My 100th newsletter
Today is our 100th newsletter. At school, I had fantasies of scoring a hundred runs in cricket. I never got past twenty-seven. Today though, I think I can claim that century. Thank you for being a part of this journey.
I was going to share some insights from Allen Ambor’s autobiography, A Taste for Life. Ambor is the founder of one of South Africa’s largest and most successful restaurant franchises, Spur, and it seemed fitting – my waitering job at Spur helped me through university – but as it turns out that will have to wait for next week.
On Thursday morning I woke early to collect my car from the workshop in Cape Town’s Northern Suburbs. It was a rainy morning, bringing welcome cool to Cape Town’s scorching summer. As I inched back into the city, the grey-blue beauty of the morning put me in a contemplative mode. Table Mountain was hidden by a large bank of clouds. Smaller fragments broke off and brushed Lion’s Head. Occasional shafts of light broke though, lighting the slopes surrounding Cape Town in that biblical way that suggests the imminent arrival of an angel.
Edging along in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, I drove past an early 1980s VW Passat station-wagon and remembered my parents tucking my sister and I into a make-shift bed in the early hours of the morning; preparation for the 8- or 9-hours trip to South Africa’s coastline. At that moment, I could again smell the cold air and feel the cuddly warmth of the blanket. The quiet joy of being awake in the deep darkness that precedes dawn has stayed with me throughout my life.
A few cars later, an early 2000s Volvo XC 90 appeared, reminding me of my friends Hlubi and Milase. I had met them when I moved to Cape Town, thanks to the generosity of my dear friend, Lebo Motswenyane. Lebo had once lived in Cape Town. When I moved to the city, she took it upon herself to fly in, organise a dinner with her friends, and introduce me. It meant that I was instantly welcomed into a loving community. All those memories, triggered by cars. Who would’ve known? It was an unexpected reminder that memories create mood. Some memories are painful, others are filled with beauty that can carry us through the harder times that life inevitably contains.
By the time I got home I was feeling reflective and so I thought I would share with you how this letter came to be. T-bone steaks and milkshakes would have to wait. I hope that it’s not too self-indulgent, that there are some useful insights for your journey.
It has its roots in the beginnings of my coaching practice. Good strategy principles said that I needed to be clear about what I did well AND enjoyed doing, and leverage that. The theory is simple; you need to enjoy it so that you have the energy to sustain doing it over years, you need to be good at it to stand out.
As I created my list of strengths, I kept returning to a memory of my mother asking “Karl, when are you going to stop reading and start your homework?” I have always loved reading. Libraries and bookstores are amongst my favourite places. The question was whether there a way to make the reading useful in the building of my coaching practice.
The answer I came to was that if I focussed my reading on organisational strategy and personal mastery, I would be able to ensure that I was constantly refining my knowledge and skill and so be able to share with my clients rich, diverse insights from different domains.
That seemed neat enough. A few days later two additional questions surfaced. One was practical. How would I ensure that I remembered all that I read? The second was based on one of the core beliefs that now guide my coaching practice, namely that action is essential to growth. Knowledge expands possibility, actions enable change. Was I conning myself? Was I choosing the comfort of the chair and the book, without the challenge and risk of action? I’ve learned that no matter how clever the solution seems, it is worth asking ‘And, what else?’
Slowly the idea of writing a weekly letter took shape. The writing would force me to engage with what I had read. Publishing the letter would make my orientation to the world – to strategy, soul, and self – visible, it was action. In theory, I would then get feedback, I could improve. Easy! Wonderful! Sensible!
I started to research newsletters. There are tens of thousands! Then there’re ones like Tim Ferriss’s 5-Bullet Friday that goes to millions. Suddenly, writing a newsletter felt like a stupid idea. What could I possibly add to this highly competitive marketplace?
Then I read book reviews. I went to the Financial Times, The New Yorker, The New York Times. These people were in a different universe!!! I could never write like that. They had Ivy League educations, wove together decades of reading, and wow, they could write! I was way out of my league.
I crumpled up the newsletter idea and threw it into the bad-ideas-bin. And maybe, just maybe, breathed a sigh of relief that it was clearly not worth doing, so there was no point in trying. Staggeringly, at this point of clear conviction, I hadn’t actually tried to write anything. Not a single word had hit a page. Does that feel familiar? Stopping yourself before taking the tiniest experimental step?
I did start listening to podcasts and reading books that I thought might be relevant for my clients – at this stage, I didn’t have any. Then, I started to see the occasional client. The examples helped. They hadn’t always known about the books I referred them to, or they had but hadn’t had the time to read them. The same with the podcasts. The snippets I was sharing, tailored for their unique circumstances, created new possibilities for them.
Over a few months, the newsletter idea started to sneak back into possibility. But now I had a clearer idea of what it might be – my conversations with my clients were shaping my sense of what might be useful. Actions were shaping ideas.
I eventually decided that there was only one way to test the idea, which was, astonishingly, to test the idea. There was no point ruminating about a newsletter if I hadn’t even written a draft for myself.
In early January 2020, I sat down and wrote a draft. I read it. It didn’t seem terrible. On the 10th of Jan, I sent that draft to a handful of friends. Some liked it. Some gave technical feedback. Others asked the same question I was asking myself, “Another newsletter?” On balance though, no one said ‘Don’t do it’.
There was a question about how often I should send it. The consensus clustered around doing it monthly. However, I felt like that wouldn’t stretch me. Doing it weekly would be challenging. The challenge would help me become better over time. It struck me that there wasn’t too much point in doing it if it wasn’t going to force me to improve. I have never regretted that decision.
And so, on the 19 January 2020, I pressed send. Here we are today, the 100th newsletter!
In year one, Do You Force or Do You Lead? and Love the People You Lead, were the most popular. In year two, Psychoanalysing South Africa and I’m Still Standing, my reflections on my own Covid experience led the leader board.
After I started, I read widely published neurologist, Oliver Sacks’ memoir On the Move, in which he described himself as a fieldworker of his profession. That resonated! If he could be a fieldworker, then I could be a curator. No need to be an artist, or a critic, being a curator was a legitimate undertaking! I relaxed a little, kept writing, and looking for things that I thought might aid you to be the best version of yourself.
Along the way, magic happened. Mike Schalit, one of the doyens of South African advertising, reached out and offered to design a visual identity for my work. It’s what you see today, the magic of Emma Strydom. Then, designer Anne Hoefinghoff helped me make use of it all.
I would get gracious e-mails pointing out grammatical lapses, or even more embarrassingly, the incorrect use of words. I was suddenly forced to become focused on the craft of communication. I think that I’ve improved.
Each of these messages was a gift that resulted from taking action. The offers and the corrections were helping me improve and they were telling me that there were people out there that cared about what I was doing. Ideas are wonderful they give us possibility. Speaking about them gets others’ input – also valuable, but it is action that teaches us what it means for us, in our lives.
I started to realise that because I was working with a diverse group of clients across the world, coupled with the messages that all of you were sending me, that I was developing an intuitive sense of what might resonate in any week. It’s been a strange feeling. It’s often meant that I have intended to write to you about a particular topic, and then as the week unfolds, I am drawn to another topic. It’s meant that I often shift the focus of what I am reading because something else suddenly feels more pertinent. I’ve learned to trust it.
Many of you recommend books and share articles. Sometimes, delightfully, there’ll be a knock on the door and a book is delivered – a gift from a reader who felt it would help. It always does. Distant acquaintances have become friends. I no longer personally know everyone on the list. It’s the best surprise to get an email from someone who I’ve not met before. My world is now larger and more connected.
Over the last two years, I’ve occasionally received an e-mail suggesting that I publish the newsletters into a blog. That felt beyond the pale for me. Anne kept prompting me. I ignored her. Then one day, she sent me a link to a blog, apparently my blog. She said, “It’s hidden, you don’t need to use it, but it’s there.”
As this milestone approached, I thought that I should perhaps start uploading all the previous newsletters. I did it in my usual haphazard fashion. Anne took a look, sighed graciously, and started tidying up my mess. I haven’t managed to upload everything yet, but we have a blog and here it is. Please take a look and let me know what you think.
In the end, I return to John Le Carre’s words in A Perfect Spy, “Sometimes, Tom, we have to do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions, not answers.”
If I had only listened to my ‘market analysis’, we wouldn’t be here today. There was power in listening to what I loved. There was power in observing what was valuable for my clients. There was power in acting.
Thank you for reading. It’s you that makes this possible. Thank you to my clients, without our rich conversations I wouldn’t know what to write.
Next week we go to the sizzle of the steakhouse.
Karl
PS: You can subscribe to this letter here.