A bit of an experiment, if I'm honest. I saw @Des Dreckett run a growth experiment combining youtubeforskool and it got me thinking about doing something similar here which is part of why the first 100 people can join as founding members for $5/year, locked in for life. After that, it moves to a monthly rate. But the real reason goes back further. I used to be a food tech teacher. I didn't stay in that role long the curriculum got in the way of what I actually cared about: teaching real, useful life skills. My own home economics teacher ( early 1980's) did it right one week she'd demo a recipe, the next week we'd cook it ourselves. imple and hands-on. That's how I learned, and it stuck with me. Not everyone gets that. You either grew up cooking, or you didn't and if you didn't, you're left to figure it out later, badly. That's the gap Cooking Skool fills. Every week: one simple recipe, one shopping list will be shared, with a live cook along (with replay) So same structure that worked for me, just for grown-ups who never got the chance the first time round. Just simple, from scratch cooking, taught properly. So this is my plan and it feels alighned and it's my passion, I will use skool plus other social media to bring in traffic. Also what I've learnt and learning with my The Indian Cooking Club, I will put into practice. I'm looking forward to creating a Cooking Skool ......community https://www.skool.com/cooking-skool-6111

What happens when the woman who has always been the strong one finally puts something down? That's a question @Elsebeth Fogh isn't just asking. She's living it. For years, Elsebeth was the one who could carry things. Responsibilities. Expectations. Other people's needs. The belief that being strong meant holding everything together. Now, at 63, she's exploring a different kind of strength. The kind that allows you to put something down and discover that you don't fall apart. That journey sits at the heart of Inner Power Institute Europe, the community Elsebeth is building for women who have spent years proving just how much they can carry and are beginning to wonder who they might be without all that weight. And I think the way Elsebeth describes the experience she wants to create says more than any polished tagline could: "I want a woman to put her phone or tablet down, exhale, and realize, for maybe the first time in years, that she doesn't have to prove anything in this room. Not her strength. Not her competence. Not even her progress." She wants women to come back to themselves, little by little, and remember that being loved was never something they had to earn by carrying more. 💜 One of the things Todd and I have come to appreciate about Elsebeth is the depth she brings to our conversations. She looks beneath the obvious. She wonders what's happening underneath a behavior, a reaction, or a feeling. She reflects. She questions. And she isn't interested in wrapping everything in a quick answer simply because it's easier to explain. Elsebeth recently told me something that stayed with me: "The packaging isn't natural to me. I just love to share my thoughts and insights." Elsebeth, I hope you'll keep doing exactly that. Because as I've watched you, I keep seeing the same thread: Permission to put something down. To stop proving. To stop carrying everything. To get curious about who you are underneath all of it.

We talk about a yes like it's the finish line. Someone joins, someone says yes to your help, someone trusts you, and we celebrate, as we should. But there's a quieter thing that happens in that same moment, and almost nobody names it. I remember the first time one person asked me for my personalized help. A former colleague invited me to lunch, said she wanted my opinion on a few things, and I honestly didn't think much beyond that. Just two colleagues catching up. And then, over lunch, she told me she'd love to work with me, that she wanted my coaching. I was genuinely surprised, the good kind of surprised. This was someone who, from the outside, seemed to have it all together. And she was sitting across from me saying, in her own way, "I trust you to help me." Alongside the honor of it, and there was real honor and real gratitude, came something that felt a lot like fear. Because a yes asks something of you that a no never does. A no, you feel, and you move past it. A yes, you have to carry. This person had just handed me her hope, her belief that I could actually help her get where she wanted to go. She'd chosen me. And in that moment, the quiet thought underneath the honor wasn't only "how wonderful." It was "What if I let her down? What if she trusted the wrong person? What if I'm not enough for this?" Here's the thing. You feel this too, every time someone trusts you. When a member joins your community, when someone signs up for your help, when a person finally says yes to what you offer, they're doing exactly what she did at that lunch. Handing you their hope. Believing you can help them get where they're going. Every yes you receive carries that same quiet weight, because every yes is someone choosing you. If you've felt that, the strange weight tucked inside a yes, you're not doing anything wrong. That weight is love. It's what happens when you genuinely care about the person trusting you, and it's proof you take the responsibility seriously.

My Golden Ticket conversation with @Oddysey Campbell ended before either of us was ready. We lost our connection and never got our proper wrap-up. And the more I've thought about it, the more strangely fitting that feels. Because so much of our conversation was about being in the middle of things. Building while you're still figuring things out. Learning while you're doing. Trying something before you know exactly what it will become. Recognizing that you don't need a perfectly finished story before you have something valuable to offer. Oddysey is experimenting with something she calls Fun Audits, where she explores a community and shares what she notices with the owner. As we talked, something became really clear to me. The value isn't simply that she can spot a misplaced pin, confusing category, or something that could be organized differently. It's how she sees the community. Oddysey talked about something she calls "exploration empathy." Instead of only asking: Is this community set up correctly? She's paying attention to: What does it actually feel like to be a person inside this community? Where might someone hesitate? What feels welcoming? What creates frustration or confusion? What makes someone feel safe enough to participate? THAT opened up such a great conversation. Because sometimes the thing we're able to offer others isn't just what we've learned. It's the perspective we've developed along the way. Our experiences. The things we naturally notice. The questions we think to ask. Even the ways we think differently from the people around us. Oddysey reminded me that we don't necessarily have to become more like everyone else before our experience becomes valuable. Sometimes our difference is part of the value. Maybe there's another lesson hiding in the way our call ended, too. Not everything meaningful needs a neat ending. Sometimes you're simply in the middle of becoming, building, testing, learning, and figuring out what comes next.

Here's something I've learned about building anything... Believing in your work and believing in yourself are two completely different things, and the second one doesn't come free with the first. I'll show you what I mean with a quick one of mine. Years ago I offered my first coaching package, helping a group of teachers support struggling readers and writers. And really, those teachers were a little community I was responsible for. I was leading them, showing up for them, hoping they'd stay engaged and make progress, which is why what happened next might feel familiar. The very first time one of them didn't show up for a session, my instant thought wasn't "I wonder what came up for her." It was "I must not be doing a good job." I believed in the work completely, and the moment one person didn't show, none of that belief protected me. The doubt skipped right past the material and came straight for me. (It turned out her absence had nothing to do with me, it was her own circumstances, her own timing. But I'd already spent the silence writing a story where I was the problem.) I tell you that small one because I think many of us live some version of it constantly. You can pour yourself into your community and know it's good, and still, the moment someone leaves, your first thought is "what's wrong with me," not "what's going on with them." You can build an offer you genuinely believe in, and still freeze before you share it, because a quiet voice says, "Who am I to be the one putting this out there?" You watch someone else in your space doing something similar, and think they've done it better, so why would anyone choose you? The work isn't the problem. You believe in the work. The gap is that you haven't extended that same belief to yourself, to the person doing the offering. Here's the thing worth really looking at. Those are two separate jobs. Believing in what you built, and believing you're the right one to build it, and most people only ever do the first.