2 January, Baja, Mexico tapping into my phone on the road road from El Sargento to Los Cabos!
Grand Projet, the French expression, popped into my mind this morning thinking about 2022 themes and ‘goals’ alongside work. What are the new places I want to steer my ship in 2022…?
And, fresh off the back of sabbatical and writing letters to you as a group of friends on email – the first thing that came to mind was simply keep writing.
Why did the French words Grand Projet come to mind…?
I had to look it up, ‘Grand Projet’, to remind myself of the origins of this french expression that was on the tip of my tongue.
And I was taken back to my french teacher’s classroom at primary school, and memories of the smells of paper notebooks and chalk but with a wonderful natural light. I remembered it was the era of Francois Mitterand, French President from 1981 – 1995…and his program of Grand Projets.
Mitterand’s program had an architectural thrust, to build monuments in Paris that symbolized France’s cultural, political and economic prowess at the end of the twentieth century1. There were eight buildings in the program, including the Louvre and the Musée D’Orsay.
There is no such grandiose announcement or program to writing in 2022, but it does feel great to finally open up a personal website at kevinpbrennan.com.
Writing has always been a natural instinct for me.
And I believe – at least if you have a continual twitch to do something (unless it’s criminal) – that it’s a pretty good idea to investigate that twitch, as I did a little with Postcards From Sabbatical.
We were somewhat of a letter-writing family growing up. And, while sometimes the list of Thank You letters in the New Year felt like a chore to my childhood self, these too were quiet moments of connecting and directing thoughts at a close relative or family friend that had been generous. And I loved handwriting…after my messy scrawl was turned around by a new teacher around the age of eight.
At secondary school, Epsom College just outside of London, we had cubicle study areas – called ‘ptoyces’ – that we would spend evenings in before retiring into our own small narrow rooms (prison-cell like, but comfortable). I have so many warm memories of sitting with pages of handwritten essay, working notes everywhere on the floor around me, trying to sequence sentences and paragraphs into something that made sense. I loved the logical challenge, and the learning, when wrestling with an essay. Often we had to talk about the topic in class, and the work done in the writing first would always help the speaking I noticed. I guess that is why so many great business and political leaders are writers too.
They were happy hours, those essay hours, though hard (well, essay comes from the French verb essayer, to try…!). In every minute of that, part of you always wanted to stand up and walk down the hallway to the kitchenette in the communal area to make a(nother) piece of toast lathered in butter. Today’s equivalent of flicking open an internet page to procrastinate?
Spinning back to today, two things helped me ‘come out’ of my old writing shell in 2021.
Firstly, that great privilege – and time – of having three months of sabbatical from work at Equilibrium, writing about the trip along the way, and tinkering with online writing software.
Secondly, I had the very good fortune to be directed to the Write of Passage online course and community (hat tip to great friend Ritesh Lal), that brought me into a group of online career-based writers that have become some great friendships since. The energy, leadership and community behind this short course and its alumni, honestly felt a little ‘life-changing’ to stumble into. And, I bet that sentiment will stand the test of time. When we get these experiences, we have to stick with it.
Among alumni, I have been so inspired by getting to know:
- Professor Gad Allon of Wharton who writes on supply chains Gad’s Newsletter
- Florian Maganza of Google and now Stripe, whose addictively good writing curiously follows his wide interests in The Practical Polymath
And a special acknowledgement to my writing group from that course, who have been so instrumental in building confidence.
- Adam Cotterill who works in the energy sector and writes The Plug on energy systems
- Daniel Sisson who works in Virtual Reality / Artificial Reality technology and writes Tuesday Trends about the future and the Metaverse
- Juliette Chevalier who also works in software development (but prior to that had been an attache to the Panamanian government representation in the UN) and writes Nerd Splash about technology and education
- Sinclair Toffa – a fellow internationalist of multiple nationalities! – who is launching The Hyphen Moment about topics in technology, psychology, philosophy, history, and language.
Sticking with a Grand Projet is so much easier and funner when you are surrounded by others with the same interest and motivation. And perhaps the biggest observation of getting to know this crew is that these new writer friends are very interesting and hard-working peeps. Each has the same instinct to write, and each is squeezing writing into lives full of responsibility and career dedication. I’ll try to keep up on that front!
Lastly, Postcards From Sabbatical helped me start to be more organized in staying in touch.
There are so many friends from over the years that I want to stay in touch with, whose spirits I so adore. And it gave another purpose to the trip to share with you all as a group.
And perhaps that is the best reason to write.
So, as always, the New Year is an exciting time to renew and ‘have another go’ at everything in which we want more.
Three months off was more than enough to fully re-load my energy at work, and the time to take stock left me all the more appreciative of my job at Equilibrium, working to raise money for sustainability-driven investments in certain areas (food, and infrastructure). 2022 is a very pivotal year for us at Equilibrium, as we rapidly grow into our next era as an investment manager. And I really want to sharpen my saw in contributing to the financing of a new trajectory for the world, to our evolution to an ever more efficient and environmentally-integrated economic system.
So, here’s to 2022!
I wish you thriving health and rich success for the year.
And, that you too enjoy some progress in Grand Projets that enrich your life at work and in play.
Kevin
