the pride of Africa's women entrepreneurs
by Marilize Jacobs
You are not scatter-brained. You are not burnt out. You are multi-dimensional!
I have been told to pick one thing approximately 4,000 times. By teachers. By "Claude" and “ChatGPT”. By that confident person at dinner who definitely peaked somewhere between 2002 and 2008 and now dispenses career advice as if focus is a personality. Even by mentors.
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Zanele Njapha
Lioness Weekender Cover Story
The UnLearners, a South African personal and professional development company that helps individuals and organizations thrive through change.
Zanele Njapha is the CEO of The UnLearners and a leading voice on transformation, unlearning, and future-fit leadership. Known as The UnLearning Lady, she helps individuals and organizations navigate change with courage and clarity. A former teacher turned global keynote speaker and coach, Zanele equips people to let go of limiting beliefs and step boldly into what’s next. Her work is a rallying call to learn, change and grow, fearlessly.
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by Sharon Castle - Lifestyle and Wellness Coach
This year has been the year where I heard and adopted the phrase “MY QTR” - My quality time remaining. There comes a moment in life when we realize the clock is ticking - not in a way that feels rushed or urgent, but in a way that whispers of the preciousness of the time we have remaining. It’s a sobering and clarifying truth: life is finite. And in that realization lies a profound opportunity to live with greater intention, vitality, and joy.
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by Ronel Jooste
It was the question “What is your plan for your personal growth?” that made world-renowned leadership expert John C. Maxwell ponder about his career aspirations and that has ignited his journey becoming one of the most respected authors about leadership and personal growth.
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by Thabisile Mabele
Navigating the marketing landscape as a young 23-year-old has been an exciting, challenging, and enriching experience. From my early days of exploring the marketing field to where I am now, I’ve come to realize that growth in this industry is not just about climbing the career ladder but also about personal development, learning, and embracing new opportunities.
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by Paula Quinsee
What does it take to be an empowered woman? When it comes to juggling careers, family, and social obligations, it's easy to put our own development on the back burner. However, the truth is that investing in your personal growth is not just a luxury - it's a necessity for creating a life of purpose and fulfillment. Here's why now is the time to prioritize your self-investment and some practical considerations to keep in mind.
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by Lori Milner
Happiness is subjective because we all have different rules for what it will take to be happy. I am not here to give you a magic formula but rather to offer a set of questions to help you understand what it means for you.
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by Sharon Castle - Lifestyle and Wellness Coach
When last did you spend time in the company of little children? I’m talking about little people between the ages of 1 and 2 years old. This past week, this is exactly what I did. I was invited by a friend to join her on a trip to her house in Ponta d’Ouro, Mozambique and we were joined by her daughter and her two young sons, while their husbands were away on a business trip.
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by Sharon Castle - Lifestyle and Wellness Coach
Having just returned from a two-week breakaway of rest and peace, I’ve been asking myself this question, “if I could do 2023 over again, what would I change?” The question hasn’t come about in order to berate myself for what I didn’t do, but to get clear on what I might like to do in 2024 that I didn’t get to do in 2023. On my morning walk today what I realized was I actually achieved a lot more than I set out to and that came as a bit of a surprise since up until a few short years ago, I often wanted the new year to be better than the previous year until I understood something fundamentally important and it’s this: “My reality exists in my own mind and not in the world.”
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Yetty Williams, founder & CEO, LagosMums (Nigeria)
Startup Story
Yetty Williams is a parenting coach and the founder and CEO of LagosMums in Nigeria. She is a seasoned entrepreneur, award-winning speaker, and highly sought-after thought leader concerning parenting and family, digital citizenship, and work-life balance. Yetty founded LagosMums in 2014 as a young mother herself and wanted to create a community to support other mothers on the journey. She has extensive professional experience across business development, entrepreneurship, and digital media. She is a certified life coach, trained in Neurolinguistic programming practitioner, cognitive behaviour therapy, online safety and child safeguarding and a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council.
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by Sharon Castle - Lifestyle and Wellness Coach
There’s a common belief that happiness is something you have to look for. I used to believe that too. Eventually after exhausting myself with my affirmations, meditations, journal writing, juicing, fasting, exercising and so on and so on…….. believing that I had to tick all the boxes that the experts told me I had to achieve or else I would be unhappy.
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by Margaret Hirsch
It’s always been amazing to me that I have lived in this body for so many years, and had never thought about myself, my journey, or my personal growth. I think that growing up in a poor household we were focused on keeping body and soul together and the next meal became the most important thing that we could focus on.
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by Lori Milner
Your alarm goes off at 6 am because you promised to start exercising…again. When you reach over to turn off the alarm, your mind tells you it's cold and dark and you should hit snooze for another ten minutes. What do you do? These next few minutes will determine the trajectory of your day. If you keep your promise to yourself, you generate energy, self-confidence and a deep sense of self-trust.
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by Lori Milner
What if you approached personal growth like decluttering your wardrobe? If you want to add new items more suitable to your current style, you want to free up space first and let go of the items that no longer serve you or are not aligned with who you are. Instead of reading another personal growth book or attending another workshop, what can you edit out that is no longer aligned with who you are first?
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by Lori Milner
Thinking is choice architecture. Laying a foundation of negative and fearful thoughts builds your next levels of emotions, beliefs and actions. Author and Professor John Kabat-Zinn describes thoughts as soap bubbles of the mind. You can choose to attach yourself to the thoughts or see through them and pop them.
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by Lori Milner
Think back to the last time you attended a buffet dinner. Despite the array of choices available to you, it's human nature to stick to what you know and probably go back for several helpings of the same thing. Another way to approach a buffet is with curiosity. Wow, why haven't I ever tried this before? Let me take a small portion to try, and who knows, I may even love it.
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by Margaret Hirsch
When one is starting a business, the word on everyone’s lips is FUNDING, “I need funding for this that and the next thing”, but what they forget about is not only MARKETING which is the most important thing of all but ACCESS TO MARKETS to ensure that their business is not only successful but more importantly sustainable.
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by Margaret Hirsch
Being brought up in a strict Baptist home, we had very strong principles to live by. However, we were taught to look down on anyone who remotely thought they were good enough! As a child I was told that children should be seen and not heard, that I should only speak when spoken to, and if I did something that went against the grain, I was told to be ashamed of myself - AND I WAS! If I said anything out of place, I had a harsh - WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? thrown my way.
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by Lori Milner
Imposter syndrome is not based on logic. The most successful people still experience the feeling that everyone will find out that they know nothing, that their success is based on luck, and that they don’t deserve to be there. It’s a debilitating pattern and one that can keep you playing small if you buy into your own story.
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by Sharon Castle - Lifestyle and Wellness Coach
At the time of writing this blog, I had recently experienced my 64th birthday. I say experienced because it really wasn’t a celebration. My attention and focus were on making myself available for my niece and her family to enjoy her time in South Africa while celebrating her 50th birthday and the very important task of sifting through her late mother’s belongings (my sister). My sister passed 2.5 years ago and Covid prevented her daughter from attending the memorial service or visiting to complete the difficult task of deciding what to do with her belongings. Therefore, my birthday was just another day and all my energy was around holding space for my family.
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