I was just 15 years old, and the clock read 02:00 in the morning. There I was, engrossed in crafting an article for an online newspaper I had initiated for my high school. It was the year 2000, right after the dot-com boom, an era when people were venturing into various creations on the World Wide Web. Mine was an online newspaper.

Back then, it was quite a significant feat. No Facebook, no fiber connections, just the good old HTML coding with a dial-up modem.

Despite the impending school day that awaited me in a mere four hours, the joy I felt in that moment kept me glued to my work. The thought crossed my mind like a revelation, one I recall vividly even today: “One day when I’m older, I want to do something that will make me feel like this – something I wouldn’t want to stop.”

Later that year, we clinched Naspers’ (the largest media company in South Africa) competition for the best online school newspaper. I relished it – learning to code, writing, and creating something that people would visit, watching the numbers tickle in.

Life took a turn, and I found myself doing articles at an auditing firm. Coding became a distant memory, and writing, a sporadic affair. While I found joy in articles and accounting, I realized I had lost something more precious: the joy of creating, building, and writing.

Fast forward another 10 years, and I found myself at the helm of a successful accounting firm. Interacting with numerous business owners, I began noticing recurring trends in their work and operations. I started a blog and began sharing my insights. The response was overwhelming, and I discovered how much I enjoyed it.

Several successful posts later, a friend from a production company called. He asked if I wanted to share my small business tips on TV. This opportunity led to an insert on an Afrikaans TV show called Winslyn on South Africa’s popular channel KykNET.

A few months down the line, M-net wanted to create a local version of the international TV show, Shark Tank, and needed a Shark (investor) who was white and Afrikaans (yeah, that doesn’t happen often). They contacted KykNET, and they suggested the guy from Winslyn – me.

Shark Tank altered my life. I can’t definitively say if the net effect was good or bad, but it certainly changed the trajectory of my life. While I enjoyed it at the time, it also kept me occupied, and I drifted away from something I genuinely loved: writing.

Another year rolled by, and a publisher approached me to write a book about entrepreneurship. Initially, I proposed a book with 100 rules or tips on entrepreneurship. However, she asked if I could finish it in 90 days, a rule and a bit per day. That was a bit too much for my OCD brain, and it evolved into “90 Rules for Entrepreneurs.”

The book was a massive success, winning various awards and becoming the best-selling business book in South Africa in 2018.

Yet, life got busy again, and, predictably, I stopped writing.

Reflecting on this journey, I recall the one and only moment of my younger self yearning to do this forever – a desire that paved the way for a TV show and eventually a life-changing book.

Over the past four years, I haven’t written much, just a daily journal entry for myself.

But the craving persists. Maybe I’ll share it with the world. Maybe they’ll like it, maybe they won’t. But I will enjoy it. I always have.

Sure, I’m rusty, but improvement comes with practice.

This is blog post #1.

I am a writer again.