We've all Got a Story - This is Mine

My own story shapes how I work

I wasn't someone who studied business at university. I wasn't someone who knew from a young age that this was the path. Instead, from about eight years old, from as young as I can remember, I wanted to be either an author or a teacher.

My childhood was spent writing stories and forcing my cousins to play schools. Yes, I made them sit tests. Yes, I graded them.

Those two things stayed with me. I did a double honours in English Literature and Education, followed by teacher training. And what I noticed, almost immediately, was that stories were always the best way to explain things. Not facts. Not frameworks. Stories. If you could paint a picture, the complicated suddenly became simple. It's why I joke now that analogies are part of my love language.

Over time, though, the education system started to feel claustrophobic. I realised I cared less about what was being learned and more about who was doing the learning. That shift led me into the charity sector where I was involved in alternative education, seeing the positive impact of a curriculum flexible enough to allow an individual approach rather than working in a one size fits all way.

It was also there that I retrained as a CBT practitioner. I'd always been fascinated by the human brain, how people learn, how they make decisions, how they move from where they are to where they want to be. And in that work, I kept seeing stories show up in the room. The way people's lived experiences had shaped them. The way sharing a story, and having it truly heard, built connection in a way that nothing else could.

Across over ten years in the charity sector, I got to work across almost every part of an organisation. Service design. Bid writing. Campaigns. Writing articles that got hundreds of thousands of hits. Media interviews for Sky and BBC. Delivering to multi-billion pound strategic partners.

And the thread running through all of it? Lived experience. Story.

It was how we communicated value and impact. How we shaped services that actually met people's needs. How I gave interviews that connected whilst communicating the key messages, sometimes with only a few minutes notice. How people decided to say yes, in a way that no amount of facts or figures could.

But then life lifed, and threw me a massive curveball. I navigated a traumatic period (a story I don't share publicly, because...boundaries), and found that although I loved the work, the environment had become somewhere that made me feel smaller because of what I'd been through.

So I did something that, as a deeply risk-averse person, I never expected to do. I listened to the small voice that had always said: one day, if you want to be as creative as you want to be, as challenged, as stretched, you're going to have to work for yourself.

I left and started Stories Build Businesses.

It was exhilarating and terrifying and overwhelming and a breath of fresh air, all at once.

But the one thing I couldn't reconcile, stepping into the online business space, was how stories were being treated. Shared performatively. Used as content. Offered up in templates.

Nobody seemed to be talking about them as what I knew them to be, strategic assets. The thing that shapes every touchpoint, every offer, every framework that is genuinely, uncopyably yours.

Something I'd always been passionate about, I somehow became more passionate about. Because I could see what other people weren't seeing: stories don't just explain things. They shape how people understand, connect, and decide.

To me it's not just about what I do but how I do it.

As someone who has experienced burnout twice, and who lives with a genetic health condition that can affect my capacity, I care deeply about how your business is built.

Because I've seen, and experienced, what happens when you give too much of yourself. When things become unsustainable. When you're expected to show up in ways that don't feel right. It's why I don't believe in visibility that costs you your wellbeing, or building a business that only works when you override your boundaries.

So when you work with me, I'm not just here to deliver sessions. I'm here to understand you. It's why I designed the Care-Connect-Create framework the way I did. Starting with your story, your energy, your capacity. Because everything else gets built from there.

And I don't take that lightly, it's a privilege to be invited into your business, your ideas and your story. Which is why I focus on reflection and depth that lasts over fast tactics and copy-paste templates.