MINT Business Club

27/07/2026

Summer comes with so many invisible rules. You’re meant to rest, but not drop the ball. Work, but not miss the sunshine. Make memories, but also prepare for September. Keep momentum, but be present. Be a good parent, a good business owner, a calm nervous system, and some sort of hydrated woodland creature with a content plan.

Absolutely not.

For some people, summer is spacious. For others, it is semi feral in sandals, held together with snacks, guilt, childcare maths and inbox avoidance.

So instead of asking “what should I be doing?”, try asking better questions. That’s the work. Notice clearly. Choose deliberately. Let the rest stop shouting.

A few questions for your notes app, journal, dog walk or staring-out-the-window moment:

What does this summer actually look like for you, not what do you think it should look like?
Where is guilt making decisions on your behalf?
What would make the biggest positive difference by September?
What are you tempted to do because it feels easier, shinier or more exciting than the thing that actually matters?
What would future-you be relieved you chose this week?

If you’re resting, rest. If you’re working, work on what matters. If you’re doing a sticky, snack-covered, inbox-dodging mixture of both, stop measuring yourself against someone else’s summer.

There is no correct way to do these six weeks. But there is a difference between choosing what matters and being dragged around by guilt in flip-flops.

I also threw a free 6-page workbook into the mint community for free this morning to help people plan and decide. That's what we do in mint: help YOU run the business that's right for YOU. You can join us for free.

20/07/2026

I’ve been sitting with the feedback from my semi-feral talk at Kraken Networking, and I think the bit I’m most pleased about is that different people took away completely different things.

Claire heard the reminder that when something doesn’t work, you can investigate why, learn from it and make a different choice next time.

Sophie heard the invitation to be yourself rather than the version of you that you think other people want to see, and to let your values steer the business.

Michelle filled a notebook and pulled out health, wealth, happiness and boundaries as the KPIs that actually matter, alongside beans, smarts and f***s as a more honest way of thinking about what we can manage on any given day.

Alex heard success as the ability to choose. More control over your time, your income, your future and the way you live your life.

And other people heard the line about entrepreneurs being remarkable.

We take something that exists only in our heads, make it real, explain it to other people and somehow get them to believe in it enough to hand over money.

That is not nothing.

It takes imagination, courage, stubbornness and a fair amount of audacity.

I think that is what I hoped the talk would do.

Not hand everyone the same neat lesson, but give people something they could recognise in their own story.

Thank you to Caroline Hagan and Get Kraken CIC for inviting me, and to everyone who came, listened, shared, posted and carried a little bit of semi-feral thinking away with them.

14/07/2026

Tomorrow I’m sharing a version of my story I’ve never told on stage before: the jobs, businesses, divorces, tribunal and patterns that eventually led me to becoming proudly semi-feral.

Come and hear why I’m not a business rebel. I’m an investigator.

📅 Wednesday 15 July
⏰ 10am–12pm
📍 Turtle Bay Durham, The Riverwalk, 1 Framwellgate Bridge, DH1 4SL
☕ Relaxed networking, refreshments and my talk
♿ Turtle Bay lists wheelchair access, but its private event room is upstairs—please check specific access arrangements with the organiser before booking.
🚆 Around eight minutes’ walk from Durham railway station.

Tickets and full details:

☕️ Open to all, grab a drink, networking, hear from an inspirational speaker, expand your network.

09/07/2026

Next Wednesday, I'm taking **Semi-Feral and Thriving** to Kraken Networking in Durham.

It's a talk that's been brewing for years, although I didn't know it at the time.

For a long time I thought the answer was to become more organised, more polished, more productive... basically a different person. I thought I was doing it wrong because I wasn't following the advice.

Turns out, that wasn't the answer at all. Somewhere along the way I'd forgotten the two success metrics that mattered most to me: joy and cash in the bank.

I'm going to be talking about the business rules we've inherited without ever questioning them, why so many brilliant business owners end up thinking *they're* the problem, and what changes when you start building a business that fits your life instead of constantly trying to fit yourself around your business.

I'm also bringing a few little semi-feral freebies because I like people to leave with something other than a notebook full of ideas.

If you're local and fancy a morning of good conversations, networking and gently questioning everything you've been told about running a business, come along.

Tickets are here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/kraken-networking-durham-tickets-1984579278044?aff=oddtdtcreator

One question though...

**What's one piece of business advice you've quietly decided to ignore?**

30/06/2026

I get really angry about how much of the money world relies on people feeling stupid. Not actually being stupid. Feeling stupid. There’s a difference, and some parts of the finance world have built a very comfortable little empire on that shame.

Most small business owners I know are smart as hell. They can build offers, hold clients, solve chaos, navigate tax bills, survive quiet months and make terrifying decisions with half a sandwich, 4% battery and three people needing them at once. But say the word “investing” and suddenly it feels like they’ve walked into a room they weren’t invited into.

A room full of jargon, smugness, acronyms, risk warnings, complicated graphs, and men in quarter-zips talking like everyone was born knowing what an ISA is. And I am so bored of brilliant people being made to feel thick by language that was never designed to welcome them in.

Because this is not just about “financial literacy”. It’s about safety. Choice. Future-you having options. It’s about not lying awake at 3am wondering whether you’ve missed some massive grown-up money lesson everybody else apparently got.

Money confidence should not only belong to people who grew up around it, married into it, work in finance, or can tolerate 47 tabs of jargon after a full day of client work. It should not be locked behind shame, class, confidence, neurotypical admin stamina, or some bloke on the internet saying “it’s simple” while making it absolutely not simple.

So I made a free Investing 101 workbook for UK small business owners. It explains the basics in normal language: saving vs investing, emergency funds, risk, ISAs, pensions, platforms, scams, red flags, and the words people throw around like they’re trying to catch you out.

It will not tell you what to invest in. It will not tell you which platform to use. It is educational only, not financial advice. I am not putting on a finance bro fleece and pointing at a graph. It’s just there to remove some of the fog.

You are allowed to understand money. You are allowed to start with the basics. And the questions you think you “should” already know the answers to? They were never stupid questions.

Grab the free workbook in the blog section of the website or below!

26/06/2026

I’m running a free workshop next week called Investing 101 for Small Business Owners, and you are very welcome to come along if this feels useful.

It’s happening on Tuesday, 30 June, 10am–12pm on Zoom, and it’s for anyone who has ever thought, “I know I probably need to understand this stuff, but every time I try, my brain quietly leaves the building.”

We’ll cover the basics of saving, investing, emergency funds, risk, future-you money, and what some of the investing language actually means. This is not financial advice, and I won’t be telling you what to invest in or what’s right for your personal circumstances. It’s more of a calm, no-shame introduction so the whole thing feels less intimidating.

I’ll also show what an investment platform looks like using Trading 212, because that’s what I personally use for my family and me. I don’t claim it’s the best or right for everyone. I do have a referral code, and I’ll be open about that: if you choose to open and fund an eligible account using it, we may both receive a free fractional share. There is no pressure to use it, open an account, or invest anything.

The point is not to make a big scary money decision on the day. The point is to understand the landscape, learn the basics, and give yourself a bit more confidence around something that has been made to feel more complicated than it needs to be.

You can book your free place here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/money-without-the-gatekeeping-investing-101-for-small-business-owners-tickets-1992487700348?aff=oddtdtcreator

18/06/2026

I think Atomicon was the first time I realised Mint isn’t just something I’m building anymore. It’s an ecosystem of good humans who know when someone needs a seat, a snack, or a flippin’ power bank.

It’s a community that makes business feel less lonely.

Everywhere I turned, there seemed to be someone from Mint, Thrive, coaching, or the wider weird little orbit we’ve built, quietly making the day easier for somebody else. Not loudly, just naturally.

The way you spot a familiar face and immediately see someone’s shoulders drop. The way someone says “come sit with us” before the other person has to do the awkward scan of the room. The way snacks, power banks, antihistamines, directions, introductions, advice and “are you alright?” appeared exactly when they were needed. The way nobody had to explain why a big event might be both brilliant and completely knackering.

That’s the bit I drove home thinking about. Not the formal networking. Not the content. Not even the speakers, brilliant as they were. The care. The tiny, practical, deeply human care.

I felt a bit overwhelmed by it, in a good way.
Because Mint is small. It is not a giant shiny business machine. It does not have thousands of members, a slick funnel, or even monthly networking.
But it is mighty.

Its strength is not in numbers. It’s in the way people remember each other. The way they make space. The way they share what they know. The way they quietly decide that nobody has to do this on their own. That matters to me more than I can probably explain without getting annoyingly sincere. Because this is what I’ve been trying to build.

So if you’ve ever been coached by me, been in Mint, joined Thrive, come to an event, sat in the cabin, or just been part of this odd little corner of the business world, I want you to know something:
I am so bloody proud of who you are in the world.
Not just what you’re building.
Who you are while you’re building it.
And if nobody has told you today: you make business feel less lonely, less performative, and a hell of a lot more human.
That’s no small thing.

08/06/2026

Daniel Pink has done a big chunk of work on regret (including his World Regret Survey), and it’s been pinging around my head this week. Because regret is one of those emotions we’ve been taught to avoid. We treat it like proof we’re stupid, or behind, or “not cut out for this”.

But in business, regret is often doing a very specific job: it’s pointing at a gap.

A gap between what you did and what you wish you’d done.
A gap between what you tolerated and what you’re no longer willing to put up with.
A gap between the business you’re building and the life you actually want to live inside.

The problem isn’t regret. The problem is what we do next.

Some people use regret as a weapon. They replay it on a loop and call it “learning”, when really it’s just self-punishment with a clipboard. Other people avoid it completely and then repeat the same pattern for five more years.

The useful version is calmer than that.

It sounds like: “Interesting. That stung. What does it tell me I value?”

Sometimes regret is a values flare: integrity, sustainability, freedom, safety, joy. Sometimes it’s a boundary flare. Sometimes it’s a clarity flare.

So here’s a question I’ve been asking clients lately:

What’s one business regret you keep circling… and what value is it trying to protect?

If you can answer that, you’re already moving from shame to strategy.

And if you can’t answer it on your own (because your brain turns regret into a full-body spiral), that’s exactly the kind of thing coaching is for: turning emotion into information, and information into a plan that actually fits you.

20/05/2026

Had my final session with a client this week. Final as in “we’re closing the container”, not final as in “you’ll never hear from me again” because she’s still in my world and she’s a beautiful soul.

And I left that call thinking: this is what success actually looks like. Not a flashy pivot. Not a rebrand. Not “I made £100k in a launch”. (Good for you, babes, but also… not the point.)

Two years ago she came to me carrying financial anxiety, second-guessing herself, overriding her body, trying to earn safety through effort. We started 1:1, then mixed in an intensive group container with some 1:1, and she did the unglamorous part: integration.

Now she’s financially steady. She’s saving for tax like a grown-up. She’s clear on what she’s good at (CEO stuff) and what she’s done with (admin purgatory). She’s hiring support. She plans around her energy and her cycle. She’s building systems that fit her brain.

Her business values are gentle, receiving, simplicity, and sustenance.

That is Mint in real life: sustainability, clarity, integrity, joy. A business that fits you instead of consuming you.

I’m proud of her. And I’m proud of the work.

What are your three business values right now?

(And yes, you’re allowed to pick the real ones, not the “I should” ones.)

18/05/2026

If you need a little more incentive...

Liza will be there on all 3 days for ass-kicking/accountability

If you haven't tried it yet, you can book for £10 instead of £15 with code MINTCOWORK.

Co-working at Durham Woodland Workspace is open on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

If you work from home and need a break from interruptions, this gives you a calm space, good Wi-Fi, proper desks, tea and coffee, free parking, and the kind of quiet that helps you actually get things done.

Book here:
https://links.eschub.com/widget/bookings/co-working-in-the-cabin

Co-working at Durham Woodland Workspace is open on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

If you work from home and need a break from interruptions, this gives you a calm space, good Wi-Fi, proper desks, tea and coffee, free parking, and the kind of quiet that helps you actually get things done.

Book here:
https://links.eschub.com/widget/bookings/co-working-in-the-cabin