Neil Martin · Beats, Business & Life

Life

Illustration of a winter street seen down the middle, elegant white townhouses with black railings and warm lit doorways on the right, a dark boarded-up building on the left, and a golden street lamp between them under a grey sky

Two sides of the same street

One street in Wolverhampton, beautiful on one side and boarded up on the other. What it taught me about where we point our attention.

Illustration of a wooden spirit level resting on a plain shelf against a deep blue wall, its bubble glowing gold in the centre, with a few tools and a small potted plant beside it

Shift your standards (sometimes down)

Life

How standards drift without you noticing, why comparing gets you nowhere, and why sometimes the bar needs to come down.

Illustration from inside a small aeroplane looking out of the open side door over a patchwork of green fields and soft clouds far below at sunrise, with a packed parachute on the bench by the door

Procrastination is protection

Life

Why we make excuses, the four ways we do it, and the one question that makes most of them go quiet.

Illustration of a fountain pen with its cap off lying across the open blank pages of a hardback notebook on a desk, by a window with a deep blue starry night sky

You’re holding the pen

Life

The stories you tell about yourself become the legs your beliefs stand on, so build them on purpose.

And Then I Got Injured (a lesson in acceptance)

Life

After tearing the ligaments in my right ankle in 2016, I had to accept my fitness goals were on hold and focus on recovery instead of the training I had planned.

Illustration of a shoebox of old photographs of houses and trees tipped out across a wooden table under a lamp, some faded, one torn and one blurred, with a magnifying glass resting beside them

Three ways your memory lies to you

Life

Your memory deletes, distorts and replicates. How to catch it, and why one good counterexample is all you need.

How to Get Kids to Eat More Vegetables

Life

I share how getting my son to help cook meals, rather than bribery or hiding vegetables, changed what he was willing to eat, from cauliflower to cottage pie.

Done Beats Perfect (and so does 90%)

Life

After years as a perfectionist that fed my depression, I learned that imperfect action beats perfect inaction, and that done really does beat perfect every time.

Illustration of a halved lemon on a wooden chopping board in a dark kitchen at night, a bowl of lemons and a mug nearby

Resentment means “feel again”

Life

What a lemon can teach you about resentment, why the small ones count too, and how to let them go.

Coming Back From Injury – My Road to Recovery

Life

After tearing ligaments in my ankle on Good Friday 2016 and two months non-weight bearing, I describe my first runs back and the slow return to fitness at Trimnasium.

Movement Is Medicine – How to Start Getting Active

Life

I look at why movement matters more than formal exercise, the WHO figures on sedentary lifestyles, and simple ways to get started like the NHS Couch to 5K plan.