By Biggest fuck up
You’re probably expecting a story about some campaign that sank, a public social media fail or a client I accidentally CC’d instead of BCC’ing. Sorry to disappoint, mine’s a bit messier than that!
My biggest career fuck up has been a pattern: getting caught up in other people’s hype and mistaking external validation for self-worth.
I spent years chasing job titles, chasing the next big project, chasing approval from people who didn’t deserve that power over me. I thought if I just worked harder, delivered more, and stayed “the reliable one,” I’d eventually feel secure.
I didn’t. I was a professional people-pleaser.
The marketer who could fix everything, smooth everything, and hold everything together. Until I couldn’t.
It’s not that I made one catastrophic mistake, it’s that I ignored dozens of smaller red flags: over-promising, over-giving, trusting people who said all the right things but never delivered. I burned myself out trying to prove my value in rooms that didn’t value me.
But very recently, it took hitting my lowest point, I broke, was exhausted, and physically ill; to finally take stock of what I actually enjoy, what I’m good at, and how I want to show up in the world. And not giving a shit about other people's opinions.
My real fuck up wasn’t failure as such, it was more forgetting that I already had some amazing abilities. I just kept giving them away to people who didn’t earn them, and allowing other people to hide their incompetence behind my hard graft, and take credit for it. Right now I'm definitely at an inflection point and I’m intentional about where I put my energy. I don’t chase. I choose.
Rant
Where do we start? Probably the fact that marketing’s been reduced to “the people who make things pretty.” That we’ve created an entire industry that rewards noise over nuance, an industry obsessed with optics like engagement metrics, performative branding, performative vulnerability, performative everything... Everyone’s shouting about “authenticity” while desperately trying to sound like everyone else.
Strategy’s been replaced by LinkedIn hot takes and performative thought leadership. I’ve sat in too many boardrooms where “strategy” means “we should post more on LinkedIn” and “growth” means “sales wants another PDF.”
We’ve convinced ourselves that more content equals more clarity, when actually, most companies are just vomiting words into the void.
What pisses me off most is that marketing is still treated like a side hustle to sales; something decorative, reactive, tactical. And yet, when things go wrong, who gets blamed first? Marketing! The irony is that most “marketing problems” are actually LEADERSHIP problems. They hire marketers, ignore their advice, then blame them when the numbers don’t move. You can’t demand creativity and critical thinking from a function you don’t respect or include in decision-making. If you want real growth, hire marketers for their brains, not their Canva skills. If you’re going to bring in an expert, let them do their bloody job. If you want someone to say yes to everything, hire a designer, not a strategist. Marketing isn’t decoration. It’s commercial direction. And if you can’t handle that level of truth, you don’t deserve a good marketer. That’s my hill. And for the love of God, stop saying you want “strategic thinking” if what you really want is a new brochure.
Useful advice
Clarity before execution, always.
When in doubt, clarify the problem.
It sounds simple, but it’s the thing that saves me and my clients over and over again. If something feels stuck, chaotic, or “off,” it’s usually because no one’s agreed on what the actual problem is. Everyone’s solving a different thing. So before you do anything like launch a campaign, hire a freelancer, rewrite your website, ask: “What problem are we actually trying to solve?” And keep asking until everyone gives the same answer, 'cos if you can’t agree on the problem, you’re not ready for the solution to put it bluntly!
