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.

lost a day, or lost my entire grip on time… because something is not adding up. So my gardener has come every Sunday at 8am for the last 12 months. Same time. Same routine. Same “good morning” while I’m half-alive. This morning, I’m having a lie-in, minding my own business, when Nami starts doing her “Mum, someone’s at the door” alert. I drag myself up, open the door… and there he is. My gardener. Smiling. Tools in hand. Ready to go. I’m stood there like, “hmm… you’re a day early. You come on Sunday.” And he just shakes his head. No. Now, to be fair, he’s Indonesian and I’m English and my Indonesian is… well… let’s call it creative, so we may be deeply lost in translation here. But still. I’m stood there questioning everything. Have I slept for 48 hours? Is it secretly Sunday? Did Bali bend time again? Did I slip into another timeline without permission? We still haven’t got to the bottom of it. I’m just sat here with my coffee trying to figure out what the hell day it actually is. Honestly… send help. Or caffeine. Or both.

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.

People who are stuck up their own arses can do one. Last night I went to this Christmas comedy cabaret. You know… community spirit, Christmas spirit, humans being decent, having a laugh, being together, all the good stuff, right? Me and my two friends rocked up about 20 minutes before the show. It’s a super laid-back venue with futons and sofas and random cosy seating. The place was buzzing, proper hive energy, everyone excited, the whole vibe was warm and happy and lovely. We looked around for seats. Couldn’t see any. Apart from the entire front row… and half of the second row… completely empty except for one woman. Just her. Sitting there like the Queen of She-Bloody-Knows-What. So we went to sit down and she looks at me and goes, “Oh, I’m saving these.” And I’m thinking… Saving WHAT, hmmm? A football team? A school assembly? The seven dwarfs and their pets? She was saving TEN seats. Ten. For ten people. Now here’s the thing — look, if it was me, yes, obvs I’ve saved seats for someone. I’m not a monster. One friend? Two friends? Three if I’m in a generous mood? Even four… fine. Normal. Human. But ten? In a packed venue? Nope. Absolutely not. If that was me, I’d have told my friends, “I’ll hold these until X time but you’d better get your arses here 20–30 mins early.” Basic manners. Basic community spirit. Basic not-being-an-arsehole. So I’m like, okay… maybe she’s in the show, maybe she’s reserved them through the venue, maybe she’s secretly Beyoncé. I don’t know. So we wander around again, but nope. No seats anywhere. Not one. People everywhere. Nowhere to sit. We’d paid for tickets, booked in advance, and we’re stood there like lemons. So we spoke to the staff like, “Hi…can you please help, bought the tickets, can definitely stand if we must but would prefer not to be a human coat hanger tonight.” 😝 They were lovely, tried to help, said they’d find chairs. But before that, I’m still side-eyeing this seat-saving lady like… Is she SOMEBODY?

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.