#220: Love &
Hello friends I am back. I’d paused the letter for two weeks to get on top of all I’d read. Although not as productive as I’d hoped, I was partially successful. My research assistants corralled nine recently read books’ highlights into…
Tag Marcus Buckingham
#213: Stay in Your Comfort Zone
Dear friends Bibliophiles should diarise 4 August and oenophiles 22 August. I first encountered Anna de Koningh, in Phakamisa Ndzamela’s masterfully researched The Native Merchants, which I wrote about here. She started life enslaved and ended it as one of…
#199: You can’t fake leadership (lessons from Hitendra Wadhwa’s Small Actions Make Great Leaders)
Dear Friends I hope you’re enjoying your long weekend. Thursday night took me to Swedish alto-saxophonist Fredrik Kronkvist gig at The Olympia Bakery. If you’ll allow me some stereotyping, I love the contradiction of Scandinavian jazzmen. Invariably they arrive tightly…
#171: Love+Work
Dear friends This week the 2023 Booker Prize longlist was announced. It is wonderful to see the inclusion of Nigerian author Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀’s A Spell of Good Things. If you missed it, I shared my thoughts about it in this letter (it…
#164: Lekkerwater, Jazz and Alienation
Good morning my friends Please forgive me, I have meandered a little today. I will return to our tighter formula next week. Winter has arrived in the Cape. The days are soaked by long steady rains, interrupted only by moments of…
#160: The power of words
“All around the world, we feel uncertainty and want to connect with what roots us to heritage, to the past, with something that has meaning.” – Manchán Magan Dear Friends This is the 160th edition of Strategy, Soul and Self…
#136: You got the job. Now what? (PT 2)
You got the job. Now what? Today is our second letter on achieving success in your new job. Last week’s letter focused on some of the first steps you should take. In summary, they are: Take care of yourself –…
#123: Fall In Love
Over the past few weeks, it has felt to me that we could all do with some gentleness, with some love and kindness. When one looks, there is a lot to fall in love with. Of course, Banyana Banyana won…
#121: Finding Love In Work
It’s the middle of Cape Town’s winter, which means long nights and lots of rain. South Africa has also been experiencing significant power outages for the past few weeks, so life has been feeling a little meh. Psychologist Stephen Grosz…
#111: Creating Culture
Good morning If you’ve been reading for a while, you know that this letter is shaped by my coaching. Every week I meet nine or ten people. We explore the opportunities and challenges that they face in their lives and…
#110: Trends At Work
Good morning friends Before we get started today, a few practical things. First, I won’t be writing to you next weekend. I will be taking a short break. Second, if like me, you find your body getting stiffer from too…
How You Can Build Sustained Performance
“You only have to understand this basic point: Beauty nurtures the soul. Expose yourself to the beautiful, and let it do its work. It will accomplish what you could never dream of. All you have to do is trust it…