Of Note: Rachel Kolisi and the Art of Falling Forward

Of Note is a new series in the James Weather Journal. People, places, ideas and things worth knowing. Not because they are trending, but because they leave something with you after you have looked away. For this first edition, we turn our attention to Rachel Kolisi, and to a story of purpose, community, resilience and beginning again.

There are people whose stories make you stop for a moment. Not because they have everything figured out, but because they are willing to keep moving while they figure it out. Rachel Kolisi is one of them.

A South African mother, humanitarian, entrepreneur and co-founder of the Kolisi Foundation, Rachel has spent much of her public life using her platform in service of something larger than herself, all while raising her children and quietly conquering a life that is entirely her own. Today, she is also telling a more personal story.

Purpose, put to work

Rachel co-founded the Kolisi Foundation with the aim of addressing inequality in South Africa. Its work has extended across food security, education and sport, gender-based violence and initiatives supporting communities and young people around the country.

Behind the programmes is an idea Rachel returns to often: meaningful change happens when we see people as people, rather than problems to be solved. It is purpose translated into action, and it is work that continues whether or not anyone is watching.

A woman becoming

Public life has many ways of defining a person. Mother. Founder. Philanthropist. Entrepreneur. But life rarely stays neatly within the labels we accumulate.

Rachel's more recent work explores what happens when those definitions shift, and you are left to rediscover the person underneath them. Her memoir, Falling Forward, traces a journey through childhood, motherhood, love, faith, loss and reinvention. It is a deeply human premise. What happens when the life you imagined changes?

Falling forward

There is something interesting in the phrase itself. Falling usually suggests failure. Forward suggests progress. Put them together and suddenly there is room for both.

Rachel's story does not present resilience as remaining untouched by difficult experiences. Instead, it considers the possibility that moving forward can happen while life is still imperfect, uncertain and unfinished. Sometimes growth looks less like having the answers and more like being willing to meet the next version of yourself.

Why she is Of Note

At James Weather, we are interested in living well. Not simply in what we own, but in how we move through the world. The things we value. The rituals we keep. The people we learn from. The stories that make us think a little differently.

Rachel's story touches many of those ideas. There is purpose in her commitment to community. There is courage in allowing an old version of yourself to change. There is strength in raising children while rebuilding a life on your own terms. And there is something quietly powerful about acknowledging a fall without allowing it to become the end of the story.

Perhaps that is what makes Rachel Kolisi worth noting. Not perfection. Movement. Purpose. Motherhood. And the decision to keep going. Rachel Kolisi is Of Note.