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Switched ON

I'm Nishma Patel-Robb, founder of Switched ON. AI enthusiast, ex-Google, brand strategist. I say out loud what others won't, test the shiny things so you don't have to, and throw glitter on the useful bits. The whole thing lives on Substack now, come and join us there 👇 Nobody gets left behind. 🪩

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No more sunny days lost to making decks and carousels.

Hi, A little while ago, I went deep on AI. Not to become an expert, but honestly to stop burning out. I was drowning in work, and I wanted my time back. What I found surprised me. Real AI fluency doesn't just save you hours. It expands what you're capable of, and it opens doors. And the more I used it, the more determined I became about one thing. The shifts coming with AI are enormous, and I don't want them to miss the very people who could benefit most. I don't want this to follow the same...

Welcome to Day 30 of the challenge. The last one. First, a small confession. This "thirty-day" challenge took a little longer than thirty days. Some of that was me. Some of it was Cannes Lions, the rosé, and a heatwave that melted my schedule along with everything else. So if you were left hanging on the odd day, I'm sorry. Blame me, or blame the Côte d'Azur. Either way, you're here now, and so am I. Let's finish this. When we started, AI was probably a chat box you opened now and then and...

Hello Sparkler, A friend saw what AI was actually doing for me. Her face did the thing only good friends can get away with. Then she said something that made me go home and rewrite the V2 plan I'd been building for months: "You have to share this with other women." So I did. Properly. 🪩🪩🪩 Glittersphere V2: Sparkle + AI 🪩🪩🪩 is LIVE NOW The sequel we've all been waiting for. Yes, even more than Devil Wears Prada 2. I stand by it. Glittersphere V2 is events-led. Built around women together in...

Hello Sparkler, Right. Quick question. Have you ever spent ages crafting the "perfect" post, agonised over every word, made sure it was polished and professional and on-brand... and then watched it disappear into the void while some random person's messy, off-the-cuff thing goes viral? Yeah. Me too. For about thirty years. I've spent a hundred conversations telling other people how to build a personal brand. Be consistent. Be professional. Find your niche. Post on a schedule. And I did all of...

Hello Sparkler, You're doing the work. You're showing up. You're putting things out there. You're building something you believe in. And some days it feels like absolutely nobody is watching. I know that feeling. Intimately. So when I found out that Olivia Dean performed to four people in 2023, and then won a Grammy in 2026, I needed to understand how. Not the luck. Not the breaks. The actual mechanics of how someone goes from an empty room to the most commercially coveted artist in Britain...

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Hello Sparkler, Ever waited to feel ready? Waited for someone to finally notice how brilliant you are? Built your entire sense of worth on what other people think of you? Yeah. Me too. So I did something slightly unhinged this week. I asked an AI to tell me the harsh truths that younger Nishma desperately needed to hear. Not the motivational poster version. The actual uncomfortable, slightly stinging, "oh god is that true about me?" version. And wow... it delivered. Some of it made me wince....

Dear Sparkler, Quick question. Have you ever bought a training course at 11pm on a Tuesday because you were feeling wobbly about whether you actually know what you're doing? Yeah. Me too. Thousands of pounds worth, actually. I wrote about it this week on Substack and it's probably the most honest thing I've put out there in a while. The confession of a woman who spent 30 years building brands for the biggest companies in the world, then walked away from Google and immediately forgot how to...

Dear Sparkler, On Tuesday morning, at our Glittersphere Spotlight Live event, Dr Anne-Laure Le Cunff, author of Tiny Experiments and the founder of Ness Labs, said something that stopped me: "Become a self-anthropologist." She was talking about how we measure whether something's working. We obsess over metrics - the views, the likes, the revenue, the outcomes. But we forget to ask: how did it actually feel while I was doing it? We don't stop to study how we respond to different tasks or...

Three free things to make Monday suck less. Dear Sparkler, Tomorrow, millions of people drag themselves back to work. Inbox exploding. "Circling back" emails hunting you down. Sad salads. A gym membership you'll abandon by February. Performing "new year new me" energy you absolutely do not feel. January is a scam. It's the Monday of months. So here's a different idea - and three free things to help.FREE THING #1: The Fuck-It List Essay What if instead of another list of things you SHOULD do,...

Stop. Put down the resolution list. Do this instead. Dear Sparkler,Is it Tuesday? Thursday? Does time even exist anymore? Welcome to Betwixtmas: that strange purgatory where nobody knows what day it is, half your inbox is out-of-office replies, and the other half is people trying to sell you a "new year, new you" transformation. Your brain is doing that thing. You know the one. It's either screaming "GET BACK TO NORMAL" or "TIME FOR 47 LIFE-CHANGING RESOLUTIONS." Both responses are wrong....