Last weekend, my friend Kasidis Satangmongkol (Toy) invited us to see The Odyssey (have you seen it?). We agreed to meet him at the cinema around 11am to grab our ticket.

Toy was standing behind a trestle table in front of a lineup of about 50 people. Unbeknownst to us, he hadn't just bought a few tickets.

He had booked out the entire first-class cinema for 600 members of his community, DataRockie.

What a lovely idea!

This is Toy’s superpower - building relationships and a strong community base through online education, so I wanted to share how he does it with you today.

Firstly, let me tell you about Kasidis Satangmongkol (Toy)

Toy is a data analyst and data science instructor, based in Bangkok Thailand. He founded a facebook page/ community “DataRockie” in 2016 (now with 168K followers), and in his words, it’s been a 10-year journey just like The Odyssey.

He offers online courses from data, coding to emerging technologies like ai. More than 45K Thai students have enrolled in his free classes at datarockie school. A lot of happy students, with more than 2500+ reviews on his FB page.

His mission is to democratise data science knowledge to all Thais (Leanne’s note: So good!)

I love Toy’s approach and asked him to answer 3 questions on building community and relationships.

1. How have you built a community over 10 years? What are the top 3 tips you could offer someone who wants to do something similar?

My philosophy is “Give to Grow”. We give more than we take. I am driven by Stoicism (ancient Greek philosophy).

The best way to grow a community is to out-teach and out-share your knowledge. Education is the best marketing, in my humble opinion.

Above all, be good. Virtue is an ancient word, but it’s more relevant today than ever. (Being good is the best business strategy)

Top 3 tips:

1. Write ridiculously good content, ideally once a week, long form article on your own website, then share it on social media i.e. Education is the marketing

2. If you write 100 content pieces, make sure 99 of them focus on education, and only one focus on action (i.e. selling). This sounds crazy, but it has worked for me in the past 10 years. Give more than you take. This logic resonates with me a lot, if all humans gave more than they took, the world would be a better place, the math is so simple, be good.

3. Give unconditionally. I give away a lot of free courses, host many free events, including The Odyssey movie last Saturday. This is the paradox, to give is to grow, and the more we give the more we grow.

Also - my favourite book in 2026 is “Incorruptible” by Eric Ries, he says that the purpose of all great companies is “human flourishing”, our customers, our employees and, lastly, our stakeholders/ investors.

2. Booking an entire cinema for your community is so cool! Why did you start doing this?

I started doing movie days in 2023, the first movie was John Wick 4, and I continue this ritual every year e.g. Deadpool, Dr.Strange, Mission Impossible, Tron and The Odyssey.

The booking is so simple, I contacted the cinema (SF in Thailand), talked to the sales rep and booked the date, paid the fee. The cost depends on the size of the cinema (how many seats), if it’s a blockbuster movie and the day of the week (weekday is generally cheaper than weekend).

It costs me around 2,500 - 7,000 USD per event, depending on the factors I mentioned above. The Odyssey was around 7,000 USD for 600 people. So cool! 🍿

I use my profit to host this event. It’s a win-win. I just want to meet my students, meet the community, and cherish the moment together.

In the end I think people don’t remember who you are, they remember how you make them feel. Movies and storytelling serve this purpose well.

(Leanne’s note: I really enjoyed this lesson. Often, I think when I host an event I have to give CONTENT value and expertise.. but curating a shared experience like hosting a movie is so powerful, too!)

Actually, I planned to have a mini talk before the movie, but we ran out of time. Maybe next time, the end of this year for Doomsday!

3. How do you cultivate your network and stay in touch with others?

We have a Discord community for alumni (my students). A public Facebook group that shares useful information related to data knowledge. I started my newsletter, but I’m not very active. I know the newsletter is my next move, and I will spend time building my list this year.

In the past 10 years, I have met a lot of people, including Leanne (and her cool husband Chris! Happy birthday!). I met , my mentor. I just DM (send him a message), and we connect. That’s it.

Be a genuinely good person, and people want to connect with you more. I think this is so true. This is ancient wisdom since the age of Aristotle.

But today, virtue is rare. Being good takes courage. I have tattoos on my left arm saying, “The obstacle is the way” and “Fortune favors the brave”.

Virtue above all else. Goodness against all else.

Love you Leanne, thank you for having me on your Substack.

Toy’s already invited me to his next movie meetup at the end of the year for Doomsday. Looks like I need to check out flights and get back to Bangkok in December, ha ha!

But what an amazing way to live, and congrats on everything you’ve created for your community in Thailand, Toy. Love your approach!

What did you think of Toy’s wisdom? What else have you seen done well that helps to build a strong community?

Leave a comment

As always, click the heart 💙 if this resonated, and I’ll catch you next week.

🌴

Leanne “Still not over the pig scene in The Odyssey” Hughes

p.s. I’m hosting a different type of event for my Brisbane book premiere of Work Fame on 16 October…featuring a mystery guest! Invite here.

While I can’t dive into specific client details, I wanted to share with you some of the highlights and lessons learnt.

A ‘Make it happen’ attitude

There are so many reasons why Bangkok is my favourite city on earth (here’s a podcast episode on 10-12 reasons why I love it) but for this trip specifically, one reason stands out - in amongst all the chaos and traffic, things just magically seem to get done here.

For example, at 7pm the night before I was hosting a gala awards dinner, I decided I wanted to wear a new dress at the event. I walked into a tailor shop, saw some beautiful fabric, and asked if it were possible to have this made into a dress by 4pm the next day.

Without hesitation, she said yes. She sketched the potential dress, made amendments, and measured me up. She rang the venue to confirm someone there would be responsible for handing me the dress the following day. She buzzed her best tailor, gave him the measurements, added me on WhatsApp (and gave me other number details), and assured me it would be there.

It arrived 30mins before I had to be ready…And thankfully, it fit (phew)!

I love this ‘can do’ spirit in the city.

Your turn: How could you make the impossible possible this week with a few phone calls? What's stopping you from making the first one?

Hosting a multilingual workshop

Tim Ferguson and the Audience Communication Team brought me in to co-host and co-design part of the experience. They're exceptional at what they do, and it was a privilege to work alongside them.

The session brought together delegates from three language groups, and seeing meaningful conversations happen across those differences was one of the highlights of the week.

Three things to share with you:

1. Visuals do a lot of the heavy lifting

When people aren’t all speaking the same language, visuals become even more valuable as a connection ‘anchor’. Photos, colours, emojis and countdown timers all helped create shared understanding without relying on lots of words.

2. Preparation makes translation feel effortless

One thing I learnt was just how much preparation goes into supporting simultaneous translation. The better prepared the speakers are, the smoother the experience is for everyone.

While I LOVE going off-script, this is not the time to do it. Lock in your script, keep 90-95% on that script, because there is tremendous value in the translators understanding intent and delivering your message in real time, without the 10-15 second lag.

On that note, it’s so important to SPEAK SLOWLY, speak precisely and pause regularly. Use your body language to convey messages, for example, if you say the number 3, hold up 3 fingers.

3. Leverage the tech

Translation tools have come a long way. Delegates could use their phones to instantly translate notes and ideas shared by people from other markets, making it much easier to learn from one another. Rather than becoming a distraction, the technology helped remove barriers and encouraged more conversations.

Your turn: If you had to design a session where language wasn’t a shared resource, what’s one thing you’d lean on to create connection anyway? What tips can you give me?

Leave a comment

Working with great partners

It was so invigorating to be working as part of a team honestly. As a solo consultant, I’m usually doing it all. And I do love that - there’s autonomy in it, freedom to make decisions, etc.

But I do LOVE working with other people - so to be part of a dynamic group of people, working towards a common goal was a lovely change. It was so good purely focus on design and hosting, and letting the talented production team cover everything else - printing things out, logistics, details, liasing with multiple stakeholders, event space, tech, calendar invites, etc. I got to work in my zone of genius and loved every minute.Your turn: When did you last get to work purely in your zone of genius - and what would it take to create more of that?

In short - host your event in Bangkok. The sublime hospitality, the fact you can get tailor-made outfits sewn overnight, that after a big day you can get a 1 hr foot massage, eat the most amazing food... it is incredible.

One day, I’d love to take a small group of people to Bangkok and maybe mastermind/show them exactly why I love this city. One day!

Can’t get to Bangkok? Steal the spirit anyway! The tailor's 'yes, let’s do this' attitude works just as well from your office, your neighbourhood, or wherever you happen to be.

Hit the heart 💙 and tell me...

What’s your favourite city to work in?

🌴

Leanne “Off to order another dress” Hughes

P.S. Speaking of great events - today is the last day to lock in your 2027 Con Con ticket at a lower rate. I'm closing the doors and re-opening ticket sales from 4 September.

What’s a watershed?

Imagine a mountain where rain falling on one side flows into one river, but the rain falling on the other side flows into a completely different river. The line separating those two paths is called the watershed.

You might have heard the phrase ‘a watershed moment’. It’s a point where life changes direction. The good news is, you don’t need to wait for a capital b Big life moment for this to happen.

You can wake up today, go for a coffee and have a watershed conversation, where the way you see the world changes in an instant. (Or, as Hanson would sing, in an mmmbop).

For example, last year I took myself to an urgent care clinic because I had a tiny splinter in my right foot. I couldn’t put any weight on it.

While the doctor worked on dislodging it, he mentioned he used to be an engineer. He didn’t switch to medicine until he was 39 years old. I remarked, “That’s a pretty late career change.”

He said another doctor had given him this advice: “Look, in five years, you’re going to be 44 anyway. So, do you want to be a 44-year-old doctor, or a 44-year-old who is still wishing they were a doctor?”

What a line! Time is going to pass anyway. You might as well spend it building something your future self wants, right?

That quote reminds me to attack the moment/now even harder than I used to (it was a good jump-start to get cracking on the next book). Memento mori!

While watershed conversations can hit us in random moments, we’re lucky sometimes when the best ones are captured on audio.

I wanted to share 3 specific podcast conversations that were watersheds in my life.

I had the idea last night, after listening to an episode of The Diary of a CEO. I haven’t tuned in for months, but I picked this episode at random and #mindblown…which is why I’ve featured it as #2 on this list.

1. Jenny Blake on Smart Passive Income (Episode 249)

SPI 249: Pivoting: How, When, & Why to Do It with Jenny Blake

I first started listening to podcasts in 2017. I remember a rainy commute into work when ’s bright voice came through my headphones talking about career pivots.

At the time, I thought the solution to my career stunt was to find a new job. This episode was a watershed for me.

Jenny’s framework breaks a successful pivot into four stages:

1. Plant: Identifying your core strengths and what success looks like one year from now. This is the foot that stays firmly on the ground.

2. Scan: Looking outward for people, projects, and opportunities.

3. Pilot: Running small experiments to test a new direction before you commit.

4. Launch: Going all in.

Two things I took to heart back then.

1. A pivot is not a 180 degree turn. You don’t burn it all down and start from scratch. You double down on what’s already working. For me, this meant I didn’t need to chase a new job. Actually, there were elements I liked at work but I didn’t really recognise what those things were, it’s worth doing a stocktake first.

2. Focus on planting first - go through a process where you get honest about your strengths and what lights you up. After learning this, I did my Clifton Strengths profile, and felt an enormous wave of relief. Ok, phew, I’m not a weirdo… I can embrace my natural tendency to work, and that can become my superpower (btw my Top 5 are 1. Ideation 2. Activator 3. Maximiser 4. Postivity 5. Futuristic - What are yours? LMK in the comments).

Also, Jenny said career restlessness itself is worth paying attention to - she felt like she was having a quarter-life crisis every two years and assumed something was wrong with her.

But it’s not a bad thing to feel restless. No need to avoid it! It’s okay to ask “what’s next?” more often.

Here’s a few other conversations we’ve recorded over the years.

• 017: Serendipity as Business Strategy with Leanne Hughes

• 074 Pivoting into public speaking with Jenny Blake

2. Dr Martin Picard on The Diary of a CEO

My toxic trait is that I make many decisions on pure energy/”the vibes”. Even when I have hard data, like Google Maps telling me where to go, I still over-rule it thinking i know best..!

If I make a massive decision and someone asks “Why did you do that?” (a completely valid question), I feel comfortable responding with, “Because I felt like it.”

I have a bias for making a decision and moving on, rather than hanging out in limbo. In some way, there’s just a deeper knowing/trust that it’s the right thing to do in the moment.

Up until recently, I know that sounded very “woo-woo.”

Then I listened to Dr. Martin Picard on the DOAC, who has spent ten years researching mitochondria and psycho-biological energy at Columbia University. He gave me some scientific validation for what I was doing (phew!).

Here are my some of my fave takeaways from the episode:

You are a walking resonator

shares that you aren’t your body; you are the energy flowing through it. When you hold a clear vision strongly enough, you become a resonator, and that energy pattern leaks out of you: in your tone of voice, in your attention, in the care you look at people with. Yes, it’s “the vibe”.

He said, “It’s like a symphony. When it’s on tune, people who want to come on board feel the feeling, and it gets amplified.” Science calls this entrainment which is an internal signal so strong that it pulls others into your orbit.

The Reality distortion field

In 1981, Apple engineer Bud Trible coined the term Reality distortion field to desribe the way Steve Jobs had the “almost hypnotic ability to convince everyone around him to believe practically anything…Even that you could bend time”. If you told Jobs a task would take six months, he’d say “you can do it in two weeks,” and through sheer conviction engineers often did, “rewriting their own understanding of what was possible.”

Jobs held an energy and conviction so strong that other people’s energy reorganised around it, and their sense of what was possible shifted to match his. As Steven Bartlett puts it, convincing someone is really just getting their energy to change shape.

When I advise leaders on driving change, I always start there. You have to live with the conviction and belief, an emboided feeling that it’s a good idea yourself. If you aren’t convinced, it’s very tricky to convince anyone else, no matter how slick your ADKAR process is.

Other cool ideas in the episode

• Energy needs something to push against to become meaningful. If there’s no resistance, there’s no growth.

• Mitochondria are super social and collaborate - this was fascinating.

• Oh, and he also talks about reversing grey hair growth!

3. Alan Weiss on First Time Facilitator

This was my first ever conversation with Alan Weiss. A couple of years into running my business, author Michael Bungay Stanier told me to read Alan Weiss’s Million Dollar Consulting, promising that if I did, I’d never go hungry again. Naturally, I invited Alan onto my podcast.

What was supposed to be an interview quickly turned into a coaching call..!

About twenty minutes in, I realised I had a few things wrong. It was the watershed moment of my business life. Three key things stood out back then (and still do):

1. Marketing is the business: We aren’t in the business of consulting; we are in the business of marketing. Marketing isn’t a side-hustle or an administrative chore - it is 100% of the game. As Alan shared: “When I’m advising clients, I’m marketing. When I’m on coaching calls, I’m marketing.”

2. He told me, flat out, that my business model was wrong: I was delivering too much. In Alan's world, if you're on site running the session, you're a pair of hands. If you're advising, you're a brain. And a brain is low labour, low travel and high fee.

3. Selling the input, not the output: I was positioning myself as a person who runs workshops. Alan explained that when a client rings and asks, “What’s your day rate for a workshop?” the correct move is to answer with a question: Why do you want a workshop? What are you actually trying to change? Nobody is better off because you sat them in a room for six hours, they’re better off because their business improved after you left.

Since that chat, Alan has continued to be an incredible mentor to me. You can listen to over 25+ conversations on our YouTube Talk the Walk playlist, and he also wrote the foreword for my next book, Work Fame.

Work Fame update

One milestone already ticked off... the 10-copy bonus has officially sold out. 🎉

354 copies have already been pre-ordered leaving 647 to go before my ridiculous goal of 1,001 by 30 September. THANK YOU!

Pre-orders are one of the strongest signals to retailers that a book is worth stocking. More pre-orders can lead to wider distribution, which means the book has a better chance of reaching more people.

That matters because Work Fame is a set of ideas I’d like to see shape more workplaces in a positive way.

The 50-copy bonus is still available. It includes your company logo on the Wall of Work Fame and a virtual Lunch & Learn with me for your team. Hit reply and email me if you have specific questions about this offer.

🌴

Okay, I better finish up packing for a work trip to my most fav city in the world, Bangkok!

I’ll be back in your inbox next week, sharing some reflections on the multi-lingual workshop/gala awards experience we hosted over there (you can follow behind the scenes on my IG @leannehughes.

Give this post a ‘Like’ (hit the heart 💙) if anything stood out for you.

Leanne ‘Scientifically-backed’ Hughes

P.S. One of the most fun parts of my next book has been planning the Brisbane Work Fame red carpet party. For your exclusive invite on 16 October, pre-order your copy of Work Fame and complete the form at getworkfame.com.

I’ve been obsessed with this tournament. My body clock has adapted (I’m naturally waking up at 4am to catch the games). All this football sent me down a deep rabbit hole of nostalgia, where I stumbled across an old trip report I wrote during the 2006 World Cup in Germany (pictured below).

I thought I’d share some of the ideas here. Looking back, those core memories were actually less about football, and more about stuff I like to build into biz and life, so here we go…!

Lesson 1: In community, we trust

Here’s how the adventure started:

On June 8 I arrived at Frankfurt-Hahn airport to meet up with Sydney FC Cove supporters to spend three weeks on their Cove Convoy.

I read about the Sydney Convoy on the Brisbane Roar FC forum and their plan was simple. Hire cars, stake out a campsite, drink and watch football for the duration of the World Cup.

Without knowing a single member from the Sydney supporters group, I signed up, paid, and away I was.

Looking back, this sounds completely reckless.

I was living in Ireland at the time, had no friends travelling to Germany, so I flew to Frankfurt, hopped into a BMW (standard German car) with people I’d never met, and spent three weeks camping with strangers.

I’m pretty sure I told my parents I was travelling with friends (oops).

But it never felt unsafe because I trusted the community they belonged to. Years later, I came across psychologist Henri Tajfel's social identity theory, which helped explain why. It suggests that when we share membership of a group with someone, we instinctively offer them a level of trust we'd never give a complete stranger.

My friend calls this referred credibility (Brendon and I also met in a community forum).

I shared this story at Con Con a few weeks ago and suggested that everyone could extend a level of trust to the people in the room. After all, they'd already passed the first test: they'd chosen to be there.

Q: Which communities are you part of right now, and are you making the most of the trust that's built into them?

Lesson 2: Walk towards your dreams

From my 2006 trip report:

By June 12 I still hadn’t managed to secure a ticket for Australia’s opening match against Japan. But I wanted to be in the same city as the game, so I jumped in a convoy vehicle for the drive to Kaiserslautern (”K-Town”) early that morning.

My plan was to watch the game at the pub.

But everyone around me started walking towards the stadium, so I figured I might as well walk there, too.

Somewhere along that walk, a ticket found me.

I ended up sitting behind the goals as a Yahoo! sponsor, right at the end where Tim Cahill scored two of the most famous goals in Australian football history.

Dr. Christian Busch (who joined me on the podcast a few years ago) spent a decade studying what he calls the “serendipity mindset.”

His finding? Luck is smart. The people who seem to consistently get lucky create the conditions for unexpected good things to happen. They take the first step before there's any guarantee it'll pay off.

You increase the surface area of your luck by just walking in the direction of your dreams. “Smart luck” is the luck you make.

Q: What's your version of walking towards the stadium today?

Lesson 3: Cheer people on

One of my fave memory from the trip wasn’t even a Socceroos match.

My accommodation was a tent at a campsite in Ohrnberg, a town 6 miles out of Oeringen. It was at the local football team (Ohrnberg TSVs) football club. We camped on the football pitch, showered in the locker rooms and watched the matches on a huge projector screen in their club hall.

One afternoon the Ohrnberg U/12 football side were playing never-beaten rivals Ohringen. We spent all day making a banner for the U/12 kids which read “Vergess ne Schuke, Spiel Fuball” (”Forget School, Play Football”).

Chants such as “You couldn’t score in a sandlot” must’ve worked as the Ohrnberg boys ran out 4-0 winners. Little events like this really summed up the tagline for the tournament, “A time to make friends”.

I can’t say it was the banner made the difference, but I reckon those kids (who’d be in their early thirties now) still talk about the day a couple hundred vocal Australians showed up for their under-12s derby and chanted encouragement for 90mins.

We’re often too reserved with our encouragement at work. We quietly admire people instead of publicly celebrating them. We’re quite measured in our support of each other (well, at least here in Australia).

Q: Who in your world is doing something great right now, and have you told them?

Share

Speaking of celebrating, I want to celebrate my mate Steve Hodgson and share that he’s hosting a Beyond the Noise Men’s retreat in August. He’s a great guy, and if you want to reconnect with nature (and yourself), check out the amazing experience he’s creating.

Anyway, it was an incredible trip. I’m looking forward to waking up at 3am tomorrow to watch the Socceroos hopefully knock-out Egypt. My friend Nathaniel (who I met during the convoy) shared this, “Expect Egypt to play in a 4-3-2-1 pyramid formation…)

Thanks for reading this week.

Also, here’s a score update from my own world cup (351/1001)!

I’d love your support and to feature you on the Wall of Work Fame. Pre-order a copy of Work Fame (or multiple copies for bonus perks) and claim your star(s).

If you like the World Cup, travelling, or a message from this article, please tap the heart 💙 .

It takes a second and is a nice way to cheer me on, too!

🌴

Leanne “Schade wegen Paraguay" Hughes

It’s a long read, so grab a cuppa.

If you’d like to ask questions, please comment in this thread and I’ll respond to you there, so that everyone learns more and grows.

Leave a comment

The con(text)

Last August, I had this crazy idea to host a conference.

But I didn’t want to take on risk (i.e. investing money on a venue, spending time and energy thinking about it) so I wanted to validate the idea as soon as possible.

With traditional events, the host usually takes on 100% of the risk. But the host doesn’t claim 100% of the benefit, it’s shared -you’d hope that your guests benefit too, right?.

So, I decided to run an experiment. My marketing efforts cost me $0. I put out a notice online, “I’m hosting this event for consultants, here’s what I think it could look like. If we can sell 15 tickets in the first 24 hours it’s on, if not, then I’m canning the idea, and it won’t happen”.

I then jumped on this LinkedIn Live that evening to share the result..

The event landing page itself was super basic.

I chose a date, a city (the Gold Coast) and shared a vision of what the event could look like. Note: No keynote speakers were on the drawcard.

The best thing about this approach? It attracted bold people to sign up, people who don’t need all the information, AKA…My type of people!

The event name was even a placeholder and actually a joke, Con Con. But it stuck!

I was shocked that 15 tickets sold out in 20mins, and the event was sold out in 8 days (this is over 290 days before the actual conference date. And at time of writing, it’s 65% sold out for 2027).

Here’s a quick highlights reel on what went down (video below).

Why I wanted to CONvene everyone

I’ve always tossed around the idea of hosting an event because I have the best catch-ups with my peers/friendtors. I’m super lucky that I have a brilliant network of people, and I love a good coffee and a brainstorm.

At some point I thought, why am I doing this one cup at a time? Let’s just get everyone in a room.

Also? I wanted to muck about with what a conference even is. When I work with clients, I’m playing inside their constraints, which is totally fine but I just wanted to try my own thing for once to see what worked.

The other reason is that I’ve got a bit of a bone to pick with traditional conferences. I don’t think the biggest enemy of a conference is time. It’s YouTube. The old format, where you line up speakers and give them 45 to 60 minute slots across eight hours while everyone sits and scribbles notes, feels like a joke to me. If I want to hear my favourite speaker, I can listen to a 90-minute interview with them on YouTube tonight, with my sausage dog by my side (for free!).

So why would I travel, pay money, to sit in a row and listen? When you’ve got a room full of people with real experience and ideas, the best thing you can do is get out of the way and give them a format to talk through/conversational scaffolding.

Here are the assumptions about traditional conferences (on the left) vs what I broke with Con Con on the right (in bold)

• Speakers are the stars vs Every attendee is a contributor

• Presentations vs Conversations

• Host it in a conference room vs Host it anywhere but a conference room

• Networking starts at morning tea Networking started months before arrival

• The organiser takes all the risk vs The market validates the idea first

• Program locked months ahead vs Program emerged close to the event

• Speaker bios vs Every attendee profiled

Originally, I wanted to go full extreme (let’s have a gathering where we move locations!) Had some great chats with Events whiz, Sally Porteous during the brainstorming stage, but realised, I had to reel myself back in to practically make it all work.

My format CONundrum

Look, it’s easy to say you’re going to throw out an old format (i.e. speaker fest), but it’s a whole other thing to put together a new program.

I was a bit nervous about the format re- timing, was there enough space to do stuff, what’s facilitated, what do we cover in breakouts? Funnily enough, the woman who wrote a book two-hour workshops didn’t run a single two-hour session….

It was also tricky to design because when I work with corporate clients, they come with very specific outcomes. When I surveyed the Con Conners beforehand, the answers were lovely but not outcome-driven, ie. “I want to connect.” “I want fresh ideas.” Nobody said “I want to walk out with an extra $20K” - so, how do you design for mindblowing insights, growth and connection while also ensuring the conference gives you an ROI? I feel like you need to cover both objectives, the rational and the experiential.

The big call I made was that there were no speakers and no participants. Everyone was a CONtributor. That might mean speaking, or debating, or hosting a breakout sesh, or asking questions, or side events, or just showing up with great energy.

I built a specific Con Con event website using Manus AI which had every Con Conner listed with their profile, a photo, a bit about them, and a link to their LinkedIn profile. Traditional conferences only profile their speakers but I wanted to highlight every great individual.

Here’s the program for both days, so you can see the mix I landed on (pictured below). I had these printed on A4 cardboard and had one on each table station, like a menu.

I gave some people a speaker slot who I barely even knew, purely based on their enthusiasm. When your group trusts you to do something like this, you can trust in them, too (sorry if that’s corny but it’s the truth). PLUS, pretty much 100% of the room also host, facilitate, speak for a (good) living, so I trusted they’d be excellent. They were.

Building CONnection before anyone showed up

Before the event, I hosted three optional Zoom calls including a welcome call and something I called the 2-Min Tip Roulette Party, where everyone had two minutes to share something that was working for them, whether that’s in their business, their facilitation, or their pricing.

Here’s the calendar description for the roulette party:

You’re invited to the 2-MIN TIP ROULETTE PARTY, an exclusive for Con Conners.
The format is simple. You get 2 minutes to share one tip that has improved your business or working life. The tip must align with the goals of Con Con: Better clients, better fees, or better peers (better life, really).
Think:

• a great line you use in a proposal

• an AI or tech tool

• a shortcut, system, or workflow

• a smart question you ask in sales or client conversations

• something small that’s had a big payoff

You’re welcome to share your screen... And there will be a 2min-timer so we can share the space. Plan B: The only catch is that this only works if we’ve got enough people ready to bring something useful. I’m not going to ask you to submit anything beforehand, I’ll facilitate the share-backs live, and encourage you to come along and share one thing.

On the surface, the tip roulette party was about swapping tips.

But it was actually a bit of sleight of hand… It was more about getting people comfortable with each other, and having the confidence to build transparent sharing, setting the right tone before they’d even arrived to the Gold Coast.

Too many conferences wait until 9am on day one for that first awkward hello.

You could see the connection already during the Sundowners on the Weds afternoon prior to our official Thursday kickoff.

The event was officially on from 4pm to 6pm, but at 6.30pm the party was still happening.

I love a good party but I also take hosting very seriously. I slunk off early to my room to grab some dinner, and not a single person noticed.

I wasn’t offended though, I was proud!

When you’ve built the right community, it stops being about the host.

How the first hour went (a CONfession)

The official start was Thursday morning, and I kicked off at 9:03am. Everyone was on time (the specific 9.03am start really works).

Then somehow, I completely botched my opening activity. My brain just wasn’t connecting to my mouth.

Buuuuut… It got a huge laugh.

A couple of Con Conners started jumping in, saying I’d recovered well, and suddenly I had advocates in the room before we’d even really begun, phew.

(One day, I might share the video footage of that scene with you, just not today…)

The other thing I did in that first hour was openly share my actual pricing on a slide.

It was a screenshot of my first ever proposal (that took 10 days to write), compared to a version a couple years ago, where if you were to break it to an hourly rate, my revenue increase was 511%.

Money can be a touchy subject, I know, and that’s why I wanted to go first.

Oh and Deb Pascoe ran a brilliant opening activity that tested psychologically bravery IMMEDIATELY. It was called “Vent, Brag and Judge”, so so good. The title gives you an indication of what we did during the activity.

CONtrolling the budget

Because ticket sales were made 290 days in advance, I created a separate online savings account and put the cash in there, almost like a trust account. Luma, the event platform I use, gives you event payouts quickly but I wasn’t touching it until after the event was delivered. I set up a separate line item in Xero to track ingoings/outgoings, paired with a Google Sheet.

Ticket sales total was $63K. I set aside a third of that ($21K) immediately for tax, leaving me to play with approx $42K.

The venue was the major expense. Hire included AV, meals etc for two days, bar tab and sundowner snacks, totalling approx $17K. Support crew, accom, merch, gear hire and other expenses totalled $11K leaving me with a profit around $14K.

If I was a business advisor to myself, and with the hours I put into Con Con (vs the work that I deliver with B2B clients), this does not make commercial sense on paper. But from an impact and joy perspective, it makes COMPLETE sense.

My goal with Con Con 2027 is to attract sponsorship to help it make more sense on paper. And I’m delighted we already have an evening drinks sponsor for Con Con 2027, thank you Sarah + Vitality Law Australia!

My favourite CONcoctions

Let’s get into some more detail.

Venue

The venue was MAGNIFICENT. 11/10 to Kirra Beach House. Just stunning location by the beach. I organised brilliant weather (haha). It had a big coastal room and also cabanas overlooking the Pacific ocean.

My only qualm was lunch as it was quite carby (boring sandwiches). The venue being all-in-one helped a lot. Nobody had to shuttle between a hotel and a separate drinks venue, which took the friction right out. The breakout space could’ve been better (proper rooms next time) but overall, with the scenery, the lovely vibes, it was fantastic.

Support

It was a total coup hiring events assistant, Sarah Hutton. She did so much in the background and made it so seamless, giving me the bandwidth to purely focus on hosting.

I also had to have my videographer, Sean Smith in the room documenting the thing! He’s fantastic and turns around videos so quickly, this time he edited together a couple 90 second clips (shared in this email) suitable for both YouTube and verticals for Instagram.

Con Con’s Resident DJ (that’s right)

A wildcard move last year was asking Viren to bring his alter-ego, DJ Tkrar to Con Con and DJ the event. I GAVE MYSELF A HIGH FIVE FOR THIS DECISION.

Gosh, not only is he a brilliant DJ but just an amazing human to have around to bring the energy.

And if you host events, don’t you hate that moment when everyone breaks up to do an activity, and you have to fiddle with your phone and a Bluetooth speaker for a minute? Viren just read the room and played the right instrumental at the right time… and I’ll never get over saying, “Hit it, DJ!’

Btw - my favourite thing he said was, “I don’t do requests.” I loved it so much I worked it into my opening. Isn’t that a nice lesson for our own businesses? Trust your judgement. Trust your expertise.

Be a “No requests” consultant!

Having those awesome tunes also loosened me up, too. I spent a fair bit of the two days dancing up the front and enjoying myself - when the host is relaxed, the room takes the cue, too.

Artwork (and jigsaw puzzle)

I commissioned Jade Miller to draw original artwork to capture the Con Con vibe. Her art was repurposed for signage, slide branding, and even a custom printed jigsaw puzzle (ordered from QPuzzles).

I thought we’d all enjoy milling around and piecing it together. We never finished it, though! Everyone was having too much fun talking to each other.

Merch

Re- conference merch. I didn’t want to do branded pens and USBs, so I made branded A3 notepads, because I’m forever working on A3 paper and I bang on about it constantly.

They were a hit, and doubled as decor for the room. I ordered stubby coolers too (I collect them), with “Chill, you’re at Con Con” on the side, I thought this was a smart line because the stubby coolers cool your drink… not sure if anyone got the pun? These also doubled as pen holders.

I thought about t-shirts and hats, but sizing and preferences are a nightmare, so I kept it simple.

Also - here's an idea you can steal for your next conference/event... The Biz Bookshelf (pictured).

I got this idea when I was looking at my bookshelf and seeing multiple copies of business books that inspired me - why do I still hold onto them?

And I know many of my peers also love having new reads... so for sustainability, and for a bit of fun/value-add, I asked each Con Conner to bring a book for our book exchange shelf. Leave a book, take a book!

The CONsensus (in their own words)

The thing I most wanted people to walk away with wasn’t a tactic. It was belief in themselves, and the confidence that you CAN create something from nothing, plus, a different way of seeing the world (small asks, really!).

Here’s what some Con Conners shared about the experience (in this video)

…and there was lots more Con Con love on LinkedIn

I couldn’t include all the CONmentary but here’s some snippets.

• “We came, we CONversed, we CONtributed, we CONnected. 50 of Australia’s most ambitious and thoughtful consultants, solo practitioners, facilitators and coaches, with a common driver of creating impact and value for our clients. Who all happen to love playing in the ambiguity, uncertainty and wild space of helping leaders and teams do better together.” - Julia van Graas

• “None of us knew what to expect, or what it was going to deliver, but we all knew through Leanne’s incredible energy, authenticity and track record that whatever it looked like, whatever transpired, whatever was delivered, was something we couldn’t afford to miss. I’ve been to more conferences than I can count, let alone remember, over the years, and by far this was my favourite conference.” - Steve Hodgson

• “I went along to Con Con with some ideas and intentions, but what I experienced was more than I could have hoped. Yes, I came home with a lot of notes and learnings and new contacts, but in a way that shifted something inside. Ideas and phrases that won’t leave me alone, confidence in who I am, the direction I’m heading, and not just contacts, but new and strengthened relationships.” - Jade Miller (also, read her excellent write up here)

• “I met so many cool people over the two days, and heard so many great ideas. Amongst many, here are some of the conversations that inspired me:

  • Steven Demedio’s provocation to ‘take it outside’ and use our environment and nature more creatively when facilitating.

  • Dr Cathryn Lloyd on what an absolute necessity it is to bring more of the creative arts into the development experiences we create.

  • Sharing ambivert discovery stories with Karen Hollenbach.

  • Leanne’s ‘Wildcard’ proposal approach. Absolutely love it, and I can’t wait to see which org is the first to bring me in as a fractional Chief Vibes Officer.

  • As a massive advocate for challenging the status quo on values-led culture, it was awesome to hear Matthew Stewart share so many great examples of how he ripped up the rule book on building culture.” - Viren Thakrar

• “I bought a ticket to the inaugural Con Con, with no idea what would be involved. I only knew I wanted to be in the room with Leanne and the incredible people she would attract. My three core takeaways were:

  1. If you’re not in love with your work, figure out a way to fall back in love with it.

  2. Stand for something and have a point of view.

  3. Identify your true fans, and stay in touch with them.” - Mel Kettle

• “As someone who works in a very traditional, grey and stale industry (yawn), and often experiences the loneliness of business, I found it so refreshing to step into conference filled to the brim with different people, new ways of thinking, possibilities rather than put downs & genuine encouragement.” - Sarah Stoddart (read her full article).

• “It seems like only yesterday I was at my desk at 8am, ready to snag a ticket to the idea that was #ConCon2026. We weren’t jumping at an international speakers list, or the snazzy venue (back then we had no idea where it would be, at all). We were jumping at the chance to be in a room of likeminded, amazing people doing aligned, stellar things, and we trusted it because we trusted Leanne. In a world of rising AI, increasing numbers of solopreneurs, with more ambiguity and disruption than you can poke 1000 sticks at, we bet on connection and humanness.” - Andrea Levinson

• “Con Con is over and I’ve done a 16km walk along the beautiful Gold Coast to reflect and process. What’s standing out to me today is the curation of insightful people and program, and the energy Leanne brought to fostering connection. Many people shared private and insider insights. I really valued the level of disclosure in the room.”- Paul Bowers (Paul also wrote this great article on how he creates an action plan after a conference)

What hosting CONfirmed about me

My level of obsession was about right. I had loads of time to plan this, and while I sorted the important things early (like venue), I deliberately didn’t lock the program until a few weeks out.

There’s real value in planning in the moment/just in time, because you’re picking up on the energy re- what the market’s saying, how you’re feeling, you’re just more responsive to what’s happening RIGHT NOW.

My clients usually want everything locked months ahead. For something like this, the magic was in the emergence. I landed my opening the day before, just by asking myself one question - What’s most important for me to share with this room, right now?

Disrupting my own CONcept for Con Con 2027

I’m not interested in running the same event, tweaking a few things and improving it by 5%.

The great thing about this year’s Leanne Hughes’ Con Con is that nobody had any expectations at all.

Actually, I did ask everyone, “Who could easily tell their friend/spouse/kids what Con Con is all about?”…Not a single person raised their hand. In fact, as the organiser, I couldn’t even explain it myself..! #clarityisoverrated

Next year, these high expectations are the enemy.

People know what Con Con is now, so the job is to show that it’s a format I’m willing to mess with, including my own version of it. YES, of course, I’ll keep elements of what works but I’m also really keen to shake up some things, to keep myself, and my fellow Con Conners on our toes + invigorated.

This year we had a big bell curve, from people who hadn’t started their business yet (and wouldn’t even call themselves consultants) through to black belt consultants who out-earn me.

I’ve increased the room size by 25 people, to 75 next year, so we can build targeted streams and maybe some small deep-dive workshops on specific areas, as well as inject new spirit into the conversations.

So yes… that’s the behind-the-scenes… And I also want to give a shout-out to and who were super helpful in idea-spa’ing about the program.

And of course, couldn’t have done it without the brilliant Con Conners - you’re AMAZING. Thank you for bringing the good stuff!!

There’s so much more I can share and write about, so please ask away in the comments.

Enjoyed the read?

Tap the heart 💙 so it reaches a few more people.

Btw, thank you for your early book support!

We’ve just cracked 346/1001 pre-orders of my next book, Work Fame, with 97 days to go. Want your name, or your organisation’s featured on the Wall of Work Fame? Grab your copy of the book and submit the form here.

🌴

Leanne “Needs to have music on cue” Hughes

p.s. Want to be part of next year’s experience? Con Con 2027 registrations are open, for a limited time with first round ticket sales closing 17 July. If you read this and love the vibe of Con Con, I’d love to hang out with you!

There’ve been sundowner drinks, my brain is still going (and planning for tomorrow). And I don’t think I’ve fully processed what’s happening here yet….amazing crew, best chats, loving it!!

A quick backstory if you missed it… 294 days ago, I floated a random idea on this list and on LinkedIn: Would consultants want to get in a room together? I capped it at 50 people and made a deal. Sell 15 tickets in 24 hours and it happens. If we don’t hit that target? I’ll cancel it and refund all orders.

15 tickets sold in 20 minutes. The event sold out in eight days.

It’s felt like a long time coming. And then it just arrived.

So here we are. And there’s actually so much goodness to share, wait for the full wrap next week but in the meantime I thought I’d share some snippets from my opening address - “Leanne Hughes’ Six Truths of Consulting” as at 18 June 2026*

*subject to change

1. Value is value

We live in a capitalist society, and the truth I keep going back to whenever I feel stuck is Jim Rohn’s line - the only thing it’s about is creating value in the marketplace, and the marketplace is reality (watch this clip from 1:29:00).

What that means to me is that the great idea in your head is not reality. It’s just in your head. You must go to the marketplace to test it.

So I urged my fellow Con Conners to test their service offering ideas with real people.

At any point, one thing could be off and the whole offer doesn’t land. There are so many variables which makes it tough! Wrong timing, pitched to the wrong person, wrong positioning, wrong language. But what I love about this clip is the simple message is going to a basic 101 business lesson: It’s simply about creating value.

2. Your peers aren’t normal

I’m surrounded by type A, high-achieving people who write multiple books, go on multiple podcasts, travel to cool places, and speak in front of hundreds or thousands of people. For us, that’s the norm.

When your peer group looks like that, you think, “If I write a book, what’s the point? It won’t stand out.”

Then you go to a barbecue with mates and realise that having a podcast, or speaking on a big stage, is a genuinely big deal to most people. What we do is rare. We’re not normal compared to the general population. While the market might feel oversaturated, it isn’t.

3. “How I” is the new black (not “How to”…)

Before AI, “How-to articles” ruled the content game, everyone wanted the 5 or 7 steps to doing something, that stuff attracted attention.

However, I believe that ship has well and truly sailed. Anyone can ask an LLM to write a how-to article in 4 se onds.

What stands out? I believe it’s about documenting and sharing “How I specifically do x…” where you share your process, story, learning experiences. People connect to that more than just generic “How to” content.

So, spill the beans. Share - what is your actual process? What did you try? Where did things go wrong? How has it worked out for you?

Everything I write here in this newsletter is just documenting what I’m doing, what I’ve tried and tested (and thank you for being here on this journey!)

4. You need to be constructively delusional

I honestly think this is the most exciting time to be alive. There’s never been a better moment to create something from nothing.

Be constructively delusional (here’s the episode of This American Life where I learnt the phrase!)

If you’ve seen my book launch site (and thank you for the pre-orders, simply incredible, I’ll talk more about that next week), maybe you’re interested in knowing that I built the pre-order website myself over a weekend, with no tech skills.

In 2026, you can talk an idea out loud to AI and watch it build the thing for you.

At Con Con, I ran a breakout session on my ‘Wildcard Proposals’ and how I love to throw in a random, crazy option three for clients - something that’s a bit out there.

Sometimes I propose ideas as an Option 3 and have no idea how to I’ll deliver it/make it happen. But I’m constructively delusional enough to back myself that if they make that choice, we’ll make it happen, and create dramatically brilliant results.

5. Your clients are paying for more than rational objectives

This is how you stay AI-proof. We become commoditised when we all do the same thing. “I’ll help you build a strategy one-pager.” “I’ll get your leadership team aligned.” Those are rational objectives, and they’re easy to replicate.

The experiential objective is what sets you apart. What does working with you actually feel like? What’s the essence, the vibe?

If you work with me, I hope what you get is excitement, enthusiasm for life, and a belief that you can shoot higher than where you are now.

All of us at Con Con have different vibes… and that’s okay! Your vibe attracts the right tribe.

6. How you do things is the thing

I find this easier to explain using examples - but how you operate, all of your customer touchpoints reflect everything about your brand and your values.

For example, my next book is called Work Fame. It’s a book about being work famous. So I had to work with a famous publisher (Wiley). I couldn’t exactly self-publish a book on Work Fame, right? What message would that send?

How you do things is the thing.

Same with the pre-order page, where I’ve built the Wall of Work Fame. The book is about getting recognition, so of course I’m embedding that idea of recognition to reward pre-order sales.

And Con Con itself. I launched it as an experiment, which attracted people who are also up for an experiment. That created its own community of bold action takers who enjoy operating in ambiguity.

Share

Let me share some tips from fellow Con Conners

I ran a short segment called ‘The Creation Station’ today which was really just about giving everyone some space to process what they’re learning at Con Con and give them the option to share some tips with you, here they are:

• “When you’re doing well - notice what scaffolding, systems or rituals you have in place that are contributing to your current success. And then embed that as a system in your life to build on the momentum” - , Impact Catalyst. Join her latest on demand masterclass, How to Stop Rambling

• “When you’re doing well - Find joy in the progress by noticing and capturing the glimmers, the gains and the gratitude. Even better, take a moment to celebrate someone else’s progress” - Andrea Levinson, Leadership Advisor. Work is good, work is great, work is fine - but is it? Name what’s actually draining your leadership energy and what would help.

• “It’s a numbers game!” relating to business development - Meg Hooper, Consulting Psychologist, Carousel Consulting and Creative Director, Circus Ipswich, Where the extraordinary comes to play.

I do promise a more full wrap of everything next week. Incredible shares from people like , Julia van Graas, the LinkedIn great debate, Deb Pascoe and Steve Demedio".

Now off to get Day 2 ready…wish us luck! (and let me know if you liked any of my ‘truths’ by hitting the heart 💙 button).

🌴

Signing off,

Leanne “Still on a high” Hughes

p.s. Alan Weiss is joining me for a special Talk the Walk live-stream coming to you LIVE from #concon2026 (Thurs 6pm ET / Fri 18 June 8am AEST). No topic off limits, join us!

After months of work (and a decade of learning the lessons I write about), I’d love to share my next book with you: Work Fame: Get the Projects, Perks and Promotions You Deserve.

This book was written for the 2016 version of me.

Back then, I worked in a large organisation. I was ambitious, but also a little lost. I believed that if I kept my head down and did great work, opportunities would eventually find me.

They didn’t and what I eventually realised was that great work alone isn’t enough. People need to know about it.

Over the years, I started experimenting with ways to become known for my work. Those ideas led to bigger projects, unexpected opportunities, incredible relationships and a career (and life) I could never have planned.

This book captures those lessons.

Work Fame is about becoming known for the right work, by the right people, before the right opportunities appear.

And now I’d love your help.

The mission: Making 1,001 people Work Famous

My goal is to make 1,001 people become work famous.

When the right people become work famous, good ideas spread faster, better leaders get noticed, and opportunities flow to those creating genuine impact, not just those making the most noise.

This book is my attempt to help make that happen.

When my publisher’s delightful marketing team told me it’s incredibly rare for an Australian business book to receive more than 1000 pre-orders, I saw an opportunity.

What if every pre-order represented one more person committed to becoming known for their work?

So I set a goal: 1,001 copies pre-ordered by 30 September 2026.

You can follow the journey in real time, too (scary!)

(A quick note for the aspiring authors reading: I have a call with the publisher's Sales team next week. Retailer shelf space is fiercely competitive, and strong pre-order numbers help prove a book has commercial legs. That's the practical reason behind pre-order campaigns)

As I write this, 139 stars have already been claimed on the Wall of Work Fame (thank you, thank you! I am so incredibly grateful for the support so far).

Every person who pre-orders the book gets their own star on the wall.

What’s in it for you?

Fame is about exclusivity, access, VIPs, the red carpet, perks and recognition.

I want to recognise YOU for being an early supporter of the book.

Every pre-order comes with a bonus, including:

⭐ VIP invitations to the Work Fame launch events (Just quietly… the Brisbane launch on 16 October will not be your typical book launch. Think Hollywood red carpet party vibes. You won’t want to miss it.)

⭐ Limited-edition Work Fame enamel star badges

⭐ Private coaching sessions

⭐ Team workshops, 1:1 VIP Days, and organisation-wide experiences

You can see all bonuses and claim your star here.

Pre-order Work Fame here

2 simple steps to claim your star + bonuses

1. Pre-order the book at www.getworkfame.com

2. Fill in the form on the page to claim your star. You need both steps for your star to appear on the wall.

And if you feel so inclined - share this on LinkedIn or wherever you hang out. The goal is to make this book Work Famous. Which, when you think about it, is exactly what it’s about…

Hit the blue heart 💙 if the concept of Work Fame resonates with you.

And so excited that next week, my event Con Con is on. It’s finally here! I’m bringing 50 brilliant consultants together down the Gold Coast to help reimagine what we do, connect, swap ideas and also? Have fun!

I’ll also be live-streaming with Alan Weiss for our next Talk the Walk episode live from Con Con, topic is “Nothing off limits” (Friday 19 June, 8am) - you can join in the banter virtually.

Will keep you posted on how the week goes!

🌴

Leanne “Only 863 stars to go” Hughes

P.S. TL;DR - check out my new book, limited bonus offers, and pre-order a copy to claim your star on the Wall of Work Fame → www.getworkfame.com

Actually, a few people were surprised to hear that, seven years in, I don’t have someone helping me with admin, inboxes, scheduling and content.

“You could do so much more if you had one,” she said.

Hmm…Maybe I could do so much more?

But more what? More posts, more comments (which means replying to all the comments), more tasks that need more checking and more “quick Looms” explaining how I like things done?

Omg, I’m tired just typing that.

Maybe I’m in my lazy era?

The trap of “you could do so much more”

There’s a strong narrative in business that growth = success.

Right now I’m in a sweet spot. I don’t have hundreds of clients moving through a complex machine at once. I can keep track of where everything’s up to - I use Google Calendar as my task manager and daily hand-written index cards to manage tasks. It’s not a perfect process but it works for me.

When I say I don’t have an assistant, people sometimes hear “I do everything myself” but that’s not the case.

I do outsource - just not always inside the business

I’ve worked with Jan (who I think is the world’s best Zoom producer) for seven years. He takes the cognitive load off me when I’m hosting webinars.

When I need specialist help, I bring in a contractor with specific expertise, who can hit the ground running, for example, I’ve hired an event specialist to help out with my event, Con Con in a couple of weeks.

If you believe that work and life aren’t separate (the “one life” idea my Talk the Walk co-host Alan Weiss talks about), then yes, I outsource quite a bit.

Here’s what I’d rather spend money on than a virtual assistant:

• A cleaner who visits regularly

• A landscaper for the edges and hedges

• A round of drinks for my friends

Today? I paid $26.78 to an Uber Courier driver to collect a personalised slogan t-shirt I’d had printed last minute for a photo shoot tomorrow.

Do I feel a flicker of guilt using a delivery service for that? A little bit.

Then I remembered that driving across town, finding parking, waiting around and driving back would have swallowed the exact window I needed to fit in some exercise today.

I’d rather hand off jobs around the house, or pay someone to run an errand, than pay someone to do work I can easily do myself.

Maybe I’m a control freak because I don’t have an assistant? I mean, I am a Virgo. My friend Sarah was shocked when I told her over lunch that I’ve never used cruise control while driving..!

Ask what help you need (not who you should hire)

There’s an assumption that the first hire should be someone inside the business, when often the smarter move is to outsource your life admin, or to really ask yourself this question - What help do you actually need?

If you lead a team, you might find a similar trap. Someone resigns, and the reflex is to repost the same job description that afternoon. Before you backfill on autopilot, sit with it for a day.

What result did that role actually deliver, and is an identical replacement the best way to get it?

(Also, side note: If I was in charge of a company, instead of offering someone more pay that is taxed at a higher rate to incentivise them; I would actually just pay a cleaning company to service my employees’ homes. Who doesn’t want that? What a total perk!).

Whether you run a tiny operation or a team, here are a few questions worth asking:

• Where are you doing things just because “that’s what we’ve always done”?

• What process are you feeding that no longer earns its keep?

• What result are your clients really buying from you?

If this gave you something to think about, share it with a friend who's designing their own version of success.

Share

Also, what are you up to Friday night?

Our full feature documentary from Nepal, Get Out Of Your Way is now available to stream. Stay in and tune in to watch me at my worst!

Tap the heart 💙 if this message helped and let me know in the comments - What do you outsource?

Leave a comment

🌴

Leanne “Lazy Era” Hughes

p.s. A big announcement next week about my next book, including how you can be involved and a slightly delusional challenge I’m setting myself.

p.p.s. Alan Weiss and I are back for the next Talk the Walk on LinkedIn Live and YouTube today (4 June 5pm ET / 5 June 7am). The topic: How to use words to increase your value, demand and influence.

Before I sat down, my client asked what I was doing this evening. I told her I had to take some time out to write this note to you.

She looked at me and asked, “Doesn’t that get tedious, writing it every week? What’s it for?”

I shared that this is actually less about audience growth (even though writing has attracted some amazing gigs and readers like you), and it’s more about my love for sharing ideas, and trying to improve my writing…As well as a fierce reluctance to break the weekly streak.

So, thanks for being part of the journey.

It’s been a fast week in the best of ways, with two big highlights that both taught me something worth sharing with you.

Highlight one: Appearing on the big screen

It’s one thing to go on an epic trek. It’s a whole other thing to have it captured by a talented filmmaker and turned into a 70-minute documentary that you watch with family and friends on a big screen in Brisbane.

The film is called Get Out Of Your Way. Once the doco is up on YouTube, I’ll share the link (here’s the trailer).

My friend messaged me after the screening saying, “I don’t think you realise how big a deal this is!” She was right. I didn’t. When you’re the one doing the thing, you just accept it as your reality. It doesn’t feel special until you step back/zoom out… and rewatch the experience in a cinema (very cool).

Matt Stewart, host of our ENFP experience, shared that “You can’t explain the bond you have with others when you do something like this,” and it’s so true. It was a delight to be reunited with my trekking buddies back ‘in the real world’. They all looked so fresh!

At the screening, Tim (the MC) asked about my self-talk during the hardest parts of the trek.

I shared that usually, my baseline internal monologue is pretty happy + positive. But four days into the hike, I was the opposite of a half-glass-full person. I was physically exhausted, in a mental trap, and convinced the entire trip was a massive mistake.

Three things helped to pull me out of that spiral:

1. Borrow other people’s optimism. Peer pressure gets a bad reputation because we associate it with bad influences. But when you’re surrounded by positive, fit, awesome people? Peer pressure lifts you. I was super slow on the trail, but borrowing the energy of the group’s pace got me through. The same is true at work. If your immediate circle is cynical or checked out, that definitely impacts you, too. Seek out the people who make hard things feel doable.

2. Just hold on for one more day (thanks Wilson Phillips). When I had my breakdown on the hike, unsure if I could physically continue, the best advice I got was to avoid making rash decisions and just see how things looked tomorrow. Don’t look too far ahead. Stop looking at the mountains ahead of you. Just take the next, unsteady step forward.

3. Ignore your thoughts. When your thoughts spiral, get out of your head and into your body. Your brain is trying to protect you and keep you safe but sometimes it’s too good at doing that, and can limit our growth. Going on trips like this, you learn how far you CAN really push yourself. I thought I knew that threshold, but Nepal showed me there's way more to dig into.

Question for you: What’s an achievement you’ve brushed off as “just normal” that actually deserves a bit more credit?

Highlight two: Facilitating an offsite at a winery

When my client told me we were having the planned offsite at a winery in Swan Valley, Western Australia, I inwardly squealed.

Off-sites like this work so well, and what I’d encourage you to think about if you’re ever in a position to influence where your team gathers.

A mistake I see often, is that strategy sessions happen on-site, at the office. People organise side quests with other colleagues, duck out for quick meetings, and you lose the magic of focused connection time. You miss the breakfasts and dinners where great conversation and banter happens.

One thing I shared with this team that I want to pass along to you is - the medium is the message.

Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan coined this phrase back in 1964. He argued that the way we choose to send information (the medium) has a much bigger impact on people than the actual information itself (the message).

Leaders might say, “We need to bring people on the journey,” and then proceed to deliver a 90-minute Town Hall lecture where they talk at the room. The medium they chose is a heavy lecture but the message they intended was collaboration. These are incongruent.

Your delivery format/vehicle must reflect the intent of your message. A practical question to ask yourself before your next meeting or presentation is: Does the way I’m delivering this actually demonstrate the thing I’m trying to say?

Leave a comment

Okay, signing off from the hotel bar. Hope you’ve had a great week!

🌴

Leanne “Nothing beats a Western Australian sunset” Hughes

p.s. Tap the heart 💙 button to let me know if any of these ideas hit the mark for you. That little signal helps to keep this weekly writing streak alive.

She grabbed a ticket straight away (because she’s cool + spontaneous, everyone needs a friend like Amy in their lives).

Then she asked, “Wait. Who is this guy?”

So I sent her a voice note, explaining.

I discovered Ken back in 2021.

He was a surgeon who started tweeting about a fictional AFL team called Queensland Football Club (it doesn’t exist… Ken made it up).

During COVID, posting random updates about fake player trades and match results became Ken’s way to unwind after hospital shifts.

Then, his Twitter followers decided they wanted merchandise to support his fake team.

He designed a t-shirt with his face on it and sold $2000 worth of shirts in a week. The AFL sent a cease-and-desist because the design used Gold Coast Suns branding, so the shirt was redesigned to say “Queensland Football Club.”

His merchandise drops kept selling out, even when he only had about 800 Instagram followers.

I found him in time for the second merchandise drop, and bought a QFC hoodie (which sold out in a couple hours).

That hoodie worked in a couple of magical ways I didn’t expect…

I wore it to a cafe and the barista exclaimed, “Oh you’re a fan of Queensland Football Club!” It’s like we had some secret handshake going/immediate rapport, “We like each other because we both enjoy the absurd idea of supporting a fake football team.”

Then, there was journalist Sophie Venz. We followed each other because of our shared QFC fandom (she also bought a hoodie). One conversation later, she published my article in SmartCompany: Write a Musk-like manifesto to dramatically bring your business’ mission to life. A very strange route to press coverage.

Fast forward to today.

Ken is now based in Tokyo with 810K Instagram followers and Queensland Football Club has evolved into Front Office, a design-led luxury clothing brand, where he makes deeply researched garments inspired by workwear, tailoring, military clothing and sportswear, while collaborating with brands including Percival and Umbro.

Oh, and Ken was also lucky enough to meet my friend Amy in London :)

What I love about Ken’s story is that he didn’t start his Twitter account with any intention of selling merchandise, or designing menswear (I mean, the guy was a surgeon!).

He started something ridiculous, saw the response, made the next thing, and learned the next skill.

He lived my favourite quote, “That which you can plan, is too small for you to live” - David Whyte.

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Turning nothing into something (my favourite hobby)

Ken’s story matters to me because I’m deeply attached to the idea of turning nothing into something. I even wrote an article about it: How to turn nothing into something, 2025 style.

Which is exactly what I've been doing this week.

I'm finalising the program for Con Con, my first event for consultants at Kirra Beach House on the Gold Coast.

50 tickets sold out in 8 days last year. The whole thing started as its own "Queensland Football Club" moment: if 15 people bought tickets in the first 24 hours, I'd run it. If not, I'd ditch the idea. 15 sold in 21 minutes.

Right now I'm playing program Tetris, fitting all the good stuff into the schedule. I've designed the event I would want to go to. And it's looking amazing - but most importantly? The people (affectionately labelled the “Con Conners”) joining me are all amazing, too.

We're sold out, but between now and 17 June, circumstances change. If a spot opens up, I'll go straight to the waitlist. Jump on here if you want first dibs (event details here).

You can just make things up

You can just… dramatically change your life the second you make something up.

A fake football club, a dinner series, a newsletter, an event, reaching out to someone… And if you keep following the response, that tiny idea can change who you meet, what you build, and the trajectory of your life.

Steve Jobs shared this, “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it. You can influence it. You can build your own things that other people can use.”

Remember that you have that power.

What’s an interesting thing you could create for absolutely no sensible reason?

Leave a comment

Hit the heart 💙 below if you enjoyed reading Ken’s story. It takes two seconds and helps more people find my ideas online.

🌴

Leanne “QFC for life!” Hughes

P.S. Alan Weiss are back for our next instalment of ‘Talk the Walk’ in a few weeks, the topic? How to use words to increase your value, demand and influence. RSVP here so you don’t miss it.

I’ve officially become the older person giving career advice.

Which is weird, because in my head, I’m still 27. But somewhere between bad jobs, terrific leaders, career risks, workshops, and building a business… I’ve learnt a few things.

I loved the graduates’ questions on communication, careers, and workplace ‘etiquette’ and wanted to share some of the conversations we had this week with you.

So, here’s the career advice I’d give my 25-year-old self.

1. Say yes to everything

At this stage of your career, breadth matters.

Seek out exposure, experiences and embarrassment.

(As you know, I love alliteration and ‘embarrassment’ is also a proxy word for rejection/failure).

If someone:

• Invites you to something and your first thought is, “Oh, that’s not really in my wheelhouse,” say yes.

• Gives you a project and you think, “I don’t know if I can do this,” say yes.

• Asks, “Would you like another rum and coke?”… (well, 25 yo version Leanne would say yes, current version: Absolutely not…well, maybe you could twist my arm).

If someone has confidence in you before you have that confidence in yourself, borrow their belief for a bit (here’s something I wrote about getting your confidence back).

Worry about being discerning later in life. Don’t worry about it in your twenties.

Learn what energises you, and what absolutely drains the life out of you.

When you’re younger you have more time to recover (and less people/dependents that rely on you). Take risks and collect stories.

2. The org chart is not an intelligence chart

I used to think seniority = smarter.

Now, as an elder millenial, I can say this with confidence - someone’s position on the org chart does not necessarily correlate with how intelligent they are (this also applies in the political world, too).

If you see poor decisions being made, if something feels clunky, inefficient, or painfully bureaucratic… you might not be the crazy one...

Also, if you’re a leader reading this: Some of the best ideas in your organisation are sitting with the people closest to the actual work. They often spot what’s clunky, what’s broken, and what customers are really asking for.

If you want innovation, start by listening to your people closest to the action.

3. Use your beginner label while you still have it

We spoke a lot about the word “graduate” this week. There’s baggage attached to it - you’re junior, inexperienced and your colleagues might underestimate you.

But there’s also a huge upside, too. You can ask any question and get away with it.

Those questions get harder to ask the longer you’ve been around because people expect you to already know. So ask them now. Approach everything with curiosity, even if you frame it as “help me understand how...”

Fresh eyes are a gift.

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4. Want to be interesting? Do interesting things

Part of our time together focused on networking, and I shared this corny line: “Your network determines your net worth.”

I also shared two approaches.

Curate your connections first. We overlook the people already in our lives. You know more great people than you think, from university, old jobs, travel, dog parks. These are people who already know, like and trust you. Take a stocktake, triage the list, and invest in those relationships before chasing new ones.

Then expand. Look, I don’t love networking events. Yes, I’m an extrovert, but who genuinely loves walking into a room alone and chatting to strangers?

I love this quote from Michael Bungay Stanier, ‘No one likes to be the person who approaches other people, but everyone loves to be approached’.

Be the approacher. Walk up to someone, smile, and say hi.

I was also asked, “How do I have more interesting conversations?”

Two parts to that.

First, be interested in others. I’m in my comfort zone as the question-asker, and it’s genuinely fun to learn about people rather than rattling off stuff about myself. What’s wild is that some nights I’ll go to an event, talk to strangers, and no one asks me a single question. I recorded a podcast episode about that…

Secondly, to be interesting? Just do interesting things! Live a full life, travel, get new experiences, exposure to different industries, ideas, explore cultures, hobbies and read widely. Aim to be social versatility/have enough 101 general knowledge so that you can talk about any topic, to anyone, in any room.

5. Work harder on yourself than you do on your job

I wish I said that quote, but it’s from the master, Jim Rohn. I was 25 when my boss, John gave me Jim Rohn’s 12-CD pack. One line completely changed how I thought about work, “Work harder on yourself than you do on your job”.

You need to hear this…(video below). Honestly, if I end up being even 33% as good a speaker as Jim Rohn, I’ll be very happy #lifegoals.

6. Find your friendtors

Finally, find your friendtors (love this phrase from ).

When I was younger, I thought learning happened with mentors - people more senior and experienced that I was.

And look they’re great, but I think we overemphasise them sometimes.

When I’m around a mentor, I can feel this pressure to say smart things. I want to impress them, so I don’t always tell them the full truth.

With peers, it’s different. You’re in a place where you’re all just trying to figure things out. You can confess about having no idea about what’s next. You can talk about money, decisions, weird work moments, ambition, uncertainty - all the stuff you might polish up before saying it to someone more senior.

I was part of a self-formed Quarter-Life Crisis (QLS) group with my friends Camilla and Jason. We’d meet every other month and talk through what we were thinking. We’d find really great cafes and make a thing of it.

It was fantastic.

And unlike some formal mentoring relationships, peer groups can last because you’re growing alongside each other. We still have a QLC Whatsapp group!

Leanne’s career advice, in short

Take risks, and let experience teach you.

Don’t assume hierarchy equals wisdom.

Embrace your beginner era, use it as a superpower.

Don’t overlook the people already in your world.

Approach first - most people are relieved when someone else starts the conversation.

Build a life that gives you something to talk about and learn from.

Work hard on yourself

You can’t beat sharing the journey with your mates.

Oh and this isn’t career advice, but if you’re in Australia I highly recommend watching The Piano on ABC iView. It’s incredible (grab tissues for Season 2, Ep 4).

And if even one of these six points landed for you, tap the heart 💙 below. It takes two seconds and helps more people find this.

🌴

Leanne “Exposure, experiences + embarrassment” Hughes

P.S. What’s the career advice you’d give your younger self? Let me know in the comments.

On finding your thing

If you've ever finished a project and immediately felt the pressure of what's next?, I hear you. What will the next book be about? What's a new offer I can bring to the market? I like to think I’ll just wait and miraculously wake up with the answer.

Recently I heard something that reframed this for me. During an episode of This American Life with Ira Glass, he shared

We all want that lightning bolt, the idea that hits us, the ‘instant clarity’. But Ira Glass, one of the most celebrated storytellers alive, is telling you: that’s not how it works.

Finding the idea to work on is the work.

You can watch his full speech here (it’s great).

On excuses

My IG feed is full of Jimmy Carr videos right now, and I loved this one where he finds a guy in the audience who is a stand-up comedian. But the twist is, this guy (@comedybrent27) has cerebral palsy and has never uttered a word in his life.

He uses voice notes to share his jokes. If that isn’t inspiration, I don’t know what is.

The number of times I’ve caught myself thinking, “Oh, I can’t do x because of y”... is something I need to stamp out of my life.

I mean, this guy can’t talk and he does STAND-UP COMEDY. Incredible.

On the best ‘office’ in the world?

Surrey County Cricket Club in London has started offering “Work From Oval”. They upgraded the wi-fi, desks, power points, at the stadium, all with a clear view of the cricket.

You can access this ‘co-working space’ for only £15 a day and have your laptop open, while watching the match. Their tagline is, “We won’t tell your boss.”

Hundreds of people have already taken them up on it. Read more here.

What's your version of 'Work From Oval'? How could you repackage something you already offer to fit into a different part of someone's day?

On why meetings are still broken in 2026

I find it fascinating that in 2026 meetings are still draining the life out of people. They’re too long, too bloated, too frequent, and too full of people who don’t need to be there.

I shared this Tim Ferriss quote in a leadership program recently, “A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.”

I think this quote accurately captures the problems with meetings.

Good meeting habits, like starting on time when not everyone’s arrived, interrupting to keep things on track, excluding people who don’t need to be there - all require a moment of discomfort.

While these feel a little awkward/uncomfortable at the beginning, these are precisely the things you need to do to lead effectively.

On random recommendations

• Tactful Pettiness podcast with Cody Rigsby (my fav Peloton instructor) and Andrew Chapelle - funny banter + keeps me current with pop culture .

• Good Work (YouTube Channel), the host Dan Toomey is hilarious, here’s a recent story he covered on Silicon Valley’s new miracle drug.

• Wispr Flow. It’s a voice transcription app - but the real magic is that it formats your emails and notes as you speak, rather than just lump it as one big piece of text. Super accurate. I use it for a lot of things now, capturing notes, sending emails, writing this…

• Mulga Bills cafe. This is such a lovely spot to have an early morning coffee in Brisbane, it’s right near the Kangaroo Bridge. A great location for a halfway walk-and talk stop.

On the post that surprised me

My LinkedIn post about moving to Broome went a little viral this week.

I think it landed because it offered something different to the usual cost-of-living conversation.

Every media outlet is telling you to fuel up at off-peak hours and audit your subscriptions, I shared the best financial decision I ever made: which was moving somewhere remote, immediately getting a $30k pay rise, where the package paid for housing, electricity, gave me seven weeks of annual leave, and an annual travel allowance to fly anywhere in the world.

I had no idea jobs like that existed.

But they do because it’s genuinely hard to attract talent to remote places (oh, and the ironic thing? I felt more connected and involved in community life in an isolated town, than I do living in the city).

The insight here is - maybe the answer is for you (literally, or metaphorically) is to go somewhere no one else is willing to go.

Happy anniversary to us 🥂

Yesterday was our 10th wedding anniversary. Fun fact: Our wedding dance was to Percy Sledge’s When a Man Loves a Woman - wait, no. It was actually You Really Got a Hold on Me (sung live in Broome by Miss Behave and the School of Funk)

Which, if you read the lyrics, is objectively a questionable choice for a wedding song:

• “I don’t like you, but I love you…”

• “I want to leave you, don’t want to stay here…”

And yet, I love these lines:

“I can’t quit now / You really got a hold on me.”

I think that’s what marriage really is - where two people keep choosing each other through different versions of themselves. Plus, lyrics aside, it’s just a fantastic soulful song, super easy to slow dance to, and loooove the piano.

On AI referrals (I’m Copilot famous!)

I asked a prospect this week how she found me.

She said CoPilot AI recommended me, “Your work was presented as someone who is Australian based, understands organisational change, workplace culture and communication. Specifically, what interested me is that you were pitched as highly practical and interactive, with usable tools…”

I mean. I’ll take it (by the way, paid subscribers can find out how I created AI-friendly pages for my website here: The Exact Process I Use to Turn a Framework Into a GEO-Optimised Page).

It got me thinking about a trap many of us consultants and solopreneurs fall into: the content wheel. We post, we create, we show up - and we assume that’s what’s driving the business.

However, when I look at my actual data (AKA sales), my two biggest contracts this year came from people who aren’t even connected to me on LinkedIn. They found me through personal recommendations.

Yes, content matters. But it’s worth asking honestly - what’s actually moving the needle for you? This question came up a lot in last week’s marketing session - part of a three-part series I’ve been hosting this month on workshop design, marketing, and systems. I’ve genuinely loved it. Meeting everyone, answering questions, and realising: hey, I actually have learnt and tried a LOT over seven years.

Today I’m hosting the final session - seven years of solo business systems. Join us live and bring your questions (9am AEST), or grab all three recordings to listen back at your own pace.

Leave a comment

🌴

Leanne “Hey Siri, play Percy Sledge on Spotify” Hughes

P.S. Hit the heart 💙 if any of these landed for you this week - and tell me in the comments which one stood out for you.

He was sitting at a regional airport in Central Queensland, waiting for his flight home after night shift (not envious about that bit).

But guess who happens to walk past him?

Jimmy Carr.

Omg…Jimmy Carr is THE GUY that would be #2 on my list if you were to ask me, “Leanne, if you could have dinner with 5 people in the world, who would they be?” (feel free to guess my #1 in the comments).

I love everything Jimmy does - his book, Before & Laughter is in my top 3 memoirs, I love his life philosophy (here’s a terrific interview he did on Diary of a CEO), so of course we’re booked in for his Brisbane gig this weekend.

Ever since Chris has arrived home, I’ve asked him to replay the interaction about 17 times: Was Jimmy tall? Was he wearing his suit? Was he smiling? What EXACTLY did he say?

Here’s exactly what Jimmy said…

Chris waved at him + said, “Hey! How are you?”

Jimmy replied, “Hey mate. I’m great - you know, rich and famous!”

Ahahaha. This line is SO Jimmy Carr.

It’s precisely on-brand. It signals his entire worldview in two words - self-aware, unapologetic, comic.

Which is what I wanted to talk to you about today: Go-to lines.

Jimmy needs a go-to line because he gets waves and random hellos every day of his life.

It’s a cognitive shortcut that he can rely on.

And he's not the only one. Peloton instructors have made an art form of it with their one-liners, here are some of my fave go-to lines:

• “Grab water. Grab a towel. Get your life together.” - Cody Rigsby

• "I am. I can. I will. I do." - Christine D’Ercole

• "If you don't squeeze your glutes, no one else will” (LOL) - Adrian Williams

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You don’t need to be rich and famous to have a go-to line

There’s value in all of us having go-to lines.

On my podcast, Leanne on Demand, 95% of my solo episodes start with, “Hey! Thanks for tuning in to Leanne on Demand today”.

While it’s unoriginal, I find it helpful to start with this consistent line as it eases me into my monologue. When I host workshops or step on stages, I really just focus in on those first few lines to reduce the nerves.

It just acts as a nice little settler.

Getting started is genuinely the hardest part.

There’s a well-documented concept in psychology called task initiation inertia, which is the idea that the moment before you begin is the highest-friction point of any task.

Once you’re in, momentum takes over.

A go-to lines moves you off the Hesitation Station

A go-to line is essentially a launch sequence that bypasses your hesitation loop entirely.

There’s a Harvard, Columbia, and Wharton study I love on this - “Don’t stop believing: Rituals improve performance by decreasing anxiety” (Brooks et al., 2016). Researchers found that performing a ritual before a stressful task lowers heart rate, reduces self-reported anxiety, and improves performance.

You see this all the time when watching pro tennis players’ before they serve… Oh, and Alan Weiss and I also have a fun ‘toasting’ ritual before our Talk the Walk live-steam (here’s a replay of last week’s episode: How to design high-end client experiences) before our go-to lines, “Good morning, Alan! Good evening, Leanne!” makes kicking off the call a little bit easier.

The great news is that the ritual doesn’t need to be meaningful to anyone else. It just needs to feel meaningful to you.

For me, a go-to line is just a small, repeatable phrase that helps me move from yet-to-start to started.

It’s a small thing but something to consider as you go about your day - what could your one-liner be, either to start a meeting, or respond to a request.

Or maybe it could be something a little different from the default “Good, thanks!” when someone asks how you’re going.

Hit the heart 💙 and tell me in the comments what your line could be..!

Leave a comment

🌴

Leanne “But Was He Wearing A Suit” Hughes

P.S. Final roll call: We start in 180 minutes. In today’s virtual masterclass, I’m distilling seven years of MARKETING lessons into a 90-minute session on how to build a personal brand that wins premium consulting work. If you can’t make it live at 9:00 am AEST, the recording is included, all for US$100. 👉 Grab your spot before we kickoff

Today, I’ll share the EXACT email sequence that scored me a dream gig at Suncorp Stadium last weekend.

More on that below.

But first, a countdown: We start Session 1 of my masterclass series (Workshop Design) in three hours. If you want the frameworks I’ve used to build this business, grab your spot now.

(…And a quick shout-out to everyone joining from Stevie’s recommendation - welcome! And if you don’t know , you’ll absolutely LOVE reading about her latest adventure: I’ve Moved to a Greek Island With My Two Young Kids and I (Finally) Feel Alive Again 🇬🇷)

I Just... Asked

The anticlimactic story behind hosting a panel at Suncorp Stadium

Last weekend, I hosted the Brisbane Roar in Business event at Suncorp Stadium. It’s the second year I’ve hosted this event, this time sharing the stage with Michael Zullo (former Socceroo), Mari Seidl (Roar Midfielder), and Matthew Heath (Swyftx).

We talked about leadership, high performance, and navigating uncertainty. Afterward, my DMs blew up with one question, “How did you get THAT gig?”

People assume there’s a secret handshake or a high-level agent involved. Unfortunately, the truth is so boring it almost doesn’t feel worth sharing.

That’s exactly why I’m sharing it.

The email trail

Let’s rewind to June 21, 2024.

I was browsing the Brisbane Roar website and noticed they had photos from a corporate event I’d missed. So I emailed the generic contact address.

“Happy Friday! I was wondering if you could send me details on the Roar in Business network?”

She replied: “We’re looking at hosting a few more. Would you like me to reach out with information once these have been finalised?”

I responded on June 28: “Yes please! Would love to stay up to date with the events.”

If this were a movie, the story would end there. Leanne signs up for the mailing list. Leanne attends the next event. Leanne eats a sausage roll in the corporate box and goes home happy.

But a couple of days later, I had an idea….

I was probably making a coffee or walking Quincey when I realised - I’d just signed up as an attendee, but I run panels and host events for a living.

Why was I sitting on that?

Now, my first instinct wasn’t to fire off a bold pitch, it was to talk myself out of it.

I sat on it for a couple of days. Then I decided the cost of sending a slightly awkward email was a lot lower than the cost of wondering what would have happened if I had.

So on July 1, 2024, I sent this:

“Sorry, just adding to my previous email. I’m a business speaker/consultant, as well as an OG Roar Supporter (I helped set up The Den way back in 2005!).

If you need someone to help host panel conversations, MC, or speak in any way, I would be delighted to help out at a Roar event.

Happy to chat more! No problem at all if not interested, just thought I’d throw the idea out there.”

That’s was it.

She reached out last year, inviting me to host the panel. Then again this year.

Why it worked (and why it almost didn’t)

Looking back, the email passed a test that I now think about whenever I’m reaching out cold. Two criteria:

1. Find a task or skill that nobody else wants to do.

Hosting a live panel in front of a room full of corporate guests is something that gives a lot of people a physical stress response. For me, it’s super fun. When you offer to host, facilitate, or speak, you’re solving a massive headache for an organiser. You’re removing a problem from their to-do list.

2. Make sure that task is tremendously helpful to the person in charge.

I wasn’t pitching a keynote about my book. I was offering to make their existing event run better. That’s very different. It also helped that I could prove alignment - I’d been a supporter since 2005. I helped set up the original supporters club which made the ask feel natural.

By the way…

I’ve sent versions of this email many times - to organisations I admire, to events I wanted to be part of, to people whose work I follow. A lot of the time, I don’t hear back.

I’m not sharing the Roar story because it always works. I’m sharing it because it worked this time, and the only difference between this one and the ones that didn’t land, is that I kept sending them.

And yes, I know. It’s the Brisbane Roar. They’re not Liverpool FC. But hey, Suncorp Stadium is my Anfield.

You probably have your own version of this. A club, a brand, an association, a company you’ve followed for years. That kind of genuine affinity is rare, and look, we have one life, so why not reach out?

Don’t be scared to dream about working with, or for your a company, person, association or sporting team you admire.

Do your research - have a look at their website, events, strategy, connect with employees at the organisation on LinkedIn and see what they’re up to…

Then ask yourself: is there a gap I could fill? Is there a problem I could solve?

Leave a comment

Tell me - have you reached out to someone you admire and offered to help out? Who, or what companies would be on your dream list? Let me know in the comments.

Catch what you can with Leanne (upcoming development opportunities)

1. How to design high-end client experiences (free live-stream)

Alan Weiss, the rockstar of consulting, and and I are BACK for martini + coffee time, coming to you LIVE on LinkedIn, where you can jump in, comment, ask your questions + enjoy the banter!

If you want to command premium fees, you need to deliver a premium experience.
We’re going to talk about the psychology of premium buyers, how to position your value from the very first interaction, and why your fees should reflect the transformation you provide, not the hours you work.

🍸 Martini Time (US): Thursday, 23 April @ 5:00 PM ET
☕ Coffee Time (AUS): Friday, 24 April @ 7:00 AM AEST

Join our LinkedIn Live (or catch the replay here).

2. Last Call: The "Best Of" Series starts at 9am

I’m kicking off Session 1 of 3 in Leanne Hughes - The Best Of (7 Years Distilled) series in three hours.

If you want the shortcuts, the templates, and the hard-won lessons from 7 years in the trenches, you need to be on the Zoom (okay, it’s being recorded, too).

• Session 1: 90 Minutes to Masterful Workshop Design Friday 24 April

• Session 2: 1 Idea → Infinite Opportunities Friday 1 May

• Session 3: 7 Years of Solo Business Systems Friday 8 May

You can grab individual sessions for US$100 + tax, or the Full Bundle for US$180 + tax (saving you $120).

See you next week,

🌴

Leanne “Put your hand up“ Hughes

P.S. If this "no-luck-involved" breakdown made you think, hit the heart 💙 button. It helps more people find the strategy behind the "luck."

I INSTANTLY regretted saying that the moment it left my mouth.

During a client meeting for a new project requiring a full change plan, I did the Gantt chart planning in my head. I knew this work would take serious Leanne brain bandwidth.

My final book manuscript was also due the following Monday morning - so aiming to submit a client deliverable after that made a lot of sense.

Instead, I declared, “I’ll have that to you this Friday!”

Whyyyyy?

If you've ever said something similar and immediately regretted it, you're not alone.

For me, it comes down to a toxic combination of people-pleasing tendencies and a genuine addiction to pressure. Nothing mobilises me more than the stress of a looming task. If there was no pressure, I’d literally just bed-rot all day with my sausage dog.

Btw, the etymology of the word ‘deadline’ is pretty horrific. It originated in American Civil War prisons, where the “deadline” was a physical boundary. If a prisoner crossed it, the guards were ordered to shoot.

If you crossed the line, you died.

(On an aside, have you noticed how aggressive business language is? We have bullet points, target markets, headhunting, we ‘tackle’ tasks, ‘trigger’ workflows, have ‘frontline’ leaders, and we’re all just ‘killing it’?)

My Friday commitment isn’t life-or-death, but I act as if it is, because what do you have to lose?

Oh, you know, just trust, the single-most important commodity in a service-based business.

Anyway, I’d like to think one day I’ll change my behaviour and not set ambitious timeframes. But I don’t think I’ll ever change.

I got the change plan done, went on a boat + 6-hour champagne blitz for my friend’s b’day, and also submitted my book manuscript on time (here’s my post-celebratory LinkedIn post).

Yup, it sucked a little, but even after going through all that, have I learnt anything?

Nope! And it’s because - I adamantly believe there’s upside to setting a tough time-frame for yourself.

Example:

I recently looked up a guy I follow on LinkedIn to see if he had a regular Substack newsletter.

He does, but his bio reads: “I only share posts on Substack when they’re worth posting.”

His last post was back in January.

This can be a bit of a trap and there are two ways of looking at it:

1. Be like this bloke and wait for a “great idea” before sharing it. If I lived this way, you’d never get an email from me, because what does a ‘great idea’ actually look like? Who decides? Then, let’s say you wait 3 months before sharing something with your audience… It better be an absolute belter of an idea - they’ve been waiting MONTHS to read it. I find this approach creates more pressure.

2. Set a hard, specific deadline, like 5:50 am every Friday (the deadline for this weekly letter to you), and share what’s top of mind. This reminds me of my favourite Seth Godin quote: “Saturday Night Live doesn’t go on at 11:30 p.m. because it’s ready. It goes on because it’s 11:30 p.m.”

The other week, I almost skipped writing to you.

What was most top of mind was my Achilles injury ( boring). However, this Achilles post became one of my most “hearted” articles (thank you!). I got phone calls from lovely people checking in, very kind emails, and even an invite to speak at a national podiatry conference.

The magic of a deadline is that it helps to mobilise you.

Disclaimer: I’m not endorsing burnout hustle culture type commitment, where you lose sleep over what’s ahead of you and are frazzled 24/7…But just giving you a different perspective to consider when planning out your time, and asking a new question: Do you REALLY need an extra few days, or weeks… What would it look like to produce and ship something right now? And using that feedback to improve whwat you do?

Here are three ideas on how you can use deadlines to your advantage

1. Use pressure to say goodbye to perfectionism: A tight timeframe is the ultimate antidote to tinkering. When you only have until Friday, you are forced out of “perfect” mode and into “good enough” mode - which, most of the time, is exactly where you need to be. The next time you’re tempted to push a deadline back, ask yourself honestly, How much better will this actually be if I take an extra two days? The answer is usually “not dramatically better.” An aggressive deadline forces you to deliver the 80% that matters, drop the 20% that doesn’t, and move on to the next thing.

2. Own your calendar before you commit (ha! This lesson is written for me) Before you agree to any deadline, open your calendar, and make sure it’s one calendar that holds both work and life. I throw everything into a single Google Calendar: car servicing, appointments, dog walks, social events, all of it. Once you’ve committed, work backwards. Block out the actual time to do the thing. If I’m speaking at a conference on 21 July, I’ll add at a minimum two hours on 21 June to map the idea, two hours on 7 July to develop it, and two hours the day before to pack, practise, and rehearse. I share more on that in this episode 🌴55. Leanne’s (boring) way to manage overwhelm

3. Manufacture the pressure. If you don’t have a deadline, make one up. I mean, aren’t all deadlines simply made up anyway? I think this is why there are so many meetings - a meeting is usually a manufactured deadline to force us to produce something before we walk into the room. It’s the same principle that mobilises you to clean your house before the cleaners arrive. If you’re procrastinating on something, make it public. Book a meeting to review the work, or send an email saying, “I’ll have this to you by Thursday at 3 pm.” Always share a specific time.

What’s a ‘fake’ deadline you’ve set for yourself that actually worked? Let me know in the comments.

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Which brings me to my own manufactured deadline.

It’s my 7-year biz-aversary, and I’ve been meaning to consolidate everything I’ve learned about workshop design, marketing, and solo business systems into one place. If I didn’t set a deadline, I’d be tinkering with this idea until 2028.

So, I did what I always do: I over-committed, made it public, and put it on the calendar.

I’m calling it The Best Of (7 Years Distilled) - three live virtual sessions across three consecutive Fridays (April 24, May 1, and May 8), starting at 9am AEST.

I’m going to share the exact frameworks that built my business, saved my sanity, and generated real ROI.

Grab the full bundle of 3 sessions for US$180 + tax, or individual sessions for US$100 + tax.

→ Grab the 3-Session Bundle

Or pick the single session that excites you most right now:

• → Session 1: 90 Minutes to Design High-Ticket Workshops - April 24

• → Session 2: 1 Idea → High-Paying Opportunities - May 1

• → Session 3: 7 Years of Profitable Solo Business System - May 8

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What’s a fake deadline you’ve set for yourself that actually worked? Let me know in the comments.

And do you also over-commit in the moment, or is it just me…?

🌴

Leanne “Chronic over-committer” Hughes

P.S. If this lands for you today, tap the heart 💙. That little click helps my ideas reach the next person who needs it.

Craig’s sitting directly across from me in a crisp white shirt.

I was in the middle of a story, using my hands for big, sweeping gestures to drive home a point, when my left hand clipped my glass of red wine.

Time seemed to slow down as I watched a full glass of Shiraz begin its trajectory toward his chest. I could see the horror in Craig’s eyes.

In that split second, my career arc felt like it was bending in the wrong direction.

Then, in some lizard-brain survival instinct, I caught the glass mid-air before a single drop landed on him.

All of us at the table paused and burst into laughter.

Career Limiting Moment (CLM)?

Avoided…Phew.

But I’ve had many CLMs over my career.

A few weeks into a marketing role for a multi-million dollar maritime simulator, I sent a strategy document to the Managing Director. I had spent two weeks researching demographics and buying patterns to ensure the project was commercially viable.

I ended my note with, “You’ll find this is a very effluent market.”

Her reply landed minutes later - and I thought, Oh wow, she must be so impressed already!

But she wrote just one line: “I think you mean affluent. Look up effluent.”

I did.

Effluent is liquid waste or sewage discharged into the sea.

I had just told the person who hired me that our multi-million dollar target market was quite literally full of crap.

Blush

Oh, and there was that very first time I visited a mine site, when this CLM occurred (video snippet below).

These moments feel terminal when they happen.

Your blood rushes to your face and you wish, in Cher’s words, you could simply “Turn back time”.

But these are the stories not only serve as Career Limiting Moments, but Career Laughing Moments…and more importantly, Career Learning Moments… the kind of stories people actually want to hear.

Keeping your work receipts

In my next book, I write about keeping your Work Receipts. Building a file of evidence - screenshots of great emails, recognition you’ve received, and comments that remind you that you’re actually good at what you do.

I started keeping mine when I was employed, just by moving nice emails into a sub-folder in my inbox.

These days, I take screenshots on my phone and save them into an album.

Here’s an example of a lovely client email I screenshot last week.

I don’t look at this folder every day.

I look at it on the days when I need a bit of a pep in my step. On those days, I open the folder and scroll through, and it reminds me that I’ve done good work before and I’ll do it again. The evidence is right there.

But the brag file is only half the picture.

Your CLMs belong in that file, too.

They’re relatable, bring people together, show that you’re willing to take risks (sometimes unintentionally), and own the fallout.

Too often, we’re scared to try new things, or we’re wary of being innovative because of the fear of failure. But what if you could celebrate failed attempts, or at least normalise it by talking about it more?

Think about the last few roles you’ve held - where did you properly stuff things up? When did you walk away from a meeting thinking, “Oh dear, well, that’s going to follow me around for a while”? What did you learn?

Sure, these moments are not the best at the time - that’s the point.

But they serve as brilliant reminders of how much you’ve grown (I have the correct spelling of ‘AFFLUENT’ seared into my brain), and they’re connective tissue - stories you can share to help build trust and pull people in.

SIFT these stories with your team

One way to capture these moments is to start asking people to share them. A neat framework I learnt from reading The Story Cookbook, is to run an activity called SIFT (shared by Lisa Evans).

SIFT stands for:

• Stuff Ups (or, if you’re in the US, “screw ups”)

• Insights

• First Times

• Transformations

You can use the SIFT framework to build a collective “cringe folder” with your team. Instead of the standard status update where everyone pretends to be crushing their KPIs, go around the room and ask for one story from the last 90 days based on a Stuff-up, an Insight, a First Time, or a Transformation.

This surfaces the actual texture of the work - the friction, the experiments, and the accidental wins…and also gets laughs, too.

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Announcing: A brand new masterclass series: The Best Of (7 Years Distilled) with Leanne Hughes’

I have spent the last few weeks SIFTing through my own work, as it’s my seven year biz-aversary.

To celebrate, I’ve decided to take the best of what I have learnt across workshops, marketing, and systems and distill them into three live virtual sessions.

You’re invited!

The series runs across three Fridays (April 24, May 1, and May 8), starting at 9am AEST. That’s 11am NZST and 7am AWST/SGT. For North America, it’s Thursday evening: 7pm EDT / 4pm PDT.

All sessions are recorded, with the full bundle of 3 sessions available for US$150 (for 72 hours only), or individual sessions for US$100.

Paid Work Fame Substack subscribers get access to one complimentary session - hit reply and let me know which session (1, 2 or 3) you’d like to attend.

Session details below.

Alternatively, pick the specific session that suits you:

Session 1: The Best Of…Workshop Stream

Friday 24 April · 9am AEST | US$100

Seven years of workshop design distilled into 90 minutes - my all-time favourite/impactful activities, run sheets, and facilitation moves that reliably work across different contexts and group sizes.

👉Book The Workshop Stream

Session 2: The Best Of… Marketing

Friday 1 May · 9am AEST | US$100

The best lessons from writing books, articles (like this one), podcasting, LinkedIn, and live events - how to develop a clear point of view, turn one idea into many, and build an online presence that drives fun opportunities.

👉Book the Marketing Stream

Session 3: The Best Of…Running a Solo Business

Friday 8 May · 9am AEST | US$100

The tech, workflows, and decisions behind seven years of solo business - how to capture ideas, use AI day-to-day, and run things without overcomplicating them, or burning out.

👉Book the System Stream

I’d love to hear your story - leave a comment and tell me the most ridiculous thing currently sitting in your "Cringe Folder."

Or, if you simply enjoyed reading this, and have also survived a Career Limiting Moment, click the Heart 💙 button.

🌴

Leanne “Sifting 7 Years” Hughes

P.S. If you’re undecided on which stream to pick, the bundle cures your FOMO + includes all the recordings on a private podcast, so you can listen on the go. Grab the bundle here.

I thought it was healed after Everest Base Camp, so I stopped doing strength exercises and jumped right back into running.

That was a terrible idea.

This year has been tough. Not being able to run, which is where I do my best thinking, has knocked me around more than I expected. I didn’t realise how intrinsically linked it was to my identity. My sleep has been patchy, energy a little flat (NOTHING in the world beats a post-runners high!), and I know other people have far tougher health challenges, but it’s definitely a downer from time to time.

So, I’m throwing it all into recovery - from physios and alternative therapies to massage, shockwave therapy (painful), frequency patches, drinking collagen, and taking Chinese peptides (okay, I lie about the peptides, here’s a funny scoop on that).

There have been a couple of practitioners I regularly return to, and for a while, I assumed it was because their methods were better.

On reflection, though, I see their approaches aren’t all that different.

So, why do I keep returning to these two people?

They genuinely believe I can recover.

It’s not like they offer fake encouragement like, “You’ll be fine, babe,” but more like, “Leanne, this will take time, but yes, you can get back to where you were, and you will be stronger, too.”

They’ve said it with so much conviction that I’m starting to believe it myself.

We outsource belief more than we realise

When I think about why people come to me for consulting or coaching, it’s often the same dynamic. While they think they’ve signed up for specific expertise, advice and strategies, I think the most valuable thing they gain is the belief that they have it within them, to do x, too,

We all want someone in our corner who genuinely believes we can pull it off. Someone who tells you, “You can do it!” (love this video compilation below, warning: strong language).

We’re human. Of course, the aspiration is 24/7 bullet-proof self-belief, but the reality is that yes, it can run low at times.

The most helpful thing someone can give is borrowed belief - someone who looks at your situation and says, “Yes, this is tough. But you can handle tough.”

Think about the best leader you’ve worked with, the best coach, the best teacher. Chances are, they made you feel like you had the force within you to make things happen, when you were feeling a little unsure.

Belief as a tool

I recently read Nir Eyal’s () new book Beyond Belief, and I really like the idea that beliefs are tools, not absolute truths.

A useful question he shares is to ask yourself is, “Is the belief you’re holding helping you progress?”

Personally, I like having a bit of constructive delusion. Maybe I see things more positively than they really are, but that optimism helps me try new things, experiment, and get involved.

I care less about whether a belief is perfectly “correct” or backed by hard data, and more about whether it helps me see new possibilities, take action, and live with enthusiasm.

Any belief that helps you take better care of yourself, so you can help others, is worth keeping.

So if you lead, coach, or consult, keep this in mind

It might sound obvious, but no one will follow through on a strategy they don’t believe will work.

If you’re running a team, coaching a client, or leading a group, ask yourself: are you giving people hope that it’s possible?

Your belief audit

One of my fav practical ideas from Nir’s book is to do a belief audit. I liked playing this tune in the background when I did mine.

Step 1: Write down your current beliefs about a situation you’re in (for example, this war/fuel crisis we’re experiencing).

Step 2: Review each belief and ask:

• Which of these beliefs are opening doors?

• Which ones are closing them?

Treat your beliefs as upgradeable tools that you can swap out when they stop serving you. The good news is our beliefs are malleable!

If you’re going through a time when your self-belief is low, seek out the people who believe in you.

And if you’re in a position to lend that belief to someone else? Don’t underestimate what that’s worth.

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Pop-up podcast: The Campfire Method with Jan Keck

This week, I jumped back into the host seat of the First Time Facilitator podcast, to chat with Jan Keck about his soon-to-be-released book, The Campfire Method, and how to build real connection in groups (without awkward icebreakers).

We talk Risk Ramps, choice, quieter participants, TEDx lessons, and why the small moments before a session starts matter more than most facilitators realise.

Sign up to hear about his new book here: https://campfiremethodbook.com/

Watch the interview on YouTube or listen on the First Time Facilitator podcast.

🌴

If you’re celebrating Good Friday and the Easter weekend, may it bring you peace, reflection, and forgiveness.

Leanne “Constructively delusional” Hughes

P.S. If this lands for you today, tap the heart 💙. That little click helps my ideas reach the next person who needs it.

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Whatever your answer, it’s a reminder that the stuff we can’t control (wars, supply chains, global oil markets) makes the stuff we can control even more important.

Which is exactly what this week’s edition is about.

1. The grass isn’t greener

A journalist got in touch with me recently to comment on this line I shared with her, and instead of letting my response sit in my Sent Items, it’s here for you today.

Leanne, what do you mean by, “The grass isn’t greener… It’s just another shade of brown?”

A senior engineer once said this to me early in my career while I was looking for other jobs. His point was simple - we assume other organisations have it all together. They don’t. The line sounds cynical upfront, but it’s empowering. It shifts the question from “Will another organisation make me happier?” to “What am I not taking ownership of here?”

We romanticise the next role - better culture, better leadership, better balance, better pay with less stress. But what usually happens is we trade one set of problems for another. Every workplace has pressure, politics and imperfect humans. When people change jobs expecting emotional relief, they’re often disappointed because they take their own patterns with them.

We also forget the green patches we already have.

We fixate on what’s frustrating and assume the next organisation will fix all of that while keeping everything we currently take for granted. Often, the next place has its own brown patches in exactly the spots you assumed would be green.

When I first heard that quote, I was spending every commute home scrolling job ads. Instead of quitting my job, I started volunteering for cross-functional projects, hosting internal sessions, and building relationships outside my reporting line.

The environment didn’t change, but my reputation + influence did. Within eighteen months I was leading cross-functional projects, running workshops globally, and absolutely loving the job I’d previously wanted to quit.

Leanne, why are professionals expecting their organisation to “fix” their career?
There’s a growing narrative that organisations are failing employees. Sometimes that’s true. But in many cases, the individual has more agency than they’re using, because it’s comfortable to outsource responsibility.

Employers owe you pay and a safe workplace, that’s the baseline. Purpose, meaning and progression aren’t guaranteed perks. They’re outcomes you help create.

It’s easier to say “there’s no pathway” or “my manager doesn’t develop me” than to ask - Have I clearly stated what I want? Have I invested in myself without waiting for approval? Have I demonstrated capability beyond my job description?

No one is thinking about your career as much as you are. That sounds harsh. It is actually freeing, because it puts you back in control.

What are some practical tips for starting?

I think most professionals over-invest in doing good work and under-invest in being known for it. One quick point: Protecting your energy is sensible. But coasting in third gear long-term isn’t neutral (I am SO over the quiet quitting movement). It chips away at your confidence, your momentum, and how much you enjoy your day-to-day.

A few practical ideas:

• Check for FoML before you act on FOMO: People often leave a manager, not an organisation. FoML is Fear of My Leader. Ask: if this were the same job under a different leader, would I stay? If yes, explore internal moves first. Sideways moves can build skills, relationships and leverage fast.

• Host things: The quickest way to build visibility is to convene something: run a lunch-and-learn, facilitate 10 minutes of a meeting, or share a short project debrief with three takeaways. Hosting puts you in rooms you’d never normally be in, with people who wouldn’t normally see your work.

• Build relationships before you need them: Opportunities move through conversations long before they hit job boards. Pick five people whose work you respect and reach out with curiosity: “I’ve been noticing what your team’s doing on X. I’d love to understand it better.” I also recommend “friendtoring”: a regular catch-up with a peer in another part of the business to swap context, share what’s shifting, and learn how to get the best out of where you work.

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What career advice would you add? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

2. The goal to be second best

Last week I went to a Minerva Network event sponsored by Golf Australia at Golf X. Quick context: I’m a mentor with the Minerva Network, which supports professional female athletes. It’s brilliant.

They gave us Callaway high ponytail caps (finally, a cap that works), there was a putting competition to win a full set of clubs (I was out first round), it was a ton of fun.

Golf Australia’s mission is that every woman has golf as their second sport. Such smart positioning - they’re not there to compete with netball, tennis, hockey or WAFL. What they’re saying is whatever your main sport is, just add golf.

I used to play on and off a few years ago. I have clubs. I just… stopped going. And one of the reasons why is that I don’t have any girlfriends who like to play… so I’m ALL IN on Golf Australia’s new mission (who’s up for a hit sometime?!)

Question for you:

Where in your work or career could you stop competing for first place, and start positioning yourself as the perfect complement?

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3. Getting unprofessional with Miriam Hadness

I jumped on the Unprofessional podcast with Miriam Hadnes recently and we got into how being unprofessional changed my life (for the better!).

In this episode: why tight deadlines are a gift, what happens when you fuse your identity with your work, and why disliking failure and fearing it are two very different things.

See you next week!

🌴

Leanne “Karrie Webb-Wannabe” Hughes

p.s. Nodding along? Click the Heart button. Bonus points if you drop a comment.

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Your logo is on the bibs, on the banners, on the merch. Tens of thousands of runners with disposable income, all seeing your brand at one of the most iconic races in the world.

What a coup!

Then, while your colleague is on the ferry heading to the start line, they send you this video (see below).

If you can’t see the video, here’s what’s happening - runners are crammed onto the ferry, all looking towards the Statue of Liberty, while across the harbour a decommissioned Staten Island Ferry, wrapped in bright red, cuts into the scene with a giant Nike message: “NYC won’t carry you. It pushes you.”

Before the marathon had even begun, Nike was part of the experience, and the scene was all over the socials. Honestly, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when that stunt got pitched.

Btw, it wasn’t just the ferry - Nike ads were perfectly placed all along the marathon route and across New York City, plus they wrote a 6-page love letter to runners in the New York Times the following day.

They weren’t the official sponsor, but that didn’t stop them from making a HUGE impact. I think people loved them even more because it was so brazen.

If you were New Balance, you’d feel a little heartbroken.

Of course, Nike has a budget most of us can only dream of. But the main idea here is something everyone can use - you don’t need an official title to make an impact.

Nike could have just accepted that New Balance got the sponsorship and thought there was nothing they could do. Instead, they found another way in and took it.

I once worked for a company that did things the same way.

Wicked Campers. I get it - people often groan when they hear the name. But hear me out, because back then, they were truly great at this.

Think about what you expect from a campervan rental. You return the van with a full tank and worry about every scratch or dent because of the deposit. It’s all very strict, like Britz or Maui.

Wicked Campers couldn’t compete in that way because their vans were older and rougher.

So they decided to stop competing on those features and benefits, and made them an advantage.

Return the van without fuel? No problem. Scratches and dents? They just painted over them, often with the next wild design. They turned every weakness into part of the experience. What should have been drawbacks became the reasons people picked them.

What joins these two examples together?

Both Nike and Wicked Campers refused to let the absence of something stop them. Nike didn’t have the sponsorship; Wicked Campers didn’t have the fleet.

In both cases, they looked at what they were missing and asked a better question: “What can we do instead?”

We can all ask ourselves that question.

Maybe the thing you think is holding you back is actually the thing you can use to stand out.

For example, I’m a solopreneur. Some people hear that and think smaller. But the advantage is that clients deal directly with me, not a chain of intermediaries. There’s no handover to graduates, no passing the work down the line, and no inflated overheads built into the price. I’m also faster and more responsive.

Reflect: If you had to turn one limitation into a talking point, what would you choose and how would you frame it?

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Here’s some helpful resources to encourage you to think along these lines:

• Just Enough Evil by Alistair Croll and Emily Ross (book).

• The Nike story on Acquired (a brilliant, brilliant listen).

ASAP needs a rebrand

Here’s a poll I asked on LinkedIn, and there seems to be mixed messages on what ASAP actually means.

There’s no correct answer, it’s all subjective, and that’s why I think the lesson here is - remove ASAP from your vocab, and just give people a precise date and time.

One interesting point from the comments was that ASAP lands differently depending on the channel. A phone call feels more “urgent” while an email can feel passive, abrupt, or easy to ignore. It just reminds me of that quote, ‘the medium is the message’.

Interview of the week

Thanks to Joeri from The Solo Sauce Podcast for this interview. We recorded it a few days before I flew to Nepal last year, and I remember being extremely busy/flat out from trying to cram too much in my week, so he got a nice unfiltered version in this interview(!). It's a brilliant chat around my podcast journey, building a community, writing my book, the illusion of 'busy' and so much more!

Also, welcome new readers!

Finally, great to have a bunch of new readers, thanks for joining us. Here’s some links to some of the most reader-loved articles:

As always, click the Heart 💙 if anything in this article resonated and I’ll check in with you next week.

🌴 Leanne “ASAP(ish)” Hughes

p.s. Are we connected on LinkedIn? If not, change that by sending me a connection request. Or, follow more off-the-cuff stuff over on Instagram.

And if you’re feeling like everyone else has figured it out, you’re not the only one. Today, I thought I’d share how I try not to feel extinct, even as a 42-year-old elder millennial.

I jumped on a LinkedIn Live yesterday with Lisa Mulligan to talk about this exact thing (watch the replay here).

Here are five ideas that emerged from our conversation.

1. Resilience? So 2025. This is the other ‘R’ skill that matters.

I think the critical skill right now is resourcefulness. Resourcefulness puts you on the front foot, it’s proactive and it means you go out and find the thing before someone hands it to you. You teach yourself and you solve problems with whatever you have available.

(The anti-resourceful person gets sent to this website).

Almost everything you need to learn is free - all of the tools have free tier, tutorials are on YouTube, communities are open. The barrier to entry has never been lower.

2. Focus on “what” not “how”

I mean, this isn’t new - Covey wrote about it “Begin with the end in mind”.

Begin with what you want to achieve, then work backwards and use AI to help you get there. We’re in the no-code era. You don’t need to understand how AI works under the hood. That’s the best part. Don’t tell AI exactly how to do something. Tell it what you’re trying to achieve and let it work out the route.

If you go in dictating the method, you might end up recreating an old process when a better one already exists, especially as LLM models keep improving. Ask AI to recommend tools, suggest a sequence, or map out the steps.

3. Make it lighter (without the laptop)

One mistake I made was thinking I had to be on my laptop to use AI properly.

I associated it with sitting down at a desk, opening tabs, and doing serious work, which meant it started to feel a bit boring, like homework. And boring is a barrier.

What’s worked better for me is using AI on my phone, in real life, while I’m out and about, for example:

Yesterday morning, I printed out my book manuscript and instantly felt overwhelmed. Then I thought, hang on.

I opened ChatGPT on my phone and said, “I’ve got this manuscript, it’s due Monday morning, today’s Thursday. How do I get this right?” Within minutes, I had a project plan, a colour-coding system, and clear steps for each day.

Lower the friction. Don’t make AI a formal event. Make it something you can reach for in the moment you need it.

4. Give yourself credit - you’re probably using more AI than you think

Many of us don’t realise we’re already using AI with our existing tools.

Lisa shared research from PwC, Harvard Business Review, Stanford, and Berkeley that share the same pattern - women’s adoption of AI tools sits around 25% lower than men on average. Women are more likely to report never using AI tools at all.

I saw those stats and wanted to explore them.

If you have an iPhone and you’ve ever typed “dog” into your photo search bar, the technology that finds all your cute photos is AI. It’s already embedded in the tools you use every day, we just don’t always call it that. A lot of your favourite apps are quietly embedding AI into how they work.

You’re already in the game, way to go!

5. My three-pronged approach to staying in the loop.

If you’re wondering where to practically start, here are three things that have worked for me. I call them the three Ps (quick video below)

1. People. Find your people and let the algorithm do the rest. If you go onto YouTube and search for AI content, there are creators out there who will completely repel you. It can be very bro-ish. But within that same algorithm, there are people where you’ll think, oh, I resonate with this person and their approach.

   Once you find that one person whose style clicks with you, then the algorithm starts serving up more of that kind of content, and before you know it, you’ve built yourself a curated feed.

   Also, organise AI Jams with your friends colleagues / jump on calls and share what you’re doing behind the scenes (my friend Andy Storch did this recently with his community and raved about it).

2. Podcasts. Podcasts are your secret weapon here, and not for the reason you’d expect. Yes, you can listen on the go. But the real value is what happens when something lands and you hit Pause (another P word!). When you hear an idea, stop. Ask yourself: how would I apply what I just heard to a challenge I’m already facing?

   A lot of tech creators share examples that won’t be relevant to your world. So the skill is translating that to your own context. I find I’m pretty good at this when I’m out walking. I recommend listening to Greg Isenberg, even one episode of “The Startup Ideas Podcast” will get your wheels turning.

3. Play! Subscribe, cancel, and play. Jump in and try to break the tool (hard to do!) but just give it a go, have fun, experiment.

   One practical tip: when you find a new tool you want to try, pay for the subscription and cancel it immediately. You’ll still have access for the full 30 days, but you won’t get charged again if you forget about it.

Okay, that’s a bit of a summary of what we shared during the call.

I’d love to know which Point (1 → 5) you like to use the most when you approach new tech / a new thing?

Leave a comment

ONE MORE LIVESTREAM THIS WEEK:

Jump in and join Alan Weiss and me for our latest Talk the Walk LinkedIn livestream. It’s on Thursday 12 March 4pm ET (US), and Friday 13 March 6am AEST (Australia).

🌴

Leanne “Elder Millenial” Hughes

p.s. If any of this was useful, hit the heart 💙 (or get your AI agent to do it - no judgment here).