I did say I would post in this experiment with the same content on my socials... well here we GO - this may pee some people off... Courtesy of ChatGPT = Fireworks impact on the planet (the unsexy bits no one puts on Instagram): • Air pollution Fireworks release fine particulate matter (PM2.5), heavy metals, and toxic gases. Air quality can spike dramatically for hours or days after major displays. • Heavy metals in the air Those pretty colours? Barium, strontium, copper, aluminium. They don’t vanish. They settle into soil, water, and lungs. • Water contamination Firework debris falls into rivers, lakes, oceans. Residue leaches into water systems and affects aquatic life. • Wildlife stress & harm Animals don’t understand “celebration.” Birds abandon nests. Pets panic. Wildlife gets disoriented, injured, or killed. • Microplastic fallout Casings, coatings, and fallout add to plastic pollution. Tiny bits. Everywhere. • Carbon footprint Manufacturing, transporting, and detonating fireworks = emissions for vibes. • Noise pollution Disrupts ecosystems, migratory patterns, and animal behaviour long after the boom stops. The uncomfortable truth bit: Fireworks aren’t the biggest environmental problem. But they’re one of the most unnecessary ones.

So it’s that weird mid-day, after-Christmasing limbo. I’m doing a lot of not muchness. Sat here. Quiet day, recharge, I had my 3rd Xmas dinner for breakfast, yes addicted to veggies, so any excuse…. But my brain is doing its usual tick tick tick thing, thinking, reflecting, connecting dots whether I ask it to or not. (DUH. Hello. Obvs it is.) And if I had to sum up the last 12 months in one phrase, it would be this…. MESSY GROWTH. Not neat and tidy growth. Not Instagram-wow that's pretty caption growth. Not “tie a cute af bow on it and call it perfect” growth. Messy. Human. Sometimes a-lotta uncomfortable. Sometimes badass and brilliant. Sometimes I’m like WOOP, sometimes I’m like… what the actual tofu is happening here. Anyways this is what I actually mean by messy growth… (if y’all are tilting your head like go on Mimi, spill the juice) ME, AS A HUMAN ( THIS TOTES COMES FIRST) I’ve grown in self-belief. BIG TIME. I’ve grown in determination. In boundaries. In resilience. And that didn’t come from things being easy nope it came from showing up when it would have been easier to duck the ef out, numb out, or tell myself a story about why tomorrow would be better. I had my fair share of wobbles. Anxiety pfffttt. Grief. Emotional stuff bubbling up that I couldn’t bypass even if I wanted to. But I stayed in it. I didn’t pretend it wasn’t there, and I didn’t let it take the wheel either. (Some days it tried. HARD.) (and if you are in The Backroom, we say it ALOT - Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down) THE BUSINESS BIT (THE UNGLAMOROUS TRUTH, MY GIDDY AUNT) This has been my bestest year since I shifted niches just over two years ago. And I know not everyone’s had a great year. I’ve had some poop moments myself in the past. So please know this is just my perspective, not a rule, not a lecture, not a “do-this-or-else” vibe, hey we are humans after alll… BUT I worked really bloody hard, and I mean hard hard…

(N’ those Unexpected patterns I didn’t see coming) Over the past week, I offered a handful of Christmas community audits to the epic members in THE BACKROOM. I went in thinking I’d mostly be supporting other community owners, helping them spot gaps, tweaks, missed opportunities. What I didn’t expect was how much it would teach me too.(this bit surprised me more than I thought it would, if I’m honest) Seeing different communities from the inside, back to back, gave me an outside perspective I didn’t have before. When you’re inside your own space every day, you often stop seeing certain things. You assume things are obvious, and forget what it feels like to arrive like a newbie, slightly awkward-ish, not wanting to get it wrong. (that slightly hover-y feeling… we’ve all been that person, right?) [did-you see my POSTAPHOBIA post?] We cannot make assumptions, all the answers are often there for us, through the comments, the data, the analytics etc… (and yet we STILL assume… iykyk) Basically none of what I’m sharing here is right or wrong. This defo ain’t judgement. It’s just PATTERNS I noticed repeating and looping, and a few things that made me have those little LIGHTBULB moments where I stopped and went… huh… ok then… and rethink how I build and lead community too.(also yes, I saw myself in some of these, not exempt here) ➖➖➖➖➖ THE BIGGEST SURPRISE GOING IN… I kinda expected to see lots of content problems. Weak posts. Not enough value, conversations etc etc. Messy structure all that jazz.(you know, the usual suspects) But what I actually saw, over and over again, was this: almost nobody has a content problem. What most people have is a MOVEMENT problem…. Beautiful spaces. Gorg solid branding. Thoughtful heart-led badass leaders. But many members sitting quietly, watching, unsure what to do next. (lurking, saving posts, thinking “I’ll come back later”… and later never comes pfffttt) ➖➖➖➖➖ PEOPLE DON’T ENGAGE BECAUSE THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO NEXT (often)

Anybody else start doing a bit of deep reflecting at this time of year? Because I definitely do BIG TIME, and this year especially feels like one of those years where patterns, lessons, and little “ooooffff got it now” moments have been stacking up quietly in the background. And I wanted to share something I’m genuinely proud of, not because it’s flashy or impressive, but because it would have been VERY easy to do the opposite. (OBVS I questioned myself. Multiple times, and some, oh hello, thereby cheeky mind) First up,I wanna be totes clear before I go any further, THIS IS NOT “THE only WAY”. It’s just the way I did it. There are a million right ways to build things, and pivoting is defo not a failure. Sometimes, pivoting is exactly what’s needed. This just happens to be one thing I didn’t pivot on, and I’m very proud of that. Back in November 2024, I started my Skool Community, what is now called the Backroom. It wasn’t called that at the time; it was called Unstoppables, and TBH, the reason it existed at all was that my Facebook group literally vanished. Gone. Puffed away. No warning, no recovery, no support. It sucked alot at the time… If you know, you know. And that moment really landed for me because it showed me just how fragile some things actually are, even when we treat them like they’re stable. We all know the story hey So I made a decision. I didn’t want to build something again that could just disappear just like that overnight, completely out of my control, pffffttt So, I’d already been spending time inside other Skool communities, learning, observing, seeing how they worked, and I thought… ok, now’s the time, let's give this a bash But I didn’t do it in the obvious way. I decided to make it a $1 community. And not because I thought it would make money, it absolutely wasn’t a money play. That part matters. This was about energy. Intention. Boundaries. Keeping trolls out, spam out, and people dropping in with zero intention of actually being there.

This month has been a ficken tough one Like… really tough. The amount of wobbles. The heightened anxiety. The uncomfortableness just sitting in my body. Waves of grief and sadness, then picking up and feeling alright again, then dipping again. It’s been one total rollercoaster. And I’m not even saying it’s been one big sh*t mess. It’s more like something has picked me up, shaken me, and everything that’s been pushed down for a long time is bubbling to the surface. I can see it in my skin. I can feel it in my gut. And weirdly, I’m taking that as a good sign. End of year stuff does this to me. (Here comes a tiny bit of woo.) It feels like some huge transformations are about to take place. I’ve had an epic year. I still have some epic days left this month. So many things are going swimmingly amazing… my home, my business, so much is good. And yet, there’s this thing I’ve pushed down for so long that it’s just erupting now. This time of year is always more raw for me. The festive period. Old memories. Childhood stuff. My dad passed away in 1998, around Christmas. I still have the memory of him on life support, visiting him, and then in January the machine was turned off and that was it. I know I buried a lot of that, but it always bubbles back up around now. And then there’s the choice I made to live in Bali, which I love, but it also comes with moments of loneliness. It all mixes together. So yesterday, I went to a Melukat water blessing with some friends. It wasn’t touristy at all. Very quiet. Very real. And I just knew… this is what I needed. We were wading through these rivers and got to a point where the guide said, “This stone represents the mother. This stone represents the father.” He said you go up to the stone and say whatever you need to say. Whatever you want to release. Apologise for. Forgive. You just talk. I went to the mother stone first. Gave love. Gave gratitude. Thanked my mum. Then I went to the father stone. I laid down in the river, put my hands on the rock, and I just felt this need to reconnect.