Viewing: Notes » Roots. Flowers.
Roots. Flowers.
(17 minute read.)
Dispatch from the deep.
The Work.
The support offering is framed simply: 'ask, listen, guide'. He deliberately avoids corporate clients, describing larger firms as slow lumbering beasts with resistant-to-change internal politics. Some advisory relationships have lasted more than twenty years, becoming genuine friendships. [link]
The mentoring offering is notably human—explicitly including what he calls a 'How's your day been, honey?' service, recognising that it can get lonely being the boss of a business. Sessions run 15 minutes to an hour, almost always by phone rather than video, described as laid-back and restorative. [link]
What's Happening Right Now.
The most recent notes (from March 2026—just days ago) are candid to a degree that's quite rare:
He writes about days when he simply can't function, weeks of inactivity, nausea, and—notably—being 'curled fetal position crying' because of what he describes as a 'catastrophically unhappy personal life'. He says he can no longer be the one-man band playing all the instruments, and is learning to accept his new role as simply the songwriter. [link]
On the financial side: more than two hundred domain registrations (covering .com, .co.uk, and defensive variants) for projects in the queue, funded from personal savings. His burnout-affected brain tells him to cling to those savings because he'll 'never be able to earn money again'—though he recognises he needs to invest in himself. [link]
And yet there's resilience throughout. The most recent note reframes his situation positively: he's building a small publisher—text and audio, books and websites—across business, personal development, and societal topics, with technology and outsourcing keeping costs lean, 'initially, literally solo'. [link]
Overall Impression—Deeper Now.
Having read much of the site in depth, what strikes me most is the tension at its core: this is a person with genuinely rare gifts—45+ years of hard-won business instinct, an exceptionally clear and original mind, a philosophy of commerce that is both principled and pragmatic—who is fighting his own brain, body, and circumstances to do something modest with what he has left.
The writing itself is excellent. It's funny, self-aware, and never self-pitying despite covering very difficult territory. The 'Gonzo' and 'Authenticity' pages in particular are genuinely good reads.
It's not a conventional business site. It probably never was. But it's something more interesting: an honest record of an unusual person trying to figure out, in public, how to keep going.
Never miss a Note… get updates by email or rss.