#142: 2022 in Review
Dear friends
Today is our last letter for the year. Our next letter will be on 15 January 2023. Thank you for all the messages about last week’s letter on the power of reflection. I am pleased that you found it useful.
In the last week, Cape Town’s Book Lounge awarded their Book of the Year award to Carol-Ann Davids’ How to Be a Revolutionary. I wrote about it here. It is an astonishing book. Chris Miller’s Chip War, on the battle to control the world’s semiconductor industry, won the Financial Times Business Book of the Year. The New Yorker released their selection of 2022’s best books. I was a happy African to see that 2021 Nobel Prize winner, Zanzibarian Abdulrazak Gurnah, topped their list (I shared some of his work in this letter). Whilst on happy Africa news, this week Cairo-based Noor Naga won The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize for her debut novel If An Egyptian Can Not Speak English (this is the fiction I am reading over my holiday).
As I reflect on the year, I realise that I have a growing appreciation of ceramics. I have loved the work of Latika Nehra and Virginie Pernot as well as, of course, South Africa’s Jan Ernst, Andile Dyalvane and Zizipho Poswa. I hope that they bring you as much joy as they’ve brought me.
If you prefer your art to be more playful, you’ll like the home of Singaporian collector, Terence Chan.
If any of you won a significant lottery amount, I will graciously accept a gift from any of these collections 😊
Today’s letter reviews our year together. Thank you for being here. You’re a valuable part of my life. Doing the research to write this letter enriches my coaching practice and my life. Receiving your comments has helped me deepen and refine my learning and understanding. I appreciate the time that you take to read my words, to share your reflections, and invite other people into our community. Thank you.
/strategy
Although 2022 brought some respite from the worst health effects of the pandemic, we are now experiencing its economic and social fallout. Those of you who have been reading for a few years will remember that Nicholas Christakis, director of The Human Nature Lab at Yale University, cautioned us to prepare for the socio-economic disruption to continue until the end of 2024.
This context creates a need for business resilience and so the strategy section focussed a lot on the fundamentals for success.
I wrote about excellent execution, strategic cost management, connecting with customers, the transforming nature of work, and creating culture. We explored how to inject the creativity necessary for innovation and how to work with individualistic innovators. And, we drew lessons from companies like Pixar, Spur, Tom’s of Maine, and Michelin to name just a few.
If you’re planning to use your December break to do some business reading, you might appreciate my favourite business book pairings.
/self
The ‘self’ part of this letter is based on two fundamental principles in my coaching practice.
First, we shape our worlds, our lives, and our organisations and if we’re to do so effectively, we need to intentionally architect our own knowledge, skills, and way of being in the world.
Second, despite this being true, we often fail to care for ourselves. We’re so busy doing our jobs, doing what is expected, and occupying our social roles that we don’t nurture ourselves. Sometimes the effects are obvious – depression, burnout, ill health, divorce. Sometimes, they’re more subtle – a loss of joy, tiredness, blunted effectiveness, lack of focus.
Whatever the manifestation, to be effective we need to intentionally care for ourselves. Our leadership strategy has to also be a personal strategy.
In April, we’d explored finding your voice and in June, I wrote about how to balance compassion and performance. This year’s letters also included one on how to get unstuck and one on being great at work.
And, after much prompting from many of you, I wrote a letter – Keep Going – that was based on my experience. It may, one day, be a chapter in a book.
I shared life lessons from Angélique Kidjo, Ed Catmull, John McPhee And Skin and musician Rubén Blades, filmmaker Rian Johnson, and choreographer Bill T. Jones.
The letters on the power of friendship and falling in love were amongst the year’s most popular.
/soul
In January, Vietnamese Buddhist Monk, Thich Nhat Hanh passed on. This letter reflected on his work.
And, over the course of the year, Catholic monk, Fr. Richard Rohr, has steadily stepped back from his work. This letter shared a two-part conversation between him and Brené Brown.
As the year comes to an end, I thought that Hanh’s words “walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet” was a beautiful invitation to slow down.
The full quotation reads, “When we walk like (we are rushing), we print anxiety and sorrow on the earth. We have to walk in a way that we only print peace and serenity on the earth… Be aware of the contact between your feet and the earth. Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.”
You might also like this from his book The Miracle of Mindfulness, “People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”
I wish you a December of peace, joy, and miracles. I will see you again on the 15th of January.
Until then, much love.
Karl
PS: I am giving two people the chance to work with me for free at the start of the year. The details are here. Please share it with your networks.
PPS: If you have any feedback on this letter – How is the letter useful to you? What do you find to be valuable? How would you describe it? Do you find yourself able to use its insights in your life and business? What would you like me to change about it? – please email it to me at coaching@karlgostner.com I will spend early January planning my year and I’d love to have your input.