Imagine you come to a crossroads.

There’s a sign with two arrows.

One points to:

MORE MONEY

The other points to:

MORE HAPPINESS

You look at the choice and think, surely more money will make me happier.

So you follow that path.

You work hard.

You get better at what you do.

You earn more.

Maybe you build a successful career. Maybe you start a business. Maybe you grow that business.

You reach places that an earlier version of you would have called success.

And for a while, it feels good.

Then one day you look around and think:

Is this it?

You thought getting here would feel different.

You thought you’d feel successful.

Instead, you’re tired.

Or bored.

Or restless.

Or maybe nothing is particularly wrong. Which somehow makes it even more confusing.

You’ve got what you thought you wanted.

You just don’t seem to want it anymore.

So you walk back down the mountain.

Eventually you arrive at the crossroads again.

But someone has changed the signs.

This time they say:

HAPPINESS

and

IMPACT

Happiness sounds appealing.

But perhaps it also feels a little self-indulgent.

You’ve got skills. Experience. Wisdom.

You want to do something useful with them.

You want your work to matter.

So you choose impact.

You start thinking about purpose.

Mission.

Legacy.

The problems you could solve.

The people you could help.

You might leave your corporate job.

Start something of your own.

Turn your business into a force for good.

And up the mountain you go again.

This one feels different.

More meaningful.

More worthy.

You can tell yourself a much better story about why you’re climbing it.

Then eventually another question appears.

Is this actually what I want?

And down you go again.

Back to the crossroads.

Only now the sign says:

WHAT YOU WANT

and

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS

This is where things get tricky.

Because the second one is much easier.

There is no shortage of people telling you what the world needs.

There are huge problems to solve.

People who need helping.

Causes worth fighting for.

Opportunities everywhere.

But the other arrow asks a much harder question.

What do I actually want?

I think a lot of us get stuck here.

Particularly those of us who are experienced and capable.

If you’ve spent decades becoming good at things, there are probably lots of places where you could be useful.

And when you don’t know what you want, usefulness can be seductive.

Someone needs your help.

You say yes.

There’s an interesting opportunity.

You say yes.

A problem needs solving.

You say yes.

And slowly your life fills up with things that matter.

Just not necessarily to you.

Maybe “what the world needs” can sometimes become a sophisticated way of avoiding the much more uncomfortable question:

What do I need?

Or:

What do I want?

I’ve been thinking about this through the lens of optimisation.

It’s a word we use a lot in business.

What are we optimising for?

Revenue?

Profit?

Growth?

Reach?

Efficiency?

If you choose the metric, you can make decisions around it.

But we rarely seem to ask the same question about our lives.

What are you optimising for?

Money?

Freedom?

Happiness?

Impact?

Status?

Security?

Meaning?

Time?

Adventure?

Belonging?

The problem is that most of us didn’t consciously choose.

We inherited the metric.

Get a good job.

Earn more.

Buy the house.

Build the business.

Grow the business.

Have more impact.

Become more successful.

And then we wonder why getting better at the game doesn’t necessarily make us feel better about playing it.

There’s another problem too.

I don’t think there’s one perfect metric.

I don’t want to choose between money and happiness.

I want both.

And impact.

And freedom.

And time with people I love.

And challenge.

And learning.

And friendship.

And fun.

The question isn’t which one of those things matters.

They all do.

The danger comes when we unconsciously maximise one at the expense of all the others.

If you optimise purely for money, you can end up with a very profitable life you don’t particularly enjoy.

If you optimise purely for impact, you can become incredibly useful while completely neglecting yourself.

Even optimising for happiness sounds strange.

Sometimes the things that matter most are difficult, uncomfortable and inconvenient.

Maybe life isn’t a single-objective optimisation problem.

Maybe it’s more like trying to find a combination that works for you.

Enough money.

Enough meaning.

Enough challenge.

Enough ease.

Enough impact.

Enough time.

And perhaps that combination changes as you do.

What made sense at 25 might not make sense at 45.

The mountain you desperately wanted to climb ten years ago may no longer be the mountain you want to be on.

That doesn’t mean the climb was a mistake.

You needed to go up there to discover what the view looked like.

Maybe that’s what the Messy Middle is.

Not finding the next mountain as quickly as possible.

But spending some time at the crossroads.

Looking back at where you’ve been.

Paying attention to what you’ve learned.

Questioning which signs you’ve been blindly following.

And deciding what matters now.

Perhaps eventually you return to the crossroads one last time.

But this time there are no arrows.

There’s just a blank sign.

On it are two questions:

What are you optimising for?

And is it actually yours?

A few weeks ago, one of the hardest problems in mathematics was apparently solved by AI.

The Navier–Stokes problem is one of seven Millennium Prize Problems. It had resisted mathematicians for decades. Solve it and there’s a $1 million prize waiting for you.

OpenAI reportedly threw around 10,000 AI agents at it.

Within days, they had an answer.

There’s now a controversy around what happened. Questions about who deserves credit. Whether the AI could have been influenced by the unpublished work of mathematicians already working on the problem. And what happens when an individual researcher can spend years pursuing an idea, only for an organisation with enormous amounts of compute to point thousands of AI agents at the same problem.

At first, I thought this was another story about AI replacing humans.

But the more I thought about it, the more it took me somewhere else.

Back to why I became a physicist in the first place.

I studied physics because I wanted to understand things.

That was pretty much it.

I was fascinated by how the world worked. I loved learning. I loved that feeling of following a question and discovering that underneath it was another question, and underneath that another one.

Eventually I did a PhD in atomic physics.

And that’s when I got to see more closely how science actually gets done.

There was still curiosity, of course.

But there were other forces at work too.

Funding.

Careers.

Recognition.

Politics.

Status.

Egos.

Who got credit for what.

Which research was worth pursuing.

Which research someone would actually pay you to pursue.

At one point we got money for doing nanotech while my research was about bouncing atoms off videotape.

None of this should have surprised me. Scientists have mortgages and families and careers like everyone else. Research requires equipment, institutions, salaries and time.

But I think I had a rather naive relationship with science.

I wanted it to be about curiosity.

And suddenly I could see all this other stuff wrapped around it.

At the time I didn’t have particularly good ways of dealing with that. I avoided confrontation. I wanted people to be happy. Politics and competing agendas made me uncomfortable.

I remember looking at the path ahead and thinking:

I don’t think I want this.

If I was going to do this for curiosity, I didn’t want to have to worry about the money. And if I was going to do things for money, there were more lucrative and less challenging ways to do that.

It’s probably part of the reason I didn’t go into corporate life either. I knew that in competitive environments like that my soul would slowly shrivel.

And, strangely, this story about AI solving a maths problem has brought me back to that feeling.

Because underneath the argument about AI and mathematics, I wonder if there are three different things getting tangled together.

Curiosity. Economics. Status.

Curiosity says:

I want to know.

Status says:

I want to be the person who discovers it.

Economics says:

I need the resources and time that allow me to keep discovering things.

Of course, they’re not neatly separable.

If I’m honest, I’m not sure my own curiosity about physics was ever completely free of status. There was something appealing about being a physicist. About being good at something difficult. About knowing things other people didn’t know.

And economics makes curiosity possible. Someone has to pay for the laboratory, the equipment and the time to sit around thinking about atoms.

We’ve built an enormous institutional system around all three.

Universities. Research grants. Academic journals. Professorships. Patents. Prizes.

Even the $1 million Millennium Prize is interesting in this context.

The Clay Mathematics Institute says part of the purpose of the prizes is to draw attention to the frontier of mathematics and emphasise the importance of tackling extraordinarily difficult problems.

In other words, we’re using economic value to signal intellectual value.

This question is worth a million dollars. Pay attention.

And then AI arrives.

Suddenly the economics change.

A human mathematician might spend years developing an intuition about a problem.

An organisation with enough capital can potentially deploy thousands of AI agents to explore it simultaneously.

That doesn’t necessarily damage curiosity.

In fact, from the perspective of pure curiosity, it’s extraordinary.

We wanted to know the answer.

Now we know it.

And knowing it creates more questions.

That’s how science has always worked.

We stand on the shoulders of giants so we can see a little further.

What happens if the giant suddenly grows incredibly quickly?

Maybe we get to see much further.

But AI potentially disrupts the other two forces.

If I spent ten years trying to solve something and an AI solves it tomorrow, perhaps part of my disappointment isn’t:

Damn. Now humanity knows the answer.

Perhaps it’s:

Damn. I wanted to be the one who found it.

That’s status.

And perhaps another part is:

If machines can do this, what happens to my career?

That’s economics.

Neither response is shameful. They’re deeply human. People need livelihoods. Recognition matters to us.

But I think separating them from curiosity is useful.

Because it leads to a thought experiment I find strangely hopeful.

Imagine mathematicians didn’t have to worry about earning a living.

Imagine their status didn’t depend upon being first to publish.

And then an AI solved the problem they’d been working on for ten years.

What would a curious scientist do?

I suspect they’d look at the answer and say:

That’s fascinating.

How did it do that?

Does that technique work somewhere else?

What happens if we change this assumption?

Does this tell us anything about the physical world?

What question does this allow us to ask next?

The inquiry doesn’t end.

It expands.

And maybe that’s one of the more interesting possibilities AI presents.

We’ve spent a lot of time worrying about what happens when AI has better answers.

Perhaps we should be thinking more about what happens when answers become cheap.

Because if answers become abundant, something else becomes more valuable.

Questions.

Knowing what is worth asking.

Knowing which answers matter.

Knowing when an answer is mathematically correct but physically meaningless.

Connecting something discovered in one field with something happening somewhere completely different.

Being discerning about which possibilities we pursue.

And ultimately deciding what we do with all this new knowledge.

AI might massively increase our ability to answer questions.

But it can’t make the question of what humanity should care about disappear.

If anything, it makes that question more important.

And this takes me back to the young physicist I was.

Maybe what I loved wasn’t physics itself.

Maybe what I loved was inquiry.

Following curiosity wherever it went.

Trying to understand something I didn’t understand yesterday.

I walked away from academic science partly because I discovered that curiosity didn’t operate in a vacuum. Economics, politics, ego and status were there too, and at that point in my life I didn’t particularly know how to navigate them.

Thirty years later, AI is exposing those same forces in a completely new way.

And I’m surprisingly heartened by it.

Not because I want machines to replace scientists.

And not simply because we’ll be able to find answers faster.

But because perhaps it forces us to become clearer about what the human contribution really is.

Maybe our greatest value was never having all the answers.

Maybe it was our capacity to wonder.

To notice.

To question.

To choose what deserves our attention.

And, when the answers arrive, to decide what they’re for.

If AI gives us the ability to stand on the shoulders of giants taller than anything we’ve previously imagined, the most important question might not be how high they can take us.

It might be:

Where do we want to look from up there?

When you hit midlife you realise there are things you did that weren’t really yours to do.

That realisation can arrive like a punch in the gut or a throbbing ache in your back.

Sudden like a lifequake or building up like a storm.

Either way, you’ve done what you’ve done and achieved what you achieved not because you wanted to, but because you thought it was the right thing to do.

Approval from others (family, friends, society, social media) will have amplified a message that’s been inside you for too long: “It’s not okay to try something out if you don’t know where it will lead.”

I’ve had that feeling for a big part of my life and it’s made me feel like I’ve lived life with the accelerator and brake on at the same time.

I’d accelerate towards things that I thought I wanted and needed to try.

But all the time with the handbrake of expectation firmly on.

It’s like wheel-spinning through life. All light and energy but no real momentum or direction.

Don’t get me wrong. Like you, I’ve done and achieved many things.

But, like you, they were never my thing. They looked like success. But they never quite felt like success.

And the reason…?

I was scared to take big risks.

I wasn’t sure I could bear the discomfort or survive the failure. The emotional cost seemed too great. The potential to feel shame, sadness, and abandonment was too much to risk. And while these things may never have happened, they felt like a real risk to me.

I’d try new directions and take up new opportunities, but all the while worrying what other people would think and whether they were “the right” things to do. Not helpful. And not happy.

My fear clouded my vision. And so I never really knew what I truly wanted. And to work that out…? Well that was a risk. What if I could never find out? I had an internal script that really didn’t help: “going off exploring without knowing where you’re going is bad”.

It was a script written in childhood and, like the bible, had a number of unknown authors.

What I’ve learned in the second half of my life is that exploring isn’t bad, it’s essential. I always thought I needed a map, but what I found were guides. And these guides have helped me realise that there is nowhere to get to or really even anything to find. Exploring is all about just that… exploring.

It’s living a non-linear life. It’s about not feeling like life has to always go somewhere. It isn’t a race and there’s no winner.

Life is wandering around a forest discovering clearings, magical trees, and sometimes getting lost. Really lost.

I used to be scared to get lost and so I wouldn’t explore the forest too deeply.

I’d only venture in with others. And I thought that was a weakness. But I’ve realised it’s wisdom. I look for others because I know I can’t do this journey alone. I know that, if I do, I’ll end up forgetting why I went in the forest in the first place. And that’s when I truly get lost.

But we’re not in the forest to find anything or get anywhere. Getting lost is a feature not a flaw. And getting lost is fun when you do it with friends.

And that’s what I’m learning to do.

To all my fellow forest foragers, cluelessly fumbling through the undergrowth, thank you for accompanying me on my way.

And if you’re feeling lost, and wondering why you started this journey in the first place, remember that when you’re with others they’ll help you remember.

You don’t have to venture solo.

A question came up in our Happy Startup WhatsApp group recently:

“For those who made a big transition mid-career… what has surprised you the most about the change?”

It was in the context of people moving from corporate roles into freelance or more independent work.

On the surface, it sounds like a practical question. You’d expect answers about income, clients, flexibility, maybe even lifestyle.

But sitting with it… what came up for me wasn’t practical at all.

It wasn’t the work that changed. It was the story.

What surprised me most about transition isn’t the logistics.

It’s how much of it is shaped by the story you’re living inside.

The one that says:

• what success is supposed to look like

• what a “sensible” life looks like

• what’s allowed… and what isn’t

When you leave a structured environment like corporate life, that story doesn’t disappear.

If anything, it gets louder.

You don’t just leave a job. You leave a definition of success.

In corporate life, success is often pre-defined.

There’s a ladder.
A salary band.
A sense of progression that, even if you question it, still gives you something to measure yourself against.

When you step into freelance or independent work, that scaffolding disappears.

And what’s left is… you.

Which sounds freeing.
And it is.

But it’s also disorienting.

Because now the question isn’t:

“Am I doing well?”

It becomes:

“What does ‘doing well’ even mean for me?”

The real challenge isn’t capability. It’s permission.

Most people I speak to at this stage of life are more than capable.

They have experience.
Judgement.
A track record of doing meaningful work.

But they get stuck.

Not because they don’t know how to move forward.

But because something in them isn’t fully convinced they’re allowed to.

Allowed to:

• earn in a different way

• work in a different rhythm

• value different things

• define success on their own terms

So they hover.

Half in the old world.
Half in the new one.

The tension: inner truth vs outer expectations

There’s a quiet tension that runs through all of this.

On one side:

• What matters to me now?

• What kind of life do I actually want?

On the other:

• What will people think?

• Is this financially responsible?

• Am I throwing something away?

And it’s not that one side is right and the other is wrong.

It’s that most people haven’t consciously decided which voice they’re listening to.

Transitions are less about changing work… and more about rewriting the story

Looking back, that’s the part that surprised me most.

The external move (i.e. corporate to freelance) is visible.

But the real work is internal.

It’s:

• questioning inherited definitions of success

• noticing the assumptions you’ve been living inside

• and slowly, sometimes reluctantly, writing a different story

One that fits who you are now.

Not who you were 10 or 20 years ago.

A question back to you

If you’re in the middle of a transition, or circling one, maybe this is the more useful question:

What has to be true in your life for your current definition of success to make sense?

And…

Is that still true?

This reflection came from a video reflection I shared in the community (I’ve included the recording below if you want to get my raw perspective).

And I’d be curious to hear your answer to the original question:

What surprised you most about making a transition mid-career?

Two clients said yes. We needed the cash. And I couldn’t send the invoice.

Not immediately. Not cleanly. Not like someone who has his act together.

If you’re in midlife building something and you hit emotional speed bumps that make no rational sense, and then judge yourself for them, this might help.

You understand business. You want agency. You’re not naive about money.

And yet sometimes a three-minute task feels like moving a mountain.

On paper, this is nothing.

In my body, it was not nothing.

The story underneath the behaviour

When I slowed down, here’s what I found running underneath:

This becomes real. I owe them something. I’m on the hook. If I don’t deliver, I’ll let them down. If I ask for money, I’m greedy.

That’s not about systems or competence.

That’s a story.

And midlife has a way of revealing the stories we’ve been quietly obeying for decades.

The polarity I inherited

In my family, money meant safety and choice. More money meant more options. Bills paid. A sense of control.

But money also came with a moral charge.

The one who cared most about money was admired. Responsible. Serious. Strong. They were also emotionally distant.

The one who cared most about people was generous and warm. They were also called irresponsible.

You can probably see what happened next.

Somewhere along the way, I absorbed this equation:

Care about money and you become cold.

Care about people and you risk being unsafe.

So when I hesitate to send an invoice, I’m not just delaying admin. I’m navigating an identity question.

Am I becoming the distant one?

Am I betraying the warm one?

That’s not a business problem.

That’s a heart problem.

Skillset, mindset, heartset

This polarity explains why the skillset framework isn’t enough.

By midlife, most of us have the skillset. We know how to invoice. We know how to price. We know how to close.

We’ve worked on mindset too. We’ve read the books. We know we “deserve” to be paid.

But there’s another layer.

Skillset is what you can do.

Mindset is what you believe.

Heartset is what feels safe in your nervous system.

I can believe I deserve the money and still feel a flicker of shame when I press send. Not because I’m incapable. Because some part of me equates money with conditional love.

If I take your money, I must perform.

If I fail, I lose connection.

That logic made sense once. It probably kept things stable.

But it doesn’t have to run the show now.

Clean interdependence

The reframe that shifted something for me was simple:

We are both sovereign. This is clean interdependence. They chose to work with me. I chose to work with them.

Money is not a moral act. It’s an exchange.

I am responsible for my integrity and effort.

I am not responsible for their happiness.

That one line alone untangled a lot.

When responsibility fuses with shame, we avoid.

When responsibility stands on its own, we act.

The invoice gets sent.

The relationship remains intact.

No one becomes colder.

No one becomes smaller.

If this is you

If you want more agency in your life and business, pay attention to the small behaviours that carry too much emotional charge.

The delayed invoice.

The email you overthink.

The price you soften.

Before you call yourself weak or unprofessional, ask:

Is this a skillset gap?

A mindset gap?

Or a heartset story?

You don’t need to rewrite your childhood. You don’t need to blame anyone.

Just notice the story.

Awareness loosens its grip.

And when what you think, what you feel, and what you do begin to flow together, there’s a quiet kind of happiness in that.

Not hype.

Not performance.

Just coherence.

And for many of us in midlife, that’s what we’re actually after.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Many midlife professionals want to start their own business.

They just don’t want to become “entrepreneurs”.

They don’t want to hustle endlessly.
They don’t want to dominate rooms.
They don’t want to become louder, sharper, more aggressive than they naturally are.

And yet, when they look at the world of business, that’s often what they see.

Scale faster.
Push harder.
Optimise everything.
Win.

If you’re wired a little differently, it can feel like playing basketball on a football pitch. You’re not bad at the game. You just feel like you’re running through treacle. The rules don’t quite match how you naturally move.

This week I noticed something in myself.

In a conversation, the tone suddenly shifted. What had been a dialogue became a pitch. Nothing wrong with that. Clear offer. Strong positioning. Perfectly legitimate.

But my body contracted.

A younger part of me felt steamrolled. As if I was being pushed down a path I hadn’t chosen. As if my agency had been taken away. The story that flickered into life was familiar: You’re doing it wrong. You’re about to be overpowered.

That reaction tells me something important.

I am wired relationally in a transactional world.

I value autonomy.
I value being heard.
I value shared power and mutual respect.
I want business to feel like conversation, not coercion.

And that wiring has served me well. It’s a strength as a coach, teacher, and community builder. It allows me to listen deeply. To hold nuance. To guide rather than dictate.

But it has also cost me.

In sales conversations, I can over-explain. I argue both sides before anyone has asked me to. I hesitate to promote myself because I don’t want to become “one of those people”. I shy away from hard edges, even when clarity is needed.

For a long time I thought the solution was better tactics.

Better scripts.
Better positioning.
Better systems.

But increasingly I’m realising that building a business is not primarily a skills game.

It’s a nervous system game.

The work beneath the work is learning how to stay yourself when the world is telling you differently.

Can you stay open when someone goes into pitch mode?
Can you hold your boundaries without collapsing or attacking?
Can you express anger without becoming aggressive?
Can you promote your work without abandoning your values?

If business is a dojo, this is what I’m training.

Presence.
Grounding.
Self-reference.
Courage.
The ability to be with conflict without shutting down.

The deeper journey of building something for yourself is not just about finding a niche or designing an offer. It’s about understanding who you are, what you truly want, and what parts of you get activated when you step into visibility.

It’s about noticing the younger part that equates being unheard with being unsafe. And gently letting the adult part take the wheel.

Because here’s the thing.

There is nothing inherently wrong with transactions.

We all need to exchange value. We all need to earn money. We all need structure.

But transactional does not have to mean dehumanising.

And relational does not have to mean fragile.

The mature move is not to reject the system. It’s to work with it without losing yourself inside it.

Every system (family, culture, platform, market) has rules. Acting in certain ways creates benefits or disadvantages. The trick is not to pretend those systems don’t exist.

The trick is to ask:

Where do I align with this system?
Where do I want to challenge it?
And where might I choose to leave it altogether?

That requires nuance.

And courage.

For those of us who don’t naturally identify as entrepreneurs, this is the quiet work. We’re not trying to dominate the game. We’re trying to find a way to participate in it without betraying ourselves.

The real skill is not to win the game and dominate it.

The real skill is to play your own game and find others who want to play together and make your own game together.

That starts with a different set of questions.

Not:
How do I grow faster?
How do I optimise this funnel?
How do I compete?

But:
What do I actually want?
What do I need?
What is non-negotiable for me?
What am I willing to grieve in order to move forward?

If you’re considering starting something of your own, don’t begin by copying someone else’s playbook.

Begin by understanding your wiring.

Understand the parts of you that need reassurance.
Understand the values you refuse to compromise.
Understand the kind of people you want around you.

Then design a game that fits that.

You may not move as fast as the loudest voices online.

But you’ll move in alignment.

And for some of us, that’s the only game worth playing.

For a long time, the loudest “shoulds” guiding my choices were about doing the right thing. Achievement. Grades. Status.

School rewarded those things, and I was good at them. I learned early that if you performed you were rewarded, and the idea that success could be measured and earned soaked in.

What I didn’t learn was how to make the bigger decisions in life: what to commit to, what to walk away from, and how to know the difference.

Over time, I learned something quietly radical: There is no right answer to life, only choices. And the real work is learning how to make those choices from the inside out, not by constantly looking outside for approval.

Lesson 1: Success signals aren’t the same as direction

I thought achievement meant I was heading in the right direction. Good grades, prestigious opportunities, sensible paths: they all felt like evidence that I was “doing it right.”

But those signals don’t tell you why you’re doing something, or whether it will sustain you. They tell you you’re capable. They don’t tell you what you’re here for.

Learning to separate what the world wanted from what I needed was the first step in my journey.

Lesson 2: Energy is information (even when you don’t trust it yet)

The first time I really noticed my energy pulling me somewhere was when I chose to do a PhD. On paper, it made sense. It was prestigious. It validated everything I’d done so far. Another rung on the ladder.

But it was also a delay. I could have gone into IT at the start of the dotcom boom and probably made a lot of money.

The question underneath was never simple: Was I avoiding a “real job”? Or did I know, somewhere deeper, that I needed to explore this first?

I didn’t have the language for it then, but looking back, I think I followed curiosity rather than fear. My curiosity for physics was greater than my fear of falling behind in a career. My energy was already trying to lead; I just didn’t yet know what I was listening to.

Lesson 3: Employment teaches you what you don’t want, and that matters

The most important things employment taught me weren’t technical skills. They were about motivation.

I learned that if I didn’t understand why I was doing something, I would slowly disengage. I learned that money mattered, but it wasn’t my only motivator. Freedom and learning turned out to be core needs for me.

At one point, I negotiated a significant pay rise. Shortly after getting it, I quit.

That moment taught me something essential: money can meet needs, but it can’t replace them.

Employment wasn’t a mistake. It was data. I needed it to learn what didn’t fit.

Suffice to say since quitting that job I never went back to full-time employment and embraced entrepreneurship.

Lesson 4: Entrepreneurship is a mirror, not an answer

Entrepreneurship taught me things employment never could. It forced me to look at my relationship with money, value, and self-belief. It taught me that having a great idea, product, or service isn’t enough. You have to communicate its value in a way that resonates with the person in front of you. Value is in the eye of the beholder. You can’t force someone to find something valuable, but you can talk about it in a way that the right people will always see its worth. It exposed my relationship with conflict, responsibility, and uncertainty.

It also taught me that entrepreneurship isn’t a skill; it’s a mindset. And that more money isn’t always freedom. For some people, it becomes a prison if it pulls them further away from what actually motivates them.

Entrepreneurship didn’t give me the answers. It gave me better questions.

A final lesson: Committing and quitting are both skills

One of the hardest things I’ve had to learn is the difference between quitting because something is uncomfortable and leaving because it’s wrong.

I can do hard things. I’ve done a PhD. I earned a black belt. Discipline isn’t my issue.

But persistence without purpose isn’t virtue; it’s avoidance.

When a goal is open-ended and you find yourself pushing on without knowing why, that’s the moment to pause and ask what you’re really committed to.

What I’d tell my kids (and my younger self)

Be disciplined. Learn to commit. But also learn to quit.

Learning to quit isn’t about accepting failure. It’s about making bold choices based on what you really want and need.

Learn to listen more deeply to yourself. Learn what actually motivates you. Learn the difference between fear, discomfort, and knowing.

This is lifelong work. And the more you practice it, the better you get, not at being impressive, but at being you.

Life isn’t about becoming better at who you should be. It’s about becoming better at who you already are.

And don’t do this alone. Find peers. Find mentors. Find spaces where you can think out loud without judgement.

You still need to work while you’re learning about yourself. But you don’t need to abandon yourself while you do.

Apparently today marks the anniversary of quantum mechanics, or at least the birth of the uncertainty principle, first described by Werner Heisenberg. I was never great with dates and so this would have passed me by if it wasn’t for notification on my phone.

But learning about this feels timely as it’s led me to think about why I fell in love with physics in the first place. And why, oddly enough, that same love now shows up in my coaching work.

Not because people are particles.
But because patterns matter.

And because uncertainty isn’t a bug. It’s built in.

I didn’t fall in love with physics for the facts

I fell in love with physics at school. My teacher made it playful. It felt like mental adventure rather than mental effort. Add a steady diet of science fiction and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and I was fully in.

What hooked me wasn’t facts, it was wonder.

The super big.
The super small.
The hidden rules behind visible behaviour.

I remember the quiet satisfaction of understanding why cables heat up, why planes fly, why microwaves behave oddly with dry food, how light can push matter. Small revelations, but they felt like access to the hidden truth of things.

Physics gave me calm because it revealed patterns. Beneath the mess was structure. Beneath complexity were principles.

Pattern recognition felt like peace.

Science is not a weapon — it’s a practice

One thing that continues to bother me is when science gets hijacked to serve someone’s agenda.

Quoted without context.
Used without understanding.
Wielded like a badge of certainty rather than a method of inquiry.

Science, at its best, is not an industry and not an ideology. It’s a practice. A discipline of humility. A willingness to test your assumptions against reality.

I think that’s why I was drawn to it. I wasn’t just looking for knowledge. I was looking for a calling.

These days I still am.

I’ve just changed scale: from atoms to humans.

Coaching is pattern recognition at the human level

What I notice again and again in people is this: behaviour has patterns too.

Hidden drivers. Recurring loops. Predictable reactions under certain conditions.

Most “I’m stuck” moments aren’t about lack of intelligence or lack of options. They’re about fear: usually fear of getting it wrong, wasting time, or losing belonging.

When someone says they’re overthinking, they’re often scanning for safety. It’s not weakness, it’s a need for regulation. The nervous system is asking for reassurance before it allows you to move.

I believe the real lever isn’t pressure. It’s connection.

When someone feels seen and understood, fear drops. Curiosity returns. Motion becomes possible.

That’s why coaching feels scientific to me. Not mechanical, but observational. We look for signals:

• energy vs drain

• openness vs contraction

• curiosity vs rigidity

• flow vs force

Knowledge is rarely the limiting factor. Permission and safety usually are.

Smart people have a predictable failure mode

The trap smart people fall into is the search for certainty before action.

They want the right model.
The right plan.
The right identity.
The right guarantees.

But clarity tends to come after movement, not before it.

In physics, when you don’t understand a system, you run experiments.

Small probes.
Fast feedback.
Model update.

Not ten-year plans built on untested assumptions.

Evidence beats theory when the system is complex and changing, which human lives tend to be.

Why play beats planning (early on)

Play works better than planning when you’re still discovering what matters.

Small experiments beat big decisions because they lower the emotional risk. Lower risk calms the nervous system. A calm nervous system sees more clearly.

Each tiny test produces signals:

• Do I feel more alive or more drained?

• More curious or more contracted?

• More like myself or more like I’m performing?

That’s usable data.

If this were a lab, I’d tell you to look for sparks:

• sparks of interest in you

• sparks of energy in conversation

• sparks of belonging in community

A few low-risk experiments you can run this week

If you’re feeling stuck:

• Write out what motivates you and what holds you back (unfiltered)

• Talk to one new person about an idea you’re curious about

• Journal daily for 10 minutes on what gives you energy

• Spend 30 minutes a day finding people and places aligned with your values

• Share a rough idea publicly instead of privately perfecting it

You don’t need a better plan first.
You need better signals.

And you probably need other people.

You are much less alone than your overthinking suggests.

From uncertainty to play

The uncertainty principle, loosely put, tells us there are limits to how precisely we can know certain pairs of properties at the same time. Precision in one dimension introduces fuzziness in another.

Life decisions feel like that too.

You can wait for perfect certainty and never move.
Or you can move and let clarity sharpen through interaction.

That’s exactly the spirit behind a workshop we’re running today:

Stop Overthinking. Start Playing.

It’s for people with ideas and questions and energy but too much head noise. People who want to explore a new direction, start something meaningful, or test a calling without betting their entire life on step one.

We don’t force big leaps.
We design tiny experiments.
We build connection.
We generate creative momentum.

Turns out the opposite of overthinking isn’t recklessness.

It’s play… in good company.

Sign up to the workshop here - https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/aWKXPG_QT0CZU9fck-jhKw

I’ve always been looking for my thing.

The work that made sense.
The work that fit.

For a long time, I thought that meant purposeful, world-changing work. Something noble. Something impressive. But over time I’ve realised it’s simpler (and harder) than that. What I was really looking for was work that suited me. Work that felt like an extension of who I am, rather than a role I had to perform.

When I was a teenager, I knew instinctively that my work had to also be my hobby. What I meant by that wasn’t that I wanted to mess about all day, but that I wanted to do something I’d still choose even if I wasn’t paid. Energy mattered more to me than status. Aliveness mattered more than income.

The story I inherited

The story I inherited was that the right job was the one that paid the most money. That income was the clearest measure of success. That definition of success initially derailed me.

And then quietly disoriented me for a couple of decades.

I was torn between needing a job that paid and longing for work that felt right. The problem was, I didn’t have a compass. No guidance. No language for what I was actually searching for. So for a long while, I felt like I was wandering in the wilderness — emotionally, more than professionally. I did things. I achieved things. But none of it truly lit me up.

That wilderness eventually led me to working with Laurence, and to starting two businesses together. The first was our digital agency, Spook Studio. The second was The Happy Startup School.

For a while, we ran both. On paper, it made sense. In reality, it didn’t. I had no excitement or energy to grow the agency on my own, and Laurence was fully committed to The Happy Startup School. Eventually, the truth became unavoidable: I could no longer play the role of the digital professional. It just didn’t fit anymore. And if I’m honest, I’m not sure it ever really did.

And yet, even starting The Happy Startup School didn’t immediately feel like my work to do.

I was still holding onto the identity of the coder, the tech person, the digital guy. I couldn’t quite reconcile that with retreats in nature and running a festival in a field. I went through a proper dark night of the soul trying to work out what I should be doing and being relentlessly self-critical about not having found “my thing” yet.

What I was really trying to do was squeeze an old version of myself into a new reality. And it wasn’t working. It didn’t feel good at all.

Stripping things back

So I had to strip things back. Slowly. Painfully.

I had to get underneath the roles and identities and start paying attention to what actually drove me. To my needs. To the old scripts that were still running in the background. To what success really meant to me, rather than what I’d been told it was meant to look like.

That required letting go of a lot. And the uncomfortable part was that I didn’t know what I was letting it go for. It took nearly eight years to find it. And where I ended up wasn’t something I’d planned or even imagined. But it feels completely right.

What I do now makes sense both in terms of what I offer and in terms of why I’m the one offering it.

I help people slow down enough to hear what’s already there — and then support them with the structure and courage needed to turn that clarity into work that feels alive, sustainable, and true to who they are.

It’s my work to do because it’s been my journey.

Building a business and making a living

So what does this mean for building a business or making a living?

It’s meant finding a different way.

I don’t believe in hierarchies. They put me off. I’m wary of them. What I crave is connection and relationships that energise and expand me. Traditional ways of working, especially in large organisations, never really aligned with that.

To build a business that felt like me, I’ve had to learn a lot about myself. About conflict. Boundaries. Needs. Wants. Limits. It’s been an inside-out journey that I’ve taken at the same time as building a business. It’s not the most efficient route, but it’s taught me more than any shortcut ever could.

I’ve lived this journey, not just learned it.

At its heart, this work is about people. And that’s where it’s been hardest as I’ve had to change. I’ve had to learn about my responsibilities in conflict. Because when you know what you want, you have to be willing to stand up for it.

That fight has been both internal and external. It’s been a fight against my own patterns and against the status quo of how business is usually done. And one of the most important things I’ve learned is not to do it alone.

Laurence and I were friends long before we were co-founders. That matters. It’s shaped how we work, how we disagree, and how we stay in relationship when things are difficult. I think it’s a big part of why we’re still here and why we do business the way we do.

It’s a human-first approach.
It asks for bravery, honesty, vulnerability, and compassion.
It’s about relationships that are holistic, not transactional.

I genuinely see my customers, coaches, mentors, suppliers, and collaborators as friends. Being part of a community is what makes this way of working feel right. I now believe it’s more important to move together than to move fast.

When we’re truly connected, work starts to feel like play.
Sometimes it feels like art.
Sometimes it just feels… alive.

And when we connect with others, we remember we’re part of something wider. When we commit to each other, we’re also committing to the world we’re part of.

That’s business from the inside out.
That’s interdependence.

Making money

Learning to make money in a way that suits me has been about finding the overlap between what energises me and what’s commercially viable. The question lives in that overlap. My work now is to help others explore that overlap for themselves.

For me, The Happy Startup School is the answer I’ve arrived at. I love helping people find theirs.

When it comes to profitability, the most important metric isn’t a number. It’s a feeling. A feeling of enoughness.

But that raises deeper questions: what is enough? And how do we stop getting in our own way when we’re trying to earn it?

For me, that’s meant confronting my money stories. Money used to represent safety and achievement. I believed clever people made money and stupid people didn’t — deeply judgemental stories rooted in scarcity and competition. Business felt like winning or losing.

The more I’ve learned to notice and manage those beliefs, the better my relationship with money has become. I want to be pragmatic. I don’t want to be driven by fear. Managing money isn’t just about spreadsheets and savings — it’s about how we respond emotionally when money is involved.

I don’t want to get in my own way when asking for or spending money.

I’ve learned that I carry my stories with me.
I just don’t want them to be the ones in charge anymore.

My story of change

I used to think I was searching for the right idea. The right purpose.

What I was really searching for was the right relationship — with work, with money, with people, with myself.

That relationship is still evolving. It always will be.
But it no longer feels like a fight.

I don’t have all the answers.
I just have better questions now.

And a deeper trust that when the work fits, it doesn’t need forcing.
It has its own effortless momentum.

This place is where you know something needs to change…
but you don’t yet know 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁.
or 𝗵𝗼𝘄.
or whether you’re actually 𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘥.

You lie in bed at night.
Your mind buzzing with ideas.
Your body alive with 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨.

Not panic.
Not despair.

More like… a low-grade hum of misalignment.

A sense that the life you’re living no longer quite fits...
even though, on paper, it probably looks fine.

Something’s missing.
But it isn’t tangible.

It isn’t a new job,
a bigger business,
or a better system.

It’s a feeling.

A purpose-shaped gap in the centre of your chest.
And no amount of “being busy” seems to fill it.

You tell yourself you could just do what you’re doing:

Better.
Bigger.
More efficiently.

But that’s not it.

You try adding things instead.

A hobby.
A side project.
Volunteering.
Another commitment.

Still not it.

Because this isn’t about 𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 more to your life.

It’s about 𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆 at it.

Like a sculptor.

You already have the stone.

Your experience.
Your skills.
Your stories.
Your scars.
Your successes.

The work now isn’t to become someone new.

It’s to remove what no longer belongs.

The roles you grew into by accident.
The expectations you inherited.
The identities that once made sense but now feel false.

A sculptor doesn’t add meaning.
They reveal it.

They take away everything that 𝘪𝘴𝘯’𝘵 the thing.

And what remains slowly starts to look
more like a true expression of who they are.

That’s how the gap begins to close.

This is your soul path.
The path that gently closes the distance between
𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗼
and 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗿𝗲.

This isn’t about 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 your purpose.
It’s about 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 yourself.

And that starts with two deceptively simple questions...
questions most of us were never taught how to answer:

What do you actually want?
And what do you really need?

Not money.
Not status.
Not approval.

But the deeper stuff:

Belonging.
Learning.
Freedom.
Creativity.
Adventure.

These aren’t “nice to haves”.

They’re needs.

And when they’re met, you feel more alive.
More grounded.
More 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧.

That feeling isn’t indulgence.
It’s information.

It’s the compass.

And then there’s the final, often unspoken question that sits beneath all of this:

Who are you becoming?

This is the paradox of midlife:

You are already enough.
And… you want to be more.

Not more impressive.
More 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘦.

And right now, that feeling of “enough” isn’t quite there.

That doesn’t mean you’re broken.
Or behind.
Or failing at life.

It means you’re in transition.

And transitions don’t need answers first.

They need orientation.
They need space.
They need guidance, companions,
and a compass that points you towards 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 true north.

If this resonates, you’re not imagining it.

You’re standing at the edge of possibility.

And that is a very real place to be.

There’s a phrase I discovered today from the design world: conspicuous design. It refers to objects or aesthetics that scream their identity. Think: the sculptural chair that begs to be noticed more than it begs to be sat in. The building that says more about the architect’s ego than the people who live inside it.

I was drawn to that phrase not because of what it means for buildings or brands.

But how it relates to beliefs. To values. To the aesthetic of becoming.

It’s got me thinking about what it means to be conspicuously conscious—to not just have a maturing worldview, but to live it out loud. To let your beliefs have shape, texture, and presence. To be visible, not as performance, but as invitation. One example being for your work to be an expression of your beliefs.

Because at some point, usually around midlife, we start to realise that it’s not enough to have internal clarity. We want external coherence. We want our choices—what we say yes to, what we refuse, what we wear, how we speak, who we associate with—to align with what we deeply know.

The Soul Has a Look

There’s a kind of aesthetic to a lived belief system. You can see it in people who’ve settled into their own truth with grace. Their homes are extensions of their ethics. Their friendships feel intentional. Even their silence is shaped by discernment.

They’re not shouting. But they’re unmistakably expressing.

That’s what being conspicuously conscious feels like to me: living in such a way that your soul’s evolution has a visible texture. Not for the likes, not for the brand, but because your integrity wants out. It wants to breathe.

From Performance to Presence

We live in a time when “consciousness” can be a costume. Eco this, ethical that, spiritual-sounding hashtags and curated authenticity. There’s nothing wrong with the visibility of values—but the why matters.

So how do we know when we’re being genuinely expressive versus subtly performative?

Maybe it comes down to effort. Performances are exhausting. Presence, on the other hand, feels like exhale. When you’re conspicuously conscious, you’re not trying to convert, impress, or win. You’re simply aligning. And in that alignment, others may feel a gentle nudge toward their own truth.

A Midlife Aesthetic

The idea of a soul aesthetic intrigues me. How do our beliefs look on us now, compared to when we first tried them on in our 20s or 30s?

Some things fit better with age. Some have worn out. Some needed tailoring. That’s part of the pivot: reimagining your personal ethos not just as an inner compass, but as a visible signature.

It’s not about branding yourself as “conscious.” It’s about inhabiting your values fully, in the way you love, lead, spend, create, and relate.

Maybe that’s what midlife gives us: the courage to look how we actually feel inside.

This question came up in Claire Perry-Louise’s Like Hearted Leaders community, when fellow member Grace asked:

“Why do we say change is so hard, when sometimes it can be sudden and easy?”

It got me reflecting on what I’ve seen after working with 200+ people in our Vision 20/20 programme.

From that experience, I’ve noticed there are three elements that trigger change:

1️⃣ You Driving Desire

A wish to change usually comes from one of two places:

• Escaping pain: the pain of staying the same becomes unbearable. This will trigger movement — but it’s directionless. You might end up somewhere different, but not necessarily somewhere better.

• Moving towards a vision: you’re pulled forward by something enticing, meaningful, and clear. That vision gives direction, not just relief.

Both can trigger change. But one leads to growth by accident. The other leads to growth by design.

2️⃣ Your Surrounding Environment

Change doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s shaped by the people you surround yourself with.

Some create the conditions for growth — supporting you, believing in you, holding you accountable.

Others (often unconsciously) project their own fears and limiting beliefs onto you.

If you’re in the wrong environment, progress stalls. If you’re in the right one, change accelerates.

3️⃣ Your Inner Script

And sometimes the last barrier is inside.

I’ve seen seasoned professionals with a clear vision, a strong support network, and every reason to succeed…

But they’re held back by one belief: “Other people’s needs come before mine.”

The reframe is simple but powerful:

“If I meet my own needs first, I’ll actually have the energy and clarity to meet the needs of others more powerfully and flowfully.”

When that puzzle piece clicks, everything shifts. What felt uphill suddenly flows.

That’s why change can look “sudden” from the outside.

In reality, it’s just the last piece of the puzzle falling into place.

👉 Which of these three — Driving Desire, Surrounding Environment, or Inner Script — feels like your current edge for change?

For much of my life, I lived in the land of doing.
Ticking boxes, hitting goals, building businesses.
Work hard, get results. That was the mantra.

It served me well for a time. I built a digital agency. I poured myself into projects. I stayed busy, productive, “successful.” But beneath it all was a quiet unease — the sense that all this doing wasn’t really for me.

That unease is what eventually led me to co-create The Happy Startup School. On the surface, it was another act of doing: build a new business, create a community, design retreats, launch programmes. But underneath, it was fuelled by a deeper question — not just “what am I building?” but why?

And it’s during this process when I realised something: my compass had been spinning between thinking, doing, and being, and I hadn’t learned how to integrate them.

Doing: The Comfort of Productivity

Doing has always been my default setting.
If there’s a problem, solve it. If there’s a gap, fill it.
If I feel anxious, well, there’s always more work to be done.

But I’ve come to see how seductive productivity can be. It looks like progress. It feels safe. Yet without prioritisation, doing becomes busyness.
And in midlife, I’ve learned that productivity without meaning is just… noise.

Thinking: The Inner Narrator

Then there’s thinking.
Running a business — especially one built on vision and values — demands reflection.
I’ve spent hours strategising, analysing, replaying stories in my head, imagining what might be possible.

At its best, thinking has given me insight. It’s helped me make sense of who I am, and how to help others do the same.
But it has its traps. Overthinking. Perfectionism. Paralysis. IFS (Internal Family Systems) calls these “protective parts” — the voices that tell you to plan every scenario before you take the leap. Jung might say it’s the shadow of intellect, cutting us off from action.

I’ve had plenty of moments where thinking was really just fear in disguise.

Being: The Invitation to Presence

And then there’s being.
This is the part I used to neglect. Meditation, presence, stillness — these felt like luxuries when there were emails to answer and workshops to design.

But the work of The Happy Startup School has taught me the value of presence. Sitting in a circle with strangers who become friends. Walking through the Alps with no agenda but conversation. Holding space for people as they navigate their own transitions.

Being is what reminds me that I’m enough even without another achievement.
And yet, being can also be avoidance. A way of saying, “If I just stay still, maybe the hard decisions will make themselves.”

Midlife: The Recalibration

Midlife, for me, hasn’t been a crisis. It’s been a recalibration.
Doing wasn’t enough. Thinking wasn’t enough. Being wasn’t enough.

The challenge — and the gift — is in the alignment.

• Doing with intention.

• Thinking with clarity.

• Being with awareness.

When those three line up, I feel a different kind of success. Not the success of more, but the success of enough.

And maybe that’s the deeper work of midlife: not abandoning thinking, doing, or being, but learning how to let them work together. A kind of internal ecosystem, or a stage on the Hero’s Journey, where the call isn’t to slay dragons, but to come home to yourself.

If you’re considering a change in direction (professionally or personally) this might feel familiar:

You know what you’re doing right now isn’t it anymore.
It’s draining. Misaligned. A slow leak of energy.

But the alternative?
That’s foggy. Unclear. Not quite ready.

And so you hesitate.
You second-guess.
You tell yourself stories like:

“Maybe I’m just not resilient enough.”
“If I was stronger I’d push through.”
“Maybe I’m just bored… maybe I should be grateful.”
“I’m giving up.”

I’ve been there.
That threshold between where you’ve go to and what might come next.
That uncertain limbo where the thing you’ve outgrown still offers a sense of identity and stepping away feels like failure.

But here’s what I’ve come to realise:

• Giving up now isn’t failure.

• It’s part of the process.

• You’re in transition.

And the stories we tell ourselves about this space… matter.

When I was doing my PhD in physics, I spent years chasing answers to questions no one fully understood.
I lived in uncertainty.
I was meant to. That’s what research is.

But I struggled because part of me needed certainty. I wanted the clean answer, the proof, the resolution.

I now see that discomfort for what it was:
A collision between my wiring for meaning and a space that hadn’t yet revealed its meaning.

My desire for answers was because I didn’t really have a clear story about what I was doing. I later discovered the Physics research wasn’t for me.

And that’s what I see in so many people at a pivot point.
They feel something isn’t right.
They know something needs to change.
But the story they’re telling themselves is one of doubt, or failure, or not being enough.

And that story?
It’s not the truth.
It’s just one interpretation.

Joseph Campbell called this part of the journey the belly of the whale.
It’s not where you quit.
It’s where you transform.

Viktor Frankl reminded us that meaning isn’t something we wait for. It’s something we create, especially in uncertain moments like this.

So if you’re in that place… on the edge of letting go, not sure what’s next then please hear this:

🌀 You are not giving up.
🌀 You are becoming.
🌀 And the discomfort you’re feeling isn’t a sign of weakness.

It’s a sign that your current story has run its course and a new one is waiting to be written.

The question is: What meaning do you want to make of this moment

Because you can reframe the story.
You can shift the narrative from stuck to sacred.

✍️ Want to retell your story? Try this…

Here’s a simple version of our Story of Change framework from the Vision 20/20 program to help you reframe where you are:

1. Where were you before the change began?
   – What were you doing?
   – What was working… and what wasn’t?
   – What part of that version of you needs to be honoured?

2. What happened that made you realise something needed to shift?
   – Was it a moment, a feeling, or a slow build-up?
   – What did you notice in your body, your energy, your thoughts?

3. What’s the story you’ve been telling yourself about this transition?
   – “I failed.”
   – “I’m giving up.”
   – “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
   – Name it. Bring it into the light.

4. Now ask: What might be a more generous, more true story?
   – “I’m making space for something more aligned.”
   – “I’m learning to honour what feels right.”
   – “I’m in a creative pause before the next chapter begins.”

5. What kind of person might you be becoming?
   – What values feel more alive in you now?
   – What do you want to give the world next?

You don’t have to have the full story yet.
You just need to take the pen back into your own hand.

And if you’d like to explore this more deeply—with a little structure, a little courage, and a lot of compassion—that’s exactly what we do inside Vision 20/20.

Let me know where you are in your story.
I’d love to hear it.

There's a moment, usually around 3 AM on a Tuesday, when you find yourself staring at your laptop screen, surrounded by the debris of another "urgent" client deadline, wondering how the hell you ended up here.

You never set out to build an agency. You were just good at something: design, development, marketing, whatever. People kept asking you to do more of it. So you did. You hired someone. Then someone else. Before you knew it, you had a team, an office lease, and a business that looks impressively successful from the outside.

Congratulations. You've accidentally become an entrepreneur.

The problem is, success without intention is a peculiar kind of prison. Your agency pays the bills, employs good people, serves clients reasonably well. By most metrics, you've "made it." Yet here you are, Googling "how to sell my agency" at ungodly hours, feeling like a fraud for wanting to exit something that's supposedly working.

The liminal space of successful misalignment

If you're reading this, chances are you're caught in what I call the liminal space of successful misalignment. It's that uncomfortable middle ground where you've built something that works, but it doesn't feel like yours. The business has momentum, but you've lost yours. You're successful, but you're not energised.

Think of it as being stuck between two rooms. You can't go back to the simplicity of freelancing because too many people depend on you now. But you can't move forward either, because you're not sure where forward even leads. So you hover in the doorway, successful but suspended, accomplished but adrift.

This is what transition experts call "the messy middle." It's the second stage of any major life change, sandwiched between letting go of what was and embracing what's next. The problem is, you're struggling to let go of your current identity as agency founder, and you have no idea what the new beginning might look like.

The cruel irony is that staying feels impossible, but leaving feels terrifying. What comes after? Who are you without this thing you accidentally built? What if you walk away from the best opportunity you'll ever have?

The exit that wasn't

I know this space intimately because I lived in it for years. My business partner Laurence and I had built a successful digital agency. Good clients, talented team, steady revenue. From the outside, we had it figured out. From the inside, I felt increasingly disconnected from the work, drained by the endless cycle of projects that paid “well” but didn't light me up.

I'd been so busy being the technical director as well as the agency founder. I'd created an identity of being the technical expert. But that identity wasn't really mine. It was something that I thought I should do.

Eventually, we made the decision to close the agency. On paper, it was the right move. We even had a vision for what came next: The Happy Startup School, helping other entrepreneurs avoid the trap of building businesses that owned them instead of serving them.

But here's what I didn't anticipate: even a "successful" exit can leave you completely lost if you haven't done the inner work first.

When we closed the agency, I thought I'd feel relieved. Instead, I felt adrift. I'd been so busy playing a role that I'd forgotten who I was underneath. I knew what we were building next intellectually, but I couldn't connect to it emotionally. My energy scattered. My focus wavered. I struggled to channel my time and attention towards anything meaningful. I kept on asking Laurence for the plan.

The only reason I didn't completely spiral was that Laurence was more attuned to listening to his gut. He had clarity about what energised him, what he wanted to create, how he wanted to spend his days. I could follow his lead whilst I figured out my own. But it was a struggle, one that could have been avoided if I'd had an honest conversation with myself before we shut everything down.

Looking back, I wish I could have sat down with my past self and said: "Before you figure out what to do with the business, you need to figure out what to do with you."

Why traditional exit strategies miss the mark

Most exit planning treats the business as a separate entity that can simply be transferred or shut down. Fill out the forms, find the buyer, sign the papers, walk away. Clean and transactional.

But here's what those approaches don't account for: you didn't just build a business, you accidentally built an identity. For a decade or more, you've been "the founder." Your days, your energy, your sense of purpose (however reluctant) have been wrapped up in this thing you never really chose.

Strip that away suddenly, and what's left?

The standard advice sounds reasonable: "pursue your passion," "start something new," "enjoy your freedom." But it falls apart when you realise you've been so busy running something you didn't design that you've forgotten what you actually want. The muscle memory of desire has weakened.

This is why so many agency exits lead to either immediate regret ("I should have kept building") or existential drift ("Now what?"). Without doing the inner work first, you're just swapping one form of misalignment for another.

The real exit strategy: starting from the inside out

The most important exit strategy conversation isn't with your accountant or business broker. It's with yourself.

Before you can figure out what to do with the business, you need to figure out what to do with you. Not the you that accidentally became an agency founder, but the you that exists underneath all that. The you that had interests and energy and curiosity before it got channelled into client work and team management.

This isn't therapy-speak. It's practical. Because whatever you do next, whether that's selling, transitioning, or even recommitting, needs to be aligned with who you actually are and what you actually want. Otherwise, you'll just end up building another beautiful prison.

The questions that matter

Here's where it gets uncomfortable. The real exit strategy begins with questions that business school doesn't prepare you for:

What did I care about before I got so good at serving other people's needs? When did I last feel genuinely excited about my work? What would I do if I wasn't afraid of disappointing my team, my clients, or my own expectations of success?

If I could wave a magic wand and be doing anything in three years, what would that be? Not what should I be doing, or what would be smart, or what would maintain my current lifestyle. What would actually energise me?

What are my actual needs? Not just financial, but emotional, creative, physical. How do I want to spend my days? What kind of impact do I want to have? What would make me feel alive again?

And perhaps most importantly: What am I afraid will happen if I stop being who I think I'm supposed to be?

These aren't questions you answer in an afternoon. They're questions you live with, sit with, let percolate whilst you're doing other things. They're questions that require space and patience and a willingness to not know for a while.

Permission to not know

Here's something nobody tells accidental founders: it's okay to not know what comes next. In fact, it's necessary.

You've spent years being the person with the plan, the one who knows what to do next, the one responsible for keeping everything moving. The idea of stepping into uncertainty feels like professional suicide.

But uncertainty isn't the opposite of success. It's the precondition for authentic choice.

You don't need to have the everything figured out before you can start moving away from the current thing. You just need to create enough space to remember who you are when you're not performing the role of founder.

Think of it as clearing the static so you can tune into your own frequency again.

The path forward (there is one)

The path forward isn't about finding the perfect exit or the perfect next chapter. It's about developing the capacity to make choices that feel aligned and alive.

Maybe that means selling and taking time to rediscover what you care about. Maybe it means restructuring so the business runs without you whilst you explore other interests. Maybe it means recommitting fully, but to a version of the agency that actually reflects your values and energy.

Whatever you choose, making that decision from a place of clarity, rather than burnout, will always serve you better than running on autopilot or reacting out of old habits and hidden pressures.

Begin again

If you've made it this far, you're probably someone who cares deeply about doing good work and serving people well. Those impulses are worth honouring. But they don't have to trap you in a life you didn't consciously choose.

The business you accidentally built doesn't have to become your permanent identity. It can be a chapter, a phase, a thing you did well for a while. What comes next is up to you, but only if you give yourself permission to figure out what you actually want that next thing to be.

The space between who you've been and who you're becoming doesn't have to be a prison. It can be a doorway. But you have to be willing to walk through it consciously, with your eyes open to both what you're leaving behind and what you're moving toward.

The real exit strategy isn't about leaving something behind. It's about moving towards something that's actually yours.

The work begins now. The work begins within.

If this resonates, you're not alone. And you're not stuck, even when it feels like you are. The way forward exists. It just starts in a different place than you might expect.

I learned this the hard way, but you don't have to. The version of yourself that knows what you need and want is already there, waiting. You just have to create the space to listen.

For most of my adult life, I didn’t really think about boundaries.

Not consciously, anyway.

I thought I was being flexible.
Easy to work with.
Open-minded.
Helpful.

In reality, I was often being over-accommodating.
And underneath that was a part of me (let’s call him the Peacemaker) who just didn’t want to rock the boat.

This part got me far in life, especially in my earlier years building a business. Clients liked me. I was agreeable. Adaptable. I’d go the extra mile (then another one) because I thought that’s what being “good” looked like. What success required.

I used to believe the customer is always right.

Now I believe the customer isn’t always for me.

That shift didn’t happen overnight. It came through midlife friction; the kind that rubs away at your old stories until you’re forced to look beneath the surface.

Because at some point, I started noticing the cost of being everyone’s solution. The cost of not having clear boundaries. I felt drained. Resentful. Unclear about where my work ended and where someone else’s expectations began.

It wasn’t burnout. It was something quieter. More existential. A sense that my energy was leaking into places that weren’t mine to fix, carry, or manage.

This is the thing about boundaries: they don’t just arise from personal strength or professional strategy. They emerge from priorities.
And our priorities are shaped by parts of us: some conscious, some not.

The conscious parts are the ones we post about on LinkedIn: our values, our vision, our intentions to build work that matters and a life that feels aligned. These are the Self-led priorities, the ones that feel calm and clear when we speak them aloud.

But there are other parts too.

The ones shaped by childhood, past wounds, or older strategies that once protected us. The part that keeps saying yes so we’re not abandoned. The one that performs so we feel loved. The one that people-pleases because conflict still feels like danger.

In Internal Family Systems (IFS), we see the self as a system made up of many parts, each with its own role and logic. Some of them are visionaries. Some are exiles. Some are firefighters, rushing in to douse the emotional flames of discomfort.

And when those parts are the ones driving our decisions (especially in business) we often find ourselves in situations where our boundaries are porous or misaligned. We say yes to the wrong projects. We underprice. We overdeliver. We disappear when things get difficult.

Or we do the opposite; we build walls instead of bridges. We avoid vulnerability. We convince ourselves we have to do it alone.

This is particularly potent in midlife.

It’s the stage where we start to question the rules we’ve lived by.
Where we feel the pressure of time, not in a panicky way, but in a clarifying way.
We no longer want to waste energy chasing things that aren’t meant for us.
We want focus. Freedom. Meaning. But not the performance of meaning; the actual thing.

And so, boundaries become sacred.
Not just as defences, but as declarations.

This is what I protect now.
This is who I serve now.
This is what I will no longer sacrifice.

So if you’ve been feeling tension in your business or your life—maybe take a moment to ask:

• What are the real priorities guiding my choices right now?

• Which parts of me are setting those priorities?

• And are they serving the future I want to move towards?

We can’t change what we don’t notice.
But when we do notice, we can start choosing again.
From clarity. From compassion. From self.

I’d love to know what this brings up for you.
Where are you noticing your own boundaries shifting—or asking to be redefined?

My deepest fear (rejection) has often kept me being my full self. Which has impacted the way I lead myself, as well as others. It’s this sense of self-leadership that’s a big theme of my “midlife chapter”: feeling forward with intention.

I believe that life doesn’t move in a straight line; it weaves, winds, and sometimes doubles back on itself. And if I'm honest, I never really had a clear map. I’ve taken many different turns, often not because I had a strong destination in mind, but because I didn’t truly know what I wanted.

Deep into midlife I’ve come to realise that “not knowing what I wanted” has been tied to a sense of shame and a deep rooted fear of rejection. I’ve always longed to be accepted for who I really am but at the same time not wanting to stand out too much.

Only recently have I started to make sense of that. Looking back at the choices I’ve made throughout life, I’m seeing the threads that connect them, and more importantly, I’m sensing a shift in how I move can forward.

Thinking vs. feeling (and why I’ve been over-reliant on the first)

For most of my life, I’ve relied on my mind to navigate the world. I’ve bulldozed through fear with logic and determination. It’s served me. Until it didn’t. Because in that relentless forward momentum, I often missed out on moments of real joy, creativity, and ease.

More recently, I’ve been tuning in to a different kind of intelligence—the kind that comes from within the body. Feeling, not just thinking. Not just labelling emotions, but actually allowing myself to feel them, physically, without needing to explain or fix them. That’s new for me. And it's a bit scary. But it’s also where the aliveness is.

What’s blocking the flow?

I've started to explore practices like interoception and somatic work, and they’ve opened up a whole new way of understanding myself. I’ve noticed how deeply some fears live in my body—particularly when it comes to expressing my dreams. I can imagine, I can fantasise. But to dream—to create from that grounded place of knowing, of saying “this is mine to do”—that’s where I hit resistance.

It’s not just self-doubt. It’s a legacy of shame and fear. A fear of being too much, or not enough. A fear of rejection wrapped in a lifetime of wanting to belong. It’s the kind of fear that whispers, “Don’t rock the boat. Don’t upset anyone.” And it shows up physically when I try to step into my full creative authority.

The longing to belong (and the cost of it)

I can trace these patterns all the way back to childhood; moving from the Philippines to the UK; navigating racism; straddling cultures. My father is Italian and summers in Sardinia were beautiful, but also confusing. I was told I belonged, but I never fully felt it. The disconnect between what I felt and what I was told made me doubt myself. My intuition went quiet over time. My need to be accepted became louder than my own inner compass.

And then there’s the paradox that runs through so many of us: I long to be seen. Truly seen. But the moment I am seen, I fear it. I want connection, but I’m scared of exposure. I’ve often expected those closest to me to just know what I need—without me having to say it. That’s not fair to them, or kind to me. It’s something I’m still learning.

How do I stop being scared?

To me, it’s not about erasing fear. It’s about noticing it, naming it, and still choosing to move. I’m learning that my authority doesn’t come from being liked. It comes from within—from trusting myself, even when what I feel isn’t what others expect.

This journey isn’t intellectual. It’s embodied. It’s messy. It means tuning in to what feels expansive, what feels constricting. It means listening to the younger parts of me that are still scared to speak up, and letting them know I’ve got them now.

And above all, it means practising. Not perfecting. Creating, experimenting, making space for joy and aliveness—not because I’ve conquered fear, but because I’ve stopped letting it lead.

Reclaiming authority, gently

I used to think reclaiming my authority meant standing my ground with defiance. Now I see it’s more subtle than that. It’s about presence. It's about discernment—knowing when an old fear is being triggered and choosing to respond rather than react. It’s about expressing myself, not to control or convince, but simply to connect.

And yes, it's about dreaming again. Not fantasy dreaming. But the kind of dreaming that starts from the gut, that feels rooted and real. The kind that says: “This is who I am. This is what I want to create. This is what I choose, even if I’m scared.”

That’s what it means to me to lead from within.

When you're standing at the edge of a transition — in work, in life, in who you're becoming — there’s a quiet question that often lingers in the background:

When do I feel most like myself — and when do I hide?

It’s a question I’ve been reflecting on a lot lately. Especially because when you're in the middle of redefining success, designing a new way of working, or carving your own path, self-doubt tends to turn up at inconvenient times. (Usually when you’re about to do something that actually matters.)

What I’ve noticed is this:

When I feel safe — when I trust the space I’m in — my voice flows. Ideas feel easy. I can access a deeper part of myself that knows what to say and what to build.

But when I don’t? I get cautious. I second-guess. I shrink. Not because I don’t care — but because somewhere inside, it doesn’t feel safe to be seen yet.

And here’s why this matters if you’re navigating your own transition:

When you’re creating something new — a business, a way of working, a life that feels more yours — you need access to the part of you that is alive, creative, brave.

And that part doesn't respond well to pressure, self-criticism, or performance.

It blooms when you feel like you belong. When you're in an environment where it's safe to not know yet.

When you can speak — or stay quiet — and still feel valued.

Finding confidence

Confidence isn’t something you “work harder” to earn.

It’s something that grows when you create (or find) the right conditions — spaces and people that help you stay connected to yourself.

So if you’re feeling stuck, uncertain, or like you're losing faith in your ideas — maybe the question isn't what’s wrong with me?

Maybe it’s:

What kind of space am I in — and does it allow me to be the person I’m becoming?

If not, it might be time to find (or build) a new one.

One where you can show up honestly. Dream without being judged.

One where your next step — even if it’s small — feels more natural than forced.

Because carving your own path doesn’t start with a grand vision.

It starts with making enough space for the real you to speak.

Isn’t “content creation” a weird phrase?

In this era of social media it conjures images of ring lights and TikToks, marketing funnels and SEO hacks. Not exactly the soulful territory I had been looking to live in — especially when I’m focusing on more meaningful, aligned work.

But when you're starting something new — a business, a coaching practice, a movement, a body of work — you're going to need to say something. And not just once, but often. That’s the opportunity of modern work. We're don’t just do the work — we’re sharing it, shaping it, inviting others into it.

And that means writing. Or speaking. Or podcasting. Or posting.

Whatever it looks like, content is just expression. And expression, when it's intentional, can become a powerful way to create clarity, connection, and change.

But to do it without getting lost in the swamp of “content strategy”…?

Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about this (read: overthinking it), and I want to share a map. One that doesn’t start with, “What’s your niche?” or “What’s your hook?” But instead with a simple, human question:

What’s the energy behind what you’re creating?

Energy is just information

Before I get into it, here’s a quick detour through physics (because I used to be a physicist, and old habits die hard).

In the world of atoms and quarks, energy is just information in motion. Every particle, every field, is communicating — transferring force, vibration, potential. And the fascinating bit: you can’t transmit energy without creating some kind of impact.

The same can be said of your content. Every post, podcast, or newsletter is a little packet of energy. A signal you're sending out into the field. And just like in physics, you don’t always get to control how it lands — but you do get to set the intention behind it.

So instead of asking, “What should I write?” I’ve started asking, “What energy am I sending?”

And from that came this framework. A simple way to navigate the act of creating content — especially when you're not sure where to begin, or you're navigating the fog of reinvention.

The four energies of meaningful content

1. Content to clarify – Thinking out loud

This is where most journeys begin. You’re not writing for an audience. You’re writing to hear yourself think.

It’s the energy of “I don’t know what I think until I say it out loud.” It’s journaling with a public toggle. It’s building a body of knowledge, one rough idea at a time.

It’s growing “a mountain of thoughts from which to view the world from a new place.” With each post, you’re seeing things differently. You’re learning in public. And along the way, you start to form a mountain of knowing — something solid to stand on.

The key here? Don't polish. Don't sell. Just explore.

2. Content to connect – Sharing the signal

Once you’ve done a bit of clarifying, you might notice themes. Ideas you come back to. Values you care about. Truths you want to stand for.

This is content that sends a signal out into the world — a kind of philosophical bat-signal. It’s less “here’s what I know” and more “here’s what I believe.”

And in this signal, others find resonance. “Ah,” they say, “you too?”

This kind of content isn’t about building an audience. It’s about building a field. A space of shared meaning. A place where your people can find you.

3. Content to invite – Walking together

At some point, your content might shift into an invitation. Not in the shouty “Sign up now!” way, but in the gentler “Come along” way.

You’ve been walking a path. Now you’re turning around and offering a hand to others just starting. Maybe you’ve got a few tools. A few stories. A way of seeing that might help.

This is content that says: “We’re on the same road. Let’s walk a while together.”

This is especially powerful for those of us in midlife, because we’ve lived. We’ve failed. We’ve tried things and survived. And that gives us something worth sharing — not in a preachy way, but in a human way.

4. Content to create safety – Building trust

And finally, the content that says: “You’re safe here.”

This is the place where service becomes real. Where people might hire you, join your programme, or buy your product — not because you shouted the loudest, but because they felt something in your words.

They felt trust.

This kind of content shows your track record. Your lived experience. The results you’ve helped others get. But more than that, it shows your character. Your intentions. Your transparency.

It's where marketing meets meaning.

Why this matters now (especially for midlife creators)

If you're reinventing your working identity — shifting from employee to entrepreneur, from corporate role to creative path, from burnt-out to lit-up — then this framework isn't just about content. It's about presence.

It's about how you show up in the world. How you make sense of your new self. How you find the others.

And it's about remembering that you don’t need to master content strategy to begin. You just need to know the energy you’re transmitting.

Clarify. Connect. Invite. Create safety.

That’s the map.

Your turn: What energy are you in today?

So, if you’re staring at a blank page or hesitating to hit "post" — ask yourself:

What’s the energy here?
Am I clarifying something for myself?
Am I reaching out to connect with others?
Am I inviting someone to walk with me?
Am I building a safe space to work together?

You don’t have to do them all at once. You don’t have to get it perfect. But knowing the why behind your words will change how they land.

Because energy, like content, always leaves a trace.

And yours — when it’s intentional — might just change someone’s day. Or their direction.

Maybe even yours.

P.S. This post fits into the “Clarify” bucket for me.

I grew up thinking that life was a ladder. Something to climb and once you reached the top you won.

But midlife has revealed something different to me.

Life isn’t a ladder. It’s a maze.

But not the kind of maze with a single path through and an exit to enlightenment, success, happiness etc…

This maze is full of possibilities with multiple routes and no ultimate prize or exit. It’s just… you. Walking.

But so many of us hit this point in life and panic.

We think:

• “I should have it figured out by now.”

• “I took a wrong turn.”

• “There must be one correct path—and I’ve missed it.”

But what if the point isn’t to get out of the maze?

What if the point is to learn how to be in it?

To stop chasing the idea of a “successful life” as an exit from the mess—and start seeing it as a living, evolving process.

Because navigating midlife is a process.
Living a good life is a process.
It’s not something you reach. It’s something you practice.

And like any worthwhile process, it asks things of us.

To live well in the maze, we need to:

1. Be open to experience—even when it’s uncomfortable.

2. Stay present—not lost in future fantasies or past regrets.

3. Trust ourselves—to choose, to adapt, to begin again.

4. Take responsibility—not as punishment, but as freedom.

5. And perhaps hardest of all, treat ourselves and others with… well, what Carl Rogers called unconditional positive regard. (A fancy phrase for being kind without needing anything in return)

Rogers wrote:
“What I will be in the next moment, and what I will do, grows out of the moment, and cannot be predicted.”

That hit home. I’d spent so much of my life racing to the finish line that I forgot that this wasn’t a straight line race. Every next step depends on the step I’m at.

In my former life I was a physicist. We were trained to love the clean elegance of linear equations. Predictable. Orderly. Reassuring.

But I’ve finally come to admit that life doesn’t work like that. It isn’t a set process governed by a fixed set of rules.

It’s more like chaos theory:

• Tiny shifts create big ripple effects.

• The system is alive. Feedback loops everywhere.

• And who you are becomes something new with every step.

So no, you can’t map the whole maze.

But you can be here for each corner you turn.

You can walk with presence. With curiosity. With kindness.

You can trust that who you are becoming is not something to be solved, but someone to be lived.

And that—midlife or otherwise—is the real adventure.