What's all this about then?

Leadership is learned the hard way, mostly by getting it wrong first. I've spent close to two decades in sales engineering leadership, including a stint as a startup COO, and I currently lead a regional team across Asia Pacific and Japan. None of that came from getting things right the first time.

Along the way I've had the privilege of mentoring some genuinely great people. Watching them grow, hit walls, and work their way through has been one of the most rewarding parts of my career. I've been just as lucky on the other side, working with people who gave me room to fumble, shared what they'd learned the hard way, and reminded me that growth comes from trying things and getting them wrong.

What I noticed is that the best of those conversations were never about frameworks. They were stories: mistakes made, lessons learned, ideas borrowed and reshaped by experience. Sharing them turned out to be one of the most useful things I could do for the people I mentored, even when it meant walking the line between nostalgia and advice.

This blog and podcast is that, opened up. Stories and ideas that used to live in one-on-one conversations, now shared with anyone who wants them.

A few things

• I don't speak for anyone but myself here, and you should assume the same of my guests. I don't run episodes with people speaking on behalf of a company or organisation.
• Feedback is welcome, always. Be kind and be constructive. Be honest, clear, and direct, even when it's uncomfortable: the best feedback is actionable, not sugar-coated or vague.
• On comments: if one gets deleted, it's because it was off topic, unhelpful, or a personal attack. Nothing more sinister than that.
• Tools I use to put this together: Google Docs and a MacBook to actually write, Google Gemini for images, and Claude for proofing, research, and text to speech (my early articles ran through Grammarly instead). A lot of these started life as me rambling into my phone while mowing the lawn. The ideas and the mistakes are still mine.
• This blog is for entertainment purposes. It's not professional, legal, financial, or career advice, tailored or otherwise. And yes, mistakes were made, that's rather the point.
• A special thanks to the greatest editor and proofreader there is, for being kind and supportive of my efforts, and for putting up with the random "hey, read this" laptop hand-offs.