MY BRILLIANT CAREER | Matric is just the start of the long game

Teach Me 2 offers one-on-one online and in-person tutoring from grade 1 to university. We also offer “classrooms” for high school students, where learners can join live online classes taught by some of South Africa’s best teachers.

Your whole school career can make matric feel like the final destination, as though everything has been building towards these exams and the results will determine your future. But matric is really just the beginning. Your results may shape your next step, but they don’t define where you ultimately end up. Most of my biggest failures — and there have been plenty — came after matric. Each one changed what was possible for me at that moment and forced me to find a different way forward. Looking back, those failures have shaped me far more than any exam result ever did. So give these exams everything you have, but remember they’re the beginning of your story, not the end.

I never stop learning. That has given me a strong belief that very few problems are insurmountable. If I don’t know how to do something, I can learn the skills, keep trying and eventually figure it out. I also play the long game. If you think in decades rather than years, you give yourself far more opportunities to learn, adapt and keep going until you make something work.

I love solving hard problems and building real things that people actually use. Helping people develop the skills, mindsets and habits they need to pursue the future they want is an incredibly difficult problem.

I look for people who don’t automatically accept the conventional way of doing things. We recently advertised a role where we needed someone who could help us stand out. While everyone else submitted a CV, one candidate researched what we were trying to do, put together a presentation and recorded a video showing us how he would approach it. His application itself demonstrated that he understood what we were looking for. We hired him on the spot. That combination of initiative, creativity and a willingness to take a risk on doing something differently is incredibly valuable.

Play the long game. Don’t assume your career needs to be a linear progression where every new job comes with a better title and a bigger salary. Look for opportunities where the downside is small but the potential upside over time is enormous.