🔥 Burn the blueprint: In Community #92

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🙌🏽 Welcome to In Community.

Before we dive in, take a sec to learn about this week’s sponsor, the Pioneer summit by Fin.

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“If we do not tell our own stories, no one else will.” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, writer, speaker, and activist

Reinvention doesn’t start with polish. It starts with a fire.

There’s a moment in every leader’s life when the tools stop working.

The process still makes sense. The team still delivers somehow. But something in the air shifts. What used to feel sharp now feels recycled. What used to hit now lands flat. Not necessarily because the work is bad, per se. But because the world moved – and you didn’t.

We’re in one of those moments now. Last week, when I wrote about beige work, a core part of it was to make time for risks.

Old blueprints are failing. Audience trust is threadbare. Brand loyalty is fragile. The culture is louder than your campaign. And most playbooks were written for a market, a mindset, and a media landscape that no longer exist.

So here’s the truth: if you're still optimizing, you're already behind. The question is no longer “How do we improve this?” It’s: “What are we willing to burn to build what’s next?”

And more urgently: Whose voices are we finally willing to center, not just include? Because – as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reminds us – the stories we tell and who gets to tell them shape everything.

Is the collapse a gift?

Yes, it’s chaotic. Yes, the pressure is relentless. Yes, the expectations are high.

But when old systems break, marginalized ideas rise. What was sidelined becomes central. What was dismissed as “niche” reveals itself as the cultural core. When we shed inherited rules, we make space for new authorship – and new authors.

This is your permission slip. To not just rebrand, but rethink. To not just campaign, but co-create. To not just market, but build with the communities you claim to serve.

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So what does that look like?

👉🏽 It looks like redefining what “performance” means, asking if your metrics measure depth, impact, and connection – or just reach and efficiency.

👉🏽 It looks like engineering originality into efficiency, not choosing between them – but demanding both.

👉🏽 It looks like centering underrepresented voices as strategic imperatives, not side initiatives.

👉🏽 It looks like letting your team feel the weight of creative and cultural risk, not shielding them – but backing them when they take it.

And maybe most of all, it looks like asking yourself: “What story are we not telling because we’re too busy repeating the last one?”

Ask it weekly. Ask it in rooms where people get nervous. Ask it because you can’t afford not to ask.

Burn bright, not out

Here’s the warning: this kind of leadership costs more. It takes stamina. It asks for your ego. It demands your imagination. But the return is deeper than metrics.

Not just because your brand grows. Not just because your work resonates. Because you stop being a custodian of past success – and become a co-conspirator in what’s next.

That’s the role now. Not just manager. Not just marketer. Builder of access. Architect of relevance. Listener at the edge.

So light the match and burn the blueprint. Build what was missing. And don’t build it alone.

Know someone who could benefit from burning the blueprint – or is already walking that path? Make sure to pass this newsletter on to them too 🔁.

In community,

Fahad