Hello Everyone,
Let’s start with life and what a lively 2024 it has been. I turned sixty - yeah, I know - and to mark it I decided to complete 60 Soul Cycles in this year and this is me completing my 60th on my actual birthday in August. What a workout!
Yes that’s right: A workout is indeed a metaphor for work, not least because every time you workout you’re working with others, or others have played a part in what you work out on: in this case there’s a whole wonderful team (I’m pictured here at Soul Cycle in Soho, London, but I also frequent Notting Hill and New York’s iconic 77th Street branch). Here’s a piece I wrote for Bloomberg about working out and the workplace, inspired by Soul Cycle.
Now to Soul. I will get up to 75 in cycles by Christmas Eve (not actual years), in no small part thanks to the brilliant energy of the trainers. Pictured here is the marvellous instructor Olivia Alexander, who I did my birthday ‘ride’ with surrounded by family and friends. Liv features in the ‘My Working Life’ bit of The Nowhere Office podcast you can hear above. It’s my favourite aspect of the show in a way because it gives a glimpse into the career journeys of people, the story of their life and what made them do what they do.
LivAlexander as she is known on Instagram was the first instructor I rode with when I realised I was riding to rid myself of the sadness that my late great friend Jessica Morris had died.
In Soul Cycle the ‘soul’ bit is that the penultimate song is one designed to connect you with just yourself - after all the fabulous energetic workout on the bike - and Liv started to talk very spontaneously and movingly about her brother’s death by suicide, and how she came to realise she could live through it in spite of the grief.
Liv talks about this in the Nowhere Office interview above. Do have a listen. In that moment of listening to her on that first ride I decided to go for the target of 60 rides by the time I was 60.
So let’s call Liv out for what she is: a great leader.
THE EMPTY CHAIR
I didn’t post a Weekly Workathon last week because the day I was due to file it I rushed to the bedside of my great friend Charles Handy - photographed here by his late wife Liz Handy. Charles - one of the greatest of men and management thinkers (not often said in the same sentence) died on Friday.
It was a priviledge to know him, to work with him a bit, and to say my goodbye. But it threw me. I’m about to record a tribute episode of The Nowhere Office to him now.
Do have a read not only of his obituaries - including Andrew Hill in the Financial Times, and one in The Times today - but also of his marvellous canon of books.
I cannot help but share a book about work - conveniently modelled by one of our cats, Levi, who loves tinsel - which was published this year and if you haven’t completely filled those Christmas stockings, there’s still time……
Well, this time next week we will all be knee-deep in tinsel, so the next time you hear from me it wil be ‘twixtmas’. Enjoy your celebrations, hug your loved ones close, and instead of work, do a workout - just for a bit.
You can always email me: julia@workathon.io
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