"Oh, this is why people write books. This is actually quite addictive, this feeling that you've produced something and it is having an impact." Katie Lewis and Matthew Stafford are the co-founders of 9others, a unique community that brings together founders and entrepreneurs to find answers to the questions that are keeping them up at night. These conversations have brought some unexpected benefits too, such as the connections and friendships that have emerged from these shared dinners. In this week's conversation, Katie and Matthew reflect on how their collaborative approach to entrepreneurship and the synergy that has fuelled their business journey as cofounders played out when they became coauthors of their book - Find Your 9others.

'I thought it was going to be a 20% update and I think the content has changed by about 80%.' This might sound familiar to anyone who's sat down to update their book. But this conversation isn't just for you if you're considering a second edition: Karen Williams is talking about her bestselling Book Marketing Made Simple, and this conversation is packed with insights and ideas for marketing your business book from day 1.  From tactical tools to timeless principles, discover best practice in modern marketing - including thoughts on AI - and the enduring joy of writing buddies and post-its.  

'We need, at the moment, mavericks. We need people of independent thought, courageous, wanting to do things differently, but we need to do that in service of others.' Mavericks write their own rules. Modern mavericks write their own rules of success.  Ed Haddon, author of The Modern Maverick, helps people think more deeply and more courageously about what success means to them. What really matters - in their private lives and in the world around them, as well as in their professional lives? As an elite athlete, corporate rebel, and the founder of the first B Corp-certified coaching practice in the UK, he's walking the talk, and might just inspire you to change your own life... 

In a sense writing a business book – any book, really – is quintessentially about finding and using your voice. You're talking across time and space to a reader for a conversation that lasts for hours; admittedly a bit of a one-sided conversation, but it's not possible to talk to someone for tens of thousands of words without them having a sense of your voice in their head. So how can you use that voice most effectively? Here's some advice from some of the best writers in the business books business to give you some ideas...  Anne Janzer on what your writer's voice is and why it matters Dr Lucy Ryan on writing for your reader Catherine Garrod on the holistic nature of the writer's voice Nicholas Janni on precision and the craft of rewriting Rachel Lawes on caring, not selling Robin Powell on aligning your interests with your readers' Neil Mullarkey on using humour right (and avoiding the wrong kinds...) Richard Hoare on finding a coherent voice with a co-writer Dennis Sherwood on not getting too hung up about it all too soon.  Listen in, and discover how to take your voice from meh to aMAZing! 

When Lucy Ryan's research revealed that midlife women were walking out of corporates in droves at the same age that the men around them were stepping into senior leadership positions, she knew it would make a great PhD topic. There was a massive data gap, and a clear benefit to organizations in understanding why one of their most valuable talent pools was quietly disappearing. Yet as she searched for a supervisor, time and time again she was told the research was 'unpublishable'. Luckily Lucy is made of sterner stuff, and her research has given us not only a new understanding of why midlife women are revolting against the constraints and biases of corporate life [hint: it's not because they 'lack ambition'], but what changes leaders can make to retain their invaluable talent and experience. In this conversation we talk through her findings, and also the tricky process of translating a PhD dissertation into a practical, inspiring book for every leader. Be prepared to be enraged, but also hugely entertained.

'There's all this academic, peer-reviewed, time-tested academic evidence as to how we should invest, and yet we have a whole industry that is trying to get us to do more or less the very opposite.' Today more than ever, if you want a comfortable retirement, it's up to you to put the thinking and the work in. And the sooner the better. Financial journalist Robin Powell has made it his mission to counter the misinformation and cut through the jargon, and the result is How to Fund the Life you Want (co-authored with Jonathan Hollow).  He talks to me about his own journey to financial literacy, via journalism, and how he went about turning his findings into a practical and readable book that could really make a difference to someone's life. We even touch on what happens when co-authors disagree! 

"In everything we write, we choose a voice." Poets and novelists talk a lot about their writing 'voice', but nonfiction writers, and especially business book writers, can write a full manuscript without giving it a thought. Which is a shame, because as Anne Janzer - copywriter, ghostwriter and business book writer - knows more than most, being intentional about your voice is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal if you want to write a book that doesn't just tell the reader a bunch of facts, but engages them in a way that might just change their life.  As well as learning more about how to choose and develop your writing voice, you'll also discover how to go about one of the best ways EVER for creating content, building engagement and crafting a marketing hook: carrying out original research.  If you're going to write a business book and you want to do it well, you shouldn't miss this. 

"When we're talking about Do Deal, we're really talking about the verb of how you deal with people... as an ongoing kind of living thing." Richard Hoare didn't set out to become an expert on negotiation. In fact his first attempt at negotiation, when he was offered a poorly paid first job in the music industry involved, he admits, no negotiation at all. But after a career at the top of legal services in the music industry he's learned a thing or two, and recognized the need for a short, straightforward book that set out the principles of successful negotiation in a way that anyone could grasp and use.  Spoiler alert: It's not about getting your own way, it's about uncovering value and nurturing relationships. And because it was written with a co-author, the book involved some negotiation along the way itself. In this week's conversation Richard shares his tactics for writing collaboratively, and indeed writing at all alongside a busy work schedule, together with some practical and profound insights on the art of the (better) deal.

'I'm not going to live to be 10,000 years old, so I'd rather just write material that someone's actually going to use. So top-down writing works for me because it's a very economical way to write." Dr Rachel Lawes is the world's leading expert in semiotics and its application in the realm of marketing. (If you have no idea what that means, don't worry: I asked her for the 'explain-it-like-I'm-five' introduction and she did it brilliantly.) But as well as taking in psychology, human behaviour, cultural dynamics, and the examination of societal constructs, we talk in gritty detail about her writing process. Rachel's straightforward and 'economical' top-down approach, together with her obvious delight in taking on a book-sized project ('The best bit about writing is reading... Your only job is to read your heart out for four months and write about what it makes you think about the world. What a treat.'), makes for an even-more-than-usually practical and inspiring episode. Get the kettle on and grab a notepad and pencil... 

When your work is about experience - helping people access a different physical and emotional state so that they can reconnect with their embodied, instinctual wisdom - you do it most effectively when you're in the room together. How can you possibly translate that somatic, relational, experiential work into words on a page?  That was the challenge facing Nicholas Janni, and he rose to it so impressively that Leader as Healer was named Business Book of the Year 2023 at the recent BBA awards. In this week's episode he speaks to me about the challenge of that translation process, and the somatic experience of flow in writing itself. 

"What's important about creativity is not novelty, but difference. I want something different from what is happening now, and difference is much easier to discover because difference means different from now." There's a lot of mystique around creativity, but for practical people - people like scientists and engineers - being able to have good new ideas reliably is vitally important in a fast-changing world. Luckily, there's a process for that, and Dennis Sherwood has put it into an award-winning book.  In this generous and thoughtful conversation, we talk about that process for discovering difference (which makes, incidentally, a GREAT exploratory writing prompt), and we debate the order of writing and thinking. Fittingly, we land in different places here: what do YOU think? 

"It's not thinking on your feet, it's listening on your feet. Yes and, what are you saying? How can I build on that? How can I move in the direction that we are going to go together?" If the thought of trying to be funny at work brings you out in a rash, don't panic: I have it on good authority from Neil Mullarkey that there's no need to dress up as a chicken or do karaoke. And he should know. Co-founder of Europe's top improv troupe, the Comedy Store Players, Neil has spent many years sharing the principles of improv with business leaders to improve their confidence, communication, and creativity. Neil's new book In the Moment is a call to embrace the importance of listening and co-creating in the moment, a key principle of improv. It's not about being funny per se, but rather about fostering collaboration, navigating ambiguity, and embracing vulnerability. In this context, humour enhances human connections, builds rapport, and fosters creativity - the elements, in fact, that we need most in our workplaces today. 

Catherine Garrod led Sky to become the most inclusive employer in the UK. Her message is clear: if you're not consciously including everyone, you're unconsciously excluding someone. And the rewards of conscious inclusion are extraordinary, from employee and customer satisfaction to future-proofing organizations in our ever-evolving world. When it came to publishing her book, Catherine was determined to walk her talk, ensuring both language and design were as accessible as possible. She also reveals how she managed the delicate dance between perfectionism and deadlines, and learned how important it is an author to keep your sights on the reader and the difference you want to make.

No, not the Michelangelo biography by Irving Stone, but the highs and lows of the maddening, marvellous process of writing a business book. In this best bits episode I pick out the pearls from the last few conversations, and this time the common theme is the pain and pleasure of writing a book, the unrelenting difficulty of it, and the extraordinary joy and meaning it provides. Often all in the same moment.  Whether you're agonising over your manuscript or feeling ecstatic about the progress you're making you'll relate to all of this, and if you're lacking motivation, you'll find it here in spades.  With insights from:  Steven Adjei on the nature of pain;  Richard Charkin on the visceral vulnerability of becoming an author;  Melissa Romo on the challenges of making the complex simple;  Catherine Erdly on detail wrangling;  Susan Doering on the relentless work of marketing;  Eloise Skinner on dealing with the soul suck of social media;  Adam Bryant on the all-consumingness of writing a book; and Alex Hill on why we do it at all.  Imagine what Michelangelo could have achieved if he'd listened to this...

'Everything at its core has to be one of those three things: a great insight, a great story, or a great practical approach.' Adam Bryant, creator of the New York Times's Corner Office column, has interviewed a LOT of top leaders, but not in the way they expected. He ask them  about leadership, rather than strategy, and their own leadership in particular: questions that allow them to articulate answers they haven't seen before.  In this fascinating conversation we explore how he's built on this journalistic approach to write a series of books, and how writing in public builds credibility, expands networks, and creates a perpetual motion machine for authorship. If you're interested in leadership and writing, and if you love a good metaphor riot, this is unmissable. 

'What you leave behind is what you write... no one talks about the article that changed their life, and they're not read for decades after they've been written. [Books are] foundational.' Working at the intersection of research and application, Professor Alex Hill has learned that it's not enough to have the 'Ta Dah' moment - you then need to have a good answer to the 'So What?' question. In this thoughtful conversation we talk about the principles of organizations that endure, the importance of naming ideas (and how to help people NOT misinterpret them), and the life-changing significance of finding out what it is you want to leave behind. 

'A book is a job title that stays with you for life. I will forever be author of The Solutionists... This is your long tail. This is how you remain having influence in the world over time.' If you ever feel like the problems of the world are overwhelming and that you are powerless against the injustice, apathy, greed and prejudice out there, this is the conversation you need to listen to. Solitaire Townsend is a solutionist par excellence, and she empowers other people to become solutionists too, no matter how insignificant they think their own actions might be.  And part of having an impact on the world, it turns out, is stepping up to write a book that will exponentially increase your influence. Don't get angry: get writing. 

Publishing as an industry has more than its fair share of extraordinary people, but there are few to rival Richard Charkin. Over his 50-year career he's worked in almost every area of publishing from children's book to scientific journals, and has not just witnessed but been instrumental in steering the industry from its gentleman's club background to the hi-tech, diverse, commercially competitive sector it is today.  But after decades of senior leadership in major publishing houses, he's just taken on his greatest challenges: launching a start-up publishing company and writing a book himself. I asked him how that's going, and why he decided against an index...   

'I thought I was sitting down to write a book. I was not sitting down to write a book. I was sitting down to create idea stewardship. And that's a much bigger exercise.' Melissa Romo is passionate about the opportunity that remote working presents - inclusion, access to talent, quality of life, etc etc. But as a remote worker herself, as well as the leader of a distributed team, she also knows it's not all 'roses and tulips'. Missing from all the discussion of remote work she was hearing was the emotional fallout she recognized in herself and others: guilt, paranoia, loneliness depression and boredom. If we don't solve for those, all the fancy collaboration systems in the world won't help us do our best work and be our best selves.  The result is Your Resource is Human, a deeply researched and highly practical handbook for making remote work work at the relational level. In this conversation, she tells me what it took, and what it means, to shape and share those ideas. 

Really recognize who your audience is... [and] parcel up the pieces, the topics, the themes according to their needs. Not according to what I know, but what they need to know.' Susan Doering's career progression mirrored that of many women: a successful early career, derailed by childcare commitments and domestic expectations, followed by a period of 'happenstance' - doing jobs as she was asked, discovering her own skills, and starting to build her confidence and qualifications along the way, until she'd created a place in the world where she could excel and where she loved what she was doing.  And then she wrote the book she wished she'd had herself, to help other women achieve the same.  Along the way she discovered how to shift away from academic writing, how to structure ideas, and how to learn to love the long, long process of marketing a book... 

'I have worked with a coach in the past who used to tell me things that have been very helpful, like it is your responsibility to the book to try and communicate its concepts out there, if you believe it is that helpful, you need to be sharing it with people. These are the things that I repeat to myself every day as I prepare to post one thing on Instagram.' Writing a book means marketing a book, and marketing a book means becoming visible as an author. And that isn't always easy, even when you have a huge following.  Eloise Skinner knows what it takes to write books (But Are You Alive? is her third), but she also knows that the writing alone isn't enough. To share her hard-won insights into what gives life meaning, which she's discovered through an extraordinary professional and personal life - including her work as a lawyer, as a psychotherapist and existential therapist and her time in an urban monastic community - she had to get comfortable being uncomfortable. In this thoughtful conversation, she tells me what that involves, and how she gets over herself to get her message out there. 

'A lot of writers tend to shy away from the gritty parts of [entrepreneurship], the pain parts, the price part. I thought, Why not, I'm going to go for it. So I did.' If you're an entrepreneur, you'll know about the price that you pay each day to sustain your enterprise: sometimes gladly, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes without even realising it. And you'll also know about the pain that's often involved. But did you realize that there are different types of pain, and that they demand different things of you?  In this deeply personal and practical conversation, Steven Adjei offers a thoughtful way of assessing and responding to these various different kinds of entrepreneurial pain. We also discuss the too-often unheard lessons from African entrepreneurs, how to enrich the prose of a business book with poetry and music, and the vital importance of balancing compassion and competence.   

When you run a small business - especially a retail business - it can feel very much as if a tiger has not just come to tea, but moved in. It's always hungry, often unpredictable, and it makes you feel a little, well, nervous.  Luckily, Catherine Erdly is an expert in taming tigers, and in this week's conversation she shares with me some of the ways in which she helps small retail businesses do the same (and why that matters for everyone).  We also talk about why the tiger is such a powerful metaphor, and how to write about difficult topics in an accessible way.  It's GRRRRREAT!

In a world where so many opt to lean back - to disengage, scroll the feed, consume and comment rather than create, plug into the playlist rather than connect - here's a rousing call to lean in to the work that matters. As a colleague, a leader, a writer and a reader, what does it mean to lean in, and how do we keep ourselves from leaning in so far that we end up falling over? Hear from:  Professor Lucy Easthope on leaning in to disaster and difficult feelings Dr Deb Mashek on real engagement and connection in relationships Danni Haughan on connection and purpose in podcasting Liam Black on not leaning in so hard that you fall over Catherine Baker on sustainable performance as a leader Sarah Stein Lubrano on writing as a process of engagement with ideas Tim Clark on writing more purposefully  Beth Stallwood on finding the people and the strategies to help you lean in more effectively An unmissable, unforgettable best bits episode. 

'You need a higher level of challenge and truth telling if you have set the bar high for yourself and your organization.' Liam Black has become known as the 'gloves-off mentor' for his no-nonsense, straight-talking way of supporting social entrepreneurs and purpose-driven leaders. When the work you do matters so much to people's lives, it can be hard to see situations objectively, or to keep any kind of work/life balance.  But capturing that voice in a book isn't easy. In this characteristically direct conversation, Liam shares the awfulness of writing - those wet Wednesday afternoons when the words die on the page - and the joy when the magic happens, the vulnerability of putting your book out into the world and the way it creates new connections when it's there.  Probably the most truthful conversation about writing you'll hear all week. 

'We've all been missing a trick, because sport has been showing us day in, day out, not just how to improve, perform and achieve, but how to do so on a sustained basis, in a way that ensures that we can consistently deliver results when it matters.' Catherine Baker qualified as a tennis coach before she qualified as a lawyer, and throughout her career has been fascinated by the interconnectedness of sporting and professional excellence. In her new book Staying the Distance, though, she argues that by drawing lessons for business only from the high performance we see, we're missing out on the reality that underpins that performance: what elite athletes do when noone's watching, the routines and rest that allow them to sustain that performance.  It turns out this is also true for writing...

The Independent Publishers' Guild annual Spring Conference is one of the highlights of the year for the book industry. I seized the opportunity to speak to six movers and shakers in the world of books to put to them the questions that you'd have asked if you'd only had the chance.  You're welcome.  Discover:  How to find out EVERYTHING you could possibly want to know about getting published with Alysoun Owen, editor of the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook;  A better way to buy books online if you care about independent bookshops with Nicole Vanderbilt, Bookshop.org's UK MD;  Why TikTok is moving into the book-selling space and what you can do to promote your book there with Matthew Perry, Head of Books on the TikTok Shop;  How you can think ahead to make the most of translation opportunities as an author with Clare Hodder, rights consultant and Rights Manager for Practical Inspiration Publishing; and Things to keep in mind if you're planning to start a podcast, with Small Wardour's Carla Herbertson and Danni Haghan, formerly at Apple podcasts.       

'Work fits into this bigger thing that we call life. And if you are more joyful in work, that will spill over and you will be more joyful in life.' You may not have used the terms 'WorkJoy' and 'WorkGloom' before, but I bet you immediately know what they mean, AND which is your most common daily experience. The good news is that you have much more control over that experience than you might think.  In this week's conversation, Beth Stallwood talks to me about how we can find ways to bring more joy into our working lives, and how those lessons spill over into the work we choose to do for ourselves, such as, say, writing a book. Discover your own power - it was there all along - and also how to build the squad that will support you: the cheerleaders, challengers, comrades, creators, connectors and conjurers who will transform your writing experience into something altogether more joyful. 

"People don't just pick up a book once, read it, put it down, and then that's the end of their relationship with that idea.... we can move in a person's life in multiple ways." Sarah Stein Lubrano describes The School of Life as 'a modern press': books are vitally important, but they're only one part of a wider ecosystem of ideas. There are many lessons here for business book writers, and many ideas too: how might YOU build in experiential strands, and opportunities for your readers to learn and reflect for themselves alongside their reading? And what does it look like to be actively engaging for good in a content landscape that is so often based around distraction and monetizing the consumer's attention?  A fascinating interrogation of the role of books, and indeed the nature of authorship. 

This is a podcast about business and business books. You might think this is unpromising territory for talk of love: but you'd be wrong.  No hearts and flowers here, but real, thoughtful, passionate insights into what it means to be in relationship with those we work alongside, how we express love as part of leadership, and how passion fuels the work we do.  With contributions from Professor Lucy Easthope, Yetunde Hoffman, Dr Deb Mashek and Richard Fox. 

'Seeing somebody need you, seeing somebody in pain, is not necessarily traumatizing: not being able to help them is a moral injury that is traumatizing. So I also wanted to challenge ideas of what hurts.' Most of us run away from disaster. Similarly, we try to avoid painful emotions.  For Professor Lucy Easthope, expert and adviser on emergency planning and disaster recovery, heading towards the most traumatic diaster scenes as others flee in the opposite direction is par for the course, as is leaning into the rawest human emotions of grief, horror and anger. How do you do this every day and stay not only sane but cheerful? And how do you write about it in a way that readers can bear?  In this truly extraordinary conversation, we explore courage, clarity, how writing helps both ourselves and others, and why books should be available on prescription. If you only listen to one podcast this week, make it this one.   

'We as individuals are systems ourselves, aren't we?... And so when we diagram ourselves using a work model, we often see for the very first time how these elements interrelate.' You may be familiar with the Business Model Canvas - but have you ever thought about using it for yourself, rather than your business? Dr Tim Clark did, and discovered that this simple but powerful visual tool had astonishing power to help move his own and others' thinking forward.  Words are powerful, but visual thinking can help us see things differently, and in their totality.  In this fascinating conversation we talk about what it's like to adapt someone else's model, the difficult of creating a highly visual book, and the inescapable fact that writing is Really Hard Work. 

'When I went into [writing a book], people were telling me, oh, it's going to be so lonely. you're going to lock yourself in a room... nothing could be further from the truth. This was the most collaborative process from day one.' If you want to do work that matters, the unavoidable truth is that you're going to need to collaborate with others at some point. And that can be the most joyful, creative, energising experience.... but very often it isn't.  What IS it about collaboration that's so damn hard? Turns out that even with the best collaboration tools and project processes, in the end it all comes down to relationships. The good news is that you can learn to collaborate better, and Deb Mashek has spent years researching exactly how to help you do that.  The other good news is that you can bring those collaboration skills to the process of writing your book, and make it not only better but more fun along the way. Find out how....  

It's easy to get caught up in the fluff - in work and life. Whether it's focusing on the font family rather than the purpose behind the brand, the endless social media scroll rather than the deep thinking we know we'd rather be doing, or the drive to answer just one more email rather than stopping to rest, we're all guilty of losing sight of the really important stuff.  In this Best Bits episode, I look back over my recent conversations and pick out some insights from these extraordinary thinkers and writers on how we can - and indeed must - focus on what really matters. With contributions from:  Tessa Misiaszek on branding; Phil Barden on goals; Ollie Henderson on the relationship between work and life; Joy Burnford on writing as a route to deep thinking;  Alison Jones (hello) on the passion behind the writing;  Bec Evans on finding what works;  Rob Orchard on being infatuated with what you're doing; Mark Leruste on why YOUR story matters; and Sarah Sparks on why YOU matter, and why you need to look after yourself.  Food for thought, indeed. 

'I'd done a lot of reps before I started writing the book, and that helped enormously.' Ollie Henderson would like to talk to you about work-life balance. Specifically, he'd like you to understand that you will NEVER reach a state of perfect equilibrium, so why beat yourself up about it? Instead, he'd like you to consider the idea of work and life as a flywheel, working together, moving you forward.  In this conversation, he shares some deeply personal insights about what that has meant for him, and also how he pivoted not just his work/life but his approach to writing as a way of exploring ideas and building community. If you're considering starting a newsletter, launching a podcast or writing a book in 2023, this is for you. 

'How can you get to more people beyond coaching courses and beyond webinars? Well, you write a book.' Bec Evans and Chris Smith met in a bookshop and have worked with books, writing and authors ever since. As co-founders of Prolifiko they coach writers to be more productive, and as co-authors of Written: How to Keep Writing and Build a Habit That Lasts they have made their experience and expertise available for anyone who needs it.  But writing about writing is perhaps the most cripplingly tricky kind of writing - and writing with your life partner is a make-or-break relationship strategy. In this week's conversation we unpick the personal and professional strands behind their writing journey, and the importance of Peggy, their labradoodle, in holding it all together. 

'Slow journalism for us was just a way of encapsulating that feeling that when you take your time, you can do something more quality.' In a media landscape dominated by the white-hot, reactive world of social media and rolling news, it can be hard to keep a sense of perspective. That's why a small group of editors decided to do something revolutionary: create a form of journalism that deliberately avoided breaking news, but instead focused on looking back to identify the real significance of events several months after they'd happened, once the dust had settled. Throw in high-quality production values and sophisticated infographics, and you have Delayed Gratification, the flagship publication of the slow journalism movement.  Independent publishing - of books or magazines - is famously financial precarious, and in this conversation we explore the bloody-mindedness and vision that lies behind it and the joy it brings to those brave and foolish enough to take it on, and why the world needs those brave fools so badly. 

'If you give your brain a question, it can't help but go looking for answers. That's how we are designed. And when you know that, you suddenly think, well, all my job is, really, is to come up with the good questions, isn't it?' In a gratifying plot twist, I become the guest on my own podcast as Grace Marshall asks me all the tough questions about my own new book, Exploratory Writing: Everyday magic for life and work.  How can one of our simplest, oldest technologies - the pen on the page - be the solution to our most pressing 21st-century problems? Discover why just 6 minutes of this deceptively simple off-line, off-grid, off-piste practice turns out to be a powerful tool for better thinking, creativity, and wellbeing, and even diversity and inclusion within organizations.  Plus some thoughts on the crippling embarrassment of being a publisher who can't nail the structure for her own book... 

'Your story is about you, but it's not for you. Someone, somewhere woke up this morning needing to hear your story to not feel alone.' For most of us, it's hard for us to see how our personal story fits into our professional life. But Mark Leruste believes that your personal story is the 'emotional glue' that makes sense of everything you do in the world, and people need to hear it.  In this fascinating conversation, we discuss not only how you find and own your story, but how you use it for good in the service of others as a business book writer. He also reveals how he designed his own book, Glow in the Dark, as a Trojan Horse for a much deeper message.... 

'We are designed for acute episodes of stress, but what we're not designed for is chronic episodes of stress. That's stress after stress after stress, and that's what most people are living with, day in day out.' Looking back, Sarah Sparks can see that her body was trying to tell her there was a problem. But she didn't listen: she kept on working crazy hours under immense pressure while trying to be the perfect new wife, and eventually her body stepped in to give her a message she couldn't ignore: she collapsed and was hospitalized with burnout.  Since then she's made it her mission to stop other people getting to that place, with her STOP model for combatting chronic stress. As she developed her model she realised the next logical step was to face her fear of writing: the result was an award-winning book. 

Ever wondered why people don't immediately shout 'Of course!' and shake you warmly by the hand when you share your new idea with them? It's because we find new ideas hard to take on board, especially when they contradict things we've believed up until now. So how as a writer can you help people get past that initial negative reflex and take your ideas on board?  Marketer Phil Barden experienced this for himself, when he discovered that everything he thought he knew about advertising was wrong. In this week's conversation he shares how what he learned about how decision science transformed his own approach to marketing, and also how you as an author can help your readers take your ideas on board more effectively. 

'How do I .. move from being a curator to a creator? That was a big shift for me, and I think I got there in the end.' People often talk about the value of the finished book - for the author and for the reader. Less talked-about is the value of the process of writing: the connections you make as you research and discuss the ideas, the deepening of your thinking, the shift that you make as an author from consuming and curating other people's opinions to setting out your own.  Joy Burnford has been a 'curator of confidence' for many years, researching how women in particular build and sustain confidence at work, and developing her own in the process. But she realised that this is only one part of the equation: no matter how confident the woman, if the system at work is stacked against her, she cannot make the contribution of which she is capable. And when that happens, everyone loses out.  A fascinating conversation on gender equality in the workplace, but also on how writing a book doesn't just change those who read it, but its author too. 

"Of course we want to predict, what's the world going to be like in 5, 10, 15 years? How can I, as a brand, put myself in an advantageous position to thrive in this hypothetical future? But through taking a human-based approach, we're going to ask a different, and I think complementary question: not what's going to change, but what's going to stay constant. And if humans are your primary customers, the most relevant constants are going to be the constants of human nature." The science of branding is undergoing a revolution as we begin to better understand the neurology of decision-making. Matt Johnson and Tessa Misiaszek interrogate this new world of branding with a ruthless focus on what the implications are for businesses. You might love your brand, but if it doesn't mean anything to your customers, sorry, it's not a brand.  As well as this fascinating insight into the frontiers of marketing, we discuss the creative conflict (and the cocktails) involved in writing a book from two different perspectives, the challenges that presents and the reasons why it's so worthwhile. 

We don't live in a perfect world. If you're hoping to write a business book, I bet there's something that's getting in your way. Not enough time, lack of focus, morning sickness, a global pandemic...  We can't get rid of these constraints, but we CAN get smarter about them, and maybe even turn them into superpowers.  Get inspiration from:  Kate Nash on working with rather than against physical disability;  Jenna Tiffany on the impact of the pandemic;  Lucy Cohen on using whatever way of writing works for you;  Jodie Cook on using time constraints for productivity and wellbeing;  Em Stroud on using time constraints for playfulness and creativity;  Bruce Daisley on the magic of TikTok for explaining complex ideas in just a few seconds;  Felicity Dwyer on creating deadlines and accountability to get things done;  Kara Tan Bhala on translating rigour into readability;  Ian MacRae on using the book proposal document to create clarity. 

'We are not here to be inspiration. Instead [we] invite back those who feel inspired to think about what they're inspired to do as a consequence.' From the moment her well-intentioned mother spoke wistfully about the possibility of her getting 'a little job' when she was afflicted by chronic rheumatoid arthritis as a teenager, Kate Nash has been challenging the narrative of expectations around disable people in the workplace. She's the founder of professional development hub Purple Space and the inspiration behind the #purplelightup movement that has turned some of the world's most iconic landmarks purple in honour of disability rights.  In this powerful conversation she blends the personal and the political to talk about her own experience, the complexity and diversity of disabled people's lived experience, the commonalities of the barriers they face in the workplace, and what it means to be a good ally for disabled colleagues. She also reveals her approach to writing a book which any writer, disabled or not, can learn a lot from. 

'It's important to think about connecting with ourself first [because] whatever kind of interpersonal communication we are involved with, we are always there.' In her 3D model of communication, Felicity Dwyer starts by inviting us to consider how we communicate with ourselves. It's a profound and often moving process, but if we're going to connect meaningfully with others, it's an essential starting point. In a world that often focuses on superficial tactics to get a message across, this approach invites us to think more deeply, and connect more powerfully.  This connection with self and others also characterised Felicity's approach to writing her book, Crafting Connection, and in this conversation she talks frankly not only about how she developed her own thinking through writing, but also about inviting others into the process, and coping with the gift of feedback... 

'Because we are the truth tellers, we say really what's going on. Because we use humour, we get away with saying stuff that other people can't... The art of clowning about, really paying attention, serves me in every place that I go.' I'm willing to bet you've never met a Corporate Clown Coach before, not unless you've already met Em Stroud. In this fascinating conversation we talk about clowning and its role in work and life, finding fun in writing, and how we rediscover the parts of ourselves that may have been neglected over the years and integrate them into our day-to-day lives for more joy, playfulness and whole-hearted success. 

What kind of timescale guides your thinking? Do you focus on how great things will be when you make a killing selling your company decades from now, or do you prefer not to think beyond the end of the day? When it comes to business success, choosing your time horizon really matters.  Jodie Cook completed her first start-up/exit cycle in 10 years, and she recommends it as a way of planning your strategy more purposefully: 10 years is 'long enough to think long term... but also short enough to not waste time.' She focuses her time equally purposefully at the daily level too, working in 'blocks' to ensure the work gets done effectively and that she protects time to train and to rest - REALLY rest - in her day. And of course she makes time to write, because that's her way of processing everything.  Make time for this.