There is a line I have been thinking about a lot lately: we have to be our own heroes.
I know how hard it is to believe in yourself when things go completely upside down. Everyone has been there. There will always be people in your life who will be supportive, and there will always be those who choose to walk away. That too is just life. But those exact moments of noise and silence can also be the moments that define who you are.
When I look back over my journey to this point, there are but a few people I can name on my two hands who truly believed in me, gave me an opportunity, and allowed me to grow. (Some whose faces I remember clearly, even if their names have faded with time.) I am immensely grateful for each of them. Every single person who ever gave me an opportunity was rewarded for their faith — as was I. It was always a relationship that was beautifully, mutually beneficial.
Highlighters & Hard Lines
I still remember my first call centre job, a job I actually got not once, but twice. The first time, I travelled all the way from Nelspruit to attend the interview for the First Card call centre. I got the job right then and there. I went back home, completely intent on leaving a bad relationship to start my life over, but he sat me down and told me, “Don’t leave, things will be different.”
…famous last words…
Six months later, I packed my life up and moved to Johannesburg anyway. I had no job, just a single room in the home of family, and ten interviews lined up by a very kind recruitment agent. She handed me a physical map book and highlighters so I could literally trace the roads I needed to travel to find the venues.
I rushed from one interview to the next. One interviewer looked at me and said, “I can give you the job, you will be good at it. But I just interviewed a lady before you who needs it more, and I can tell you will have no problem finding work.” Others said nothing. By the time I reached my fourth and final interview of that first day, I found myself sitting right back in front of a panel for First Card.
The main interviewer, Marlon, looked at me and asked, “How do we know you will take the job this time? We offered you the position earlier and you cancelled last minute?” I smiled and said, “Well, I had four interviews today and I need a job. So, if I walk out of this door, and another job arises first, I will take that job.”
I hadn’t even reached the exit of the building when my phone rang. “You’ve got the job. You start on Monday.”
I didn’t just take that opportunity; I delivered on it. My excellent product knowledge and passion for clients allowed me to dominate that floor, and I walked away with three major accolades: Best Customer Service 2003, Highly Acclaimed Agent 2003, and the Golden Call of the Year 2003.
That award was earned on a day when a call came through from a user who, unbeknownst to me at the start, was a well-known 702 radio announcer. As the call got harder and more complicated, none of the seniors in the room wanted to touch it. I had to “man the fuck up.” I handled myself like an absolute pro, resolved the issue, and that recorded call was later used by management to train new call centre agents entering the business.
The Corporate Forge Begins
When the corporate politics of an 11th-place finish for 10 open Team Leader spots blocked my path, I refused to be held back. I moved over to the banking sector to keep growing.
Then came a moment of absolute fate.
I accompanied a manager — who wasn’t even mine — to visit a client who needed a bank account. That man opened the door to the next amazing chapter of my life: Steve Dewsberry. He saw potential in me even though I couldn’t even read or understand my own payslip back then.
The Timeline of Grit
For the next 11 years at TWP, I proved myself repeatedly. I evolved from payroll administrator into Group Payroll Manager and later took on HR administration functions as well. I inherited chaos — disorganised records, broken systems, and a company that hadn’t passed a payroll audit in 15 years. I rebuilt everything from the ground up. When auditors walked into my office, every file was exactly where it belonged. My work even earned me an invitation to Zambia as a guest speaker at an international payroll conference.
Those 11 years at TWP were a gift from the universe. I was surrounded by managers who saw my potential long before I understood it myself. Even though we’re no longer in contact, I remain deeply grateful to every person who crossed my path there. Their belief in me shaped my work ethic, sharpened my discipline, and gave me the kind of professional foundation that still carries me today.
My gratitude goes to the people who shaped those years — the Financial Director who opened the door to my future, the Directors who trusted my capability, the CEO who supported my growth, and the HR Directors whose guidance helped me refine my discipline. To my direct manager for almost my entire time there, Christine Weldon — the absolute light and grace of my corporate journey — thank you for navigating every challenge with me, even when it wasn’t easy. And to the numerous HODs who respected my input and treated my work with seriousness and professionalism, I remain deeply grateful.
One of the most meaningful validations of my leadership came from someone who once worked under me at TWP — Albi Viljoen. She later moved to Basil Read, became their Payroll Manager, and today runs her own business. Over the years, she has told me more than once that my mentoring helped shape her future. Leadership is never about titles; it’s about the people who grow because you invested in them. Her success remains one of the quiet honours of my career.
With mergers and acquisitions, other group companies eventually became part of the TWP Group, and Payroll as a whole had an interface with them. Over time, I added value there too. What mattered most was the trust they placed in me — enough to request my support directly and later ask me to train their own payroll administrator when the business split again. Being trusted across sister companies, beyond my own department, was one of the strongest validations of my capability.
But companies change. Mergers happen. New structures come in. Eventually, I was retrenched. Losing a position did not erase the eleven years of capability, discipline and trust I had built, but it took time to separate what had happened to my employment from what I believed about myself.
And then came real hardship. After earning a proper corporate salary, I found myself accepting work that paid far less and still demanded an enormous amount of me. I needed to keep going. But needing an opportunity did not mean my worth had suddenly become less.
More Opportunities
And then something happened that I didn’t even know about at the time — a resounding testimony to my ability to get things done. The CEO at TWP mentioned me to another manager in passing, simply because of the way I worked. That quiet endorsement opened the door to my next chapter. It led directly to my employment at Sebenzana, where Mike Yates — who had also been at TWP — gave me an opportunity in his new role. He trusted my capability, and he was prepared to let me prove both his judgment and my worth. That single conversation, one I wasn’t even present for, changed the trajectory of my career.
At Sebenzana, I created and implemented a full ISO 9001:2015 compliant business management system from scratch. I developed internal processes, performed risk assessments, and managed their entire policy and procedure library on Google Cloud. I am told that receiving certification on a first assessment is exceptionally rare. I will let that sink in for a moment.
After that, I took on project assignments as a Survey Analyst for a small management consulting firm. I was initially brought in just to collate raw questionnaire data and compile basic presentations. However, because my previous mining-industry experience added immense value to the analyses, I was asked to assist with report writing and recommendations. On some projects, I was involved from start to end — sorting questionnaires, capturing data, extracting trends, and creating the final executive presentations and strategic reports.
But even those were short-term assignments, and I really needed permanent employment!
The Saving Grace & Recruitment Systems
I was desperate for work. Someone quietly slipped my CV into a pile when a company was hiring, and that small act gave me a chance when I badly needed one. I remain grateful for it.
Anyone who has looked for work while unemployed knows how difficult that season can be. You send applications, explain gaps, wait for replies and try not to let the silence become a verdict on your ability. I know how easily “they haven’t chosen me” can turn into “perhaps I am not enough.”
Those are not the same thing.
That job was a saving grace because it kept me afloat. But gratitude for an opportunity and an honest understanding of your own value can exist together. You can appreciate the door that opened without agreeing to everything that happens once you walk through it.
Perhaps that is also why so many South Africans create something for themselves. Sometimes independence begins with a simple decision: I cannot control who gives me a chance, but I can begin building one of my own.
The Hard Line & the Exit that Followed
Over five years, the responsibilities I carried grew, but my title and remuneration did not reflect the work I was doing. I knew what I contributed. I had years of experience behind me and the results of my work in front of me. Yet I stayed longer than I should have, because leaving without another job was frightening.
There comes a point when knowing your worth has to become more than something you tell yourself. It has to influence what you accept.
When I finally drew that hard line and chose my dignity, my boss said, “Why don’t you stay until you find another job.”
I looked him in the eye and said... “You will never see me again. No thanks.”
And I walked out.
It was not an easy decision, and it did not lead straight into an easy life. But it was mine.
The Identity Pivot
Walking out of corporate wasn’t just an exit — it was a return. A return to myself. A return to the part of me that had been quietly waiting beneath job titles, structures, hierarchies, and the expectations of people who never truly understood my capacity. Corporate taught me discipline, resilience, and precision, but it also taught me something far more important: that I was never meant to be defined by a system that rewards compliance more than capability.
A title on paper could never hold the whole of what I knew how to do. I could walk into chaos and create order. I could build systems, solve problems, adapt, mentor and lead. Those abilities belonged to me. They did not disappear when a job ended, and they did not need another person’s permission to remain valuable.
Leaving corporate stripped away the illusion that I needed validation from structures that were never designed to recognise people like me. It forced me to confront the truth: I had already proven myself long before anyone gave me credit for it. I had already built a reputation for capability, trust, and excellence — not because someone handed it to me, but because I earned it in every room I walked into.
And once I stepped out, something shifted.
My identity stopped being tied to a job title.
My worth stopped being measured by a payslip.
My future stopped being dictated by someone else’s organisational chart.
I became my own structure.
My own backbone.
My own validation.
Corporate was a chapter — an important one — but it was never the whole story. The real story began the moment I realised that I was so much more than most people ever gave me credit for. And that truth didn’t just change my direction; it changed my identity.
Building My Dream from Scratch
I walked out into a wall of silence. I couldn’t find work. Six months later, as my savings hit absolute zero, I looked at what platforms like Yaga offered, looked at what other sellers were doing, and thought: if you can do it, so can I.
That was the beginning of Shift2ThriftVintage — the hustling journey that would become the backbone of my independence. And let me tell you, as always, I have EXCELLED at it.
Earlier this year, I partnered with another seller. I would source, she would sell to her network, and for four months the arrangement worked beautifully. When it ended badly, I had to draw another hard line. I was disappointed, but that ending became the push towards an independent step I had wanted to take all along.
I had a bigger, long-term dream quietly taking shape. Exploring the cost of having it built made one thing clear: before I could run that dream site, I needed hands-on experience of running my own website.
So Shift2ThriftVintage on Shopify became my foundation.
There was plenty of advice about what I could not do. I had no website-building experience. There were established boutique vintage stores already out there. I was told visibility would require paid advertising.
I did not have every answer. But I had an analytical mind, a willingness to learn and years of experience turning unfamiliar problems into working systems.
So I began.
I built my Shopify site myself, learning as I went. Every listing, every process and every improvement became another piece of that foundation. I did not need to be the best at everything before I started. I needed to trust that I could learn.
And Google is happening.
My independent website is getting direct search traffic and driving direct sales. In September alone, my Google Search Console performance shows 3.38K organic impressions, 82 direct web clicks, and 141 pages indexed completely naturally. I haven’t paid a single cent to Meta or Google for advertising.
I have chosen to build without paid Meta or Google advertising. That means learning, observing and improving, not treating every notification as proof that I am falling behind. Visibility matters, but it is not the measure of my worth.
I believe in myself and my dreams — and I will not let the actions and experiences of my past be the defining moment of who I am becoming.
The Scaffolding of the Week
Ordinary life, as always, keeps weaving its way beautifully through my business. This past week ended on the highest note imaginable. I gave all of Friday to the grandchildren — no work, no hustle, no deadlines. Just messy hands, loud laughter, and baking cake together in the kitchen. Flour everywhere, sticky fingers, and the kind of joy that reminds you exactly why you work so hard in the first place.
The Customer Feedback Archive
Following my instinct to fix administrative gaps the moment I see them, my Sidekick and I added two major operational upgrades to the shop layout this week.
We brought our Customer Feedback Archive into the main menu under Reviews, giving feedback from Shopify, Bob Shop and Yaga a permanent place of its own. Seeing buyers praise my care, communication and secure packaging feels like magic. These are not abstract claims about what I offer. They are the words of people who have received it.
A customer emailed me after receiving her Bob Shop purchase, adding a request for a specific Tiffany-style stained-glass lamp. That request made me realise I needed a better internal process to track these enquiries without opening individual customer profiles. This week, I established my own private Sourcing Desk register to log and manage those custom hunts.
A request arrives. --> A need becomes clear. --> A better process follows.
No corporate chains.
No permission required.
And honestly?
Fuck, I love working for myself.
Look how I just keep on adding and improving on my site!
This Week’s Lesson
So, this week, my gratitude goes out to the people who believed in me, opened doors and gave me room to grow. To the mentors who trusted my capability, and to the buyers whose words now fill my feedback archive: thank you. Your support matters deeply.
I can also recognise what the difficult experiences taught me without giving them the final word. Closed doors made me resourceful. Being underestimated made me examine what I knew about myself. Leaving situations that no longer served me taught me to act on that knowledge.
But I do not need to keep proving my worth to the people who could not see it.
Knowing your worth is not believing that you are perfect, or that you have nothing left to learn. It is knowing that a rejection, a title, a payslip or someone else’s opinion cannot contain the whole of who you are.
I am grateful to those who believed in me. But I no longer make someone else’s belief a condition of my own.
I have stopped asking for a seat at every table.
I am building my own empire.
— Ina Lubbe, Purveyor of Vintage Treasure
Shift2ThriftVintage • Est. 2024 • Curated Vintage, South Africa • shift2thriftvintage.co.za
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