The sprinter, Michael Johnson, was maybe the best in history over his distance. His running style looked very wrong, but he didn't change it, it worked for him.   John McEnroe's service action was very, very unorthodox. It happened by accident while he stretched his back to deal with an injury. At times, it was…

In was okay in school, many are not.  For most of high school I had swimming, which wasn't really cool. But gave me some sort of double life, which was cool to me at least. But I loved learning, I was into most of the subjects that were taught. That made me a bit of…

Brand babblers do my head in. It may sound a bit rich, someone who gets paid to build brands saying this. Except I don't paid to build brands. I get paid to help people sell things. The answer to that is rarely brand stuff. It's dealing with barriers to selling more.  People don't think about…

For me, the really great companies make you feel something, not just buy something.  Mostly because they have something they want to do. Usually they want to change something.  As people, we want to be part of something, we want to belong.  So we want to part of that change.  This is where so many…

When I was working at an agency in Manchester over 10 years ago, I had a marathon month. (This was an agency that habitually did 12 hours a day anyway. Thankfully things are a little less brutal these days) Pitching for a supermarket, it mattered.  Working on one of those demanding showpiece clients everyone wants…

They everything. You don't stand a Chance More experienced people. More track record. More money. More tools.  The famous propriety process. The entertainment budget.  They never run out paper. Their printers all work. Their coffee budget is bigger than your IT budget.  Who would be insane enough to take them on?   They have everything.…

There have been times on my ride home from work, when I just feel like hammering the peddles. Usually after the odd rough day, or odd really good day, I just want to go all out. And it feels good at first, you feel superhuman, the adrenalin firing the urge to just go. But adrenalin is…

I'm 46, I help run a business and I'm a parent. Society at large kind of expects me to be strong and look like a know what I'm doing. No one really knows what they're doing of course, they just get better at dealing with it.  The strong thing though, I think more of us should…

In normal times, when I'm working in the office, it's 5 mile bike ride home.  It's nothing in terms of time or distance next what a proper training ride should be. Conventional wisdom says you need at least an hour to bother at all. But who needs convention wisdom?  The science shows that for some,…

We live in a world that hates us switching off. You're phone is designed to suck you in with the little beeps and notifications. Youtube is specifically designed to keep you there for as long as possible, they have pre-roll inventory to fill. Then there's work. Slack (FFS), email, zoom calls.  To do your best…