Irene
Bennetts
There are things most people think but never say out loud.
Because saying them would make things awkward.
Because it would break the rules.
Because it would force a choice they are not ready to make.
This space exists to give those thoughts a voice.
Not to motivate you. Not to fix you. Not to tell you what you should do.
Just to name what is already there.
This is not advice
If you are looking for:
- A framework
- A playbook
- A five-step process
- Someone to tell you the right answer
You are in the wrong place.
I am not interested in optimising people into someone else's definition of success.
I am interested in the questions that sit underneath the noise. The ones that do not fit neatly into slides or strategies. The ones you circle, avoid, then come back to at 2am.
Doing business on your terms
Most people do not fail because they lack discipline, ambition, or intelligence.
They fail because they follow paths that were never theirs.
The world is very good at telling you how things are meant to look:
- What a "real" business should become
- What growth should feel like
- What success should cost you
- Who you are meant to listen to
And very bad at helping you decide whether any of that actually aligns with who you are.
It is not anti-growth. It is anti-unexamined growth.
It is choosing deliberately, instead of defaulting politely.
Automation is not expertise
Systems matter. Technology matters. Automation matters.
But automation is not judgement. It is not wisdom. It is not responsibility.
Outsourcing thinking to tools, trends, or templates is still a choice. It just feels cleaner when a dashboard does it for you.
If you are not careful, you end up with a business that runs beautifully and feels wrong.
And that is a much harder problem to fix.
People who have been
- At the coalface and in the boardroom
- Inside the system and questioning it
- Successful by external measures and quietly dissatisfied
- Told they are doing well, while feeling misaligned
Whether you process payables or make cashflow calls. Whether you have been self-employed for a day or a decade.
Titles are irrelevant. Agency is not.
still building things
Bigger is not automatically better
Growth is a decision, not an obligation
The standard you walk past is the standard you accept
Most "best practice" is context-blind
Living and working on your terms takes more courage than following the script
I also believe I am allowed to change my mind.
Because certainty is often just curiosity that stopped too early.
Still in the work
I have built and run real businesses. I have worked with people at every level of the organisation chart. I have seen behind the curtain of best practice.
I am still in the work.
What I bring is not answers. It is space. And questions that do not let you off the hook.
Sometimes that is uncomfortable. That is the point.
yes, that is a squirrel in a tutu
Serious about the work.
Not about myself.
If something here resonates, you will know. If it does not, that is fine too.
What are you continuing to do because it is expected, not because it is right for you?