Made to measure
June happened so fast. Weddings, birthdays, festivals, community events. Most weekends spoken for before I had a chance to think about them.
The blog didn't get written. It wasn't from neglect I promise ... Life just filled up. There's a version of me that would have felt guilty about. I know I used to. I'd count a missed month as a failure. Nowadays, if it isn't a major thing, it can wait if needed.
I'm working on it.
A few weeks before a wedding in Greece, I went to see a tailor in London. It was for an outfit but also because I wanted to see and understand how someone who does this actually works. How they see fabric, how they take a measurement, how they build something to fit one person specifically. Everything a tailor make is custom. Anyway... this tailor was a mastercraftsman. 30 something years in the game. After 30 minutes talking to him about his career, I felt in good hands with the design I had in mind.
Few weeks later, I wore the outfit at the wedding. In thirty degrees. It looked like nothing else in the room. In fact, I received more compliments than I expected. I couldn't stop thinking about it. In a world where everything gets copied quickly, what's made to measure can't be replicated and it gives a personal touch to it all.
I've spent a lot of time this year thinking about aesthetic. Not just in clothes, but in how I work, what I say yes to, what I'm building. Day by day, the more I figure out who I actually am and what I'm doing, the less I find myself looking sideways at everyone else. Let me curve my own corner of what I'm good at. Those who want what I do will continue to work with me and those with interest will find me.
Meanwhile, the work continues. I sometimes catch myself realising how blessed I am with the current role I'm in and the vast generalist skills I've acquired over the years. Any day by day, my job is still surprisingly varied. One day writing communications, the next advising a stakeholder, the next fixing a problem nobody else thought to name. I don't talk about this enough. Maybe I will. I think because it comes naturally now, I've stopped noticing how much work goes into making it feel this way.
I've been thinking about the voices that spur me on during difficult times. The ones that have quietly shaped how I think over years. Jim Rohn, James Allen, Conversations with family. People have said memorable and remarkable lines to me over the years that have simply never left my mind. The same sentences, speeches or quotes that I now return to when the day is heavy and ambition is low. These voices make one more move possible. And when all you can do is make one more move, that's all you can ask for sometimes.
Naval once said that on a long enough timeline, people are usually consistent with their actions. But before the actions, there's the thinking. James Allen said it first "As a man thinketh, so shall he become". I realise how important it is to have trusted voices guiding you through new doors and experiences.
Those voices matter in life seasons.
As for this season right now, here's to more weddings, more birthdays, and more sun. It's a time to collect and recharge and take in more than I'm putting out, which feels right for now.
Everything I'm building has to fit — me or the client. In a world moving fast toward templated everything, the human touch is becoming the rarest thing in the room. The guiding voices, the work, the aesthetic, the season. All of it, made to measure.