🔥 C.O.L.L.A.B: In Community #106

Your weekly spark centering entrepreneurial leaders, creators, and culture-makers from the rising majority

In partnership with

Before we dive in, take a sec to learn about this week’s sponsor, Roku.

Shoppers are adding to cart for the holidays

Over the next year, Roku predicts that 100% of the streaming audience will see ads. For growth marketers in 2026, CTV will remain an important “safe space” as AI creates widespread disruption in the search and social channels. Plus, easier access to self-serve CTV ad buying tools and targeting options will lead to a surge in locally-targeted streaming campaigns.

Read our guide to find out why growth marketers should make sure CTV is part of their 2026 media mix.

🚀 2026 LAUNCH: My Personal Brand Course

🙌🏽 Welcome to In Community.

I’ve often wondered how I could’ve accelerated my career if I’d had the right support, especially when I was the only one in the room with my lived experience and background.

I’m consistently asked to help professionals with their personal brand — so after coaching multiple leaders to shape their narratives, I’m launching my new course.

Designed for professionals who want to:

👉🏽 Build – and demonstrate – confidence

👉🏽 Understand and see your value in a powerful way

👉🏽 Influence the way that others view you through an external lens

👉🏽 Learn how to position yourself aligned to your values and career goals

👉🏽 Develop a consistent way to articulate your narrative with cultural nuance and clarity

⏱️ Register by Dec 27th to get in on the early-access pricing — and the opportunity to help shape the curriculum. PRO TIP: Check if your company has a Learning & Development budget you can tap.

🔥 And now, for your weekly spark.

Influence is no longer a solo act — it’s a shared one. It scales through shared infrastructure.

Too often, we treat influence like a rank or a reach metric. But the rising majority doesn’t define power that way. Our power has always traveled through people, proximity, and collective conviction. Our influence lives in networks, collaborations, and joint ownership of ideas.

The next era of influence isn’t about who has the loudest voice. It’s about who builds the strongest lattice.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth a lot of marketing leaders are dancing around:

Influence doesn’t break because ideas are weak — it breaks because systems aren’t built to carry them.

For the rising majority, this isn’t theoretical. We’ve always known that power moves through relationships, not résumés. Marketing is just now catching up.

📌 The C.O.L.L.A.B. Framework™

A practical way to build influence with — not on — community.

C: Co-Creation
Community isn’t a focus group. Bring voices in before the brief exists, not after decisions are made.

O: Ownership Shared
Transactional partnerships don’t travel far. Shared ownership turns contributors into advocates.

L: Legacy Mapping
Ask what this creates after the campaign ends. Influence compounds when impact outlives timelines.

L: Lattice Building
Build systems, not silos. Connect teams, creators, partners, and communities into an ecosystem that carries momentum without constant push. Strong nodes distribute influence better than centralized control.

Before we go further — a quick pause.

🙌🏽 I’m unpacking these ideas more deeply on my YouTube channel, and I’m pushing to hit 1,000 subscribers in the next week. I’m only 28% of the way there, and your support genuinely matters.

If this work sharpens how you think or lead, subscribe and share with one person who needs it. Community only scales when people participate.

This week, I’m in community with Tiana Conley, who leads Corporate Brand & Purpose at Mars, the $55 Billion consumer packaged goods giant.

A: Amplify Authentically
The more a brand disappears behind community-led storytelling, the more credible it becomes.

B: Backchannel Trust
Influence is protected in private long before it’s tested in public. Trust built offstage absorbs mistakes when they happen.

This is usually where leadership pushback shows up.

“This sounds soft. Where’s the ROI?”
“This won’t scale.”
“We already do this.”
“This feels risky.”

But those objections miss the point.

This isn’t about being nicer. It’s about building resilient influence systems — ones that reduce cultural risk, increase earned momentum, and protect brands when the spotlight turns unforgiving.

Controlled messaging doesn’t create safety anymore. Embedded trust does.

And here’s the shift worth sitting with this week:

👉🏽 Influence isn’t something you own.
👉🏽 It’s something you steward.
👉🏽 And the rising majority already knows how to do this — we just haven’t been given the mandate.

Until now.

This is the last issue of In Community this year. Make sure to take some time to rest as we close out the year. Here’s a quick reminder of the 7 Types of Rest to make sure you’re filling your cup for the year ahead.

✅ Now Hiring

What you asked for, delivered.

Is someone you know considering what’s next for them? Here are a few roles with people hiring across the network. I’ll be adding roles here every week, so stay tuned and make sure to spread the word.

ICYMI last week:

And before you go, consider who else might value this newsletter and what’s coming up on YouTube. Make sure to fwd this newsletter onward to them too. They can subscribe here for more directly in their inbox. 🔁 

In community,

Fahad