Feb 15

Feb 15 Weaponising Hope

Fred Roed

5 Work

Nandi Lily Bushell is a musician born in Durban. Nandi’s mom, Lungile is from KZN and her dad John is from the UK.

Nandi is rapidly gaining attention on the world stage.

Nandi writes her own songs, but sometimes she covers the songs of others and posts her stuff to YouTube and Insta.

Nandi plays the drums, guitar, piano. She also sings.

She’s pretty good at all of it.

She already has over 1m followers on Instagram. Nandi has performed with Lenny Kravitz and Dave Grohl.

Alicia Keys is a big fan.

Oh… did I mention? Nandi is only 12 years old.

I first saw Nandi on social media from this video posted when she was nine.

Be warned. It will make you want to push your chair back, kick all your furniture about and start yelling like a crazed Viking warrior.

Nandi gives me hope.

Her song Shadows references her father’s depression. She wrote it when he was suicidal to make him feel better.

It worked. Check out the video of when Nandi played on stage with the Foo Fighters. You can hear Nandi’s dad whooping with pride on the video.

This hope thing is a big deal.

It’s like a fuel source, when fuel is in short supply.

Last week, my legendary friend and business partner Mike released a book called Hope Punk, together with long-time collaborator Charles Mathews.

Mike and Charlie explain the term hope punk as ‘weaponised optimism’.

Lawd knows, we need some of that.

Debbie Nortje, co-founder of the Garden Route’s tourism sensation Treedom Villas, unpacks her own story of hope in this week’s recipe on Innovation In Tourism. Debbie reveals how she and her hubby Marc never gave up, despite the tourism trade being decimated. Debbie and Marc used the misfortune of lockdown to transform an overgrown Wilderness plot into an eco-paradise.

Bronwyn, who heads up marketing at HC, reminded me on Monday that the world is just getting crazier. In the past few days, 40,000 people are dead from a level 7 earthquake. The US has shot down four mysterious balloons in North American airspace. China shot down one over theirs. Anytime now, it appears that Epstein’s list is about to blow the universe apart.

Here in SA, things are not much better. Celebs shot dead in public. Grown men disrupting government stages. Flash floods and continuously fluctuating load-shedding levels.

You’d be forgiven if you are currently feeling somewhat overwhelmed.

Sometimes, when people ask, “How do I become an entrepreneur?” I urge them, “Don’t do it”.

In an already difficult world, being an entrepreneur will make it even more so.

It’s very, very hard to succeed - particularly in a country such as South Africa.

However, if after being told the odds of failure I still see the fire of hope in their eyes, then, sure, okay. I’ll say, sign up with Heavy Chef. Then, just start.

We entrepreneurs need hope. Optimism is our battery supply.

We have to have faith that, despite the odds, we will succeed.

Last year, the Heavy Chef Foundation revealed that 76% of you said that we crazy ones have confidence in our business’ future. (42% said ‘yes definitely’ and 34% said ‘yep, I think so.)