One of the more recent logo designs before I stopped doing websites

When the Internet hit South Africa in 1996, I created my first rather ghastly personal website, which I titled the Realm of Firelight. It was named after a storybook idea I’d worked on a few years earlier, and was created as a directory of my interests. The website contained “portals” which were mini websites within the main site, each dedicated to a particular topic: such as my poetry; the arcade game Mortal Kombat (including disjointed chapters I’d written for a book version); Technology and other geek-like things; Natalie Portman desktop photos; and other things I’ve long since forgotten about.

By the end of 1999, coupling my creative skills with my programmatic, mathematical mind, I delved into the world of IT, and launched my career as a web developer. I’ve since done work for the likes of Dimension Data, Anglogold, BHP Billiton, the SA Education Department, ITWeb, and several other businesses, proving myself as a creative developer who was able to connect with people, bridging the divide between coder and client, while masterminding ingenious solutions.

I began freelancing a year after I got my first job, marketing myself as a little self-contained company. My organisation name evolved over several iterations over several years until I settled on Creation.begins.

Until 2017, Creation.begins was the brand under which I did web development and digital consultancy, creating business-oriented websites for the startup and entrepreneur. Staying true to my tenet that life is about enjoyment, my aim was to infuse an adequate amount of fun into the business part of life, breaking away from the traditionally seriousness this aspect represents in most people’s lives.

I didn’t really get far into corporate because it didn’t align with my personal values of fun and freedom. People get into business for one main reason; to create the resources so that they can experience the life they want, whether that is a secure stable home to bring up their family, vacationing around the world, living a fancy lifestyle, discovering their personal sense of freedom, or, more realistically, a varied combination thereof. The desires are endless. My aim was to help people use their websites more purposefully in this pursuit. After all, I felt, if you’re not having fun, rethink why you’re doing what you’re doing for 40 or more hours a week.

But after many decades, my increasing disinterest in coding and web development as a career path caused me to re-evaluate what I wanted to do with Creation.begins. In its next iteration, I provided workshops and dedicated packages geared towards helping individuals realise their personal potential and build systems with a digital, location-independent focus.

My technical know-how paired nicely with my mentor and therapist abilities in my brief stint as a strategy coach, as I assisted small business owners level up their own confidence and their business strategies.

However, helping others on an individual level didn’t tickle me as much as I thought it would and I got bored soon enough. I was also suffering from a combination of disinterest and fatigue from building my own flailing business. Still, thanks to my infernal desire to help others, the knowledge and experience I’d acquired was channeled into a book, titled Creation begins with you.

I began writing this book as a short handout that I could offer to prospective coaching clients as a sort of marketing tool. But it took on a life of its own and evolved into the full-fledged, self-helpie, empowerment manual that it is today. Take a squiz at the first chapter on the Creation.begins website.

I still believe in freedom for all, and this book is the next step in making this more possible.