Dear Friends
As 2021 draws to a close we all reflect on the year, to be honest the past two years. Firstly, we must celebrate the lives of friends, family and colleagues we have lost with great sadness. I do not think there is a person on the planet who has not been affected by Covid on personal, professional or business level. We laid my dearest mother and father in-law to rest in the past 18 months due to cancer and old age at their golden ages of 84. Professor Isabel Uys my late mother in-law was a female professional pioneer at University of Pretoria, as the first Female Department Head of Audiology.
In my final review of 2021 with our newly appointed CEO, his words of inspiration to me were ‘ Never stop Learning’. In the past two years many of us have lost jobs, searched for jobs and been blessed to have started jobs. If your business unit, business, or industry has survived the past two years you have done so well. You and your team need to celebrate the small wins.
I have been blessed to start a new adventure six months ago in a Franchise based environment working with owners and a dynamic, very efficient head office. Coming from corporate to family business has been a major adjustment and learning curve. I have learnt so much and I believe the future of business will be driven by franchise-based formats.
The business world as we know it has changed, you know the saying: ‘ If you do what you always did, you will always get what you always got’ (Albert Einstein) sure you are also surprised that this is his quote 😉 This has never been more true. COVID has taught us how to do business differently, how to ZOOM, Teams and work from home.
We have all learnt new skills in the past two years, from setting up meetings online to sharing screens and juggling multiple meetings at once, online. This in my view will be the new normal. As humans we are super resilient and have been adapting our thoughts and ways of working for many centuries. Now you must adapt to survive or pack up your shop.
In the words of Bradley R Staats, ‘ Stay Relevant, Reinvent Yourself and Thrive’ – easy words but not that easy in practice. I have been reflecting on this for the past month and honestly believe there is no other way to survive 2022 and beyond. We will all have to Listen to our Customers in a different way to keep them coming back. We will have to stay relevant and on trend, we will have to reinvent ourselves to ensure we survive.
In closing: 1. I would like to take this opportunity to thanks you for your friendship reading my blogs the past year. 2. I would like to challenge you to NEVER STOP LEARNING in the year that lies ahead. 3. I would like to wish you all the success you deserve in 2022, through hard work and endless networking you will succeed.
Happy New Year, Regards Charles
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