The spark* blog
Thoughtful insights for socially responsible entrepreneurs who give a ****! Honest conversations about impact, wellbeing and creating sustainable change.
Three steps back
Most founder advice assumes you’ve got enough in reserve to act on it. Often you don’t. This piece follows three founders who worked out that their real task was building the conditions underneath the work - recovery time, a space of their own, people actually building something similar - the unglamorous layer everything else sits on.
Bold leaps don't work
Most of us don't fall dramatically off the top rung. We just decide the biggest version of change is the only one worth trying - then call it a failure of willpower when it doesn't stick. This piece looks at why the art of progress isn't boldness, it's sizing the rung correctly. From a client rebuilding after illness to a CEO who breaks his hardest conversations into granular steps, this is about the discipline of the stretch that builds, not the leap that breaks.
The choice was never between pressure and vanilla
Are you using pressure to drive yourself forward - or to prove you're not going backwards? A client recently told me that stopping the push would be 'like giving myself a lobotomy.' I knew exactly what she meant. This piece explores what high achievers get wrong about pressure, ambition, and the fear of going vanilla.
There is always more to your story...
My grandmother sold her business in her early eighties. She was a socially responsible entrepreneur before the phrase had been invented - and the blueprint she handed me is one I'm still following today. This is the story behind Ellipsis Coaching - where it came from, why it exists, and why the work matters to me as much as it does to the people I do it with.