Brand work that feels like therapy

- Feb 20, 2026

Two weeks ago, while recording an episode of my podcast The Mettā Interview, my guest — also a consulting client of mine — said something that made me beam.

"I could talk for another two hours and yeah, [...]  you are a great coach. It's therapy. It's therapy."

She'd already said those words to me once before, back in October. It was after our first foundations session. She and her co-founder sat with me for two hours while I unfurled my many questions to help expose and clarify their business objectives. 

That first time, I remember the inner "woo hoo" feeling. I smiled, and it felt like it came from the inside out. “Yes. This is good work. This is what I love doing.” I thought to myself. 

Hearing the same person repeat these words, months later, this time during a podcast recording where we were both beaming at each other, that hit differently.

A few days later, I interviewed Giulia Galli, a parental and fitness coach who, like me, spent 20 years in luxury fashion communications. At the end of our conversation, she said:

This felt even more special. Tender, even. To hear these words from Giulia, an accomplished NLP practitioner, a former communications director, this was more than validating. 

It also gave me something I can offer you: insights into my energy, how it feels to work with me, something we all struggle to articulate about ourselves. 

These kind people's words offer an interpretation beyond what my writing can give you. And it's especially hard to 'get' what the benefits are of working with someone you don't know well. Words like 'communication expert' and 'consultant' are just vessels. They don't tell you who I am to you.

And the words communication, expert, coach, and consultant are just vessels for someone’s capacities and energy. I’m not a McKinsey type, that’s for sure. But if I’m not that, then who am I to you?

Fashion designer Bella Freud (great-granddaughter of Sigmund, the daughter of painter Lucian), host of the popular Fashion Neurosis podcast where she puts famous people on a sofa for psychoanalysis-style conversations (recent guests include Esther Perel and my ex-boss Christian Louboutin) wrote in The Sunday Times Style magazine about visiting me at the Louboutin office in 2011:

Bella’s words are interesting because they speak to something that I wouldn’t quite know how to qualify. My energy. My resourcefulness. The fact these words appeared in print (and are still on the Times website) is helpful. As if they were indelible. 

I smile when I consider how the great-granddaughter of the founder of psycho-analysis speaks of my energy as magical, while my clients tell me my work feels like therapy. Isn’t that something? 

That’s why people don’t just come to me for strategy. 

They come for the space I hold and for how I help them see themselves. 

For my intellectual curiosity, my resourcefulness and understanding of what's shaping the zeitgeist. 

For my moral and ethical core, shaped by years of study in yoga, mindfulness, and Buddhist practices. Maybe they stay for all of the above, and also because “holding space” is just code for the psychological safety they find with me, which is what allows them to dig deep and bring out what matters most.

I dropped out of university because I didn’t get what my studies would do for my future. And I found that I love working. I like seeing results. That’s why sales and PR were so satisfying. You know how well you’re doing; it’s measurable, and you don’t even need clever marketing reports to tell you how well you’ve done. 

The work I do now is just as satisfying. I'm still driven by the desire to be effective for my clients, to make magic happen, as I used to say. It may not take the shape they think it will, but it's always rewarding.