There’s something uniquely inconvenient about waking up convinced a single sentence needs reworking, only to discover in the morning it made perfect sense all along. Four talks in two weeks (in addition to my day job) has reminded me of two things: 1.It’s a genuine privilege that anyone wants to listen. 2.My brain treats that privilege like a full-contact sport. The speaking part is the semi-easy bit. It’s the invisible extras - rewriting in your sleep, second-guessing examples, mentally rehearsing the Q&A - that slowly drain the old batteries. By the time it’s over, I’m equal parts grateful and mildly concussed. Then it’s back on the flying metal sausage en route home, for more meetings. Current recovery plan: a deep Swedish massage, a day off, and possibly a temporary ban on having thoughts after 9pm #DoNotDisturb 😴

A real privilege to do the opening keynote at the PRCA Conference today. Spoke about how culture now moves at the speed of TikTok - from Kranch and Taylor Swift to Duolingo, Barbie, Budweiser, Prime and more. Shared our #TheStreetStore story too. A true global movement 🙏 All about essentially unpacking one thing: brand recruitment. Identity. Participation. Belonging. Story. That’s how you recruit customers today. That’s how you build movements. Thank you to PRCA and Provoke Media for the invite. Whilst most brands are still “advertising”. The ones growing best, are recruiting. #PRCASAconf26 (Pic of me alone in the room : Always get to the venue early to run checks - you always need them when you least expect it 😉)

@DrewPavlou I’m sure he is a very good make-up artist though. Should probably stick to lipstick. At least he understands that.

Matt Bernstein says that the Islamist terrorist who tried to bomb a synagogue in Michigan was known as an “extremely gentle and kind person” who was forced to try bomb the synagogue by Israel’s actions

@grightford Predictable. But loved it 🥰

My eyes are leaking. I’d have chosen different music but it certainly pulls at my heart strings.

I get the profound irony of this, given the tragedy / murder that befalls gay people in Iran, but simultaneously it’s awful to make his sexual orientation a laughing matter, as it takes the world back to a place where gay people were targeted. It’s news - and it’s not news. A very complex situation.

Trump briefed that Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei is probably gay - and president has priceless reaction trib.al/MugVpH6

Today I had the pleasure of speaking with our people across the Up&Up Group - some together with me on our Johannesburg campus, others joining from Cape Town, and many around the business on Teams. We spoke about how our industry has evolved over the last 36 years - from a far simpler media landscape to today’s endlessly complex, algorithm-driven world of attention. But one thing hasn’t changed. The power of a great idea, and the power of brilliant execution. What I enjoyed most was the conversation that followed. Smart, thoughtful questions from curious minds, across all seven of our companies. I’ve always believed Up&Up should be a home for curious and imaginative people. Today reminded me how lucky we are to have so many of them 🧡 Thanks to everyone who joined and engaged so thoughtfully. And thank you Phindi for organising and welcoming everyone so warmly - and to Uyanda for the beautiful opening words 🙏

The best leaders need to be both hunters and farmers. Over the years I’ve often heard people say that a good CEO or Managing Director must be either an excellent hunter or a solid farmer. I disagree. To build something enduring, you have to be both. You must be a hunter. You hunt for exceptional talent. You hunt for new clients and opportunities. And you hunt for profitability. Because while “revenue is vanity, profit is sanity”. Running a business requires discipline. You need to understand the ratios that drive your model and ensure the enterprise produces sustainable margins. But hunting alone is never enough. You must also be a farmer. When you’ve hunted great talent, you nurture it. You grow it. You create an environment where people can flourish. When you’ve won great clients, you take care of them. You help grow their market share, their brands, their businesses. And when the business generates profit, you farm that capital wisely. You reinvest it thoughtfully: into people, into culture, into capability, and into the future direction of the company and industry. Some people think culture is a “soft” metric. It isn’t. Culture attracts talent. Culture retains talent. Culture attracts clients. Culture retains clients. In other words, culture compounds. Over the years I’ve seen many leaders who were brilliant hunters but poor farmers. They could win business but couldn’t build anything lasting. And I’ve seen excellent farmers who nurtured beautifully but never attracted the business, not created the growth engine needed to sustain the enterprise. Neither works for long, if you can’t do both. The leaders who build great organisations understand something simple: You hunt to create opportunity. You farm to create longevity. The real craft of leadership is knowing how to do both.

@luphumlongcayis 🤣

@abelmike Let me just enjoy the eloquence and narration. Utterly engaging and refreshing. I’ll Ivana myself later….

One of the things I hate admitting, to anyone, let alone myself, is how much certain people on social media can still irritate me. Not critics I respect. Not people whose opinions I even value. Usually quite the opposite. People whose views I wouldn’t actively seek out. And yet… there they are. Floating across my feed. Dispensing wisdom with the serene confidence of someone who has never had to carry the weight of responsibility for anything bigger than, well, their own opinion. What annoys me most isn’t them. It’s that it still gets to me. At my age I should have the emotional maturity of a Tibetan monk. Instead I occasionally find myself muttering at my phone, like a man arguing with the radio. I do that too 🫣 Years ago I worked with a mediocre strategist whose hair was piled high on her head in a way that reminded me of Ivana Trump. So I used to call her “Ivana”. She may have thought it was Ivana Trump. In my mind it was more… Ivana be a strategist. Anyway, Ivana had a saying that has stayed with me for twenty‑five years: “Opinions are like a**holes. Everyone has one.” Social media has simply industrialised the process. The strange thing is that the people whose opinions irritate me most, are usually the ones whose track records suggest that perhaps, wisdom might not be their strongest suit. Some people seem to have made an entire career out of failure, rebranded as expertise. Which I guess, is impressive in its own way. Still, if someone whose judgement I don’t respect can get under my skin, that probably says more about me than them. It means I’ve given them a small patch of mental real estate they didn’t earn. So I’m trying a new rule: Opinions from people I respect - I’ll listen carefully. Opinions from people who’ve actually built something, themselves, I’ll take it seriously. Everything else? File it under Ivana’s law. Because everyone has one.