In a world full of influencers and icons, sometimes the most inspiring stories come from the most unexpected places. Nine-year-old Paige Bavin, from Bardney, Lincolnshire, may be young, but her impact is anything but small.

Navigating adulthood as someone who has lived through a difficult childhood or traumatic early life is not just hard, it’s a quietly exhausting and often isolating experience. From casual work conversations about family holidays to forming deeper connections with friends or partners, we are constantly expected to show up as “normal,” even when our pasts are anything but.

So we have established, you have a business with customers, great! And yet… it still feels messy.
You’re busy but not always productive. Marketing gets squeezed out of your week. You want growth, but you’re not sure what kind or how to get there without burning everything down.
This isn’t failure. This is the growth phase. It’s where things get exciting.

You started your side hustle with a whole lot of heart, a large splash of improv. Maybe it grew from your kitchen table, an Instagram post that got more attention than expected, or was it late nights filling orders while juggling a day job? Whatever your origin story, one thing’s clear: you’ve got what the people want.
But at some point, maybe 2/3 years in, things seem a little like wading through treacle. You’re no longer wondering if you can make this work, but how to keep going and actually grow without burning out.
Welcome to the “grow” phase, where DIY gives way to direction, and vision becomes strategy.

It always starts innocently enough. A friend admires a handmade necklace. A colleague raves about your home-baked sourdough. Someone on social media comments, “You could sell that picture!” Before long, you’re wondering: Could this be more than just a hobby?

In this post, we’ll unpack the rise of hobby-based businesses, explore who’s driving the trend, and weigh up the real advantages and risks of turning what you love into what you do.

When I was a child growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, my dream careers were as bold as they come: I wanted to be an astronaut, a jet fighter pilot, or a Formula One racing car driver.

Big dreams, right? But back then, for girls like me, they might as well have been science fiction. These weren’t just difficult careers to reach – they were careers the world barely imagined women in at all. There were no role models on TV or in the news showing us that women could compete at the same level, in the same spaces, with the same courage and skill. We were told, in countless subtle ways, to aim a little lower. To dream a little smaller.