I won the lotto

The first time I ever saw a Bentley Arnage, it was looking pitiful. It was filthy, covered in bird droppings and had clearly not moved in weeks.

I remember it like it was yesterday, visiting this lady’s house and listening to her complaining about her house. She had this Bentley parked in her yard and the car literally had bird poo all over it. It was parked right by the pool, and she mentioned that she just needs to move house because she has nowhere to park her car. See….her FOUR garages were already full with other cars. I was even afraid to ask what cars she had in there that needed shelter above a Bentley Arnage.

Good problem to have, that.

I must confess, I don’t aspire to that kind of wealth. I don’t want a mansion in the hills with twenty bedrooms. But I do want to be comfortable. I do want to have my own comfortable house in a golf estate (even though I refuse to play golf) and I want to have my two cars and my motorbike. Worst thing is….all these are long overdue. Anybody who knew me five, ten, fifteen, even twenty years ago would be shocked to discover that I don’t have all these….because I have always had the potential to have them. The one voted most likely to succeed.

I am not going to dwell on where it all went wrong, for now, (that is a topic for another day). I do, however, want to focus on all that is positive and what I should be doing about it.

You know those kids in the movies who have lemonade stands, then move on and become multi-millionaires when they grow up? That should have been me. I was ten years old when I started my first business. During school holidays, when other kids were in the street playing, I was at home working. Selling. We called them ice blocks in the hood. It was basically frozen mixed cool drinks, like Kool Aid and Sweeto that was always being sold all over the place. I used Sixxo. And, even back then I knew that I needed a USP (unique selling preposition). So, instead of using plastic bags to package my ice blocks, I used plastic cups. And I would pre-boil my mix for a few hours, because I found that it held the flavour for much longer when I did so. As a result, business was booming in summer. People would walk past many places that sold their ice blocks at 10c to come buy my product at 15c.

My next venture, was a stroke of genius. See, at about 14, I decided to take up Home Economics at school. So, suddenly, I knew how to cook and more importantly, I could bake a mean hot milk sponge cake. My chocolate cake had people visiting us all the time, just so they could sample it. And don’t get me started on my cheese scones…..to this day, over 20 years later, I am still asked for the recipe for those.

Whenever there were fund raisers at school, we would have cake sales or (more importantly) cake raffles. Where we would be asked to bake a cake, which would then be a prize at a raffle. And it hit me…..I baked the cake. I sold the raffle tickets. But the school got the money. Something is wrong here. So, after I saw how happy the winner was with the prize, I started holding weekly raffles. Sell 30 tickets, at R2 each, and just have a different winner every week. Bake a cake, which cost me nothing because I was using mom’s ingredients. And I would come out R60 on top, every single week. Brilliant! And to pay for the use of ingredients, I would generally bake two cakes. One for my clients and another for my mom. So, she was more than happy with the deal. And, of course, the clients were happy. They got to a point where people would buy four, five, six tickets per week. And of course, since I got to select the winner, I could even choose to have more than one winner per week, if I wanted to. That was Linda at fourteen.

With a mind like that, would you ever bet AGAINST me being successful in business?

Fast forward four years to my varsity years and it just so happened that my dad had some friends who came from Ghana. And they had these beautiful embroidered dresses that they were bringing in. At the time, those dresses were still fairly rare. I remember that Winnie Mandela popularised them. You only ever saw them on tv, with her wearing them. And I had the stash! I Started selling them to lecturers and to school teachers around Mankweng, the neighbourhood next to my university. It was nothing short of brilliant. And believe me, it made for amazing pocket money.

When I came out of varsity, I inevitably went and got a job, but the entrepreneurial spirit continued to burn in me. So, five years later, when my bosses, in their infinite wisdom, decided to fire me from my first job (I can’t even remember what stupid thing I had done), instead of feeling that it was the end of the world, I thought….”Finally! I can work for myself now.” Everybody thought I was psychotic to not be depressed at this.

Sure enough, within a few months, three friends and I opened the doors to our restaurant; “Marung Restaurant and Bar” 50^th floor, Carlton Centre. The highest restaurant in all of Joburg, hence the name Marung, which means “in the clouds”….. That place was awesome. I loved it. Poured my heart and soul into it. And every Friday, we would bring in a jazz band, give the place a nice jazzy vibe. And, of course, I would sing a track or two with the band. It was an awesome time!

The place had its many problems, we ended up pulling in many different directions as partners and in the end, the partnership was dissolved.  But, I assure you, I WILL have another Marung again. One that belongs to only me, this time. I mean….I have ventured twice into the restaurant industry. Third time’s the charm!

Moving right along! Every time I meet people who knew me years ago, they are always astounded that I am not filthy rich. And it bothers me that everybody saw all this potential in me and I have kind of let them down in a way. I remember when I was working for Mercedes Benz….I drove all these fancy expensive cars and everybody that I grew up with was just not surprised. They automatically assumed that the cars were mine, because, in their eyes, I was destined for them. My job was to make people fall in love with Mercedes Benz as a brand and believe me I hated that. Because, ultimately, the cars were not mine. And even though I looked the part and probably inspired many people to want to drive the cars, I needed some inspiration for myself.

So….here I am. I left Mercedes Benz, and I left corporate life for good this time, I hope. I have a LOT of people rooting for me to be successful. I always say, I could never ever win the lotto. God already blessed me abundantly with these brains that I have. And all this talent that I have been blessed with. My intelligence, my eloquence, my writing skills, my resonant voice, my singing voice, my average acting skills…… THAT is my lotto.

All I have to do, is cash in my ticket.