We are almost eighty days in, and with a new month about to start, this feels like a good moment to stop and ask rather than assume. We would love to know three things. 💚What has been most useful to you in here so far? The thing you would actually miss. 💚What would serve you better than what we are doing now? Something we could change, drop, or do differently. 💚And what do you wish existed here that does not yet? Tell us the honest version, not the nice one. 🤗 This space is for supporting you as a builder. We'd rather build it around what you tell us. Anything is fair game. 🧡

When @Jenny Rader-Bakos opened Rooted & Wild, content was NOT the problem. She's been a chef for 16 years. She can teach you how to save money on groceries. Get dinner on the table in 15 minutes. Make tofu out of pumpkin seeds. And apparently... make ice cream out of potatoes. 😂🥔🍨 Jenny had plenty to share. But when she started building on Skool, she discovered something... Great content doesn't automatically create a great community. At first, Jenny admits she was treating her Skool a little like Facebook. Post something. Share something useful. Wait for people to engage. And... not much happened. So she started changing the way she built. 🏗️ SHE GAVE PEOPLE REASONS TO COME BACK Jenny began creating rhythms inside Rooted & Wild. Mention Mondays. Deep Dive Tuesdays. Watched and Rooted Wednesdays. Tweak It Thursdays. Raid the Refrigerator Fridays. She started hosting live workshops where members could actually cook, learn, ask questions, and see the person behind all those recipes. And she became very intentional about something deceptively simple: When someone comments, Jenny responds. Not because she needs another engagement point. Because someone walked into the room. And she wants them to know she noticed. Slowly, something began changing. Jenny wasn't simply publishing anymore. She was creating participation. 💬 AND THAT CHANGED THE QUESTION This was one of my favorite parts of our conversation. Because when engagement isn't happening, it's easy to think: What should I post next? Jenny's experience suggests a different question: What are you giving people to DO here? Comment. Cook. Experiment. Ask. Show something. Come to a live. Try a recipe. Raid the refrigerator. 😂 The content still matters. But now it's doing a job. It's creating an experience around which people can connect. 🥔 YES, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THE POTATO ICE CREAM. Because I think there's a community-building lesson hiding in that bowl, too. 😂

Okay, we're keeping this one completely unserious. 😂 You unexpectedly get an entire day tomorrow with NOTHING you have to do. No work. No errands. No laundry calling your name. Nobody needs anything from you. What are you doing with it? Are you... 😴 Sleeping ridiculously late? 📚 Reading all day? 🚗 Going somewhere? 🍿 Binge-watching something? 🌳 Heading outside? ☕ Sitting somewhere with coffee and refusing to move? 🎨 Making something? 🍕 Eating something you didn't cook? Or do you have a completely different idea of the perfect do-nothing day? And YES...doing absolutely nothing is a perfectly acceptable answer. 😂 👇 What's your day looking like?

We’ve been thinking about some of our conversations this week around getting members more comfortable starting conversations of their own. Not just responding to what WE post. Not just showing up when there’s a prompt. Actually feeling comfortable enough to say: “Here’s what I’m working on.” “I tried this and it didn’t quite work.” “Can I get your eyes on something?” “I have an idea…” And it got us wondering... Maybe the question isn’t only: How do we get members to post more? Maybe there’s another question worth asking: Have we intentionally designed a space that makes it easier for them to know WHAT they can share? Hmmm. 🤔 Because sometimes community design isn’t about adding more. Sometimes it’s looking at what we already have and asking whether it’s creating the experience and behaviors we actually want. So...I’ve been tinkering with something inside Skoolology today. 🔨 In the spirit of letting you see more of OUR messy middle, I thought I’d bring you into the build before it’s finished. More soon. 😏

I caught myself thinking about something this morning. It's very easy to have a busy week as a community builder. You can write posts. Tweak your About page. Create another resource. Check your numbers. Rearrange your classroom... again. 😂 And at the end of the week, feel like you've done a LOT. But here's the question I've been thinking most about... How much of it brought you closer to the people you're building for? Not closer to a better-looking community. Not closer to another metric. Closer to the people. Did you have a conversation that helped you understand someone a little better? Did you notice a question that keeps coming up? Did someone say something that made you think, "Ohhh... I hadn't thought about it that way"? Did you simply listen? Sometimes we can get so busy building the community that we forget to spend time with the people we're building it for. And I have a feeling some of our best clues are hiding right there. So no homework today. No challenge. Just one question to ponder... What did you do this week that brought you closer to the people you're building for? And if your answer is "not much," that's okay, too. You noticed. And noticing is where better building begins. ❤️ Happy Sunday, friends.