Life coaching with Simone Douglas · Adelaide and online
A life worth living.
On your terms.
Playing to your strengths.
I'm Simone. Publican, author, marketer, counsellor, coach. AuDHD. Nobody handed me a blueprint for a brain like mine, so I drew my own and built a life I actually want to live. Now I help other spicy-brained humans draw theirs.
No hype. No cookie-cutter program. One human, properly seen.
Sound familiar?
You're not broken. You were handed the wrong blueprint.
Most of the people I work with are capable, driven and quietly exhausted. Many are neurodivergent, diagnosed or not. All of them have spent years running a life designed for somebody else.
You built something impressive and it's eating you.
The business, the career, the household, everyone's calendar. The thing you built to give you freedom now owns your diary and you can't remember the last week that felt like yours.
You've spent years masking.
Brilliant in the room, wrecked in the car park afterwards. You know exactly what it costs to perform a steadier, tidier, more linear person than the one you are.
The productivity books don't work on you.
Of course they don't. They were written for a brain you don't have. Any structure that fights your wiring will lose, and then you'll blame yourself for the loss.
You suspect the problem was never you.
You're right. It's the blueprint. And the useful thing about a blueprint is that it can be redrawn, by you, around what you're actually good at.
About
Hi, I'm Simone.
I'm a publican, an author, a marketer, a counsellor and a coach. I've run a marketing agency for fifteen years, taken two Adelaide pubs from quiet to award-winning, written two books, built and sold a business networking franchise, and spoken on stages here and overseas. I'm also AuDHD.
For a long time I did it the hard way. A brain built for sprints, hyperfocus and big ideas, jammed into systems built for steady, linear people. It worked, right up until it didn't. Somewhere around forty I stopped trying to be the person the template wanted and started building a life around the person I actually am.
That is the whole secret, and it's the only thing I teach. Strengths first. Structure that fits. Permission to stop apologising. A life measured by whether it's worth living, not by whether it looks tidy from the outside.
I coach the way I run my pubs: warm, direct, allergic to bullshit, and genuinely on your side. You'll be seen properly, you'll laugh more than you expect, and you'll leave with things written down. What gets written gets done.
The journey so far
Built on my terms, one unreasonable decision at a time.
None of this followed a plan anyone would have approved. It followed my strengths, my values and a refusal to keep doing things that were costing me. That's the method. The awards are the receipts.
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My twenties
Pubs, then training rooms
Ran hotels for a national hospitality group, then managed registered training organisations. Learned how rooms work and how people actually learn.
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Then
Counselling
Trained as a transpersonal counsellor and ran a practice for a couple of years. Learned to listen properly, which turned out to be the most useful business skill I own.
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2011
Started the agency with small kids at home
The job on offer wanted all of me, so I built Social Media AOK instead, Adelaide's first specialist social media agency. It became Digital Marketing AOK and is still going fifteen years on.
Telstra Business Awards finalist 2014, 2015, 2017SA Tourism Awards finalist 2018 -
Along the way
Two books
Seriously Social, on turning your online game into real-world gain, then The Confident Networker. Both grew out of the same belief: work your networks before you need them, and make the relationship the point.
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2018
Bought a pub while looking for office space
Became licensee of the Duke of Brunswick, a quiet 160-year-old corner hotel on Gilbert Street. Within the year it was being recognised for making the city a better place to live.
Adelaide City Awards winner 2018 -
2019
Took the whole kitchen gluten free
The first pub in South Australia to do it. Everyone said it was commercial suicide. It turned the Duke into a destination for coeliacs from across the country.
Adelaide City Awards winner 2019AHA|SA Judges' Commendation, Best Marketed Hotel -
2019
Bought a networking franchise
After years as a Director Consultant for BNI South Australia, the state split into two regions and Alex and I bought the northern half. BNI Adelaide North: eight chapters, around 190 business owners meeting every week. Ran it for five years, through COVID, and sold it back to BNI Australia in 2024.
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2020
Leadership, and a Fringe first
Named a finalist in four AusMumpreneur categories and won Leadership by people's choice. The Duke became the first Fringe venue to have every show Auslan interpreted.
AusMumpreneur Leadership Award (People's Choice)AHA Community Service & Support winnerSpirit of the Fringe -
2022
A second pub, and a leadership award
Took on the Port Admiral, Port Adelaide's oldest building, with my partner Alex. Same year, SA Woman named me their Women in Leadership winner and the Duke took a national community award.
SA Woman Women in Leadership AwardB&T Women in Media finalistAHA National Outstanding Community Service winner -
2023
National recognition
The Duke was named Australia's All Abilities Hotel of the year. The agency was the only South Australian company recognised at the TITAN Women in Business Awards.
AHA National All Abilities Hotel winnerTITAN Company of the Year, Marketing B2B -
2024
Best pub in Adelaide, by public vote
Triple M listeners voted the Duke the best pub in Adelaide, with the Port Admiral third. Sold BNI Adelaide North after five years, and founded Artemis Blueprint the same year as a year-long group program.
Triple M Best Pub in Adelaide -
2026
Artemis Blueprint, my way
Artemis is now mine alone, and it has changed shape: life coaching, one human at a time, built around the thing I know best. How to run a big life on a spicy brain without burning it down.
The trophy shelf
Sixteen years of receipts.
Listed in full because they're proof of the one thing I'm claiming: a brain like this, run on its own terms, gets results. Gold marks a win.
Simone
- 2022Winner Women in Leadership AwardSA Woman Awards
- 2022Finalist Social Change MakerB&T Women in Media Awards
- 2020Winner Leadership, People's ChoiceAusMumpreneur Awards; finalist in three further categories
The agency
- 2023Winner Company of the Year, Marketing B2BTITAN Women in Business Awards
- 2023Finalist Marketing ExcellenceRoar Awards
- 2022Finalist Digital Marketing, twiceAustralian Small Business Champion Awards
- 2018Finalist Tourism Education & TrainingSouth Australian Tourism Awards
- 2017Finalist Small & SucceedingTelstra Business Awards; also finalist 2014 and 2015
The pubs
- 2024Winner Best Pub in AdelaideTriple M, listener vote. Port Admiral third
- 2023Winner All Abilities Hotel, General DivisionAHA National Awards for Excellence
- 2023Winner All Abilities Hotel and Best Marketed PubAHA|SA Awards for Excellence
- 2022Winner Outstanding Community Service & AchievementAHA National Awards
- 2020Winner Community Service & SupportAHA|SA Awards for Excellence
- 2020Winner Spirit of the FringeFirst venue with every show Auslan interpreted
- 2019Winner Best Function, Music & Entertainment VenueAdelaide City Awards
- 2018Winner Best business making Adelaide more liveableAdelaide City Awards
How it works
The Blueprint. Three stages, in order.
Coaching with me is not a course and it's not therapy. It's a working relationship with someone who has built the life you're describing and knows where the traps are.
Map
Where you actually are. What drains you, what lights you up, where you've been masking, and what the business or the career is really costing you. No judgement. A lot of honesty.
Draw
The life on your terms. Strengths first, then the structure that protects them: how your days run, what you stop doing, what you hand off, what you say no to. All of it written down.
Build
Fortnightly sessions while you put it into practice, with accountability designed for a spicy brain. Short loops, external structure, and zero shame when a week goes sideways.
Built for how your brain works
- Sessions start with where you are today, not with the homework you didn't do.
- Structure comes from outside you: dates, written plans, a person expecting you. Willpower is not the plan.
- Strengths get scheduled first. Weaknesses get delegated, automated or dropped. Nothing gets "worked on" out of guilt.
- You're allowed to be the whole person. The business owner and the human being both get a seat.
Work with me
Three ways in.
Start with a conversation. Thirty minutes, no charge, no pitch. If we're a fit we'll both know, and if we're not I'll tell you who to call instead.
One to one
Life coaching
Fortnightly sessions over three or six months, working through the Blueprint together. For business owners, leaders and professionals who want their life back, especially the spicy-brained ones.
Book a conversationFull-day masterclass · January 2027
You the Business Owner vs You the Human Being
Every January the business owner fills the diary and the human gets the leftover hours. This day flips the order, on paper, before the year gets away from you. You leave with 2027 scheduled, human first.
$297 per person
Register your interestStages and teams
Speaking and workshops
Keynotes and half-day workshops for conferences, industry bodies and leadership teams. Running a big life on a spicy brain, being seriously social, and confident networking for people who hate networking.
EnquireWriting
From the blog.
Short pieces on the same themes we'll work on together. New posts go out to the list and nowhere else.
- Perfectionism vs. Excellence: understanding the fine lineJanuary 2025
- What if you actually showed up for you?December 2024
- What if the one thing holding you back was you?November 2024
- Self-sacrifice: why giving from the saucer, not the cup, is the secret to true generosityNovember 2024
- The transition from human doing to human beingNovember 2024
Contact
Ready for real change?
Call, email, or come and find me at the Duke. I'm available Monday to Thursday, 9am to 3pm, and I answer my own phone.