Anyone who knows me will tell it takes a lot to stun me into silence. You could argue talking and commenting are sharp tools of my trade, as an editor, that I like to keep keen.
Yet one warm summer night, with the night sky crystal clear, I sat in sweet silence at Pilgrim’s Rest, Mpumalanga, the former mining town with its 100-year-old preserved wooden buildings, in the north east of South Africa.
The night sky was like a dark canvas strewn with sparkling diamonds; it took your breath away. I have yet to see a painting, or photograph, that can capture the beauty of an African sky at night, uncluttered by buildings, that stretches down to the treetops. It feeds your soul and opens the mind to a world of possibility. On that night, I visualized some of the achievements I wanted in life; of which editing this august publication is one and authoring a book is another.
It struck me, as I prepared to write this column, that Bertie Charles Forbes – the founder of the world-famous Forbes magazine of which FORBES AFRICA is the 16th English language version – would have looked up at the same African sky more than a century ago as he pondered his path to millions. It was clear that the genesis of his big ideas came when he was working in Africa.
This story is from the September 2017 edition of Forbes Africa.
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This story is from the September 2017 edition of Forbes Africa.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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