Pep Talk I: From Grass To Grace

Dear lovely people,

Sandrina, is a 36 year old young lady riding a brand new Mercedes-Benz S-Class, living in a huge mansion of her own and owns a flourishing textile distribution company in Yaounde, Cameroon. She is elegant all the times and admirable in spirit and effort. She is a role model, mentor, and an inspiration to many entrepreneurs in Cameroon and Africa due to her resilience to personal challenges, and her passion to provide jobs to young people. Everything she touches seem to transform into gold.

The usual stories that we hear is about someone going from grass to grace.  Remarkable stories of people that either worked extremely hard to climb the ladders of success or just people that luck came upon them and brought success their way. Hardly do we ever hear of what happens when things are the other way round. What happens when you have been at the very top and then with some ill fate, you suddenly find yourself at the lowest slums, you suddenly lose all and even fending for yourself becomes a very hard task.  From Grace to Grass will be our subject matter in Pep Talk 2 but here and now, let’s return to Sandrina’s story of how she braved it from grass to grace.

Undoubtedly, Sandrina is admired by millions and her resounding success is so talked about that nobody cares to look at what she went through to become what she is today, nobody cares about the number of times she failed or the number of times she was mocked and even abused while she worked her way to the top. Lessons can only be learned from Sandrina’s story if we dissect her success and actually examine the price she had to pay to be where she is today, that’s what success oriented people focus on.

After the death of her two parents when she was just 18, the role of primary caregiver of the family fell to Sandrina by virtue of her being the eldest child in the family. It was overwhelming because she now had to shoulder responsibility for her five siblings and to forge ahead with her dreams.

Despite the challenge of being orphaned at a tender age, Sandrina remained strong and hopeful. After documenting and sharing her dream of becoming a successful entrepreneur, she was committed to her growth path and that is how she started attracting opportunities.

She got trained and became a hairdresser, started a hairdressing business with her first salon and growing her business to a network of fifteen salons around the city in four years. Sandrina soon added the sales of cosmetics and women’s clothing. The clothing component was soon to become her major revenue generator, she established links with suppliers in many African countries from where she bought stock. With total dedication, she enrolled for a degree in management and her business metamorphosed into a textile distribution company ten years later amassing millions in annual sales. She appeared onto the scene as a celebrated entrepreneur providing jobs to over one thousand youths.

Central to her rapid grown and success was her resolve to learn, self-motivate, break through difficulties, network, persist, work hard, remain trustworthy and dedicated among others.