Happy New Year 2023 everyone! This is my first Weekend Coffee Share in a long time. My last one was on May 8th, 2021 – The Rituals for Resilience Edition.
Business owner
The last two years were some of the busiest and most challenging yet. It was a time for firsts, dream realization, and grabbing opportunities with both hands when they arose – I became a business owner by acquiring the shareholding of the company I’ve worked for since 2015.
2022 was a year of recreating the company and rebuilding the team after the toll Covid took on everyone. Some people left and moved on to other things, and others remained and worked with me to rebuild a stronger more resilient business. Strengthening this resilience continues this year. I feel excited.
In-person classes
2022 also marked the year that I resumed in-person classes and travel, international and local. I still do virtual classes and the scope of these is wonderful – ‘virtual’ gave me new markets across the globe, and teaching new groups of people from different cultural backgrounds has been interesting, as I learned to adapt to each one.
Travel resumed
I traveled to Cape Town 6 times, Durban 2 times, Berlin once and Lisbon once. Exciting stuff. I had to relearn my old hacks for travel – things like packing efficiently, the airport process, juggling weight, and heavy bags, when not to take a carry-on bag on the plane (usually within Europe), and how to take a carry-on bag that won’t be flagged to be removed at boarding, and so on and so forth.
A lonely year
It was also a lonely year and by this, I mean that, when I was a part of a team of peers, we had each other to talk to, commiserate on difficult client situations, and together collaborate to create new educational and coaching content and just generally support each other. I don’t have this now, and my peers are other business owners that I need to find. People who know sleepless nights, waking up in a cold sweat worried about the business, paying salaries, and looking for new ways of bringing in new business.
Vacation!
In spite of all of this, I’ve taken time to be on vacation – since mid-December – enjoying the hot weather, the pool and the rain storms. The cats are happy because they have both of their humans at home, with Chè on vacation as well. Christmas was the usual family affair. New Year celebrations were a bit subdued as most of the family opted to celebrate in their own homes.
Christmas 2023
This year though the cousins from Portugal are planning on spending Christmas in Cape Town, so that will be different in all aspects; and I’m looking forward to it.
Reading
I read Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life and it evoked so many emotions. I was heartbroken and devastated and happy all at once. It was a treat to read such beautiful writing, a deep and moving story that I still can’t get out of my mind such that I’m re-reading some portions.
That is it for this week’s coffee share. It was good catching up with you.
Until next time,
Regina
