(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)

PICTURE THIS (NAH REALLY, PICTURE IT) 🍷 🍻 🥤 You’re walking down your local high street. You’re not in a rush. You’re half present, half in your head, probably half scrolling cute dogs, on your phone, munching on a pasty, thinking about absolutely naff all and everything at the same time. And then… something makes you slow your step without you even realising you’ve done it. There’s this bar. You’ve either never seen it before or you’ve walked past it a hundred times and today it just… hits different. And you don’t think “wow what a strong brand identity” because like duh who actually thinks that in real life. (Well, unless you're on a brand research day, maybe hmmm) You think something more like… ooooh. Hang on. That looks like totes my vibe. What’s going on in there then? ⬆THIS IS THE CONTENT BIT (OBVS MAYBE NOT…) The bar literally stops you in your tracks. You don’t fully know why yet. It's just something about it. It’s a feeling. Maybe the lighting looks inviting. The sign feels a bit cheeky. There’s music leaking out. There’s laughter. There’s an energy that feels like “yeah… oooffff I’d probably like this place”. You just feel pulled without having to explain it. (You know what I am talking about right?) So you step a tad closer. Not committing. Not deciding anything yet. Just being a nosy Parker, please let's confess we ALL are… (just some of us will own up to not) You sneak a peek through the window. You scan the menu stuck on the wall. You read the chalkboard. And inside your head you’re muttering things like… yeah I like this a lot. oooooh this feels different. Ok this looks like my kind of shizzle. I don’t know why but I want to know more more more… ⬆ THIS IS THE COMMENT (SMALL BUT IMPORTANT) That teeny moment right there is the comment. Not a big a$$ declaration. Not “I’m in!”. Just interested. Curiosity. A tiny signal. A toe dipped in. Nothing OTT, but it totes matters. Then someone inside clocks you. Not in a salesy pounce-you way, pfffft to dat.

Alrighty then… so… deep breath because honestly I don’t even know how I’ve ended up doing two Christmas gifts this big, but here we are. It’s happening. I’m rolling with it. I’ve been sat here thinking about this community, thinking about MYM, thinking about last week’s Backroom banner excitement and the humans in those pictures, and the energy, and the epic ass joy, and the realness of it all… and I just thought, you know what, it’s Christmas, let’s go big, let’s actually give people something that makes a bloody difference instead of the usual sparkly fluff. And I’m gonna be totally honest obvs — none of this makes business sense lol Absolutely none. But it does make sense for how I lead and who I am and how these spaces work when they’re at their best. I don’t want the clickbait nonsense, I don’t want the “exclusive secret door” rubbish, I don’t want the sleaze. I just wanted to give something that’s actually fricken useful, human, supportive, real. So yep. Two gifts. Both ridiculous. Both only for the Backroom and MYM because those are the spaces I pour into every day and the humans who actually show up with me. 🎁 CHRISTMAS GIFT #1 — BACKROOM ONLY The $111 Community Audit… for $1. Yep. One dollar. No idea what came over me. But the Backroom is full of people actually doing the thing — showing up even when it’s messy, asking questions, trying, wobbling, getting back up, talking, being human — and I just thought, let me give you something that actually helps you get momentum in YOUR space. So if your Skool community is quiet or feels a bit meh or you don’t know how to get engagement going or you’re overwhelmed or you’re looking at your dashboard like “erm??” — or even if you don’t have a Skool yet and want your FB group looked at instead — this is for you. I go inside your space, look at everything, all the corners, all the bits you’ve probably forgotten about, and I record you a personal Loom walking through what’s working, what’s not, what’s blocking engagement, what needs shifting, and the plan to bring it back to life.

So if you’ve ever wondered what the Backroom actually feels like — not the neat little description, not the tidy version I should write, but the actual lived-in, messy, human heartbeat of it — let me just show you because words are not going to do this justice This week, I made this HUGE banner filled with REAL humans from inside the Backroom. Real humans. Like actual humans. Not models. Not stock photos. Not “look at my curated perfect life” influencers posing with matcha. Just the real faces of real people doing real life in all their chaotic, gorgeous, honest-as-fuck glory. And when I tell you I got excited… I don’t mean a little excited. I mean vibrating. I mean full on 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩 I mean staying up until 12:30 at night even though I’d promised myself an early one because I physically could not wait to launch the bloody thing. My body was like, “Sleep,” and my brain was like, “ABSOLUTELY NOT LET’S DO ART.” The second I put out the call asking if people wanted to be featured, my Mac went ballistic. It was like watching a slot machine jackpot in real time. Ping ping ping. Dogs. Cats. Bikes. Laptops. Smoothies. People literally sending me the most human pictures and I swear it felt like watching a community exhale. And the energy of this one single picture? I’m not even joking… it’s EVERYTHING. It’s warm and alive and messy and grounded and absolutely human in all the best ways. It’s what business should feel like — that feeling of “oh thank dog, I can ACTUALLY be myself here.” If I had actual walls in my house (instead of 92% nothing and jungle and geckos doing parkour), I’d print this thing like a giant mural and slap it up as the centrepiece of my life. Because honestly, it’s a masterpiece. A full-blown masterpiece made of humans being humans instead of trying to be robots with perfect lighting. This, right here, is what the Backroom is about for me. Not perfection. Not pretense. Not ego. Not performing business like it’s a bloody theatre production.

Honestly, it started because I got sick to death of walking into business spaces that felt like a competition for who could pretend the hardest. Everyone posting wins they didn’t even enjoy, bragging screenshots, manufactured perfection, all of it dripping in “look at me” energy, and absolutely none of it feeling remotely human. I remember thinking, where the hell are the real people. Where are the humans who still have laundry on the sofa and a typo in their caption and a dog barking in the background while they try to build a business. Where are the people who don’t want to play entrepreneur bingo. Where are the ones who want to actually TALK. So I created a space, almost accidentally, for the ones who were sick of performing, sick of eggshell-walking, sick of perfect curated wins, sick of sleazy DMs that feel like a damp handshake, sick of being in groups where the only sound is pfffttt tumbleweed rolling through the threads. I didn’t want a place where people pretended they had their shit together. I wanted a place where people were allowed to admit they didn’t. And somewhere along the way, The Backroom became this home — not a group, an actual home — for heart-led entrepreneurs who were tired of being the only messy human in the room. The ones who want connection but don’t want to tap dance for it. The ones who want to show up but don’t want to do it alone. The ones who want to feel part of something without needing to slap a filter on their personality first. I already knew what they wanted, even before they did, because they all told me the same thing in different words. They wanted to feel SEEN. They wanted to feel part of something. They wanted their business to grow without losing their soul. They wanted accountability that actually works and doesn’t feel like homework. They wanted HUMANS, not robots. They wanted a space where they could be their whole messy, magic, sweary-in-their-kitchen self without being side-eyed. They wanted conversations that weren’t dripping in ego. They wanted a gentle kick up the arse and a laugh while they were doing it.