The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) deputy director, marketing and international relations Sibo Muteyiwa says working for a leading humanitarian organisation gave her an invaluable opportunity to change people’s lives.
Muteyiwa (SM) spoke about her career journey and life experiences on the platform In Conversation with Trevor hosted by Alpha Media Holdings chairman Trevor Ncube (TN).
Below are excerpts from the interview.
TN: Welcome to In Conversation with Trevor, brought to you by Heart and Soul Broadcasting Services.
Today, I’m in conversation with Sibo Muteyiwa, deputy director, marketing and international relations at Potraz.
You have had 25 years of professional experience from the (Rainbow Tourism Group) RTG, then you went into the NGO sector, Zimbabwe Agricultural Society, now you are with Portraz. Of those 25 years, 15 of those years were in senior management.
Tell me, when you look back, what have been the pivotal moments in your life, the moments where you look back and say, that changed my life, that contributed to who I’ve become?
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SM: I think it’s being led and ushered into my profession by people with a vision, people that I have learned so much from difficult bosses and people who make you reflect on whether you are a professional entrepreneur or you are an entrepreneur yourself.
Turning opportunities, turning challenges into opportunities, I have had a lot of challenges. So those kinds of issues are very challenging, but they teach you a lot about yourself.
TN: What do you mean by difficult bosses? What’s a difficult boss? Can you describe it for us?
SM:I think people who know what they want from their teams, people who have a vision, people who probably we might not get their vision, but eventually you get into a line because they would have been pushing you to that, to push you to the level which you become a better person and you become probably surprised by yourself.
That’s what I can say.
I believe that any person who does not want to learn really cannot succeed in anything. Whether you are an entrepreneur, you are an innovator, you must have an open mind, Trevor.
I think you must have a mindset that is willing to take in even the chaff and then sit down and decide to separate the chaff from the good that you can take from that situation.
TN: You mentioned a traumatic season of your life with Shabbat Minds where you get up and the company has been closed. Talk to me about that. What does it feel like? I mean, you went home last night, always, okay, you get up, you have no job and there’s no company to go to.
SM: You know, it was very interesting, Trevor, because we got to work one morning and the doors got closed and your heart began to pound because at that time I was young. I had no savings and we are a young couple.
And I like the way a gentleman called Zuzi who teaches about retirement planning puts it and says, you must plan as if tomorrow you will not have another job.
And I wish I had known then because we just woke up, we suddenly didn’t have a car that we had, didn’t have a salary that was coming and with zero savings.
And you can imagine when you get home and you are sitting on a couch and you are thinking to yourself, what do I do now?
And you are looking at the kids and looking at your family, the responsibilities that you have, the bills and you’re thinking, you know, what now?
So really, that was a scary moment for me. And it was my first ever retrenchment in my life.
I had been working for quite a while, but I was relaxed. It was a huge company, a huge, you know, organisation.
TN: What job were you doing?
SM: I was a public relations officer at that time and it was such an experience. And then, of course, you are thinking, wow, so what do I do?
TN: What did that teach you? What did it feel like? What does it feel like to be retrenched?
SM: Honestly, Trevor, I think the first thing that you feel is confusion, followed by shock, then followed by, of course, okay, I need to put myself together. I need to do something.
TN: How long does that all take? Is it over an evening or it’s over time?
SM: It’s over time. It’s definitely over time because you take days where you’re sleeping and you don’t want to wake up.
TN: And does that sound like depression?
SM: I think it does border around depression. For me, I’m a fighter naturally. I’m a person who does not give up. I’m a hard worker.
I mean, I believe in using those kind of challenges to turn them into opportunities to say ‘What can I learn from this thing?.’
One afternoon, I actually woke up after taking a nap because I was at home and I walked to the garden and then decided to dig in some space for vegetables.
For the first time in my life, I decided, you know, we need to do some vegetable garden and tomatoes here.
And then, you know, and then my eyes just, you know, gazed at this structure behind our house.
And it was a one bed with a shower and a toilet. And my sister-in-law used to use it as a salon.
And we, I then decided, you know what, let’s clean this up.
And then for some reason, God just ushered in a young lady who was stuck without accommodation and she came and lived there.
And there we are. We began to get some revenue from that structure.
TN: What was the biggest lesson that we walked away from, from that experience?
SM: I think out of adversity, you become strong and you discover the strengths that you did not know you had.
You become an entrepreneur in ways that you probably didn’t know you could.
Because to me, I never thought that structure in my head could actually be a river, generating income. So I think it makes you think outside the box.
TN: What is the biggest takeaway from your time with World Vision?
SM: I think I always say to my children, if there’s a job I can do for free, it is the job that I did at World Vision where you go to a rural area and you find people who have nothing and you are working with government departments together collaboratively to change the lives of those people.
At that time, I actually adopted four kids that I sponsored with school fees from primary school all the way to university.
And two of them are lawyers, successful lawyers now. And, you know, I have been to weddings where I’m called mum, and it’s a beautiful story.
*For full interview visit www.thestandard.co.zw
TN: What do you enjoy most about that work?
SM: The changing of lives, the opportunity to make a difference in somebody’s life, an opportunity to inspire someone, because when people see you out there, I believe that they see something good about you and they pick that.
And I can’t count the number of people, even when I was working at that time in rural areas where they said, you know, my sister, I just want to be like you.
At a primary school, at a high school, I just want to be like you and there is not much I had achieved at that time.
But just the way you are dealing and interacting with them, it inspires them.
Somebody said the biggest form of selfishness is helping somebody because the kick you get from that, the reward you get from that after helping them, It’s immeasurable.
TN: That’s the biggest form of selfishness. Do you agree?
SM: Absolutely. It’s immeasurable. One of the young people that I sponsored at that time, a lawyer now, actually started her own law firm and she’s married with a family.
And every time she always calls and checks on me and what else can I ask for?
One day, as I was walking out of the deed’s office, I heard somebody saying, mom, mom, and I looked back and I was like, oh my goodness.
And he calls all his peers at his workplace. And he says, you guys do you remember the lady I was telling you about the one that changed my life?
