Hello friends,
hope you are well today. You know I was going to write today’s article that would have left you curious right up to next week, but I thought that would be too much of a torture. I mean, you know how it feels to watch a gripping series or movie that has that …Shoot!
To be continued… Man, MacGyver used to do that to me all the time.
Katie Piper
“The only way barriers exist is in our heads. We create them, we feed them, and we choose to keep them alive. So, we can also choose to break them down.” – Katie Piper
Friends some of you know who Katie Piper is for those who don’t Katie Piper was raped by her ex-boyfriend and had sulphuric acid thrown in her face by his accomplice. She was in an induced 12-day coma and her doctor explained in summary, “You’re blind, you have no face left, you’re struggling to breathe because you’ve swallowed your oesophagus and the police are here to video you in case you don’t survive until the trial.”
Katie chose to get over with this, silently go home and commit suicide. As the days passed, she silently planned her suicide. Something told her not to and finally, she chose to become a survivor rather than a victim.
You know this is what society does, boxes people up according to what they see, she says, “People assumed my life was over. I didn’t. On paper, I should have less opportunities and be unhappy. I should be clinically depressed and dependent on alcohol. But I’ve never been more positive, and I’ve never attracted so many positive, successful people into my life.”
Katie Piper has helped thousands of people through her charity; through her writing, publishing 5 books in just eight years, she is an activist, model, writer and television presenter.
Dambisa Moyo
She is Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world ranking. “The linchpin of my life was being able to go to school. Look, I’ve got no birth certificate because at the time of my birth, birth certificates were not issued to blacks, so you can imagine there wasn’t much emphasis on girls like me going to school.”
Born and raised in post-colonial Zambia. She knew the importance of her getting an education. “As a child, I was better educated in Africa than many people I know who grew up in the West. Africa is viewed as the continent of corruption and disease, poverty and war…”
She has faced a lot of prejudice and was questioned by one woman as she sat as the only black woman amongst her fellow 12 board white male colleagues on what credentials she has for her to be allowed on the board.
By the way, this woman has a Doctorate in Economics from Oxford, a Masters from Harvard and worked for ten years at Goldman Sachs… and I’m pretty sure much more…
“I know it sounds kind of corny, but every day I look in the mirror and I tell myself that I am going to go out there and face it and not curl up in a ball because somebody said something or thinks that I couldn’t be or do something simply because of who I am. It’s hard, but you have to do it. Put in the hard work, discipline and focus and just keep going. Remember there are numerous people, both similar and dissimilar to you, who are rooting for you to stay strong, and to prove the naysayers wrong.” – Dambisa Moyo
Lily Elbert
Lily Elbert born in a Jewish family, had a wonderful family life until the Nazi’s arrived at their house. They were ordered to hand over all the jewellery and all their valuables were confiscated. When Lily was 4 or 5 years old her mother gave her a small gold pendant. Her brother knew how important it was to her that he hid the pendant in her mother’s shoe. In 1944, she was deported from her town Bonyhad with her family. They were taken by train in airless cattle trucks to Auschwitz. When they arrived at the concentration camp Lily’s mother swapped shoes with her since they wore the same size shoe. They were really tired from the journey and when they arrived, they were ordered to stand in a row of five. Dr Mengele, known as the Angel of Death with one had sealed the fate of her family. Those ordered to go left or right determined who will die or remain alive. Her mother, sister, brother went left, never to be seen again while she and her sister went right. I believe there was perhaps more family members; another brother and sister (unsure).
They were then ordered to get a shower, got the hair cut and their belongings removed from them and they were only left with their shoes. After discovering that her brother, mother and sister are dead she was determined to hold onto the pendant as tight as ever, and when the shoes wore out, she hid the pendant in a piece of bread. After 4 months in Auschwitz, they were placed in an ammunition factory and the pendant went with them until they were liberated in 1945.
Lily is currently 97 years old just recently recovered from COVID.
Richard Reed
I don’t know how Richard Reed ended here but, in his book If I could tell you just one thing he tells Katie Piper’s and Dambisa Moyo’s stories which are somewhat highlighted exactly as above in some areas. I have seen Richard Reed live on one talk and God it was so funny how he so enthusiastically arrives on stage causal smart and tells us about his entrepreneurial venture with innocent drinks and how it got bought over by Pepsi.
I mean the team of 4 had many hurdles but it was also pretty interesting hearing about the little hats on the caps of the drinks. The anecdotes where he had to go to court over a funny thing he wrote on the bottle of his drinks or that they never realised that innocent drinks lost its registration for a year and another company could have bought it in that time… Still the company survived and have done pretty well.
Let’s face it, there are so many inspiring people out there in the world, it’s hard to just select four, I can go on and on… if that was the case you would be sitting with me for – ever….
Alright, over and out.
See you next week. In the meantime, stay safe and positive, but negative on the tests.
Yours sincerely,
T. Dench Patel
Thank you for the comments and support. Thank you for offering to donate if there was a donate button on here. I prefer not to take donations. You can support by purchasing my books (Paperback or Kindle), The South African: True Colours, The South African: Roamer or my children’s book Light. These books can be found on Amazon mainly and other sites in your country.
The audiobook for The South African: True Colours is available on iTunes, Apple and Audible. The South African: Roamer and Light will be released soon.
Note: Do keep referring back to this site as much as possible, as I grow, a more profound perspective may form and so I will always come back to each of these articles to re-evaluate them.
