Asim Amin

Founder & CEO at Plumm | Empowering Minds & Building Thriving Workplaces | Passionate Mental Health Advocate

I’m the Founder & CEO of Plumm, the all-in-one HR platform with mental health at its core.

HR today is fragmented, companies juggle payroll, performance, compliance, and wellbeing across too many tools. Plumm brings it all into one platform, helping organisations cut costs, save time, and look after their people. Because no HR strategy is complete without mental health.

Plumm started as a mental health solution and has grown into a full-service HR platform, used by companies worldwide. Our mission is clear: make workplaces more productive, inclusive, and human.

I’m also the host of the Immigrants Building Companies Podcast, where I speak with immigrant entrepreneurs who’ve built companies against the odds, sharing lessons on resilience, growth, and leadership.

If you’d like to:
🚀 Book a demo with Plumm: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0mJb040 
🎙️ Discuss podcasts, speaking, or media features: taslynn@heyplumm.com

International Trade Program

Poor mental health costs UK employers up to £56 billion a year.

And yet, when employers invest even just £1 in preventative employee wellbeing, they see an average return of £5.30.

We’ve seen case after case, that happier employees make for a healthier business.

It’s why we developed Plumm: a seamless all-in-one, evidence-backed mental wellbeing solution for employers and their teams.

We support your team through our global and diverse pool over 200 accredited therapists and coaches, who can cater to their individual needs, preferences, and circumstances, regardless of where they are in their wellbeing journey.

Whether they can benefit from group learning, need professional help and personalised 1:1 therapy or coaching, or self-help resources, we've got it covered.

Ready to level up your team's wellbeing? 👉 https://www.plummhealth.com/request-demo

You’ll spend £4 a day on a latte without blinking.
But £27 a month for your health?
“Too expensive.”

That’s roughly what a WHOOP costs.
And no, not everyone needs a WHOOP.
It could just as easily be a gym membership. Plenty in the UK cost £20–£30 a month.

The number isn’t really the point.
It’s where the line gets drawn.

Some spending feels automatic.
Other spending gets questioned, even when it’s about your own health, energy, and how you want to feel day to day.

That says a lot about priorities.

Because health isn’t a one-off decision.
You don’t choose it once.
You choose it in small ways, over and over again.

Those choices compound.

And one day you realise how you’ve been feeling for a while now
more tired, less resilient, lower energy
or the opposite.

That’s why what you prioritise today matters more than it seems 👌🏼

PS: I still love coffee, but I’d rather have it home ;)

Founder & CEO at Plumm | Speaker | Advisor

Let’s be honest.
 
Most of us f*cked up over the holidays.
 
Too much food.
Too much sugar.
Too much wine.
 
And now everyone’s pretending they “reset” on Jan 1.
BS.
Here’s what actually happens:
You enjoy yourself.
Then you feel guilty.
Then you convince yourself you’re already behind.
You’re not behind.
You’re human.
 
What’s messed up isn’t December.
It’s the idea that one month can “ruin” you.
Your body didn’t suddenly forget how to function.
Your discipline didn’t disappear.
Your year isn’t over because you ate more than planned.
 
The real problem?
People think progress has to be perfect.
It doesn’t.
Balance beats punishment.
Every time.
 
You don’t need extremes.
You don’t need to suffer.
You don’t need a diet built around how you look.
You need habits built around how you feel.
 
Energy > aesthetics.
Focus > abs.
Consistency > guilt.
 
So no, you didn’t fail January.
And no, you don’t need to “start again” next Monday.
You start today.
You eat better because it helps you think.
You move because it gives you energy.
You sleep because you perform better.
That’s it.
 
Just show up.
Again.
And again.
That’s how it actually works.
 
Happy 2026 everyone ✌🏼

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Perfection is how average founders justify being slow.

I’ve done it.
Watched others do it.
Same outcome every time.

Early on, I hid behind “not ready yet”.
What I really meant was: “I don’t want the market to tell me I’m wrong.”
So I delayed.
Refined.
Overthought.
And nothing happened.

In the first 3–5 years, your product isn’t supposed to be good.
It’s supposed to move.
Because movement creates:
- feedback
- revenue
- momentum
Perfection creates meetings.

I’ve launched things that made me cringe.
They still taught me more in a week than months of planning ever did.
Most features I was obsessed with? Nobody cared.
The market told me that. Fast.

And the reality is, most founders fail because they wait until they feel confident.
Confidence doesn’t come before action.
It comes after exposure.

If you’re still polishing:
You’re not protecting quality.
You’re protecting ego.
Speed doesn’t mean sloppy.
It means honest.
And honesty compounds faster than perfection ever will.

DO NOT hire people who are good on paper.

The strongest hires I’ve seen recently weren’t the neatest on paper anyway.
A few gaps.
Not every box ticked.
Some rough edges.

But when things shifted, they didn’t stall.
That’s what stood out.
Work is changing faster than job descriptions can keep up.
By the end of this decade, around 39% of the skills people use today won’t be relevant anymore.
Most roles won’t disappear.
They’ll mutate.
Which makes “tool knowledge” a short-lived advantage.

In practice, I’ve learned to watch for different signals:
Who asks better questions once the brief gets fuzzy.
Who notices second-order problems, not just the task in front of them.
Who can disagree without becoming defensive.
Who recovers quickly after being wrong.

Those things don’t show up on a CV.
And they matter more when pressure is real.

Nearly 6 in 10 people will need reskilling in the coming years.
Yet the global workforce is still expected to grow.
So the edge isn’t experience alone.
It’s adaptability over time.

You can train systems.
Rewrite processes.
Roll out new tools.
What’s harder to build is judgement.
Curiosity under uncertainty.
The ability to stay useful when the rules change.

As automation takes care of the predictable, these qualities surface.
Not because they’re “soft skills”
But because they’re the difference between keeping up
and actually moving forward.

BREAKING 🚨 Europe just made its boldest move for founders in decades.

Yesterday at Davos, Ursula von der Leyen announced EU–INC.
A single, truly European company structure.
This matters. A lot.
For years, Europe hasn’t lacked talent, it’s lacked simplicity.
27 countries.
27 rulebooks.
Different equity rules.
Different compliance hoops.

So founders did the rational thing.
They incorporated elsewhere.
(Usually Delaware)

EU–INC changes the equation.
One corporate framework across the EU.
Incorporate online in 48 hours.
No mandatory notaries.
One legal entity, valid in all 27 countries.
Taxes and labour laws stay national.

The corporate layer goes European. That distinction is critical.
Because Europe’s biggest problem was never ambition. It was friction.

Scaling shouldn’t mean:
– Setting up new entities per country
– Reworking equity structures
– Burning seed capital on legal fees

If executed properly, EU–INC could unlock:
– Faster company creation
– Founder-friendly equity
– Easier cross-border scaling
– A real Single Market, not a theoretical one

Most importantly?
This is the first time Europe has clearly chosen builders over bureaucracy.
Execution will be everything.
Speed will matter.
Consistency will matter.
But the signal is loud and clear: Europe is finally building for founders 🇪🇺🚀

I didn’t wake up one day and decide to rethink health.
Life did it for me.

What surprised me wasn’t the moment itself.
It was what changed afterwards.

How quickly your definition of “healthy” shifts when it’s no longer abstract.
When it’s not about performance, or numbers, or discipline.
You start paying attention to different things.
How stress shows up in your body.
How sleep affects your mood, not just your energy.
How recovery isn’t optional if you want consistency.

Longevity stops being about adding years.
It becomes about protecting capacity.

The ability to think clearly under pressure.
To regulate stress instead of living in it.
To train, work, and live without constantly borrowing from tomorrow.

I’m reading Outlive at the moment.
What resonates most isn’t the science, it’s the reminder that decline accumulates through small decisions repeated daily.
Ignoring signals.
Normalising fatigue.
Treating rest as a reward instead of a requirement.

Perspective changes how you move through life.
You become less reactive.
More intentional.

Longevity, in that sense, isn’t about fear.
It’s about responsibility.
And once life forces that lesson,
you don’t approach health the same way again.

STOP focusing on your personal brand.

(I know, coming from someone who posts 5x week lol)
But hear me out.

A lot of people start building their personal brands, and then visibility comes:
the likes, the comments, the impressions, DMs
you somehow get momentum

but something doesn’t quite add up..
All those vanity numbers..all the likes, all the followers..
CAN’T fix a sh*t product
(or service)

The issue is that attention doesn’t give you breathing room. It does the opposite.
Once people are watching, they’re not just reacting to your ideas. They’re experiencing everything. The product. The service. The follow-up. The bits you were hoping to fix later.

If that experience is weak, people don’t argue about it. 
They just disappear.

I’ve seen people with impressive visibility struggle to keep customers.
I’ve also seen founders with no presence at all build businesses people stick with because the thing actually does what it says.

A personal brand doesn’t create trust. 
It spends it.

Does that mean you should not work on your personal brand? Absolutely not, you should.
But that shouldn’t be your priority.

Building an amazing product should be.
Building a fantastic service your customers can’t stop talking about should be.

Once you have that, then you can build your personal brand on top.
Just get your priorities straight.

And btw, sometimes the best move is to shut up, build properly, and let people talk later 👋🏻

If your best people are leaving..
it’s probably NOT about MONEY.

It’s about growth.
Companies that invest seriously in L&D see up to 50% higher retention.
Yet most still treat learning as a perk - or worse, a cost.

That’s not a people problem.
That’s a leadership one.

High performers don’t quit bad jobs, they quit stagnation.
When people stop learning, they don’t argue.
They don’t disengage loudly.
They don’t ask for more.
They just start planning their exit.

The data is blunt:
- 94% would stay longer with better development
- Growth opportunities now outrank pay for many senior performers
- Teams with weak learning cultures lose their best talent first

And yet we keep trying to fix retention with:
Bonuses.
Perks.
Offsites.

None of those solve stagnation.
Real L&D is whether someone leaves a year later with better judgment, broader scope, and more confidence than when they arrived.
If the answer is no, they’ll leave.
Eventually.

That’s why we don’t treat L&D as HR hygiene.
We treat it as leadership responsibility.
Because people don’t stay loyal to companies.
They stay loyal to growth.

“Go to HR.”

People hear it the same way they heard “go to the headteacher’s office” at school.
Somewhere you end up once things have already gone wrong.

That perception didn’t come out of nowhere.

HR usually gets involved after weeks of small things being left unsaid. 
Feedback is usually avoided. 
And, expectations are left vague. 
Managers hoping issues fix themselves. 
By the time HR shows up, there’s history, emotion, and momentum.

From the outside, HR looks like enforcement.
Inside, HR is dealing with accumulated silence.

Most problems don’t start as formal issues. 
They start as ordinary moments that weren’t handled early, when the cost was low.

When managers treat HR as the place difficult conversations go, people learn to associate HR with punishment instead of support.

If you want HR to feel human, managers have to do the human work first.

Clear expectations early. 
Feedback while there’s still room to adjust. Intervention before frustration hardens.

HR isn’t the headteacher’s office.
It just inherits what wasn’t handled sooner.

2026 HR trends you need to know:

1. HR will end up owning problems no one else wants
Because they sit between leadership intent and lived reality.

2. AI will finally expose how little most companies understand their own workforce
HR has been saying this quietly for years.

3. “Hiring shortages” will keep being blamed on the market
When the issue is internal talent stuck in the wrong places.

4. Job frameworks will keep getting rewritten
Work will keep changing faster.

5. Hybrid work will stay unresolved
Because many leaders still don’t know what good work looks like.

6. Burnout won’t be treated as a crisis
Until it hits delivery timelines.

7. As usual, HR will be looped in late,
then blamed early.

HR isn’t late. 
It’s just been convenient to ignore.

There’s one kind of decision
I never got used to making.

It wasn’t about direction or priorities.
It was about people, and knowing that whatever I chose would follow them home.

Later, it gets called a pivot. 
In the moment, it felt like sitting across from someone and realising you were about to change something you couldn’t take back.

I’ve been laid off before. 
I remember the shock, the quiet afterwards, the way it made everything outside of work feel suddenly uncertain.

I’ve also had to be the one delivering that news.
What stays with me isn’t what I said.
It’s what I saw.
The pause before someone replied.
The way they nodded, even when it hurt.
How often they asked about everyone else instead of themselves.

There wasn’t anger.
There was care.

People checking in on teammates.
Worrying about how the team would manage.
Trying to make sense of what came next.

That kind of response doesn’t come from policies or values written on a wall.
It comes from how people have been treated all along.

You don’t really understand leadership when things are moving fast and going well.
You understand it when something breaks and there is nowhere to hide.

We talk a lot about growth.
But responsibility shows up differently.
It sits with you long after the meeting ends.
Long after the decision is made.

Those moments are uncomfortable, and they should be.
Because once the decision is made, there’s nowhere else for it to land but on you.
You don’t get to soften it with language or hide behind process.
All you can do is stand in it, be clear, be honest, and make sure the people affected are treated with as much care as possible.
Not because it looks good.
Because you owe them that.

If things get hard → raise.
If growth slows → raise.
If you’re unsure → raise.

There’s a weird default in startups…
Everyone’s obsessed with raising.
But no one really stops to ask the boring question:

What exactly are we trying to buy with this money?

Not the pitch-deck version.
The one you’re honest about when it’s just you and the numbers.

Some of the best decisions I’ve made at Plumm didn’t happen after a round.
They happened when there was little (sometimes VERY little) money in the bank.
Because that’s when you’re forced to think differently.
You get creative.
You stop hiding behind “we’ll fix it after the raise”.
You really ask: what actually moves the needle?

Scarcity sharpens you.
It forces out-of-the-box thinking.
It makes you ruthless about priorities.
Sales matters more.
Focus matters more.
Every spend suddenly has to earn its place.

Somewhere along the way, we’ve been sold this fundraiser lifestyle.
The press.
The LinkedIn posts.
The idea that raising equals success.

But money isn’t success.
It’s just fuel.
And fuel on a bad engine doesn’t fix the engine.

There were moments where raising felt like the obvious next step.
And then we realised it wasn’t.
The better question became:
How do we push revenue?
How do we sell better?
What can we do without more capital?

Raising can make sense, I’m not anti-fundraising, but raising by default is a trap.
And sometimes, having less is exactly what makes you a better founder.
Because when there’s no safety net, your instincts show up properly.

You can’t make an A-player out of a B-player.

I know people hate hearing that.
I used to, too.

For a long time, I thought the right coaching, enough time, or “the right environment” would change people. It doesn’t. Not in the way founders hope it will.

I’ve tried. 
More than once. 
And every time, it cost the business.

Ash didn’t step up because he was promoted. 
He was promoted because he was already acting like it mattered to him personally.

No one had to chase him. 
No one had to spell things out twice. 
No one had to convince him to care.

He already did.
That’s the difference.
Some people feel ownership naturally. 
Others wait to be told what to do, how to do it, and when it’s “enough.”

You can train skills. 
You can’t train that internal bar.

At some point, I stopped trying to turn the wrong people into the right ones. And started backing the people who were already wired differently.

Everything got easier after that. 
Decisions. 
Trust. 
Progress.

Ash is a good example of this.
He is THAT person who takes responsibility even when no one is watching.
He cares.

If this makes you uncomfortable, good. 
It should.

PS: Choose carefully. 
And stop lying to yourself about potential.

The worst way to start a business:

	1.	Decide you want to be a founder before knowing what you want to build (because you like the “lifestyle”..)
	2.	Reverse-engineer a product that sounds good to investors, not customers
	3.	Build an MVP to justify a deck, not to solve a problem
	4.	Avoid talking to users because “we already know the market”
	5.	Call early confusion “vision”
	6.	Ship features no one asked for because they look impressive in demos
	7.	Measure success by meetings booked, not problems solved
	8.	Sell discounts as “traction”
	9.	Hire sales to compensate for unclear value
	10.	Blame sales when customers don’t convert
	11.	Add more features instead of fixing the core problem
	12.	Call lack of focus “moving fast”
	13.	Run internal meetings about growth instead of external conversations with users
	14.	Burn cash to protect the narrative
	15.	Pivot quietly, rebrand loudly 
	16.	Tell the team profitability comes after scale
	17.	Run out of time, not ideas
	18.	Buy PR articles to boost you ego

Remember: Build something people would miss if it disappeared.

Everyone wants the quick win.
The overnight success.
The shortcut.
The “one good idea”.
What they don’t want is the part before it.

It took me 10 businesses
and 27 years
to get here.

Because that’s how long it took to actually understand what works.
Most of those businesses didn’t fail, they just… faded.
Wrong timing.
Thin margins.
People problems.
Ideas that sounded good but didn’t survive reality.

Each one taught me something small and painfully specific.
How fragile cash really is.
How quickly momentum dies.
How often “almost ready” is just fear in disguise.

There was no big moment where it all clicked, just fewer mistakes over time.
The Plumm people see now isn’t the result of a breakthrough, it’s the result of repetition, and the sum of all the hard lessons learnt in those 27 years.

Everyone wants the result.
Very few want the years it takes to recognise one.
That gap is where most people disappear.

We all say we hate talking about money.
What we really hate is being exposed.

Because money has a way of cutting through the BS.

The biggest mistake I see some founders make is stepping away from numbers too early.

Because staying close to revenue forces uncomfortable conversations.

Sales conversations.
Pricing conversations.
Reality conversations.

Top line tells you if anyone actually wants what you’re building.
Bottom line tells you whether the way you’re building it is sustainable.

Ignore either, and you start lying to yourself.

I’ve seen founders obsess over growth while margins slowly collapse.

I’ve seen “strong pipelines” with no cash to show for it.

By the time they re-engage with the numbers, the options are already limited.

Spreadsheets aren’t finance work. They’re where the truth shows up first.

If you know your numbers, you feel in control.
If you don’t, you call it stress.

That’s the difference.

“Is there still a future in HR?”

That question keeps coming up because a lot of HR work is disappearing in plain sight.

AI is already handling the volume work.
Questions. Admin. Scheduling. Screening.
The things that kept teams busy and roles full.

That part isn’t coming back.

But much of that work was never the value.

For years, HR became the place unfinished thinking was sent.
Vague roles. Avoided conversations. Poor decisions dressed up as process.

AI exposes that.

Because once the admin goes, what’s left is judgement.
And judgement is harder work.

The future of HR belongs to people who can design work that still makes sense as organisations change.
Intervene early, before silence turns into resentment.
Support leaders when there is no policy to hide behind.
Read patterns humans feel long before data shows them.

AI can answer questions.
It can’t rebuild trust.
It can’t decide what “fair” looks like in a messy situation.
It can’t carry the weight of a hard call.

Teams using tools like Plumm are already shifting this way.
Less firefighting.
More thinking.

So yes, there is a future in HR.

But it belongs to those willing to step away from owning process
and into helping organisations make better decisions about work.

Cognitive decline starts earlier than what you think 
(and if you are 30+, you should be reading this..)

Yep, the decline starts in your early 30s..
way earlier than you expected, right?

And interesting enough, the other day I was reading how some studies put the difference between people who actively challenge their brains and those who don’t at 2–3 years of memory decline.
In some cases, closer to a decade…

So, I was like “Hold on a minute.. I need to do something about it..”

So I’ve been trying to go back to basics lately.
And yesterday, instead of doing anything particularly “CEO-productive”,
I did a puzzle.
No phone nearby.
No background noise.

What surprised me wasn’t that it was calming.
It was how unfamiliar it felt to concentrate like that.
Holding pieces in my head.
Remembering what didn’t fit.
Staying with the problem instead of jumping to something else.
That kind of effort used to be normal.
Now it’s rare.

The data on brain longevity is pretty consistent on one thing:
it’s not about consuming more information.
It’s about effortful thinking.
Puzzles, crosswords, problem-solving tasks - they show up again and again in studies on cognitive reserve.
They force the brain to slow down and work.

Kids do this instinctively.
Adults engineer it out of their lives.
Shortcuts.
Assistance.
Constant input.
The brain adapts.

I’m not claiming puzzles are a solution to anything.
But they’re a good reminder.
If brain health matters - not just now, but over time -
it’s worth paying attention to how often we actually ask our brains to do something hard.

Sometimes going back to basics isn’t regression.
It’s maintenance 👌🏼

PS: What was your weekend “brain activity”?

“Graduates should work for free.”

That’s not a hot take.
It’s exploiting the market while pretending it’s common sense.

What it really says is this:
We want output without accountability.
We want talent without doing the work of building it.

Entry-level roles were never meant to be efficient, they were meant to be formative.
You hired for raw potential.
You tolerated mistakes.
You invested time before expecting judgement.
That’s how people got good.

Now?
Many companies want graduates who arrive finished.
Tool-ready. Confident. Immediately useful.

And when they don’t?
The gap gets filled with unpaid labour.
“Trials.”
“Exposure.”
Open-ended internships with no real intent to hire.

The cost moves from the balance sheet to the individual.
Income disappears.
Waiting becomes the price of entry.
At that point, talent isn’t about ability, it’s about who can afford to be patient.

AI is making this worse.
The low-risk learning work is vanishing.
Junior roles are fewer.
The remaining ones demand judgement before judgement has time to exist.
Instead of redesigning how people grow, many companies opt out altogether.

Pay matters.
Not as a moral argument.
As a forcing function.
Pay creates obligation.
Clear expectations.
Feedback.
Actual management.

Without pay, there is no graduate role.
There is only unpaid labour with nicer language.

If you hire graduates, you’re making a choice.
Either you build capability, or you extract value and avoid responsibility.

We’ve always paid interns, because serious companies invest in the pipeline they depend on.

If you hire graduates, pay them.
That’s the line between developing people
and taking advantage of them.

He travelled the world building businesses. 
Then he came back to the UK.

James went to China at 18. 
1997. 
Six months to teach English.

He picked China because it felt hard. 
New system. 
New rules. 
Nothing familiar.
That choice shaped everything.

Working abroad showed him that business isn’t just about competence. 
It’s about knowing how things really work. 
What’s said. 
What isn’t.

In China, contracts were flexible. 
In the Philippines, age mattered more than ability. 
At 26, being young made selling harder.

He moved across Asia through a management programme. 
Different countries. Different businesses. 
Sometimes with a week’s notice.

Family brought him home.
He built a bike marketplace. 
It looked successful. 
Awards. Partners. Press.
But it didn’t work. 
Ethical supply couldn’t scale.

When his family needed him, he stepped in. 
He grew the recruitment business. 
88 people. Five countries. 
Sold in 2020.

He’s not an immigrant in the UK. 
But immigration shaped everything he built.

Today, he works with founders who are already carrying a lot. 
Helping them think more clearly. 
And make better decisions under pressure.

🎙️ Watch the full episode below. 
Link in the comment section.

Founder & VC Coach | Advisor | Speaker | Podcast Host

Helping executives reboot their mojo | ex-HSBC MD & COO | Founder

I've coached enough Managing Directors, VPs, and Partners to recognise a pattern.

They're brilliant at their jobs. 

They're also exhausted. 

And they're running three separate systems that don't talk to each other: 

→ Bodies: sleep is a nice-to-have, energy managed with caffeine, weight gain every year
→ Careers: performance speaks for itself, positioning and personal brand doesn't matter
→ Lives: relationships take a back seat, achievement will eventually feel like enough

Each system looks manageable on its own. But the compounding effect? That's what breaks people.

Here's what I discovered after 21+ years in senior roles, as a Managing Director and Chief of Staff across HSBC, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and SWIFT: The executives who burn out aren't working the hardest. They're the ones optimising one area while ignoring the others.

I learned this the hard way when I hit a wall ten years into my career. That breaking point became my breakthrough.

Now, through Transform | Perform, I help senior leaders build what I call integrated performance architecture - systems that sustain high performance across Bodies, Careers, and Lives simultaneously. 

Not balance. 

Integration.

I work with:

→ Managing Directors, VPs, Partners, C-suite
→ Financial services, law, consulting, tech, professional services
→ Leaders navigating promotion, transition, or the "Is this it?" crisis
→ Executives who are done with wellness fluff and ready for evidence-based systems

What's different: I'm not a traditional executive coach. I'm a 44 year old former MD who qualified as a personal trainer and executive coach, running multiple businesses on the side, because I realised sustainable performance requires optimising biology, not just strategy. I've run billion dollar P&Ls, led 700+ person teams, coached over 34,000 high performers, and rebuilt my own operating system from the ground up.

The result? Clients who perform at the highest levels without breaking.

Start here: 

→ Take the 4-minute Executive Energy Scorecard: https://executiveenergyfor2026.scoreapp.com
→ Read my weekly newsletter Build Better: https://protocolxai.kit.com/newsletter
→ Sign up to our 13 free Build Better Masterclasses in Q1: https://protocolxai.kit.com/masterclass

Liz Bradford

As a hardcore introvert, socialising doesn’t come naturally to me.
But here’s what I wish I’d learned earlier in my career:

Avoiding in-person relationship building isn't protecting your energy.
It's limiting your impact.

I used to spend the breaks in conferences hiding in the loos, so I didn’t have to engage in actual conversation.

When blackberries (remember them?) came onto the scene, I'd be glued to mine at all times to avoid eye contact. 

I'm so socially awkward that people used to find me cold, aloof, even scary. 

So for anyone who struggles with the dreaded skill of "networking", I can relate.

But when I finally learned to be curious and ask questions, rather than worry about what I was going to say next, everything changed.

Everyone assumes introverts can't build powerful relationships face-to-face.

Wrong.

You have advantages that extroverts don't: 
→ You listen more than you speak (people remember this) 
→ You ask questions that matter (conversations get memorable fast) 
→ You choose quality over quantity (deeper connections form) 
→ You prepare beforehand (you show up with intention)

The digital-only relationship trap is everywhere.

Slack messages feel like connection. Zoom calls feel productive.

But they miss what matters most.

Physical presence changes the entire dynamic. Trust builds faster. 

Opportunities surface naturally. Real relationships form.

The strategies that actually work: 
→ Small gatherings over massive conferences 
→ One-on-one coffee over group events 
→ Research people beforehand for natural conversation starters 
→ Choose venues where you feel comfortable 
→ Give yourself permission to leave early

Yes, it's uncomfortable at first.

But the relationships you build in person? Those compound over years.

Your introversion isn't something to overcome.

It's your secret weapon.

Thank you to everyone here (and the many who aren’t in the photos) who made time for face to face meetings in my whirlwind week in HK.

Now, who will you set up a meeting with?

👉 Follow Liz Bradford for insights on building better careers and authentic professional relationships.

Building Better Careers, Bodies & Businesses | Executive Coach & PT | Board Advisor | ex-HSBC MD & COO | Serial Founder

I can predict when an executive will resign - not from their performance reviews, but from when they stopped sleeping properly.

It starts 6 months before they hand in their notice.

Here's the pattern I see repeatedly:

Poor sleep 

→ clouded judgment 
→ short patience 
→ reactive decisions 
→ strategic tunnel vision
→ compounding frustration/anxiety 
→ resignation.

The problem isn't their job demands.

It's that we've built systems that treat sleep as optional - then wonder why brilliant leaders burn out.

When your brain runs on 6 hours’ sleep, you're not making executive decisions.

You're surviving on adrenaline and hoping nobody notices the cracks.

Most transitions aren't about finding a better role.

They're about fixing the foundation that failed them first.

💤 Next Monday’s masterclass: 'Your Brain on 6 Hours: Why Sleep Isn't a Luxury Anymore'

For the leaders who want to solve this before it costs them everything.

💬 When did you last wake up actually refreshed? 
👇 Link in comments to secure your spot.

If strength training was a drug, we’d all be taking it.
Here’s why:

✨ Muscle acts as a glucose sink, meaning we can eat more of what we want, and dare I say it, even have the odd 🥂

✨ It lowers blood pressure and improves insulin sensitivity

✨ It proactively counters depression and promotes learning, memory, and overall brain health* 

✨ It reduces perimenopausal symptoms by 43% 

✨ It increases bone density, meaning we're stronger as we age

✨ Every kg of muscle burns 30-50 calories just when we’re at rest - countering the calorie dense diets we default to under pressure

✨ It's linked to 27% lower all cause mortality, helping us live longer and healthier lives

*through increasing BNDF (Brain -Derived Neurotrophic Factor), which acts like a fertiliser for our brains

So if it were a drug, it would be unethical not to prescribe it.

Not for aesthetics.

Not for ego.

But for long-term performance, cognition, and resilience.

Yet so many women avoid the gym. Here are the reasons I hear most often:
→ It can be intimidating
→ We’re not sure what to do when we get there
→ I can’t find the time.

That’s why I loved collaborating with James Honey and Roger Ng at FORM Athletic last weekend with 20 awesome women looking to level up in mid-life.

We talked about:

💪 The outcomes we’re optimising for, and that we can get there in just 20-30 minutes a day

💪 How to confidently assess our RPE (Rate of Percieved Exertion) and how to aim higher

💪 The compound body movements that will have the biggest return on investment of energy

The biggest takeaway:

Midlife isn’t a decline phase.

It’s a rebuild window.

And muscle is not about looking strong - it’s about staying capable.

The new performance equation is simple:

Strength → Stability → Cognitive bandwidth → Sustainable impact

So here’s the reflection I’ll leave you with:

👉 Where are you still relying on willpower, when your biology is asking for structure?

Strong women don’t just lift weights.

They lift their future capacity.

Drop a 💪 below to get a copy of James' strength training for women cheatsheet, aka my new "go to". 

➡️ Follow Liz Bradford for insights on building better bodies and rebuilding in midlife.

Credit to Angela Foster for some of these stats 🙏

LinkedIn just released their “Jobs on the Rise” report for 2026. The fastest-growing roles of 2026 don't exist on your org chart.

AI consultants. Fractional leaders. Portfolio executives.

Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/eQ2jKBfd

The ladder is breaking.

Your 20-year playbook just became obsolete.

The pattern I see in every executive I work with:
→ Deep expertise in their function
→ Track records that speak for themselves
→ Waking up at 3am asking "what if this all disappears?"

That anxiety? That's not weakness. That's your brain processing reality.

A Managing Director of Operations came to me six weeks ago. Fifteen years at the same bank. OKRs smashed year after year.

Her company just announced more "operational efficiency initiatives."

She wasn't panicking about her performance. She was panicking about her positioning.

Here's what actually builds career resilience:
→ Define your commercial edge in terms that transfer across industries 
→ Build relationships with people who hire your skillset, not just your peers 
→ Create revenue streams that don't depend on your employer

Career security used to mean climbing one ladder.

Now it means building multiple bridges.

The executives who sleep well at night aren't the most talented. They're the most transferable.

They've designed careers that outlast companies.

This is exactly what we will be working through in our free Build Better Careers masterclasses.

If your role ended tomorrow, how quickly could you land somewhere better?

Career resilience isn't about hoping for the best.

It's about engineering what's next.

Follow Liz Bradford for insights into building better bodies, careers, and lives.

Sign up for our four part masterclass series on Building Better Careers in February here: https://lnkd.in/eVMBHKpv

High performers treat their bodies like machines that should run indefinitely on willpower alone. And for years, it works. Until it doesn't.

The executive who hasn't taken a real vacation in three years suddenly can't think clearly in afternoon meetings. 

The founder who prided themselves on needing only five hours of sleep now snaps at their team over minor issues. 

The leader who used to bounce back from setbacks in days now takes weeks to recover.

They all ask the same question: "What's wrong with me?"

Nothing is wrong. Their biology is demanding what willpower can't provide.

When we override our body's signals long enough, the cost becomes inevitable. Cognitive fog replaces clarity. Patience turns into irritability. Resilience becomes fragility.

But here's what makes it worse - rest starts to feel like failure.

Taking breaks feels like weakness. Saying no feels like giving up.

So we double down on the very approach that created the problem.

The leaders who last make a different choice.

They shift from heroic depletion to intelligent regulation. Instead of asking "How much can I push through?" they ask "How do I sustain this?"

Instead of fighting their biology, they design around it.

Recovery becomes strategy. Rest becomes competitive advantage.

Your nervous system doesn't care about your quarterly targets.

But it will determine whether you hit them.

♻️ Share this with someone who’s running on empty.

👉 Follow Liz Bradford for evidence-led insights on sustainable high  performance and intelligent leadership.

✅ Take our free executive energy assessment to identify your biggest opportunities to up your leadership game in 2026: https://lnkd.in/ewuxzpXF

The best sleep hack isn't a supplement.

It's consistency.

Your circadian rhythm is a biological system, not a suggestion.

Most executives resist this because it feels restrictive.

Like another thing you "should" do.

Another constraint on your already-constrained calendar.

But here's what actually happens when you optimise for flexibility:

Going to bed at 11pm one night and 2am the next wrecks your circadian rhythm.

Even if you get "8 hours" each time.

Your body doesn't average sleep across the week.

It optimises for patterns.

✅ Same bedtime (within 30 minutes) every night. Yes, including weekends.
✅ Same wake time. Non-negotiable.
✅ No "catching up" on Saturday.

One of my CEO clients came to me running on 6 hours, variable schedule.

"I need the flexibility. My role demands it."

Two weeks of consistent sleep timing:
→ Her HRV jumped 20%.
→ Her team noticed before she did. 

"You seem… different. Calmer."

She wasn't calmer.

She had capacity again.

The irony: consistency creates flexibility.

When your biology isn't fighting itself, you have more bandwidth for everything else.

What's stopping you from having a consistent bedtime? Genuinely curious- work demands, kids, or something else?

✨ 13 free weekly masterclasses on building better - bodies, careers, lives. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/e9gG6ewB

🎬 Catch the recorded sessions and replays here: https://lnkd.in/exsFmV3Z

🔑 Access our Build Better Vault of resources to help you Build Better Bodies, Careers, and Lives: https://lnkd.in/e8Gmvhqc

🔥 Take the 4 minute, free Energy Executive Assessment to identify your energy vampires and energy fountains for 2026: https://lnkd.in/ewuxzpXF

Why you can't outsmart your circadian rhythm

Most people say their health is a priority.
Their calendar tells a different story. 🧭

If you want to know what truly matters to you, don’t look at your goals.

Audit your week.

Your diary is behavioural data.

It shows where your energy actually goes - not where you intend it to go.

I see this pattern constantly with high-performing leaders:

They value recovery, movement, sleep, and presence…

Yet their week is dominated by meetings, late nights, and “just one more email”.

Not because they don’t care.

But because unexamined weeks default to urgency over intention.

💡 Here’s the insight most people miss:

Burnout isn’t caused by hard weeks.

It’s caused by misaligned weeks repeated over time.

When you audit your week, three truths emerge:
→ What you protect gets stronger
→ What you postpone gets depleted
→ What you tolerate becomes your baseline

This isn’t about judgement.

It’s about feedback.

Small, data-led adjustments to how your week is structured can radically change your energy, clarity, and physical resilience - without doing more.

With just 15 minutes a week.

📈 That’s exactly what we’re covering in the final Build Better Bodies masterclass this Monday.

If you want to understand how to architect your week for sustainable energy - not just survival - join us: https://lnkd.in/e9gG6ewB

Your body is already giving you the data.

The question is: are you willing to look at it?

👉 Follow Liz Bradford for insights on peak performance and building better bodies

You've hit every target.

Your team respects you. Your compensation is solid. Your KPIs are green.

And every Sunday at 6pm, that pit in your stomach appears right on schedule.

That's not burnout.

That's your nervous system telling you something your rational mind won't admit yet.

You're spending 60 hours a week moving away from who you actually are.

➡️ Here's what's actually happening

Sunday dread isn't a motivation problem.

It's a physiological stress response to chronic misalignment.

Your nervous system runs a constant background calculation: Does this match who I am? Does this serve what I value? Is this sustainable?

When the answer is "no" for months on end, your body starts sending signals.

→ Disrupted sleep on Sunday nights.
→ Mood drops at specific times in your week.
→ Increased cortisol during work hours.
→ Decision fatigue that feels disproportionate to the actual decisions.

Most executives try to solve this with better time management or a role change.

The real problem runs deeper.

➡️ The gap you can't optimise away

You've built a successful career without ever defining your actual purpose.

You optimised for external markers - title, salary, status - while your internal compass pointed somewhere else entirely.

Research on purpose and longevity is clear: people with defined life purpose have lower cortisol, better sleep architecture, and reduced all-cause mortality.

But here's what matters for you right now: purpose alignment directly impacts executive function.

When you're operating inside your purpose, your prefrontal cortex has more capacity. Decisions feel clearer. Strategic thinking flows easier.

When you're misaligned, everything costs more cognitive energy.

You're not less capable.

You're running uphill.

➡️ What real Ikigai looks like

Ikigai isn't about finding "what you love."

It's about removing everything that isn't true.

Real Ikigai shows up when you bypass status, conditioning, and career narratives - and get underneath them.

🔥 The Hidden Fire: What you're drawn to before it's useful or impressive.

💪 Natural Utility: The problems you instinctively solve - even when it's not your job.

💥 The Unmet Need: What feels unfinished in the world to you. Not intellectually. Viscerally.

🙌 Value Core: Where internal fulfilment meets external reality. Not "purpose vs money" - but purpose that sustains performance.

Most people would rather stay comfortable than aligned.

If you're not one of them, copy and paste the prompt in the comments below into your LLM of choice... or use the pre-loaded ones for Claude and ChatGPT.

Fair warning: once you see the gap, you can't unsee it.

But unseen gaps don't close themselves.

Your Sunday dread is trying to tell you something.

The question is whether you're ready to listen.

♻️ Share this with an executive who needs to hear it.
👉 Follow Liz Bradford for insights on peak performance and optimising for a life well lived.

Burnout isn't weakness. It's system malfunction.

Your hormonal system works like a corporate hierarchy. When chronic stress hits, your HPA axis becomes the CEO sending constant emergency signals down the chain.

Here's the cascade that follows:
→ Adrenals flood the system with cortisol (the panicked middle manager) 
→ Thyroid receives orders to slow everything down (operations on lockdown) 
→ Sex hormones get deprioritised (HR department defunded) 
→ Detox systems become overwhelmed (maintenance can't keep up)

I worked with a CFO who seemed untouchable. Board presentations flawless, quarterly targets exceeded, team loyalty unwavering. But he was sleeping 4 hours a night and living on coffee and willpower.

His labs revealed the truth: morning cortisol barely registering, testosterone levels of a 70-year-old at age 45, thyroid markers suggesting his metabolism had ground to a halt.

He wasn't weak. His hormonal hierarchy had broken down.

This is why resilience training fails. You can't mindset your way out of biochemical chaos.

Systems thinking requires a different approach. My framework with senior leaders:

🔁 Regulate stress signals first
🎯 Realign energy production and recovery
🔥 Reignite output once the system is stable

You can’t optimise one node in isolation.

Leadership performance is an integrated biological system.

Burnout is your body's feedback system working perfectly. It's telling you exactly what needs attention.

The question is: are you ready to listen to what your internal boardroom is saying?

Because building better performance starts with building a better system.

➡️ Follow Liz Bradford for insights on executive performance and hormonal optimisation.

Some things are worth the jet lag and getting over the dread of being on camera… and the mission we’re working on is one of them. 

Can’t wait to launch, spend more time with this team and be part of revolutionising female midlife health in HK and beyond ✨

💪 follow Louise Dunn, Beth Wright, Dr Laurena Law and Liz Bradford to join us in change for the better

Helping You Build Sustainable Capacity | Coach | Tech COO | Physical Foundation + Mental Recalibration + Operational Alignment

The future of female midlife health. We're making moves. 

From concept to cameras to a brand that matters. We’ve just shot our website videos and are gearing up for a launch. Watch this space.

Liz Bradford Beth Wright Dr Laurena Law

AI isn’t replacing leaders. It’s exposing which brains are no longer fit for the pace of leadership. 🧠

McKinsey makes this clear in their recent article post-Davos: in the age of AI, human advantage doesn’t come from working harder - it comes from stronger cognitive capacity.

Focus. Judgement. Emotional regulation. Creativity.

These are now the limiting factors of performance.

I see this weekly in senior leaders:

Exceptional CVs. Powerful tools. AI everywhere.

And yet - slower decisions, rising fatigue, brittle thinking.

The issue isn’t intelligence.

It’s cognitive load without recovery.

AI accelerates complexity.

But most executives are still running brains designed for endurance, not adaptability.

Here’s the reframe McKinsey points to - and we reinforce in our work:
🔹 Peak performance is no longer about output. It’s about brain health.
🔹 Competitive advantage now sits in attention, clarity, and learning velocity.
🔹 Leadership resilience is physiological, not just psychological.

One simple framework we use with leaders:
Capacity > Capability > Tools

If your nervous system is overloaded, no strategy, AI model, or productivity hack will save you.

The future belongs to leaders who treat their brains as strategic assets, not infinite resources.

So here’s the real question:

👉 What are you doing this quarter to strengthen your brain - not just your tech stack?

Because in the age of AI, the human advantage is the leader who can think clearly when it matters most.

➡️ Follow Liz Bradford for insights on peak performance and career resilience

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