Rachel Kolisi takes Falling Forward and her message of financial independence for women global

Rachel Kolisi has spent the past few months on the road in South Africa with Falling Forward, her book and the documentary that followed. Fourteen events and more than 10,000 people later, she is taking the project to London, a move prompted by women who travelled from Europe to attend the South African shows. In an interview with BizNews, she speaks carving out her own identity when brands wanted her at the table as a "two-for-one special" why vulnerability is still judged differently in women and why she will keep preaching financial independence for women until the end of her days. She also names the international women she most admires, with Melinda French Gates at the top of the list. – Linda van Tilburg

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Edited transcript of the interview

Linda van Tilburg 00:00: Today we are joined by South African speaker, philanthropist and author Rachel Kolisi. Following the release of her memoir Falling Forward, co-written with, Rachel has taken an accompanying documentary on a national roadshow across South Africa, and now she is bringing it to London. Rachel, so wonderful to have you with us.

Rachel Kolisi 00:22: Amazing to be here. Thank you so much for having me on.

Linda van Tilburg 01:26: Your book was launched in March this year. I also read it. How has it been received?

Rachel Kolisi 01:41: So far, it’s been unbelievable. Anyone who’s published a book knows there’s a season where it skyrockets and then it starts to plateau, and I think we’re at that point. But I can’t believe how much has happened in the months since publishing the book. To this day, I have not seen a negative comment or message about it, and I feel really proud about that and super grateful that it has impacted so many lives.

The intention was to create something where people could find parts of their story in mine, not to say this is my story and woe is me, but to honour the fact that sometimes life is hard, and how do we get back up and go again?

Linda van Tilburg 03:24: So do you generally find that women have a story? We just discussed this before we started recording, that everybody has a story, and sometimes you think, I don’t want to tell my story, it shows I’m weak or there’s something wrong with me.

Rachel Kolisi 03:32: I think everybody has a story. Men, women, whatever. I can completely respect and understand why some people would choose to keep parts of their story and journey private and hold that close. But I think there is an element of women specifically sharing vulnerably being frowned upon and seen as a sign of weakness.

There was an interview I did that was quite vulnerable, and I read some of the comments and some of the media that had caught on to it. It was so negative and so disheartening. Then I remember that same week there was a gentleman who was well known for what he did, and he did a very vulnerable interview and shared parts of his story that have been very hard, and he was praised for it. He was honoured for it. I thought that it’s just so interesting how it’s treated differently.

So yes, I do think a woman choosing to be vulnerable gets frowned upon by society. If you look at the work Brené Brown does, it’s phenomenal, and the messages she sends. I believe there’s so much power and so much opportunity in being vulnerable. And sometimes you’ve got to take the bad with the good.

Linda van Tilburg 04:43: Well, I’ve looked at some of your comments on social media, and you’re actually really good at doing that. So how do you manage the troll side of it?

Rachel Kolisi 04:10: The comments never cease to amaze me, truly. The reality is, and I had to learn this long ago, when I was thinking about joining social media and having a public presence, I felt I had to have an agreement with myself that I would never change who I was based on what people wanted to see or who they thought I was. I made that agreement with myself long ago, and I think it’s been very helpful. I also look at it this way: when I get negative comments, those people don’t know me. They don’t live in my house. They are not in my shoes every day. They don’t know my experience or my life. They know nothing about me. It feels like a lot of people have an opinion today, and I think social media has exacerbated that, where everybody feels their opinion needs to be shared. The opinions I actually care about are those of the people I surround myself with on a daily basis. The rest I choose to just let slide.

Linda van Tilburg 04:43: It’s one thing putting it on paper, but you’ve also got this documentary that you showed all over the country. That must have taken so much courage, to be so frank. Why did you feel it was important to tell your story visually as well?

Rachel Kolisi 05:01: It was actually friends of mine. The woman who filmed and produced the entire documentary, she did it by herself with one camera, Carly Smith. She has done a lot of content for me over the years, for social media and storytelling. She and my business partner, Lauren Buddy, said to me, why don’t we film some of this process? We could maybe create some social media cutdowns, and it could be a journal experience for you to look back on one day. Why don’t we just film it and see what happens? As we were filming, Carly said, I really feel strongly this could be a documentary. I think we could create something with this. So, we went with that.

We weren’t sure. Okay, we film a documentary, and then what? Do we put it on Netflix? Do we sell it? Do we do events? What do we do? I got to a point where I felt so strongly that I wanted to create something, because I had hundreds of thousands of women reaching out to me with their own stories of grief and loss and pain, trying to understand where they go next. How do they get themselves up off the floor again? Because I have this public profile, it felt like an area where they could relate. I thought a lot about a specific woman. A woman who has woken up on her worst possible day, who has bought a ticket to this event in the hope that she might leave with just a little bit of hope. Something that helps her get through, not even the next few days, but just that night.

I thought about her all the time. Maybe she’s not going to spend time in the small women-owned businesses market that we created. Maybe she’s just snuck into the back, got a back seat, and she’s sitting there all by herself, hoping for something. I wanted her to know that while she was sitting there, there was a room full of people, not just women, because there were men there as well, who were also navigating similar seasons or have navigated similar seasons. Sometimes when I did the Q&A after the documentary had finished screening, I said, I thought of you. Obviously, I didn’t know exactly who I was speaking to, but I said, I thought of you. And these women come up to me afterwards and say, that was me. I came for just a little bit of hope.

I also had to make peace with the fact that I could create this documentary and this experience, and ten people might come and one person might be impacted. But I felt so strongly that if that’s the case, and one person is impacted, then that’s all that matters at the end of the day. Just impacting other people’s lives. It’s been the most beautiful story and experience so far.

Linda van Tilburg 08:12: So the concept of falling forward is that you tumble, but you get up and face the world again, and there’s inspiration in that.

Rachel Kolisi 08:20: Yes. With the social media culture we live in today, it’s very much, you just bounce back and tap into your resilience and go again. But what if you can’t? And are there spaces that honour the seasons when you’ve fallen and you’re on the floor, and you’re trying to get one foot on top of the other so you can get back up again? There were days when I genuinely didn’t know how I was going to get up. Literally get up.

So, it was really about honouring that this is very much a part of life’s experience. It’s not just the bounce back. It’s not just all the highlights and the beautiful things and the incredible experiences. Those deserve to be celebrated, and so do the tough seasons, because I believe that’s where some of our most important growth happens. We learn so much about ourselves in seasons that you don’t necessarily want or ask for. It’s about honouring that that’s part of life, and then how you get back up and go again.

Linda van Tilburg 09:36: One thing that’s quite important, and it ties in with the small women-owned businesses you have at these screenings, is the importance of financial autonomy for women. What kind of message do you want women to take away from that?

Rachel Kolisi 09:51: I feel so strongly about women being financially independent. Even if you have made the conscious decision to be a housewife, I think that’s incredible. Raising your children full-time and taking care of your home is one of the most important roles to take on, and I believe those roles should not be expected to be unpaid. For too long women have been expected to sacrifice their careers, jobs and opportunity in order to take care of the household and the children, sometimes by their own choice and sometimes not. I feel very strongly that those roles should still be paid roles.

I also feel so strongly about female entrepreneurship. I love women who have taken a risk, decided to go on their own, tapped into their entrepreneurship and business journeys, giving and growing in our economy. I think it’s incredible. So, I wanted to create space and opportunity for as many small women-owned businesses along this journey as possible, and my gosh, we have had hundreds. We have hosted 14 Falling Forward events so far around South Africa, and each city hosted small women-owned businesses that were local to that city. They create all different kinds of products, and we highlighted and celebrated them. The stories we heard from these women were just unbelievable. I’m so grateful that they came alongside us for the vision, and to everyone who came to the shows and supported these women.

I feel incredibly strongly that women should be financially independent. With the rates of gender-based violence we have in our country, you tie it back to how many women stay in unhealthy, abusive relationships because they don’t have financial independence. It’s wild.

Financial independence opens up so much more opportunity and decision-making for women. I’m going to preach it from now until the end of my days that women need to be financially independent.

Linda van Tilburg 12:18: You are taking the screenings to London now. Would the message be different there? Would this be for expats, or for women broadly?

Rachel Kolisi 12:27: The events are always for anyone. They’re not even exclusive to women. A lot of men have come to the shows as well. I felt very strongly that I never wanted anyone to feel they’re not welcome, so the doors are open to whoever feels they could benefit from a night like this. The message we’re sending through Falling Forward is not exclusive to South Africans. It’s a global reality for all of us, specifically women, but for all of us.

We had so many people in Europe, women flying out from Ireland, England, France, coming from all over just to watch the shows. I couldn’t believe it. They were begging, please could you bring the show to Europe? When we were almost through the second leg of the roadshows, we asked ourselves, are we actually going to do this? It’s a point I think all of us can relate to, where sometimes you just need to bite the bullet and do it. And we did. We said, if we’re going to do it, we’re going.

That event is almost completely sold out. The response has been unbelievable. I think the majority are expats, but there are a lot of people born and raised in that area coming as well. There’s a part of me that’s just like, I can’t believe it, what the heck? It doesn’t feel real. When you’ve built a business from scratch and done every single part of this process, and we’ve had a massive year of work... There are very established companies that don’t manage to get 14 very successful events with over 10,000 people across the line. Lauren, my business partner, and I did it in seven months.

Rachel Kolisi 15:29: The fact that we’ve been able to do that in South Africa and now into London is unbelievable, especially as a single mom.

Linda van Tilburg 14:49: I hope you don’t mind me asking, but it is hard sometimes for a woman, having been married to somebody famous and especially somebody well-liked. How hard is it to build your own identity after that?

Rachel Kolisi 15:15: It wasn’t actually after that. It became very intentional for me while I was still married. I became very conscious that I was building something and he was building something, and of course a lot of what we were building was together. However, there were elements of my work that I was getting paid for, and I found that a lot of brands or organisations saw it as a two-for-one special. He’s getting paid for his time, his work, his energy and effort, and I would just be an add-on to that. Already, quite far into our marriage, I said, sorry, but it’s not a two-for-one special. If you want to work with me, I am a whole human being with a whole bank account all by myself.

You’re welcome to hire me, but it’s just not as special.

I think that was really important, and already back then I was carving out my own identity. Whether you’re on a public platform or married to an influential businessman or whatever it is, it’s incredibly important for people to see individuals as individuals. A lot of what society gives us today is everybody getting very excited about the lights and the people and the fame. While I can completely understand that it’s really important at the end of the day that you see a human being for who they are and not what you think you could gain from them.

Linda van Tilburg 17:1: Any international role models you look up to?

Rachel Kolisi 17:46: So many, but Melinda French Gates would probably be my number one. I am in awe of how she has chosen to serve through her philanthropy work. She is so intentional about the work she does, how she does it and who she does it with. I don’t know her, but I have dreams of meeting her one day. She’s probably the one person I would jump over many rocks to meet. I almost imagine just trying to hook my little wagon onto whatever she’s doing, because she has such incredible vision for women, and such incredible reach and influence.

So, I’m a huge fan of Melinda French Gates. Brené Brown would be another, MacKenzie Scott, and Michelle Obama. Those are just some off the top of my head, but Melinda French Gates is right up there for me, that’s for sure.

Linda van Tilburg 17:01: Is there anything you wanted to add, Rachel?

Rachel Kolisi 20:04: No, Really, I’m just feeling grateful and humbled by this experience. When you put something as vulnerable as your story out, you never know how it’s going to be received or perceived. The intention was also not for it to be a Rachel show. Of course I can understand why that might not make sense, but it really was to create resources and spaces where women could find parts of their journeys and their stories and navigate the tough seasons of life together.

That was really the intention behind it. I feel so honoured that that has happened, that people feel impacted and moved by it and have been so supportive. I’m really excited about what’s to come, and what we are growing and where we are going. I just feel so grateful.

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