Awesomely Off-Topic: Books, Brands, Business and Everything Else We’re Not Supposed to Say Out Loud

An idea hits you mid-task, you swear you will remember it, and then it vanishes. That tiny moment is where a lot of business opportunities, creative sparks, and “why didn’t I write that down?” frustration lives, especially for ADHD and neurodivergent minds. We dig into the kind of tech that might actually help, not because it is clever, but because it removes friction.  We talk about a wearable AI...

A single overheard conversation in a waiting room turns into a perfect warning for anyone who communicates for a living. Two people try to explain why we are “being told to stock up”, and within minutes the story becomes a Frankenstein mash-up of sea temperature, war, sugar beet, price rises, and dread. That confusion is not just funny, it is a live demo of broken telephone, information drift, and...

We swap the office for Devon and find ourselves learning as much from stone circles, wild lanes and quiet cabins as we do from teaching workshops at the UK Shamanic Gathering. Along the way we explore what it means to be an elder, why ancient sites still matter, and how landscape can unlock better creativity for writing and business. • teaching at the UK Shamanic Gathering and running a firewalk s...

Your book is finally published. The edits are done, the cover looks great, launch day brings a burst of attention… and then the silence creeps in. We see it all the time: brilliant authors stop talking, the algorithms move on, and a hard-earned title ends up lost on Amazon among millions of other books. We get practical about what keeps a book visible long after the launch hype fades. We dig into...

We challenge the growing trend that says getting paid for what you love automatically destroys it, and we argue the real joy-killer is obligation created by poor boundaries and the wrong business model. We share personal examples from books, podcasting, crafting and coaching, then answer a listener’s question about staying grounded and finding stillness with an ADHD brain and a busy life.  • backl...

If you could banish one thing from modern life forever, what would it be? We take the Room 101 concept, let AI generate the prompts, then answer separately and debate live, which means you get the full range: petty annoyances, big moral lines, and the moments where we surprise ourselves by getting far deeper than planned.  We start with ethical “no brainer” nominations like foie gras and the wider...

⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: This episode includes open and honest conversation around mental health, ADHD meltdowns and suicidal thoughts. Please look after yourself while listening and skip this one if those subjects feel too close to home right now. Support resources are included in the show notes below. A long, critical situation can strip the dopamine out of everything and leave you feeling like your...

We’re sat in the sunshine doing what should be a calm planning day, and we somehow decide to set the most ridiculous deadline imaginable: write, finish, and upload a stack of new books in a single week, ready for a September speaking event. Not next month. Not “when things quieten down”. A week. We talk through how we got there, why we’re using back-planning (with a little help from AI), and what...

The calendar is telling us to celebrate everything, everywhere, all at once and it is getting ridiculous. One day we are meant to read books and co-work, the next we are meant to do nothing, then we are juggling elephants, left handers, financial awareness, geocaching, roller coasters and rum. We ask the real question behind the jokes: has the awareness day calendar become content noise, or can it...

We answer listener questions with equal parts tenderness and bite, moving from how we stay grounded in tough times to how we build visibility for a business without chasing hollow shortcuts. Along the way we share personal stories from our home, challenge lazy myths about ADHD and autism, and talk about what keeps a relationship strong when you live and work side by side.  • grounding when life fe...

We celebrate one year of Awesomely Off-Topic and share what we’ve learned from 60-plus episodes, surprising global listening stats and a few glorious tangents. We talk honestly about consistency, titles, tech nerves, listener feedback and why real conversation matters more than chasing perfect numbers.  • celebrating the one-year milestone and why we kept it low tech  • looking at downloads, count...

Over-explaining, avoiding eye contact, doodling through meetings, asking a relentless stream of “why” questions… these can look like bad manners or insecurity, but they can also be signs of a neurodivergent brain working hard to connect, regulate, and be understood. We talk candidly about the moments that get misread most often, and how quickly a well-meant attempt at clarity can be mistaken for d...

We were going to say the neurodivergent behaviours you've got all wrong, but it was a bit too long for the title space on our graphic! :D This started out as an exploration of the things neurotypical people often misunderstand about ADHD and autism... it grew from a conversation we were having on the sofa. For instance: interrupting can ruin a conversation in seconds, but what if the person d...

Everything can be going perfectly fine, and then suddenly the land is double booked, the schedule collapses, half your plan becomes impossible, and someone is shouting at your people in the heat. We’ve just lived that reality at one of our retreats, and what still amazes us is this: it ended up being one of the most magical, grounding, transformational weekends we’ve ever held. So we’re unpacking...

Ever noticed how the second you feel uncertain, you suddenly want everyone’s opinion? We’ve both done it, and it can turn one simple choice into a messy tangle of voices, pros and cons, and “helpful” advice that drags you away from what you actually wanted. We talk about the decision making trap: why the urge to ask a 17th person is often a sign you’ve lost touch with your own clarity, not a sign...

Someone can sit in the same room as you, hear the same talks, and still walk away with a completely different turning point. On the drive home from Atomicon in Newcastle, we debrief the moments that actually changed things for us, not just the speaker notes, but the conversations before and after, the little realisations that land when the adrenaline drops. We dig into the pressure to niche down a...

An AI handed us a list of “Ask Me Anything” questions and we made the bold choice to answer them cold. That’s how you end up trying to explain bingo to an alien anthropologist, debating why angling feels like a bizarre human ritual, and wondering which completely normal thing should have gone extinct by now. It’s fast, messy, and very us.  We bounce from the ridiculous to the oddly revealing: poin...

We walk into the studio doing what we do best: trying something new with zero guarantees it will go smoothly. Two dogs under the desk, a new bit of kit rolling, and a very real reminder that life rarely waits for a perfect plan. From there, we get honest about why “winging it” has become a put-down, and why we think it should be a badge of competence rather than a confession of failure. We pull ap...

Tilly was with us for 14 years and eight months, woven into our home, our working days, and the quiet background of so many calls. When she died, we had no interest in pretending everything was “fine” just because we run businesses. Grief doesn’t care about your calendar, and being self-employed doesn’t magically create extra emotional capacity. So we talk honestly about what it feels like to keep...

We went to the London Podcast Show expecting to feel like the newbies who’d been getting it all wrong, and we came home with the opposite feeling: we’ve already built a lot of the foundations, and now we know exactly which levers to pull next. If you’re building a podcast, a personal brand, or a content engine for your business, this chat is our honest download of what actually stuck from the bigg...

Some stories sound dramatic until you have lived them. We’re talking about the moments that almost broke us as a couple and the very real ways stress can turn love into a battleground: paranoia, spiralling thoughts, silence that feels safer than honesty, and the gut-wrenching fear that the person you trust most might leave. We share a turning point on a trip to Vancouver, how suspicion escalated i...

WARNING : Episode contains mentions of suicidal ideation and emotional trauma.  We’re going to take you back to a time before dating apps, before video calls, and before “out” felt like something you could say without scanning the room. Our love story starts with a UK lesbian magazine, a Dial-a-Diva message line, and a meeting plan so romantic we both ended up at the wrong service station. But the...

Rest can feel like cheating, even when you’re running on empty, and that uncomfortable truth says a lot about how we’ve been trained to measure worth. We’re coming off a bank holiday weekend and we thought a couple of nights away near Sherwood Forest would mean proper downtime. Instead, we caught ourselves doing what so many self-employed people do: packing the laptop “just in case”, checking sche...

Some beliefs don’t just sit in your head, they invoice you every day. We’re talking about the “truths” we inherited from family, school, workplaces, and culture, then carried for years without checking the evidence. The big one? That low, sticky story of “I’m not good enough”, how it shows up as rejecting compliments, feeling like the odd one out, and slipping into self-criticism when we’re overti...

Some people are brilliant at what they do - yet still get overlooked, underpaid, underbooked or stuck wondering why things are not moving. In this week’s episode, Taz and Asha unpack the uncomfortable truth that talent alone is rarely the full answer. Being good matters, of course, but visibility, relationships, consistency, confidence, timing, courage and how you show up in the world all play a p...