I spill the beans on working and travelling during chemo and share some pics.

Cheers,
Nicola

p.s. If you would like to read the first 3 chapters of my new book ‘A Better Entrepreneur’ just come over to NicolaCairnX.com and download them free. Then you’ll find out how to get access to my Entrepreneur’s Mentoring App, again totally free, 100% trained by me and containing the good stuff from ALL of my books.

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The uncomfortable space between where you are and where you want to be

Most entrepreneurs eventually find themselves in a strange place. They know they want something different, but they cannot yet see the route that will get them there.

That uncertainty can be deeply frustrating. We are taught that successful people have plans, strategies and crystal-clear goals. We imagine that everyone else knows exactly what they are doing while we alone are making it up as we go along.

The reality is rather different.

At various points in my own career, I have stood on the edge of enormous change. I found myself there again recently. After years of building businesses, writing books and embracing new technology, I realised I was entering another transition period.

For a while, I became fascinated by artificial intelligence. Like many people, I could immediately see how useful it might be. It could help with research, planning and brainstorming. It could save time and help organise my thinking.

What I discovered, though, was that while I wanted AI to support my work, I did not want it doing the work for me.

I did not want a machine writing my articles or creating my videos. I wanted to remain connected to my own ideas and my own voice.

And so I found myself asking a familiar question:

What do you do when you know where you want to end up, but you have no idea how to get there? The truth: you don’t know what you don’t know

When people start businesses, they often spend months looking for the perfect marketing strategy. They buy courses, follow gurus and search for someone who can tell them exactly what will work.

The trouble is that nobody can.

You simply do not know what you do not know.

There is no universal marketing formula. The strategy that transforms one business may completely fail in another. Even two companies selling almost identical products can thrive using completely different approaches.

Why? Because businesses are built by people.

The personality of the owner matters. Their strengths matter. Their interests matter. Their willingness to stick with something matters.

One café owner may love Instagram. Another may hate social media but thrive at local networking events. One coach may enjoy public speaking. Another may prefer writing.

The methods that work are usually the methods you enjoy enough to continue doing.

That is particularly important in the early days because success almost always requires consistency. If you hate your marketing, you will stop doing it the moment life becomes busy or difficult.

Finding the right marketing strategy is not simply about finding customers. It is about finding the overlap between your customers, your business and your personality.

My own transition

Part of the reason this subject has been on my mind is that I am going through a period of reinvention myself.

For years, I built my business around mentoring, group programmes, masterminds and courses. Much of that worked brilliantly, but life changes.

Illness has a way of forcing clarity.

Towards the end of last year, I became extremely unwell. Eventually, after months of uncertainty, I discovered the cause and began treatment. Thankfully, the treatment has been working, but the experience made me question everything.

What sort of life do I actually want?

What sort of work gives me energy?

What am I no longer prepared to tolerate?

One answer became obvious very quickly: freedom matters enormously to me.

I realised that I no longer wanted a diary packed with appointments months in advance. I no longer wanted rigid schedules. I wanted flexibility, spontaneity and room to breathe.

That forced me to rethink my business model.

I had to ask whether I still wanted group coaching. I had to ask whether I wanted clients at all. I had to ask how I could continue doing meaningful work without recreating the sort of life I no longer wanted.

The answers are still emerging, but asking the questions has been incredibly valuable. Start from the beginning or begin with the end in mind

There are really only two ways to build a business.

The first is to begin at the beginning.

That is how I started back in the late 1990s. At the time, I was training as a life coach, although I already knew I was more interested in business and money. I did not have a grand plan. I certainly did not know where the internet would eventually take me.

So I started writing.

Every week, I sent out a newsletter. At first, it simply carried my name. Later, when I bought a hotel, it evolved into Diary of a Seaside Landlady.

I documented what I was learning about money, property, investing, business and the internet. I did not know what opportunities would emerge. I simply kept showing up and sharing the journey.

The second approach is to begin with the end in mind.

Ask yourself:

Who do you actually want to work with?

What kind of lifestyle are you trying to create?

What would your ideal customers be reading, watching and listening to?

Where do they spend their time?

Who influences them?

The answers to those questions shape your marketing far more effectively than copying somebody else’s strategy ever will.

Document the journey

One of the most powerful things any entrepreneur can do is document the journey. People connect with honesty. They are interested in process, not just polished success stories.

For weeks, I had been trying to persuade myself to sit down and record videos. I could not make myself do it. Yet the moment I decided to go live instead, everything changed.

I realised that I enjoy the slight danger of live broadcasting. I enjoy the fact that things can go wrong. I enjoy speaking spontaneously.

That insight mattered because the best content strategy is rarely the one that looks most impressive on paper. It is the one you will actually sustain.

If you enjoy writing, write.

If you enjoy speaking, speak.

If you enjoy conversations, start a podcast.

If you enjoy photography, document what happens behind the scenes in your business. The format matters far less than the consistency.

Why content is non-negotiable

Many business owners still believe content marketing is optional.

They tell themselves that social media is only for influencers or that their industry is too boring to create interesting material.

I do not believe that for a second.

Without content, you are effectively invisible.

Whether you run a café, a consultancy, a beauty salon or a local taverna, people need reasons to remember you.

I have watched this happen in Greece. Ten years ago, many of the tavernas I love had no idea how to promote themselves online. They had special evenings, musicians and wonderful food, yet nobody outside the village knew what was happening.

Slowly, that has changed.

The businesses embracing social media are thriving because they are creating small moments of connection with their customers.

The same is true in Shoreham. Some restaurants are brilliant at social media. They post photographs of new dishes, announce events and celebrate the dogs who visit during the day.

Those posts are not random. They are building relationships.

Meanwhile, businesses that remain silent are leaving space for their competitors to take the attention.

There is always content to create

One objection comes up repeatedly.

‘My business is different.’

It never is.

I once knew a pest-control expert in Alabama who became locally famous because his friend filmed him doing his work. He crawled under houses, investigated infestations and explained how he solved problems.

On paper, pest control does not sound particularly glamorous.

Yet those videos transformed his business. Eventually, he became known not only as the best pest-control specialist in the area, but also as someone who understood how to market expertise.

Every business contains stories.

Every business solves problems.

Every business has lessons, customers, mistakes, surprises and insights.

The challenge is not finding content. The challenge is paying attention to what already exists. The channels that have worked for me

When I look back over nearly three decades online, certain patterns emerge. Newsletters have worked.

Books have worked.

Speaking engagements have worked.

Podcasts have worked.

Partnerships and joint ventures have worked.

Networking has worked.

None of that means those same approaches will work for everyone, but it does prove an important point: you should start with your natural strengths.

I love writing.

I love speaking.

I love conversations.

I enjoy live video.

I enjoy discussing entrepreneurship, wealth creation, investing, hospitality, marketing and all the unusual twists my career has taken.

The more closely your marketing aligns with your personality, the more sustainable it becomes. The Venn diagram that changed everything

For years, I kept a simple Venn diagram on my desktop.

It contained three circles:

What do I love doing?

What do people want?

What will people pay for?

The sweet spot sits in the middle.

Many entrepreneurs build businesses around only one or two of those elements. Some pursue passion but ignore the market. Others chase money while slowly growing to hate their work.

A real business needs all three.

You must enjoy it.

People must want it.

And they must be willing to pay for it.

Whenever I feel confused, I come back to that diagram and ask myself where the overlap lies.

Test your assumptions

Entrepreneurs are often emotionally attached to their own ideas.

The market, unfortunately, does not care about our feelings.

Recently, while promoting my book A Better Entrepreneur, I experimented with different advertisements and book covers. Artificial intelligence suggested that one design would perform better than another.

Rather than trusting the advice blindly, I tested it.

I ran different advertisements and compared the results.

That is one of the great advantages of advertising. It is not simply about making sales. It is about gathering information.

Advertising tells you whether people care.

It tells you whether your message is landing.

It tells you whether there is enough interest to build a business around an idea. The best entrepreneurs learn to treat feedback as data rather than judgement.

The only question that really matters

Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I ask myself a very simple question:

What is the one thing I could do today to move my business forward?

Sometimes there are three answers.

Sometimes there is only one.

That is enough.

We often assume progress requires giant leaps, elaborate plans and perfect clarity. In reality, progress usually comes from small actions repeated consistently over time.

Write the article.

Send the newsletter.

Make the phone call.

Record the video.

Start the conversation.

Most people delay because they want certainty. They want proof that their next move will work. But entrepreneurship has never offered certainty.

It offers possibility.

The people who succeed are not necessarily the ones with the best plans. More often, they are the people willing to keep moving before they can see the entire road ahead.

If you do not know what to do next, perhaps the answer is simply this:

Do the next useful thing.

Then do another.

And trust that the path will reveal itself as you walk it.

An Instagram Reel seen this morning, a woman filming while walking around her house: “So desperately sad that, yet again, we are having to sell our house. This happened to us in 2020 and back in the Global Financial Crisis 2008. It’s heartbreaking. We need to free some of the equity to help us live going forwards and pay off the debts that have slowly accumulated since 2020. Is this the right move? I don’t know but I know one thing, it’s the only move I can see AND I know that we have to fix our relationship with money or this will just keep happening!”

I’m assuming this is a WASPI woman due to the general age of people I get shown, but it may not be. She’s also aware there is a deeper level issue beyond just the practicalities of budgeting, spending and saving.

They may simply be not earning enough to both live comfortably and service the debts. They may be overspending. They certainly are not freeing up cash to invest in assets (the way out of their problem).

The good news is, there ARE other options that don’t involve moving (with all the costs that incurs) and stopping the downward spiral right here.

I reached out to her and offered her - free of charge - my best two books for this situation, ‘The Money Gym’ for practically sorting out the money situation and her relationship with that, and ‘A Better Entrepreneur’ to help this couple start to work out how they can start to create more value and earn more, going forward.

Because things are not going to improve without those changes. Actually I can see three clear areas where change would make a massive difference and, compounded, those changes would bring that difference forward more quickly. Yes, there are outside influences like raging inflation and that on again/off again war, but often the real causes are closer to home.

The immediate issues are either one or a combo of these things:

1. This couple don’t earn enough to support their lifestyle
2. They earn enough but are are chronically overspending - including paying down debt
3. They are relying on earned income and are not creating extra cash to buy assets

This situation may be being compounded by being a WASPI woman - I just found out that I don’t get ANY pension until I’m 67. I thought it was 66 but no! they seem to have changed it again. That’s £67,200 income that is NOT appearing in my bank account on a monthly basis over this seven years.

If you recognise some of the elements of this situation, and would like to find out how to fix things, I’m putting together a short video course, delivered by email daily, over 7 days. The first 30 people get a free place in return for a genuine testimonial. Just follow these simple, quick instructions to claim your place:

1. Visit NicolaCairnX.com using the button below
2. Scroll down and sign up for my free Substack mailing list
3. When you get the welcome email, hit reply and tell me a bit about you.

I’ll come right back to you with suggestions and info about the course.

Looking forward to helping more WASPI women and entrepreneurs everywhere!

Warm regards

Nicola

#waspi #waspiwomen #waspiwoman

Afternoon! Look, I know I said I was semi-retiring and turning into a painter, but that’s not working out for me. Not enough intellectual stimulation.

So…

I’m thinking of creating a short, practical course to help you think more like an entrepreneur — whether you want a better job, a safer job, a successful lifestyle business or a bigger, more succesful business that runs without you and actually pays you well personally.

Becoming a more entrepreneurial thinker benefits ALL aspects of your life; it makes you feel more empowered, more in control of your life, more calm and peaceful. You are not second guessing yourself all the time or wondering what you are doing wrong. You increase your value, no matter what you do for a living.

I know it can be taught, because while born entrepreneurially minded, I didn’t have a clue how to become a successful entrepreneur. I learned from great mentors and by learning painful lessons along the way.

First, which best describes you?

A) Job seeker or Employee watching AI reshape your role and wanting to stay valuable

B) Recently redundant and exploring a business idea

C) Solopreneur worn out and stuck at a revenue ceiling

D) Business owner not making what you hoped (and working too hard)

E) Founder or aspiring founder wanting a clearer path to traction

It will focus on:

* Create visible impact fast & getting noticed

* Idea → test → proof, without burning out (stop guessing, get sure)

* Using AI leverage without losing your creativity

* Money models and cash clarity (effort into income & assets)

* Field-tested moves from my book “A Better Entrepreneur” that you can apply the same day.

Two quick questions:

Which letter are you?

What ONE outcome would make this a no‑brainer for you?

Comment below with the word “EDGE”, your Letter and any questions.

The first 30 people to commit to the course in return for feedback (and hopefully a testimonial), will enjoy it completely free of charge.

Why listen to me?

* 35+ years building and advising traditional and digital businesses; founder of The Money Gym, Clicks & Leads and the ‘secret weopon’ behind many high profile authors and experts, helping them to build personal brand, scale leads and revenue.

* Creator of The Money Gym hosting sold‑out workshops and mentoring entrepreneurs from first sale to consistent profit.

* Speaker and trainer for professional networks and communities

* Longtime podcaster (Own It! Business Success Factory & A Better Entrepreneur), interviewing and coaching founders across many varied sectors.

* Practitioner first: bought (no money down), launched, marketed, and filled a boutique hotel from scratch; built repeatable “Be Everywhere Online” systems; helped quiet experts turn expertise into demand.

* Author of ‘The Money Gym’, ‘Attract 3.0’ and ‘A Better Entrepreneur’, distilling hard‑won lessons into practical playbooks for mindset, marketing, and money.

If this resonates, drop your letter below and your one desired outcome. Or hit reply and email me your answers (for privacy).

Thank you for reading this.

Your input directly shapes what I build next.

#entrepreneurship #entrepreneurthinking #entrepreneurialthinking

See less

Thank you all so much for your good wishes for my health, it’s much appreciated!

Now to the topics that I could write about, which resonated the most with you…there is a clear winner as you can see.

(BTW I’ve replied to all comments on the post “I Got What I Wanted” which you can read here)

Joseph said “I would love for you to write about investing! 😜”

Wendy said “Thank you Nicola for sharing your news, wishing you a speedy recovery, i am also curious as to why you wouldn’t start a business.”

Denise said “I genuinely like reading your take on most subjects so please write away! Any investing info for those of us not there yet would be wonderful. Reinvention in later life also would be fascinating.

Paula said “Stepping off the treadmill would be an interesting one, but I’m always up for anything you write!”

Sophia said “I would love to hear about why you wouldn't start a business first nowadays. I'm curious to know what you have to say on that. I really enjoyed reading this.”

It’s Just An Analogy said “Write about whatever moves you in the moment. I always enjoy your content.”

So here goes!

Why I Wouldn’t Start A Business Right Now

When I was first getting started in business, I didn’t know the difference between being a freelancer and starting a proper business. I really didn’t know what that even meant.

I came quite close with ‘Waistcoat Wonderland” in the eighties, where I was making and selling New Romantic waistcoats to a designer shop in Brighton. I farmed most of the sewing out to my two sisters, but I didn’t really ‘get it’ about building a ‘real’ business in my bones yet.

Eventually, after some success and equal numbers of failures (I am not short of ideas and see opportunities everywhere), I started realising there must be a difference between how I was doing things and how most successful business people I was meeting were doing things.

I took 100% responsiblity for my results and after that mindshift, things started changing. I found most of the answers I needed in two books recommended by my first ever business coach Rachel Turner from Achieve Unlimited. She had a bit of a job persuading me to read them but when I did, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki and “The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael E. Gerber filled in most of the gaps and then Rachel and some great mentors supplied the rest of the information I was missing.

In his first Rich Dad book, Robert laid out the bare bones of the Cashflow Quadrant, which separates people out into four quadrants, two on the left, two on the right. On the left are Employees and Self Employed / Freelancers, while on the right are Business Owners and Investors.

I certainly didn’t understand what being a ‘business owner’ or ‘investor’ really meant and how huge the differences were. How dangerous it could be, being stuck on the left hand side.

As I read this back, I notice that it never really occurred to me to be an employee or freelancer AND a business owner AND an investor. Because my resources of time and/or money were so scarce, I somehow always felt that I should do one thing well ideally, then the next thing, then the next thing. I’ll show you why that was important shortly.

I learned why being on the left hand side of Robert’s Quadrant makes you so vulnerable, especially when inflation is booming, while being on the right makes you so much stronger and resilient in any wealth cycle.

I only found out about Wealth Cycles a few years ago, when watching Mike Maloney’s “Hidden Secrets Of Money” video series. If you can make it through Episodes 1-7 at least and then the “Wealth Cycles” video, you’ll be so much better informed about how real money works than most economists!

But let’s assume you already have a business or that you definitely want to start a business, how best to go about it?

In the photo above is my mate Philippa. She came back from Spain in a hurry when her Mum became very ill, and stayed with me for a few months. Like many others since 2020, she had no choice but to start a new business.

Philippa is an award winning film director/producer and while she was with me, she was considering possibly re-inventing herself. She is a highly skilled creative who can put an overseas documentary together from scratch, but knew nothing about marketing herself online and that’s where I was delighted to help.

Ironically, the business she initially started didn’t really take off (in spite of lots of interest) but as part of marketing that business she started a YouTube Channel for Wildhorse Films where she uploaded her previous work and that’s doing really well now.

She’s not far from getting monetised with YouTube, an income stream she hadn’t considered. Three of her horse documentaries are getting at least one, but as many as three views an hour (and that’s after six months), such is the power of a highly niche film aimed at a huge global audience.

At the same time, she was listening to me talk with my sister Sarah each Sunday about what I was learning about the commodities markets, what I had learned about wealth cycles. Although she thought it would take her ages to get started investing, focusing on building the business first, we found a couple of little pension pots she’d forgotten about and she invested in some of the bigger gold and silver miners. Her investment pot is also growing nicely now.

Back to business, the really life changing difference is when you step up and make the rather terrifying jump to becoming a ‘real’ business owner and hire your first employees, because you benefit from the following:

1. Not having to work IN the business delivering the goods or service all the time. If you do it right, and create some time-zoning discipline - you can carve out time to be the leader of the business, the visionary, the one pointing the way. Gerber’s book “The E-Myth Revisited” shows how this works very well.

2. A better tax and financial set up (limited companies are separate legal entities, you’ll enjoy better tax breaks and if it all goes wrong, you are more easily able to walk away financially and start again).

3. Better personal protection (limited companies are separate legal entities and you will enjoy more personal protection than you will being a freelancer).

But being a business owner is becoming increasinly complicated and our western govenments are making it ever more so. One reason is because younger MP’s have become career politicians, going stright into politics from university and never been out in the world of work and certainly have never been business people.

Peter McCormack (host of an excellent podcast) used to be a Bitcoin guy and for years had the world’s biggest Bitcoin podcast, but he’s also a successful local business owner in Bradford, owning the football team, a cafe and, until recently, a bar.

This new podcast is made even more interesting, as his right hand man is his twenty-something son, who chips in regularly with his thoughts (and those of his mates). Peter is on a steep learning curve as to how government and business really works and it’s fascinating to watch. Better guests recommend even better guests and Peter is open minded enough to listen hard and to do his own research too.

Even. more relevant to this post, while he’s trying everything he can as he wants to expand locally, but even he can’t make the numbers work for a new business - it just won’t pay right now. You HAVE to make a profit in business so you can smooth out the variations of cashflow and create a rainy day cushion. Your business won’t survive without those two things.

Just some of the contributing factors to making a new business not worth starting for Peter and many entrepreneurs right now are higher business rates (double or even triple for hospitality businesses), soaring energy costs and the homeless and addicts terrorising the town centre near his cafe. Worst of all though have been the additional bureaucracy, minimum wage and pregnancy / sick pay rights and accompanying draconian employee legislation (and the cost of implementing and then maintaining that) for small business owners to comply with. Not to mention Digital ID’s required to file a tax return.

I include independent landlords in this group as they are also being forced out of business by the rental market changes made recently. Every serious landlord I know is selling up as many rental properties as they can and getting their money into assets in the right part of the Wealth Cycle, that will not be so affected by the batshit bonkers policies created by short term thinking governments who are only elected for 4-5 years at a time. They want to please voters, not build a sustainable economy.

I digress.

But how do you know what to move your money into, once liberated from your property or business assets? That’s why you need to know about Wealth Cycles. Because money moves in waves, through different assets, and while some cycles are shorter, many are much longer and you can be positioned well when you know how it all works.

My mate Andy has written several detailed articles about this, and he lays out an excellent example here of a couple who are equity rich but cash poor and what they could do about that. If you are pension rich but cash poor, or business rich but cash poor yourself, you need to be thinking about these things. Another article lays out what choices young people under 30 have, if they are longing to own a property and start a family, but who can’t get on the housing ladder.

There were many times when I have made clumps of cash from commissions from my job, or when I could have legally taken money out of my business and put that into another asset class (even as a cash holding action) , making money from that second asset class as well, IF I HAD ONLY KNOWN ABOUT WEALTH CYCLES.

For example, just before everything collapsed in early 2010, I was the most cash rich I’d ever been.

When we had sold our newly renovated property in Worthing, I’d made some money which I put into my hotel, The Acacia. Then in 2006, I’d sold The Acacia, my hotel bought and renovated ‘no money down’, then in 2008/2009, my Money Gym business was still booming, we had a digital marketing company helping business owners build a personal brand online, I was earning commissions from recommendations, I was being offered paid speaking gigs… life was good.

If I had known then that the property wealth cycle was coming to an end, and that the commodities wealth cycle was on the rise, I could have taken chunks of cash and invested it in gold for example.

I could have taken the £60k from the property we sold in 2004 and held it in 294 x gold coins which I could have bought for £203.87 per oz.

Then when things went tits up in 2010, I would have been sitting on gold worth £714.12 per oz or a total of £209,916. Even if I had used a quarter of it to try and save the hotel, I’d still have had £157,437 to start a new life with, in January 2010. Compared to the ZERO I actually ended up with.

When things were great, in 2008, I took the kids on five holidays in two years (trying to make up for the many, many years of no holidays at all). Some were more expensive, some were cheaper but let’s allow for an average of £3000 per holiday, including spending money, so let’s say £15k in total.

If I had invested that in gold at £448 per oz, around January 2008, I’d have had 33 oz. When things went tits up in January 2010, that would have been worth £714 per oz, or £23,906 Not so exciting as the previous example, but better than the nothing I ended up with (bar some nice memories).

If I could have hung onto those 33 oz until 2020 when my next financial crisis hit (along with millions of others), they’d have appreciated in value to £1436 per oz for a total of £47,388. If I had hung onto them over the next few years, today they would be worth £3339 per oz for a total of £110,187.

Knowing that hindsight makes us all wiser, I do have to ask myself some stern questions here.

1. Being earlier in my wealth creation education, would I have made such good decisions at that time? Or would I have ploughed the gold back into trying to save a failing business, rather than pulling the plug and getting out with what I could salvage?
   

2. Would I have found it easier to hang onto physical gold coins, than fiat in the bank? I think I would have done as the act of going to sell each one for cash in Brighton then paying the cash into the bank manually, would have been more painful and less convenient, rather than just transferring digits around.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I’m just using these examples to show you how much smarter I could have been with learning about Wealth Cycles, asset management and not throwing ALL my eggs in a single basket.

Talking of hindsight, here’s my best story!

Why, in 2011, didn’t I go to that presentation in London when Max Keiser was explaining Bitcoin? I found out later my ex-business pertner Judith went but somehow, I didn’t hear about it. I would have definately bought some as a punt, maybe £100 worth, poor as I was at that time. At £0.73 per BTC at the time, I could have bought 136 BTC which would be worth over £7 million now.

But again, would I have used the BTC profits to prop up ailing businesses rarther then making the hard but necessary decisions?

Probably.

So let’s get to the point shall we?

Why would I not start a business now?

Because it’s not the right time in the Wealth Cycle for starting a business.

Because why would you take any of your money, and any of your time (which is worth money and memories) to invest in a business that is - due to external factors - increasingly likely to fail?

When you could invest in another asset class - commodities - which is much easier on you and is on the way UP rather than property or business ownership, both of which are on the way DOWN.

Who knows what’s happening in the USA on the business front right now but even there, where many states did not lock down, times were brutal for many businesses. In New York and California right now…even big tech and banks are leaving in droves, looking for a more business-friendly environment.

Even better, commodities don’t involve the investment of your time to manage, long lease premises, staff grief, client attraction / marketing efforts and investments and all the other nightmares that owning a business brings?

What about equities, you may ask?

Once you have watched the “Hidden Secrets of Money” videos, you will know why not equities.

They are about to peak, in the opinion of many more expert than me, with only the AI & Big Tech sectors propping up the markets. The latest earnings reports show that AI are a circle-jerk at best, passing revenue between themselves. And at worst they could be creating the biggest bubble of all.

Along with the ever-growing debt of most Western countries, not to mention the endless money printing, It’s only a matter of time before the inevitable plays out. No fiat money system has lasted more than 25 years and this one has gone way past its sell by date.

The equities market sector also affect everyone’s savings, pensions, mortgages, just think for a minute, if it all goes tits up soon, is your property value locked in? Is your pension safe?

If you started a business today, would it be directly affected by most of the population suddenly becoming much less affluent through the loss of their jobs, pension and plummeting property values?

Would it be affected by governments imposing another lockdown? You may have noticed the Ebola story being hyped hugely in the press just recently.

I’ve learned all this in the last six years. I was clueless about macro-economics in 2020 but I learned about wealth cycles and the potential for commodities, particularly gold and silver, in 2020 and I was ready to take action on what I learned.

Previously, In 2017 Andy wrote a small book about Bitcoin for his mailing list subscribers and I ‘got it’ instantly. I started buying tiny bits of Bitcoin, then learned to trade BTC (which means you can trade anything) mainly from free YouTube videos.

Then my brother suddenly died in Sydney in 2021.

He left a small but generous inheritance to be split between us three sisters, for which I will forever be grateful.

When the money came eventually, after a long time in probate, I felt like an athlete who. had been n training for years. I knew what to do, I knew why I had to do it and without hesitation, I did it.

I don’t need a business now. I’ve made the jump from the left hand side of the Cashflow Quadrant, to the bottom right hand side.

The ironic thing is that I could have done that years ago if I had not been so fixated on building a business. I thought that was my ‘Wealth Highway Lane’, as one of my first mentors called it. I even wrote in my first book ‘The Money Gym’ about having more than one vehicle in one lane at one time.

Even more ironically, to keep busy and my brain active and learning, I probably will start a business up again, when I’m ready and it will be probably based around my book ‘A Better Entrepreneur’ which chronicles my own entrepreneurial and business journey so far, along with sharing the 25 most important lessons I’ve learned along the way. So if I’ve intrigued you with the snippets of the story shared here today, you might enjoy that book.

Did I answer the question?

If not, I’m happy to answer your questions in the comments here!

Warm regards
Nicola

As I sit on my sofa or balcony, day after day, staring at the river Adur which goes up, and down, up and down, no matter what goes on in the world of men, one of the things I reflect on is that I got exactly what I wanted.

An empty diary.

If you’ve been around my newsletter or podcast for any length of time, you’ll know that, for years, my idea of freedom is an empty diary (and the income to enjoy it).

Well, with hindsight I now know that I needed to be much more specific. This is not the first time I’ve been gifted this lesson!

Because the LOA has a very odd way of delivering you exactly what you desire, but often throws in a few random and unexpected curveballs along the way.

If you are not a believer in the LOA yet, may I recommend a book “Synchronicity: The Inner Path Of Leadership” by Joseph Jaworski. If you are not convinced after reading that…well, it’s a great book, not woo-woo at all. It shows, not tells, how it all works on both a personal and quantum physics level, wrapped up in a rattling good personal story too.

So why, you may ask, do I now have an empty diary?

Because on the 29th of January 2026, after a week of tests and less than 24 hours before I was supposed to be getting on a business class flight to Thailand, ready to help host a 7-day Bullion Voyage luxury retreat with my mates Andy and Paul, I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma (NHL for short).

Now, thank you in advance, but I don’t want any advice, tips or warnings; I’ve done my own research and due diligence and chosen my own path through this. Which I may or may not go into later in more detail, when I’m further along in my journey, not to mention being closer to knowing the outcome.

I digress.

Obviously, I suddenly had three long weeks on my hands, that I wasn’t going to be spending in Thailand, in 5-star luxury. That initial time flew past, as I got to grips with much research, implemented changes in lifestyle and habits, not to mention the relentless sleeplessness caused by long nights of bathroom visits of one kind or another (why always at night I wonder?).

My only diary appointments now were ad-hoc calls with my remaining two clients, various hospital visits and my regular 3pm Thursday afternoon appearances on Andy’s ‘Rational Thinking’ webinars.

I’d been feeling so ill for a couple of months, without knowing the cause, that at first, I was content to just take it easy and start to enjoy feeling relatively better as the more immediate effects of the NHL were addressed.

But I’m three and a half months in now and I realised the other day, I’m bored stiff.

After 35+ years of creating social media content, writing a weekly newsletter and working with thousands of clients via workshops, 1-2-1 coaching, and group programmes, I realise now that all of that - learning and delivering - fulfilled my Creator profile (in Roger Hamilton’s Wealth Dynamics terms).

Now that’s all come to an end, so where to get my creative kicks from? I’m learning watercolour painting but it’s only half hitting the spot somehow.

Worse, I feel invisible. Disappeared. That’s the Star profile part of me.

The podcasting, YouTube videos and speaking gigs had fulfilled that part nicely but most of that came to a halt in 2020 and the rest became increasingly impossible (and felt irrelevant) as the next six years unfolded.

I was talking to my friend Andy about this recently. He’s a prolific and inspirational writer himself, not to mention being a globally renowned mindset expert, so he’s a good bloke to talk to, about just about anything actually.

He encouraged me to start writing again. He used to read my first newsletter “Diary Of A Seaside Landlady” and loved it.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I’m seriously drawn to the idea of writing for it’s own sake. I’ve been journalling daily since January 18th 2010, but this is different, I’m writing both for my creative needs and for you, the reader, someone who loves to read like I do.

Not to build an audience again.

Not to attract clients again.

Just to fulfil my need to be creating something in the world, that wasn’t there before.

Just to keep a lifeline to the business world at large. Maybe get invited on a podcast or two?

Just to be able to share things I like and find useful myself.

Like this YouTube video and blog post by Dan Koe, which I shared with Andy, as part of our ongoing discussion about the future of AI for creatives.

Dan explained really well why, even if you don’t enjoy writing much, you need to do it for not only the sake of your own brain, but the sake of your potential readers who can tell when something is written by AI and who are already utterly fed up with it. We are swimming in endless social media marketing posts obviously written by poorly trained AI.

Dan suggested that the first step is to write out 20 topics that you could write about and I was easily able to come up with those.

From the deeply personal (growing up with a schizophrenic mother, losing a life partner suddenly, living in Greece, parenting two lively children into becoming whole young adults, a sudden life-threatening diagnosis) to the purely business (bootstrapped startups, content / attraction marketing, creativity, the resilience that comes from failing and succeeding in business over and over again, AI workflows, cashflow management, investing), I think I’ve got a deep well of experience and many topics to write about, as I feel so moved.

What I didn’t want was to be forced to write on a certain day, on certain topics only, to feel that the writing needs to lead to something.

I want to feel free to write about it all without worrying if what I write, or how I write it, will affect my business. Don’t laugh, someone once told me that she hesitated to sign up as a client because of my weekly blog posts / newsletter!

So for now, I think I’m simply going to follow my curiosity and write about whatever feels real, useful or interesting in the moment.

But I’d love your help shaping where this goes next.

Which topics would you most like me to explore further?

The business lessons?
The mindset side?
Creativity and writing?
AI and the future of human work?
Reinvention later in life?
Where to find amazing headscarfs, to cover a balding pate?
Investing?
Why I would’t start a business first nowadays?

Or the strange emotional side of suddenly stepping off the treadmill after decades of motion?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

Warm regards
Nicola

Well, hello!

A while ago I announced I was retiring from digital marketing and using my time to learn watercolour painting and travel the world.

I was expecting a few people to ask me how I was managing to do that so suddenly, but while there was one notable exception, most of you were just not interested or just assumed I had a stonking great pension pot behind me.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I’m a WASPI woman, one of those who were never informed by our ‘beloved leaders’ that I would not be getting my state pension until I was 66, instead of the 60 year old threshold I was expecting.

Bus pass? Yes.

Handy monthly payments? No.

Not only that, but as a self-employed person, who was a single mum with no benefits of any kind, my National Insurance payments have been, shall we say, patchy to say the least.

Private pensions have been started on occasion, but swiftly abandoned, as the demands of my business dictated and I’ve never worked in corporate long enough to accrue a pot of employers cash.

I always assumed I would either keep working till I dropped, having set up my business to facilitate that, or that I would sell said business (or its assets) for a big pot of cash and invest that to support me in my old age.

So how DID I do it?

I finally learned, after over 35 years of reading every book on the market and seeking every last wealth creation secret, how to make money out of money itself.

Alchemy it was called in the olden days, it’s called ‘compound interest’ or ‘living on your assets without selling them’ more recently.

Now, this was one of the recurring messages that came through in many of the wealth creation books I read, but it always sounded awfully dull.

I wanted to be CREATING something, DOING something, MEETING someone, filling my days, being business busy

Not to mention that I had only a dim idea how to go about it.

It also felt impossible, as it assumed that you had some assets to start with. I’ve had them occasionally, mainly in the form of property but, especially in the first fifteen years of my real business career, there was nothing. I was also supporting two (rapidly becoming more expensive) children remember?

But back in 2020, when my private digital marketing banking client and several larger business clients melted away like silent snow in the night, I realised that I had to get my head around this, fast, as the certain business future I was hoping for could be, in an instant, upended at the whim of a psychopathic ‘ruling class’.

So the first step was to acquire some capital in order to make some ‘money’. Capital being spare cash that you don’t need to live on just yet. See my PS for what else you could use if you don’t have any of that immediately.

Actually no, the first step was to realise the difference between ‘currency’ and ‘money’.

So I went on that journey in 2020 with the help of my mentor and Mike Maloney’s brilliant video series ‘​Hidden Secrets Of Money​‘.

The second step happened when my brother Alex died suddenly and left us three siblings some money each. Not a huge amount but it got me started and I’ll be forever grateful to him. I invested it in ‘real money’ and since 2020, it’s tripled in value, if not more.

The third step was taken when I was invited to Mexico last March by my friend Andy.

He taught me how to create more ‘real money’, actual ‘living on’ money, out of the scrag ends of my old pensions and the pot of ‘real money’ I’d accumulated so far.

Do you know what’s really interesting in all this?

Only one person asked me how I was doing it out of nearly 1000 subscribers to my newsletter.

So I told her.

I’m happy to tell you too.

But you have to ask.

I hope you do.

Warm regards

Nicola

p.s. Many people have pensions, sometimes more than one, locked away, doing nothing, going nowhere. I know how to help you unlock and grow those pensions fast. Email me privately and I’ll tell you - no charge - what you could do with them.

p.p.s. Do me a favour? This community is growing 100% by word of mouth. If you are getting value from these emails, why not forward this one onto a friend? They are most welcome to ​subscribe for free using this button

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I’ll send them the digital version of my book ‘The Money Gym’ completely free of charge AND ‘The Missing Chapter’ which fills in some of the gaps since my first book was published.

p.p.p.s. If you are ever intrigued by anything you have read in these emails, feel free to hit reply and let me know. I love to talk to curious, open-minded people.

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Once you’ve built even a handful of assets – skills, savings, property, business experience – wealth creation stops being about “earning more” and starts being about using what you already have far more effectively.

That’s something I’ve proven over and over again in my own life.

I’ve started businesses, grown them, marketed them, turned them around, and helped other people do the same. I’ve bought property and commercial property with creative financing. I’ve raised money for startups.

I’ve written a book… or twelve. I know how to self-publish on Amazon, build digital funnels, run profitable ads, and generate highly personalised content automatically.

I know how to coach, mentor, speak on stage, connect with people, and help them see possibilities they didn’t know were on the table.

And underneath it all, there’s the quieter, more valuable skillset: learning fast, acting faster, pivoting when it’s time, and knowing myself well enough to spot when something isn’t working so I can find a better way.

That’s what people miss when they talk about wealth creation.
​
They assume it’s all forward motion.
​
In reality, it’s often about recombining things you already have – experience, network, assets, habits – in smarter ways.

This week has been a lovely reminder of that.
​
I’m spending my time exactly the way I want to. Helping friends and family move forwards. Reading. Painting watercolours – my new obsession. And meanwhile my business quietly delivers more in a day than I earned in a month at various points in my life.

That’s options.
That’s freedom.
Not the shouting-about-it-online version – the actual lived version.

And if you’re reading this, I suspect you’ve already built more than you realise. You might just not be squeezing the value from it yet.

If you want to explore what that could look like, email me at nicolacairncross @ gmail.com and tell me three things: what you’ve done, what you currently have, and what you want next.

I’ll read it personally – no VA nowadays – and I’ll listen, think, and make a couple of suggestions. If it makes sense to continue, the next step would be a simple Zoom conversation, followed by my recommendations sent by email.

No pressure – just ideas, clarity and support.

Cheers

Nicola

p.s. Do me a favour? This list is growing 100% by word of mouth. If you are getting value from these emails, why not forward this one onto a friend? They are most welcome to

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100% free! Now, if you are ever intrigued by anything you have read in these emails, feel free to hit reply and let me know. I love to talk to curious people.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

My own experience has been far more interesting than that, and far less linear.

Most of my biggest leaps didn’t come from the areas I was obsessively focusing on.

They came from the edges – side projects, hunches, experiments that didn’t look particularly important at the time. I’d be busy working on A, and meanwhile the real growth would arrive quietly via B or C.
​
It’s almost comical in hindsight.

And that’s the bit most people overlook: wealth rarely turns up through the front door.

If you’ve been with me a while, you’ll remember my book The Money Gym – a book that got me cancelled from social media in 2006 for trying to educate ordinary people about how money works, but still the book that many people still tell me changed their financial trajectory. And the principles still hold.
​
But I’ve learned far more since writing it, especially about how money actually works once you’re past the “getting started” stage. A lot of the real lessons were things I didn’t yet have the lived experience to articulate back then.

One thing has stayed consistent though: the internal shift comes before the external results.

This week I’ve been looking at the decisions that actually changed things for me. Not the neat, strategic ones – the messy, slightly reckless ones where I followed the feeling that something was right, even if I couldn’t yet prove it. Whether in business, investing, trading, or general life, the pattern is the same.

Every turning point started with a deep feeling of rightness, of quiet confidence.
​
Not loud confidence.
Not “post it on LinkedIn” confidence.
The quieter kind that lets you move before the full picture has formed.

And I imagine you’ve got something like that sitting in front of you now. A decision you’ve been circling for a while. Something that keeps tapping on your shoulder whenever you allow yourself to think past the next week.

You don’t need a grand plan.
​
You just need to move one step in the direction you already know is right for you.

If you’d like to talk any of this through, I’m experimenting.
​
I have quite a lot of time on my hands, since retiring from digitial marketing and mentoring driven entrepreneurs.
​
So I’m opening up some space to connect with readers who are serious about 360-degree wealth creation – not in the shouty “hustle harder” sense, but in the “build a meaningful, resilient life” sense.

There’s no charge for this if you’re reading my Substacks or emails. It’s simply a chance to get to know you properly and see if I can help.

Email me at nicolacairncross @ gmail.com in the first instance and tell me a bit about where you are now and what you want the next few years to look like.

I read all my mail personally – no VA nowadays – and if I think I can genuinely help, we’ll take it from there.
​
The next step would be a simple conversation via Zoom and I’ll follow that up with a couple of my ideas for you, delivered by email.

No pressure, just ideas and support.

Cheers

Nicola

p.s. Do me a favour? This list is growing 100% by word of mouth. If you are getting value from these emails, why not forward this one onto a friend? They are most welcome subscribe for free here!

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In a world obsessed with speed, patience feels like rebellion.

Everywhere you look, someone’s launching faster, scaling quicker, going viral before you’ve even found your stride. And if you’re not careful, you start to believe the lie that faster is better. That if you were truly good, you’d be further along by now.

But here’s what better entrepreneurs know: there is no universal timeline. There is only yours.

The myth of overnight success

Most of the “overnight” success stories you see have 5, 10, sometimes 20 years behind them. Years of failing in public. Years of building in obscurity. Years of trying things, binning them, and trying again.

What you’re seeing now is just the tipping point. Not the timeline.

Trying to rush your growth because someone else’s feed makes you feel behind is like planting a garden and digging it up every week to see if it’s growing.

That’s not how trust is built.

Why rushing ruins your best work

When you move too fast:

• You make decisions from panic, not power.

• You sacrifice depth for dopamine.

• You chase trends instead of building something timeless.

Speed creates noise. But stillness creates resonance.

Slowing down doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means moving deliberately. Choosing substance over spectacle. Depth over dazzle.

My real timeline (and why it’s still unfolding)

I’ve been in this game for nearly three decades. And I can tell you this: the most satisfying work I’ve done has taken time. Much as I wanted to go faster!

Time to mature. Time to marinate. Time to move from idea to clarity to execution.

Even this very course took years to land fully in my bones.

I needed to live the life and build the businesses, learning the lessons so that I could not only write the story in my book 'A Better Entrepreneur' from the heart. But so that I could look back on each chapter and puzzle out the lesson learned from each part of my story.

I needed to listen to several hundred episodes of Storygrid podcast so that I could get to the bit where they started talking about how to structure a 'Big Idea Non Fiction' book properly, so I could create the Storygrid spreadsheet, plot my story within it, then write it well.

Instead of coaching hundreds of business owners one-to-one over the years I could’ve pushed any old course on 'starting a business' out earlier. But by waiting, it's turned into a course on becoming a better entrepreneur, because I've had to learn how to become that.

It wouldn’t have carried the same weight. The same lived truth. The same real-world resonance.

Some work needs time to grow legs before it can fly.

And that’s okay.

What trusting your timeline looks like

• Ignoring the pressure to constantly be in launch mode

• Saying no to shortcuts that compromise your values

• Giving your ideas room to breathe, evolve, and deepen

• Creating at the speed of honesty, not hype

Better entrepreneurs don’t try to beat the clock.They build something they’re proud to look back on.

Today’s Action:

1. Think about something you’ve been rushing. Ask yourself: “What would happen if I gave this time?”

2. Reframe “I’m behind” to “I’m right where I need to be to learn what’s next.”

3. Write down one thing that took longer than expected — but was absolutely worth the wait.

Your pace is not a problem.

It’s part of your pattern.

Trust it.

New Around Here?

The 'Better Entrepreneur Blueprint' is being published on my blog here, and on my Substack totally free of charge.

Sessions drop Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. This is:

Phase 1: Foundations

Session 8: Trust Your Own Timeline

Want to start from the beginning? Back to Day One 'The New Entrepreneurs Rising'

In a hurry? Get the book on Amazon, or get the book and interactive app here on my website. However, you do still need to subscribe to this course as we'll be exploring each of the 25 Lessons more deeply than the book does, and it gives you actionable insights into how to apply each one to your business.

Subscribe now via email or substack app so you don't miss the next instalments:

• Subscribe By Email Here

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There’s a popular lie in the business world that says you have to 10x everything: your output, your hustle, your hours - in order to succeed.

And yes, putting in the work matters. But not all effort is created equal.

Better entrepreneurs don’t just work harder. They work smarter and they deliver deeper.

They go above and beyond, not through exhaustion but through intention.

They create moments that matter. They leave people better than they found them. They surprise and delight, not because they’re trying to earn gold stars but because it feels good to do work you’re proud of.

When I started overdelivering from a place of power

In the early days, I over delivered because I wanted to stand out.

In the book I tell they story of applying for my dream job with Bennie Gray. Something made me go above and beyond to get that job and, in fact, doing just that led to an even better job than I imagined.

"I remember the day I saw the job ad like it was yesterday. “Personal Assistant Needed For Arts Entrepreneur” well, it jumped out at me from the pages of the Media Guardian. Something about it felt different. It felt like it was meant.

When I went for the interview, I was let into this marvellous gothic mansion in Hampstead Heath. It was dripping with character - tapestries, antique furniture, the works. Bennie Gray, the founder of The Space Organisation, looked like a 1970s Doctor Who - long wild grey hair, velvet coat, massive knitted scarf. I was smitten. The man, the mission, the buildings he restored and filled with creatives - it was like someone had reached into my head and built my dream job.

I wanted that job. Badly.

I wanted the £14,000 salary very badly.

And something in me - that entrepreneurial instinct, that fire - knew I had to go above and beyond to get it.

So I did what no one else would think to do. I went and visited every one of Bennie’s London properties - Grays Antiques, Danceworks, Alfies Antiques, Canalot Studios. I played secret shopper. Took notes on everything: signage, staff, bathrooms, first impressions. For the ones further afield, I checked if they had websites and critiqued those too.

Then I compiled a full report - about 12 pages long - and faxed it straight to Bennie’s office in his hotel in Scotland with a note saying I had something important for him to see.

I was so confident that I’d made the shortlist for a second interview. When the letter didn’t arrive, I rang the office and said I was expecting an interview - perhaps the letter got lost?

Later that day, the phone rang. “Nicola? Bennie Gray here. I understand you were asking about a second interview…”

My heart sank.

“You didn’t get shortlisted,” he said. “You’d make a terrible PA and I just know we’d fight all the time!”

Gutted.

“However, I never let good talent go to waste. And you’d be wasted as a PA. Come into Grays Antiques at 10am on Monday and I’ll find something better for you to do. Is £16k as a starter salary alright?”

I nearly dropped the phone.

That was the moment I learned: if you want to be noticed — if you want to be indispensable - don’t just apply.

Don’t just show up.

Demonstrate who you are. Show that you’re already thinking like an owner, even before you’ve been hired.

That’s what going above and beyond really means. Not effort for effort’s sake - but intelligent, creative, instinct-led boldness."

And it’s almost always worth it.

Then later, when I started my own business, I overdelivered because I was scared.

Scared that people would ask for a refund. That they’d call me out. That I wasn’t enough. So I added more and more: bonus calls, extra PDFs, lifetime access, email access to me at all hours - until I was running myself ragged.

Eventually, I realised that giving more didn’t always equal giving better.

Now, I overdeliver with boundaries. With clarity. With focus. I aim to surprise people with the depth of what they get, not just the volume.

That shift changed everything.

How to go beyond without burning out

1. Deliver what you promise, then add a layer of thoughtfulness. A handwritten note. A bonus nobody expected. A warm follow-up. I recently ordered my daughter some perfume for her birthday and it came so beautifully gift wrapped, with extra presents inside the box and lovely tissue paper, just opening the box was like a present!

2. Be generous with your insight, not just your time. One sharp reframe can be worth more than a month of Voxer access.

3. Make people feel seen.That’s often what clients and customers remember most: that you got them.

4. Create systems that allow you to scale generosity. Templates, voice notes, content libraries - overdelivering doesn’t mean reinventing the wheel every time.

Why it matters

When you build a business that quietly, consistently goes above and beyond, people talk.

They remember.

They come back - and they bring others with them.

Because in a world full of transactional noise, being genuinely exceptional stands out.

Today’s Action:

1. Look at your main offer. Where could you add a meaningful surprise extra?

2. Think of your last five clients. What’s one unexpected thing you could do to reconnect in a meaningful way?

3. In your daily life, how could you go above and beyond for someone you care about? How could you make that a habit?

New Around Here?

The 'Better Entrepreneur Blueprint' is being published on my blog here, and on my Substack totally free of charge.

Sessions drop Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. This is:

Phase 1: Foundations

Session 6: Going Above & Beyond

Want to start from the beginning? Back to Day One 'The New Entrepreneurs Rising'

In a hurry? Get the book on Amazon, or get the book and interactive app here on my website. However, you do still need to subscribe to this course as we'll be exploring each of the 25 Lessons more deeply than the book does, and it gives you actionable insights into how to apply each one to your business.

Subscribe now via email or substack app so you don't miss the next instalments:

• Subscribe By Email Here

• Subscribe On Substack

Photo by Olivia Bollen on Unsplash

Every entrepreneur hits a wall eventually.

For some, it’s a slow burn – the creeping sense of “I’m not sure this is working.” For others, it’s a crash – a failed launch, a scary tax bill, a business partner fallout. But whether it comes gradually or all at once, the question is the same:

What now?

The entrepreneurs who move through these moments with grace – who bounce back faster, stronger, clearer – are the ones who’ve taken the time to really know themselves.

Because without that inner clarity, every wobble feels like a collapse. Every change in the market feels like a threat. Every new opportunity feels like another spin of the roulette wheel.

But when you know who you are, what you stand for, and what you want to build and who for – you get perspective.

You stop reacting.

You start responding.

Why this matters more than strategy

It’s easy to get caught in the weeds of tactics – what funnel to build, what platform to use, what pricing model to follow.

But none of those things will save you if they’re not anchored in clarity about you.

• What do you value?

• What do you believe about work, money, impact?

• What kind of life do you actually want your business to support?

• What lights me up? What dims my flame?

• What would I do for fun if money was no object?

Without answers to these, it’s far too easy to build a business that looks successful – but feels hollow.

Exhausting.

Misaligned.

You’ll be chasing other people’s goals, stuck in a model that doesn’t suit your energy, and wondering why you still don’t feel successful.

Why you are not achieving more success.

How I found my way back (more than once)

After The Money Gym, I didn’t just have to rebuild a business – I had to rebuild myself.

One of the potential side effects of taking 100% responsibility is that you can slip over into blaming yourself. Thinking that there might be something wrong with you, that caused the problem or crisis.

You forget that hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs have been where you are now, facing a nasty situation that you need to find a way out of.

Back in 2010 I had to figure out what I really wanted – not what looked impressive on paper, not what fit the trends, not what would scale fastest.

(Although I kinda needed something that would work and ideally as fast as possible)

I started asking:

• What work lights me up?

• What do I want my days to feel like?

• Who do I actually want to serve – and what problems do I love helping them solve?

• What would they pay for, consider unbeatable value, while covering overheads and making a profit for me?

Answering these questions helped me re-centre. They gave me something solid to build around. Something more real than just chasing the next big idea.

Today’s Action:

1. Grab a journal. Free-write on this prompt: “If I could rebuild my business to support the life I truly want – what would change?”

2. Write your non-negotiables. What do you refuse to sacrifice anymore? What are you no longer available for?

3. Note your energisers. What tasks, people, or projects give you more energy than they take?

I was lucky, in the Money Gym we had worked with some amazing people and I had an idea of what their biggest challenges were, the ones they would pay a fair rate to solve.

Perspective comes when you pause. When you zoom out. When you stop reacting and start remembering who you are.

The better entrepreneur doesn’t just build a business.

They build it around their truth.

New Around Here?

The 'Better Entrepreneur Blueprint' is being published on my blog here, and on my Substack totally free of charge.

Sessions drop Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. This is:

Phase 1: Foundations

Session 5: Getting Some Perspective

Want to start from the beginning? Back to Day One 'The New Entrepreneurs Rising'

In a hurry? Get the book on Amazon, or get the book and interactive app here on my website. However, you still need to subscribe to this course as we'll be exploring the 25 Lessons more deeply and you'll enjoy insights on you can apply each one to your business.

Subscribe now via email or substack app so you don't miss the next instalments:

• Subscribe By Email Here

• Subscribe On Substack

Photo by Andrés Moskona on Unsplash

Entrepreneurship attracts a certain kind of person - fiercely independent, resourceful, used to figuring things out alone. But there’s a difference between being self-sufficient and being stubborn. And most of us don’t spot the line until we’re already burned out, brittle, or stuck.

We buy into the myth of the solo operator. We wear “I did it all myself” like a badge of honour. But the truth is: nobody does it alone. Not sustainably. Not sanely.

I used to think asking for help meant weakness. I didn’t want to look unprofessional, unready, or incapable. So I waited. Delayed. Fumbled forward in silence. All while help was sitting just out of reach - not because it wasn’t available, but because I hadn’t learned how to ask.

When I finally did, I realised something shocking. The right kind of help doesn’t make you smaller - it makes you stronger.

A time I nearly got swallowed by the wrong advice

Getting overwhelmed by doubt after hearing other poeple's advice has happened to me so often, I can't tell you. Even now, I have to really weigh up the advice my excellent mentors give me, very carefully, to make sure it is something that I am capable of doing, would enjoy doing and that aligns with my values.

Early in my coaching days, I hired a mentor who was all systems, funnels, and force. I was drawn in by their confidence, by how polished - and dare I say easy? - it all seemed. They had a “way” - and I followed it to the letter.

Only… it wasn’t mine. I sounded like someone else. My message got diluted. My clients got confused. And worst of all, I started to feel embarrassed by my own content and offers.

That experience taught me a painful but powerful lesson. Help that overrides your instincts is just another form of self-abandonment.

So how do you accept help without losing yourself?

Here’s the model I use now — feel free to steal it:

1. Clarify your Compass
Know what matters to you. Values, boundaries, vision. If you don’t know your true north, any map will do - even the wrong one.

2. Curate your Circle
Not all help is helpful. Who’s earned the right to speak into your business? Who actually understands where you’re trying to go?

3. Keep your Core Sound
Take advice - but keep your voice. The right help will enhance your message, not rewrite it. Stay in the room with yourself.

4. Commit to Collaboration
Receiving help isn’t passive. It’s co-creation. The best support happens when you stay engaged, curious, and willing to shape the outcome together.

The invisible support you already rely on

Even when you think you’re doing it all alone, you’re not.

You’re leaning on books someone else wrote. Software someone else coded. Frameworks someone else taught you. The cleaner who sorts your house out and empties your bins. The neighbour who watches your kid. The friend who listens without judgement.

Support doesn’t always look like a formal hire. Sometimes it’s just remembering that you are held - and choosing to let more of that in, consciously.

Today’s Action:

1. Write down three areas where you’re currently struggling.

2. Ask:

   • Is this something I actually want help with?

   • What kind of support would feel empowering?

   • What’s one small ask I could make today?

3. Make the ask. Just one.

And if that still feels terrifying - ask yourself why.
What story are you telling yourself about receiving support?

The better entrepreneur doesn’t just accept help.

They learn how to stay themselves while letting it in.

New Around Here?

The 'Better Entrepreneur Blueprint' is being published on my blog here, and on my Substack totally free of charge.

Sessions drop Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. This post is:

Phase 1: Foundations

Session 4: Accept Help Without Losing Yourself

Want to start from the beginning? Back to Day One 'The New Entrepreneurs Rising'

In a hurry? Get my book ‘A Better Entrepreneur’ on Amazon, or get the book and interactive app here on my website. However, you still need to subscribe to this course as we'll be exploring the 25 Lessons more deeply in each session and you'll enjoy insights that you can apply from each one to your specific business.

Subscribe now via email or substack app so you don't miss the next instalments:

• Subscribe Here

• Subscribe On Substack

Photo by Neil Thomas on Unsplash

Good day!

This week we are kicking off the audio version of my new course, ‘Better Entrepreneur Blueprint’ with a bit of background on entrepreneurship in general - no, it wasn’t invented in the 1980’s with power suits and Del Boy.

Unlock the secrets to thriving as a modern entrepreneur by embracing the creativity and self-reliance that once defined entrepreneurial spirit. In an AI-driven world, these nearly lost but important skills are making a vital comeback.

Join me on a transformative journey through the evolution of entrepreneurship with "The Better Entrepreneur Blueprint," a free course offering actionable insights and personal stories from triumphs and failures.

Learn to become adaptable, innovative, and ready to tackle the 21st-century economy. Forget perfection; focus on evolving step by step with concise sessions that fit seamlessly into your life.

Begin your journey today toward joining the new wave of successful entrepreneurs.

Prefer to read? Visit my blog over at NicolaCairnX.com to find this week’s topic.

Till next week!

Warm regards

Nicola

P.S. Ready to move forward and find the hidden gold in your business? Here's how I can help...

1. Join my free Substack & Podcast here or subscribe to my newsletter at NicolaCairnX.com.

2. Download my 'AI Advantage Guide' and discover how to use AI to help create a business & life to love.

3. Discover my 'A Better Entrepreneur' digital toolkit today, which includes the new book in digital format, (your browser can read it to you), the 25 lessons learned along the way & the interactive app which has been trained specifically on ALL my books, to answer your specific questions about business and life.

Author, Speaker, Podcaster &
Digital Marketing Consultant

If you would like to build a powerful brand online
and make more sales visit NicolaCairnX.com

YouTube | Instagram | LinkedIn

Copyright @NicolaCairncross 2025

Better Entrepreneur Blueprint

Phase 1: Foundations

Session 3: Discover Your Superpowers

Most entrepreneurs start by trying to fix their weaknesses.

They buy courses on productivity, try to hack their confidence, read books about discipline, and create elaborate plans to “finally get organised.”

And while there’s nothing wrong with wanting to improve, there is something profoundly inefficient about building a business around who you’re not - instead of who you already are.

Your best shot at building something meaningful, profitable and sustainable is by starting with your strengths.

• The things that come easily to you but seem difficult to others.

• The skills you downplay because they feel too natural to be valuable.

• The odd combinations of traits you’ve picked up over the years that make you unusually good at something (even if you can’t quite name it yet).

These are your entrepreneurial superpowers.

They’re probably hiding in plain sight.

Why most people miss theirs

Because schools reward uniformity. Because employers reward conformity. Because even business books tell you to model other people’s formulas instead of helping you discover your own edge.

But your edge - the thing that will make you unforgettable, magnetic and in demand - comes from leaning fully into your superpowers.

When I finally gave up trying to be some slick, high-performance productivity robot, and leaned fully into storytelling, teaching, simplifying, connecting dots, and mentoring - everything got easier.

Clients came more naturally. Offers got simpler. Content became fun to create again. Because I was no longer swimming upstream.

Find your unfair advantage

If you’re not sure what your superpowers are, here are a few prompts:

• What do people thank you for?

• What do people pay you for?

• What drains others but energises you?

• What did you get in trouble for as a child that now helps you in business?

• What do you do better than most people without even trying?

Your superpowers aren’t always big and loud. Sometimes they’re subtle. Quiet. They reveal themselves in the margins.

But they’re always powerful - because they let you operate in your zone of least resistance. And that’s where momentum lives.

Today’s Action

Grab a blank page and make three lists:

1. Things I’m good at

2. Things I enjoy doing

3. Things people ask me for help with

Look for the overlaps. That’s where your edge lives.

Then ask yourself:
“How can I build more of this into the way I show up in business?”

Because the better entrepreneur doesn’t try to become someone else.

They learn to trust who they already are - and turn it into a business that fits them like a glove.

New Around Here?

The 'Better Entrepreneur Blueprint' is being published on my blog and on my Substack totally free of charge.

Sessions drop Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.

Want to start from the beginning? Back to Day One 'The New Entrepreneurs Rising'

In a hurry? Get the book on Amazon, or get the book and interactive app here on my website. However, you still need to subscribe to this course as we'll be exploring the 25 Lessons more deeply and you'll enjoy insights that you can apply to your business.

Subscribe now via email or substack app so you don't miss the next instalments:

• Subscribe Here

• Subscribe On Substack

Photo by TK on Unsplash

Phase 1 | Foundations

Session 2 | Ask Better Questions

Entrepreneurs are, by nature, problem-solvers. But most people don’t realise that problem-solving doesn’t start with having the right answers – it starts with asking the right questions.

And most of us, frankly, ask terrible ones.

We ask questions like:

• "Why isn’t this working?"

• "What if I fail again?"

• "Why can’t I just be more confident?"

• "What if no one wants this?"

And our brains, being the obedient search engines they are, go off and find all the reasons why we’re doomed.

Better entrepreneurs ask better questions. They ask questions that unlock possibility, clarity, creativity and action.

Try these instead:

• "What would this look like if it were simple?"

• "Who could help me with this?"

• "What’s the tiniest next step I can take to test this idea?"

• "What am I assuming that might not be true?"

When I changed the questions I was asking, everything changed.

Back when I was rebuilding after the collapse of The Money Gym, I spent a lot of time stuck in the wrong questions. Why me? Why now? Why didn’t I see it coming? And I stayed stuck longer than I needed to.

But when I began asking, "What do I still believe in? What could I build next that would matter more? Who do I actually want to help now?" – that’s when I started to move again.

Questions are direction-setting tools. They steer your focus, shape your energy, and determine what information you notice. Entrepreneurs who know how to ask better questions get better results – not because they’re smarter, but because they’re looking where others aren’t.

Another time asking a better question worked springs to mind!

When I was trying to buy the Acacia Hotel, I needed a £500,000 mortgage. I’d negotiated some vendor finance from the seller, Brian, but I still needed to raise £350,000 to complete the deal.

“Adrian, I need you to come and see an amazing opportunity I’ve found and tell me what you think! More importantly, what the bank would think!”

He cleared his diary and came to the hotel that next morning. He took one look and said, “Oh yes, vendor finance is standard practice in business. This makes perfect sense.” Then he told me to go away and write up a proper business plan.

Which of course, I did — I’d written dozens over the years. I got it to him and my accountant within a week.
However, after a week or so, I called Adrian and he was sorry to say it was a straight-up “no”.

At first, I took it at face value. But it didn’t sit right. Either something in his tone alerted me or my intuition was ringing bells again.

So I rang him again and said,

"Adrian, was that a hard no, a 'no, not now' or 'no, not that much'?"

Turned out it was a 'no, not that much' so I went back to the vendor and we renegotiated the deal.

But if I hadn't asked that question, I would never have bought The Acacia, because my Bank Manager wasn't allowed to tell me why they wouldn't lend, I had to actually ask him.

Today’s Action:

Start a fresh page in your notebook. At the top, write:“If I were a better entrepreneur today, what would I ask myself?”

Then write down the first 5 questions that come to mind. Don’t edit them. Don’t try to be clever. Just listen.

Then pick one and sit with it for 10 minutes. Let it work on you.

And if you want to go deeper, ask this one: “What question am I avoiding asking because I already know the answer?”

You’ll be surprised how much power is sitting quietly behind that one.

Better questions lead to better insights. Better insights lead to better actions.

That’s how we build.

New Around Here?

The 'Better Entrepreneur Blueprint' is being published on my blog here, and on my Substack totally free of charge.

Sessions drop Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.

Want to start from the beginning? Back to Day One 'The New Entrepreneurs Rising'

In a hurry? Get the book on Amazon, or get the book and interactive app here on my website. However, you still need to subscribe to this course as we'll be exploring the 25 Lessons more deeply and you'll enjoy insights on you can apply each one to your business.

Subscribe now via email or substack app so you don't miss the next instalments:

• Subscribe Here

• Subscribe On Substack

Photo by Ana Municio on Unsplash

Phase 1: Foundations

Session 1: Taking 100% Responsibility

When it comes to building a business, most people unknowingly bring the same mindset that held them back in employment - waiting for permission, to see if anyone else takes action first, blaming external factors, feeling powerless when things go wrong.

If you take just one idea from this Blueprint, let it be this:

Success is built on taking radical responsibility for everything in your life and business.

Not partial responsibility.

Not "I'll own it if it goes well but blame the economy if it doesn't."

Everything.

This idea sounds brutal - and it is.

But it’s also the most freeing mindset shift you will ever make.

When you stop outsourcing your results to parents, clients, markets, platforms, governments, or even your own past mistakes, you put yourself firmly back in the driving seat.

It doesn’t mean you control everything. You don’t.

It means you own your response to everything. You own how you show up. You own how you adapt. You own whether you move forward or sit still.

When I lost my first successful business, it was a massive shock, not least because it happened so quickly. We had our best year ever just the year before (2009) and it all collapsed very suddenly in January the next year (2010).

It would have been easy to blame anyone else; my partners, the banks, the economy, the timing. And to some extent, those things played a part. But none of that thinking was going to rebuild my life. Blame never builds anything. Only ownership does.

I spent the next few years, some would say too long, thinking about how I could have prevented that collapse. And some might also say I took it to heart too much. Taking 100% responsibility does not mean beating yourself up for the next three years!

Looking back, the one thing I've come up with that I could have done better, was to push the lower end of our Money Gym membership harder. Then, when our January 2010 launch failed so spectacularly, we would still have had a core business underpinning the company. It's a much easier buying decision when times are tough, to spend £47.50 a month, than £8000 for a year. My fault, absolutely, I didn't listen to my gut and stand my ground on that one.

In interviewing over 150 entrepreneurs during my first set of 'wilderness years' during my search for the "secret of success", I noticed something strange. They almost never spoke about luck, markets, or competition. They talked about decisions. About mistakes they made. About lessons they learned.

They had built their muscles of 'radical responsibility' so strong that when the storms came - and they always come - they could bend without breaking.

How To Practise Radical Responsibility:

• Language Audit: Pay attention to your words this week. How often do you say things like "I have to" or "I can't because"? Shift to "I choose to" or "I am prioritising X over Y."

• Blame Detox: Catch yourself blaming external factors - and instead ask, "What part of this outcome can I influence right now?"

• Micro-decisions: Every decision, no matter how small, is an act of responsibility. What you eat. How you spend your next hour. Whether you scroll or create.

• Response over Reaction: When something goes wrong, pause. Breathe. Then ask, "Given this reality, what’s my best next move?"

The more you practise, the more powerful you will feel.

You cannot always control the world. But you can always control how you meet it and respond to it.

And that is the foundation on which everything else will be built.

Today's Action:

Write down three areas in your life or business where you’ve been waiting, blaming, or feeling stuck.

Then, for each one, write a single sentence that reclaims ownership.

Example:

• "My mailing list is tiny because nobody is finding my website" becomes "I haven’t built a system yet for attracting and nurturing subscribers."

• "No-one is buying because people don’t have money" becomes "I need to refine my offer until it’s irresistible to the right people."

Small shift. Massive power.

Remember:

"Blame is easy. Ownership is rare. Ownership builds empires."

Let's start building yours.

New around here?

The 'Better Entrepreneur Blueprint' is being published on my blog here, and on my Substack totally free of charge.

Sessions drop Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.

Want to start from the beginning? Back to Day One 'The New Entrepreneurs Rising'

In a hurry? Get the book on Amazon, or get the book and interactive app here on my website. However, you still need to subscribe to this course as we'll be exploring the 25 Lessons more deeply and you'll enjoy insights on you can apply each one to your business.

Subscribe now via email or substack app so you don't miss the next instalments:

• Subscribe Here

• Subscribe On Substack

Photo by Jacob Hodgson on Unsplash

Afternoon!

It’s a double episode today because I want to bring my podcast subscribers up to date!

In this episode I delve into the pivotal moments of my entrepreneurial path, standing at the intersection of semi-retirement and unfulfilled aspirations.

Despite the allure of the thought of slowing down to enjoy trading, painting and traveling, there was one thing I couldn’t let go of. If you missed the beginning of this story, listen to this episode first. If you prefer to read, start here. There will be something good for you after I get the preamble out of the way, I promise!

Join me as I discuss the vital importance of nurturing your work, even when the initial climb seems steep.

Then I share my personal epiphany about the part of my body of work I just can’t leave behind and what I intend to do about that - this is the bit that will help you if you aspire to be ‘A Better Entrepreneur’.

I aim to start a movement (one day at a time) and ignite the mindset shift essential for thriving in today’s dynamic financial landscape, urging you to awaken your dormant dreams and find the right outlet for your passion.

Subscribe now to embark on a journey of perseverance, creativity, and entrepreneurial awakening.

Prefer to read? Visit my blog over at NicolaCairnX.com to find this week’s topic.

Till next week!

Warm regards

Nicola

P.S. Ready to move forward and find the hidden gold in your business? Here's how I can help...

1. Join my free Substack here or subscribe to my newsletter at NicolaCairnX.com.

2. Download my 'AI Advantage Guide' and discover how to use AI to help create a business & life to love.

3. Discover my 'A Better Entrepreneur' digital toolkit today, which includes the new book in digital format, (get your browser to read it to you), the 25 lessons learned along the way & the interactive app which has been trained specifically on ALL my books, to answer your specific questions about business and life.

Author, Speaker, Podcaster &
Digital Marketing Consultant

If you would like to build a powerful brand online
and make more sales visit NicolaCairnX.com

YouTube | Instagram | LinkedIn

Copyright @NicolaCairncross 2025

Years of relentless pursuit in building an online empire led me to a startling revelation: was my drive for success a genuine quest for fulfillment, or merely an addiction to achievement?

Join me as I recount how a candid conversation with a brutally honest bot I had developed (oh, the irony!) revealed a truth I could no longer ignore—my identity had become intertwined with the need to prove my worth, a compulsion apparently stemming from childhood.

This eye-opening experience prompted a shift in my perspective, leading me to question the true essence of success and explore quieter, more meaningful pursuits.

As I navigate this profound transformation, I invite you to embark on a journey of authenticity and personal evolution. Embracing the integrity of expression, I now find solace in creating, reflecting, and simply being present with my thoughts.

If you're musing on your motication or rethinking your life's path, remember that evolution doesn't require drastic measures. It's about cherishing the power of presence and authenticity.

Let's explore this transformative experience together over the next few episodes, and celebrate the beauty of evolving rather than staying confined within self-imposed limits.

Prefer to read? Visit my blog over at NicolaCairnX.com to find this week’s topic.

Till next week!

Warm regards

Nicola

P.S. Ready to move forward and find the hidden gold in your business? Here's how I can help...

1. Join my free Substack here or subscribe to my newsletter at NicolaCairnX.com.

2. Download my 'AI Advantage Guide' and discover how to use AI to help create a business & life to love.

3. Discover my 'A Better Entrepreneur' digital toolkit today, which includes the new book in digital format, (get your browser to read it to you), the 25 lessons learned along the way & the interactive app which has been trained specifically on ALL my books, to answer your specific questions about business and life.

Author, Speaker, Podcaster &
Digital Marketing Consultant

If you would like to build a powerful brand online
and make more sales visit NicolaCairnX.com

YouTube | Instagram | LinkedIn

Copyright @NicolaCairncross 2025

Better Entrepreneur Blueprint

Phase 1 | Introduction: The Secret Of Success

If the world is shifting - and it is - then the way we approach success must shift with it.

You might think the secret to entrepreneurial success is a killer strategy, the right tech stack, or a never-ending hustle. It isn't.

Success - the kind that feels good, lasts, and leaves you proud - starts inside.

You don't become a better entrepreneur by chasing tactics. You become a better entrepreneur by becoming a better you - more adaptable, more resilient, more capable of seeing opportunity where others see chaos.

I know this not because I read it in some personal development book, but because I lived it.

After my first successful business, The Money Gym, was wiped out by the global financial crisis of 2008, I found myself adrift. Between businesses. Questioning everything. Wondering what had gone wrong.

In those wilderness years around 2011–2013, I went searching for answers the only way I knew how — by talking to people who had "made it". I interviewed over 150 entrepreneurs, asking them to tell their stories, to share their biggest tips for their younger selves about mindset, marketing, and money.

I thought, if I could just find the common thread, the magic bullet, the one secret that led to guaranteed success... maybe I could rebuild.

The best tips ended up in my book, "The Money Gym: My No.1 Biggest Money Tip". But the true secret? It wasn't in any tip or tactic.

It was hidden in plain sight. I’m going to keep it secret until the end of this blog post / email series because I want you to feel free to guess it in the comments on any of these posts.

Here’s secret #2, which is that the entrepreneurs who built lasting success — and joy — were the ones who built themselves first.

They cultivated resilience when things went wrong. They sharpened their instincts when markets shifted. They made their minds stronger and more flexible long before they needed those muscles in a crisis.

It wasn't about working harder. It wasn't about chasing the next shiny trend. It was about who they became.

That’s the real work. And that’s what "A Better Entrepreneur Blueprint" is built around.

This isn't a motivational seminar. It isn’t fluff and "just believe in yourself" nonsense. It’s a practical, battle-tested approach to becoming the kind of entrepreneur the future demands.

The world today is full of distractions. Flashy business models. AI tools that promise to do everything for you. Influencers preaching that you can work four hours a week and live on a yacht in Bali.

Most of it's rubbish.

The truth is harder - and far more rewarding.

You can build a business you love. You can create independence, wealth, meaning, and impact. But it won't come from a hack. It will come from deep, sustainable growth in yourself first.

In this course, you’ll find:

• Clear, actionable lessons — not empty theory.

• Stories from real life — including my own missteps, false starts, and triumphs.

• Tools to help you adapt, evolve, and thrive in uncertain times.

• Permission (and encouragement) to stop chasing and start building from the inside out.

Each session is short enough to fit into your day, but powerful enough to shift your thinking forever if you let it.

You don’t need to be perfect. You don’t need to have it all figured out. You just need to be willing to become a better entrepreneur, step by step.

Because in a world that’s changing faster than ever, who you are becoming matters more than what you are building.

Ready?

Let's begin.

New Around Here?

The 'Better Entrepreneur Blueprint' is being published on my blog here, and on my Substack totally free of charge.

Sessions drop Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.

Want to start from the beginning? Back to Day One 'The New Entrepreneurs Rising'

In a hurry? Get the book on Amazon, or get the book and interactive app here on my website. However, you still need to subscribe to this course as we'll be exploring the 25 Lessons more deeply and you'll enjoy insights on you can apply each one to your business.

Subscribe now via email or substack app so you don't miss the next instalments:

• Subscribe Here

• Subscribe On Substack

Image courtesy of Unsplash.