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A really rough rundown. Basically my background's in business, but my heart's in conservation and the

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environment. And I found out that this plant, manuka, you might have heard of manuka honey

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in the States. It's quite big. But the honey comes from the nectar and the flowers,

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which is produced. Sorry, I'm talking quietly. We had just had the in-laws arrive in there sleeping

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next door. But the essential oil, which is distilled from the leaves, steam distillation

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kind of style, has these powerful healing compounds called triketones. And that's just for one type of

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this plant. Triketones? Yeah. Triketones. All right. You talked to the right guy. I know what you're talking about.

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Awesome. But then as you analyze the manuka from different parts of the country, the same plant

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just growing in different environments, it has all these different phytochemicals like sesquiterpenes

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and various terpenoids and stuff. And they have really, really high value uses. Triketones, for

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example, are 30 times more antibacterial than tea tree oil, for example. And so I thought, well,

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I could combine the business skill with the potential to help the environment by building

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this business. Because if we created demand for native plant extracts, then we can give farmers

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another reason to plant native forest on their land. And then that brings back the birds, that brings

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back the seed pollinators, that cleans the waterways, prevents erosion, has all that lovely effect.

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So I started doing that. And I'll admit, it was my first business. So I was definitely on a big

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learning curve. And then fast forward a few years, and I had been doing my marketing, just writing

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blogs for people building websites, essentially contracting and consulting. And that was paying

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my way as I built this business and then lockdown set in 2020. And my Manuka Essentials was considered

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non-essential. So we had to close shop and it was not, it went to zero overnight. It came back later

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after the world opened back up. But during that time, I had a bunch of clients that wanted to do

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more work with me, and they wanted me to build an agency. And I didn't really want a marketing

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agency. But I decided, well, this is a really good opportunity. We've got these big contracts that

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people want to give us. And I've got team members that want to work for me, who I know are good

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workers, so why not? So I did that. But with my heart in the business world, I said, look, 5% of

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our revenue is going to go to a separate bank account. And we're going to use that revenue to

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pay for our team to do free work for environmental groups. So we did that. We did that for about two

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years. Started another business for some reason in that time. And then that eventually evolved into

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this coaching that I do now, which is the reason for coaching is because I can, I enjoyed training

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my team more than I actually enjoyed doing the client work. And I enjoyed giving my clients

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strategies more than anything else. And so I figured, well, rather than doing that stuff for

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free, why don't I be paid for it? But during that time, in 2020, we started a charity called the

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Reforestation Fund, which the idea was for us to give money to conservation in a way that's really

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high impact, that's good return on your investment. It's actually a lot harder than it seems. So we'll

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do that for other clients. But we just rebranded that this week to a charity is now called

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Conservation Amplified. And so we decided that the barriers to helping nature are,

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gaining more awareness. So people knowing what is needed and caring about it, and funding. And we've

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been focused on funding for four years when we realized that actually, most people we spoke to

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weren't aware of, yes, the problems, but just how many awesome solutions there are that are being

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done right now that with a little bit more attention and a little bit more money could really

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scale up our environmental good. And so yeah, we literally just rebranded yesterday after four

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years. So that's a bit of a yarn, but that's how I got to here. Right. And I'd say, obviously,

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you can see by part of our banner there, this is the water project. And First Class Business has been

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trying to partner, well, has been working with the water project to help bring water to Africa

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and to areas that are obviously suffering from whatever issues they're having with

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lack of water. And obviously, this is part of the same thing. So we completely understand

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where you're coming from with that. And obviously, we should Godspeed and hope that

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they were able to continue forward on that as we continue on. Thank you. Cheers. And it's so

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cool that you support the water project. I was looking at your website and prep for the call.

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And I was quite impressed by that. And especially how you see business as a vehicle

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to do what you want to bring the change you want into the world. That's so true.