Mellow Brick Road

Sumi Sivalingam moved from Malaysia to Australia with two young boys and was determined to establish a solid business. She has certainly succeeded and is loving her work. 

The creative brain constantly whirrs, so it's inevitable we'll have new ideas and want to follow new directions. Monica Davidson sees no problem with this and nor should we.

In the course of whizzing around promoting my new book, I've come across a few somewhat suspect opinions regarding what it's like running your own ship. As far as I'm concerned, it's by far the most fun I've ever had (aside from other things that are inappropriate to discuss here).

I'm forever banging on about loving your customers and yet I know I can be pretty shoddy. I forget to follow up, forget to say thank you and certainly don't 'over deliver' anywhere near as much as I know I could and should. Unlike Jennifer Keeler-Milne.

If there's one thing that freaks out startups of all ages, it's finding and growing a solid customer base. And while failure statistics are often exaggerated, the main cause of things heading south is an inability to flog our wares. Here are a couple of stories that may just help.

While redundancy can be traumatic for many, for some it's a release. One such person is Ingrid Thompson. While she may not have known quite where she was headed, she had no doubt it was going to be good. Her approach to finding her path was unusual and it worked.

After an impressive career, latterly as creative head of a global branding and design consultancy, Mike Staniford walked away. With no desire to scale to that lofty corporate position again, he loves his new life. These days he spends much of his time either staring at a brick wall or making a mess in a disused loading dock. So what's he up to? Let's find out.

Ah, the plaintive query of the accidental entrepreneur. The person who is at the helm of something that has evolved while they weren't really paying attention. A common issue, let's fix it!

On a recent trip to London, I caught up with one of my lifetime besties, Pauline Crawford. A few years ago, she merged her training as a dancer and her natural talents as a teacher to start the ideal little business. Here's her story.

As I warm up for the launch of this new podcast, I figured it was good to invite input from someone who has worked in this area for a while. Author and seniorpreneur advocate, Jill Weeks had some good pointers for me.