Unlike what most people think, a red kite isn't a kite that's red. It's a bird, a striking bird of prey that's incredibly popular where I live in Surrey, often seen riding the thermals with barely a wingbeat.
I first really noticed them during one of the harder stretches of my life, sitting in my garden wrestling with a huge decision: leave a stable executive career and build something of my own. Most days I sat out there thinking it through, and every day a red kite circled high above, completely unhurried.
Watching it, and overtime something shifted. I'd been trying to make the decision from ground level, tangled up in every worry. The kite had simply found the place above it all, where the whole landscape made sense.
So I anchored myself there instead, high enough to see the long view. From that vantage point, the leap stopped looking like a risk and started looking like a gift I could give myself: the same freedom that bird had, to do the work I love, alongside clients I choose.
That's why the red kite matters to me. A reminder that height is a choice and sometimes it's the view from up there that makes the way forward clear.
