At first you’ve no ideas, and no skills to help other’s execute theirs. You’ve no idea about tides, current, and can’t get up or stay up. You can’t surf. Then you get a bit of experience and realise you can sort of boogie board on a few small waves. You still don’t really know where they come from though. Then a few bigger waves come a...

What's great about storytelling via email is that you can give your readers a real 'experience' without them having to leave their chair. They can consume it anywhere, whether at work, or sitting next to their partner while watching something on the telly. This experience can help them see something differently, frame something in a ne...

Arriving in Dubai a few days ago to visit my sisters and their families, I was once again struck by how convenient the city is. Everything is orderable by app. Almost everywhere is about 30 minutes drive from everywhere else. (Although, if you miss a junction, it can easily double your journey time, turning a quick errand across town i...

It's not required reading, but I wrote about my reasons for going farming here. Little did I know the lessons I learned would reach far beyond farming... Arriving It started badly. I missed my train stop, so Sergio had to drive an extra 30 kms round trip to pick me up. We agreed I would buy the beer to make up for the extra fuel. We we...

You know that thing you've always wanted to do, knew was within your reach, but either didn't have the balls...or the right 'idea shape' to take it forward. Most people know me as a marketer; who writes email sequences, landing pages, business strategies, and this blog. In the background though, I've been dabbling with this cool thing ...

There are endless human movements to be involved in. Many can be politically motivated. Others can be truly existential. I’ve fallen down a variety of these rabbit holes over the years, but I pride myself on being able to reassess things when new information and logic present themselves. 6 Human Needs Tony Robbins, probably the most we...

TL:DR It boils down to the type of person you are, and how you want to live. Full time workers have more predictable income and workloads, but for this they sacrifice some freedom. After they've made a name for themselves; freelancers can pick and choose their projects, take as much time off as they want, and be their own boss. But thi...

...said Day to Dawn in Foundation, the sci-fi series adapted from the books by Issac Asimov. It really struck me hearing this line. I'd considered the link between the two, but never so strongly. Politics was groups of people making decisions, often resorting to underhand tactics to win arguments. Artists would never stoop to that leve...

Have you ever realised something about yourself at first you didn't like, then later realised it was one of your greatest strengths? I'm a Virgo which (supposedly) makes me quite organised and detailed oriented for the good. Perfectionist and controlling for the bad. Sounds crazy, but Basecamp has become both my playground and my teach...

What makes us want to create things? What makes some people more 'Creative' than others? In my line of work, the designers are called Creatives. They're actually Artists, most often digital artists. I believe the term Creative may be used to offload the responsibility that being creative brings. Let me explain... Anyone who thinks of s...

Everyone has dreams. They're built into human biology. They have an important function for human civilisation. Dreams allow us to act out possibilities in our sleep that would be too risky in real life. Some of us talk, some even walk in their sleep (guilty!) but in general we only act out a small portion of the dream. - Sleep, it turn...

About 5 years ago I attended a mindfulness retreat at Plum Village with the late Thích Nhất Hạnh, known as Thay by his students. It was an amazing setting, deep in the French countryside near Bordeaux. My cousins and a friend of ours were picked up from the train station and taken straight to the community where we were greeted by monk...

This is the time of week everyone dreams of. We get to hang up our shoes, dust off our overalls and down those tools. What tools you ask? I am a white collar worker thank you very much! I have no dust on me! Or do you? Is the dust you're carrying just a different sort of dust? And the fact you can't see it, means you don't realise you ...

We've all asked ourselves the question, "What if?" What if I put up that website and asked people what they think? What if I started that podcast, wrote the first chapter of that book, or coded that app? The answer we and others give ourselves is often quite unsurprising. "Probably not much". So we don't do it. We go back to our normal...

Arriving from Scotland in Dubai about a year ago, I was amazed at how fast paced the place was compared to back home 🏎💨 Not just the roads 😅 but the cafes and restaurants were full, and the co-working spaces were teeming! What was it Dubai had that other places didn't? The weather is obviously great, but there was something else at pla...

Hey world! I just built my first web app to say just that. It also says "Goodbye, world!" which is a little more ominous...😅 So why the hell am I building web apps and learning to code? I just finished the first week of something called altMBA. It's a program for individuals who want to 'level-up' and become the leaders they've always ...

Sorry for the loooong gap in this series. I took a kind of sabbatical from entrepreneurship recently, working ‘full time’ with a client. It was nice to be looked after for a bit (especially after losing our dear mum) but I'm back on the entrepreneurial bandwagon - letting out a trailing cord for anyone else who wants to hop on 😉 -- We ...

Startups are totally different kettles of fish compared with businesses with an established customer base. They need to be treated like children, tending to their every waking need vs. grandparents, happily turning the pages of their paper - day after day. Each one is different, so requires a slightly different approach, but there is a...

We all want, nae, need to be part of something. We have our personal callings. We have our alone time, our own projects, our individualism and quirks. It’s all good. We need it all! You can’t have one (truly) without the other, or you do both a disservice. I’m a big believer in individual creativity, but I’m also a big believer in the ...

Sometimes you can't beat the feeling of having nothing to do. Waking up to an overcast day can give us permission to stop and think on things that our busy days have given no room for. It's a feeling of openness and unpredictability. Ungoverned by routine, or commitments. It's a time to let free-thinking take over, and allow ideas and ...

The term 'Community' is laced with connotations - some positive, some not. The word can bring to mind Communism, and for many reasons put a chill down our spine. There's the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) who have social scoring for their citizens. There's the relationship to the word 'cult' and the cultist communities who drank the Koo...

If you’re not taking any sort of nutritional supplement, there’s a good chance you’re missing out on better health. I started early with my dad and grandad feeding me cod liver oil. It was straight out the bottle and tasted disgusting, but they convinced me it would make me smarter so I took it. Today I take an almost embarrassing conc...

I'm pretty underqualified to be talking about blockchain. I've studied and cogitated over it for at least a few hundred (if not thousand) hours, but I'm not a programmer to trade so I've never got into the nitty gritty. At a very high level, Blockchain is about engineering Trust. It's most popular use is for Cryptocurrencies like Bitco...

It’s pretty great. You can be yourself, or you can put on a show. You can go see a show, have company while laughing your head off, and never see each other again. Or you can get coffee and make the night even more memorable. It can be love at first sight, or a long lasting fright 😱 You can end up getting married, having kids and start...

Every day we make 100s if not 1,000s of decisions. From choosing to brush our teeth in the morning, to deciding which candidate to hire at work. To save time and energy we ‘chunk’ information, looking out for patterns and supporting facts - which end up forming our habits and routines. This is a key evolutionary trait and without it mo...

The word family is a bit like the word home. It’s the bit in our centre. The place we go when we need comfort. Our security blanket, our launchpad, our crashpad. Family gives us purpose, home gives us something to build, something to work towards. Healthy families evolve. They’re connected, empathic, changing, forgiving, solid as rocks...

I never fully understood what ethics were until I started reading philosophy. I knew they were rules to live by; commandments, constitutions, laws etc. but these were open to interpretation, and not easy to summarise or explain to others. For example we're told not to steal but if you're going to die of hunger it's widely understood to...

I love tech. I love creating systems that work while I'm sleeping. It's not that I'm lazy. I just hate being inefficient with my time. I've just finished my end of year accounting for Pure Earth and analysed all my costs, and it turns out I spend around 5% of my 'turnover' on technology and automation across: • Ecommerce • Marketing • ...

A lot of the time we presume to know what other people are thinking, or trying to say. This is especially true with people we're close to because we've already got a picture of their vision (or motives) in our minds. We think we know them well enough not to listen as closely, and we often listen out for what we would like to hear vs. w...

Good friends tell you when you've done something that isn't acceptable. They're not afraid of conflict, and they trust you not to take offence. You do the same for them, and they respect you for it. In fact, your bond is absolutely indispensable. You don't rely on each other, but when you come together you excel. You're capacity for te...