New project aimed at uplifting South Africans is scheduled for June release – Changing Lives is all about overcoming the decimation that Covid left behind.
Johannesburg: Changing Lives is an independent project created by author and neuroscience coach Tanya Kunze and media personality and executive producer Hein Kaiser to effect positive change in South Africa, and the world. Changing Lives is presented by Tanya Kunze and radio personality Thabo Magubane. The project is shaped around 67 short online episodes where the pair takes viewers on a journey of self-discovery, reframing the new normal and providing insight on how we can change ourselves, and our personal realities.
“It’s free to anyone and everyone,” says Kaiser. “The idea came about after challenging personal experience during the pandemic and seeing so many friends and family go through the same, if not worse. I wanted to find a way to spread positivity and goodwill.” The release of the Global Happiness Index earlier this year, showing how joy nosedived, added further fuel to the quest. “Tanya was introduced to me via a mutual friend, I shared the concept with her, and immediately Changing Lives was born.” Kunze is sharing all developed material, much of which is included in her bestseller The Power of Positivity, at no cost. She developed the material, validated over the last 11 years with over 15,000 people inspired and trained by Kunze around the world.
“There is a real need in the world right now to evaluate, get up and go,” says Kunze. “While our lives have been fundamentally changed over the past year and a bit, we can adapt, make it our own and create positive habits for ourselves, create a new reality to fit the new normal,” she says. “It takes more than 21 days to form a habit, and the length of the season matches the time it takes, 66 days, to create new systems of behaviour.” Each instalment will feature a thematic topic and, in many episodes, guests who share experiences, challenges and advice.
“Changing Lives is for all of us, a sharing platform where we have the opportunity to shape tomorrow, and to pay it forward, after all we live for one another.”
Changing Lives will be available across multiple channels online as well as through its own YouTube and social media channels. “We are actively looking for partners to share the content to their social media audiences, customers, staff. To anyone. It’s free, we just want positivity shared,” says Kaiser. The half-hour and hour-long shows are being made available to broadcasters at no cost, either. “This is about all of us, showing up, for one another.”
Charles Pittaway, chief executive of payment gateway Netcash, that funded the series, says that “With the recent impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, many individuals experienced an adverse impact on their mental health and well-being due to obstacles such as retrenchments and the loss of friends and family. We saw this sponsorship as our way of contributing to effect positive change in everyone that we can reach, with the hope that they will share with others. This is a great opportunity to change the mindsets of individuals and allow them to inspire others by sharing their success stories.”
“We are very excited to share this project with the world,” says Kunze. “We have all been through so much and now, it looks like a third wave may upset the apple cart again. We all need one another more than every before, and this notion underpins Changing Lives in totality.”
