During my racing career, the last place you'd expect to find me was anywhere near a university. I never considered myself an academic. I was just someone who when I set my mind to something, did everything in my power to achieve it. My passion was being on the motocross track—working on my technique or lining up at the gate to race. Yet, in my final year of racing, I began my bachelor's degree. Now, six years later, I'm a proud MBA graduate. Never in my wildest dreams did I envision this future for myself.
I grew up racing motorcycles, and for as long as I could remember, it’s all I wanted to do. For 26 years, from the moment I got up to the time I went to bed, it was all I thought about. I would never change it for anything in the world. Having that tunnel vision is excellent for so many things. I learnt how to focus, go after the things you want and one of the most important lessons, what it means to sacrifice. The life lessons I learnt during my motocross career I hold dear to my heart. I am grateful for all of the incredible experiences, travel and, most importantly, the people that came into my life along the way and getting to live these experiences with my family.
It does, however, have to come to an end. There comes a day when you know you need to pack it in. Maybe not riding motorcycles in its entirety, but definitely racing. I stopped racing for the first time in 2013, and I thought that I was done with it. I wanted to focus on my business (which I did) and live a life that wasn’t motorcycles 24/7. Not before long, I was back at it, trying my hand at enduro and returning to racing motocross again in 2016. I struggled with lacklustre results when I came back; however, in 2017, I started riding well. I was 31, quite a bit older than most racers in the two classes I raced, but I started winning again. It was awesome, and I was fired up!
I wanted to end on my terms that year after I had represented South Africa at the Motocross of Nations (MXoN) in England. It would be a fitting end to a long career. I also had a mathematical chance of winning the local National championships, so I was putting everything into it again. My company was doing well, too. I was working with my brother and some of my closest friends. After much deliberation, I decided that I needed to study to take my life to the next level. I enrolled in a university to do a Bachelor of Commerce degree at 31 and got to it in June 2017.
The fairytale ending to my racing career would never happen. In what was to be one of the final training sessions before boarding the plane to the UK, I crashed hard during training on the 17th of September 2017, breaking both ankles a mere two weeks before the MXoN. Through no fault of my own, I just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. It was an awful injury, which was going to take me out for a while, permanently damaging my ankle. My whole world came crashing down. The money I had spent on tickets, gear, and visas, not to mention all the effort that one needs to organise everything, vanished in an instant. Racing was done. The irony of this was that I received my first assignment results while lying in the hospital bed recovering from surgery.
I got through that ordeal and continued pushing through my degree. I got through the first two years unscathed, but that’s where things became increasingly difficult. The last year just seemed to drag on. My brother and best friend Davey emigrated with his family at the end of 2019 to Australia in search of a better life. My then Fiance (now wife) and I started the arduous process of emigrating to Canada. Another long, complicated process that costs a significant amount of money. Through all of this, the thought of an MBA started appearing more in my thoughts, and it was something I just couldn’t shake. It was at the forefront of all my thinking.
Covid happened, and my life was flipped onto its head. I had to sell my business and took the biggest hit of my life, accumulating a mountain load of debt as a farewell present. While this was happening, I was in the final stages of my Bachelor's degree. I needed to get distinctions in all my remaining exams and assignments to get an overall distinction mark for the degree…
I put my head down and was fortunate enough to tick that box in June 2020. As happy as I was, I had no time to celebrate; deep down, I was hurting. While finishing my degree, I was applying to jobs like my life depended on it. Having to deal with this as a pandemic was happening, with the country in a state of panic, was not the time to look for my first “real” job. I had no time to chill. I was unemployed, bleeding money, and things were at an excruciating standstill.
I started stuffing courses down my throat like I had never had a meal in my life. While still finishing my bachelor's degree in June 2020, I started an Advanced Digital Marketing Certificate, which ended in November 2020. While doing that, I enrolled in a UX/UI bootcamp from the US, an intensive 6-month course to prepare me for changing careers. I finished that in four months, between August 2020 and December 2020. Finally, while doing that, I was taking Udemy and IxDF courses to advance my design skills.
I also started putting serious effort into what it would take to get the MBA done. How long it would take, what was expected of me, and the financial implications. I looked at South African universities and universities in Canada and the UK. I found one that I liked, Aston University in Birmingham, England. I did the usual application process consisting of motivation letters from myself and three references but never put serious mental energy into it. After I applied, I put it in the back of my mind. I thought my credentials were enough, but I was skipping an honours year. And besides, how was I going to pay for it when I was in this situation?
I never got a job that year. And man, it was not for a lack of trying. I applied to hundreds of positions. I can only assume it was because I had run my own company for 12 years and didn’t have as much experience working for a company. At least that’s what I told myself. At this stage, the debt was still piling up. I had to postpone my wedding and sold just about everything I owned and had built up throughout my adult life. Besides a few boxes, I got rid of everything. It was the lowest point of my life. It was also the poorest, and saddest.
On the 28th of September 2020, I received the below email from Aston University:
Are you kidding me?! Was this for real? After endless servings of shit served on a clean porcelain platter, this was the best news I had received in a year. I was excited, nervous, anxious. To me, this was an opportunity of a lifetime. What was I to do now? How could I pass this up? Would I forgive myself if I did? All these questions and thoughts were rushing through my head at 30 MPH…
How was I going to do it? There was only one option for me. People around me thought I was nuts. I had no idea, but I needed this like I never needed anything else in my life…
I accepted the offer.
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