The Mettā View weaves together stories, lessons, and reflections from the varied areas of my work—business development, conscious communication, coaching, mindfulness, and strategy—while offering a mindful lens that invites new perspectives and insights. It’s a gift from my heart-mind to you, dear reader. May it bring you inspiration and invite moments of reflection and connection. About me? Formerly a business fashion executive for Christian Louboutin, I'm now an entrepreneur, mindfulness coach, podcaster & writer. Weekly I share the Mettā View, but you can also find me on Out of the Clouds, a podcast at the crossroad between business and mindfulness. For meditation offering, head over to Insight Timer.
Brand work that feels like therapy (the good kind)
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WELCOME TO THE METTĀ VIEW The Mettā View weaves together stories, lessons, and reflections from the varied areas of my work—business development, conscious communication, coaching, mindfulness, and strategy, while offering a mindful lens that invites new perspectives and insights. It’s a gift from my heart-mind to you, dear reader. May it bring you inspiration and invite moments of reflection and connection. ✨ Brand work that feels like therapy (the good kind)On energy, psychological safety, and what actually happens when we work together.
"I could talk for another two hours and yeah, [...] you are a great coach. It's therapy. It's therapy.
She'd already said those words to me once before, back in October. It was after our first foundations session. She and her co-founder sat with me for two hours while I unfurled my many questions to help expose and clarify their business objectives. That first time, I remember the inner "woo hoo" feeling. I smiled, and it felt like it came from the inside out. “Yes. This is good work. This is what I love doing.” I thought to myself. Hearing the same person repeat these words, months later, this time during a podcast recording where we were both beaming at each other, that hit differently. A few days later, I interviewed Giulia Galli, a parental and fitness coach who, like me, spent 20 years in luxury fashion communications. At the end of our conversation, she said: "Your questions, your presence, your rhythm, and the space that you've allowed me have unlocked so much more than what I had. The conversations I had with you, even this one, especially this one, have added so many pieces. So thank you very much for this." This felt even more special. Tender, even. To hear these words from Giulia, an accomplished NLP practitioner, a former communications director, this was more than validating. These kind people's words offer an interpretation beyond what my writing can give you. And it's especially hard to 'get' what the benefits are of working with someone you don't know well. Words like 'communication expert' and 'consultant' are just vessels. They don't tell you who I am to you. Fashion designer Bella Freud (great-granddaughter of Sigmund, the daughter of painter Lucian), host of the popular Fashion Neurosis podcast where she puts famous people on a sofa for psychoanalysis-style conversations (recent guests include Esther Perel and my ex-boss Christian Louboutin) wrote in The Sunday Times Style magazine about visiting me at the Louboutin office in 2011: "As she talked, her brilliance and resourcefulness sparkled around her, like the aura that surrounds Tinker Bell in the Peter Pan film. I found myself thinking, 'Who needs Gisele, when you could marry a woman like this?' Someone so clever and constructive that you could bask in the contentment of their competence." Bella’s words are interesting because they speak to something that I wouldn’t quite know how to qualify. My energy. My resourcefulness. The fact these words appeared in print (and are still on the Times website) is helpful. As if they were indelible. That’s why people don’t just come to me for strategy. They come for the space I hold and for how I help them see themselves. For my moral and ethical core, shaped by years of study in yoga, mindfulness, and Buddhist practices. Maybe they stay for all of the above, and also because “holding space” is just code for the psychological safety they find with me, which is what allows them to dig deep and bring out what matters most. I dropped out of university because I didn’t get what my studies would do for my future. And I found that I love working. I like seeing results. That’s why sales and PR were so satisfying. You know how well you’re doing; it’s measurable, and you don’t even need clever marketing reports to tell you how well you’ve done. The work I do now is just as satisfying. I'm still driven by the desire to be effective for my clients, to make magic happen, as I used to say. It may not take the shape they think it will, but it's always rewarding. PS. The podcast interview with Oana Budicca comes out next week. If you’re not yet subscribed to the Metta Interview, you can do so right here on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. Find out more about previous episodes and contributors right here.
PPS. The image at the top of this post is a sacred portrayal by artist Lucia Dami, whose work brings the unseen into the seen. She overlaid patterns of light and energy onto my portrait, making visible perhaps what Bella described as an aura, what my clients experience. The timing of discovering this artwork felt synchronistic, arriving just as I was writing about the very thing it depicts. Lucia will be offering a masterclass for Le Trente very soon. In the meantime, you can listen to her interview with me on Out of the Clouds.
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The Mettā View
The Mettā View weaves together stories, lessons, and reflections from the varied areas of my work—business development, conscious communication, coaching, mindfulness, and strategy—while offering a mindful lens that invites new perspectives and insights. It’s a gift from my heart-mind to you, dear reader. May it bring you inspiration and invite moments of reflection and connection. About me? Formerly a business fashion executive for Christian Louboutin, I'm now an entrepreneur, mindfulness coach, podcaster & writer. Weekly I share the Mettā View, but you can also find me on Out of the Clouds, a podcast at the crossroad between business and mindfulness. For meditation offering, head over to Insight Timer.