A week of ups and downs.

In my newsletter last week I talked about the launch of Cassidilly and a bit of detail of what the business will be.

I've had so much positive feedback about the house, the concept and the ambition. Thank you to everyone that's messaged me with good luck and ideas for what we can do with the house once it's ready.

Equally exciting was the initial traction we've had on Instagram and TikTok. Over 2k followers, from zero in the first week. The goal is to share the renovation of the property, with the aim of building up a following, so when it comes to offering stays in the house then we have a ready made audience. It all looked possible on paper, but I wasn't sure if anyone would be interested. Early signs are good. Although Cassidilly Linkedin page will be a harder sell. Who knew that people weren't on here just to watch house renovations...

Anyway, the day after the newsletter, I took a day trip over to the house to meet with a contractor who is quoting for the work we need to do to get the house ready. It was a bit of an eye opener to say the least.

Everyone always tells you to take what you expected to spend and double it. I kind of thought that only counted on things that cost maybe ￡20k or ￡50k. I was pretty confident in my allocated budget well into 6-figures. But, sure as you like, we pretty much have to double it.

Mainly because we want to do it properly from day one, and (hopefully) there won't be any other times that all the floors are up, all the walls are stripped etc. So basically any jobs we had thought could be 5 or 10 years down the line, really should be done now to avoid further disruption.

So, from the highs of Thursday's support and goodwill, to a very expensive Friday.

And to be honest, that kind of set the theme for the week.

It's been a bit of an up and down week, and the first time since leaving my last 'proper job' that I had the sinking feeling on Sunday night.

It wasn't anything specific lurking for me on Monday, more the sheer volume of it. It's fair to say that I'd temporarily lost control of my calendar and accidentally massively over committed.

I'm absolutely loving the free business advice calls that I started in January. To book a call, anyone running a business, or thinking about starting one can just pick a time from the Calendly page, fill in the details about their challenge or query and then pay the ￡10 charity donation.

Automation at its best. There's nothing worse than the back and forth of proposed meeting times etc.

The problem was I didn't set any restrictions within Calendly. So I was just seeing email confirmations coming through every day of calls set-up and getting very excited. But not realising that Calendly was just backing them up, one after another, all day.

So I had a busy few days (I know, this is what most peoples days are like normally, but I thought I'd escaped that). But now I've taken back control of my calendar.

I've actually opened up more available times for the free calls (click here to book!), but spaced them out better throughout the week. I've also blocked out large chunks of time on certain days to allow me to get on with larger projects that need thinking time. And then finally, allocated a day a week for London meetings to make any trips into the big smoke as efficient as possible.

So the calendar is back to looking exciting and manageable again.

One final point on the free calls that I've done so far. On average around 10 per week since I started them in Jan.

I absolutely love them.

Lots of people have expected a sales pitch at the end, or some kind of catch. There isn't one! It's genuinely and offer of free advice if it's useful.

It's been a real mix of people wanting to make the leap from side-hustle to full time, millionaires that have exited themselves and large and small agency owners with challenges around clients, proposition and new business.

It really gets my brain ticking and I'm usually exhausted by the end.

So I'll finish by saying a big thank you to everyone I've spoken to and who's shared their story with me. Of the 100+ calls, I've not had a single no show, or a single call that didn't turn into a list of actions (for them, not me!).