# Orla Fitz | Professional Website Design & Co-Creation for Changemakers > Empowering authentic brands through live co-creation and impactful design. ## Posts - [Waking up to the problematic ethics of my tech stack](https://orlafitz.com/waking-up-to-the-problematic-ethics-of-my-tech-stack/): My wake-up moment wasn’t some grand ethical revelation. It was reading about Francesca Albanese being sanctioned by the US. She’s the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine. It’s literally her job. The UN – imperfect as it is – exists because we collectively decided human rights matter. And then one of the main signatories just… cut her off. Emails gone. Banking access gone. Everything. Same happened to the lead prosecutor of the International Criminal Court – Karim Asad Ahmad Khan. He is one of the world’s foremost experts in international criminal law and international human rights law and in February 2025, […] - [Onwards and upwards! or else...](https://orlafitz.com/onwards-and-upwards-or-else/): Rethinking progress in a world that has lost its bearings Read & Listen on Substack → The concept of cognitive biases are utterly fascinating to me – mental shortcuts that help us make quick decisions but that may also obscure reality. Discovering a new one is like finding the key to a new level of my brain that I have not yet explored. The world looks different and a whole new set of opportunities and challenges appear – just like the old level based computer games I used to love playing as a teenager. One set of biases so incredibly […] - [Who knows what is good or what is bad](https://orlafitz.com/who-knows-what-is-good-or-what-is-bad/): A simple balm for our times Read & Listen on Substack → So much of our world, and sometimes existence, feels out of control. This Taoist parable has been foundational in helping me cope with this reality, enabling me to show up daily, in the ways that matter. I’ve told so many people about it and always struggle to find the original, simple version that resonated so deeply with me so I’m just going to write it here in my own words: When an old farmer’s horse wins a prize at a local show, his neighbours call to congratulate him […] - [Still Waters, Silent voices](https://orlafitz.com/still-waters-silent-voices/): When Flow Stops: On the Dammed Rivers of Thought, Voice, and Resistance Read & Listen on Substack One of the most beautiful truths in nature is that water always flows to the sea. Rivers don’t need permission or instruction. They’re not led, they’re pulled – by something inevitable, by gravity, by the careless ease of nature. Unless we build a dam. My thinking on this came from a passage from the Tao Te Ching: “The reason the sea can govern a hundred rivers / is because it has mastered being lower” (Tao Te Ching, Chapter 66) Those simple lines really resonated, […] - [Chatting with Amanda Grace about ADHD, AI & Productivity Shame on The Road Back Home Podcast](https://orlafitz.com/chatting-with-amanda-grace-about-adhd-ai-productivity-shame-on-the-road-back-home-podcast/): I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to have been a guest on the Road Back Home podcast with Amanda Grace. Our conversation covered ADHD, AI & Productivity Shame I am really proud of this conversation and hope that it has resonance for anyone affected by ADHD – not just those living with it but also those around us. We discuss the pervasive sense of feeling both exhausted and lazy, shame, hormonal issues, the importance of controlling environmental factors and especially the opportunities that AI and assistive technology can bring when harnessed well. I’d love to hear your thoughts […] - [From Chaos to Curiosity: Moving to Unruly Assets](https://orlafitz.com/from-chaos-to-curiosity-moving-to-unruly-assets/): Originally posted on Substack “Merchant of Chaos” served me well for a while – it captured my relationship with consistency (complicated), my need to explore and deconstruct ideas (constant), and my tendency to take things apart to understand them (compulsive). There was also something deliciously ironic about it – I’m actually quite introverted, my chaos lives primarily in my head rather than in the world. But for those who didn’t know me, the name suggested someone who deliberately stirs up trouble, someone who creates chaos for chaos’s sake. That wasn’t me, and over time, this misalignment started to become a […] - [Is your beautiful website a creative cage?](https://orlafitz.com/is-your-beautiful-website-a-creative-cage/): I’ve often used the word ‘beautiful’ in my copy when describing the websites that I’ve created but it always sits a little uneasily with me. We have such ingrained reverence for beauty that to tamper with it feels almost sinful. The Beauty Paradox Beauty has always been considered both an opportunity and a cage. You can’t always control the directions it opens and it can feel restrictive and ill fitting. One of the most important lessons I learned when I started to paint in my 40’s was to “wreck the page” before starting. The first thing I do is scribble […] - [The Magic of Co-Creation: Melody's Website Journey](https://orlafitz.com/the-magic-of-co-creation-melodys-website-journey/): I’m thrilled to share this client story with you today. For quite some time, I’ve wanted to capture what the co-creation experience is actually like for my clients. While we often focus on the end result – and yes, having a beautiful website is wonderful – we rarely discuss the journey of getting there. The Hidden Pain of Website Creation The truth is, creating a website can be painful. While some clients push through this pain to reach their goal, many others don’t make it. Projects stall, relationships break down, and clients end up believing all web designers are problematic […] - [It's Alive... my new website and brand](https://orlafitz.com/its-alive-my-new-website-and-brand/): It’s Alive!!!!!! I feel like Viktor Frankenstein… instantly proud, excited and a little horrified after finally unveiling his creation. It turns out… I am my own worst client. Shock horror eh!  😱😂 Don’t get me wrong – I am utterly delighted with the website – it is everything that I have always wanted it to be, but never gave myself the time to create. However, the road to get here was torturous.  Just like almost every single client I have worked with – I wanted to perfect everything before writing this post and pushing “GO LIVE”.  Not all of my […] - [Fingerprint Work](https://orlafitz.com/fingerprint-work/): What if encouraging people to follow their intuition around work was the key to higher levels of productivity, fulfilment, creativity and connection. Of course it is. Sustainability is the key to creating a liveable future regardless of whether you are a plant or a person. - [Lost At Sea](https://orlafitz.com/lost-at-sea/): Trying to use my voice when it all seems so pointless and scary. This was originally posted on my Substack with an audio voice over:  https://orlafitz.substack.com/p/lost-at-sea It has been months since I’ve written anything of any depth or duration. Months of watching the world devolve in ways I never thought possible. Of watching myself shrink back again and again, diminishing and denying my own need to create and publish. Like so many of us – my brain can’t process the horror of our times, the death, destruction, corruption and inequity. So much is objectively better and yet, why does it […] - [Life in the slow lane](https://orlafitz.com/life-in-the-slow-lane-adjusting-to-covid-19/): The past two weeks were difficult. It was like being in a fog – one friend described it as feeling really ‘flat’ and that is a perfect description. Over the years of being self employed, I’ve gone through various states of motivation, de-motivation and everything in between but they were always caused internally.  This flatness I’ve felt over the past two weeks was something else, caused by an external, intangible and imminent threat.  It was a weariness and wariness that consumed huge sections of my unconsciousness.  I didn’t realise I was so pre-occupied until I suddenly arrived at the end […] - [Love / Hate](https://orlafitz.com/love-hate/): What is the opposite of love? My first instinct, like most people’s, was hate. This question was asked while I read A Course In Miracles (I’ve not gotten very far – it might take me years to finish!). The answer it gives is that the opposite of Love is Fear. Every so often a simple saying or thought comes into my sphere and changes how I see the world – this was one of them. Fear creates hate. Fear creates anger. Fear creates most of the negative emotions and behaviours we experience and try as I might, I cannot not […] - [Invisible Minds](https://orlafitz.com/invisible-minds/): In the race to digitise... what minds are we leaving behind? - [Overshare Shame Spiral](https://orlafitz.com/overshare-shame-spiral/): That weird place between inappropriate digital overshare and no response This was originally posted on my Substack: https://orlafitz.substack.com/p/overshare-shame-spiral Oversharing is something I have had a tug of war with all of my life – on the one hand I am silenced by fear of saying the wrong / inappropriate thing and on the other hand I overshare and feel shame and panic while catastrophisizing about the possible cascading consequences (that somehow always end with me being publicly ridiculed and rejected – hello judgement my old friend). I am struggling with this experience at the moment after sending a well meaning […] - [Technology's potential to enhance the best of our nature instead of inflaming the worst](https://orlafitz.com/technologys-potential-to-enhance-the-best-of-our-nature-instead-of-inflaming-the-worst/): Probably the biggest battle for productivity is fighting the barrage of psychologically manipulative social technologies that have been designed to make us feel we are not enough, have missed out and need to keep clicking. I have always struggled to harness the never-ending stream of thoughts and ideas that course through my brain.  Social media bombards me with even more ideas, thoughts and feelings I could live without. I also have a very distorted view of time and reality.  This means that I feel like I can tackle every single one of those ideas all of the time.  While this […] - [The work battle is not the same for everyone](https://orlafitz.com/the-work-battle-is-not-the-same-for-everyone/): Sometimes we forget that the world of work has been created by a very small percentage of predominantly privileged white men. When we read the stories of how they succeeded and internalise how their drive, morning routines, long hours and consistency got them to where they are, we forget all of the things they didn’t have to battle to show up every day. I can’t speak for everyone else but personally, every day I battle my hormonal state that naturally fluctuates every month, my 4-month-old baby who dictates how much sleep I get, the kitchen floors and countertops after my whirlwind 2.5-year-olds […] - [A platform to discover the other side of the story](https://orlafitz.com/a-platform-to-discover-the-other-side-of-the-story/): I really love when I hear a story from a perspective I had not considered before. Even if I don’t agree with it, understanding where that person is coming from expands the outer reaches of the discussion. It is not always easy to hear and I haven’t always heard the other side with grace – especially in the heat of the moment.  I think it is too much to expect people to instantly be accepting of ideas that oppose their worldview without time to reflect.  Just because a response is possible immediately, doesn’t mean it should be expected. I would […] - [The myth of happiness and building mental safety nets](https://orlafitz.com/the-myth-of-happiness-and-building-mental-safety-nets/): No one has their sh*t together. Happiness is the wrong goal.  The more I read and think about it, the more I am aware that it is just a fleeting emotion. For some reason, I had framed it as a destination. Every day, I have to work on understanding where I am emotionally in that moment because my goal is stability on average.  I work on appreciating my highs and lows so I know where the middle is and that is where I am aiming for. Usually, my lows are holes that I can either dig or scramble out of […] - [Making facts and experience great again](https://orlafitz.com/making-facts-and-experience-great-again/): I watched the movie Idiocracy years ago on the recommendation of a friend.  It is a silly 20’s comedy starring Luke Wilson and Rosie Perez.  The premise is that the entire population has become less and less intelligent over time.  The idiotic problems this causes is thrown into sharp relief by the arrival of unintentional time travellers from the past. With every passing year, this movie starts to feel more like reality and that is a very scary thing. Right now we are in a situation where audience is more important than anything else.  This means that anyone who can […] - [Letting curiosity play to discover passion](https://orlafitz.com/letting-curiosity-play-to-discover-passion/): The current obsession seems to be with putting ourselves into niches.  Nice little buckets to contain us so others can easily understand us before the 5-second rule expires and they flit to the next article, image or video.  The advice tends to run along the following lines: stay in your lane but stand out. All I seem to encounter these days are articles of ‘definitive lists’ or ‘why you’re wrong about…”.  Everyone is attempting to be the absolute authority, attract the eyeballs and lull them into your commercial web.  Don’t forget the juicy formulaic title “5 proven steps to earn […] - [Breaking things just for the sake of it](https://orlafitz.com/breaking-things-just-for-the-sake-of-it/): This morning my daughter bounded up from her cot proud as punch with the cover of her favourite childhood book in her hands.  Just the cover. “Look Mommy,” she said with a big smile of satisfaction and complete and utter innocence while my heart dropped. She loves to take a book to bed but had started to dismantle the little flaps of the peek-a-boo books so we switched to only allowing her to take those sturdy board books.  How naive of us – never underestimate the determination of a two and a half-year-old. I’m not going to lie, I was […] - [Working in the Wilds](https://orlafitz.com/working-in-the-wilds-website-design-kerry/): After many years of discussion and deliberation, we finally made the decision to move out of the city and down to the famous Wild Atlantic Way, on the southern coast of Ireland. We craved nature and space, and found that the city had become too noisy and crowded.  I know Dublin probably hadn't changed, but we had, and we needed more than it could offer - well actually, we needed less. - [Today should have been our wedding day](https://orlafitz.com/today-should-have-been-our-wedding-day/): Today should have been our wedding day. In all the chaos of Covid-19 this was one of the casualties, a small casualty in the great scheme of things but not inconsequential in our little world. We all had great plans for this year that have been cancelled or put on hold.  In a very short space of time – essentially over one generation – the world became one huge open playground with unlimited access to people and places we never dreamed of.  Then, in what seemed like overnight, it became very small and limited to our own back gardens.  One […] ## Pages - [ethical-ai-waitlist](https://orlafitz.com/ethical-ai-waitlist/) - [Small Moves Circle Waitlist](https://orlafitz.com/small-moves-circle-waitlist/) - [ADHD Business Strategy & Web Design](https://orlafitz.com/adhd-business-strategy-web-design-ireland/) - [Business Clarity Map](https://orlafitz.com/business-clarity-map/) - [The Monthly Spark](https://orlafitz.com/monthly-spark/) - [Spark Sessions](https://orlafitz.com/spark-sessions/) - [The Strategy Room](https://orlafitz.com/the-strategy-room/) - [The Starting Line](https://orlafitz.com/the-starting-line/) - [Invisible GDP Calculator](https://orlafitz.com/invisible-gdp-calculator/) - [Website Alignment Session](https://orlafitz.com/website-alignment-session/) - [Online In An Hour Workshop - Ailbhe](https://orlafitz.com/online-in-an-hour-workshop-ailbhe/) - [Co-Creation Complete Presence](https://orlafitz.com/co-creation-web-design/) - [Contact](https://orlafitz.com/contact/) - [The Monthly Spark](https://orlafitz.com/thank-you/the-monthly-spark/) - [Thank You](https://orlafitz.com/thank-you/) - [Custom Website Design](https://orlafitz.com/custom-website-design/) - [About](https://orlafitz.com/about/) - [Book A Discovery Call](https://orlafitz.com/book-a-discovery-call/) - [DIY Toolkit](https://orlafitz.com/diy-toolkit/) - [Latest](https://orlafitz.com/latest/) - [Client Stories](https://orlafitz.com/client-stories/) - [Strategic Power Sessions](https://orlafitz.com/strategic-power-sessions/) - [Home](https://orlafitz.com/) - [Privacy Policy](https://orlafitz.com/privacy-policy/) ## Optional - [Agent (MCP protocol)](websites-agents.hostinger.com/orlafitz.com/mcp) [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)