My Story - Getting Up Close and Personal

A shorter version of the full podcast 

Welcome, beautiful souls.Today it gets real, up close and personal as I share some of my story that has been unfolding over 23 years. 

As many of you know, I have been enmeshed in a business that has been a roller coaster ride of joys and seeming sorrows during this time. This episode though is not just about the businesses, the brands, or the outward accomplishments. It is me raw and real, sharing the journey of my heart and soul in having answered a call - one that I could not ignore no matter where the twists and turns of this journey took me. 

Truth - It all began in a place of uncertainty, as many journeys do. I was at a crossroads, disenchanted with the work that I was doing and the company that I was doing it for. I could feel the hollowness in my Soul and that in some respects, I was going through the motions. I am sure, that many of you can relate. 

It was in this shadow, one of the ‘dark nights of the Soul’ that creeps up on us as we traverse this journey called life, that the whisper of what I had signed up for, from the World of Spirit was presented into my awareness and consciousness. This whisper, I have come to know as The Call of my Soul, putting me on notice that there was something more than what was occurring in my external circumstances. There was something greater, something sacred. This was one of those moments in my search for meaning and purpose, where the questions I had been putting out into the Universe, was being answered. 

It came through a simple drawing as many visions do - as in a simple concept. A concept that I naively thought I would manifest in no time. I can smile back at that childlike wonder and simplicity in my interpretation of that simple yet profoundly layered design and concept that had been entrusted to me. 

I could have said no - and in the words of Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert - Big Magic, The Universe, Higher Power would have found someone else to entrust this Sacred Contract to. But in all honesty I cannot deny the enchantment, the sense of rightness that I felt in every fibre of my being that the initial spark of the idea has embedded in it the answer not only to some of my struggles I had encountered in the corporate world, it also shone a light on some of the challenges, issues and very real tragedies that we as humanity are facing. 

Hindsight is 20:20 vision as we all know. And the hindsight of what had transpired prior to my moment (it took a whole day to be sure to truly connect with the spark of the day) of illumination, was the perfection of the path leading up to this moment. 

I have always been in the privileged position of working with people in learning and development, pretty much since I left university. My gratitude to my last employee job had been an integral part of preparing me for the spark that was to illuminate the fire within me. As the song says, it only takes a spark to get a fire going! 

It took me two years of failing forward at University to discover that the Law was not something that resonated with my Soul. Here already, my destined path was being revealed. As a part of my electives while studying Law, I had signed up for psychology classes that served to redirect my path. This redirect ignited what has been and still is a lifelong love affair with understanding people and being a catalyst to inspire the spark that would set them on their path of illumination. Grateful to have encountered the energy of being a ‘Stretch’ and not a ‘Shrink’ - thank you Prof Alan ZImbler. 

I spent 20 years in the corporate world and was blessed to have had a number of mentors that fuelled the potential that they saw in me. Their wisdom and guidance I still draw on to this day. In many ways their influence has deeply and profoundly influence who I am as an educator today. 

And then came one of those turning points that I have come to know as the gateway, the portal into what I know are cycles of stretch. The company I was working for went through a cycle of re-engineering and restructuring and the strategic orientation of Training and Development was operationalised and it felt like I had been catapulted back 15 years in my career. A turn that was to become one of those ‘dark nights of the Soul’ that I have come to know as the times where I have been separated from my vision and purpose. I was uncertain, insecure and disillusioned finding it difficult to find meaning in this experience. I discovered my deep aversion to ‘authority’ as the inner rebel railed at the unfairness of it all. Little did I know that this was to be the catalyst for profound personal transformation. 

Prior to this shift there were a number of ‘gems of truth’ that had been placed upon my path that were signals that would reveal deeper levels of my inner truth and that would be the catalysts that would lead me to my greater calling. 

Whilst still joyfully and gainfully engaging in strategic people development I had been involved in a number of projects that were life changing and that would feed into that vision that was so crystal clear as it was disseminated to me that afternoon and evening 23 years ago. 

I was entrusted with hotel openings which to this day are some of the highlights of my career and Brand rebrandings that took me to Zimbabwe, Mocambique, Kenya and Rwanda; projects like the transformation of the manual hotel reservations systems to online booking which introduced me to the Experience Economy and reinforced my love of narrative and story. And then there two events that truly turned my head and life inside out and upside down - so discombobulating were they in shattering and forever changing my view of the world - the United Nations Conference on Racism and Xenophobia and the World Summit on Sustainable that was hosted in Johannesburg. 

Running in parallel, I had been blessed to rediscover a, which later became my Spiritual Path - I was gifted a Native American Indian Card Deck which ignited a love affair that resonated deeply with my Soul, adding fanning the fire of my discontent and discombobulation at the same time as awakening me to the fact that there was a different way of living and being on the planet. This was further reinforced yet again by Man’s Search for Meaning that I had encountered for the first time in the early 1990’s and Neale Donald Walsh’s ‘Conversation with God’ (especially book 2). 

All of these events that are crystal clear now in terms of their synchronicities including the discombobulation and the ‘dark soul periods and moments’ led to that moment in my hotel room where the vision for my purpose, the business that was to be and still is the container for my business was born. 

The outward development of the business, products and services - the highs and lows - money going out more than money coming in (which led to rather large amount of debt - well that’s one way of viewing it - flipping the script, though it has been an enormous investment of energy, time and money) in fulfilling that illumined purpose and vision that had been entrusted to me. 

Looking back, I am in awe at the fact that my Higher Power entrusted this path of illumination to me, when I think my own naivety and on the flip side my dogged determination not to fail in bringing what had been entrusted to me into the Light of human consciousness. 

This journey as I look back down what feels like an endless tunnel has shown me that there were moments of incredible illumination and periods of deep uncertainty, fear, doubt and insecurity and that everything was always and still is in perfect balance - and it is so clear to me that I can see the spiral of illumination into shadow, the spark of Light that is a part of the shadow, bringing in yet another layer of illumination, and that each period of shadow was to bring about a depth of learning and growth that would birth the next cycle.