Dear friends Thank you for the replies to last week’s letter, What World Do You Want? It is never an easy decision for me to turn my attention to the broader socio-political themes that frame our individual journeys, so it was gratifying…
Good morning Today is South Africa’s Human Rights Day. In my 6 December letter, I promised to share my reading of Charles van Onselen’s The Night Trains in January. I haven’t been able to find my way into. The year has felt so…
Good morning everyone We’re in March. I had planned this week’s letter to focus on the tweaks we can make to our work-lives to alleviate stress and burnout. However, I think we’re all a little gatvol of feeling gatvol (my international readers, please ask…
Last week Sihle Nontshokweni celebrated the fact that her children’s book, Wanda, which she had co-authored with Mathabo Tlali had received its first international review. They wrote the book to “encourage young children to love themselves for what they are born with, despite what society may…
State capture has occupied the imaginations of South Africans for the last few years. For much of that time it was told as a tale of shady politicians and a clique of special friends, but over the last while a…
In the face of the unfathomable, the most powerful thing that one can do is to seek hope, joy, and connection. It doesn’t make the nonsensical, sensible. It doesn’t make the pain go away, but it does add energy, it…
This year will be overwhelming and tiring. In this context, it’s tempting to draw the curtains and hide out until ‘it’s all over.’ Yet, as famous baseball player and coach, ‘Yogi’ Berra, once put it, “If you don’t know where…
Today’s introduction is longer than normal. It’s December, it feels right to reflect a little. Next week will be our last email for the year. I will resume our conversation on 10 January 2021. This week I shared a photograph of…
Last week’s email reflected on how psychologically unsafe environments destroy value by silencing people or, more insidiously, by creating conditions in which people do not feel safe to speak and so silence themselves. In the silence, value is hidden. Amy Edmondson, Professor…
The absolute joy of writing this letter to you each week is the generosity that comes back. After last week’s letter I was given copies of Oliver Sacks’ autobiography On The Move and Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees.…
Our language often captures age-old truths that science then confirms. We celebrated people who are ‘grounded’. We stress the importance of ‘knowing our roots’. When someone has ‘deep roots’ in a community, they are connected and add value. These metaphors…
At the end of last year my sunglasses were removed from my, often-forgotten-to-be-locked, car. The desire to avoid adding a summer squint to my Zoom stare led me to The Oculus. They have been pioneering a South African designed and manufactured…