It’s clear from the calendar that we are deep into overload season with mailboxes bursting and the standard greeting changing from chatting about the weather to a collective shock that it’s already the end of October. This is the season where everyone rushes around trying to squeeze a year’s worth of work into the quarter and the feeling of overload sweeps in. 

And much like the weather, where since I arrived in Cape Town twenty-four years ago, people still bemoan the wind and forget it always snows and freezes over just before summer arrives, this happens every year. You might wonder, why do we fall into this same annual trap? Shock and horror that the year is nearly over and frustration for not having achieved everything on the annual to do list. 

It’s at times like this that I wake at 03:30 am to write to you to remind us both of the wise words by Bill Gates that “people overestimate what they can achieve in a year, and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years”. 

So, this week, let’s do two things. Let’s firstly get stuck into the to do list and really deliver on our promises to ourselves and others – because after all, it’s the incomplete tasks on the to do list that are the cause of much of our stress – and secondly, let’s be kind to ourselves and make judgement not on our failures, but on our collective successes, our efforts and the courage  we have shown to achieve as much as we have to get us to this point in our businesses, our lives and the past months in this year. 

And always remind yourself that you are amazing!