A really rough rundown. Basically my background's in business, but my heart's in conservation and the
environment. And I found out that this plant, manuka, you might have heard of manuka honey
in the States. It's quite big. But the honey comes from the nectar and the flowers,
which is produced. Sorry, I'm talking quietly. We had just had the in-laws arrive in there sleeping
next door. But the essential oil, which is distilled from the leaves, steam distillation
kind of style, has these powerful healing compounds called triketones. And that's just for one type of
this plant. Triketones? Yeah. Triketones. All right. You talked to the right guy. I know what you're talking about.
Awesome. But then as you analyze the manuka from different parts of the country, the same plant
just growing in different environments, it has all these different phytochemicals like sesquiterpenes
and various terpenoids and stuff. And they have really, really high value uses. Triketones, for
example, are 30 times more antibacterial than tea tree oil, for example. And so I thought, well,
I could combine the business skill with the potential to help the environment by building
this business. Because if we created demand for native plant extracts, then we can give farmers
another reason to plant native forest on their land. And then that brings back the birds, that brings
back the seed pollinators, that cleans the waterways, prevents erosion, has all that lovely effect.
So I started doing that. And I'll admit, it was my first business. So I was definitely on a big
learning curve. And then fast forward a few years, and I had been doing my marketing, just writing
blogs for people building websites, essentially contracting and consulting. And that was paying
my way as I built this business and then lockdown set in 2020. And my Manuka Essentials was considered
non-essential. So we had to close shop and it was not, it went to zero overnight. It came back later
after the world opened back up. But during that time, I had a bunch of clients that wanted to do
more work with me, and they wanted me to build an agency. And I didn't really want a marketing
agency. But I decided, well, this is a really good opportunity. We've got these big contracts that
people want to give us. And I've got team members that want to work for me, who I know are good
workers, so why not? So I did that. But with my heart in the business world, I said, look, 5% of
our revenue is going to go to a separate bank account. And we're going to use that revenue to
pay for our team to do free work for environmental groups. So we did that. We did that for about two
years. Started another business for some reason in that time. And then that eventually evolved into
this coaching that I do now, which is the reason for coaching is because I can, I enjoyed training
my team more than I actually enjoyed doing the client work. And I enjoyed giving my clients
strategies more than anything else. And so I figured, well, rather than doing that stuff for
free, why don't I be paid for it? But during that time, in 2020, we started a charity called the
Reforestation Fund, which the idea was for us to give money to conservation in a way that's really
high impact, that's good return on your investment. It's actually a lot harder than it seems. So we'll
do that for other clients. But we just rebranded that this week to a charity is now called
Conservation Amplified. And so we decided that the barriers to helping nature are,
gaining more awareness. So people knowing what is needed and caring about it, and funding. And we've
been focused on funding for four years when we realized that actually, most people we spoke to
weren't aware of, yes, the problems, but just how many awesome solutions there are that are being
done right now that with a little bit more attention and a little bit more money could really
scale up our environmental good. And so yeah, we literally just rebranded yesterday after four
years. So that's a bit of a yarn, but that's how I got to here. Right. And I'd say, obviously,
you can see by part of our banner there, this is the water project. And First Class Business has been
trying to partner, well, has been working with the water project to help bring water to Africa
and to areas that are obviously suffering from whatever issues they're having with
lack of water. And obviously, this is part of the same thing. So we completely understand
where you're coming from with that. And obviously, we should Godspeed and hope that
they were able to continue forward on that as we continue on. Thank you. Cheers. And it's so
cool that you support the water project. I was looking at your website and prep for the call.
And I was quite impressed by that. And especially how you see business as a vehicle
to do what you want to bring the change you want into the world. That's so true.