If there’s one thing I’ve learned about growth – both personally and professionally – it’s that progress hardly ever happens in straight lines. This week has been both chaotic and incredibly rewarding, and I couldn’t be more excited to share the major milestones and learnings with you.
The Big Idea: Mapping Growth in Meaningful Ways
At the heart of my work right now is creating something truly transformative: a tangible, unified way to measure growth for therapists, entrepreneurs, and anyone committed to personal development.
It’s astonishing that in the world of therapy, coaching, and personal change, “there isn’t a unified way of measuring growth, so we can’t point to anything and go, oh, yeah, well, that works because look, look, look, it works because we don’t know, right?” My mission is to change that.
Getting Our Hands Dirty: Building the MVP
This week, the focus was squarely on crafting our MVP (Minimum Viable Product), beginning with the therapist growth journey. Why therapists? Simply put: “out of all everyone on a growth journey, the therapists are the most invested in that journey because it’s their job. They help other people to grow.” Their feedback, commitment, and real-world insight are critical as we work to ensure our Ladder of Growth model delivers real value.
The process starts with an in-depth assessment – a 10 to 15-minute questionnaire therapists take online. From their answers, we generate a personalised, detailed report highlighting their current position across “14 different categories of growth across four different main domains,” and providing specific “growth moves…the things they can be doing in order to get to the next rung on the level, on the ladder.”
Tech Trials and Triumphs
Bringing this vision to life hasn’t been without its bumps in the road. Right now, creating these reports is mostly manual, and the tool we’re using (Canva) has tested every ounce of my patience:
“Canva is just horrid as a tool. I have no idea why so many people love it. I just cannot stand it.”
Still, sharing and collaborating through Canva is the best fit at this stage, even if, as I admitted, “I probably wouldn’t have made that decision if I could do that decision again.”
While we wrestle with manual steps and copy-pasting, the end goal is full automation. I’m actively “training GPTs up with the model so that we can compile these personalised reports for people” and working closely with our tech team to flesh out solutions for a smoother, smarter workflow.
Real Feedback, Real Change
This week, we shipped our very first test report. The reaction was immediate and energising: “It’s fucking brilliant, I love it.” That kind of feedback makes the late nights and Canva headaches worth it.
But real growth means real adjustments. After sending the report – 90 pages of insights! – I realised we still have work to do to balance thoroughness and accessibility. “Are we just overwhelming people? Is it just too much? Do we need to pull back?” These are the kinds of questions guiding our next steps, and feedback from actual clients is already shaping version two.
Iterating and Learning
Behind the scenes, I spent days reworking and retraining our GPT models. I decided I “just had to tear it down and start again,” leading to a much stronger foundation for future reports and processes. With each tweak, our ladder of growth model becomes sharper, more effective, and easier to replicate for other types of growth journeys.
Why Therapists First?
Choosing therapists as our starting point is intentional. As I’ve seen, therapists don’t just talk about growth; they live it. “The report that we’re doing…is probably the most intense, most expansive, most thorough version of what we’re doing. And everything else will be a little bit less.” Their depth of engagement offers a high bar – and inspires confidence that our model will be meaningful for everyone else, too.
Juggling Projects and Clearing the Decks
I’d be lying if I said this is the only thing on my plate.
I’m also working on streamlining other businesses I run, like Head Trash, and freeing up my schedule to laser-focus on building the Ladder of Growth. That has included, for example, finishing a book for my Fearless Birthing brand: “I’ve just sent the book to my editor, so…I use AI for a lot of the book…giving it loads of transcripts of every chapter and then I’ve trained it on my tone of voice and then it’s compiled all my transcripts and put it into my tone of voice. And so that’s enabled me to get that done in two days and that’s now ready at the editor.”
Milestones and Momentum
There’s a very real sense of progress: “I feel like this has just been such a milestone week. I think for me, the great bit is getting out that test, you know, one of our first test test reports out and then the feedback.” Direct client engagement continues to be the heart of what we do – “You’ve got to develop it with them” – and the enthusiastic validation from our testers shows we’re on the right track.
Why This Matters
Ultimately, what excites me most is that this tool could change how therapists – and, down the line, coaches, entrepreneurs, and self-healers – understand and track their growth: “When you think that the people that are there to help the rest of us deal with our crap and grow…if they haven’t sorted their stuff out and they don’t know where they are, it’s the blind leaving the blind, right?” With the Ladder of Growth, we’re creating something that is loved already, and crucially, there’s nothing else out there like it.
Looking Ahead
It’s been a week of juggling kids, dogs, movies, and multiple businesses. But through it all, the journey of building something that empowers real growth – for therapists and beyond – feels more meaningful and tangible than ever. Stay tuned as we keep refining, listening, and creating the tools that truly help you climb higher on your ladder of growth.
See you next week for the next chapter!