Things I'm thinking about for 2026

I’ve spent most of this year giving you live classes, prompts, directories and essays to help you hype yourself.

But I don’t think that right now you need more to do....

So instead, I wanted to share how I’m thinking about starting 2026: coming out strong, without sprinting out of the gate and pacing myself.

Big businesses spend months defining who they want to be seen alongside. competitors, collaborators, cultural references.

Self-employed people rarely do this.

I’m a big fan of borrowing from big business. It’s one of the reasons I went from big creative agency land in London to running my own thing for the underdogs.

---

How I started to become visible

I set up my own PR agency in 2015. I was lucky, I got clients through word of mouth, so I only really took visibility seriously when I planned to write my book.

The book came about because when I started my agency I went back to the shop floor and started pitching press again.
I was a director before I left PR agency land, so I didn’t have to do that anymore, which is kind of bonkers. You spend years learning how to get good at pitching, and when you finally do, you become a team leader with zero leadership training. But that’s for another day.

I started studying PR books to hone my craft and genuinely thought: I can do better.

Most were written by men, or journalists turned PR experts. They focused on publicity, not strategy. There was no link back to business goals.

There is zero point in doing publicity if it isn’t hitting one of your business goals.

---

Landing my first book deal

I did a book proposal challenge with Practical Inspiration Publishing and won my book deal.

At that point, I had 1,258 followers on Instagram.

I knew I needed to grow an audience. I didn’t really have anyone to sell a book to, and I wasn’t foolish enough to believe my publishers were going to shift thousands of copies of a niche business book.

So I shared a free piece of PR advice every single day for a year.

I spent that year guesting and networking at events like Mother’s Meetings, Soho House, General Assembly, Courier Magazine, The Wing (RIP), Second Home and WeWork — building an audience.

I also wrote a list of women in online business who I thought were doing it better than me.

Instead of spiralling into comparison, I studied them. I bought their things, engaged with their communities, and over time collaborated with some of them.

A few became friends.