🔥 My birthday wish: In Community #99

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

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🙌🏽 Welcome to In Community.

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“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” — Arundhati Roy, author and activist

It was my birthday this week.

And like every year, I found myself in that in-between space — part gratitude, part existential audit.

Birthdays are funny that way. They sneak up as a quiet checkpoint: What am I still doing that matters? Where have I drifted? What’s still worth my energy?

Over the past few months, I’ve written about remixing, not just rebranding, about killing the noise and the magnetic conviction it takes to hold steady when it feels like everyone else is chasing the next shiny thing.

And I’ve realized something: maybe the next evolution of “community” isn’t just about how many people gather around what we build, but how deeply we let it change us.

From community to communion

If community is where we find belonging, what if communion is where we find becoming?

Communion — the sharing or exchanging of our thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a deeper level.

Belonging feels good — it’s validating, safe, social.

Becoming? That’s messier. It’s the part where we admit what we don’t know, where we’re humbled, where we grow beyond what our roles or brands or metrics can measure.

But that’s the work ahead of us — especially for those of us leading businesses and brands, anchored in community. It’s not just mastering engagement  — it’s mastering emergence.

Less “How do we keep people’s attention?” More “How do we earn their trust — and transformation?”

If Arundhati Roy is right and another world is quietly on its way, the work of communion is how we help it arrive.

My birthday wish 🎁

And here’s where I’ll get personal.

For my birthday this year, I have one simple wish: subscribe to my new YouTube channel.

That’s it.

No merch, no special campaign, no hidden CTA — just that.

I’ve realized the stories, lessons, and tensions we explore here need a new medium — one where you can see the faces, hear the tone, and feel the pauses. The YouTube channel will be a space for that — deeper, more human, more alive.

If this newsletter has ever sparked something for you — a thought, a question, a shift — then that’s the next place I’d love for us to keep building together. With new shows, series, and stories amplifying our voices.

👉🏽 Subscribe here — and thank you, truly. That’s the best gift I could get.

What’s next

We’re entering a season in marketing where scale matters less than sincerity. Where “community” stops being a strategy slide and starts being a spiritual practice — of empathy, of accountability, of showing up even when it’s inconvenient.

And let’s face it, sometimes it feels seriously inconvenient!

That’s what I want to explore next — the courage to keep showing up. Not just to be seen, but to see. Not just to build, but to become.

So here’s to another year of doing the hard, human work. To the quiet conviction of people who care enough to stay. And to all of you who’ve been walking this path with me — thank you.

You’re the reason I keep believing this work matters.

Moving from Community → Communion 📌

To bring this shift into your own work, here’s a simple, but transformative framework when practiced with intention:

  1. Truth, not trends. Anchor in honesty. Ask yourself and your team, Why does this community exist — really? When the story is honest, the strategy follows naturally.

  2. Design for depth. Trade breadth for belonging. Create fewer, richer moments that invite vulnerability, curiosity, and growth. Community becomes communion when people are changed by being together.

  3. Model the mess. As leaders, our transparency creates permission. Share the behind-the-scenes, the not-yet-polished, the evolving edges of your own journey. That’s where trust lives.

  4. Protect the pace. Resist urgency. The most meaningful work happens with intention. Protect the rhythms of reflection, conversation, and care that make real connection possible.

The world doesn’t need more “community initiatives” for the sake of just doing them. It needs more communion leaders — people brave enough to balance scale with soul.

That’s the kind of leader I want to keep becoming. And I hope you do, too.

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.

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