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My quest of self discovery has at times been very subtle and at other times very direct. I thank God for everything that I have been through, the highs, lows and lessons in life that He has guided and helped me through. And I thank my family for all their love and support, without them I would not be the man I am today.
This is the short version of my quest to date:
I grew up and went to school in Witbank Mpumalanga. During my school career I was never too worried about studying because my dream was, like others maybe, to become a famous actor and in my (then) view studying and working hard at school was not going to help me achieve that.
Little did I know how wrong I was at the time when I decided that I wanted to enrol at the Technicon in Pretoria or at AFDA to study drama. I had ‘just’ passed Matric in 1999 and my grades weren’t worthy for acceptance in either. |
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I decided to take the first year after school off to figure out what I wanted to do with my life seeing that becoming an actor and studying drama at that time did not seem like a reality. I spent the better half of 2000 travelling and working throughout the UK. My first job there was cleaning a chicken factory and working in a dairy while living in a caravan at Whapsborn Manor Farm, about an hour from London. A while later I worked as a ride assistant for Alton Towers in Stoke-On-Trent for the remainder of my stay in the UK.
I used that time to think about what I wanted to do with my life when I returned to South Africa if I could not do acting… My next option was to study nature conservation. Even as a child I had always loved nature and visiting different game lodges with my parents, and I felt that if I couldn’t be an actor, going into nature conservation would be the next best thing for me to do.
I returned home and began studying. I enjoyed it and found it interesting, but I still had a nagging feeling that I should be acting, so I went to the Witbank Civic Theatre to find out if I could work there while I studied.
The 6 months that followed were life changing for me. I ended up acting in two productions; the first one as the lead male role was “Hush-A-Bye-Baby”, a poignant production about teenage pregnancy and abortion, which we performed at the 2001 Grahamstown National Arts Festival. The second one as co-leading male role was “Futile Illusions”, a dramatic production about alcohol and drug abuse. Both productions were aimed at educating the youth with huge life lessons about the negative and positive consequences of peoples’ actions.
I was in my element during those 6 months; they reaffirmed my love and passion for acting, as well as educating and guiding people through entertainment.
Unfortunately after we returned from the Grahamstown Festival, there were no more productions and sadly we all went our separate ways. I moved to Pretoria shortly after that and sold insurance policies to government employees for a living while I continued to complete my first year of nature conservation.
I still wanted to act, but that dream was dimming fast with the reality of having to live in ‘real’ life and make sensible choices about my future, none of which included acting!
In February of 2002 the relationship I was in had ended. I did not know how to handle the break up and I decided it was better that I left the country to get over the relationship and use what was left of my working-holiday visa to the UK. I spent the remaining 4 months of my visa living in Liverpool with a friend, completely unproductive, highly depressed and questioning everything in life.
I returned to South Africa and tried to continue studying nature conservation, but I felt like I had no future. Even though my ambition and flame for life was actually there, I did not see or feel it for quite a while until I drove past the Ridge Casino in Witbank where they were revamping and extending the entertainment area.
Something told me to go there to find out what was going on and look at the possibility of opening a shop or something there. After meeting with the General Manager of the complex, and with some financial help from my parents, I opened Affinity Arts and Craft Gallery in November 2002 at the Ridge Casino & Entertainment Resort.
Affinity Arts did very well and helped people from all walks of life sell and promote their art works. Once the gallery was up and running well I decided to start studying again. I felt that I needed to make a clean start and did not want to study nature conservation any longer. I had enjoyed it but decided to study Psychology via UNISA, helping people as my third career choice while I ran Affinity Arts.
Unfortunately, I failed my first year of Psychology because I couldn’t keep the balance of study, work and social life at the time. So, feeling despondent about Psychology I thought it was best that I study Business Management via Boston College the following year. I passed all the subjects I took during that year but never finished the course to receive my diploma, because once again I was getting itchy feet and felt like I needed a change.
So by January 2005, after two years of successfully owning and running Affinity Arts I sold the business to one of my clients, sold my car and everything else I had at the time to move back to the UK, permanently.
My stay in the UK in 2005 lasted a total of 5 weeks, 40 days exactly. After spending every cent I had to stay there and sort my life out, I returned to South Africa stone broke, 12kg overweight and stressed out at the reality of how I had just messed up my life to such a degree that I had to move back in with my parents; broke, jobless, career less and my pride in my pocket, after having everything just months before that.
To be honest I felt deep down inside that I was making the wrong choice by going back to the UK but at the same time I felt I had to do it. It was during those 40 days that I had learned to really rely on God consciously for the first time in my life. Everything was going wrong for me then and I had no one else to turn to. I forced myself to listen to His guidance internally and externally.
Admittedly I was embarrassed by the fact that I had to go back home and face everyone, with what I thought at the time was one of my biggest failures in life. But due to all that, I was now consciously beginning to change and grow into the person I was meant to be with God’s guidance.
Once again I found myself having to start all over again! I needed a job and a car, so soon after arriving home I got a job as a new car salesman for Nissan and Fiat, which solved my job and car problem at the time. I did not enjoy sales, but I had to do what I had to at the time. After working for Nissan and Fiat for 8 months I felt like my life was back on track again and I needed a change of scenery, somewhere where I could work with and interact with more people.
Ironically I got a job at the Ridge Casino and Entertainment Resort as a marketing promotional host. I really did enjoy working there, and it was familiar ground for me because of Affinity Arts. The biggest lesson for me, at that time, was that you should never burn your bridges with certain companies or colleagues because you never ever know when you might have to call upon them or work with them again. It was a humbling experience for me once again to go from shop owner to marketing promotional host, just another employee, in the same complex.
After just under a year of working at the Ridge Casino and Entertainment Resort in that role, I felt I wanted move up in the company, but unfortunately there was no scope for me to grow career wise at that time, so I decided to look elsewhere.
In December 2007 I started working at Waterberg Game Park, a 49 Lodge / 300 sleeper Resort set on 330 hectares in the Limpopo Province, as front office supervisor. It was a huge adjustment for me, coming from a busy Casino environment to a relaxed Bush Lodge environment, but I loved it. I was in nature and I was happy.
Little did I know at the time that my period of adjusting to the bush environment and living independently was preparing me for one of the greatest life-changing events that I was to experience!
In May of 2008 I was offered the position of General Manager for an exclusive and privately owned 6 Lodge / 24 sleeper Game Reserve set on 7 000 hectares in the Limpopo Province. I jumped at the opportunity and began working there the following month. I finally started to feel like I was actually accomplishing something in my life and moving forward.
Admittedly in the back of my mind I still had hopes and dreams of pursuing acting some day, but I had buried them deep enough by that time that I didn’t even think about them most days. I was now living one of my other dreams; no, I was not a nature conservationist but I was living, running and developing a massive game reserve, which to me was a close second.
The only downfall was that I lived in isolation while I was there. The owner was overseas so it was just me and 9 local staff members who were spread across the 7 000 hectares, and the closest town was 30-40 minutes’ drive away. I began absorbing myself into the reserve; it was my home now and my job was to get the reserve into a functioning state with the help of the staff.
For the first 4 months I ‘ate, slept and drank’ everything about the reserve and got a certificate in Game Lodge Management in the process. Unfortunately and naturally, I was beginning to experience savvier ‘burn out’ but I did not want to admit it to myself!
The only people I spoke to face to face the majority of the time were the staff members, and my Sotho wasn’t good enough for anything but the most basic communication. Otherwise, my only communication with others was through phone calls and emails. There was a Chapel on the reserve which I would visit very often. I found peace just sitting there talking to God. It helped me a lot but as time went by I started to lose myself and I realised I had a very big problem. I was falling deeper and deeper into depression!
My physical and mental breaking point eventually came one morning after being awake for 26 hours fighting a second massive bush fire on the reserve. I had completely snapped and ended up on very strong anti-depressants. I felt nothing after that. The dosages of anti-depressants increased as time went by and I did what I had to do every day without being emotionally or mentally invest in anything.
I was completely numb inside by that time, eventually losing my job and the career I thought I was building because I had become the shell of the person I used to be.
By January 2009 I moved back to my parents’ place, once again jobless and directionless. Only this time I was too dosed up on anti-depressants to really see and feel the reality of it all. After being home for a few weeks my parents encouraged me to start looking for work and doing something with my life again.
Even though my feelings and emotions were very disconnected from me then, I felt that I didn’t just want to get a ‘job’ or find ‘work’! I wanted to do something that meant something to me, something that mattered, and where I could help not only myself but others. I thought of studying Psychology again but I didn’t feel as invested in it as I was before. I prayed about it and God gave me the answer; Life Coaching, my next best option after Psychology.
At that time I had no idea what Life Coaching was but in one week I noticed it on TV and read about it in a magazine, and that Friday morning found the details for Life Coach training. They were signs and answers to my prayers. I could help myself and others in the process. That Friday night I took my last anti-depressant medication, went cold-turkey, and started my Life Coach training on the Saturday morning.
I loved every minute of the training and learned more about myself and people than I ever thought possible. At that time though, I didn’t know or consider the effects of just stopping my anti-depressants, and I was forced to deal with more than I had bargained for.
I was unable to certify as a Life Coach that time round due to the physical and mental horrors of re-adjusting to a life without medication. The two months that followed felt like agony for me! Everything that I had suppressed during the months while I was on the medication came flooding back. All the emotions and feelings came alive at once and I had one of two choices to make: Either go back on the medication or take control of my life as best as I could. I prayed hard about it!
God helped me deal with what I was going through, giving me inner strength to realise that I could get past it all, and with the guidance of my Life Coach and Trainer, who also taught and showed me all the things I had to be grateful for in my life, I started becoming myself again.
In the months that followed I studied, did my training, both theoretical and practical, via Evolved Coaching and certified as a Life Coach in July 2009. I decided to continue with my studies and in February 2010 I certified as a Master Life Coach. During that period I learned to deal with myself and my issues; how to process my negative emotions and failures, and most of all find my true self again.
However, my biggest gratitude goes to God for helping and guiding me through it all. I would not have been able to do it without having faith in Him, and Him giving me faith in myself so that I could, and can live my life with purpose.
All my experiences to date have encouraged me even more to continue believing in myself and my quest; to follow my passion and dreams!
Thank you,
Nic King
Author of “Learn To Swim Through Life” & “Everyday Living” |
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