I no longer care whatsoever about building, or trying to build “a billion dollar business”

Oh god that feels good to say. It’s been such a long time.

I’m one of the generation of founders who’s first impressions of company building were from twitter and the internet. I stumbled into startups at 19 when I dropped out of my History and Politics degree at University of Sheffield to start a “social network for live sport” - Matchchat.

The articles that spread about funding rounds and viral apps that launched were my first encounters with the world of business. This inspired my entrepreneurial spark, but it also gave me this one narrow view of business. Instagram was on BBC News at 6 when they sold to Facebook for 1bn - if they could do it why couldn’t I?

My experiences of business building were forged in the UK tech startup community, from Sheffield at the beginning to Newcastle, Manchester and finally London. This ecosystem is truly brilliant and full of wonderful people. It felt like home for me, a community of passionate, evangelical (sometimes crazed), intelligent people who are trying to build something “big”.

I raised investment for my first two businesses and poured time over decks and excel spreadsheets that proved to me and others that I might one day building something HUGE. This was my quest. This was always my creative constraint. Everything I did and worked on must be big. It must have scale.

Truthfully in my last business Sanctus I got caught in between. Somewhere between a great services brand and a tech-enabled marketplace. I was confused. I just wanted to help people with mental health, but what I build needs to involve technology and be really really big too?

I’ve seen this so much over the years. So many businesses ruined by unhealthy expectations. So many founders who were passionate about coffee, they should have probably started a coffee shop but instead they tried to build a coffee-shop marketplace. Oh dear. I was probably one of them.

For a long time, I was caught up in all this noise. This noise that everything I created needed to be validated by a venture capital industry that wants hyper-growth. That everything I ever made needed to achieve hyper-scale. That bigger was always better. That millions and millions and billions were always the numbers that should drive me.

Now, I can finally say I’m done with all that. It’s not me and I’m not sure it ever has been. It’s just the first world of business I found myself in. It shaped me in amazing ways, but it’s not the version of business I love.

For a while, this desire for everything I built to be massive controlled me. It shaped everything i thought about doing. Before I was ever creative at all I’d think about scale, reach and how something could be productised. I’d even see some ventures as pointless altogether if they didn’t hit whatever arbitrary benchmarks existed in my head.

I think the chokehold that high growth startups have on the business building narrative for some is completely ruining other opportunities. I’ve met so many founders over the years that could have built wonderful businesses, but ruined themselves and the opportunity in the search for “venture scale”.

Me writing this matters to absolutely nobody except me. I’m just writing it to tell you that it’s an absolute relief to take this silly pressure off myself. I still care about building brands, creating businesses and bringing meaningful products to the world. I just have absolutely no desire to do that to insane scale with money from venture capital funds. I just want to do it my way, whatever that way may be.

What I have realised I care so much more about than even business itself, is the art of it all. I love the creativity and the opportunity to make a meaningful impression on somebody’s life. I have no interest in the tech platforms with their perverse incentives. I love brands and services that really touch people. This feels more pure to me, there is more soul to it.

I share this because I do think many founders have the venture capital and high growth startup industry living in their head. It’s monopolised success and many founders internalise this to make their own current achievements seem unworthy. You meet founders with a brilliant business doing 1m in revenue a year who thinks they’ve achieved absolutely nothing. In the real world, building a business to 1m a year in revenue is exceptional.

You don’t have to build a tech startup. And you know what, you don’t have to want to either! I’ve decided I don’t want to and it’s very unlikely that I ever will build anything of the type.

Kudos to those who do. You are freaks of nature who deserve all the success you strive for.

For me, now I can focus on simply being my most happily ambitious creative self. Building something to £1m a year in revenue with no investment would be exceptional now wouldn’t it?! Building something simply beautiful and worthwhile with no attachment to the revenue it brings in would be beautiful too wouldn’t it?

Yours sincerely - James a recovering wannabe tech entrepreneur.

I’m pleased to have finally completed my course of rehab.

Adios tech startup land.

Cheers,

James x

Absolute rip off, but for today, that is beside the point.

This isn’t a critique of Britain. Buying that train ticket was important for me.

It was my “symbolic act.”

I’ve been thinking about these a lot. Symbolic acts.

What I’ve found over the years in coaching, mentoring or managing people is that there is usually one thing, one action, one task that is the pinnacle of everything that they need to do. It’s the number one priority, it’s the mission critical task.

But, it’s more important than that.

It’s the symbolic act that if achieved will carve the way for everything else in their life to flow. It’s the thing that will break them through to the other side.

It could be anything. It doesn’t always necessarily need to be a work thing. It’s an action in their life that will culminate in change.

Let me tell you why my £250 anytime return to London was my symbolic act.

Recently, I have completed with lots of my coaching clients and I am beginning to welcome in a handful more. Not loads, because I want to spend most of my time building Aster and launching Jack.

Naturally my revenue has dipped.

As a result, I begin feeling anxious and my scarcity mindset kicks in. I start playing small, thinking small and worrying about the future, worrying about money.

Going to London feels like a holiday. For me, it is, a creative holiday. A place I go to get inspired and connect with awesome people. £250 for an open return though? When business is quiet? Not so sure. Will it be worth it? Will I make it back? Shouldn’t I start saving the pennies a bit now? Winter is coming… Who am I even meeting down there, will they become a client?! What if I never make any more money ever and I become destitute?!

This is my upper limit, this is my scarcity mindset.

When really, the person I want to be is the person who goes down to London whenever he wants. Who maybe even has a first class season ticket?! Where £250 for a return, even though extortionate, makes complete sense for me and my work.

I bought it.

Buying that train ticket isn’t just about this one off trip to London. It’s my symbolic act.

For me the £250 anytime return symbolises belief and momentum.

If I don’t buy that train ticket I’m saying to myself that I need to tighten the belt because there’s no more business coming in. If I don’t buy that train ticket. I’m predicting failure, not success.

Buying that train ticket was my symbolic act.

I’ve become quite adept at helping people find their symbolic act, and it’s so rewarding when they do it.

For lots of people a really important symbolic act is a holiday where they properly properly switch off. This usually symbolises confidence and trust that everything will be ok when they return. If they (usually founders) can switch off for a week and not check in on emails they are making a great proposal of trust in themselves and their business.

In a coaching session the other day, a founder was anxious about pipeline. Worried about what was coming in. We’d spoken about this in the session previously and taken actions to create a more sustainable pipeline through account management and new biz. Yet in the following session, the anxiety remained.

When we dug in, the anxiety wasn’t about pipeline. It was about cash, in this instance; personal cash. They’d been putting off putting off taking money out of the business for themselves and it had been on their mind. This is a classic case of scarcity vs abundance kicking in around money. A classic case of confidence in you and your business.

If the founder doesn’t take the money out for themselves, the message is clear. “I don’t believe in the business”. If the money is taken out of the business and into the founder’s pocket - the message is the opposite. “There’s more where this came from, it’s all going to be fine”

The good news is (with my help I think!), the founder decided to make the investment in themselves. As a result, I’m sure more new revenue will flow into the business, I have witnessed this time and time again.

Symbolic acts can be counter intuitive like this. Especially around money when scarcity kicks in, self-preservation says to spend less when intuition says to spend more. It’s not about the money, it’s what the spending symbolises.

Other symbolic acts are simpler. Holidays, strategic moves, presents, gifts. With another founder their symbolic act was get in the office more with the team. We felt like if he did this, everything would flow from there and it is proving correct. Getting in the office symbolised energy, team spirit, camaraderie, maturing as a business.

My symbolic act was to buy an expensive train ticket to London that will mean I can go there and back in a day and wake up with Sarah and Xander the next morning.

What’s your symbolic act? What does it symbolise? What’s stopping you doing it?

Cheers,

James x

p.s in the end my ticket didn’t get checked so I can use the same tickets to go to London again this week :)

p.p.s do the thing

The driveway is gravel and we’re surrounded by pine trees.

We have a photo in front of it. Cars on the drive. We’re all beaming to the sides of our face; me and Sarah arm in arm. We are smiling so much we look like we’ve won the lottery. We can’t believe this is our life. Xander is standing, small and cute and Sarah is holding another little bundle. I’m not sure if that’s a dog or a baby, but I do hope it’s one or the other, or both.

This house is ours and we have just bought it. It has a swimming pool. That’s all I know. I know nothing else about it. This is just a vision in my minds eye after all. The house has a swimming pool and we have a lovely family photo in front of it and I can hear my feet crunch on the gravel on the drive. We are over the moon. Giddy.

We can’t believe this is ours. This is our life. We love our life.

I’m sitting by the pool. It’s hot and I should probably put more sun cream on. I’m in thick swim shorts and an open shirt, wearing sunglasses.

It’s my birthday and we are in a villa for the week. I’ve invited a bunch of friends and family over . I have paid for everything. I’m in the best shape of my life. I’ve not actually tried to look good, I just tried to feel good and this is my reward. I’ve been doing all the things I enjoy and this is the result. Me feeling like this, being here. Happy, content, loved, generous.

I lie down on the warm tiles with one leg splayed in the pool. People are arriving later . There’s the distant beat of music in the background lulling me into the present moment as my thoughts drift away. Looking up at the blue sky I reflect how grateful I am that I can do this for the people I love. Invite them to share a holiday with us all. I can be generous and create experiences with and for people. Tonight we’ll all be here in this villa, eating together in the sun and we’ll have a glorious time. It’s glorious to be alive.

I love this. I love my life.

These are two visions I have in my mind right now. Two dreams. I have more.

I see them clearly. So clearly that I believe some version of these two realities will occur for real in my life. I have no doubt about that now.

I don’t currently have the money to buy a mansion with a pool. Yet some version of this dream is my dream. Truthfully, I don’t even know if it is the exact “right” dream, yet enough of it feels authentic and true and burgeoning for me to commit mental energy to write it down. I want to will this into being. I would like a version of this for my future.

It helps in some ways, especially in work. Will doing this right now get me the house with a swimming pool? That’s quite a good question to ask. This is my desire and I’d like what I do now to go some way to achieving it.

The family home with a swimming pool is my North Star. It’s not a compass, it’s definitely not google maps. It guides my way.

I’m aware there may be some ego or mixed up feelings in this dream. I might not want a swimming pool at all. Maybe I just “think” I want a big house and I don’t really. Maybe what I really care about is just me, Sarah, Xander and the family photo all looking happy.

It doesn’t really matter if what I’m foreseeing for myself is “right”. What matters more is the intention behind it. The feelings within the picture.

Love, security, excitement, hope, fun. There’s unbridled happiness in the very act of living our life. Whether the house has a swimming pool, or not, this is the emotional quality of the life I am willing into being.

Being by the villa in the sun in great shape feels more immediate and is helpful to give me something to work towards in the short term. I’d absolutely love to do this. Book out a villa for a week and invite the people I love. It’s the kind of day dream that makes me think.. why am I not doing that right now? Why am I not doing that every year?!

This is good. This is truth, this is real, this is actually what I want. I am so glad I let my mind wander. I let my mind dream this little dream. Now, to act upon it.

I call these little visions trailers. I have written about them before. They’re intentions for who I’d like to be but they don’t come in the form of plans or journal entries. Some call this manifesting. These are day dreams, wanderings, moments that flash across the cinema of my brain as I close my eyes to sleep or when I’m bored doing the dishes.

This is what I can see for my life. This where I’d like to be.

I have learned to speak these out loud. Share them, let them live and let me believe in them. Take these visions away from the shadows and into the light. Let them even have a chance of being possible

Some can be acted upon immediately and in doing so you grow into the edges of your life and expand. Others are longer term hopes and dreams that provide direction and clarity.

It doesn’t even matter what they are. It doesn’t even matter if they are deeply really truly what you actually want. What matters is that you let them be free from you. There’s no judgement. They are little incantations thrown from your wand - perhaps the spell will work and you will create this magic, perhaps it will fall flat because there was never any truth in it in the first place.

Tada!

There are many possibilities I don’t have visions of. There are many things I don’t dream about. Many people of my type dream of building big companies that IPO, I’ve never had this dream in my life.

Maybe the dreams we have can come true then? Maybe there is some volition to then? Maybe they do serve as some premonition for our longing or what could come good in our lives? Maybe they do deserve our time and our hope?

I remember a time when I would dream of cutting the chord to a mental health gym on the high street and being on Graham Norton alongside Stormzy talking about mental health on TV at peak fame. It never happened like that, that particular dream never came true. Some version of it did come alive though. I made some version of that happen. There was truth in it and it was worth sharing. Worth dreaming of. Worth fighting for.

Everyone has dreams. Your version of a mansion with a swimming pool, hitting the gong of an IPO or an epic holiday with mates.

What is yours?

Let it out. Dream it. Believe it. Write it down. Make it real. Smell it. Taste it. Be there. Feel the clothes you are wearing. Touch the person you are holding. Hear the sound of the birds or the sea or the applause as your feet thud out on stage. Wave your magic wand.

Let it be real.

One day, a version of it shall be.

Cheers,

James x

P.s 3 founder coaching slots left for those walking the path. Let me be your guide and walk it with you. Founders said some nice things about me.

Materially there is an obvious difference. We are without Teddy and we are with Xander. In 2 years we have had two babies, one is with us, one is not.

Last year was a year of grief and expectation. Two twisted branches rising up to the air as we grieved Teddy and hoped for Xander. This year has been a whirlwind of parenthood, of becoming, becoming a dad, becoming Xander’s dad.

Two years on and my reality is sinking in more deeply. I’m Teddy and Xander’s dad. Teddy is not with us. Xander is. This is my family. This is my life. In the pictures we look perfect and that includes something invisible.

October will forever be reflective. What we experienced with Teddy was something I can never ever forget. It was traumatic and horrifying. It was also a time of beauty, sensitivity and gratitude.

When I was wrapped in grief I felt a profound awareness, I have never ever been so present, nor seen life in such detail. I could see the lines on trees and the way raindrops raced down a windowpane. I slowed down completely to the point of stopping. I was totally still. I could see the world move in the way it does.

It’s strange to admit I miss that feeling a bit. The closeness, the meals being dropped off. Having nothing to do on a Wednesday, other than just be sad. Eat loads of Guylian sea shells, put the log burner on and watch Harry Potter with our feet touching under our blankets on the sofa.

I felt at that time that I was changing. Deepening and becoming a new person. It was like I’d been given a new pair of contact lenses that only a few of us own. I could see the same world I was in before, but it all looked totally different.

I wonder now how much I have changed? Or whether the lessons of grief have since been lost on me?

I vowed that this life event would change me in some way. I wanted it to. I wanted to use it as a platform, a blessing, to become anew. Maybe I was forcing it.

In some ways I’ve not changed at all. The work I have done since has been what I think I’d have ended up doing. My response to losing Teddy was typical to me; write about it, create brands and communities related to my pain to help others.

I’m proud of this. I sound like I’m not. I am. I’m just pondering how I have changed, or how I haven’t. It’s a reflective time of the year.

My course has changed as much as I may have changed. By losing our first baby I’ve been given an incredible gratitude and awareness for Xander. I’ve parented and shown up for Xander in a way that would not have been possible if it were not for losing Teddy. My life has been altered because the order of events has meant I’ve responded to my circumstances in a way I wouldn’t have done before. A fork in the road, a sliding doors moment. A slit in time where I’ll always wonder, what if? We all have them. You will too.

Would I have taken 3 months off with Teddy and travelled to France for a month, Ireland for 3 weeks - or would I have gone into provider mode and been stressed and anxious about becoming a dad. Probably. The course of my life has changed. I can’t say if it’s for the better or not. Just different.

Has grief fundamentally changed me though? That’s what I’m wondering. I felt like it was shifting me on the inside on an underlying level. I felt like my frequency was changing from a high pitched “dinngggg” to a low “gonngggggg” - I could feel tectonic plates moving. It was an earthquake after all.

I wanted it too. I wanted my grief to be a catalyst. Like how you see those people who run around the world, or swim the Atlantic because they find out they have incurable cancer. I thought it might be that for me. A purpose, a passion, a new beginning. A second chance?

I hoped I might retain the stillness that grief bestowed. That quality of presence that actually felt so good and nice. Now, I’m not so sure.

Grief is a teacher. Well, it’s actually death or the possibility of death doing the teaching. I know what the lesson was but I haven’t done all the homework. It’ll take time I think, to put it all into practice.

Losing Teddy taught me a lot. I really confronted death. Not just death. Life and the very essence of”why?” Losing a baby for unknown reasons took me to the ends of the universe and back, to the great why. To the deep black. Why does “stuff” like this happen? The way the cells come together in an embryo can be explained to me by a consultant registrar, but it still doesn’t answer “why?” Why me, why us, why now. There is no answer. It just is.

I found the answers I’d been looking for. Mostly that there aren’t any. Let go. Surrender. Life cannot be controlled. Every minute and every moment is an unfolding that can only be explained, but never truly understood. I finally get the cosmic joke of all this. It actually is quite funny. These knots we tie ourselves in.

Grief taught me to be still. To be present and it’s a lesson I’d like to revisit, because it’s surprising how easy it is to revert to type. To go back to old norms; to to-do lists, plans, recurring thoughts, whatever the next thing is. Sitting in that deep stillness isn’t easy, isn’t ‘normal’ but it’s always there for us. Waiting.

Losing Teddy taught me that life is now, not later. It’s here in this moment, not on the notes app on my phone. It’s in the tap tap tap of this keyboard with my feet on the floor and the hum of the road in the distance. It’s in my breath. In slowly and out. There. It’s live and real and thirsty. Life is out there waiting for us to engage with it, play with it, dance with it. Don’t just think about it. Do it.

Grief does stay with you. I like that. You get to grow with it and around it. I’m two years on and I’m still getting used to it all. This new course. This new me. I know these lessons will stay with me and I’d like to keep learning from them. It’s a well I can continue to drink from and when I do I find it so incredibly nourishing. I’m sipping from the secret water David Whyte talks about below.

And in the words of Mary Oliver. I’ve had my box full of darkness, I’m still unwrapping the gift.

Cheers,
James x

Some updates from me:

• I’m creating a brand around grief, called Aster. Creating fine jewellery to honour the life of those we love. A gemstone set in a star on a pendant that is handmade for you. You can personalise the piece; choose the metal (Silver or Gold), the pendant (rectangle, oval, circle), the gemstone and other customisations personal to your experience. I’m very proud of the beautiful pieces of jewellery we are creating that match the incredible life experiences people have. If you’d like one, reach out and we can discuss what you’d like to create.

• I’ve relaunched Founder Coaching, articulated my founder coaching philosophy and I’m taking on 3 more Founders to work with.

Founder Coaching Connect

• Life is full. Xander turns 1 in two weeks. Generally though, life is really good and I am starting to feel renewed.

But, in the core guidelines of coaching, the coach’s main goal is to enquire within you, for you to find your way forward.

The coaching approach is excellent and deeply empowering. Many founders benefit from coaching all of the time.

Yet I don’t believe founders need coaching all of the time.

Why can coaching sometimes fall short for founders?

An early-stage founder probably doesn’t have a board, or a mentor, or an advisory board.

So, when a coach enquires inside them for the answer to their challenge, they’re probing deeper into uncertainty. Deeper into a founder who doesn’t know what they are doing.

Yep, doesn’t know what they are doing.

That’s what all founders are doing!

Making it up as they go along.

That’s the beauty.

That’s why coaching can sometimes fall short. Because it’s inquiring too far into the unknown.

Founders need different types of support at different times

A founder needs both hard and soft-edged support at different times.

Sometimes they need the soft-edged approach of coaching to delicately help them find their way to a conclusion about something that is bugging them.

Other times they need to be told a story about something really similar, that feels more like mentoring.

Another time they need to be told:

“Don’t do that. That’ll be an expensive mistake.”

These are different modes of support, and they each have a different purpose.

Coaching. Mentoring. Advising. All in one.

In the blissful unknown of an early-stage startup journey, that is what a founder really needs.

Simply, you do not have time for too much navel-gazing.

Some, but not loads.

If you are trying hard to figure it out and only have 12 months to get it right, you can’t spend 60 minutes gazing into the distance.

Sometimes you need someone to support you in finding an immediate direction, now.

Sometimes you need to figure it out yourself.

Sometimes you need someone to tell you what they think.

Sometimes you need someone to tell you a story about what happened when they faced something similar.

And sometimes you need someone to ask you the question that helps you realise the answer was inside you all along.

A founder needs all of these things.

So, do founders need coaching?

Yes, but not coaching in isolation.

Founders need a Founder Coach.

They need Founder Coaching that is more directly suited to the intense nature of being a founder.

A relationship that can move between coaching, mentoring and advising, depending on what the founder actually needs in that moment.

Founders need a Founder Coach and Founder Coaching that is more directly suited to the intense nature of being a founder and it is a relationship that can more immediately serve them there and then with the challenges they are directly facing each day.

The job isn’t simply to help a founder reflect.

It is to help them navigate the unknown.

Sometimes that means a question, a story or someone to say.

“Don’t do that!”

So, with all this context, I’ve come to a conclusion.

Most founders don’t need a coach.

They need something else.

Founders are like professional athletes

Here’s the problem. Founders are always doing something hard, unique and uncertain. Most people just don’t get it.

Founders are like professional athletes. A professional tennis player wouldn’t work with a PT, they’d work with a tennis coach or a strength and conditioning coach specific to tennis.

Founders can benefit from working with typical coaches like exec coaches, life coaches or transformative coaches. They can also benefit from therapy. Yet in my experience it doesn’t always give the founder the support they need.

Sometimes, working with these coaches might even have the opposite effect. Taking the founder down a road of confusion about who they are and what they are here for.

Founders need coaching about being founders

Founders don’t only need coaching on being a better person or a better job function.

They need something that is more relatable to the dramatic nature of being a founder.

Being a founder is a job itself and it is a function you can become good at.

It is an identity too.

Too often founders try and quickly become “something else”. They try and grow up too fast and become a professional CEO.

Mostly themselves and their businesses would benefit from them being founders for longer.

Founder coaching is a mix of coaching, advising and mentoring

In my experience founders need a mix of coaching, advising and mentoring.

All 3, all at once, all at the same in the space of 5 minutes on a call.

They need to be speaking with someone who has been a founder before.

Most coaches would disagree with this.

They would rightly say that a good coach can relate and empathise with anyone and does not need to understand the content.

My argument here is that the field of practice for a founder is so important, so engrained into who they are and what they do - that if a coach doesn’t understand the nature of their work as a founder then the coaching fails to achieve its impact and the coach fails to build trust with the client which is fundamental to an impactful coaching relationships

Most founders don’t need a life coach, executive coach or transformational coach

• Most founders don’t need a life coach.

• Most founders don’t need an executive coach.

• Most founders don’t need a transformational coach.

Most founders need a founder coach.

Someone who has been a founder and who can move freely between coach, mentor and advisor.

Founder coaching vs life coaching and therapy

If you are a founder and you want a better life, a better relationship or better mental health, then life coaching or therapy is suited for you.

But let’s be clear: there is no guarantee this will improve you as a “founder”.

It just may improve you as a person, which is great.

Founder coaching vs executive coaching

If you are a founder and you want to be a better CEO/Leader then executive coaching may be for you.

But let’s be clear: this isn’t guaranteed to make you a better founder, because most exec coaches know something about leadership, not the act of founding or creating something from nothing.

They will work on leadership models and KPIs and management techniques - they won’t whisper to you about how to be more creative.

What do most founders actually want?

Most founders want to be a better founder.

They want to grow their business and grow their life all at the same time.

They want a bit of everything.

They want to be a good person and they want a good business.

They want to grow as a person and grow their business.

Their identity, health and happiness is directly linked to the growth of their business - this is something to watch out for but it’s also something to totally accept as a vital strength in the early years.

What kind of founder needs a founder coach?

The specific nature of the founder I’m talking about is the one who is still figuring it out.

The one who isn’t in the rinse and repeat stage yet.

If you are in the rinse and repeat stage of your business, work with an exec coach about the scaling model you need to grow.

This isn’t about revenue milestones.

It’s about maturity.

If you are in the build phase, the phase where you are still figuring stuff out that only you can figure out - then I am talking to you.

You are the type of founder who would benefit from working with a founder coach beyond anyone else.

My definition of founder coaching is different to the typical definition of coaching. Firstly I believe that to be a “Founder Coach” then you must have been a Founder yourself at some point. You cannot relate or understand the founder experience if you have not experienced it yourself.

Secondly, my version of founder coaching breaks from the typical boundaries of coaching and blurs the lines between coaching, mentoring and advising. This is because I don’t believe that all founders only need coaching. Founders have stressful and intense roles filled with complexity and uncertainty - sometimes the most beneficial thing they have receive is advice or mentorship - not coaching.

Yet, the coaching approach is fundamental - creating a safe space for the founder to explore and share challenges and then creating a container for the coach to ask questions, share feedback and help the Founder find a path forwards.

Who is founder coaching for?

Founders! I only work with Founders and I class this as the person that started the business. I don’t work with CEOs or other leaders. In my experience these roles require totally different support.

Is founder coaching confidential?

Completely and this is a crucial part of the coaching contract. Not only will I ask you to share your feelings with me, I will also ask you to share business information so we can track your mood and the company performance. Two very important data sets. Everything you share is treated with complete confidentiality.

How is founder coaching different from executive coaching?

Founder coaching is for Founders and executive coaching is for executives. Sometimes founders receive executive coaching because they want to be better executives (CEO/CTO etc). This is not an area of interest or experience for me. I am skilled at support founders to be the best founders they can be - therefore we focus completely on your life and role as a founder, not as an executive.

Can coaching help burnout?

Yes. I believe that a committment to founder coaching can both prevent burnout and entirely and bring you back from it if that’s where you are. The safe space to discuss is a relief, but then the practical steps you will take from coaching sessions would allow you to move towards a situation that is more energising and nourishing for you.

Do founders need therapy or coaching?

Good question! I feel like everyone benefits from therapy at some point in their life. It depends on the context of the challenges being faced by the founder. Founder coaching can “feel” therapeutic but it is nothing like therapy. Founder coaching can support your mental health but it is not explicitly there for your mental health.

How long does founder coaching last?

I have no completion date or timeframe for a program of work. Our work finishes usually when you have reached your next milestone and this is when we feel like there is a natural end.

How much is founder coaching?

With me £1,000 - £2,000 a month depending on the number of sessions.

What will I get from founder coaching?

Beyond the other things I have listed on my website or the founder coaching page… everyone I have ever worked with has arrived at their destination. There is usually a reason or inner calling inside you that pushes you towards working with someone. I believe that if you follow that and commit to a process then in our work together I will help you get to where you want to go.

I dropped out of University to build a startup. Since then, I’ve spent 15 years building companies; 1 failure (MatchChat), 2 successful exits (Sanctus & The Knot) and coached 100+ founders to flourish.

I loved building Sanctus. I lived and breathed our mental health mission. It was my passion that built our brand, closed our first customers, investors and employees. I was in flow and we got to £1m ARR quickly.

At ~80 people and £2m+ ARR with 150+ b2b customers, I began losing my edge. People “smarter” than me gave advice and I wavered. I got confused on what to let go of and what to hold onto. I became stressed and anxious building my dream company. I didn’t know how to be a Founder & CEO authentic to me.

You set out to build the business of your dreams, for it to work for you and you end up burning out, working for it - Sifted

I hired a CEO and created a Founder role for me. I exited in 2022 to ScaleUp Capital, bringing in £8m of investment into the business and selling my shares along the way. I moved to a board role, wrote a book with Penguin on Mental Health at Work and created an MSc Entrepreneurship Course with University of Staffordshire. Sanctus has now merged with 2 other companies maintaining our brand.

Now, I help founders travel the same roads I have; 1) Create a business you love 2) Be yourself in it 3) Get to where you want to go.

Connect

I work with founders 1:1 to guide and support. I’m in your corner, on your side. I’m a mentor, coach and advisor that wants you and your business to win.

Who I work best with:

• Founders with revenue between £100k - £2m

• Founders with a social mission

• Founders who have lost or are losing their spark and want to get it back

• Founders who want to bring more soul and passion into their work

• Founders who want it all; no burnout, good mental health, good relationships and a great business.

Topics I support you with:

In our work together, we’ll discover what is important to you and go there. Here are some examples.

• setting a clear direction and strategy

• your role, loving what you do everyday

• delegation, hiring and letting go

• exit planning, leaving your business, selling shares, transitioning into something new

• mental health, self-care, burnout prevention

• relationships (employee, investors, co-founders)

• personal brand, writing and social media

• purpose, soul and essence of your company

Connect

Outcomes & ROI

Everyone I have ever worked with has moved forward and arrived at their destination.

1. Your business runs smoothly, you feel great and are happier and healthier than ever.
   ROI: Sanity

2. Your business grows 50% - 100% in 12-24 months, because you are in flow and making good decisions with guidance.
   ROI: 10 - 50x

3. You transition out or exit your business with an ongoing board role and/or cash amount.
   ROI: 10 - 50x
   
   Investment: £3k - £6k per quarter. 3 month trial and then rolling monthly.

How I work

• Weekly or fortnightly 60min deep dives where we make progress on 1-2 of your biggest challenges.

• Regular check-ins on text or voicenote

• Before each session you fill in an update sheet with key metrics, reflections and challenges.

• Your investment is £1,000 - £2,000 per month.

• I work 1:1 with you or with your founding team.

Steps Forward

1. Apply here

2. We discuss where you are and where you’d like to be.

3. We agree to work together.

4. I send a confirmation follow up confirming our contract and session dates

5. Pre-session you complete an Update Sheet that includes; KPIs, personal reflections and biggest challenges

6. A typical session; Framing, grounding, checking in for ~ 10 mins. Deep dive into your biggest challenges for ~40 mins. Checking out, agree takeaways and action for ~ 10 mins.

Connect

My style

I dance between coaching and advising you.

I don’t believe founders need a pure play coach. I believe most founders need someone who has been there and done it, with a coaching edge. That is me. I mostly believe you have the answers about your business, but you can’t always see a path you’ve never walked before.

My job is to show you the way.

FAQs

What is founder coaching?

My definition of founder coaching is different to the typical definition of coaching. Firstly I believe that to be a “Founder Coach” then you must have been a Founder yourself at some point. You cannot relate or understand the founder experience if you have not experienced it yourself.

Secondly, my version of founder coaching breaks from the typical boundaries of coaching and blurs the lines between coaching, mentoring and advising. This is because I don’t believe that all founders only need coaching. Founders have stressful and intense roles filled with complexity and uncertainty - sometimes the most beneficial thing they have receive is advice or mentorship - not coaching.

Yet, the coaching approach is fundamental - creating a safe space for the founder to explore and share challenges and then creating a container for the coach to ask questions, share feedback and help the Founder find a path forwards.

Who is founder coaching for?

Founders! I only work with Founders and I class this as the person that started the business. I don’t work with CEOs or other leaders. In my experience these roles require totally different support.

Is founder coaching confidential?

Completely and this is a crucial part of the coaching contract. Not only will I ask you to share your feelings with me, I will also ask you to share business information so we can track your mood and the company performance. Two very important data sets. Everything you share is treated with complete confidentiality.

How is founder coaching different from executive coaching?

Founder coaching is for Founders and executive coaching is for executives. Sometimes founders receive executive coaching because they want to be better executives (CEO/CTO etc). This is not an area of interest or experience for me. I am skilled at support founders to be the best founders they can be - therefore we focus completely on your life and role as a founder, not as an executive.

Can coaching help burnout?

Yes. I believe that a committment to founder coaching can both prevent burnout and entirely and bring you back from it if that’s where you are. The safe space to discuss is a relief, but then the practical steps you will take from coaching sessions would allow you to move towards a situation that is more energising and nourishing for you.

Do founders need therapy or coaching?

Good question! I feel like everyone benefits from therapy at some point in their life. It depends on the context of the challenges being faced by the founder. Founder coaching can “feel” therapeutic but it is nothing like therapy. Founder coaching can support your mental health but it is not explicitly there for your mental health.

How long does founder coaching last?

I have no completion date or timeframe for a program of work. Our work finishes usually when you have reached your next milestone and this is when we feel like there is a natural end.

How much is founder coaching?

With me £1,000 - £2,000 a month depending on the number of sessions.

What will I get from founder coaching?

Beyond the other things I have listed on my website or the founder coaching page… everyone I have ever worked with has arrived at their destination. There is usually a reason or inner calling inside you that pushes you towards working with someone. I believe that if you follow that and commit to a process then in our work together I will help you get to where you want to go.

My philosophy is simple. It places founder health, happiness and joy at the absolute epicentre of everything. The Founder is the source, therefore your vibrancy and vitality is of critical importance in your own life but also in the success of your business.

My Founder Philosophy

1. The Founder is the source of the company’s life force.

2. The Founder’s health, happiness and enjoyment is the most critical priority in the company.

3. The Founder must feel empowered to do whatever they want.

4. The Founder must serve the company’s purpose

5. The Founder’s needs must be met by the company

6. The Founder is the brand.

The Founder is the source of the company’s life force.

The founder is the company. The company does not exist without the founder. The company does not grow without the founder. If the founder has a bad month, the company has a bad month. The founder’s energy gives the company energy. The founder’s values give the company their values.

There is too much theory about letting go and delegating. Most of this is misunderstood. Legendary companies are built by legendary, ever-present founders. There is delegation and there are teams of people who do the jobs that you no longer do, but there is never ever a replacement for the founder. The founder continues to breathe life into the company forever. This fact and acknowledgement is the underpinning of everything.

The Founder’s health is a critical priority.

If the founder gives the company life. Then the founder must feel alive. Without this, the company will die because the spark of the founder will go out. The spark of the founder must be maintained as a roaring flame. If this does not happen, the company stagnates or it dies. Eventually it certainly dies.

The physical health of the founder is critical. The founder must prioritise their own health so that they can stay in service of the company and bring it to life. They must also shape the company in a way that over-time allows them to stay energised and in good health. Periods of stress and long working hours are typical yet they must never break the founder. The founder must be strong enough to not let the company break them.

The mental health of the founder is critical. The founder must work on their own mental health to remove any limiting beliefs or unconscious patterns that hold them back from making good decisions. The company will continue to test and push the founder to new frontiers within themselves and the founder must be able to attend to this psychological impact. The company must be set up in a way to work alongside the founders innate psychology and must be structured in whatever way works best for the founder.

The Founder must feel empowered to do whatever they want.

The founder cannot feel constrained. If the founder feels constrained then their creativity is dying, their magic is not flourishing. The founder must not be stopped by checks and balances, rules cannot get in the way of the founder being innovative. If this happens the company has lost its way. The founder always knows what to do and the founder must always be able to implement this.

The founder creates the company to serve a purpose and to serve their life and meet their needs. Therefore the founder must be able to shape the company in whatever way they want to for their needs to be met. If this is not happening then the founder has lost their freedom and their power and they will eventually lose their energy and health.

The Founder must serve the company’s purpose

The founder exists in the context of the company to serve its purpose. If the founder is not doing this then they are not doing their job, they are doing something else. Everything the founder does, is not for the company, it is for the higher purpose of the company, it is for the why, or for the soul. If the founder is not doing this then they will begin losing their way and will be out of alignment. They may begin feeling bored, or tired, or depressed or uninspired. The founder must always serve the higher purpose.

The Founder’s needs must be met by the company

The founder gives everything to the company, the founder gives the company life. This is very tiring and draining. Sometimes the founder goes a long time without receiving anything back, they do it out of love or because they had no choice. At some point, the founder must begin to be rewarded from the company, they must receive the benefits of their hard work. This is not just money but many other things. This is critical to the health and longevity of the founder.

The Founder is the brand

The founder is the brand and the company culture. The brand is created in the founder’s image. What the founder values, the company will value. What the founder cares for, the company will care for.

This is important. The company must wear the mark of its maker. Without this, there no soul, or no identity and no personality.

This philosophy is at the heart of my work with Founders.

I support all the founders I work with to find health and joy in their work.

I help you get you power back.

Go to therapy for long enough and it always seems that the punchline is; “just don’t think, be present!”

Or listen to any spiritual teacher from any tradition from catholicism through to buddhism and you will hear the same teachings about presence wrapped up in prayer, or meditation or god, or buddha, or englightment or heaven. It’s seemingly the same path with different signposts in different languages.

I’ve always had a difficult relationship with presence. Mainly because I never am. It’s actually not that natural for me to be “in the moment” I’m typically elsewhere, typically thinking.

I usually need quite extreme conditions or powerful connections to bring me into the moment. Like a sauna, ice bath or long hike. Or, beautiful company and conversation that makes me want to be nowhere else.

I know that general mindfulness practices are good for me. I meditate semi-regularly and I can often feel my feet on the floor or notice how something impacts me in my body.

My problem with presence is that it’s not somewhere I always want to be. When I become present I become extremely aware of my surroundings and my inner landscape. This, I know, is what I’m supposed to be doing. Yet I find this emergence, at times, challenging and don’t feel like I can take it all in. Whilst I know raising my awareness is supposedly a good thing, I feel that it can sometimes send me to almost feel “too much” and I find this overwhelming.

Rather than feel grounded in presence, I often feel overwhelmed by all that I feel, see and observe.

If I meditate in the garden and become present to a leaf blowing in the wind (which I often do), the beauty of this movement floors me, I could cry, I can’t fathom the enormity of how that tree arrived here - the trillions of events that had to happen in a random order for this moment to arrive.

I know that this is then another problem or personal challenge for me to work through - the need to understand or work everything out. The need to analyse. Why not just “be with” the leaf blowing in the wind. Yet this is like asking me not to inhale. This is my mind, this in many ways, is my gift. So just being present, I find challenging.

Gratitude, on the other hand, I’ve realised gives me so much more.

I think for me, if there is “an answer” which I know there isn’t. But if there is a state that creates peace within me. I believe it is gratitude.

There’s something about encouraging a state of gratitude that is totally different to encouraging a state of presence. Gratitude is more tangible to me. I can think of family, friends and people. I can look around and be happy to be here in this moment. I can be grateful for something very recent, like the clothes I am wearing or the oxygen going in and out of me.

Gratitude connects me to the long line of people and things that even allowed me to be alive in this moment. With gratitude I feel more connected to myself and to the world, like I am part of something. In turn, I do end up feeling more present and grounded.

I chose gratitude over presence.

Gratitude is more of a lens than it is a state of programming like presence. Sometimes I find the call to be more present a bit robotic for me. Whereas the call to be grateful is actually a call to love.

That’s what gratitude is really about I suppose, love. It’s a direct choice to see love and to see things beyond yourself. That’s it. That’s another thing that annoys me about how “presence” is sold to us. It’s so self-centred. Just be present and all will be well. Tell that to people in Gaza or Sudan, or to people that have just tragically lost someone. When we lost Teddy I didn’t go to feel my feet on the floor and do a body scan - I went to curl up on the sofa with Sarah and be grateful that we had a log burner and access to all Harry Potter films on streaming platforms.

I’m grateful that I can write freely.

I’m grateful that I have an audience of people that follow me and choose to listen to me.

I’m grateful my fingers and mind are healthy enough to tap away on this keyboard.

I’m grateful I can share little pieces of me with the world and that, sometimes, they land and make an impact.

James x

When I came back from France in June I made the commitment to “be myself every day”

The best manifestation of this intention is Jack the Lad, the fiction novel (Bridget Jones’s Diary for Men) that I have been working on, on and off, for 3 years now.

This book is ‘me’ and I don’t mean the story. I mean the process and act of writing itself. A book - long and deep. An imagined story created from thin air. The content - mental health, grief and the dark underbelly of lad culture.

All of this, is me. Writing a book like this and bringing it to the world is very “me” and this feels great.

Truly, for the first time in a long while, I feel as though I am being consistently James.

A few months ago, when Xander was even younger and sleep or downtime was in rare supply, I had a bath. It was probably one of the first moments in 3 months I had been able to pause. I’d been holding a little sprout in my arms, my son. This beautiful human mess that would grow into a toddler, a child, a teenager and then adult. I imagined the conversations I might have with him one day when he’s older, I hope when he might confide in me about his choices. I hope that he’ll have the confidence and belief to follow whatever his dreams may be. I imagined myself telling him this, to be brave and to make whatever choice lay in front of him. Then I imagined myself backing my advice up with a personal experience.

“Like I did…”

In that moment melting in the bath I honestly asked myself if I was living in integrity. If I was following my dreams and in the short moment I had to come back to myself the voice I’d heard so many times returned:

“Write that book James”

The voice isn’t like the other voices. It’s not a voice that worries about money. It’s not a voice that worries about status or success. It’s not even a voice that is attached to a particular outcome.

It’s a voice that has no backing, no data, no proof, but it’s a voice that has a conviction because it comes from a black place inside my stomach. It’s a voice I believe to be “the truth”

Since then I made a commitment to get myself in a position where I could write this book and turn my full attention to it, then bring it to the world.

This is where I currently am.

I’ve worked through the edits from my editor, I have an 87,481 word manuscript that I am happy with. I have written something that I am proud of. It’s with beta readers. I’m hiring a copy-editor, proof reader and book cover designer.

I have the conviction that I must self-publish. I know in my heart and in my soul that I must share this book with the world and I must diligently execute on my own plan to bring it to life, not outsource my success, or power, to a publisher.

I have written a lot about the unknown, about the fear of stepping into it. I am fully in it now. Yet strangely, I feel more certain than before. Before, the unknown was a portal I was scared to walk through. Now I have opened the gate and walked through I can actually see a path ahead. I have clear tasks, I’m not actually lost.

What I actually feel is risk and this makes my heart dance. I have turned off most of my stable coaching/consulting revenue and I am spending my time writing a fiction novel for men. Barmy. But I feel alive. As I type I am smiling. This is it for me. This is life. I feel happiness in my chest. I even feel a tad cheeky.

I know I am fully inside the unknown because the horizon I am walking towards is a place I’ve never been to before and I don’t know what is on the other side.

What I can see clearly are the steps to launch the book and a clear launch plan that I must execute to give my book the greatest chance of reaching many people. This is my marathon.

When I have done all of those tasks, I will have reached the finish line and after the finish line I can’t see what will happen.

• A flop and tumbleweed as a handful of my mates buy it and leave good reviews because I asked them to?

• It does ok, but after it’s out I’m again left with no clear idea of “what’s next?”

• Some other random opportunity emerges that I cannot foresee

• A global best seller turned into a film or Netflix TV series

I care what happens afterwards. My heart holds hope that it might do really well, that I might hit a nerve and tap into the public consciousness that exists in the popular conversation around men and masculinity.

I hold this hope warmly in my heart, with no shame around it. I can say with honesty that I want this book to reach great heights.

It’s a bit like holding a balloon. If I have to let it go, I will and I’d be sad to see it float off.

I will control what I can and after that, what will be will be - I trust that life, or god, or nature or providence will give me the next step on my path and it’ll all make sense.

It’s book time and it does feel really really good.

Cheers,

James x

When we lost Teddy in October ‘25. A friend made me a pendant necklace with a green stone in it to remind me of the baby we lost.

I’ve worn it almost every day since.

I’m now making more of them for people who want to stay connected to their loved ones and move forward through their grief.

At the time I was searching for an item that could somehow represent and symbolise my grief. It’s not that I necessarily wanted to immortalise Teddy. My experience of grief was that I wanted to mourn deeply, to move through and to let go. Whilst I knew the scar would never leave the tree, I wanted to grow around it.

I wanted to remember Teddy as a star in the sky and just as importantly for me, I wanted to stay connected to what I’d vowed to myself through that journey. The lessons learned and the line in the sand that this loss created in my life. There was me before and me after. I always want to be reminded of that.

Googling “Jewellery for Grief” - I couldn’t find anything I wanted. There wasn’t anything elegant or subtle. None of it felt “me” nor did any of it chime with my experience of loss. Nothing connected to me.

Then Marni made me this.

This necklace keeps Teddy’s memory close to me, I stay connected to that time in my life and have a visual reminder and symbol for everything I learned along the way.

For me this lesson was about gratitude. Losing Teddy made me reconnect to all that I had around me, before I was always looking forwards, always worried about what I didn’t have. Losing Teddy grounded me to rock bottom, took me deeply to the present and made me realise all the love I already have, that I have everything I need. That’s the lesson of my grief. Every time I touch this pendant, I remember that.

One day I’ll lose someone else close to me and when I do, I’ll add another stone to the pendant. Another mark, another star in the sky. It’s a piece of jewellery that will grow with me.

Marking moments of grief, loss and endings.

This necklace has literally been under my nose and when I came back from a restful month in France, I started wearing it every day again. I posted about it online. 10 people asked me for one. I’ve had 4 more made and sold 3 of them. All handmade to order with different stones for different memories.

A seed that I didn’t know I’d planted has sprouted and now I’m nurturing it. Giving it a little bit of water. Some air.

For the first time in a while I’m excited about something “business” related. How an object like this can create a meaningful impact for someone. How it can literally be touching. And I can see something. I can see a vision. Different pieces, different collections all for different chapters and moments in our lives.

• The grief collection.

• The parent collection.

• The sold a business collection.

• The divorce collection.

Jewellery for chapters, pieces that help you cross thresholds.

I need to get something made for becoming a dad. I want a dad necklace, or a dad ring. I’m thinking a gold pendant with a diamond in it. Why don’t men ever buy diamonds?

And that feeling is here. I daren’t speak to it too loudly because it’s so fragile, I don’t want to blow it away. Any founder knows this feeling. When you create something and someone values it for the first time. When an idea becomes real before your eyes. It’s real life magic. A person connecting to you and you to them over the internet, exchanging their hard earned money for something you brought to life. It’s special. It’s the best kind of dopamine hit. Much more so when it matters like this.

The first 4 necklaces are in production. The next steps are to create a brand name, website and to see if more people might connect with this product and idea.

That’s the next step. Let’s see if this seed might sprout a little higher.

Cheers,
James x

I feel restless, with an itch to move, driven by a nagging feeling that I don’t belong where I am.

I’ve felt this before, many times. I know many do, yet some of us bury this itch until the part of you desperate to come out gives up and dies. I can’t do this.

I felt it first at 18/19. I lived at home, in Stoke, but I got the itch. I began to feel like I didn’t belong. I was restless to flee.

From then on, I didn’t stay anywhere for long; Sheffield, Newcastle and London. I was not too bothered about where I was at that point in my life. These were flats to sleep in. Places to be and work from. The place didn’t matter because I was on the path I needed to be - these were all stops along the way.

Landing in London, I felt part of something. I actually felt like I belonged there, possibly for the first time in my life. The city was so full and deep I felt like I could explore it forever. The startup scene was an eclection of geeks, weirdos, pirates, suits and geniuses that somehow I fit into. In building a mental health business, I created my own tribe that sat comfortably within all of that.

Yet the itch grew in me again. The pull to leave, the ache to move. I heard it in my mind and in my body. My head told me about the money I’d need to belong in London. My body told me how tired I was of the sirens and the condensation on the inside of the windows in my flat.

The startup scene that had once been so fun and enlivening began to feel heartless again - social change wrapped up in pitch decks. I wanted to change the world and in the end I felt like I just built a tiny little cog that continued to make the world spin round, when I’d have preferred to halt it altogether.

The search began again, Lisbon(?) Brighton (?) Staffordshire (?) back to London (?)

Staffordshire it was, home, back to the place I grew up. The one I left because I didn’t fit in. Here again, as an adult this time, as a new person.

I’ve tried, lord I’ve tried, tried to hard to fit. Built communities, a newspaper, met everyone, started run clubs. Yet the nagging feeling inside has never left. The ache that I feel from this lack. The longing to belong. If not here, where?

I don’t feel it every day. I enjoy my life. I love my family. I love the friends I have. But I always have the ache in the pit of my stomach. The wonderings in my mind of where else I could be,

I feel a stranger, an outsider - not a native, not a neighbour. I look around the streets in the coffee shops and see nobody that looks like me, mainly retirees out for tea and cake. When I do find the creative and entrepreneurial community I crave on the industrial estates - there isn’t the same values alignment. I’m the odd one out because I don’t actually care about business. I want to talk about art, soul and story.

I can’t just flee or act on impulse this time. It’s not that simple now. Even though I have felt this ache for a while, I haven’t acted on it. I live with it. The confusion and uncertainty is heavy, it’s in my head, on my mind. Where do I belong? Where do I want to live? What community can I be part of? If not here, where? If not there, where? Who am I? Who am I? Will I ever fit in? Is this even about place? Or is this about me?

These questions weigh on me, weigh in me. A long ache I feel every day that I’ve felt for years.

I wonder if some of it might be resistance. Resistance to being on my own. To being different, weird. A desire to be like everyone else that aches on me and stops me living freely in whatever way I want. I’m writing about this already, working through this. I already know this. Just be a curly wurly James.

And then the practicalities of work, commutes, work opportunities, house prices and childcare.

All of this leaves me in a bind. Trapped in my own web of confusion about where to be. It leaves me locked in the middle.

People tell me this is being an adult. This is being a parent. This is compromise. You can’t have it all. This is just life mate.

Yet I am searching for a different way of being and I can’t rest until I find it. I don’t believe this, that life is all sacrifice and compromise. I don’t believe I have to trade, I’ve always believed that I can have it all. It’s this itch that has always driven me.

I’ve been searching for something. Something that isn’t a massive mortgage and the rat race. Something that isn’t stressing about child care. That isn’t booking in to see your mates 6 weeks in advance. A life that isn’t calendar invites and working late on the laptop on the sofa. A life where friends pop in. Where plans don’t always need to be made. One where we eat often together, with others. A life where there’s nature and creative energy. Where hustle and inner peace can find a way to coexist.

I want it all. I don’t want a compromise. People tell me life is sacrifice, perhaps I need to let go.

Perhaps I can’t have chickens in the garden and a creative community around the corner. Perhaps I can’t have fame and riches and an early night on the sofa watching Tour de France with Sarah. Perhaps I need to grow up, let it go.

But I won’t. Because I have this dream for an extraordinary wholesome life.

This probably isn’t about the place I’m in. It probably never has been or never was. I imagine this is all about me. About me finding home in myself first. Accepting who I am and being that version of me everyday and when I do that, I’m sure everything else will follow.

I’m not there yet, truthfully you could put me anywhere and I’d feel conflicted, I’d take myself with me and still be writing this newsletter.

I’m getting closer. Closer to being me every day. No doubt when I’m there, when I feel at home within. I’ll find it outside too.

Cheers,

James x

But really, I’m a curly wurly

Sometimes I feel that I’m so curly that I’m not even a wurly. I’m a squishy squidgy pigdy thing that isn’t even a shape. It’s just a thing. A blob. Not even a blob. A shape you can’t define or explain.

However, I’m fantastic at turning myself into a straight line.

In fact I’m fantastic at becoming any shape anyone or any thing needs me to be.

I’ll straighten myself up and bend myself around to squeeze into whatever box I need to.

I was brilliant at this at school. That was so easy. Laughable how easy it was. Just remember a few answers to questions and write them all down again to get top marks.

Sometimes I actually liked the shapes I was bending myself into. They fit nice and snug. The shapes in Maths I enjoyed, and in English and French.

Other times I snapped myself about just to fit in.

Like when we were all going out at 19 and every lad in Stoke wore polo shirts with logos on. I bought them too. I hate polo shirts, but everyone else wore them so I did it to fit in.

Many times I tried so hard to uncurly my wurly but I couldn’t. My wurlyness just popped out. Like when I went to Uni, but dropped out after 2 years to start a rubbish tech startup. There were only 9 hours of lectures a week, what else was I supposed to do? All you had to do was read books and write about them.

Other times I straightened myself out so much each day until I forgot I was curly after all. That hurt. Pretending to be a tech startup CEO did that to me.

Recently. I’ve been trying to find a shape to fit into. I’ve been looking for a hole to walk into where I fit all perfect and snug. I’ve been trying to put myself into a box. I can’t find the right one.

There’s no curly wurly shaped hole for me :(

Founders are often kind of curly but so many of them have the straight edges and serious faces about BUSINESS and MONEY and serious important stuff that I find BORING.

There are lots of curls and squiggles in the founder box that I like, but it still doesn’t always feel like the right shape for me.

Writers are weirdos too. But so many of them are reclusive and live in solitude and are strange observers of the world, living in cracks in the pavement. I’m not that curly am I? That shape doesn’t feel quite right either.

I’m a Dad and a Husband and a Son and a Friend. I’m all those shapes too. Sometimes when I’m packing the car to go out with Sarah and Xander and I’m making sure it’s all organised in the right way I think; “yeah this is what a Dad should do, I’m doing it right!”

Then other times when I couldn’t care less about the price of petrol or the MPG and that drill I bought is gathering dust in the pantry and the shed at the bottom of the garden should have been painted years ago, I think; “that particular shape of Dad isn’t right for me”

The man box is rubbish. I like football but the other lads don’t even let me in the football box because I don’t get aboslutely battered when watching England and I don’t talk waffle or hot air about Football. I try and talk about the economics behind Football and how it’s interesting that it’s the most popular sport in the world but it’s revenue falls way behind the less popular American Football (which is why American businessmen are buying Premier League clubs). Nobody else finds that bit as interesting as whether Kane is better than Rooney (he isn’t, but if we win the World Cup he will be).

All these boxes aren’t quite right for me. I don’t fit in any of them!!

And I can’t bend any more. I won’t bend any more. You know what, I don’t even want to be in a box at all.

I just want to be really curly. Really frizzy. I just want to be whatever mad shape I am. I don’t want to change it to fit into boxes.

Why am I trying to squidge my curly wurlyness into the shape of a pentagram or a 15 sided circular triangle? Why would I want to be a square????!!!!!!

I must stop doing this. Now.

I must begin being a proper serious curly wurly.

That must begin today.

Each day I’ll ask myself.

What would a curly wurly do?

Wait, what would a curly wurly actually do?!

James x

This mountain is my mirror, I’ve seen my reflection:

• I’m more afraid of myself than I am of failure

• I’m actually afraid of “being weird”

• I’m more powerful when I don’t think

• I’m a Dad, that’s my priority.

It’s different here. Life revolves around the mountain and the massif. In my previous post, when I wrote from Annecy; life revolves around the Lake. I felt calm and serene.

Here, I feel challenged, provoked, tired. Perhaps the more experienced parents were waiting for the reality of a roadtrip with an 8 month old baby to hit.

I love this place though. I love mountains. This view from our balcony of Mont Blanc is spectacular. The mountain dominates the sky line. It looms over you, intimidating. The mountain here dominates you. It’s magnetic.

A proper proper mountain like this pulses. As if it’s breathing. A deep slow long breath.

I find the enormity of the mountain scary and inspiring. There’s a real power in it. You can feel it, and see it. So many edges, peaks, depth, a glacier. This mountain can kill you if it wants to.

Last time I was here touring it, it opened me up and made me see that I didn’t believe in myself. Yet after 5 days and 110 miles, it showed me how strong I was.

The mountain does speak to me if I let it. If I stare at it long enough and listen.

I imagine it making a sound; a deep ominous gong. Like an “Ommmmmm”. I feel that very deep in the pit of my stomach. That’s what the mountain says to me.

And then if I listen. If I let it speak. Like it might in a Disney film if it were to open its big gargantuan mouth. It says to me “you’re more powerful than you think” I hear that as “you’re powerful, when you don’t think.”

I feel the power in the mountain because I feel that power in me too. The mountain scares me because I’m scared of my own power. I wrote last time that I’ve made the intention that when I return from this trip I’ll be myself every day.

I’m scared of that. That’s the truth. I’m scared of myself. Sounds crazy to say at 35. I feel like I shouldn’t be saying stuff like this now, I should have it all nailed down. I should have myself nailed down.

But it’s true. I’m scared of myself. Scared of my own power. Scared of who I am. Who I truly am. Or who I’m becoming. I’m more scared of what I may become than I am of failure. I actually think most people are more scared of who they might become than they are of staying the same. Change, the loss that comes with it and the unknown outcomes is the scariest bit.

We’re more afraid to meet ourselves than we are to stay stuck in the “gray promise of sameness”. I know I am.

I’m still not sure what I’m afraid of. Being weird is one I think. Being weird and having no mates because I’m so unconventional. Being seen as crazy or an oddball. Not being a straight line. Not fitting in a box. Being a circle not a square. Being misunderstood.

Sitting in front of the mountain each night makes me realise this truth inside me more.

Sitting in front of this mountain I can’t help but surrender. It’s so powerful you can’t beat it. You can’t hide your truth from this immensity. I’m afraid of change. I’m afraid of changing. I’m afraid of who or what I may become.

Coming to Chamonix with Xander has made me fully surrender to becoming a dad. I can’t hide from this truth either. I’ve not been anywhere near the mountain really. No trails. No summits. No cable cars. Flat walks in the valley that haven’t even come close to scratching my itch to climb. I’ve come to a place I adore and I’ve done nothing that I adore whilst here. My own desires to climb or do whatever I want have been seconded by nap time and weaning.

I’m a dad and Xander comes first. Always. That doesn’t mean I won’t have my own hobbies, passion etc - but my priorities have undeniably shifted. I can’t hide from that. I see it so clearly with Mont Blanc as my backdrop.

Now, the mountain is stormy and rainy. Full of thunder and lightning.

I see this mountain clearly. I see myself clearly too.

James x

We’re away for a month.

I said I wouldn’t work. Or write. Or do anything that isn’t being completely present and connected with my family and this place.

But the feeling I have here, I have to share.

I want to bottle this up and to share a piece of it.

I feel total and utter peace and tranquility. I’m contented and fulfilled.

I’m watching my 7 month son unfold before my eyes with the backdrop of mountains and lake.

He’s watching birds fly across the water. He’s shouting at the waves gently lapping to the shore.

And I’m totally here for it. Totally calm, present and attentive. In a way that I find hard to ever attain.

I’m not on holiday. I’m not travelling. This container is a break into a new world and this place is my haven.

I want to share this feeling because it’s so opposed to the ones I left England with.

As we packed the car to leave I was full of stress, fear and anxiety. I was working hard up to this point, earning my keep and Xander was sleeping badly.

My mind was full of rain and clouds. I wasn’t there. I was elsewhere. I was in my head. I kept leaving the fridge door open.

A 5 minute body scan meditation wouldn’t do. A walk around the block in the fresh air did nothing. My mind was full.

After a 3 day road-trip to the Alps, I feel totally different. Calm, clear, present.

It’s a reminder that how I feel now is actually how I want to feel. It’s how I’m meant to feel. It’s how we’re actually wired to feel.

It’s possible. It’s actually possible to feel like this for a sustained period of time.

I know I’m in the holiday romance and the good fortune of a month off. Still, I’m reminded that this state exists.

This blue sky. This silvery lake water. These mountains. They exist in me.

This place is heaven on earth.

It’s mystical and magical. Full of fairytale towns that surround the Lake - natures ultimate playground.

There’s something about a dip in a lake compared to the sea. The water is thicker, more viscous and not salty. The feeling of being cleansed is heightened. You are surrounded, not by an open horizon, but by mountains rising up high. In a bowl. As if it was made just for you.

I feel awed here. The lake, the mountains and the trees have carved their way into my bones.

This is all in the postcard of caring for a 7 month old every day. 3 meals a day. Weaning. Food on the floor. Naps. Bottle. Sterilising. Getting him down. Packing the car. Unpacking the car. Nappy change. Wet wipes. Need more nappies. Forgot the sun umbrella.

The rhetoric about parenting I was feeding off at home is all based on scarcity and lack. Being a parent is SO hard. No it’s not. Our lives are hard or tiresome, or unfulfilling. Therefore parenting feels very hard. Being a parent is actually the easiest thing in the world. Babies are perfect. We just mostly live in an environment or state that clouds this true reality. I know I can’t live on holiday permanently, but I’m reminded that it is possible to feel more like this. To be a parent more like this.

With this space I’ve afforded myself, I feel an ease. An inner nature. A knowing. I don’t need an instagram reel to tell me how to be a parent or put my child to sleep. This is in me. This is tiring, but it’s not hard. It’s my nature.

I said to myself that when I return from this trip I’ll be myself every day.

I don’t even know what that means. Or how that manifests, or why I’m sharing that here now, but that’s my intention.

I’m done playing other people’s games and constantly changing uniforms. No more roles or characters. This trip is a circuit breaker for me. On return. I’m James. Me.

I can feel this change occurring. I’m returning to the mountains and the lakes inside of me. They run deep and they soar high.

This tale is a reminder to me and to anyone reading that whatever the weather your mind is in.

You can always find the stillness you seek.

James

P.s I’ll respond in July, but may write again here before then

• Create opportunities in Stoke & Staffordshire

• Create jobs

• Promote creativity and entrepreneurship

• Create wealth

• Increase Stoke-on-Trent’s reputation nationally and internationally

• Foster a shared purpose and sense of community

• Stoke to be a leading example of community, sustainability and creativity

Closing a Chapter

Three years on and I’m reflecting on how far I’ve come and how impactful I may or may not have been.

This reflection and critique, is part of me closing a chapter. This is something I’m becoming more and more comfortable about - starting and then ending. My stretch is to learn to detach and then let go. To not hold all my hopes on a rocket reaching the moon - being happy just seeing the stars.

I decided to use my friend Claude to help me critically review my work on Mission Stoke and rank my efforts. Before I do, here’s my “Mission Stoke” portfolio:

• The Knot - independent news outlet with 3,000+ weekly readers, 115 paid supporters. (Founded)

• Peter Coates MSc Entrepreneurship - Masters course ran from 2023 - 2025. 100 students, ~65% now running own business, ~4 received seed funding. (Co-created course and delivered)

• Made in Stoke - community for global “Stokies” to give back to Stoke and platform for philanthropy. (Re-branded and led for 12 months)

• Forget-me-Knot FC - football club for Bereaved Dads in North Staffordshire (part of founding team)

There’s an objectivity in this robotic view of my work in this space. One I can’t hide from. It’s true I can’t yet tangibly measure any economic impact. Forget-me-Knot FC certainly is beyond the brief, I wasn’t expecting that.

Lesson 1: Grieve before you go again

In truth, when I began this work I was rather lost. Grieving a previous identity, mission, community and place. A mission in Stoke was both a comfort blanket and a distraction. A new relationship I could throw myself into. On reflection, I’d have done the deep dark grieving into nothingness before throwing myself two-footed into regional development and place-making - that’s the lesson for me and I think the lesson for other founders. Don’t go from one thing into the next. Take the time to stop and really let go - then let your next passage emerge organically. Don’t be too afraid of the dark.

Lesson 2: This was really really hard

My other reflection on this mission is how hard it has been. I found changing the narrative around mental health much easier to be honest. The community I was part of (London) was much more receptive and the ability to build a business and mission around that initial concept of perception change and mental health gym’s was much easier.

Creating change around a Place that is so full of stories, history and deeply entrenched views and identities has been much harder. Especially when needing to find money to make the mission sustainable - there is much less of that frothy “startup” capital here to take risks and give people a chance. Add in powerful macro-economic factors too and you’ve got a real job on your hands.

Lesson 3: Don’t rescue. Listen and accept.

I may also have missed the brief a little. Being so full of anxiety at the start of this mission I was really trying to rescue this place and rescue myself in it. Intentionally, I really wanted to give this area some positivity. This worked and was very well received. Yet truthfully, inside me was a desire to rescue and to create change immediately. I literally wanted Stoke to regenerate in 2 years and become more like a place such as Sheffield overnight.

However, the brief here actually needed to be more about acceptance than about change. If I were to really listen to the cries of the people here, it’s not that they need someone to tell them how great this place really is. They don’t need persuading. They need to be listened to. I’m a well-off guy who moved back from London - I want this area to get a few more coffee shops and independent eateries so I can work remotely from here, commute to London and meet more people like me. Yet, the real truth is that the majority of people here are worried about their day to day life - energy prices, job opportunities, money, housing and health. If I wanted to do a better job in my aim to regenerate this area, I’d have been more patient and focused on really listening to the mood and emotion of the majority.

Instead, I created a platform for advocacy where a smaller number of people could feel proud to be from this area and create momentum in a conversation around change. It’s still done well, but there’s a lesson for me that sometimes the most powerful thing you can do to change something, is to accept it.

I tried very hard to change Stoke and Staffordshire. Actually, I’d have been better off working harder to accept it, and then more change will come.

What I did do

On a personal level, I need to get better at celebrating what I have achieved, as opposed to lingering on what I have not. I’ve created a platform to launch businesses. Taught and mentored entrepreneurs. Created a philanthropy platform. Built an independent media company and fostered more pride in this place. As my father-in-law Nick said to me, it’s more than most will do in a lifetime.

There’s the intangible stuff too. 50,000 LinkedIn followers know that I’m from Stoke. I’ve been in loads of national press about Stoke. I’ve been a personal advocate for this place. I helped start a run club here, helped send some invites out for a feature film about Stoke. Culture change isn’t always visible - it’s gritty and behind the scenes. It’s conversations on social media, it’s challenging people’s views in person. It’s underground, behind the scenes - it happens in pubs and coffee shops or at home.

Personal reflection

One thing I find hard about new chapters is feeling that I’m letting people down. Especially in this area, the feeling like I’m giving up on people (like everyone else does). I have to live with this. I have to live with myself actually - that I am someone who runs really hot, and then cold, someone who changes lots of lanes.

Perhaps the ultimate lesson for me is that just as I’ve learned to truly accept this area for what it is, and expect no more. I must do that for myself too. Accept that I’m really good at whipping up a movement and taking something from zero to one.

Just like with Stoke’s development, I believe it’s in this acceptance of myself that growth will really come.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Cheers,

James

P.s if you’ve been following my work in Stoke/Staffs then I’ll be sharing an exciting update/announcement next week

Last night that number was 32.

The oldest message is from a month ago. I like this person.

Some of these messages are from family. Some from friends. Some from people I used to work with. Some live in the UK, some outside of it. Many are in groups I’m part of.

I could be responding to these messages right now. I could be talking to these people right now, but I can’t get there. I don’t have the energy.

I’d love to speak to any of these 16 people in person. If they knocked on my door right now I’d let them in and put the kettle on, or go for a walk.

Yet I can’t bring myself to pick up my phone, click on that green little icon, crane my neck and type away. I can’t bring myself to read their message, to let it land, to feel with them or think about what to say and give them the response they deserve.

That sounds crazy doesn’t it? Given one of the messages is from an Aunty asking for a trail running vest I said I’d lend her. The other a message from a close mate asking how my family are. But the thought of responding, the thought of going into that ream of unread messages makes my chest go tight. I just don’t have the energy for it. I can’t be bothered.

The thought of responding feels heavy. As soon as I open the app and look at the messages I “should” respond to I feel flat. The love I might feel for many of the people in this list evaporates into a task that needs to get done.

I hear people talk about whatsapp now like it’s email, saying things like “I just need to get through some whatsapps” or “ugh I’ve got so many people I need to reply to”

Aren’t we talking about our friends here?

I hate that friendships and relationships are being reduced to tasks to be completed on a frenzied whatsapp feed. I hate that whatsapp itself is now a place of clutter and confusion. Work, personal, family and community all blend into one.

And I hate that I’m here finding writing about this problem far easier than picking up my phone and replying to people I would call friends.

The honest truth is I just don’t want to. I barely want to be on my phone any more and I don’t think many people do. I think this instant messaging culture is vacuous. It’s reducing relationships and friendships to a chain of text, a series of voicenotes or messages marked as unread. I would never treat anyone I know in person like I do on whatsapp.

If someone spoke to me in person I wouldn’t stare them blankly in the face, ignore them for a month and then apologise for not responding because I’m busy.

It’s because the medium is ultimately a lie. I’m not available. Right now I’m barely available at all. So when someone messages me on whatsapp the communication from the very start is false. I’m not available - this conversation should not even be happening probably.

Instead, a bank of guilt and social pressure is built up upon me. Pressure that I don’t really want right now, but pressure that I’m implicitly available to.

People tell me it’s fine. Nobody expects an immediate response these days. Everyone leaves stuff unread. It’s fine. Everyone gets it.

That to me is even crazier, what are we all doing then? If it’s ok to not respond to each other for weeks, are we even mates?

I know that the deeper question that sits underneath unread messages on whatsapp is about friendships and relationships. Where does a relationship start and where does it end? Do friendships end at all now?

If a relationship now exists purely on whatsapp, what is that relationship now? Is an online friendship a friendship at all?

I know that everyone, absolutely everyone have people on whatsapp that they reply to in an instant. Me included. Yet everyone I know leave some messages for weeks. This isn’t about whatsapp, it’s about modern friendship when we have technology that enables us to keep in touch 24/7 for a lifetime.

I’m not sure all friendships and all relationships are meant to last a lifetime, but we now have technlogy that allows us to be “open and connected” forever. Technology, social media and instant messaging platforms should facilitate friendship, relationships and communities - not replace them, not be the only entry point to them.

I have no answers. No solutions. No hacks. I just have 16 unread whatsapp messages that I’ll feel bad about until I find the time and energy to reply. After I respond I’ll have 23 more unreads and the cycle will continue.

All I know, and I’m very certain about this. This is not sustainable. This is not friendship and I don’t think this is healthy for relationships. We really need to reflect on what friendships and relationships look like now in a world where we can be constantly connected. I don’t think this will be easy, it’ll feel personal and painful to everyone in different ways.

Something has to change for me. I don’t like this way of connecting with people. I have 16 unread whatsapps, but I don’t see 16 friends in person in a month. This is upside down. This is not right.

Our use of technology or social media is a mirror into what you are experiencing in your life. For me I’m asking myself who my mates are right now? As I become a dad. I’m asking myself who’s in my life and who’s in my family’s life? Who will know my son?

I’m asking myself too. What are my boundaries? Do I want my whatsapp available for work so that the founders who pay me to support them are sitting alongside the family whatsapp group? I’m not sure.

And who do I have energy for? And who has energy for me? Whatsapp is a painful mirror to this, I’m probably avoiding that. On top of the truth that with a 6 month old bay I barely get 30 minutes to myself every day and I don’t want to spend that time neck craned patting away on whatsapp.

I know this is becoming universal and I’m certain this isn’t a sustainable way to create meaningful relationships and friendships over a lifetime. I have no answers just some questions for us all;

• If, like me, you have many unread whatsapp messages on a constant basis. Is this working for you?

• Is this how you want to relate to your friends?

• What does the state of your unread messages on whatsapp tell you about your friendships and who your friends are?

As I said, all personal questions, possibly uncomfortable truths. Yet I think we all need to ask them. I know I can’t go on with my 16 unread whatsapps.

Cheers,
James x

p.s if you are one of my unread whatsapp messages, I will get back to you - I’m just not sure when.

You say “goo” and I say “How was your day then?” You say “gah” and I say “Really? Did you enjoy it?”

We talk, not typical conversations. A series of “goos” “gahs” and “ehs”. You reach for my face. You scream “ahhhh” when I turn away. You always smile first thing in the morning when we open the blinds.

You’re in my bones now. When we wrestle, you lie on my chest and I say “are you gonna get me?” “you’re not gonna get me”. You’ve already got me. I’m yours.

When I look up from that spot, your face is my whole world. It’s only when I see you from a distance, in your high chair or in someone else’s arms that I remember how tiny you still are.

There’s never been any doubt, but perhaps on some level there was. There is now no doubt that you are here. You’re in my life, forever. That thought settles me now, whereas perhaps it frightened me before. Is this it? Yes, this really is it. Yes, you really are here. “You enjoyed your brocolli last night didn’t you? It’s nice isn’t it. Mummy and Daddy like brocolli too.”

I thought I’d want to share you all the time. I thought being a dad would become my new thing. I thought maybe, I’ll become a dad-fluencer. Maybe, maybe being a dad will give me a new professional purpose.

You have given me a new purpose, but not a professional one. Not one for social media. I’m yours, all yours. This isn’t for everyone else.

I share so many of my thoughts and ideas with others that I want you just for me. I don’t want to bare my journey as a dad all the time. I want privacy, I want intimacy, I want what we have in our four walls to be special - just for us. I thought I might think deeply about my role as a dad. I might read books and write about fatherhood. But I don’t want to, I don’t want to think about being a dad and turn it into a job online. I want my job with you as a dad in the real world.

Because here’s the truth. I’m already noticing the moments when I’m not fully present with you. When I drift off thinking about work. I don’t like it. I don’t hate it, i’m kind enough to myself to let it go, but I don’t like it. I don’t want you, or our family to become my work. You’re my life. I don’t need to read books to tell me how to be a dad. I already know how to be one, it’s in me. When I am totally present with you - nothing has ever felt more natural to me in all my life. For once, just once - I don’t need to think. For someone who lives in their head, I can’t tell you how much of a pleasure this is. How real this feels.

All of these feelings that come up are enough for me for a lifetime. The complexity, the strain, the guilt, the presence, the helplessness, the lack of control. I didn’t know what to do when you had that cough last week, I wish I could tell you just to blow your nose. I wish I could blow it for you.

Your growth dictates our life. Everything about you is new and everything about our life right now is new. Sarah, who I now refer to 60% of the time as “Mummy” is ordering new baby grows every 5 minutes, she’s googling “allergic reactions to Aubergine” and I’m assembling new furniture or baby products at 9.30pm every night.

Your growth is explosive and our life is exploding with you in it. Every morning is like that scene in Harry Potter in Bellatrix Lestrange’s vault at Gringotts. Toys, books, nappies, wet wipes, milk, bottles, food exploding and multiplying everywhere and everywhere until you can’t see the floor. We tidy it up again and again and again, for you to put that little red cup in your mouth and throw it on the floor again and again and again.

It’s all new. New furniture. New routines. New teeth. Blink and we miss it. We miss you.

And we are obsessed with you. We’re all obsessed with you. I’m obsessed with your breath. How you breathe. Breath itself. It’s as if you are a living embodiment of life itself. Do you take the breath in? Or are you given the breath by the world? You’re giving me answers to questions I didn’t know I had and giving me even more questions to answer.

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I want to be more like you and less like me. You make me want to be a child again, a baby. I love seeing the world through your eyes. I never noticed the tiny flower buds on that bush at the bottom of the garden. I never looked up and saw the bare branches of that tree against the blue sky. I never stopped for long enough to listen to the wind chime and watch the birds in the sky. “Gah” “Yes, that is a birdy”

Your eyes might just be the greatest gift, to hold you up to the world and be your platform - to let you look out from our body. And to gaze in them, as deep as I can to let you know how loved you are. To see the ocean in those eyes. The waves of possibility and of imagination, of who you are and who you might be. There is so much depth in those eyes.

I have to constantly give myself permission to be here. To be with you. I have to constantly remind myself that work isn’t the only way to be a dad, even though it feels like a really big one. The hunger to provide in me is real. I want to make money. For you, for us, for our life and I’m owning this urge within me. It feels real and true. Yet I also have the growing desire to be as physically present with you as I can and this is a conflict. I might be only the second man in my whole family tree who really has the privilege and option to be a very present dad. So I try and tear myself away from my desk when I know i’m done. Even though I’m scared to stop, I never regret finishing early to be with you.

Only now, possibly for the first time have I taken a moment to stop and let you sink further into me. 3 months ago I said that you were on my skin. Now you’re in my bones.

6 months of you and I’m only just realising that I have a lifetime of you.

Cheers,
Dad x

For a while now, I’ve been saying “I’m at 30% of my potential”

For a while now, I’ve felt this tug on my heart, these whisperings in my soul.

Something unsaid. Something unfinished. Some part of me dormant, in the shadows - desperate to come out.

I haven’t ignored this voice. I’ve just not known what to say back.

This longing in me has remained, this urge unexplained. I’ve felt it, day after day - in the back of my mind. In my cluttered thoughts. In my head at night as I close my eyes.

In my dreams, I wonder, where could I go? What could I do?

And yet, when I wake. When I walk the streets for a morning walk, or make a morning coffee. Whilst I’m full of the warm glow of contentment and comfort, I feel something missing. I know in my heart there is some emptiness in me and in my life.

Aliveness, spark, fear, fire, risk. I’m at 30%. I’ve been here for a while.

I’m in the wrong lane and I can’t quite get out. There’s too much traffic coming through and I can’t pull aside. My indicator has been on for a while. I’m driving too close to that car in front, I’m impatient to get out of this lane. But I don’t know how.

These lanes manifest for me day to day in my work. My work in Stoke and Staffordshire on regional development through the creation of the MSc Entrepreneurship course and starting a local media outlet is no longer the right lane for me and hasn’t been for a while. It’s the slow lane, in fact if I don’t get off it soon I’ll end up on the M56 to Warrington. As much as I wish it could be different and I could find the community, energy and progression I want that feeds my soul. It is not in this lane. When I stay in this lane, I do not feel alive.

My work with founders as a coach, advisor and mentor is rewarding. I find satisfaction in helping others and being a confidante, guide and counsel. This comes easily and naturally to me. I see a world here; a career, a business of James. Find your niche, hone it, scale it. Build a 7 figure coaching practice. I could stay in this lane and here I am for now. I’m on the motorway.

It’s the middle lane though. You know, the one you’re not actually meant to be in for that long. You’re either overtaking, or getting out of the way to be overtaken. And you’re not supposed to hog it. Either get in the slow lane, or get in the fast lane. Pick one.

It’s comfortable in the middle lane. You have to be watchful of course. There’s still traffic. Freelance work is feast and famine. It comes, it goes. As much as I enjoy this work and the flexibility that comes with it. My soul feels as conflicted as ever here. Constantly flirting with the dreams of others. Being a bit-part player in someone else’s drama. I drop in and out of everyone else’s theatre. Never in my own. I love the founders I work with and want to keep working with them all, but I know in my heart that being in this lane forever will not fulfil me.

So here I am again, ready for another lane. Another transition, another change in direction. Perhaps I need to stop the car and get on a motorbike? Or drive to the airport and get on a plane? I know in my heart there’s something else out there for me. A new mission, a new purpose, a new way of being. I sense it burgeoning in me. Wanting to come out.

For a long time, I have wanted me to go more deeply into the world of men, masculinity and men’s mental health. In my mind this is probably the most “me” thing of all. Yet I’ve never procrastinated more on anything in all my life. I know rationally that this lane, makes the most sense for me. Something leads me to this space all the time. A voice whispers in my chest to write Jack The Lad. Write a book for men. But then all I hear is quiet and emptiness. I don’t know where else to go. I’m fearful of accelerating into another lane, only to be let down again - only to have to change lanes again.

I get the feeling that there is more in this space for me than I have allowed myself to explore or to share and for the first time in a long time I do feel some fear. Which I know, is a good thing. Perhaps there are feelings to explore around fatherhood and edges for me to find as a man that scare me. Perhaps I need to go toe-to-toe with Andrew Tate and the manosphere bro’s.

Perhaps for now this is all I need to know. Or to feel. Some fear. Some trepidation. To know that changing lanes is a good thing, is the right move to be making. Not to worry too much about exactly what lane I’ll be going into. Or whether it’ll be a new road entirely. It might be enough just to follow some curiosity of the soul, to listen to that inner voice. To notice some of that fear I’ve written about before and step ever so slightly more into it. Stop trying to predict exactly what’s in the next lane or where it goes.

The truest thing I have shared today is that part of my fear about moving into a new lane is to be let down again. To fail again. This requires another blog post, because there’s a story I have that says everything I touch fails, everything I touch sparks like a match but never a bonfire. Maybe this is true. Maybe I’m a fire-starter and nothing more. Maybe accepting this about myself will allow me to flourish more. Maybe I just haven’t found the right fuel.

I’m changing lanes, again. This time I’m not kidding myself that it’s the only lane I’ll ever be in. The more I learn of myself and my nature. I’m starting to believe that I’ll be changing lanes all my life.

Cheers,
James x