Joe’s spontaneous. Always building. Always full of ideas.
Working alongside him for 12 years has taught me a lot.
Here’s what I’d tell my younger self on day 1:
1. Protect the ideas guy
Joe’s best work happens when he’s not bogged down by daily chaos.
My job: protect him from distractions so he can focus on creating.
2. Leave space for the unplanned
I’ve learned not to overpack my calendar.
Because when Joe has one of his “what if we…” moments, we need space to explore it.
Some of our best moves came from those unplanned conversations.
3. Move fast on good ideas
Got an idea for a fix or improvement?
Don’t wait for a meeting.
Quick calls. Fast tweaks. Done.
4. Be prepared for questions
Bring Joe an idea and he’ll challenge it.
Not to slow you down. To sharpen it.
5. Learn to lead by doing
You can’t fix a process you’ve never done yourself.
Joe taught me that early. It’s stuck.
6. Don’t romanticise big teams
Joe’s never been impressed by headcount.
You’ve got 200 employees? Cool. What’s your profit?
We scale with lean systems and great people. Not huge wage bills.
7. Freelancers scale better
Some of our writers have worked with us for 10 years.
They’re free to pursue other jobs at the same time.
Works for them, works for us.
8. Let people fail (safely)
Joe used to jump in mid-project with ideas or tweaks.
Now we let people try, learn, and then we course-correct.
9. Simplify ideas before expanding on them
New idea? Take two layers off before you add one.
This has saved us from building bloated systems that don’t work.
10. “Ops problems” are usually money problems in disguise
Before jumping to fix a process, Joe asks:
“What’s it costing us to keep going as-is?”
Sometimes the smartest move is to wait
until the timing (and ROI) make sense.
11. Ask better questions
Joe doesn’t hand out answers.
He asks the one question that makes you find your own.
12. No space for ego here
Yes, sometimes we clash.
But ego’s not part of the process.
We both want the best outcome.
That’s what matters.
12 years. Thousands of decisions. Wouldn’t change it.
(Except maybe the time he lost his wallet and I had to wire him money from Spain 🙃)
Follow me - Emily Bradley - if you like messy ops lessons and honest leadership takes.
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