Owning Our Story is Bravest Thing We Will Ever Do - A Journey to the Map

“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we'll ever do.” - Brené Brown

Some journeys begin with ambition and carefully constructed plans. Mine began with a diagnosis I never expected and didn't know how to process. At the age of twenty-three, I discovered I was HIV positive. This news shook my world. I struggled to understand what it would mean for my health, my future, and the life I had envisioned. At that time, I didn't possess the emotional maturity to confront it fully. Instead, I coped through avoidance. I delayed treatment and convinced myself that if I ignored the reality, I could somehow regain control.

Denial became my self-imposed prison. Avoidance felt easier than urgency. Eventually, my health deteriorated to the point where I was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS. The illusion collapsed. I could no longer postpone responsibility. I had to decide whether I would continue drifting or consciously choose to live.

Choosing treatment was my first act of reclaiming responsibility. Choosing purpose was the second. At some point, surviving was no longer enough. I needed my experience to serve something larger than myself. Advocacy became the bridge between personal pain and collective purpose.

Changing Perception

As the years unfolded, I realized that the medical reality of HIV was only one part of the journey. The deeper challenge lay in perception. At the heart of my work was a simple but powerful conviction: people living with HIV are not defined by a diagnosis. They are not statistics or cautionary tales. They are ordinary people capable of building extraordinary lives. I wanted to challenge the assumption that a diagnosis automatically limits ambition, contribution, or leadership. It does not.

From Silence to Visibility

Nine years after my diagnosis, I made the decision to disclose publicly. I became the first finalist on the Mr. Gay South Africa platform to openly share that I was living with HIV. That season opened another door. I was sponsored by Bill Burridge, owner of New Insights Africa, to complete a Life Coaching certification. At the time, I used that qualification to support people newly diagnosed with HIV. Much of our work focused on helping individuals move through the early stages of grief more intentionally, particularly from shock and denial toward acceptance. My aim was not to rush their journey but to shorten the time they remained stuck in isolation and fear.

That period of my life was not only about personal disclosure. It was also about creating visibility for others. In 2014, I launched a search for South Africa’s next “Positive Hero,” encouraging people living with HIV to step forward and share their stories publicly. The intention was simple: shift the narrative from victimhood to visibility. You can read more about that initiative here: FORMER MR GAY SA FINALIST SEARCHES FOR POSITIVE HERO - MambaOnline - LGBTQ South Africa online

If stigma thrives in silence, visibility becomes responsibility. Through the Change the Stigma Project, I facilitated HIV awareness and Peer Education training in corporate environments and with blue-collar workforces. These sessions required more than medical information. They required navigating fear, hierarchy, workplace culture, and deeply embedded assumptions. I learned how differently the same message lands depending on context and behavioral style.

Disclosure in personal relationships also taught me lessons no classroom ever could. Rejection exposes how quickly fear shapes judgment. It revealed how perception can harden before truth is fully understood. Long before I ever stepped onto a behavioral map, I had been living inside the reality of perception. When you have navigated stigma, misunderstanding, and assumption at a life-defining level, you develop an acute awareness of how perception shapes behavior.

One of the most meaningful chapters of that journey was working with Nkosi’s Haven.

Together, we launched a T-shirt campaign described as “Armour against Stigma.” It was a creative way of allowing children and communities to wear strength instead of shame. Changing perception was always the real work. You can read more about that initiative here: https://www.beautifulnews.com/these-t-shirts-are-our-armour-against-stigma

" Vulnerability is our most accurate measure of courage." - Brené Brown

When Brené Brown speaks about vulnerability as courage, it resonates not as theory but as lived experience. Disclosure was not weakness. It was a deliberate act of courage. Owning my story did not diminish me; it strengthened me.

Swimming Upstream

For many years, I described my life as swimming upstream. That phrase captured the effort of pushing forward against resistance, stigma, policy limitations, and internal doubt. As a young man, I wanted to study and work abroad to become more internationally employable. That dream was interrupted. Study applications were rejected. Opportunities to work abroad dissolved. Doors quietly closed. It felt as though parts of my future were being decided without me.

Yet upstream does not mean impossible. It means resistance. And resistance builds strength. More than twenty years later, I made a decision. I would take that power back. In July 2023, I visited Amsterdam. What was meant to be a simple trip became a moment of reflection. I realized that the dream I had abandoned at twenty-three had not disappeared; it had been postponed.

I applied to NHL Stenden in Leeuwarden and was accepted. At forty-three, I found myself pursuing the international path I once believed had been permanently closed. Financial realities surfaced quickly. My coach, Marike van der Weij, saw more than an application. She saw the person behind it. She supported me, encouraged me, and explored every possible avenue for me to remain in the Netherlands. I still remember her reading my motivational letter and saying she wished more students would write with that level of honesty.

When it became clear that staying would not be sustainable, she introduced me to the visiting Stenden South Africa team when they came to the Leeuwarden campus. It was during that time that I met Ronel Bartlett, who was responsible for recruitment for Stenden South Africa. After attending a South African-themed week at the Netherlands campus, where the Port Alfred team had taken over the canteen with South African traditional dishes, something shifted in me. I scheduled a meeting with Ronel the very next day.

What felt like a detour became a doorway. Returning to South Africa was not easy. It felt like letting go of a lifelong dream. Yet Port Alfred became the place where that dream reshaped itself. I received recognition for my Prue Leith Chef qualifications and for building Charlie’s Chicken Roll Factory, a business I started in the midst of the Covid pandemic, when uncertainty was the only constant.

What began as a feared culinary assessment at Prue Leith Chefs Academy evolved into a small but determined entrepreneurial venture. Starting a food business during a global crisis taught me operational discipline, resilience under pressure, and how to build momentum even when conditions were unstable. That chapter strengthened my acceptance into NHL Stenden in Leeuwarden, where initiative and lived experience were valued.

You can read more about that journey here: Turning tough times and a feared assessment into a business - Prue Leith Culinary Institute

Although the business later closed during the avian influenza outbreak in October 2023, its impact had already served its purpose. It had prepared me for the next arena. Not all storms are sent to destroy; some are sent to redirect.

The past year and a half have been deeply healing. The students I have studied alongside, the friendships that have formed, and the sense of belonging I did not anticipate have all become part of that healing. Reclaiming my direction and focusing intentionally on growth has been one of the most rewarding seasons of my life. Making myself vulnerable again and speaking openly about this journey is still frightening. However, growth rarely happens inside comfort.

Finding the Map

During my studies in Hospitality Management at Stenden NHL in Leeuwarden, I was introduced to MapsTell® and its World of Difference behavioral mapping tool. Initially, I approached it with academic curiosity. It was presented as a framework for understanding behavioral preferences, communication styles, and team dynamics. What I did not anticipate was how deeply it would resonate with my lived experience.

MapsTell® gave structure to something I had understood intuitively for decades. In our workshops, we begin with perception. We explore how people see differently, hear differently, and interpret differently. We unpack how fast thinking and slow thinking influence reaction. We examine the space between stimulus and response. For me, that is not theoretical; it is lived reality.

Perception shapes behaviour. Behaviour shapes relationships. Relationships shape outcomes. In July 2025, Johan Meyer and I completed our MapsTell® Guide certification under the facilitation of Warren Dix, the South African Ambassador for MapsTell®, together with international trainer Claudia van den Boogaard.

That moment felt like convergence. The work I had done to change perceptions around HIV expanded into a broader mission: helping people understand how perception shapes all human interaction.

From Lived Experience to Research

My thesis now explores how MapsTell® behavioural profiling enhances self-awareness and behavioral understanding within hospitality environments. On 23 May 2026, I will roll out my research workshop with five Hospitality students from Stenden South Africa and five management staff members from MyPond Hotel in Port Alfred. The aim is to explore how behavioral awareness influences communication, perception, and team dynamics in practice.

On 11 March 2026, we will host our first corporate Learning and Development workshop in Johannesburg. The session is fully booked with twenty professionals. The response confirms something I have long believed: people are hungry for tools that help them understand themselves and others more accurately. Behavioural insight is transferable. It applies wherever people interact.

Alongside my academic and behavioural work, I am also involved in Cub Club, a CAPS-aligned digital education initiative founded by an inspiring friend and remarkable businesswoman, Kathy Ramsewak. Together with her team, and with Loryn Dilley leading the educational vision and on-the-ground implementation, they are building something that extends beyond curriculum delivery. Cub Club supports primary school learners in underserved communities through accessible, curriculum-aligned digital learning designed for long-term empowerment.

Education, for me, has always been intertwined with dignity and perception. If we can influence how young people see themselves early, we shift far more than academic outcomes. We shift identity. We shift confidence. We shift possibility.

You can read more about that work here: A Quiet Shift Inside SA Public Crowded Classrooms

In April 2026, I will begin a three-month minor in Digital Storytelling for Social Change as part of my BCom in Hospitality Management at Stenden South Africa. This minor focuses on using digital media to give communities a voice, increase civic participation, and facilitate social development. For me, this is not just an academic module. It is a continuation of the work I have been doing for years using story to challenge stigma, shift perception, and create spaces where ordinary people are seen as extraordinary.

" Stories have the power to correct the lens through which people are seen."

The Arena

As I reflect on this journey, I am reminded of Theodore Roosevelt’s words from 1910:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.”

There were seasons when I felt disqualified by circumstance. There were years when stigma, rejection, and misunderstanding could easily have silenced me permanently. There were moments when walking away would have been easier than standing exposed. But growth has never happened on the sidelines.

Standing in the arena, imperfect and visible, has shaped me far more than hiding ever could. Each setback refined something. Each rejection clarified something. Each vulnerable conversation strengthened something. Owning my story has not been about proving resilience. It has been about alignment. It has been about loving myself through the process of becoming.

The journey did not end with advocacy. It did not end with returning to study. It did not end with certification. It continues. And this time, I am walking with a map.

Charles Jacobs - Charlie

Story inspired by my lived experience.

Title inspired by Brené Brown’s book - The Gifts of Imperfection.

Written with editorial support from AI.

If the story resonated with you, feel free to share it using the social links below. I truly appreciate it.

If you would like to explore your own Map, click here:

Discover the Map of You | The New Insights Journey

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MapsTell | Change is Growing