I love being busy.
Busy in work, busy in my mind, busy with moving my body, busy with friends, busy planning next adventures. Such a strange word. Everyone is too busy these days. The world often frames busyness as a trap, something we’re all supposed to be above - which only makes people smug about declaring it
But for some people it’s proof they’re alive and engaged.
I like the feeling of momentum, of being in demand, of juggling things and for me, being busy can be fulfilling, grounding, and energising.
I do want to of course be frank and say that there is definitely a difference between bad-busy (unexpected problems, crazy deadlines, stress, little breathing space) and good-busy (full life, projects you care about, dinners with friends, stuff that makes time fly). And for total transparency, I often find myself in bad-busy, which is something I’m consciously working on. But this past week has been full on in the best way & I thought I’d take you through a few of those moments.
Arriving into London from our Road Trip around Scotland (see more here), I got back to the flat, had a shower to freshen up and headed straight out to meet friends at Crate Brewery in Hackney Wick. Totally knackered from a week camping this was the last thing I wanted to do in all honesty. The flat was a tip; we hadn’t even unpacked from our 7 week work trip in LA, let alone the stinky Scotland clothes. The washing pile was terrifyingly big and dust was settling in far too comfortably on all our surfaces. But… this was a night I could not miss. Bella (a very close friend of mine) was DJ-ing at an event she was hosting and she was insane!! It was such a fun evening, catching up with friends, dancing and most importantly supporting the incredible night she put on.
Straight back into work on Monday morning, and it was go time. I had team catch ups, multiple back-to-back meetings across the day with a main focus on our next recording block to New York in September. One of those meetings consisted of strategising the direction for an upcoming Female Health roundtable we are hosting - figuring out the flow for the research, prop ideas, data analysis on what topics to include and lots more. At 3:15pm, I had a meeting with Clare, our Director of Marketing. Sadly our paths never seem to cross that much at work, so this was the first time we’d actually had a sit-down together. And it came off the back of some impromptu conversations I’d had with Steve in LA:
As Steve mentions above - he played one of our previous episodes on the cinema screen in his house and it just looked so sick. We agreed that we had to do some sort of screening event… so a meeting with Clare was much needed. I discussed with her what SB and I had spoken about and we looked at the TX (release schedule) to see what could be possible in the upcoming weeks. Each idea we had to pull off a DOAC Screening seemed pretty daunting to both of us. We’d never done it before, we both have our ‘actual’ jobs to do which in themselves are extremely full on, and the post-production team work to the bone on edit deadlines. But I was so determined to try something and to just do one even if it would be extremely painful for everyones schedules. We ended up agreeing that we should try to do something for that Thursday’s episode as it included 3 of the top voices in the business world (Alex Hormozi, Codie Sanchez and Daniel Priestley).
The next step was to check with SB he was happy for us to go ahead with our idea:
He was down for us to crack on & yes we were going to have to move quick. HUGE NEWS!
This was when I hit my first big learning (communication to teams). The production team said there was no way we could get an edit of the episode sent to the cinema in time for a Wednesday night screening - let alone it being cut into something special for our community (we wanted to add in a unique intro for the trailer, a cut down version of the main ep with chapters popping up, and of course credits of all the team involved running at the end). So we paused the idea at about 11:58pm on Monday evening.
But the next morning, my gut was still telling me we had to find a way to not waste this incredible episode (booking those 3 business avengers wasn’t an easy task, and I just couldn’t let this episode slip by). So I thought I’d ask our good friend and guest on the roundtable - Daniel Priestley - if he might be free on Thursday evening. He luckily had just landed from his holiday and was up for joining us on the night to do a live Q&A. This meant I could take back the idea to Steve for us to do the event on Thursday night (instead of the evening before). I knew he’d ask the question - “But what’s the hook? The episode will already be out.” Well, Daniel was the hook and then I said “I think we go for it, try, learn, do it again, and repeat”. He gave the green light again.
So the planning began- finding a venue, fitting it into the budget, crafting all the details to make it a truly DOAC event. We pulled the evening together all whilst trying to work on our other priorities, doing candidate interviews, managing guest crisis’ and supporting my team. It was exhilarating, and I absolutely loved it. Collaborating with new people across the company was brilliant, seeing how they worked, learning from them and using all the knowledge I didn’t realise I had built up over the years on what Steve would have liked and expected.
We put the event live to our DOAC Circle community, sold out the tickets, and welcomed people into the cinema on Thursday evening. Just before the event started, I forgot I had volunteered to host/MC the evening - something I’ve done lots in the company of my own friends, and leisure of my own house - but never done in a professional setting, on a stage and representing Steve and the DOAC team. Practicing with a microphone in my hand, I was suddenly terrified and really nervous! Luckily our PR director Rachel came to the rescue and helped guide me through a simple script to keep things flowing. I think it went ok! The event turned out really well, we were all completely shocked we managed to pull it off in 48hrs, and went home knackered but fully satisfied and proud of what we did.
Whilst the adrenaline of DOAC Screenings at work was going on, I was also having to think about the weekend I had coming up.
Its a weekend I organise most years and has become a lovely opportunity to properly catch up with old friends before life undoubtedly runs away again.
Having 20 people is a lot more of an operation than I remembered. Feeding, hydrating and entertaining 20 adults needs a lot of planning, and unfortunately it fell to the bottom of my priority list this week. Luckily my brilliant mother very kindly stepped up and helped me with cooking a marinating a beef skirt, making coronation chicken for picnic sandwiches, chocolate biscuit cake, and lots more.
Getting the train to Suffolk on Friday after work, I felt extremely delusional off the back of Thursday’s cinema evening and wasn’t sure I had the energy to arrive and straight away host a completely different type of event. I wasn’t totally panicking though as I know my friends so well that they would understand if my weekend agenda wasn’t totally nailed down to the hour with activities. Luckily, the weather was glorious, everyone was on top form and we had a lot of fun together. I just think and know there is nothing better than spending time with people you love and have known for a very long time. It fills up your cup.
I don’t want to drag this out too much for you loyal readers - but coming from a 7 week work trip in LA, straight to camping in Scotland for 7 days, straight to a DJ night out, to work and setting up your first event, to high profile calls with the White House and other mad names (I’ll talk about another time), to hosting 20 of your mates at home certainly was BUSY. But the best busy I could ever ask for.
Bye! xxx
The speed and belief in the possibility was frigging inspiring to watch from across the pond. There’s no one else in the world moving like our team do and you absolutely smashed it! Love the writing 🔥