I didn't notice it happening.

One week, I was the person people called to think out loud with. Then I got busy. The real kind: proposals, client work, late edits, early calls. The kind that feels like evidence you're doing something right.

And slowly, quietly, I disappeared.

Not from the business. The business was fine. But the person behind it? Gone. Head down. In the work. Unavailable.

Here's what no one tells you about that kind of disappearance. It feels like responsibility - masquerades as discipline. It has the same texture as hard work, so you don't question it.

But there's a difference between working in something and working on something. And there's an even bigger difference between both of those and simply being someone: the person your clients chose, your audience follows, your network thinks of when the right opportunity comes up.

I've been in the weeds for longer than I want to admit.

The most dangerous place for a founder to hide is inside their own business.

Because it looks like the right thing - even feels like the right thing. And by the time you realise you've been absent, your brand has been running on fumes - on the reputation you built before you went quiet.

Reputations are patient, but they're not infinite.

I've started showing up again. A conversation here, a room there. And what strikes me every time is how much opens up the moment you stop focusing on the wrong things and start showing up as the one thing the business actually can't replace.

You.

The business needed me to disappear into it. My brand needed me to show up for it. For too long, I confused the two.

Sit with:

Where are you hiding inside your own business right now?

When did you last show up as the person, not the operator?

What would your brand say if it could talk back to you?

— Ian Adams, Founder the little red sofa

Before founding the sofa, I spent 20 years leading strategy and creative for global brands across 8 countries. Now I partner with founders to do the uncomfortable work that makes their brand unshakable. Impossible to ignore.