Think about the last thing that got you fired up about your job this year. Odds are it didn't come from a report. It came from someone who does the job, saying what happened when they tried it.

So we've filled a day with people like that. 

Maya Shaff, ŌURA. Leah Walker, Adobe. Georgia Humphries, Stanley 1913. Enara Roy, Halfday. Tyler Vaught, Edelman. Josh Rangel, Ogilvy. Sarah Whittle, ex-Crocs and Duolingo. 

And that's just the first wave of speakers. 

Return on Influence Festival '26 is a free, virtual day dedicated to influencer marketing. Like any good festival, there are stages. But no mud, no queues, and absolutely no porta-potties. 

Sign up today, and the rest of the lineup lands in your inbox first.

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I’m writing this from Oregon, smack in the middle of my company’s staff retreat.

My hair is still wet from the river. My face is sun-kissed in a way that feels equal parts alive and irresponsible. And my soul has had one full glass of optimism that I desperately needed before heading into fall season.

One of my favorite things about these retreats is that we all read the same book and talk about it together. Very business. Very adult. Very “let’s unpack leadership theory before we play pickleball for the afternoon.”

The one line from this quarter’s book has been knocking at my heart:

Which sounds obvious until you start paying attention to how often you are not doing that. How often you are waiting for your turn to talk, already solving, already mentally sprinting toward the answer before the other person has even finished describing the problem.

I started wondering how often I actually use my ears. And my eyes. Not in a productivity way, but in a noticing way.

Because lately, some exciting things have started shifting for my family. I’ll share the details soon, but it did not start because I made and followed a perfect plan or timeline.

It started because of a conversation. A small comment. A need my someone in our life had. A joke I could have easily missed if I had been moving too fast or trying too hard to force the version of the future I already had in my head.

That part has been humbling, mostly because for a long time, I think I confused effort with control.

Former college athlete problems, probably.

There is a very specific wiring that happens when you grow up believing the answer is always more reps. Stay later. Run harder. Be coachable. Be tough. Earn it. And listen. I still believe in effort. I love effort. I trust effort. I am suspicious of almost any lesson that tries to skip the part where you actually have to work.

But life keeps teaching me the deeply annoying truth that the hardest-working person does not always win. The most prepared person does not always get picked. The person who cares the most does not always get the outcome.

And if effort has always been the thing you knew how to control, that is a very inconvenient thing to learn.

But I’m starting to wonder if I have been undervaluing a different kind of control: curiosity.

Not curiosity as a personality trait. Not “I’m curious” in a bio. I mean the actual practice of staying open one beat longer than feels efficient. Asking the question you think you should skip because you won’t sound cool. Letting someone finish. Paying attention to the weird little detail. Following the thing that does not look like an opportunity yet.

Maybe that is why great sellers listen more than they talk. Because the job is not just to say the right thing. The job is to understand what is actually happening.

And that feels true in more than sales.

Sometimes the better answer is not behind more effort. That is what I want to practice. Not working less hard. I fear that ship has sailed. But remembering that hard work and attention are not the same thing.

Sometimes the next right move does not come from pushing harder. Sometimes it comes from listening longer.