Hello, and happy first day of spring 👋
Yesterday was the last day of winter and I spent the afternoon on a journaling retreat. While we waited for the group to assemble, a lamb was born in the neighbouring field.
I’m writing this on Saturday - this morning is the spring equinox. The year has tipped, and this edition (which arrives on the first full day of spring) is about that: the deliberate act of becoming. The choices, small and structural, that determine what arrives in the season ahead.
In my groups we are packing up Q1, and in our next meetings we’ll look forward to Q2, temporarily rising up from the work and revisiting strategy - harnessing new quarter energy for a fresh push.
There's business in here, of course, practical and direct. But there's a pulse underneath it this week, I want to stop and nod to it before we begin.
1. This Week's Blog: Dress the Person You're Becoming
This week’s topic is something I've mentioned to a couple of clients almost in passing, they asked me for more information, so here it is.
Obviously AI-generated, but useful nonetheless
Last weekend I used AI to work on my personal style. Not in the sense of asking a chatbot what to wear, but as a genuine analytical process: curating images that had caught my attention over several weeks or months, uploading them with a structured brief, and asking for a framework I could actually use to make decisions.
The reason it matters for us, as designers building founder visibility, is that personal style and professional presence turn out to be the same question approached from different directions. Both ask: what do I want to project, and am I making choices consistent with that, or simply making habitual ones?
The piece gives an overview of the process - including its limits, which are real - and includes a prompt to try for yourself.
For me, the most helpful part of the processes was finding clarity for elimination. I found the experience considerably better at helping me decide what to remove: knowing what to donate, or what not to buy, it turns out, is more than half the work.
2. Tales From The Consulting Room
I don’t often give a glimpse behind the consulting room curtain. My week always includes private meetings with designers who have booked an hour or two in my diary, and I thought I’d use this week as an example, to share the kinds of things we chat about.
Here’s the briefest of overviews of the four meetings I had this week:
Client A - a designer booked two sessions so we could work on a pitch. Together we agreed a design fee a good third higher than the starting position. On Friday she messaged me to say: Just wanted to share the great news that I’ve signed the contract. They accepted everything with no changes - thank you again for your invaluable help.
Client B - a new designer in the process of launching her business booked an appointment to present her - really impressive - business plan to me (we had previously discussed the process of completing this). We’ve discussed next steps - drafting revenue projections and an associated marketing plan, and I have sent her homework to help get this done.
Client C - a well-established designer presented an in-depth review of her business, and we discussed marketing strategy to keep the pipeline strong.
Client D - a meeting with a designer who wants a complete overhaul of her business. We set a deadline for the production of a draft business plan, and have planned the date of our next meeting when we’ll pick up on this work and push forward.
By the way, client A gave me a gift in return: she told me to stop using the word "retainer" when I talk about monthly payments. She's right. "Retainer" is a legal term. It implies someone waiting on standby, availability purchased. But - what I hadn’t appreciated - a retainer pays for capacity that could be rolled over or refunded if not used. So I’m changing how I present this, and I'll talk about that shift at the BIID fees webinar next week (details below).
3. On Future Selves and Who Does The Washing Up
Q1 wrapped for my partner and I this week when we relocated from SE Asia, returning home to Europe for spring and summer. This prompted a reflection that ended up on Instagram.
Leaving our Bangkok Airbnb, I made sure the dishes were washed, the rubbish dumped, the loo clean. I don't see why anyone else should have to deal with that. Then I came home to a bit of a mess. PastJulia, it turns out, cares considerably less about me than I do about strangers.
Hal Hershfield, in Your Future Self, argues that we treat our future selves as strangers. I'm not sure that's entirely right. In Bangkok I was perfectly decent to a stranger. It's my future self I short-changed.
So: spring clean. The messy drawer. The wardrobe full of unworn things that guilt had kept in place. And then the harder question: what will I leave for FutureJulia by this time next year?
What have you inherited from PastYou this week? What are you leaving for FutureYou by this time next year?
4. Coming Up: Two Online Events Worth Your Attention
🗓️ Wednesday 25 March at 10am - Webinar: Instagram for Interior Designers I'm joined by Milla Richardson of Pink Storm Social for a webinar on mastering Instagram as a practising designer. Not growth hacks, not trends - the practical mechanics of showing up consistently on a platform that, used well, brings the right clients to you. The link to join is in the Hothouse group - look under the "Events" tab.
🗓️ Thursday 26 March at 10.30am - Fees and Charging, with the BIID I'm leading a CPD session on fees and charging. The whole story: covering as much as I can in 90 minutes. How to charge, how much to charge, how to communicate those charges.
5. IN-PERSON - The Designed Self Retreat - 7th June (please read this one)
I am so looking forward to spending time with my clients here.
This is the event I most want you to consider, and the one that's hardest to describe briefly - but I'll try to be precise.
This retreat is not about presentation skills. It is about something more foundational: the tendency that many of us have for our bodies to resist our ambitions...to contract, to shrink, to undermine us physically at precisely the moment we need them to represent us. You may know what you want to say. You may believe it. But under observation, something overrides that.
Nicky Herrington - a trained actor turned photographer who has spent years on both sides of the camera - will work with us directly on this. I will be there too, leading the prework before the retreat, and linking you to a designed founder presence.
The day is intimate, in person, in Sussex. Minimum 5, maximum 10 designers.
This is the work that no questionnaire reaches. It requires a room.
7 June | Sussex | £395
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: We are offering the option to pay in three monthly instalments of £133. This offer closes at the end of next week. If you've been considering it, now is the practical moment to act.
Find out more and reserve your place here.
6. My Week in Hothouse
I'm halfway through a five week push I set myself - an attempt to reverse the creep of red across the numbers - and this week, some red is back. I'm not too worried about the LinkedIn impressions (I posted four times this week, for crying out loud) as profile views are healthy, but the failure to show up in Hothouse. Ouch. (That's the sound of me, kicking myself).
In my defence, we moved back to the UK this week after several months away in SouthEast Asia, 24 hours of disruption was followed by a few nights of poor sleep. Let's see if I can do better next week.
Otherwise it has been a fulfilling and energising week. A great "Boardroom" group meeting with last year's Business in a Box graduates. A super set of individual one-to-ones with designers at different stages of business development. And an in-depth meeting with one of the designers who has signed up to a year of intensive collaboration as part of "Boardroom Bespoke", working on Founder Presence.
I took half a day off yesterday to attend a journaling retreat, something I wouldn't normally do on a working Friday. I say I want meaningful connection with other people, and yet I spend most of my time alone at a keyboard. Being in a room with strangers, putting thoughts onto paper without an agenda, revealed something I hadn't expected: some of the work I've been doing deliberately and with effort seems to be registering at a deeper level and taking root.
Last night's equinox energy
Final Thought
The question this edition keeps returning to is not whether you are becoming (spoiler - you are, regardless). It is whether you are doing it deliberately: making the choices, saying the words, clearing the space, showing up in the way that your future self will thank you for.
Wishing you a very happy fresh week ahead.
Julia
Founder - Hothouse
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