Reflections on Connection-Centered Leadership - Issue No. 10: What the Summit Reveals

Photo Credit: Melissa Swonger; iHeart Podcast Awards, Austin, TX; 2026

Last night I stood in a room full of summits. I was at the iHeart Radio Podcast Awards during SXSW and in the VIP Room with She Rises Studios.

Lights. Energy. Influence. Proximity to people whose voices reach far beyond the room itself.

These are the kinds of spaces people imagine when they think about arrival. The summit. The moment. The place where it all comes together.

But as I stood there, watching, listening, meeting people…I realized something. The summit is not what most people think it is. It does not change you. It reveals you.

There were people in that room who were deeply grounded. Clear in who they are.Clear in what they carry.Clear in what they are building. And there were others…

Who were still trying to become someone.

You could feel it in the introductions. The stretch beyond what is true. The subtle attempt to elevate identity instead of embody it. Not out of malice. Out of uncertainty. Because when you arrive in rooms like that, the pressure is not just to be—it is to be perceived.

And that is where so many people lose themselves. The air of confidence, whether quiet or overt, comes from being grounded in who you are and learning to love yourself. It hails back to the vertical connection to God, knowing that He’s God – and I’m not. That takes pressure off, too. 

Then, when we realize who He created us to be, we present ourselves differently in rooms. We no longer have to be someone we’re not, because we’re confident in who we are and what impact we are destined to make. We don’t have to flit around the room trying to convince others we just turned down a million-dollar deal, especially when it looks like you’re trying to convince yourself more than them.

We can shine a spotlight on others and connect with them wherever they are, without competition or trying to leverage them, because the most important part is the connection. The memory of that interaction will far outshine the other hustle.

I spent time with a group of young women—fellows from The AD Club of New York.

Brilliant. Capable. Thoughtful. And almost every one of them said some version of the same thing:

“I know where I want to go. I’m trying to connect. I’m learning. I hope I am ready.”

They have big dreams. They are stepping into meaningful spaces. And yet, there was this quiet undercurrent of doubt. Imposter syndrome wrapped in potential.

And I found myself saying something I have learned the hard way:

No one feels ready.

Not for the next level.Not for the next room.Not for the next version of their life.

The people who step into it aren’t the ones who feel ready. They are the ones who are willing to do it scared. Those who move forward before it’s all figured out, because if you want something different, you have to begin to do different things. And the keyword is DO.

It’s the courage to bet on yourself and believe God before the evidence is fully there.

Later, I met Jennie Garth. Many know her from Beverly Hills, 90210. More recently, through her work with the I Choose Me book and podcast. Her message of choosing yourself in a new way. She shared something that immediately connected us. She said she changed a legacy. Because I said the same thing. Me too.

We are legacy changers.

We are the ones who step into the patterns, the pain, the silence, the stories that were handed to us—and we decide they end with us.

That is not small work.

That is not a surface-level transformation. That is the kind of work that happens long before any summit. As I stood in that room of people on various points of their summits, mostly women, I stated to Jennie and those around:

We may be the legacy changers. But our children? They are the world changers.

Because they will not have to spend their lives untangling what we had to untangle. They will build from a different foundation.

And that changes everything.

The summit doesn’t create that. The quiet work does. The awareness.The connection.The movement.

Long before anyone is watching. Long before anyone is applauding. And, the truth is, maybe no one ever does out loud. But the impact we leave will say it all.

So here is the question I am carrying with me today:

When you walk into your next room…Are you trying to prove who you are?

Or are you grounded enough to simply be her?

Because the summit will not decide that for you.

It will reveal it.

All my best as we summit together,                                                                  

— Melissa, Architect of Connection-Centered Leadership The Sage Hill Project

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