I write irregularly about creativity, work, technology, sustainability, marketing, entrepreneurship and the odd domestic realisation that sneaks up on you while making tea. Not as an expert dispensing answers, but as someone trying to make sense of a changing landscape while standing inside it.

For twenty years I helped other people think clearly about their businesses. Strategy. Choices. Focus. Sacrifice. Ideas. Then I left the building and discovered that applying all that thinking to yourself is a very different discipline. Louder. Slipperier. More personal. Ruddy bloody hard.

This Substack exists partly to share the journey of building a business, and partly because writing turns out to be a decent way of staying sane when your brain refuses to queue politely.

In so doing freeing up attention for the more important parts of living: being a dad, a husband, and occasionally a functioning adult. For yes, ultimately this is for me, not you. OK?

You can expect:

• essays that wander, double back, and sometimes contradict themselves with a really unsatisfying denouement.

• reflections on building a business under your own name

• thoughts on AI as both a tool and a mirror

• strategy refracted through culture, emotion and real life - I got frameworks people and I ain’t afraid to use them

• honesty over performance. Ok a bit of showing off every now and again.

If you’ve ever left something that once defined you, felt unsettled by having too many voices in your head contradicting each other, or realised the map you were given no longer matches the ground beneath your feet, you’ll probably feel at home here.

I don’t promise consistency. I do promise sincerity. And a healthy dose of whimsy.

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