Reading time: 2.03 484 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, What’s the most important part of a CEO annual planning day? Boss-level snacks, obvs. That, and a guide who will give you a roadmap, clear instructions AND flexibility to work around different brains and situations, and space to actually get your planning done. In December, I took 3 weeks off. Not only did my business not fall apart, I filled a January creativity challenge with 22 customers while I went surfing and read...
1 day ago • 2 min read
Reading time: 2.48 665 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, This year I started a new tradition with the client edition. No remission. (sorry) Every month I’m celebrating some of my clients February is wrapped up in a bow and I wanted to give a huge shout out to my clients. Laura Chamberlain got an offer for a book deal with a BIG name publisher! We’ve been working on her new book for a few months now and I can tell you, the academic world is in for a TREAT. Caroline Buist my...
2 days ago • 3 min read
Reading time: 0.42 166 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, meme: noun “an element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means” It’d be easy to assume memes arrived with the advent of the internet, but that assumption would be wrong. Memes go back to medieval times and probably to cave paintings, too. I love the idea that cavepeople were wandering the lands and calling into their cave-neighbours and thinking...
3 days ago • 1 min read
Reading time: 5.37 1,334 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, Last Sunday I did an open mic at the Kingsdown Vaults in Bristol, run by Greg Winfield. It’s a new material night and I haven’t really done one of those before. My problem — and this may sound familiar to you — is that I WORRY. I worry that what I’m doing is not good enough, not funny enough, not polished enough. So I go to every comedy gig with a 5- or 10-minute set that is solidly planned and ready to go. Then I...
6 days ago • 6 min read
Reading time: 3.21 797 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, “A few days ago I saw an Instagram reel of a young woman talking about how she had been raped six years ago, struggled with thoughts of suicide afterwards, but managed to rebuild her life again. Among the comments – the majority of which were from men – were things like “Well at least you had some”, “No way, she’s unrapeable”, “Hope you didn’t talk this much when it happened”, “Bro could have picked a better option.”...
7 days ago • 4 min read
Reading time: 1.25 335 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, “I don’t want to be socialising. I want to be a weird little antisocial gremlin reading a book underneath a table.” ^ This is part of a bit from my standup comedy set, about how horrifying and awkward I find it to pass as a normal human in a group setting. I could have chosen to do anything under that childhood table: LEGO, cars, drawing, writing stories, giving my My Little Ponies weird glow-ups using Tippex and...
8 days ago • 2 min read
Reading time: 2.06 496 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, On Sunday evening, I — well, Joe, my ever-supportive and patient husband and official driver — drove a 3 hour 20 minute round trip so I could spend 10 minutes onstage doing stand-up comedy. On the way home, I thought about why. Why would I spend so much time and energy and, yes, travel money to stand in front of a pub full of people and try to make them laugh? I came to the conclusion that it’s because if we don’t use...
9 days ago • 2 min read
Reading time: 1.56 457 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, On a call with a brilliant future author on Friday, she said two things that struck me. “What an amazingly cool job you have, you must learn so much, you get to dig into people’s ideas!” I do! And I am so very fortunate to have built this business that feels like joy much of the time. It’s good to be reminded of how much I love what I do. “Wow, I never thought of it like that. I can see how you’ve just taken my little...
10 days ago • 2 min read
Reading time: 4.09 987 words Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, Things I need in order to write: Something to say. A desire to get it out of my head. Tea. Water. Juice/pop. Yes, I am Vicky Three Drinks. Warm feet. Pen and paper for scribbling and doodling and planning. Past notebooks to flick through. An opinion about something. A laptop/keyboard/computing device of some kind so my hands can keep up with my thoughts. A minimum of 10 minutes. Ideas. A quiet place. Noise-cancelling...
13 days ago • 4 min read