High Magick X Systems | I see & remove blocks you don't know exist, but feel - without Zoom, phone calls or being in the same room | Change Mentor for Executives & Founders who want to live with more depth & die happy

Most of the decisions you regret weren’t “bad decisions”.

They were built on values you never defined properly.

It’s why you stay in roles, relationships and versions of you that look fine on paper but wrong in your body.

You didn't just end up there - you unknowingly decided your way into them.

Because each choice you make sits on top of values that collapse the moment people, money or pressure push back.

In The Obsidian Vault, we cut through all of it so your tough decisions feel simple to make:

We'll break down: 
- What’s really happening.
- What you’re actually loyal to and why it matters.
- What it will cost to keep things as they are.

That’s how you stop making decisions you regret and build a life you don't.

You'll see clearly, decide cleanly, and live closer to what you truly value with each choice you make.

𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫
 -You’re smart, capable & deeply responsible, but privately exhausted
 -You’re dragging unfinished conversations, roles or relationships behind you
 -You’re standing in a life that looks fine on paper & wrong in your body
 -You’re value driven, but feel a constant gap between what you stand for vs what you tolerate.

More insights, healing or content won’t change that. This is the lever:

Language, structure and perspective that makes it harder to lie to yourself.

𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐈 𝐚𝐦
I’ve walked parallel paths since I was 19, when I quit uni to build a 25 year career with the likes of Goldman Sachs, UBS, HSBC, Barclays and others.

I set up my first business alongside my first job, went on to build two jewellery brands, a business transformation consultancy, and a private practice working with 600+ founders and executives through High Magick.

All while navigating Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (c-PTSD)

Tough calls come with that territory, and often arrive all at once. But that wasn’t new to me.

Aged eight, I became a carer for my disabled aunt. It was violent and turbulent.

I had a front row seat to what happens when loved ones refuse to make obvious decisions, what it costs them, and me.

It taught me something most miss:

Your best decisions are made when you can be a bystander in your own life at the right moment - then move swiftly.

That’s tough for most people.

Master it, and you solve problems before they can even exist - just like I, and 600+ executives and founders have.

Through real-life (anonymised) examples from their sessions and my own life, I explain how.

When you need to stop making decisions you regret and build a life you don't, welcome.

https://theobsidianvault.substack.com/about

Sonal Bhaskaran

Ash Rathod

PodFirst

At Podfirst (Formerly PBA),, I lead the strategy behind our mission: helping ambitious individuals and businesses build standout brands through podcast-first storytelling.

My role blends strategic leadership with hands on execution, overseeing brand positioning, client acquisition, and marketing while ensuring we deliver meaningful, high impact work for every client.

I focus on creating an environment where our team can thrive creatively and produce work they’re proud of, using podcasts as a powerful tool to shape stories that connect, differentiate, and grow brands.

CEO 

Digital Focus Creatives

I'm the Owner, Brand Consultant and Creative Lead of brand strategy + design collective, DFC Studio - We specialise in helping companies tell their stories through strategic positioning, brand building and creative communications. We work with forward-thinking founders, c-suite stakeholders, and marketing teams who passionately strive to lead the change in making the world of work a better place for all. I oversee the daily operations of the business and am very hands-on. My role involves managing creative and advertising efforts, coordinating between independent contractors, media owners, suppliers, and clients to ensure projects are optimised, executed creatively, and completed within budget.

Our capabilities include:

Brand Strategy

  - Storytelling for brands 
  - Storytelling for leaders

Activation

-Marketing Plans
-Media Planning
-Design & Development
-Copy
-Motion

Brand & Design Studio | Story Consultant /  Brand Strategist / Creative Lead

ashrathod.com

📢 NEW LINKEDIN LEARNING COURSE OUT NOW. STORYTELLING AND CONTENT CREATION TO TRANSFORM YOUR PERSONAL BRAND.

With over 20 years experience in business and facilitating client workshops I am also an experienced in training corporate teams around the topics of Brand, marketing and storytelling. I am an official LinkedIn Learning Instructor and L&D trainer.

Story Strategist & Trainer | Official LinkedIn Learning Instructor | Go check my courses

LinkedIn

LinkedIn Learning Instructor

Worked within a new start up channel within BT.  The offering included online listings to SMEs within the Greater Manchester area.  I consulted businesses on paid search and local search using the major search engines and a number of BT sites in order to drive greater online exposure and ultimately customers for my clients.

New Media Professional

Refreshed Media

Developing bespoke online strategies for advertisers directly and direct advertising agencies and their clients. Brand development, web site design, ongoing digital marketing strategies to fit into their overall communications mix.  I helped scale this Manchester office which consisted of a team of 20+ designers, marketers, copywriters and BDMs.

Client Services Manager

ITV Plc

Looked after new business and regional media planning and buying agencies in order to deliver successful TV, sponsorship and online strategies for their clients.

TV Sales Exec

Warner Bros. Discovery

I worked at Turner, (now Warner Bros. Discovery), My role was to establish and maintain relationships with top London advertising agencies.  With them I would negotiate deals which would be favourable to both parties.  The deals consisted of carefully planned strategies for ad delivery on the Turner Broadcasting channels such as Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Toonami and TCM (Turner Classic Movies).

TV Sales Exec 

Joined Carlton TV which was the london based TV company before its merger with Granada to form ITV.  Responsibilities involved managing a team of four sales execs and sales assistants who would book planned campaigns for FMCG clients and national brands on terrestrial tv in the UK

TV Media Group Head

You already know storytelling is essential for your business and brand. 

But storytelling is much more than the words on your website, content and other communications. 

The right narrative can inform your short and long term strategy, help align your team, outmanoeuvre the competition and build a tribe of ambassadors.

It can help you attract and retain the right customers who are willing to pay you more for a longer period of time and tell others to do the same.

It's about high level performance. ie. increasing profits for the business and providing unique value to the people you serve.

I specialise in guiding businesses do exactly this. 

My philosophy centres on a "Story-First Approach," a method that has proven to be the missing link for many who struggle with brand identity and growth.

The challenge most people face when building a brand is twofold: either they're paralysed by indecision, never taking the first step, or they jump in headfirst, producing content without a coherent strategy. Both paths lead to a stagnant or unclear identity. The root cause? 

A lack of strategic direction.  I can help with that.

---

I studied media and communications specialising in script-writing, where my love for storytelling started. I worked in TV media alongside the London arm of global ad agencies such as StarCom, OMD, PHD Media and many smaller DRTV agencies. My portfolio stretched across global FMCG, (P&G and Unilever) and automotive (Ford and Toyota) brands before moving to Turner Broadcasting (now Warner Bros. Discovery) to work on kids brands (such as Mattel and Hasbro). 

As the online world began to grow, I moved into Digital Marketing where I helped scale the Manchester office of a Bournemouth based media agency, going from media owner to client side, which consisted of a team of 20+ designers, marketers, copywriters and BDMs.

Then after a short sales role at BT, I decided to start my own creative agency, to help start-ups to SMEs with with their communications online.

This was almost 15 years ago. 

I'm proud to say I still run and I own that brand consultancy and design studio in the UK which has focused on serving start-ups to corporations over those years. 

Right now my focus covers:

L&D Training (1:1 & Corporate teams)
Speaking at events
Brand Strategy workshops for start-ups and SMEs.

None of these are an overnight fix.

But if you are serious about shaping and growing your brand, we can help you do this faster than most.

📞 Schedule a call by visiting my featured section of my profile to check my calendar for suitable availability

Brand Story Strategist | Managing Director

A brand strategy + design collective specializing in creating compelling content for digital communications. We work with forward-thinking founders, c-suite stakeholders, and marketing teams who passionately strive to lead the change in making the world of work a better place for all.

Our capabilities include:

Brand Strategy

  - Storytelling for brands 
  - Storytelling for leaders

Activation

  - Content Production
  - Media Planning

I fixed myself. 

AI has given me what I thought I could never have. 

A glimpse into what I’d look like if my skin colour stayed the same.

Or if I removed all the pigmentation on my skin (which can be done in real life. I had the option but declined) 

So which one do I prefer? For me, it’s a no brainer. The real me, in the middle. 

The left and right image was created by Nano Banana Pro. 

Which to be honest, as a tool, it’s amazing. In fact I’ve been playing with it a lot. I have been playing with a lot of AI tools. Image. Music. Vibe coding. And I will be using them a lot in my content, in my work processes and creating new business ideas. 

The next wave of AI tools will open doors for many people. I really am positive but cautious about it all.

Because it has to be used the right way and the right way for me is this:

Don’t be lazy with the tools (Use it to add a layer to the great work you do vs diluting it)
Don’t just blindly copy others. (‘differentiate or die’ mantra is still relevant. Now more than ever)
Don’t hide behind it (ie. pretend you’re something you’re not or try hiding the fact you’ve used AI. Especially if it’s likely to be in doubt for others)

I’m sure there are many other pros and cons. (let me know yours in the comments)

What I will be doing is making sure I inform my audience when I do use AI. For example, I am playing around creating a digital twin. And it's a lot of fun. But I won’t pretend it’s me. I’ll let others know when it’s not. Even when the tech becomes much better than it is now when even more  people won’t be able to tell. 

I think in this new phase, the people that are honest and upfront about how they communicate to their audience are going to be the ones that build trust. And ultimately the ones that win.

For me, I don’t want to fool anyone. Including myself. 

And more importantly. I don’t need to fix myself.

I already did that. 

When I accepted myself for who I really am.


---

#PersonalBranding and #Storytelling in an #AI world

Last day of the Web Summit in Lisbon  

I'll share my thoughts next week but it's been great. 

If you were there, and we didn't get to meet, let's connect here and chat

#WAM

What Visionary Leaders Get Right About Brand

Brand isn’t just built by the things you do externally.

It's about how you show up internally too.

How your team feels every day.

In this weeks Watercooler Brand Talks (4pm Friday UK), we’ll be talking about the link between leadership, culture, and brand.

Why the strongest brands aren’t built by marketing teams alone. 

They’re shaped by the people leading from the front.

We’ll cover:

– What visionary leaders actually do differently
– How culture quietly builds (or breaks) your brand
– Why brand is the outcome, not the starting point

Join us live and definitely bring a question or two as we have two of the most visionary brand legends in this week as our secret guests who's brains you'll really want to pick.

This is going to be soooo much fun! See you there!

What Visionary Leaders Get Right About Brand

This is not a real ad. 

And here's more context. 

I set myself a challenge to see what these AI tools were capable of and created this. My main learning out of all of this is, this still took a lot of human thinking, time and general input. 

So my challenge was to create a completely speculative ad using just AI tools. 

I chose a brand that I love. Love for their messaging and what they stand for. And then got to work. 

I would say this is still rough around the edges and an important thing to note is that I have no real idea what the brand strategy is so this should be considered. Real creative campaigns take time and a lot human collaboration. I did this completely on my own (and it shows I think :)  

There are also inconsistencies in the creative given the time I gave myself to create this. 

But in the main, I think the tools that are out there are really impressive. And I had a lot of fun with this. 

Tools I used were:

Weavy for workflow
LTX Studio for storyboarding
FreePik as the main base suite and character dev
Higgsfield (It's Popcorn element to experiment with characters)
Nano Banana for stills
Magnific for upscaling still resolutions 
Topaz to upscale video resolution
Kling 2.5 Turbo 2 for video
Seedream 4 Edit - Varied camera angles
Eleven Labs for VO and SFX
Suno for Music 

Then the usual tools I use:

Photoshop to retouch certain stills
After Effects for speed ramping elements
Premiere Pro for Editing

I plan to do a full walkthrough in the next few weeks if time permits ! :)

Would love to know your thoughts.


#Storytelling #AI

Those on the look for someone with a huge amount of experience with operations, delivery, automations, content production and more importantly leadership, Ryan is your man! 

If you're considering working with Ryan and want to speak to me then please do. 

A fab colleague he was.....and an extremely kind human being who is always ready to help, support, upskill and progress the team he works with.

What a loss to PodFirst and what a potentially huge gain for the next company that bags Ryan on their team!

Straight-Talking Guy | Cutting Through the Crap to Deliver Solutions, Growth, and Results That Actually Matter 💥

I have now left PodFirst and I am officially on the lookout for my next role. The timing isn’t perfect with Christmas approaching, but sometimes life pushes you into a new chapter sooner than expected. I made the decision because it was the right one for me and where I am heading next.

I am proud of what I achieved during my time there. It was challenging, fast paced and full of opportunities to grow, and I am grateful for the experience and everything I learned along the way.

For those who don’t know me well, here is what I bring to the table.

I am someone who cares about the work and the people involved. I take responsibility seriously and I show up fully. I work best in environments where pace, clarity and ownership matter. I enjoy solving problems, building systems, improving processes and keeping things moving even when things get busy. I thrive in roles where I can bring structure, calm and direction without losing the human side of it all.

My experience covers operations, delivery, leadership, automation, content production and working directly with clients to get projects over the line. I am at my best when I am trusted to own outcomes and make things happen.

So now I am looking for the right place to bring all of that into something new. If you hear of anything or know someone looking for someone with my skill set, I would really appreciate you pointing them my way.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me so far.

Onwards.

taplio

The Battle

Sonal Bhaskaran

Ash Rathod

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taplio

The Battle

Sonal Bhaskaran

Ash Rathod

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Ash Rathod's LinkedIn Performance

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