The spark* blog
Thoughtful insights for socially responsible entrepreneurs who give a ****! Honest conversations about impact, wellbeing and creating sustainable change.
I don’t do giving up
In 2024 I wrote ‘I do NOT do GIVING UP!!’ in a LinkedIn post. In capitals. I still mean it - grit has built most of what I have. This is about the times it kept me stuck: a job I’d outgrown, an escape tunnel out of a toxic team, a business that gave me just enough hope for four years, and the four questions I now use to check where my grit is pointed.
The rules of a game I was already winning
At 17 I was told two in a hundred of us would make it as artists. I’d been selling work since I was 14 and had no idea that was unusual. This is about what happens when someone hands you the rules of a game you were already winning - a year of strange drawings, 1,200 wishes on three cherry trees, a founder whose gut was right, and the design I didn’t bother to protect.
Are all those courgettes?
The packet had fifteen seeds in it, so I planted fifteen seeds. A quarter of everything I could grow that year went into a vegetable I ended up leaving on a footpath for strangers. A client who’d sold her business and given herself a year out made the same mistake with her time, filling it with everything she wanted in slivers too thin to get into. This is about the difference between deciding what you want and deciding how much of it you want at once.
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.
You're not stuck. You're thinking alone.
She'd been running her creative business for 14 years. She knew exactly what she wanted to do next. And for six months, she'd done absolutely nothing. Sound familiar? In this post, I explore why founders get caught in the spin cycle - and what actually breaks it. Spoiler: the answer isn't more thinking.
The power of AND: how to suck at stuff, be scared, feel unclear AND still get good shit done
Every founder faces moments where the choice feels binary: quit the day job or stay, launch now or wait, say yes or disappoint people. But what if you didn't have to choose? Discover how the power of AND can help you move forward even when you're scared, messy, and unclear - without waiting for perfect conditions.