Lesley Symons, Leadership Coach and Group Facilitator

And then I got promoted in the shop because I was their best salesperson and then invited into Head Office to be an assistant buyer — I was quite young, I was only 19 — and at the same time that happened I got a part in the Sound of Music as a nun and I had a solo, so I had this dilemma of “what do I do?”

…and I went the business route. This is a decision I have always thought of: what would have happened if I had gone the other way? That’s one of those Sliding Doors moments. I think that goes back to who did I ask. At that time I hadn’t been that long in South Africa so I didn’t have a huge network of friends there, so I asked my parents and my father, who was a businessman. Of course he knew nothing about the music world and in those days people saw it as something you couldn’t make money doing, so he went ”you need to go this route because it’s a good career with good options“ and the other thing he said at the time was ”just remember you won’t see the friends you have now because you’ll be working nights and you’ll probably lose them“. But of course he forgot to say ”but you’ll make new friends“. So I became a retailer and was the youngest buyer for Edgars, a huge retail chain in South Africa.

Lesley Symons, Leadership Coach and Group Facilitator