Flea Factory

I was sent this last week. I've been sitting with it since.

"For leaders who spend their lives holding space for everyone else, Richard and Flea Factory offer something incredibly rare, the opportunity to step away from the constant demands and intentionally make space to think, create, and move forward with greater clarity and purpose."

Kylie Clark-Parry, Perth

Permission to pause.

That's what most leaders never get. Not because nobody cares. Because the world around them keeps moving and stopping feels like falling behind.

A Leadership Reflection Morning is four hours of that permission. Structured, facilitated, limited to ten people.

Details in the comments.

72% of Australian leaders say their biggest challenge isn't resources or competition.

It's maintaining personal energy and clarity.

That's not a resource problem. That's a thinking problem.

I've written about what's underneath that, and what actually helps.

Link in the comments.

Early bird pricing for Leadership Reflection Mornings is closing soon.

If you've been watching and wondering whether this is for you, this is probably the nudge you needed.

Sunshine Coast - 5 June - early bird closes 28 May
Melbourne - 19 June - early bird closes 5 June
Adelaide - 3 July - early bird closes 19 June
Fremantle - 6 July - early bird closes 19 June

After early bird closes, tickets move to $295.

Places are limited to ten per event.

Link in the comments.

So what actually happens at a Leadership Reflection Morning?

You arrive to a hot cup of tea or coffee.

No agenda. No workbook. No icebreaker.

Before anything else, I'll ask you to write. Not carefully. Not in sentences. Just whatever is present, the thing you were thinking about on the way here, the decision you haven't made, the conversation you're still carrying.

Then I'll ask you to read it back as if someone you lead had just said those words to you. What do you notice? What would you say to them?

Close that page. Now we can begin.

The morning moves through structured reflection, time alone with questions that matter, followed by a small group conversation where you listen without fixing and share only what you're ready to share.

Nobody gives advice. Nobody tells you what to do next. You leave with one or two things you're genuinely going to act on.

Not a list. Not homework. Just clarity.

I know what you're thinking. I don't have time for this. It feels indulgent.

But this is the real work. The thinking that happens in this space is what makes everything else more purposeful when you return.

Four hours. Ten people. Every participant receives a Certificate of Attendance documenting four hours of structured professional development.

Details on upcoming events in the comments.

You can feel the week loading up before it's even started.

By Friday, you'll have been flat out, and yet somehow won't be able to tell me what you actually got done that mattered.

Not because you're lazy. Because you've been carrying something you haven't had time to examine.

I keep hearing the same thing from leaders.

Tired. Overwhelmed. Running fast, but not sure they're running in the right direction. Too deep inside the work to see the shape of it.

They're not struggling because they lack ability or commitment.

They're struggling because they never stop long enough to think. Not properly. Not about what actually matters.

And the cruel irony is that the busier things get, the harder it becomes to find the space to step back.

More content doesn't fix it. More advice doesn't fix it. Another course doesn't fix it.

What fixes it is margin. Protected, structured, facilitated time to stop and think. To make sure your ladder is on the right wall before you keep climbing.

I know what you're thinking. I don't have time for this. The work will stack up. It feels indulgent.

But here's the truth, four hours away from the noise to think clearly about what actually matters is not a luxury. It's the work. The thinking that happens in that space is what makes everything else more purposeful when you return.

That's what Flea Factory exists to create. And Leadership Reflection Mornings are where it starts.

If any of this sounds familiar, details on upcoming events are in the comments.

Years before my burnout, I was leading an elephant.

I was carrying the weight of leadership in a significant organisation, and a leadership coach I deeply value introduced me to the work of Charles Handy.

It changed how I thought about my life and leadership.

Handy wrote about elephants and fleas. Elephants are large institutions, slow-moving, structured, built for stability. Fleas are the agile, independent people navigating alongside them. Sometimes inside them. Sometimes despite them.

Most organisations are elephants. Most of the people leading them are fleas, whether they've named it yet or not.

He also wrote about the Sigmoid Curve, the idea that everything follows a pattern of growth, peak, and decline. And about jumping your curve. Starting the next chapter before the current one peaks.

The leaders who navigate change well aren't the ones who react when the decline becomes obvious. They're the ones who see it coming and move before it's too late.

And then there's the portfolio life. The idea that a meaningful life isn't built on one career but on a portfolio of different kinds of work, each season contributing something that the others couldn't.

I understood all of it completely.

And then I burned out anyway.

Because knowing something and actually living it are two different things. I was too deep inside the work to see the shape of it. Too busy leading the elephant to notice where I was on the curve.

Here's what I've come to care deeply about.

I don't want leaders to wake up ten years from now and wonder how they got there. I don't want capable, committed people to look back and realise they never stopped long enough to think about what they were actually building, or whether it still deserved their best years.

That's why margin matters. Not as a luxury. As a necessity.

That's what Flea Factory is becoming. A place for leaders to stop, think clearly, and make sure their ladder is on the right wall.

If any of this resonates, details on upcoming events are in the comments.

Some context on what Flea Factory is becoming.

A Shift Toward Reflection and Action This feels less like launching something new and more like naming something that has been forming for years, through conversations, personal reflection, burnout, coaching sessions, retreats, and countless moments where people around me needed space to think.

Some of you have been watching Flea Factory evolve for a few years now.

It started as a podcast. I'd hit burnout, and I was trying to figure out in public how to put my life and work back together.

From there, it moved into a season of consulting, coaching, and ultimately the founding of Project Nexus, a non-profit developing innovative missional leaders, which I continue to lead and is bearing much fruit.

Through all of it, I kept noticing the same thing.

Leaders who are capable, experienced, and genuinely committed, running on empty. Never stopping long enough to think. Not properly. Not about what actually matters.

I recognise it because I've lived it.

So I built something for it.

Flea Factory is becoming the home for that work. Leadership Reflection Mornings are the first expression of it.

It's four hours. Structured space to step back, think clearly, and work out what actually matters next. Limited to ten people.

Running across Australia from June.

If you've ever finished a week and realised you spent all of it responding and none of it thinking, this is for you.

Link to upcoming events in the comments.

It's been a while. Flea Factory is reemerging.
More soon.