🔥 Felt: In Community #101

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

In partnership with

🙌🏽 Welcome to In Community.

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

Busy Isn’t a Badge. It’s a Bottleneck..

Every minute you spend on low-value work costs you opportunities you can’t get back. That is why BELAY exists: to help leaders like you get back to what matters.

Our Delegation Guide + Worksheet gives you a simple system to:
✓ Identify what to delegate
✓ Prioritize what’s costing you most
✓ Hand it off strategically

And when you’re ready, BELAY provides top-tier remote staffing solutions — U.S.-based, highly vetted, and personally matched — to help you put those hours back where they belong: fueling strategy, leadership, and growth.

Real freedom starts with a right partner.

✨ From Representation to Resonance

“There is always light. Only if we are brave enough to see it.” — Amanda Gorman, national youth poet laureate

There’s a moment — and I have a feeling a lot of you are standing right inside of it — when the question you’ve asked yourself starts to shift.

“How do I show I belong here?” becomes “How do I help create a place where people don’t have to prove belonging at all?”

This is the next evolution — for you, for brands, for teams, and, frankly, for our industry.

Representation is the floor. Resonance is the ceiling.

Because the truth is this. Consumers don’t just want to see themselves. Teams don’t just want to be acknowledged. Communities don’t want brands hovering above culture. Everyone — including you, the leader reading this — wants something deeper:

We want to be felt.

📌 THE RESONANCE TRIANGLE™

For Leaders Who Want Their Work — and Their Humanity — to Be Felt

Marketing loves efficiency. Leadership loves control. Culture loves speed. But humans? Humans respond to resonance — the place where strategy meets emotional truth.

Here’s how to build it:

1. Radical Market Self-Awareness

This isn’t category mapping. This is cultural grounding.

Ask yourself:

  • What emotional territory do we really occupy?

  • What are we here to contribute — beyond eyeballs?

  • Are we keeping the promises our presence makes?

  • What values do people actually feel from us — not just the ones on the wall?

This is the difference between a brand that speaks and a brand that’s understood. Leaders with this kind of self-awareness don’t chase moments — they create meaning inside them.

2. Relational Intelligence at Scale

This is where marketing becomes human, and leadership becomes felt.

Relational intelligence is the art of reading the cultural moment below the metrics. It’s seeing the whole person, not just the persona. It’s understanding when a community needs recognition, when it needs respect, and when it needs you to step back.

Ask:

  • Are we reflecting people — or relating to them?

  • Are we building campaigns — or building connections?

  • Are we treating culture as a resource — or as a relationship?

Brands that practice relational intelligence don’t just perform self-expression or belonging. They participate in it.

3. Rhythmic Execution

Every human has a heartbeat. Every brand should too.

Rhythmic execution is about showing up with a recognizable, human cadence:

  • Consistent — but not mechanical

  • Adaptive — but not erratic

  • Present — but not overwhelming

It’s the pulse that turns a brand into a presence. It’s how audiences recognize it before the logo even arrives. It’s how teams feel safe enough to create — not conform.

When your rhythm is off, you feel the noise. When your rhythm is right, you feel inevitable.

🔊 A Quick Human Ask

I’m on a mission to hit 1,000 YouTube subscribers in the next 4 weeks — not for vanity, but because that’s where I’m deepening these conversations: frameworks, behind-the-scenes thinking, and the real talk leaders tell me they crave.

👉🏽 If this newsletter resonates, subscribe.

Thank you — truly — for helping grow a community of leaders who care about belonging, creativity, and collective well-being.

And make sure to catch the latest episode of my new show out today, featuring Zena Arnold, CMO at Sephora. She shares parts of her journey most people have no idea about — and it’s a roadmap for how a growth mindset can help you directly accelerate your career and personal growth.

ICYMI, the first episode went live last week, with Everette Taylor, CEO of Kickstarter — a visionary who doesn’t just talk about community, he’s built platforms where communities shape destiny.

Tune in. Subscribe. Be part of the movement.

🔥 Why This Matters Right Now

Marketing and advertising are standing at a rare moment:

👉🏽 The world doesn’t need more content — it needs more connection.

👉🏽 Teams don’t need more directives — they need more dignity.

👉🏽 Communities don’t need more representation — they need real relationship.

As Amanda Gorman reminds us, there’s always light, but it takes our courage and power to see it. Resonance is how leaders choose to see that light — and how they help others see it too.

And leaders like you are being called to build workplaces, brand platforms, and cultural footprints that don’t just show up, but show care.

Resonance isn’t just a strategy. It’s the human framework our industry desperately needs. And humanity, quite honestly, is the last unfair advantage left.

📡 Let’s raise the frequency.

If you want a visual PDF of the Resonance Triangle™ to share with your team, just hit reply — I’ll send it.

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.

💥 Content & Community Specialist — Hue (I’m hiring for this one)

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