#Choicematters: If It Is To Be, It Is Up To Me

By Fadzai Marange

We don’t choose when, where and how we are born, neither do we choose how, where and when we die; the in between is up to us to influence. Fadzai’s story starts in Katobo Village in Gokwe, Zimbabwe. Born in abject poverty, Fadzai’s father was fired from work the year she was born with the equivalent of $50 in his pocket. Solely responsible for a family of nine, he invested in subsistence farming, which saw Fadzai graduate with a first degree and went on to get two masters degrees which earned her a respectable role in an international HIV/TB NGO organization.

Fadzai’s life journey was marred by what seemed like insurmountable challenges. Life did not throw bricks at Fadzai but boulders. Married at 21; unfortunately losing her baby due to hospital negligence followed by a car crash that nearly claimed her life and soon after migrating to a new country; a terrible and messy divorce; Fadzai has experienced it all. Fadzai‘s divorce left her scarred, as a single mum, in debt, house repossessed , loss of self-esteem, frustrated, clueless and petrified. With a nearly empty emotional reservoir, Fadzai was desperate for a positive solution to the challenges which had just kept on coming, one after another. To recover, she chose to focus on what was in her control and this is a defining characteristic of ‘Resilient Individuals’. Fadzai’s journey to return to ‘normal’ was guided by several choices which she shares in this book.

Fadzai says “It is a matter of holding on to what gives you the innermost peace and believing that the universe has your back. If you make a mess it’s OK, consider it a Whoopsie-daisy moment. Just step aside and wash yourself. Your self-worth does not vanish because your life is messed up. Rise up, clean-up and show-up. Make your decision with your soul, forget what society thinks about you, and remember they don’t carry your oxygen tank. Accept that circumstances don’t define you”.

Whatever your life story is, whatever the history, no matter how ugly it
has been; embrace it because the truth remains. #CHOICEMATTERS

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fadzai Marange
• Release date: Sep 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005618964

Book preview

#choicematters:

If it is to be, it is up to me

Making the intentional choices that beat

the odds and build resilience

Fadzai Marange

Table of Contents

1. When Bricks Are Thrown at You,

Do You Concede and Become a Victim?

2. Option A or Option A? There is Power in Words: How to Disregard Negative Words and Flourish at What You Want

3. The Choice Challenge Right From the Start

4. The Beginning of a Tragedy

5. The Transition

6. ‘Reunited’

7. Taking Control

8. The Power of Choice and Positive Confessions

9. The Final Truth

10. The Lone Journey

11. Joy Comes in the Morning

12. That Rainy Day is Always Waiting

13. Here and Beyond

Copyright © 2020 Fadzai Marange

Published by Fadzai Marange Publishing at Smashwords

First edition 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

Published by Fadzai Marange using Reach Publishers’ services,

Edited by Gerard Peter for Reach Publishers

Cover designed by Reach Publishers

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Website: www.reachpublishers.org

E-mail: [e-mail]

- Chapter 1 -

When Bricks Are Thrown at You,

Do You Concede and Become a Victim?

As the Whatsapp notification from a work colleague appeared on my phone screen, I wondered what he wanted during my vacation. I had been seconded to my new organisation since the beginning of 2018, and my contract with my current employer had been extended to work with a strategic partner. It was not what I had signed up for when I relocated to South Africa; the sudden change in funding from donors dictated the pace. Organisational changes were made and some individuals lost their jobs while my position was relocated to our strategic partner. I had an option to stay with the original company but faced the risk of redundancy in a short while or move to the recommended position and keep my job for a lot longer. Hence, I made a decision to accept the offer to move. Transition, as most will know, is not the best. I dreaded the move and the uncertainty and the lack of familiarity worried me. Regardless of my fears, the big move was done. Unfortunately, what I feared the most came to pass.

Having moved to South Africa in May 2017, the move to a new company came too soon as I was still trying to find my feet at my current organisation. When I decided to move to South Africa, I did not assume that the transition was going to be a walk in the park; neither did I anticipate the challenges I soon faced. I was aware that the change was going to be tough but not impossible. This assumption was correct but it was a tad presumptuous. I stayed at my original company for seven months and moved to my new organisation in January 2018. It took me nearly three months to figure out how to fit in. I was given the responsibility to lead the team and was glad to assume this position. There’s a familiar saying that states: All plans work perfect until tested by the enemy and I had the perfect plan to make the programme a huge success until I faced sudden challenges beyond my control – challenges I was not prepared to handle. Conflict in the workplace is a very complex and delicate situation to handle. I always imagined that I was resilient after having gone through a very tough and dysfunctional marriage that took me nearly 10 years to get a divorce. I thought I had faced every challenge there was to face. It was another failed assumption.

The following three months after assuming my role as team leader were extremely tough. On numerous occasions, I contemplated packing my bags and leaving. There was unhealthy competition in the workplace, one I was not willing to compete with yet I still found myself as being a candidate. I had to make a number of choices, starting with making the decision to ride the storm of the season until it calmed down. My second choice was to decide whether or not I was going to defend my honour based on what I was being accused of. My final decision was to stay and watch the space. I learnt during this tough season that when there are negative reports floating around about me, I was upset. But one has to be mature enough to let things be and give time for more evidence to unravel. That’s because the more you try to exonerate yourself, the guiltier you look. I learnt to continue to do the correct thing no matter what and goodness would follow.

As the year progressed, I was living with a lot of hurt and pain, but I chose to tell whoever asked me how I was doing at work that all was well. I always wondered if I made the correct choice to uproot myself from the UK after nearly 17 years of being away from home. Each time I hit a snag, the million-dollar question about whether I made the right decision to move to South Africa came to mind. I felt terrible, each day I went to work. I woke up with a lump in my throat, which only tears could clear. I literally needed to recite words every morning to reassure myself that all was well. A woman in my office knew me well enough by then. She knew when I was coping and when I was not. On bad days, she always spoke positively and kept asking me to pray for peace and favour.

In the beginning, when she advised me to stay positive, I used to go through the motions so I would not disappoint her. To be honest, I was so angry about the changes in my life that I could not even pinpoint the source or root cause of this anger. I was angry at life, I was angry with myself. I was angry with the accusers, I was angry with God. How does He allow this to happen to me if He says He is my protector and my refuge? It is important to understand that the world is not out to get you when you go through a tough time. It brings about a sense of hope and restoration. When I felt like the world was out to get me, everything looked so bad and I was overwhelmed. However, as I began to believe that the universe had my back, I genuinely started praying for positive change and each day I woke up, I referred to positive affirmations. The lump in my throat disappeared. Even though the challenges did not go away, I looked at them from a different perspective.

One of my mentors taught me a key principle of life. He said, Always do the right thing and money will always follow. This statement became my anchor; it was no longer about money alone and I started believing that the universe has my back in every aspect of life. I started believing that as long as I did the right things good results will follow. It was inevitable that good outcomes would go unnoticed. Therefore, I decided to focus on the processes in the hope that one day it would be truly well and before I knew it, the tides of positive change came along.

It was towards the end of 2018 and my entire soul was completely exhausted. Taking annual leave to escape back to what I now called ‘home’ was the plausible thing to do. The year had been a tough one; all I wanted was something new to look forward to. Christmas, seeing my son and the new year were the three things I was relying on to bring positive vibes back into my life. I genuinely hoped the new year had something better to offer. I was sitting at home in Ashford, UK, watching cartoons with my niece and nephew when I received a Whatsapp message from a colleague. I wondered what he needed as it was the end of the year and things at work were slow. His text said, Congratulations for being selected as the International Programme Manager of the Year. I was like, What? and the tears flowed down my face. Please understand that this was not the first time I got an award, but it had been the toughest year. I worked against all odds and had to quietly defend my honour. The tears were tears of relief that my work had produced some fruit that had been noticed. The year had been rough and given that I was crying almost every morning before work, the least I expected was a prize.

Even my family and friends were surprised to learn of my good news because all they knew about my work were the things that upset me throughout the year as I had consulted with them about my challenges. We were all excited. For the first time in 18 months, I finally felt like I had made the right decision to move back to Africa. All I wanted was to work in a place where I added value and made a difference. The pain I went through in the year made me feel as if I had not done enough. I took the job in South Africa to cement my decision to work as an individual who gives back to the community. Earning a good salary in the new job was not enough; I needed more. I needed to feel the value add and the inner peace that came with the accomplishments. Being an individual who had chosen to take a high flying corporate path two years earlier, the past 18 months had been a humbling experience.

At one stage, I could have easily identified as being a victim. I felt that life was being unfair yet I decided to continue doing the correct thing. Life has a habit of throwing things at us all the time. We can choose to remain victims of the situations we find ourselves in or choose to survive and overcome. My situation in 2018 could have been different; the key was how I responded to the challenges that I was facing.

- Chapter 2 -

Option A or Option A? There is Power in Words: How to Disregard Negative Words and Flourish at What You Want

If you spent your last penny to do this MBA, that was a foolish idea.

My decision to study towards an MBA was so that I could become a ‘powerful’ manager in the healthcare sector. However, during the course of the MBA something changed and my quest for power was interrupted by a question asked by one of my professors. He asked us why we were doing the MBA. Were we driven by internal or external factors? At that point, I realised that I assumed my driver was external, yet I was very intrinsically driven. Needless to say, confusion set in immediately.

There was a sudden war within myself. I became restless after that lecture and was unable to sleep at night. It bothered me much that I was failing to be at peace with my vision and plans for the future after my MBA. I was internally and emotionally challenged by this question which led to the re-evaluation of my options on where I wanted to head with my life. I decided that going the NGO route was the best way to go. To do this, I needed the best possible grades. I invested much of my time in my studies and during the executive MBA, I kept my full-time job. The studying journey was a roller coaster – lots of fun and adrenaline interrupted by floods of tears when the going got tough. Finally, the time I had been waiting for came.

My heart raced as I clicked on the email notification of my Action Project results. This was the result that would determine whether or not I was going to graduate with a distinction in my MBA. I was hanging by the thread. My GPA score was 3.59 and all I needed was 0.01 to make it into a distinction for my studies. I got it, my final Action Project score was 4.0. My team had made it; we aced it and finished our consulting project with an amazing mark that catapulted my final GPA score to 3.63. ‘

I was one of the few who would graduate with a distinction, I shed a tear as this was such a huge relief. I had sacrificed so much money that I did not have, I had sacrificed time and given up on a decent social life. Self-care and health were the least of my priorities and the only thing that had been a top priority for two years was passing my MBA. At a cost of £52,000 it was an all-or-nothing effort for me. I had a lot to prove to my family and myself. Completing this course meant a lot to me. For those with a higher qualification this means nothing much but if you had lost confidence and self-esteem like I had, completing the course was a measure of the ability to turn situations around. To me, it was the beginning of a new era.

Life at Hult International Business School began on a very shaky foundation. Not only was I afraid that I did not have much experience in the corporate world, but as a scientist I found fitting in a challenge. By nature, I appear confident and yet most of the times, I am shaking on the inside. On my first day at Hult, I presented myself as such, smiling and trying to talk to whoever would let me, yet I was scared on the inside.

I was determined to make it work for I had come a long way with struggles. Having gone through six years of an unending divorce, having lost my house, my confidence and self-esteem, I knew deep inside that I did not deserve to be there. The £52,000 tuition fees were way out of my reach, yet I still went ahead and applied. They say there is a fine line between faith and foolishness and I found myself in this place. Out of faith, I believed I was going to be able to source the outstanding £26,000 needed for my fees after being offered 50% of the fees in form of a scholarship.

I enrolled and decided to continue working full time and took on a second weekend job which I worked two weekends a month. I used to go to London for a block of four days a month for my studies. This meant I was away from home three weekends a month. For a single mum, this time away from my son was excessive. He was heavily involved in football and I still had to fit in all his weekly activities, my work and my studies. To this very day, I look back in the hope of reflecting how I ever managed and still it remains a mystery. Trying to reconcile my steps and how I managed my time remains a puzzle I can never solve; it drives me mad to even try to figure it out.

My first module had taught me one thing about leadership; leaders are those who emerge in a crisis. As part of the lesson we watched the movie 12 angry men by Henry Fonda, a 1957 movie where a group of men were part of a jury to decide the fate of a teenager accused of having murdered his father. The jury was made up of 12 men from all walks of life; from a watch repairer to a top corporate architect. Full of prejudice; some of the jury had already condemned the young boy without contemplation. It took a strong leader to convince the group to discuss the case and justify the boy’s innocence. Through the deliberations, we saw leaders emerge. The man who appeared less interested at the beginning emerged to be the best leader in the end. He advocated for the group to discuss the case, encouraged open-mindedness and challenged his colleagues to face their inner fears and confront their inner persons. Through the crisis, the jury ended up finding the boy not guilty.

What I admired most about the quieter architect was that he spoke out and cast a shadow of doubt over 11 men who had unanimously voted guilty against the boy within five minutes of meeting. Through negotiations, the man convinced others that the young boy may have been innocent. The valuable lesson I leant from this movie and lecture was about being yourself and not going with the crowd. As much as it is not easy to follow your heart, no matter how tough the situation seems, if you follow your heart and find a way to speak out and deal with what’s at hand, your outcome would be fruitful.

I decided from that day onwards to always follow my heart. I knew that no matter how scared I was of failure, no matter how little knowledge I had about business, I could emerge a top business candidate and an excellent leader at the end of the two years. I was confident that a leader was being moulded within me.

My second module was Marketing and we were given an assignment to identify a gap in the market and suggest the type of hotel we could come up with to compete in the 5-star hotel London market. This assignment involved visiting elite hotels in London, tasting the food and reviewing the service over two days. Given my financial situation; I felt the pinch with barely enough money to cope with my daily expenses let alone afford a 5-star hotel meal in London. We decided to have dinner at one of the hotels we were reviewing and I passed a joke commenting on how tough it was for me to pay for the meal and how I wished that the school had have given us money to buy coffee and food as part of the assignment. To be honest, a part of me truly wished that the meal was sponsored as I was down to my last penny.

One of my colleagues asked, Did you just spend your last savings to come to Hult to do this MBA? I answered yes and he said, That was foolish. This is not a place to spend your last money on. I was so hurt but I did not dignify the comment with a response. I just smiled back and let it pass. Yet again, I was reminded about my poverty and supposed foolishness. I was reminded of the risk I had taken to embark on such an expensive course without enough money to pay for my fees. I had a choice to: Feel sorry for myself and continue to lose confidence or remain focused and push forward. I silently told myself I was going to make it worth my while at Hult and enjoy the tough journey since I had already sacrificed so much. I promised myself to aim even higher and if it meant being the only student graduating with a distinction, I would do it.

As we go through the journey of life, we meet various people with different personalities. Some will be positive and others will be negative, some will cheer you along while some will discourage you. Whatever the situation the ball is always in your court. In my language, they say, "Gumbeze nderako kufuga kara kuwaridza." Its direct translation means, The blanket is your own, it’s up to you to use it as an under blanket/mat or to cover yourself. This saying came from a notion where people lived poor with limited resources. You could have a mat made from animal skin or reeds and then use the blanket to cover your body for warmth. Or you could choose to use the blanket as a mat to sleep on and suffer from the exposure to the cold. That’s how life was and at this stage, I had to use my blanket wisely. Bear in mind that those who are not in your situation will always want to have a say but the choice remains yours as to whether or not you want to take their advice seriously. Do you take sarcastic comments like the one I got from my MBA colleague seriously or not? It’s a matter of choice and one must choose with wisdom.

The initial push to go to a business school was to grow the leader in me. My dream was to one day lead a huge corporate organisation. As a scientist, I have always felt scientists are very intelligent people but at times their management skills are dreadful. I wanted to be a scientist with the ability to strategise, run smooth and effective operations and make a difference. I had completed a Master’s degree