Mike Walker loves wearing a multi-coloured beanie (those woollen hats) on cold, wintery days. Mike Walker also loves his Granny (Gogo = Zulu for Granny). He combined these two loves, to form a project, Gogo Beanies, that is now creating hundreds of jobs and lighting up people’s lives.

A few years ago, Mike would visit his Gran weekly in her old age home and one day had an inspired thought “Gran could knit him some beanies for winter”. So, on the next visit, he took along some wool and she happily knitted her grandson some woolly beanies. He was delighted, she was delighted! And when he experienced her delight he realised that he should get more wool for her to make some more. Thus Gran was on a roll of making beanies and the question arose of “how many beanies can one man really wear?”

So Mike started giving some beanies to his friends. The other grannies in the old age home became inspired by the delightful energy of beanie making and they, too, began to knit beanies. All the time Mike kept taking more and more wool and more and more beanies were being knitted and soon Mike and all of his friends had more than enough beanies. The Grannies, however, didn’t want to stop because making beanies gave them a feeling of purpose and it was at this stage that Mike had another inspired thought “what about giving beanies to orphans for winter?” Thus Gogos made beanies and Mike gave beanies to orphans and Gogo Beanies was truly born…

To cut a long story short (too late, I know!), M-net has recently sponsored R 2 million to the project but with a slightly different spin – now not only Gogo’s knit beanies but women in rural areas can knit beanies and the R 2 million will ensure R50 goes to the knitter for every beanie knitted.

So, suddenly, Mike’s project has gone from just making Grannies and Orphans happy to now

1x beanie = a job for a day!

That’s the power of following your passion!

A BIG Fairy Godmother Wand Wave to Mike Walker for following his passion, spreading love and taking just one step at a time on a powerful journey.

Help Mike to keep grannies and the unemployed kitting and to keep orphans warm…

visit the Gogo Beanie Website or become a FAN on Facebook

The atmosphere in Johannesburg is electric.  Pedestrians are blowing Vuvuzela’s as they walk to work; cars are hooting; South Africans are kitted out in their Green and Gold; Flags are flying from cars, offices, houses – it is INCREDIBLE!

This amazing atmosphere and the energy that we can all feel running through our veins – pride, patriotism, excitement, a sense of achievement – has been created because a BIG dream has come true.

In my workshops I teach people to create Wildly Improbable Goals (WIG’s) – these are big, exciting and scary goals that take one to the boundaries of possibility and impossibility and in doing so ignite DESIRE.  Desire is the fuel for making dreams and goals come true.

South Africa created a WIG about hosting this World Cup – our first bid wasn’t successful, but despite that failure we were not deterred.   We got up, dusted ourselves off and like any successful person we tried again.    When Sepp Blatter opened the envelope in 2004, the whole of South Africa began to unite around a common vision that up until that point had been held by a few.   Yes, there were naysayers, sceptics and some negative press (there still is).  Any big dream will meet with resistance; otherwise it isn’t a BIG DREAM.

What you can feel in the air in this country TODAY is the aliveness, the energy, the sense of purpose, meaning and pride that following a WILDLY IMPROBABLE GOAL brings to life.

On the eve of South Africa’s big dream coming true, embrace this atmosphere and ask yourself -

What big dreams can you create for your own life, that will bring this type of aliveness and energy to every waking moment?

Ke Nako – it is TIME for you to DREAM BIG!

Die Antwoord certainly has the answer when it comes to manifesting big dreams and goals.  This fringe South African band has now signed a record deal with Interscope amongst the stable of mega-stars – Black-eyed Peas and U2.   Due to an article on Boing Boing and some very clever social media marketing , in the space of 24 hours they’d become one of the most talked-about acts in ‘existence’.
With over 4 millions views for their Music Video Enter the Ninja, their crazy act has propelled them into the International Celebrity Spotlight.

What may seem like an ‘overnight’ success, has been many years of blood, sweat and tears in the making.   Many South Africans will remember Max Normal and front man Waddy who has now transformed himself into Ninja of Die Antwoord.   With over 15 years of work and slogging to turn his original creativity and  dreams into reality, the story of Die Antwoord is a clear lesson in the power of persistence, being authentic to who you are and being courageous enough to be in radical creative expression.
The Fairy Godmother salutes these crazy, but hugely inspirational fellow South Africans who have not been afraid to do what they believe in and follow their dreams.

One of our Daring Dreamers, Juanita Fouche, who is currently on the Growing Wings Program has just had herPole Dancing Studio featured in ‘The Star’.  Her studio is called Basic Instincts and Juanita is truly following her big WIG (Wildly Improbable Goal) of becoming the World Pole Dancing Champion!   Watch this space

Louis and Bridgette are an amazing couple who did a Dream Mapping and Goal Setting Workshop in January of this year and then joined the Growing Wings Program and in 6 months they have transformed their lives from corporate 9-to-5 into doing what they love – creating wildlife documentaries.

Watch their story…

And here is Louis’ documentary

Towards the end of 2005 Verity got clear on her dream or what I call a WIG – a Wildly Improbable Goal – which is to be an international singer/ songwriter who inspires millions of people through her music and through her music is able to make an incredible difference in the world.

So the first step to realising her dream was to record an album, but in the cut-throat and difficult music industry Verity decided that she wouldn’t let the industry get her down, but instead she would do things differently to realize her dream…

[Read more →]