THE BEATNIK DESIGNER

Hey, Reader! I spent the weekend in the garden. Clearing weeds. Cutting back the tulips and daffodils that are done for the season. Sewing the seeds. Getting everything ready to grow. And the whole time, I couldn't stop thinking: this is exactly what building a business looks like. It takes time. It takes a lot of experimentation. And it's so easy to give up just before the thing you've planted starts to bloom. Last week I shared the M-A-P framework with you… the three questions you need to...

Hey, Reader! One of my goals for 2026 is to invest in my own learning. Getting coaching, getting crystal clear on my brand and marketing business, and actually doing the work to grow, not just talking about it. So last week, I did exactly that. I spent four evenings at a Monetization Summit, listening, learning and taking notes. Four hours each night, from 7-11pm. No recordings, no replays. You had to show up live, and I was there every night (and thoroughly exhausted by the end of it - I'm...

Hey, Reader! Happy Easter to you, if you were celebrating. The weather was glorious, so I hit the nursery, got some plants, compost, hanging basket inserts, and got to gardening. I cleared out the beds. Pulled up the old leaves that had been sitting there since autumn, yanked out the weeds that had got comfortable over winter, and turned the soil properly for the first time in months. Then I planted some bedding plants and tucked in a row of dahlia bulbs... not much to look at now, but give...

Hey, Reader! I spent this weekend in the garden. 👩🌾 It's been weeks of grey skies, relentless rain, and that particular English cold that makes you want to stay under a blanket with a cuppa and do absolutely nothing. But this weekend? The sun finally came out. The temperature crept up to something vaguely human, and for the first time in ages, I spotted actual signs of life. Tiny buds pushing through the soil, brave tulips are opening, the whole garden quietly waking up from its slumber. So I...

Hey, Reader! Last week I soft-launched something I've been quietly building for months. The Personal Brand Visibility Scorecard. I sent it to this list first. No fanfare. No countdown. Just - here it is, tell me what you think. And you did. The responses I got back were everything I needed to hear. People landing on results that felt uncomfortably accurate. People saying "how did it know?" Women surprised to discover the thing they thought was their problem wasn't their problem at all. That...

Photo by Ed Cooper Hey, Reader! It's been a fortnight. It was my birthday. I booked a ½ day photo shoot at my studio. I had an ultrasound (some irregularities in my cycle that needed investigating). And then, an urgent medical procedure. The good news: they've fixed it. But it drained me. A close family friend ended up in hospital. I went to visit her. My partner is on tour in Australia and New Zealand for three and a half weeks. So I've been single parenting through all of this (to a very...

Hey, Reader! It's my birthday today! While I was hoping to give you all the gift of my Personal Branding Visibility Quiz, I'm still putting the final touches on it. It launches next Tuesday—just one more week of tweaking to make sure it's properly dialed in. In the meantime, let me tell you about something I learned this week that completely reframed how I think about personal branding. I went down a rabbit hole watching a content strategist who grew to 8 million followers explain his...

Hey, Reader! There's so much buzz around personal branding right now that the term has lost all meaning. People think it's about: Polished headshots Professional bio statements Consistent Instagram aesthetics And yes, those things help. But they're not what personal branding is. Here's what personal branding actually is: Being instantly recognisable for the problem you solve. That's it. When someone sees your content and immediately thinks, "Oh, that's [your name]—she helps [specific people]...

Hey, Reader! Happy Tuesday! And happy Lunar New Year! 🏮 Unlike January 1st, the Lunar New Year is centuries-old celebration that follows the cycles of the moon — making it feel like a much more natural, intuitive moment to reset and begin again. In December, I spoke about the year of the Fire Horse and the shedding of the year of the snake. If 2025 felt slow and introspective for you, like it did for me, that was the snake’s energy. I've spent the last 2 months reflecting on my business and...

Hey, Reader! I've been having 1:1 chats with some of you over the last week or so, and one conversation really stood out to me. She's been running a menopause coaching business for 15 years. Served over 15,000 clients. She recently updated her website. There's a section about her background - 15 years running a first aid training company, teaching thousands of people. It’s just two lines. But here's what she told me: "I took it out. And I put it in. And I took it out. And I put it in. I'm...