Who are your role models?

 When I was younger, my role models included a whole lotta rock stars. I mean, who wouldn’t love a slice of the rock ‘n roll lifestyle? A chance to smash whatever you wanted. Say whatever you wanted. Be whoever you wanted. Run far far away and start again as whatever you dreamed? 

But as I grew older, my ideals changed. My priorities changed and my perception of life did too. I became a wife (albeit for a short time) and a mother, and then a single mother. I became a very dedicated employee of an amazing company and business, and success, and economics became important to me.

So as I have experienced different life lessons, different pain, loss, joy, accomplishment, and pride, so my perceptions have changed, and so have my role models and who I aspire to be like. I realised that just as amazing as the musicians are, and just as they have accomplished much in their lives, so have I. So have so many other average women in the world. Who had odds stacked against them but just never surrendered or backed down. Those women who, despite gender based violence, sexual aggression or attack, family tree hurt, lack of support, lack of funds, have stood firm and FORCED the world to take notice. Have given back to their communities. Have uplifted other women. Have mentored. Coached. Taught. 

Been the village that you needed, when you needed it. Those are MY role models. The world needs engineers, and architects, and strong patriarchs. The world needs incredibly smart men to lead us and lead with us. But the mommy, the sister, the daughter. The healers and the sacrificers and the nurturers. They are my heros. They are the lifeblood of our society and THEY are my role models.

Does your mental health impact your physical health?

October, as we are all aware, is breast cancer awareness month. I personally know two ladies undergoing chemo currently with the biggest possibility of radiation being needed and then an operation to remove the growth if it does not improve from these two routes.

 

So often I have seen such a big link between what we think, and what we are conditioned to think, and what we feel about ourselves, manifesting in sickness. In disease, and most often, in cancers.

 

For years we have been told that we manifest our negativity, and our positivity, in our daily lives. That our minds are powerful enough to think things into creation. That what we think, we become.

 

People like Louise Hay tell us that we can heal our bodies. They tell us that various ailments are caused by our circumstances. So possibly issues with your breasts can be caused by issues with your mother when you were growing up. Feeling of inadequacy. Rejection. Of not being good enough. We also hear from alternative healers that your left side and your right side have different meanings, your past and your future or present.

 

Then what about genetics? Why do people who have cancer in their family history stand a much better chance of getting cancer themselves? Why do some people refuse chemo and radiation and insist on the treatment of cannabis? Why does cannabis assist so many people with pain relief? What about the additives and preservatives in our food? Can this give us cancer?

 

 

The truth is, nobody knows enough, and the people that do, aren’t telling. Because at the end of the day, our world is all about money, and about profiting from other people’s misfortunes. Turning a profit is the highest priority that people have. No matter the cost.

 

I had a cancer issue with my breasts and walked a very long journey. I discovered so much and grew incredibly. I lost my left nipple and most of my left breast, but through this loss, I gained so much. So much understanding, so much compassion. So much insight into who people are, especially those around me. I learned what I can actually take and tolerate, and what is a no-go. I learned what my body needs and how it heals.

 

What caused my issues can be interpreted in many ways. Issues with matriarchy in my bloodline. A family history. My own thoughts and my own negativity? Possibly? For years I had felt downtrodden. Victimised. Scared. Resentful. And where had it gone? Was it released through meditation and prayer? NO. Was it released through therapy and safe space talking. NO! It was kept safely inside my chest for years. Bursting at the seams to get out. To be heard. To be unpacked. Instead I guarded it close and eventually, it manifested in my body. And it festered there for 12 years before I found the correct treatment and the correct care.

 

With the ugliness so prevalent around us at the moment. The loss of income, homes, family, and life, we cannot but help feel, as a herd, that we are vulnerable. That inevitably we will fall too. But this self-talk, can only harm us. Emotionally, mentally, and I believe, physically. Do not let it fester. Do not give it space to grow and feel warm and comforted. Seek positivity. Seek affirmation and love. Leave the toxic relationships behind you. And only allow the light inside. Be kind to yourself this October.

 

 

 

 

 

What is the toughest part of being a manager?

 

When I was younger, and worked in travel and tourism as a tour operator, all I ever wanted to be was a manager. The glory. The adoration. All the dollars rolling in month after month. Ahhhh, the life of power.

 

And then, I left travel and tourism, and I came to join VCA. 20 years ago. Within the first year, I was a manager, as we were so small, and growing. So the people that came in needed to be trained, and so I grew and I moulded and I became management. Within 3 years I was a director and had shareholding within the business. I HAD ARRIVED.

 

Funnily, the plaque on my office door just never arrived. Nor did the office. Nor the door. Nor the gold tea set and 6 figure salary. How could this possibly be? Did everybody not know I was a DIRECTOR. Not even a simple manager. I was important.

 

I had always been the life and soul of any office I had ever worked in. Friends with everybody, always up for a laugh, keen to play silly bugger with the best of them. Pranks were what sustained me. I was great at my job but could multitask exceptionally well. This was the same at VCA. Until…. The people I had been out with on the Friday night now needed a letter of warning. My best friend in the next office hadn’t come in to work for a few days and I had to start disciplinary proceedings. Oh dear… this was awkward? And so I learned the very hard lesson that once you are a manager, it becomes a vey lonely road that you travel.

 

That your colleagues will have private jokes. You will stop being invited out, and you need to stop inviting them out with you. Work and home lives need to be kept separate or you will have endless heartache. For an extrovert like me, who is gregarious and needs people around her all the time, it has been the toughest part of being a manager. Being around people you genuinely like every day, and having to keep them at arm’s length. Letting them in just enough so that they don’t think you are a snob or think you are good for them, and keeping them at bay enough so that there can never be that familiarity. So that when work has to become a place of conflict,  or when you need to step into your manager’s hat, there can be no confusion.

 

This is why its invaluable to have a supportive spouse, or a best friend that you can chat to, or even a mastermind group, but people who understand and can give you advice or even just an ear. Being a manager is tough. We don’t get compliments. We don’t get the increases we deserve. We don’t get bonuses, because our bosses are tough man!

 

It is similar to being a parent in so many ways, and is definitely something that gets easier over time. think carefully before you long for the title and all that goes with it, because it is definitely not all that it seems! Be kind to your manager.  

What is a coach, or mentor, and when would we need to use one?

 In 2013 I was accepted into a bursary program at GIBS, sponsored by Goldman Sachs. It was advertised on Radio 702, and I applied at the very last minute, for the very last cohort to be offered in South Africa. This was a very exciting and exclusive program, offered only at GIBS for the whole of Africa, and for women-owned SMMEs.

 

Not being very optimistic about the outcome, I was super excited when I was notified that I had been successful in my application. I arrived at my first day fresh, exhilarated, and totally wet behind the ears. The next few months would be a whirlwind of being schooled in business. Not business the way that we have always done it. The same methods of marketing. The head in the sand kind of accounting that I was so fond of. It was intensive. It was thorough. It was a mini MBA that taught me everything I had been doing wrong for 12 years, and showed me exactly how I should be doing things.

 

As a small business we are fond of finding what we cannot do. We don’t have budgets for professional staff. We cannot afford marketing the way we see our big business competition do. So we make excuses. This is why our turnover doesn’t grow. This is the reason our profits are not showing what we expected. But what we forget is that every single business started small. As an idea. As a concept. As a person.

 

And how did this shift for me? At the end of our theoretical portion, we were assigned a group coach. So 7 of us had a coach for round-table discussion, and for one on one sessions. Having different feedback, firstly from peers in business, and secondly from somebody who has had dealings with hundreds of other small businesses, was an invaluable gift for me. I started seeing a coach monthly.

 

I outgrew many of them, as my needs changed, and my focus and experience did. But through each step of the road, my coach has held my hand. Helped me realise exactly what I need without ever telling me, just letting me work it out myself. Help me find solutions. Get access to contacts I would never have thought of. Coaching has become a part of my every day life. Relationship coaching, business coaching, wellness coaching, money coaching even!

 

Through this period of growth, I met my first official mentor. I realised that I had many of them along my journey. People who had made big impacts, and who had grown and assisted me, without ever realising what they were adding to my life. People who had been there, done that, and were walking the walk I had always dreamed of. My mentors have never been in the same field of work as me, but they have all been women in business. Older. More successful and established. Who just see through the nonsense, who can suss out a situation quickly, and assist you to become your best you with very little fuss and a whole lot of love.

 

Coaching and mentoring are such an integral part of business, and of life, for me, and so being able to coach and mentor has become a wonderful gift that I am able to share and use to assist other small businesses in their journeys to betterment. My advice would be that all people who are self employed should be seeing a coach at least monthly to keep them focussed and on track. It is easy to tell ourselves white lies and become complacent, but in a world Post-COVID, can we really afford this any more?

Traditions that you follow religiously

I am not much of a traditional girl. But something that has always held my attention, inspired my dedication and kept me coming back time and time again, is celebration. Specifically, celebration of those around me that I love. So as a result, birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, are very big deals to me.  Anything that requires celebration of who a person is or what they have achieved gets me extremely excited. And these traditions are my own.

 

Now ingrained in my children and in the people around me. Birthdays start a week, sometimes even a month, early. And why not? Life is full of so much sadness today, more than ever before. People who have lost their livelihoods, their families, their very hope. And so a celebration is necessary every day, every chance that we get.

 

And so, we look to tradition. We look to what is comfortable, and familiar and warm. We count sleeps till Christmas, to our birthdays, to anniversaries. We plan special presents, or treats, or surprises. To affirm, to build up and to add smiles. To make new memories and remember the old ones.

 

Tradition for you may be religious. It may be what you eat and when. It may be who you see at what times. But we all have something we hold to tightly. And these are what keep us going through the dark times. They add excitement and make us feel hopeful again

 

May we never let them die.

 

 

Small business - our pain body

Small businesses. We have a reputation of being the fertilizer for the economy. Creating jobs. Growing skills. Nurturing market entrants. We train them up, perfect their skills. Grow their confidence. Introduce them to the world of work. Teach them about tax. Leave. Managing their finances. Polish them up, make their roots strong and their trunks hardy. And then they leave us. For the allure of corporate. For the shining promise of more money, and bigger growth opportunities.

And the small business counts their pennies, and puts a paid for ad on Facebook, or Career Junction, and hopes for the best. Interviews take forever as not everybody is content only to work closer to home, and have a family instead of a culture. We interview, we woo, we sharpen our pencils. And then… the bite. We’ve hooked one. A really promising shining new sapling. They come in to start, and the training starts again. The nurturing. The grooming. The building.

This is a never-ending cycle within our small business framework. One we are all too familiar with. Poor economy? Low growth? Small return? We, the tree, have become so used to our life cycle that we have grown immune to the effects of this on us, and we continue our journey despite our setbacks.

And then, 2020 hits us. We had all heard about COVID. We knew it was a terrible thing. Affecting people over there. across the ocean. We watched on TV and we sympathised. So glad it wasn’t in SA. So glad our already shaky infrastructure and numerous setbacks were not to be hit with yet another.

Until that fateful day, ‘my fellow South Africans’ our President greeted us at our very first and fearful family meeting. Well, we thought, 3 weeks off, with our loved ones, while this virus goes away, is a small price to pay for our stability, for our peace of mind. And so we downed our pens, and we turned off our PCs, and sent our staff home. Hoping we could still work remotely. Knowing we had not done sufficient to really prepare us or ensure seamless productivity in other locations. But we hoped for the best.

And then 3 weeks turned into over a year. People who knew people who knew people who knew of somebody with COVID popped up out of the woodwork. We shook our heads in disbelief. Then we heard of somebody we had met once before who had it. And the shock and disbelief is palpable. The fear is undeniable.

We still attempt to run our businesses. We try to chase our debtors, only to be told our contact person has been retrenched. And the owner is off ill, with the dreaded C-word. This time, not cancer. We scramble to get new business in, and renew retainers which are expiring soon. Only to be told that any outsourcing is simply not a viable option anymore. That what we previously had offered will have to be internalised.

We tune in to webinars we look to business leaders for inspiration and we are told to pivot. Pivot how? Pivot where? How do we change direction without our teams around us?
So many people have lost their livelihoods over the past 18 months. So many people have been retrenched. Businesses have closed. Families have lost loved ones. People have been dislodged. Evicted. We cannot see those we love. We cannot touch each other. Show affection. Emotion. Sympathy. Yes, COVID has been long! We need to be humans, and to find a way to thrive again, not just exist. We need to find a way back to our vulnerability, and to begin again. Let us focus on the business of rebuilding. And as we do so, let us forever remember just how long COVID is, and let us never forget to be grateful for right now, for right now is all we have. That’s why its called THE PRESENT.