2022… Just come out the other side of a breakup… everything fallen apart… rebuilding life and business from scratch… sitting there going right… WHO THE EF AM I and what do I actually stand for now… And I wrote two words down. 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗹. (might ring a bell to some of you reading this?) That was it. That was everything. Simple. Aligned. Real. No overcomplicating stuff that doesn't need to be complicated. Totes everything I wanted my whole world to feel like, inside and out And then somewhere between then and now… oh my dog… I kinda often forgot about it 🙄 Because what I THOUGHT I was doing was simplifying FOR everybody… This space is for these people… that space is for those people… this live is for this group… that session is for that group… you want messaging go here… you want community go there… I really thought I was being BIG TIME helpful … like big time… What I was actually doing was creating absolute mayhem confusion, and calling it structure People were sometimes messaging me going… which group do I put this in… which live should I join… I want both but now I feel split… Yeah. And you should have seen the struggle trying to do the calendar of sessions each week for two different places… oooffff the confusion in my mind That's… totes not simplicity, is it Mimi… 😬 Hands up. Should have done this twelve months sooner. I was holding on out of fear… And now that I've finally let go… I feel so freaking aligned it's almost annoying how long I waited tbf…pfffttt... No regrets though. Done is done. Learned everything I needed to learn from it. But here's the thing I'm tattooing on my brain going forward… When something feels complicated… it usually is. And the answer is almost always to strip it back… not add more to it… THE BACKROOM is home now. One space. FULL energy. All in. Lets GOOO! 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗹. 𝗔𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀. ❤️ (The two words I wrote in 2022 that I'm never letting myself forget again…)

(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)

you have to pick one... (comments open below if you wanna share your thought process, why etc) NO WRONG ANSWERS!

Here we go. Let’s Start the Experiment If you can see this post, do something — like, comment, emoji, whatever. Let’s see who’s actually seeing this sh*t.