Zsike Peter 🧠

Paul messaged me at 2:53am on LinkedIn.

He was relieved I was not in fact a devil-worshipping Jezebel.

I was relieved he asked about profile optimisation rather than an exorcism.

We had a call…. And I can confirm he’s brilliant.
I’m going to enjoy working with this one.
A lot!

This is what happens when your LinkedIn content attracts the right people – even the unhinged ones turn out to be genuinely good clients.

If you want more Pauls in your inbox (the good kind like my Paul here), book yourself into my calendar, pronto!
https://lnkd.in/eAqeP2-G


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Edited to add:

Seems Paul ✝️ REGAN is happy to be mentioned, so you might as well go and follow him.
You won’t be disappointed.

Most female founders are ignoring my connection requests.

Which I find rather confusing…

We talk a lot about supporting each other, building visibility for women in business, championing female-led companies, networking with people we don’t know, etc.

And yet when I send a connection request to another woman running her own thing, more often than not it sits there unaccepted or deliberately declined by inaction.

Most men, by comparison, accept almost without thinking. They treat the network as something to grow, not curate.

I don't think this is malicious... Most probably something subtler and worth examining.

Maybe it’s scarcity thinking, or maybe a sense that another visible woman in the same space is a competitor rather than a peer? I don't know.

Maybe inboxes full of pitches have made everyone defensive, and women get more of those (on top of the unwanted sleaze)?

Whatever it is, it runs against the story we tell ourselves about how this is meant to work.

In my view, a network is the slow, ordinary act of saying yes to people who you haven’t come across yet but you might learn from or even work with them at some point (thought that shouldn’t be the end goal of every connection request).

So… if you are a woman in business and you decline more connection requests from other women than from men, I'd like to know why.

I promise not to judge. I'm just trying to understand the pattern here.


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Come and hang out with me in Berlin! I am booked to speak at Freelance Unlocked 2026 in Berlin, organised by the lovely people at Freelance Unlocked, of course.

Book your ticket and use my promo code 'FUN26-ZSIKE' for a special offer:
https://lnkd.in/e3ZVsJx3

I will be talking about The Intellectual Freelancer -- The argument from my book Thinkbait, applied to freelancing and solopreneurship.

Most freelancers sell tasks, but the ones who thrive sell earned expertise.

In this talk I will lay out what that difference actually looks like, in positioning, in pricing, in the work itself, and why it's even more important now that the task layer is being automated by every Tom, Dick, and Harry.

See you there?

Today marks a significant milestone in my professional journey.

After years of strategic alignment, continuous learning, intense networking, and operating at the intersection of resilience and growth, I am proud to announce that I have successfully completed my 44th year on this platform we call Earth.

This achievement would not have been possible without the support of my stakeholders, particularly my parents, who onboarded me back in 1982 under what I can only describe as challenging conditions.

Key milestones from this reporting period include:

Continuing to write my own LinkedIn posts.
Continuing to lose at chess to opponents who started learning the game considerably later than I did.
Continuing to use the em dash — despite intense market pressure.

Looking ahead to FY45, I remain cautiously optimistic.
There are headwinds, and there are tailwinds.
Mostly there is … coffee. A lot of coffee.

If you'd like to celebrate this milestone with me, the appropriate channels are: a like, a comment, or a Mind Map session with me, here: https://lnkd.in/eqBYZaCh

All three are accepted but only one of them is tax-deductible.

Thank you for being part of the journey.


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📸 with my little sister, Enikő. Even as a two-year old, I was already a fan of the ‘Black is the new black’ fashion statement.