Your Happy Hour - Making Space

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

In this episode, we chat to Sine Maphumulo, a dynamic leader specialising in finance, strategy and development and currently working at Amazon France and living in Paris. We explored the pressures of corporate life, the importance of finding purpose beyond work and the impact of her upbringing on her career choices - how growing up in a country like South Africa defined a certain sense of achievement, leading to striving to work globally. Her journey reflects a blend of ambition, authenticity, and purpose - redefining what it means to achieve and lead with purpose and what practical ways she has done so to make space for gratitude and foster presence and self-awareness. The Feels is all about having those honest conversations, the power of community for personal growth and taking those actionable steps towards being our authentic selves.Thanks for tuning in! Keep it raw and real out there xYHH is produced by swartkat.co - captured via riverside.fm & shared via rss.com.

It's the Friday feels and we're back with your first sip of the weekend. You're now tuned in to this week's episode of your happy hour. I'm your host Nicole Carmine and it's amazing to have you here. Joining me this week as we uncover the truths about being a human and a working professional. What are you up to this Friday? Well, whatever it is, this moment is just for you. Welcome back to another episode of your happy hour and the field space and we are now fully into January and into the theme of relieving, achieving this month. And it's again such a hot topic,

always at the start of the year when we think about how we're going to tackle this year and how we're going to dedicate our time and why we do what we do. So for this episode, we have a really special guests coming on. I'm so excited to meet her kind of for the first time. Often we have a lot of time before podcast episodes to catch up, but we're snowballing into this one and literally because Paris is in snow. So it's such a beautiful gift to both of us who are in Paris. So a big welcome to you, Sine, to the Your Happy Hour podcast and the field space. It's really wonderful to have you here. By having me, Nicole, I'm so happy. And excited for the conversation today.

Yeah, likewise. And I just thought maybe you can give us, and me also, a little bit of a background of your journey, how you got to be where you are today, but also in the context of what you think of this topic. I know it's a big one, and you said it resonated a lot with you. So just give us a little bit of background. Sure.

Yeah, the topic for me really stood out in terms of really achieving. You know, as a young South African woman who happens to now live in Paris, that's kind of, you know, a crazy concept, and I feel so lucky and blessed to be here. But a lot of the things that got me here was, you know, this constant pressure of, you know, having to be an overachiever. And I think of this as something that was really ingrained in me from, you know, childhood, firstly being a firstborn. So I have two siblings, my sister who is 12 years younger than me, and my brother, who is 16 years younger than me. So I was there for all of the

the party training, the nappy changes, you know, they kind of felt like my kids at some point. So you grow up with that inherent sense of responsibility, if I can say, and one really puts it on you, but it's just there, especially with the edge gap as well. So you always feel like you have to, you know, be the best and be, you know, a good example. And then also just growing up in South Africa with parents who lived in the apartheid era, who then, when I grew up in an era where all these opportunities were available for someone like me, was, okay, now you have to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, all of these careers, you know, which is actually how I ended up in accounting.

I studied my undergrad in financial accounting because it was one of the things that, you know, okay, if I study this, I'll have a job, I will be, you know, successful, etc. And I guess also thirdly, it would be just inherently when, like, at the end of the year, your parents tell you, hey, you need to do while at school so you can get, you know, this gift for Christmas, you know. and what that teaches you as a child is that you need to work for you know affection not that necessarily that's what your parents were intending they just wanted to motivate you but that's kind of you know what you learn from that you know and you learn that i have to you know be good I have to do good in order to you know to get my parents affection or stuff like that so it really

resonated for me in that way and having to then I learned that as being you know a 30 plus year old women, you know, to really just be more present and understanding, you know, there's more to life than, you know, ticking off all the boxes and achieving all these things and having all these things next to your name. There's a lot more, there's a lot more to that. I so agree, and I could so resonate with what you're saying, because even though I do a lot of different things today, I also studied accounting in South Africa. I grew up in the same kind of era as you, and I understand that there was this pressure, but it seems like you've kind of navigated out of that, I know you've also worked at amazing companies.

You know, you've walked such a journey in your accounting and finance career. Yes. So what was that like? I mean, did that kind of like add to the pressure that you felt or the achievement? Or did you feel like you could kind of work it out along the way? Yeah, I think the, I guess, the primary motivator, again, was rooted in that need to overachieve and wanting to be in the big multinationals. And also a big part of it is also wanting to be.

in a company that could allow me to have an international career, which is how I ended up in Paris. So it was also just being intentional about that. And yeah, it's been a great journey. I feel really lucky and blessed to be able to live the life that I live. But yeah, it also comes with having to know like, hey, you're human at the end of the day. There's a lot more than your achievements. As I said, you know, being able to be healthy in mind in spirit and body, you know, doing the things that matter, you know, they say health is off. And the older that I'm getting, you know, my knees are cracking a bit more. My back is a bit more sore. I'm like, maybe I should have started lifting in the gym, you know, maybe I should have, you know, taking that a bit more seriously. So, yeah,

I'm definitely enjoying, you know, rediscovering, you know, other parts of, you know, what achievement means and not just a typical, you know, textbook, you know, definition of what that is. Yeah, I think it's quite an interesting experience, especially when you go through the corporate especially growing up in South Africa but then also like growing through the corporate mindset it's like you have to shed something in yourself in a way and even if you do

keep working in that it's like you have to come to an understanding of why you do what you do every day and like you say being human I feel like a lot of what's happening in the world is pushing us to remember what is it to be human it's to touch it's to love

it's to be able to laugh you know all those things so So it's interesting. And I know that you also started a foundation. Tell me a little bit more about that. I feel that it's really interlinked to what we're talking about now. Yes. I think you mentioned something about wanting to have a purpose outside of, you know, just

working. So that was essentially the story there. So I have a social media activism platform called Leave No One Behind. So this was born out of the era of me wanting to save this. the world. So in 2019, I finished my master's degree. I was like, yay. I now am equipped with the skills of how to use my background, which is accounting and violence, to really solve the problems of society, whether it be poverty and community, you know, based on my data and my research. And I was like, hey, I want to save the world. I want to do this. But I felt like I didn't really have a way to do

that. So I was like, hey, let me just start talking about the sustainable development goals. Let me use a, find a platform online to encourage young people to know what does this mean, you know, how are companies or big multinationals or even private or public sector or NGOs, you know, really animating these topics to really raise awareness on, you know, what that means, you know, we grew up knowing, we grew up knowing that, you know, South Africa had the highest income inequality in the world, the highest gene, uh, coefficient. But like, what does that really mean and who's doing what to really solve the issues, you know? And this is also a big, um, I would say challenge to myself that I've put to myself being in the private sector.

Obviously, all my career has been in the private sector, but there's a lot of work that has also been done. We talk about public-private partnerships, where we are really leveraging the resources of the private sector to really help push the agenda of the public sector, which is typically your governmental NGO. So being in a space where I have access to people who are doing really cool stuff also really motivates me every day to say, hey, I may be an accountant in finance, but, you know, I also have a way to kind of reach out to the people who are doing volunteering stuff, who are, you know, giving back to the community and that for me is a way that I find my purpose outside of, you know, being an accountant. So, yeah, it's really quite cool.

So, yeah, just pretty much awareness that I'm giving to the young people. Also had an opportunity to talk to a few young ladies who were at the Women's Forum in 2024. This is a big conference that happens every year in Paris where there were some young ladies which were selected by the global shapers community in Paris just to kind of motivate them. They were doing some amazing, amazing stuff and they were so young.

It was really inspiring to be in the presence of these young ladies but also be able to give back to them and kind of inspire them to keep going on their journey. That's amazing. It's really cool what you do. And I think it's also a... that you are giving a voice and celebrating what other people are doing too because we're all kind of just trying to save the world in some way or form, right?

You know, you made me laugh now because I know the term public-private partnerships very well and I have known it since I was a little child but I didn't understand what that really meant because my mom works in that field and she does the contract work between the two sectors And as I grew older, I came to understand the beauty of collaboration and of being able to achieve something together, like you say, through public and private sectors coming together. And it's just humans. It's just humans doing things for each other and serving the community in a way. So it's – but, yeah, you just reminded me of that now, like my old childhood memories. And I'm curious also, I mean, did you see yourself doing these things 10 years ago?

Like, did you feel like this was the root you're going to take? And has achievement changed for you and how you go about your daily life? I mean, where I would have seen myself, to be honest, I knew that I wanted to have an international career for me for the longest time that meant being in the UK. I don't know why. I just work up one day as a child and I said, this is my dream. I want to work towards going to the UK. So that's why as well, when I finish my mind. undergrad. I then did a professional degree called Seema, which is accredited in the United Kingdom.

So I was like, okay, I'm going to do this, going to give me the entry point into the UK. Then after that, I did my master's and funny story, actually, I quit my job in 2019 just before COVID. The idea was to go and move to the UK and, you know, study something to kind of help me enter the market. So those dreams were crushed naturally because COVID happened. But I think everything happens for a reason because it was in that moment where a previous colleague that I had at Nesley had then reached out to me, I bought a wall at L'Oreal. And at the time, I, you know, had just quit my job. I was like, what am I doing? You know, I want to save the world, you know, is this really right for me? But everything worked out because that job was then the job that catapulted me to be able to

to have an international career. Albeit not in the UK, but in Paris. But, you know, I feel there was something mystical there in terms of, okay, this is what had to happen for you to be here today. So that was always kind of encouraging. So, no, I didn't see myself in Paris and France, but I definitely did imagine myself having an international career. So it is quite exciting to see how the world has kind of given that to me in a different

way and encourage me to learn another language, which I'm still struggling with. How's that going? It's about. So about. But that's a beautiful story. And I'm glad that you kind of went with the flow because I think so often we can see these doors that close as like blockers in our river, you know,

but they're just really leading us in the right direction and following those open doors as they are presented to you. I think it's quite hard sometimes. But yeah, yeah, it takes you to. the places you would never have imagined. And I'm curious. So along your journey, obviously, I'm assuming, and maybe I'm wrong, but achievement, I guess, is always a thing we're working on. We're always kind of trying to relieve it in some way, especially if you've been conditioned as a child like you were mentioning. So what do you do on a daily basis to work with that?

Or have you found that maybe you had like an aha moment and let that go? I don't think it's something that I've kind of mastered if I'm being honest. I think being present really does help, you know, having, you know, putting time away in your diary to just kind of, you know, just have gratitude and have thanks. I think that's something I've always really struggled with. But when you kind of take a step away and just kind of whatever it is for you, whether it's meditating, whether it's praying, you know, whether it's going to the gym, you know, whatever that means for you, doing some yoga or Pilates with the match. So that, that, that, that, becomes, you know, the moment where you kind of just have gratitude for, you know, for who you are,

where you are, and just reconnecting with yourself. And that I often find, you know, all the other things are just noise? All that matters is, you know, are you happy? Are you healthy? Do you have people around you who love you, people who support you? Yeah, I mean, designer bags and all of that stuff is great, but it's not really important. I think this is also something that comes. I don't want to talk like I'm older, but this is also something that comes with age. I don't know. I've just it's been a really great journey. People often say this you come into your space and you come into, you know, just being really confident in who you are, knowing who you are as well, really, really kind of helps. So it's, I don't think it's a destination as kind of a journey. You're always

going to have to kind of learn and unlearn and relearn some stuff as well. You're always going to have this pressure, you know, especially as a woman, you know, whenever you are, like whether in you're in the workplace or you're just outside walking on the street. you know, it's always something. So, yeah, it's something that will always be there, but just finding a way to just be present and, yeah, enjoy the ride as it comes. I love that. I think it's really important.

And I'm also, it's been on my radar a lot recently. Maybe it's a thing of the 30s, I don't know. But it's just that, you know, I think if you are thankful and in the moment, like you say, it does quiet the mind and the mind is the place of noise I think and it takes you into your heart space and once you're there you're just kind of happy that you are there's a human you know and that you connect with others and it's a beautiful thing and it's something we do kind of hide from I think you know because sometimes I think it's it's like overwhelms us that emotion of being being human so I think it's really beautiful that you get to do that and I'm also curious if you've had any kind of mentors along the way

that's giving you advice to become who you are today and in the space you are today? 100%. I think mentors are something that are very important. But also what I didn't know is that having a mentor is not enough. You need to know what questions to ask the mentor to get the right things out of the mentor. So this is also something that is a skill. People just make it sound super easy, but it's actually really not. You have to be really intentional about it. And hopefully you find someone who's on the other side willing to take you with them on this journey and just be really, really intentional about what you want to achieve. What skills are you trying to grow and all of that. So for me, I've been fortunate to have this in my professional career. So yeah, also,

again, just being proactive, you know, if you're sitting there and you're like, hey, I don't have a mentor, I don't know where to get one. If it's not at work, there's also like other organizations that do these things where they have like online mentoring. So just Google search, you know, AI is your friend. You know, you'll find something. I think it's very important to have someone to just bounce off ideas from, someone to learn from who's walking the shoes that you see yourself in. Very, very important.

Something I wish I knew much earlier, to be honest. But yeah, 100%. Even now, as I've started a new job at Amazon, coming into a new organization, having to learn the different culture, So it's very important to have someone who's been there for a long time and they know what to do, what not to do. It just makes your learning a bit easier as well because you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

Someone's already there telling you, you know, the path ahead. It just makes it a smoother transition for. Yeah, it's a bit like a guide in a way that through life, which is... And yes, I think often mentors are those people who have made the mistakes, you know, they've learned the lessons in some way. and so it doesn't mean that their life was necessarily easy either. None of it is, and I think that's really good advice. But it's true.

I think often, you know, I've done some life coaching the past, and people will, sometimes you think that the coach will save you and, like, change you, and then people rock up, and you're actually the one asking the hard questions, holding the mirror, and you're just there to facilitate the journey, really. So that's true. You have to be very intentional about who you surround yourself, with and then it's more the questions you're asking yourself but you just need to kind of say them

out loud i think so but it's it's great that you've done that and and talking about that i'd like to move into a little segment we have you spoke about gratitude and something that we talk about on here is our gems which are things that we we are grateful for like people along the journey and but this is specific to the week that you're having right now so mine has been that well first of all the snow just to say that in Paris. It's been really, really beautiful. Shoes are a little bit slippery, so just worried about those knees, like you said, in the back. But for me, a gem has really been, I think also kind of getting back to that place of presence after having taken some much needed time off in the holidays to not look at the screen, to disconnect, to kind of just get back to

not even thinking about why I am doing what I'm doing, just being, just being completely, you know, getting up and doing whatever my heart desires in that moment. And that was so healing and wholesome. So just really grateful for that and going into the year with a different kind of rhythm. That's a little slower, but more intentional, like you said. So that's really been a gem for me this week. How about for you? I love that. Slowness is a really, um, something to be grateful for. So I'm really happy that you have the ability to do that as you kind of start into the new year. On my side, I'm really grateful for being able to do my vision board.

So I finally did it. Two days ago, it was, you know, it was daunting me to be honest because, you know, New Year knew me, there's so much, again, pressure that comes with that in itself, right? You're trying to reinvent yourself. You're trying to be the best it can be. You're trying to do better than last year, you know. So yeah, I finally did it with a bit of help from AI. So shout out to chat, JPD. Yes. So I was able to separate it into different spheres. So have the physical one, you know, don't want to go to gym, don't want to do Pilates, how often do I want to do that, and also being very strategic about naming it in terms of like, you know, the smart way, not just saying this is what I want to do, but saying how often I want to do it. And then having

like the spiritual one, the mental one. I want to read a lot more books than I did last year. I want to meditate a bit more, you know, whatever that looks like for you. And then I have the personal and the career one as well. And the nice thing about asking chat to you with you is that they don't stop. They always go deeper. And you're like, actually, I don't think about that. So then they asked me, would you like me to do a weekly tracker for you so you can hold yourself accountable?

I was like, wow, that's actually a really good idea. because then I can break up these really big tasks that I've set up for myself into small, you know, bite-sized weekly things that I can also have been also, you know, check off and still hold myself accountable at that level. So I thought that was a very interesting nugget there that I've been taken up. I'm really grateful for that. I see it in the morning when I wake up. I haven't checked of anything yet, but you know it's there.

It's pretty, it's in different colors. It's on my whiteboard. So, yeah, I'm grateful for that. Oh, I love that. I love that. A vision board is so powerful. It's amazing. And yeah, a weekly tracker helps a lot.

I think that I definitely not to add pressure or sense of achievement, but we are humans, I think, that like to tick things off. You know, it's good to be able to say I reach this goal. I've changed this habit or whatever it is. So I love that. And I started mine too, to be honest, and I haven't got too much further yet because I was resting. But I looked at mine from last year, and it's really interesting that one space that I didn't vision board, I had somehow left it blank, I didn't give attention to you in my life. And I think

that's often like that. You know, you just, you have to kind of manifest, you have to put it out there and say this year, these are the things that I'm working on. So I'm really glad that you got to do that. And that's beautiful, it's colorful, just pop it on your laptop cover so you see it every day. And you were talking about reading more books. So one of the segments that we do on here is called the people, places and spaces. And this week, I actually wanted to shout out an online store called bookshop.org. We have links to them in our Stack series, which we'll talk about just now. But I've just also started reading more books and appreciating books in my life.

And so being able to go onto their site and see all the books that are there, I still love holding a book in my hands, but the accessibility to literature is incredible. and yeah, I just love what they do and offering what they do in the world. So a big shout out to bookshop.org. If you want to be reading in 2026, check out their website. We love your feels, guys. On that, actually, I do have one more question for you. And that is, what is in your stack?

So you obviously have some books that you want to read this year. Maybe books that you've loved reading before and would like to recommend. But it's just for our audience. It goes on our website. and for anyone who's listening, if you want to check out the stack, it's books that I get recommended on this podcast. So yeah, what is in your stack, see me? What is in my stack?

So I went on a bigger book shopping wall at the end of the last year. I was like, what am I thinking? So one of it was inspired by the fact that Malala was in town. So she did a book to her and she had a little event with Natalie Portman. I was like, what, there's no way I'm missing this. So I bought her book. but I'm yet to read it, so that is definitely on my to-do list as soon as possible. There's also a book that I've known about for a very long time.

I don't know, I'm in my era of books that I've had for a long time that I haven't bothered reading. But funny enough, the book that I had and I started reading, I was like, you know what, I was meant to read it now. I think had I read it those years ago, I wouldn't have been able to really understand what it meant for me in this moment, so that was really nice. And that was Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell. There's also this book called Never Sped the Difference. So this is also a book I've known about for so long, but I'm taking it up to read it this year.

I've also just finished a book by Brunei Brown. I love her, two bits. You know, I've read most of her stuff. I love how she talks about vulnerability, courage, and how to show up and not just that, but she gives you the mental models of, you know, how to deal with this practically. And she's so open and honest. Often feels like having a coffee with a friend, you know, really love her writing style. I love, you know, just, you know, how she expresses herself

and really inspires us to be better people, whether it's personally or whether it's at work. Strong Ground was the book that I just finished so, so good. So definitely going to be reading more of her stuff as well. Yeah, that's so far. That's quite a list. Thanks for recommending all of those. I actually, I think I still need to read all of those, so I'm really excited to add them to my stack, which is just growing and growing as the podcast evolves. But thank you. And those are, I love Brenna Brown, too. She's very down to earth.

And I always believe books do find you at the right time in your life, you know. And often they do sit on the rack for a long time, and then you pick them up when you need them. So that's really beautiful. And yeah, to anyone else listening out there, go check out the stack. And I also wonder what you're feeling about this topic, relieving, achieving. it's quite hard to let the sense of achievement go, but maybe it's not about letting it go, maybe it's about embracing it in the right way

and understanding what it is to be human and achieving as a human. So a last shout-out is to our partners, so last but not least, absolutely, to a Rift side, which we are doing the recording on. Also, RSS.com, which helps us distribute this podcast into the world, and have given our audience a very generous

discount so DMS on the socials if you want to know more about that and very last not least a nutritious snack called blender bombs mostly in the US but internationally shipped and they are it's it's like a really good nugget of goodness you know and they have a lot of other products too but I love their blender bombs which I found while I was traveling in the US and thank you so much to them for also giving our audience 20% discount when you order with the feels. So those are partners and thank you so much to them. And then I just want to say a huge thank you to you for coming on to the podcast, for sharing so openly, so honestly, for what you do in the world and yeah, just your life that you shine. And yeah, I can't wait to have that coffee in Paris. So I'm really looking forward to that.

If you haven't just yet follow Friday Fields on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and LinkedIn, you can share with us all your feels this week by tagging us at Fridayfeels.com. And you can also find the website at that handle. And now as you ease into this weekend, take a moment. Celebrate who you've become, what you've overcome and what is yet to come as you do the crazy and cool things that you do as the authentic you. You know, the truth about life and work is that it's hard, but the beauty is this global working experience that you're in

while we are in it together. So keep connecting, empowering and inspiring this week. And of course, keep it raw and real. Until next time.