The turbulent equation of living a charmed life

as per modern day custom

i share my stories and insights on

social media

and a few months ago zoe

left a comment on one of my linkedin

responses

saying that i lived a charmed life

now i was surprised by this for a minute

because while my highs are high

my lows are low but after reflecting on

i had to admit that i do live a charmed

life

to me living a charmed life is living

your full potential

i’m lazy donna williams a pan-african

globalist

and i believe that everyone has the

right to live their full potential

regardless of the lives they had no

choice

of being born into i’ve molded my career

around this belief

moderating dialogues and change

processes

for communities and corporates

from traveling to 38 countries i’ve seen

that institutions are really just a body

of people and all of us

have the same baseline needs

sadly too many people come to me all the

time

saying that they are dissatisfied with

their lives

and this happens across the

socio-economic divide

so today i’ll be sharing a set of

experiences

beliefs and actions that have supported

my journey

from youth as a freelancer

and institution builder

travel with me to 1988.

my mother becomes a pioneer

a pioneer of divorce in my

family and community

very scandalous for the late 80s

and when it was finalized come 2010

symbolizing freedom for both my mother

and mandela

i was on my journey to learning a lot of

lessons

one of it is that i need to respond to

my soul’s needs

so when i find myself in an environment

that is no longer good for me and

i can no longer contribute to making a

difference in it

it is time for me to let go

i’ve also come to learn that many people

will not be happy with your decisions

well that’s an important lesson to learn

early on

when you’re going to be running a

company in the future

and respond to well-being naysayers

on the entrepreneurial journey turn with

through time to 1998.

i became a student at rao the ramsar

free kansas universitate

as it was known at the time

believe it or not i was quite shy and

would have never felt comfortable

on a stage like this but i was attracted

to this organization called isaac

founded in 1948 is the world’s largest

student organization

committed to world peace and fulfillment

of your mankind’s potential

i was also attracted to isaac because of

its focus on travel

and cultural understanding

you see it was in isaac where i met my

friends around the world

where i met

my ex-boyfriends i met employers

and i met a number of entrepreneurs

who i later on in life

launched benches with

we’re going back into time again

reversing

to 1994 going into 95.

i was 14 years old the day before my

15th birthday

nelson mandela came to my school and on

the morning of my 15th birthday

i ended up being on the front cover

of the sweden him

with nelson mandela in fact this was my

first cover at 15 years old i would say

that’s quite an achievement

but what mandela did that day was

share with us that he had the dream

to carry us in his pocket closest to his

heart

so for the next few years as madiba

circled the world

on jets on and off stages here stages

and there

i felt worthy of being on that stage

with him in fact he told me so

so i’m convinced that if children

get this kind of encouragement and

messaging from a young age

that they will be encouraged and feel

worthy

to create a meaningful difference in

society

now sail with me on a ship

to another continent at another time

london 2006 was

finally the year that i

fulfilled this long awaited dream of

travel

i sold my red toyota taz to enable it

which was very sad for me at the time

but it did so much good for me

now after season of waitressing and

doing administration jobs

i had had enough i knew there had to be

more for me

than this sadly i did not

fit neatly into a recruitment agency’s

tick box of selecting talent

so i had to take initiative

one day i took a day of my work and i

sat in bed sending emails to companies

saying that

you and i have the same mission and we

therefore need to

meet i was surprised that i got any

response and actually got a few

within three days i got offered the job

to manage the secretariat of a south

african

networking club in london

this also freed up my time to start

hosting dialogues

on social change which was my true

passion

that led to large opportunities where i

got invited to international consulting

opportunities thereby launching my

international career

now we’re going to be taking

multiple flights to antarctica

2009 but i have to first tell you how it

got to antarctica

you see i got copied into response

email to peter sengei who’s the world’s

renowned systems

scientist i’ve been reading his books

for several years mapping out many

innovation ecosystems based

on his very work

he shared that he was recruiting

emerging leaders

for this expedition to antarctica

so there i was replying to the email

dear mr sengay i would be more than

happy to

support your recruit recruitment

initiative p.s

i would like to come along too and

what do you know i applied and i got in

i was one

of 60 young leaders from around the

world

selected onto the expedition read by

robert swann

the first man to have walked to both the

north

and the south pole we spent an intense

10 days being exposed

to the effects of climate change and

debated

solutions now while antarctica was

majestic

and i got to spend time with the leading

minds in sustainability around the world

i also came to learn that if we

do not have a strategic agenda as

africans

then others will always determine

what our development should be

that was a turning point for me to

learn to get my voice at the table

sometimes being creative in doing so

but my voice will be there

around the same time soon after

i met author meg wheatley who was

touring south africa

after launching her latest book walk on

walkout

she shared with us that a common trait

amongst change makers

was that they live life as an experiment

this came as huge relief to me

you see i was in the process of setting

up africa’s first hub for social

entrepreneurs and the concept of living

experimental life gave me

relief because it took the pressure down

on what

success needs to look like

but i still annoyed my friends you see i

was that entrepreneur would keep

yapping away about what i’m going to set

up without actually launching

until a friend of mine banned me from

speaking about it until i launched

this was when i was confronted with the

reality

that i was living in fear

and i had to look here in the eye and

acknowledge it

and i learned that when acting in fear

when taking action despite fear your

good friend

courage comes along and you journey

together

but courage will not show up without

action

in 2010 finally launched

and over the years i learned that when

people know your mission

and your heart then you attract

generosity there came a time

when i needed to expand our work and

move premises so on recommendation

i spoke to the international women’s

forum and after the manager asked me a

number of

tough questions she picked up the phone

and then turned to me and told me what

time

dr vyoy would be landing at o.r tambo

international airport

the next day so there i was

showing up at arrivals waving this woman

down

and that was how i got to meet my mentor

for the very

first time she took me to the airport

lounge and over two hours i shared my

life story my entrepreneurial journey

and what really felt like confessions

really

after nodding vigorously she said i must

see this place

so ever the opportunistic entrepreneur

that i am

i said well let’s go down so

doctor viryo hopped into my

dirty little tabs side note

i bought my tabs back from my father

when i came back from london

but nonetheless i took this high-powered

woman

downtown johannesburg through heel brow

to show her the place

and after speaking to every single

entrepreneur

we returned to the airport she looked at

me and said

we can’t disappoint those people

i took comfort in bill o’brien’s quote

he says that the quality of an

intervention relies on the internal

state of the intervener

now i know that doing inner work

is possibly the most important work

of designing innovative change

the wheels however came off in 2014

i found myself lying on my bathroom

floor

over a period of three days not knowing

what’s wrong with me

i couldn’t keep food and liquids down

i felt lonely i realized that

as an entrepreneur i got caught up in

business

and a crazy travel schedule

and isolated the most important people

in my life

i’d also let go of my hobbies at that

time

these were the things going through my

head lying on that floor

it turned out to be a kidney infection

and after a few days of treatment

ever the busy entrepreneur still caught

up in old habits

i forced myself back to work when i was

not ready

and within two weeks

i was driving in my car and i saw a bus

coming toward me without any space to

back up

he narrowly missed my door

and hit the front of my car writing off

my little red tears

what did lazy do i got out of my car

assess the damage arranged for the car

to be moved to my parking bay

and then asked an entrepreneur to take

me to my next meeting

president investors meeting how could i

miss it

what i did not know that all of these

were indicators of what was to come

within a few months i temporarily closed

my company

and gave in to six months debilitating

burnout

my return to the public life was however

spectacular

i became africa’s face of failure

you see a few months before shutting

down the hub

i launched a monthly event called f up

night

now i’m not allowed to say the full word

so you can look it up

but f knight was really about

entrepreneur failure

sharing lessons learning from others so

in order for me to build legitimacy

within the entrepreneurial community

again i needed to tell my story

so there i was sharing it all nasty

illnesses

and everything and

[Music]

strangely i got it and got invited to do

the same in seattle

it got to the point where entrepreneur

mag usa

even flew over a photographer to take

pictures of me to cover my story

my story of bernard was just as

spectacular and people

loved calling me to the stage speaking

about that

it’s needless to say that my mental

health and taking care of my internal

state

has become a priority to me

finally what i have come to learn

is that when you live your beliefs daily

and take micro actions

it rolls out has ripple effects creating

larger opportunities for impact where

you get invited

to sit at large tables last year

another one of my dreams started to come

to life

a dream to moderate dialogues with heads

of states

i got invited to moderate the dialogue

on nelson mandela’s legacy

between president barack obama

and mum grasser michelle we find

ourselves now

in a turbulent time of 2020

due to covet 19.

let’s take this moment to pause

to rethink humanity

and design a world that works for all

this is going to take both micro and

bold action

we need to assess the beliefs that drive

and acknowledge that we have an

influence

on our environment for me

these are the seeds to create our

collective

charmed lives if not now

then never thank you