I used to wonder how Burne-Jones could draw so well and so immediately – a single line capturing exactly what he wanted – until I saw some of his early sketches – with thick bunches of lines drawn until he found ‘the’ line that was right and could make that darker.

Then I realised that practice is what you need to get better.

Of course it’s easy for artists, isn’t it. They can do all their practicing in private.

As business founders we have to practice while we build our businesses, slowly perfecting our techniques, hoping that someone will buy what we offer, until we can turn out a brilliant version of whatever it is we do, almost without thinking about it.

And then we founders hit another difficulty most modern artists don’t have.

How to teach others to deliver the magic as well as we can, without having it feel like a forgery to the client.

The only way to achieve that is to surface what makes our art distinctive, then let our people create their own interpretation of it.

Like, but not the same.

Not a copy, but with enough of a resemblance for prospects and clients to recognise the family.

And if we are particularly brave, a better version of our original vision than even we could produce.

Discipline makes Daring possible