Fireside

Today is a coaching episode with Rosie Harriott, a textile designer who has worked across fashion and homewares both in-house and as a freelancer, and who is now shifting from being freelance to a business. Rosie has also had a personal journey of wellness and awakening over the last few years which is the reason for the business shift - but she’s worried about how to communicate this in her conte...

This month, on my blog and on Instagram, I’ve been sharing the experience of transitioning and simplifying my business model in response to my values and I how I want my business to support the life I want to live. I know that this is a perennial problem for many - the moment where you have out grown the old skin of your business but don’t know quite how to shed into and evolve into a new skin. It...

Today I’m talking with Nesha Woolery, an educator who started her online design business aged 18 and has evolved and developed over the last 8 years in business. This year, Nesha cancelled a huge launch the night before the cart was going to open because she realised that the whole thing was out of alignment and disconnected, and instead spent weeks reconnecting with her why and redefining what sh...

Today I’m going to share more detail about my approach to content creation, how I think about it and how I try to make it valuable and inspiring. My approach to content has changed over the last couple of years, both because content trends have changed, and because I’ve developed as a writer and learned more about what makes people tick, and click, when it comes to my content. So in this episode I...

Today is a coaching episode with Giulia Mazzola, who you may know online as Giulia Writes. Over the last four years Giulia has been on a personal journey of deconstructing her version of success after leaving corporate finance, and exploring and getting confident with sharing her writing online. She wants to be supported by her writing, but doesn’t know what that is going to look like - and is goi...

Today I wanted to go into everything content, because content is everything. Often we hear the word ‘content’ and think it’s just blogging, but it’s not. In marketing we tend to break channels up into silos because it’s easier to think and talk about them all separately - so you have your blog over here, your Instagram over there, your email list in the back room, Pinterest, perhaps a podcast or v...

Today the coaching episodes are back, and I’m talking with Cate Terry, a yoga teacher and holistic health therapist . Cate has been toying with the idea of starting a podcast, but keeps talking herself out of it - because it might not be the right thing to do or she might not be able to stick with it. We talk about how to know if an idea is the right option for you, how to differentiate your conte...

I was going to dive right back in after this break with a “normal” episode, but something was stopping me. It didn’t feel quite right to barrel back in and not take a minute. I know for many this is a reflective time. A time that is sharpening priorities both for your future, and the future of society. In this episode I'm sharing what I've reflected on over the weeks since we last spoke, some brea...

Today is the last in the Staying The Course series of episodes, and having spent time looking at your goals, your routine and your mindset, I thought we’d look practically at focus. Focus is something that ebbs and flows at the best of times, but particularly during times of stress it can be even more fleeting than usual. Particularly during this pandemic, apathy is rife - that feeling of not want...

So far in this Staying The Course series, we’ve looked at letting go of the old plans and goals and creating a daily routine, and this week I thought we’d look at mindset. During times of uncertainty, mindset can be something that holds you, an anchor point to keep coming back to when you feel worried or stressed or lost. It is a way to care for and support oneself. In this episode, I’m going to t...

In today’s episode, I’m going to be talking about structuring your days and weeks. This is an important part of staying the course, as routine and structure a) helps you to get things done and b) helps to reduce stress and make you feel comforted by the predictability of it. I will share with you how creating a daily routine has helped me as someone who really didn't want one, and my tips for thin...

Ordinarily, I’d be sharing an interview or coaching episode with you this week, but this isn’t an ordinary week. I have decided to keep the podcast going to give you a little support, direction and normalcy week to week, but with a few changes. For at least the next four weeks, I will only be publishing solo shows. I thought I'd do a series on staying the course. One particularly apt for our curre...

Today is a solo episode that follows on from episode 63 from last month because I’m answering the second half of the questions you guys submitted on Instagram. These questions are all about content and about strategy, planning content, Instagram, business growth and transition, finding your values, dream clients and many more. Here's what we talk about in this episode: How to write a Content Plan?...

In today’s coaching episode I’m talking with Hira Sameer Ahmed, an artist with a multi-passionate creative practice and creativity coach. Hira is finding that she worries she confuses her audience by having lots of different artistic projects and can feel like a jack of all trades, and that this a block to getting paying customers. Through this episode we unpick this, thinking about how to own you...

One of our challenges as creative people running or starting businesses is idea wrangling. For sure there are periods where we think we’ll never have a good idea ever again, but there are also times where it feels someone’s plugged a cosmic USB stick into us and we’re just downloading and processing all these different ideas. Sometimes they are really specific this product or that product kind of...

Today is a coaching episode with Kim Heemskerk of De Alchemista. Kim started her business 18 months ago and it’s exceeded her expectations but now it’s starting to feel like it’s not entirely under her control - it’s been growing organically, but not necessarily in the way she would choose. Today we talk about ways to reclaim the control and managing a business which sells both physical and digita...

Today I am answering your questions that you submitted via Instagram Stories last week, so thank you to everyone that did. In fact, you submitted more questions than I could answer in one episode, so I have split them into a doubleheader. Next month I will answer your strategy and content questions, but this week we’re talking about productivity, motivation, habit setting work/life balance, and I’...

Today I’m in conversation with Nicole Antoinette, the host of the Real Talk Radio podcast and someone who is the best example I could think of of creating an income from your passion and values. I was keen to get Nicole on the show because she is always so honest and frank about money and the realities of life and business, and because I knew she would have so much wisdom to share from her 12 plus...

Today I’m talking about a topic that someone mentioned in a survey I shared - so if that was you, thank you for the great question! We’re talking Instagram. So often the default when we think about marketing - it’s the first place we think of to be able to talk about new products or share a piece of coverage or introduce changes. As consumers too, I know that if I hear about a business or someone...

Today is a coaching episode with my friend Jo McCarthy, who you may know as Firain Shop. At the end of 2019 Jo closed down her online shop, despite enjoying it and it being in profit, to pursue work that felt more aligned with her values and the life she wanted to live. Of course, that then opens the door to a new set of problems! In this episode we discuss the decision around changing the busines...

Today I want to talk about stats and measuring your activity because I know it’s something that a lot of people worry about (i.e., they worry they’re not tracking the right things) and because, and I’m going to drop a bomb here, I basically don’t track any stats in my business. So in this episode, I want to get into what the point of tracking stats in your business is, defining what’s important to...

Today is a coaching episode with Lauren O’Sullivan, a former head of marketing who re-trained as a psychotherapist who now combines the two as a business coach - although putting a name to that combination is something Lauren’s been struggling with! We talk about giving yourself a job title in this episode, as well as structuring what you do as a product or package, and dig deep into ways of commu...

This week it's just me thinking about new year energy. Although I’m not under any illusions that the movement of a clock will suddenly make me a different person, but I relish the start of the year as a new clean page and feel empowered to decide what I write on it. I know that not everyone likes to give the new year quite so much magnitude, but for me, it is a really powerful reset so today I tho...

Today is a conversational episode about coaching with my good friend Jen Carrington.  Jen is a creative coach who has been running her business for about six years, and she actually coached me back in 2017 when I first had the idea of setting up my business.  Today we talk about how we plan out our years, the direction of our business as coaches, the difference between finding and surrendering to...

Today is a solo show and back by popular demand it is a Marketing Q&A.  We are going to cover tips from how I started out, getting my first clients, transitioning and scaling. Here's what we talk about in this episode: Do I have any plans to write a book? What are my worries, and how do I unwrap them? How I pinned down exactly what my business will be How long did it take me to secure my first cli...