High Flying Design

Most of us set the goal, then promise ourselves we'll celebrate once we've hit it. But the goalpost keeps moving, and the celebration never comes.

Bose Akadiri makes the case for flipping that: work out what actually brings you joy first, then build goals that amplify it.

Using Joy to Make Better Decisions as a Female Founder — High Flying Design High achievers keep postponing joy until the next win. Bose Akadiri on using joy to guide your decisions instead.

QOTD 👀 🌞✨💫 💅 ☕️ 🩵

You haven’t lost your sense of style; you’ve just stopped getting dressed.

Samantha Harman, personal stylist and author of Just Get Dressed, argues that your wardrobe is the business asset you are refusing to use, and shares the three-step method she runs with clients to get it working again.

https://www.highflyingdesign.com/magazine/lifestyle/how-to-get-out-of-a-style-rut-working-from-home

Follow Samantha at Samantha - the Style Editor 📰👗

A sneak peak from Codie Sanchez new book, Own or Be Owned. 👀

COMING SOON FROM HIGH FLYING DESIGN 🍒 👀

Dina has run her business for twenty-seven years. After I published her interview, she told me it had made her look back and feel proud of herself, some for the first time. Twenty-seven years of proof, and she'd never once stopped to smell the roses.

Most of us are doing the same thing. Collecting evidence, we're capable and throwing it away as we go. So, this is somewhere to keep it.

You write the win down when it happens, whenever it happens, no dates, no streak to break. And on the days you're convinced you're getting nowhere, you read back, and there it is. Everything you already did. Everything you talked yourself out of being proud of.

It's not ready to buy, but the waitlist is now live.

If this is something you need in your life, join the waitlist:

https://www.highflyingdesign.com/celebrate-where-you-are-now

Big hugs,
- Shan x

Hey!! 👋 I’m Shannon Kate Murray.

I grew up in Clacton-on-Sea. Not many women around me worked for themselves. Then there was Dina Humphreys.

She lived across the road. Every morning I’d watch her drive her Mini to the hair salon she owned on Coppins Road, and it lodged somewhere. Here was a woman who’d built a thing of her own, in a town that wasn’t supposed to produce them. She was the first female founder I ever saw, though neither of us would have used the word.

Years later, when I said I wanted the same, I was told a business wasn’t realistic. When I started writing, I was told that it wasn’t a real job either. I had one example on my side, a hairdresser across the road, against a chorus of people telling me to be sensible.

That one example won. It took years, but it won. 💃

Here’s what I understand now that I didn’t then: you never stop needing to see it. We talk about role models as something children need, and they do. Eight in ten young people in this country can’t name a single female entrepreneur. But it doesn’t end at eighteen. At every stage, you grow faster in the company of people doing what you’re trying to do than you ever will alone, second-guessing yourself in a vacuum.

That company is what I’ve tried to build. Not a highlight reel, and not only the women who’ve already made it. The ones still in the thick of it, telling the honest version of how it’s actually going. Dina, twenty-seven years in, will tell you there was never a grand plan, that she still sees the accountant each year and breathes a sigh of relief. That’s the truth other magazines edit out. It’s the truth that makes building feel possible.

Because it is hard. The self-doubt, the invisible work, the certainty that everyone else has it figured out. They don’t. There’s no single right way to do this, and you were never meant to do it alone.

So here you’ll find honest interviews with women working it out as they go, and real advice from founders a few steps ahead.

Come and read it (and subscribe, so the next story lands straight in your inbox): highflyingdesign.com 💻 📰

You’re doing this on your own. But you don’t have to do it alone.

Sorting a pension is the task most founders keep pushing to "later."

Here's a clear guide to your self-employed pension options in the UK, from personal pensions and SIPPs to NEST, and how to start with as little as £10.

Self-Employed Pension Options UK: A Guide for Female Founders — High Flying Design Self-employed and unsure about pensions? A clear guide to your UK pension options and how to start small.

Swapped a day behind my laptop for a day of FUN and fresh air in Carla | Beach Hut Hire |📍Holland-on-Sea’s gorgeous Lily hut.

Swam in the sea, had a proper M&S girly lunch with my mum, and just chilled. It was SO needed after a really busy start to the week at High Flying Design HQ.

If you’re looking for a beach hut to hire in Essex, Carla’s huts are the one. They’ve got everything you need for a day by the sea. 🌊 ✨ 🌞 🌙 🧜‍♀️

YOU are your superpower. 🧡

In the wise words of Amy Ryan, Founder of Lip Lock Aesthetics:

"Don't hide your naturalness, embrace it."

Read Amy's interview with High Flying Design at: https://www.highflyingdesign.com/magazine/founder-stories/amy-ryan-lip-lock-aesthetics

Amy Ryan talks to Shannon Kate Murray, founder and editor of High Flying Design, about building Lip Lock Aesthetics and its training academy in Liverpool, and why she'd rather explore every part of herself than fit inside one box.

Amy Ryan: Building a Business With MS and No Boxes — High Flying Design Amy Ryan built Lip Lock Aesthetics through an MS diagnosis and a father who chose her path. Her story, in her own words.