About
I'm Jodie. I'm the proof this works.
I build creative businesses around a full-time job, as a single mum to two kids. Not because I have spare time. Because I stopped circling and started taking the next small step.
- Chartered Accountant
- Sales Operations Director at a US software company
- Running my own creative businesses, in the margins, like you
The day job
Not a coach. An operations director.
My whole career has been one job. Turn activity into revenue, and cut everything that doesn't.
25 years of pipelines, forecasts, targets, and the uncomfortable conversations about why one got missed. I still do it, full time, as Sales Operations Director at a US software company. Before that I qualified as a chartered accountant.
Sales teams don't hit target on willpower. They hit it because somebody built a process that makes the next call obvious and the numbers impossible to ignore. That somebody was me.
That's what I bring to The Done List Club. I'm not here to help you feel better about your work. I'm the numbers person who builds the systems that decide whether a business makes money or slowly bleeds out.
I look at your business the way I'd look at a sales team. Where's the time going, what's actually selling, and what's the one thing that moves the number.
The creative one
I came to this at 45. No art school. No permission slip.
I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. Shopkeepers, business owners. Juggling was normal. I was creative but academic, and I was told regularly that I couldn't draw.
I loved colour and pattern anyway. It's taken me several decades to carve out room for it.
I bought an iPad in November 2024 and taught myself surface pattern design. By February 2025 it was a business, not a hobby. Now I run The Colour Rebel and Colour Rebel Studio alongside the day job, and I learn the craft in public while I sell it.
And yes, I bought most of the courses. I had the skills and the ideas, and I was still stuck, because I'd decided I couldn't start properly until my creative workflow was perfect. It felt responsible. It was avoidance.
You can't learn what sells in private.
The question I get asked most
How are you so organised? I'm not disciplined. I built a system.
I build my businesses in early mornings and evenings, around two kids and a full-time job, with no team. Discipline was never going to carry that. Discipline runs out by Wednesday.
My ideas were landing in five different places, and I only ever checked two of them. So I deleted the other three. Now if it's not in one of those two, it doesn't exist.
Every time you ask yourself whether you're doing it this week, you've handed yourself a way out. So the system makes that call before the week starts. Your job is to turn up.
Run it long enough and it flips. Stopping takes more effort than carrying on.
Consistency doesn't come from more discipline. It comes from less friction.
The Clubhouse is that system, written down and run every week.
For the record
I'm doing it too. Rejections included.
You see the wins. You don't see the losses sitting behind them. So here's both, side by side.
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WinApproached by a TV production company for my home to feature on their show.LossDid not make the final cut.
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WinMy first licensing contract for my surface pattern designs. Secured.LossPitched to 30 more. All rejected.
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WinFeatured on the cover of Homestyle Magazine, and in several articles in the Metro.LossShortlisted in multiple categories for the ufurnish.com Home Awards 2025. Hundreds of votes. Zero award wins.
How I keep score
In sales ops nobody judges the quarter on what closed. By then it's too late. You judge it on the pipeline, because the pipeline is what you can still change. I run my own businesses the same way. Thirty rejections means thirty pitches. So count the flops, not the wins. Count how many times you asked, not how many said yes. Revenue is feedback, not a verdict on your worth.
It's a numbers game. Grit is staying in it long enough for the numbers to work.
Not giving a fuck is the way forward. Count the nos like a badge of honour. Every no is one step closer to the next yes.
What I won't do
I'll never tell you how to make your work. I'll show you how to make it pay.
I won't teach you your craft. Pattern, paint, clay, photographs, whatever it is you make. You're already good at it, and you'll keep getting better for the rest of your life. You should.
Most creatives I meet don't have a knowledge problem. They have an execution problem dressed up as a confidence problem.
So I do the business side. The five foundations, a done list every week, and somebody who notices when you've disappeared.
Because talent on its own doesn't earn a penny. It earns when it sits inside an open business, with a price on it, a way to pay and people who know it exists. Nobody taught you that bit. It's the bit I've done for a living for 25 years.
And I want my kids to see that building a life doing what you love is possible. I'd like a few more people doing it with me.
Your turn