the future? maybe?

figuring it out in real time

Yesterday I was helping my friend

Callie Punchard

with some Substack bits (I am actually so excited for her to launch her newsletter on here, and I don’t think the world is ready for the brilliance she’s about to unleash) and I realised how much I missed it. I feel like I’ve been using Substack as a platform, lately - but I want to use it as a focus.

Part of this is the natural backseat that The Enthusiast & Co had to take whilst I spent 2024 in illness recovery. But it’s 2025 now, I’m getting stronger every day, and I want to spend more conscious time interacting with an outlet that’s given me so much in the past few years.

(The timing of this, undoubtedly, is weird too, because last year I had a The Enthusiast career highlight and spoke on my biggest stage yet, absolutely loving every bloody second of it).

What that looks like, I’m not quite sure. In terms of enthusiasm, my expertise lies in experience, rather than academia — which, because of who I am as a person, makes me feel unqualified to talk on it as much as I’d like to (I know, I know: what would I say to someone else if they came to me with this same problem? I’d say — and often in fact do say — that experience is expertise, and that its valuable in and of itself). At various points, The Enthusiast & Co has had a shop (shoutout to Aisling, who still inflates my ego everytime she calls me “her favourite fashion designer”. Also, apologies to *actual* fashion designers everywhere) and a podcast (which I’d love to bring back, one day). Up until last week, I had a separate live website.

Basically, I feel like I’ve been doing it all a disservice, and I want to change that this year.

The other day

Hannah Ashe

wrote a post in which she referenced a brave post from last year, where she’d acknowledged that she had no active clients for her interior design business at that time. Whilst I’d previously kind of thought of Substack as a non-business space for myself (to help cleave the difference between The Enthusiast & my other business, Eleanor Mollie), hers was a thoughtful, insightful post that showed the power of vulnerable conversations about business in this space.

And so, here we are. I’ve transferred the main domain, theenthusiast.co, to go to this substack - for now, at least. I’m gonna be back on stage this year (confirmed!). I’m gonna figure out how best to show up, and continue to connect with incredible people, and I’m gonna find the best container in which I can be my most enthusiastic self, and it’s gonna be GOOD VIBES.

God, I feel lighter and clearer just having written this. PHEW! (And thanks, if you got this far).

xo