It’s incoming folks – Year 17! 🤯
People often comment on this blog to me. It’s become a staple of the year and I love it. It forces me to think back over the things that have influenced my life (sometimes good, sometimes bad, always meaningful).
You’ll find people, processes and products (which I will link to so you can benefit from them as well).
If, for some reason, you’re interested, you can always read the past years. Here are the 2009 - 2020 posts (all in one place after a resurrection from an old blog platform a few years ago). Then there are the newer ‘21, ‘22, ‘23, ‘24 years.
OK, let’s get into it.
This year has been one of the most challenging of my professional career.
I’ve spent 6 months of it dealing with Muscle Tension Dysphonia. At its worst, painful when speaking and not being able to speak at all, at its best a slightly annoying feeling of a lump or a sore throat. All I know is that since July I’ve not been well and almost every day has been a challenge. Even so, I’ve still got amazing things to reflect on this year and as always this is going to be somewhat light-hearted in places.
1. Losing the Ability to Speak!
Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way first because it’s consumed so much of my mental capacity this year, there is no way I could leave it out. I’ve written in detail separately about the condition and my experience of it, which you can read here, so I won’t do a deep dive on that now. TLDR: Likely Burnout and my body telling me to stop by focusing on the thing I use most!
What I will do is call out the Voice Care Centre and in particular my therapist Lydia Hart without whom I’d have been lost. If you have any challenges with speech these are your guys. They operate out of London too.
I also want to make sure there are some positives in this story, which is harder than it sounds when something has such a life-changing impact.
There is one that really stands out however. The team at Optix have been incredible. They have been understanding, supportive, and patient throughout. There was a period of a few months where I simply could not take on any speaking gigs, things I would never normally give up. The team stepped in and stepped up.
Seeing the spark and enthusiasm, particularly from Samantha, Jack, Matt and Joe, has been hugely positive. Watching them embrace opportunities that came from a pretty dire personal situation has genuinely been a massive win, and one I would not have predicted at the time.
Good can come from bad and I reflect on that every day as I battle with this condition.
2. Swimming
OK so I’m not saying that swimming is new to me, but I now swim almost daily and it’s been transformational.
There are a few things I’ve learnt from doing this. Firstly, it’s one of the only things that gets me completely away from my phone. A time to reflect and focus on things that need solutions or perhaps coming up with completely new ideas.
I’ve also found that when I’m feeling really overwhelmed it really helps break the horrible mental cycles you can get yourself in. It feels very counterintuitive at these times to take a break as you just want to keep going but I’ve been doing this a while now and I promise you there has never been a time when I’ve felt less productive after a swim and in fact I often solve some of my challenges in the pool!
Over the years I’ve learnt about and leant into Circadian rhythms (when your mind/body operates at its peak). I know that I’m at a real low after lunch between about 2-4 so I use this time where I can to focus on my wellbeing and swimming forms part of that. I then jump back into productive mode again from 4-7:30/8 and get so much more done.
I’ll admit now before someone calls me out; I don’t swim for long. I probably do twenty to thirty minutes plus ten in the jacuzzi but that’s all I need. I’m not looking to do 50 lengths or time myself and I’m ok with that.
No laptop. No agenda. Just thinking time.
3. Oscar growing up
Oscar is now 10 and this last year has been a big one for his personal progression. He passed his 11+ to effectively choose the grammar school he wants. He was selected to play for Devon County Badminton and has his first match is in the New Year and his entrepreneurial enterprise selling sweet cones (Banksy’s Terrific Treats) goes from strength to strength with the highlight of the year being written to by Greendale Farm shop (A HUGE thank you to Tom Lomas) and being asked to bring his stand for a couple of days to sell in the shop! Yes that’s right, one of the best farm shops in the region personally wrote to him and then placed his stall right at the front of the shop as you walk in. A pinch me moment.
Oscar is growing up into an awesome human. He approached the whole summer of tuition for the 11+, the mock exams and the exams themselves with cool calm deliberation (my Dad always told me this disentangles every knot). I was 100% more nervous than him (well on the outside at least) but he flew through and aced it.
I’m really excited to see what he can achieve in a grammar school amongst other kids who push each other. The world’s his oyster and with the variation of life skills we’re exposing him to alongside education (sport & business in particular) I’m sure he’ll go far.
Proud dad barely scratches the surface.
4. Alexa and gymnastics – Proud Dad part deux
Ok I can’t do one child and not the other can I!
That said, this is absolutely not a ‘second thought’. This year has been nothing short of exceptional for Alexa.
However, I need to admit that I didn’t know this for a large proportion of the year. Apart from scaling the monkey bars and doing some forward rolls at school, I’m new to Gymnastics, especially ‘Acro’. I’ve since found out it’s not just a sport or past time, it’s a way of life.
You always wonder if you’re seeing your children through the proud parent lens but my suspicions mounted when Alexa, at just 8 was fast tracked through the various groups at Honiton Gymnastics, to the very top – Acro 1, all within the year. The girls and boys in this group are doing backflips, double somersaults off each other and all sorts of other craziness! How could our little 8 year old compete in this?
But compete she did…
Alexa started winning medals. Not occasionally, consistently. At the Southwest Championships this year, she and her partner won gold, which was remarkable given she had learnt the routine just a few weeks earlier.
Alexa trains around 15 hours a week! It’s insane.
Clearly, she has a special talent and we’re going to spend the next ten years on the road travelling around the country (and abroad) to her competitions. Our focus now is on nurturing that talent properly and seeing where it leads.
5. The Parenting Daily - Lizz’s blog
Lizz (my wife) is an incredible woman. Anyone who puts up with me must be!
She helps Optix with some of its financial function, she looks after the home and the kids, ensuring they get where they need to be (which if you read the point before, you’d know is a feat in itself) and she runs her own business – The Parenting Daily.
And it has really taken off this year.
It’s a thoughtful, honest take on parenting, family life, and the realities that don’t always make it into the perfect world of social media. What’s been amazing to watch is how it’s grown, leading to conversations and collaborations with large brands and companies wishing to collaborate or get Lizz’s views.
I’m incredibly proud of her. She stuck with something she has poured her heart and soul into for years before it started to pay off. Sheer determination, all while always putting her family first.
That balance isn’t easy but she makes it look that way.
I’m secretly hoping that soon I can retire and this will become the main breadwinner 😉
6. Outlook email snoozes
Ok, now a shift away from those bigger life-shaping moments and onto those more practical ones. I really hope some of you can benefit from these…
So did you know you can snooze an email in Outlook? When I found this out I was cock-a-hoop. I’ve used Nudgemail for years and will continue to use it for some of its functionality but the in-built snooze feature in Outlook really does change the game for me.
Email snoozing allows you to temporarily remove an email from your inbox and have it automatically returned at a time you choose. A week later. A month later. Next quarter. It just pops back up with a little clock symbol, so you know it was an old email.
The impact has been huge. It lets me move things I want to remember for later out of sight, knowing they’re safe and will come back when I need them. No mental load. No half-remembered threads.
It’s also incredibly useful for business development in an industry where sales cycles are long. Conversations resurface at exactly the right moment.
Simple and quite brilliant.
7. Feel digestive supplements
This is actually a second entry (first featured in 2023) for this company - which must be a good sign for them!
As well as the multivitamins which I started taking back in ’23, this year I started taking digestive supplements from them, specifically designed to support gut health.
Since taking them, my IBS has improved significantly. It’s hard to explain how much difference that makes unless you’ve lived with it. As many as 1 in 10 people in the UK suffer from IBS so if that’s you, I’d wholeheartedly recommend trying these.
Health improvements often feel boring to talk about, until you realise how much energy they quietly return.
If you do fancy giving them a go, please do use this link - You get 20% off, I get £10 – everybody wins
https://wearefeel.com/a/referral/alastair
8. Therabody eye massage mask
These next two products both relate to my throat condition and I doubt I would have found them without it, but I’m absolutely hooked now.
Both also have benefits far beyond my condition, hence including them.
As ‘Muscle Tension Dysphonia is, as the name would suggest, ‘Tension’ - in order to combat it, you need to relax. The trouble is, I’m not very good at that. Lizz says I’m either 100% go go go or asleep 😂
So in order to relax I have to create ‘relaxation moments’.
I love any form of massage so when I found the Therabody eye massager, I bought it immediately and haven’t looked back..
It combines gentle massage, heat, and vibration. I pair it up with my apple airpods and jump into mindfulness which the Therabody app provides. There’s a great selection of music, soundscapes and guided meditation ranging from about 5 to 20 mins.
A short escape into serenity, it’s become a daily part of how I switch off.
The good news for you folks is that at the time of writing – Amazon have 25% off it! Link below:
9. DREO smart humidifier
Another throat-related addition, but a very effective one. I initially bought one, loved it so much, I now have two!
This DREO humidifier works off an app. It knows the humidity of a room and pumps mist into it taking it up to a level which is comfortable. For me, this really helps my throat but I’m sure that without the condition, I’d still love the feeling of cleanliness in the air with the device gently purring away (note to reader, on Zoom calls it can look like your room is on fire if placed in the background – mild panic can ensue!)
I now have them in the two rooms I spend most time in, the bedroom for when I go to sleep and my home office.
It’s made speaking on calls easier and my sleep better.
Sometimes even the smallest environmental changes make the biggest difference.
10. Lego
Until this year Lego was something I vaguely remembered I liked doing as a kid but my strongest memory was that of it being incredibly painful when stepped on and to be honest, I had zero interest in it until this year.
But like Christmas, having young kids tends to bring a certain magic back to lost memories and childhood pleasures.
This year Oscar developed a real love for it and building together has become a genuinely amazing, shared activity. We even went to a Lego show in Exeter for the first time.
One of the really clever things about the behemoth that is Lego is the brand deals it does. We watch a lot of Star wars and Marvel together and Lego has pretty much every character and scene you could imagine from these huge franchises so there is always something to buy and build together.
I also quite like the fact that when you start talking about Lego it’s a bit like fight club, suddenly you realise that loads of people are into it but you’d never have guessed, I think my most famous friend being the legendry rugby player Jack Nowell – a big fan.
So it’s another one on this list which requires focused, creative time and no screens. A theme for the year perhaps.
Lego, it turns out, is still most excellent (prizes for getting that reference).
11. My revival of Ice hockey
When I’m asked to share something people don’t know about me, this is my go-to.
My parents put me on the ice at Chelmsford’s rink when I was just five. I played through to my mid-teens and actually got quite good. I still own my own skates and look forward to their annual trip out at Christmas to the indoor rink at Westpoint in Exeter.
This year, Oscar showed an interest in the sport after I started watching Faceoff on Amazon Prime. It follows the sport’s biggest stars as they chase the Stanley Cup. One of Oscar’s favourite animals is the penguin, so we adopted the Pittsburgh Penguins as our team. My all-time favourite player was the great Wayne Gretzky but now we have a new great in Sidney Crosby.
Re-connecting with the sport has been a lovely full-circle moment and the documentary is awesome, even if you have no connection with the game.
Looking back, looking ahead
This was not an easy year. It was uncomfortable, uncertain, and most of the time, very frustrating.
But it was also grounding. It forced better habits, different priorities, and a renewed appreciation for health, family, and the quieter things that sustain momentum.
I’m going into 2026 with more of an appreciation of the importance of looking after me. Whether that’s through wellness, taking time out, leaving things to others, asking for help or trying to slow down in other ways, I’ve had a sharp reminder that none of us are infallible and burnout can be around the corner for anyone.
Next year – I’ll work smarter, not harder.
Happy New Year folks.
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