I have been thinking deeply about a subject that has now become such a natural aspect of how we work. Building a safe space for business owners has been in our blood since 1998 and Thomas and I love it, are dedicated to it and we forget just how natural much of our execution is to us.

This week, I have been called to think about the duty we all have to enable safety. In a world that can make us feel unsafe, how wonderful is the feeling when we are somewhere or with someone that enables us to place trust into the experience. It is the greatest aspect of BIP100.

With trust we elevate, we shine, we feel the energy of love.

I am going to look back with you now.

In 1999, when Thomas and I launched Ecademy, our mission was simple, but revolutionary:

to create a new kind of space on the internet — a place where business friendships could form

This was four years before LinkedIn, six before Facebook, and a whole decade before “social media” took over from the world of Social Networking.

There were no models for us to follow. No maps. Just instinct, a lot of late nights… and something else.

A book.

The Celestine Prophecy.

One particular image from that book never left me:

“A golden field of wheat, thriving… until a single weed in the corner began to destroy the crop.”

That metaphor lodged itself deep inside me. I understood, even then, that the energy of a community is fragile.

We knew that if we wanted to build something sacred, something kind and strong, we had to be prepared to protect it.

So we created a Code of Ethics, one of the first of its kind in an online community.

We elevated behaviour. We created safety. We said, “This is how we treat one another here.”

And when the weeds came, and they did, we removed them.

We were labelled gatekeepers. Some that had to be ‘banned’ formed hate groups. We even had to involve the police, back when no one really knew what online abuse even was.

They’re called “trolls” now.

But at that moment, we were trying to explain to the world that kindness online was worth protecting.

That era shaped us. It is one of the toughest responsibilities we learned as Community Leaders. Knowing the culture and how you form it and protect it has always been the foundation of our success.

And it’s why, today, in BIP100, we keep our community small, intimate, and intentional.

Everyone is referred, or they come through guest lunches.

It’s not to be exclusive, it’s to protect the crop.

55 months in, and still no weeds.

We don’t leave that to luck. We curate it with love.

And the wisdom of that golden field? It lives in everything we do.

If you have weeds around you and your business, perhaps give this a thought, they might be strangling you.

Life throws us so many lessons, how wonderful to reflect on this with you.