I am on the call with @Mike Greene @Godfrey Muneri @Scott Dwyer and we decided to do the Great Eastern Run on 11 October in Peterborough. Anyone else wants to join us???

Not what you say. Not what you intend. What they feel. We all do it, even if we have never thought about it. You walk into a room and instantly you sense whether someone is calm, stressed, confident, rushed, tense, open, or defensive. That happens before a word is spoken. That is not magic. That is the nervous system doing its job. Humans are pattern readers. We pick up tone, pace, posture, breathing, facial tension, and energy without thinking about it. Your body broadcasts far more than your mouth. Here is the key idea. Your impact on a room comes less from what you do and more from what you are settled into emotionally. If you are calm, the room often settles. If you are anxious, the room tightens. If you are grounded, people feel safer. If you are rushed or reactive, others become cautious or defensive. This is why some people do not need to raise their voice to be heard. It is why some leaders calm situations just by showing up. It is why stress spreads fast and calm spreads quietly. Most people try to change this by acting differently. Speaking louder. Talking faster. Trying to look confident. But the real work is internal. How regulated are you under pressure? How rushed are you inside your own head? How comfortable are you with silence, uncertainty, or challenge? That inner state leaks. Always. So here is a simple question worth thinking about. When you enter a room, what do people feel before you speak? Calm or chaos? Pressure or presence? Safety or stress? No judgement. No right or wrong. Just awareness. Because once you notice it, you can start to choose it.

Most businesses do not fail because they try to grow. They fail because they grow without foundations. If you want to scale without chaos, stress, or burnout, focus on this. 1. Funding and priorities Most owners underinvest in the one thing that controls every result. Their thinking, skills, and decision making. Growth follows priority, not intention. 2. Systems Poor systems turn growth into friction. Friction turns into stress. Stress turns into mistakes. If everything still relies on you, you do not have a business. You have a job with overheads. 3. Sales and selling Can you sell? Can your team sell? Are you charging enough? How do you generate Leads Most businesses struggle not because demand is weak, but because confidence, pricing, or capability is. If you cannot sell properly, scale will amplify the problem, not fix it. 4. The one thing that matters most YOU - You are exactly where you are because of the decisions you make every day. Or the ones you avoid. Scaling without fucking it up starts with a decision. - A decision to improve. - A decision to learn. - A decision to cut out the cancers holding the business back. Growth is not accidental. Neither is stagnation. Scale is not about doing more. It is about becoming better.

Are You a Deviant? The word deviant gets used like an insult. As if deviation means wrong. Bad. Broken. It doesn’t. It simply means you didn’t follow the norm. And let’s be honest. Why would you want to? Normal is average. Average is the bottom of the top. The top of the bottom. The cream of the crap. Normal means doing what most people do. Thinking what most people think. Living how most people live. ...And most people live lives of quiet desperation. Same routines. Same conversations. Same complaints. Different faces. The well trodden path is popular for a reason. It feels safe. Predictable. Socially acceptable. But it rarely leads anywhere extraordinary. Every breakthrough. Every innovation. Every fulfilled life. Came from someone willing to deviate. Someone who was labelled difficult. Different. Too much. Unconventional. Not because they were wrong. But because they didn’t fit. Deviating doesn’t make you a deviant. It makes you conscious. It means you questioned the default. You chose curiosity over comfort. You took the road less travelled. And yes, it’s harder. Lonelier. Less applauded. But the rewards are bigger. Freedom. Fulfilment. Ownership of your own life. So if you deviate, good. You’re probably on the right path. The masses can keep the norm. I’ll take the view from the road they were too afraid to walk.

Here's a current branding related story for you that I just heard on the 8:30 news this morning... "More than £30,000 of taxpayer money has been spent on creating a new logo for nationalised rail services." Money well spent, or can you think of a better way to invest £30,000 on your own business. I don't have to think too hard about answering that!