Feeling busy can validate us, but it’s another trick we’re playing on ourselves. I rant about that networking virus a lot, sorry about that, but another thing I really detest about the way we behave in that situation is the verbal crutch of talking about how busy we all are. …

Make sure every step is in the right direction when building your team. Building a team, creating jobs, and replacing yourself is one of the greatest privileges of starting and growing a company. But you can sleepwalk into building a bad culture and have the wrong people with the wrong…

There might be a lesson you’ve not realised you’ve learned which stops you from even trying. When my son was moving into his big boy room we fitted an Alexa to control the lights and play white noise. One of his favourite things the Echo Show downstairs did was play…

There’s a skill like no other that can build empathy, relieve stress and de-escalate conflict. There are not too many things that frustrate me more than hearing someone ask the question “why did they do that”? All of the variations of this question, what were they thinking? What are they…

If you believe in your cause then you owe it to your beneficiaries to make a profit. A common trap for social entrepreneurs to fall into is thinking that you need to be a “not-for-profit” to be authentic in your social entrepreneurship identity. There are other aspects that don’t necessarily…

You never know what people are carrying, go easy and be kind. I remember one occasion I was giving a workshop to young entrepreneurs and there was one guy who kept butting in and speaking out. …

How do we get people to take social challenges as seriously as plastic straws? There was a big lesson I learned when I did some bisociative thinking between Jane McGonigal’s excellent Reality is Broken and the Blue Planet imagery of how plastic pollution is destroying our natural world. That one…

The most inspirational lesson for me was realising that everything is someone else’s creation. When I was 25 I didn’t really have any idea what I was going to do with my life.* One thing I’ve never shared, but that was a massive influence on my life was a decision…

When you’ve found your co-founder, how do you make sure you’re both in it for the long haul? There are so many scenarios that can play out in this, but sometimes you only find out the true nature of your co-founder when the going gets tough. I’ve mentioned in the…