As I celebrate 10 years of Adaptaa this year, I’m honouring 10 people who shaped this journey for me. The ones who showed up when it mattered most. The ones who believed before there was proof. This is the third. One story. One insight. One challenge for you.
Zena, Our Story
I met Zena Everett at my children’s sports day, volunteering as school mums. Her youngest son attended the same school as my kids. We hit it off instantly. Two extroverts selling drinks and sweets in a stadium. Our idea of fun.
She lived around the corner.
Those Sunday dog walks in our local park became the highlight of my week. Brainstorming. School drama. Professional drama. Personal drama. Anything with drama in it was fair game. We became accountability partners without even knowing it.
Here’s what’s hard to articulate: Zena shaped my last decade in the most ordinary way possible. There was no single dramatic moment. No life-changing advice over coffee. It was the consistency of those walks and talks that changed everything.
She became a role model without ever intending to. Because the best role models in life are the ones we observe when they don’t know they’re being observed.
I was contemplating quitting my high-paying corporate job, and meeting Zena was serendipity. She was already doing what I was aspiring to do – coaching, public speaking, writing books. She’d figured out what I was still trying to imagine.
Since then, she’s written three successful books: Mind Flip, Take the Fear out of Your Career, the award-winning Crazy Busy Cure, and Badly Behaved People, which became WHSmith’s Business Book of the Month in January 2025.
Today, Zena speaks at international conferences and prestigious forums. When she offered to do the intro speech at my book launch in 2024, I was over the moon. Not because of her credentials. Because she’d been there from the beginning. When I was just a school mum with a dream and no plan.
Her Crazy Busy talks cut through the noise. They show you how to remove distractions and find laser clarity on your genuine priorities in a distracting AI world. You’ll never clear the chaos, but you can learn how to embrace it.
The Insight
Time is our most valuable asset.
That’s what I learned from Zena. Not from her words. From watching her live it.
Here’s her question: What difference would it make to you if you had 25% more time?
AI is speeding everything up except our ability to think clearly. In a world of constant pings and data overwhelm, attention is the new superpower. And learning how to protect it? An even greater one.
In The Crazy Busy Cure, Zena introduces the concept of the “game changer”. One significant priority that has an overarching effect on your career or life. If you get it done, you won’t even need to tackle your other priorities.
As Zena would say: “Chase antelopes, not field mice.”
This is Audacious Leadership.
Clarity over hustle.
Focus over frenzy.
One thing done well over twenty things done poorly.
Your Audacious Challenge
I’ve stolen Zena’s PIMP process for achieving priority tasks. Try it for one week.
Every morning, ask yourself: “What do I absolutely need to get done today?”
Then follow PIMP:
Prioritize – What’s the one thing you must get done?
Insert – Block out the time in your calendar.
Mean it – Commit to doing the task. Push back on hijackers.
Prompt – Fix a trigger to start PIMP time. This is the habit that makes all the difference.
The prompt could be an alarm, an event, something you always do, like making a cup of tea. Hide your phone. Start your priority task.
Small shifts change everything.
I used this process to write this very feature. It worked.
Connect with Zena:
- Buy any of Zena’s books on Amazon, you’ll thank me later
- Take Zena’s quick quiz:How Crazy Busy are you?
This is three of ten. Next month, another person who shaped my last decade. Another moment of courage, care, and nonconformity.
Thank you for being here.
Alina x