This is the sixth episode of the Summer Series. It’s about a quiet fear I see in almost every creative I work with. The worry that we’ve already said our thing too many times, that everyone must be tired of hearing it, and that we ought to come up with something new. And why that […]

This is the fifth episode of the Summer Series. It’s about why work you’re genuinely proud of can quietly wash past people, and what changes when you start telling the story underneath it, rather than only showing the finished thing. You’ll know the feeling. You finish something you’re really proud of, a piece of work, […]

This is the fourth episode of the Summer Series. It’s about the most valuable thing you do, which is so often the very thing you’ve stopped noticing, because it comes so easily to you. It’s about a quiet blind spot almost every creative I work with has. The most valuable part of your work is […]

This is the third episode of the Summer Series. It’s about that gap so many of us have, wonderful in person, but somehow it doesn’t quite come across online, and how to close it. This one is about a gap I see in almost every creative I work with. The gap between how alive and […]

This is the second episode of the Summer Series. It’s all about how so much gets easier, your marketing, your decisions, all of it, once the centre of your business is clear. (If you’re just joining, episode 148, the first one in this summer series is the best place to start.) I read something recently […]

Welcome to the Summer Series. This is the very first episode in the series, where it all begins, on why a clearer, calmer business so often comes from doing less, not more. There’s a feeling I hear about in almost every conversation I have with established creatives. You’ve built something real. You’re good at what […]

There is so much about running a creative business that you simply cannot control. Whether a particular client says yes. The state of the economy. What someone makes of your work once it has left your hands. We spend so much of our energy there, in the part we can’t touch… when the one thing […]

A few days ago, I finished a five-day challenge all about paid ads. I went in as a complete beginner, right at the very start, knowing almost nothing, and I came out with a notebook full of scribbles and one thought that has been sitting with me ever since. At the start of this year, […]

There’s a small moment I think a lot of us know rather well. You’re somewhere new, a dinner, a school gate, a wedding, and someone you’ve only just met asks what you do. And there’s a tiny pause before you answer, while you decide how much to claim. Whether to say it plainly and fully, […]

We have half term here this week, and we were meant to be up in Scotland (where most of my family live)… but too many things came up and we ended up staying home, which has actually been lovely. We’ve had cricket matches, plenty of revision happening for upcoming exams, the weather has been incredible […]