South African Business Man Who Use To Deliver Pizza As A Young Man Shares What Delivering Pizza Taught Him About Humanity

A south African business man named Shadrack Kubyane has shared a lengthy post explaining why a simple act of kindness can take you far in life.

Read his post on LinkedIn below:

Here’s what delivering Pizza taught me about humanity:

Even the most successful people among us, value kindness: more than we realise.

It was a once off pizza delivery gig, as an accidental pizza man, but the lessons I took from that, shaped my life for days to come.

So how did I end up delivering Pizza?

I was driving down the road, going home, when my phone rang. That’s when I parked on the street to take that important call

A black Mercedes S class, pulled up next to me. The driver, a lady who looked like she was the same age as my mom, rolled down the window.

She went on to ask: how to get to a certain street address.

It was just 3 streets away, but the look on her face told me, she was afraid, at the fear of getting lost, more than she already was.

I told her: don’t worry about it, just follow me. I drove to lead her.

I had no clue why she was searching for this address. I only found out when we arrived. I got out of my vehicle to tell her

This is it, all the best. She got ready to get out of her luxury vehicle with two pizzas. I asked her if she needed help with that??

She almost burst into tears, looking very frustrated. She said she’s there to deliver the 2 pizzas (in that car?). Is this a joke? It was for real.

I told her, I’ve already come all the way: I am not going to let her go up the flight of stairs with those pizzas in high heels, to a stranger’s house!

It was an old apartment building that did not appear to have an elevator (we call it a “lift” in South Africa).

I dashed into the building, raced up the flight of stairs, knocked on the door and handed the pizza over, and I even got a tip 🙂

But the tip was just the beginning. When I gave her the money and the whole tip (thanking her for her trouble), she asked me:

What do I do, and how can she thank me, she asked me so many questions in that one moment, those 2 are the ones I remember.

She was simply overcome by my helping her, when I did not have to. She was a total stranger to me, why did I help her?

That’s when I discovered during that conversation, that:

🔵 She & her family own a chain of pizza outlets
🔵 Few drivers did not pitch at one of the outlets
🔵 She has been stretched trying to make deliveries

She gave me her business card, and asked me to come meet her and her family that coming week. At the meeting:

Which did not last long, upon their discovering my super powers from my Deloitte days (to scale projects), and my consulting firm:

They granted me a mandate to solution them on their current problems, to refine their systems & human capital to pave way for their growth.

She was among my 1st batch of well paying clients that led me to leave a full-time job to go full time into business because until then

Until that moment, I was consulting as a side-hustle. Moving into the business full time, with this flagship account, ensured that my cashflow was stable.

I am grateful to have kindness as my “native” language.

Source:Shadrack Kubyane|LinkedIn

Email: elora.akpotosevbe@yahoo.com