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ARTICLE GOAL: Inspire action HOOK TYPE: Personal story opening with a real moment SUGGESTED TITLE: The Best Business Decision I Made This Year Was Not Speaking SUGGESTED SUBTITLE: What three days at a national conference confirmed about live video, AI strategy, and where your energy actually belongs.
The Best Business Decision I Made This Year Was Not Speaking
I went to a conference carrying a question I had been quietly sitting with for a while.
Am I still on the right path?
Not as a philosophical exercise. As a real, working question about my content, my platforms, my business model, and whether the way I have been building still made sense in a world that feels like it shifts every few weeks.
I came home with an answer. Three of them, actually.
Why This Moment Calls for Being in the Room
We are in a season where AI is changing workflows fast, platforms are reshuffling their priorities, and a lot of smart, established professionals are quietly wondering whether what they have built still holds.
That is not a crisis. It is a signal.
When the ground is moving, the worst thing you can do is stay isolated in your own bubble, scrolling feeds and guessing at what is working. Sometimes the clarity you need is not in another course or podcast. It is in a room full of people asking the same questions you are.
I Made a Deliberate Choice Before I Got There
I did not apply to speak at Social Media Marketing World.
That was unusual for me. I have spoken at conferences for years, virtual and in person. I know that rhythm well. But this time, I did not need to teach. I needed to receive.
Not every season is a stage season.
There is real pressure in online business to always be the expert, always be visible, always monetize every room you walk into. I do not agree with that, and this trip reminded me why. Sometimes the smartest move is to follow your gut, honor your energy, and put yourself in a space where your only job is to pay attention.
Going Live Is Getting Rarer. That Makes It More Powerful.
In two completely separate sessions, with different speakers, in different rooms, the same question came up.
How many of you are still going live?
Both times, very few hands went up.
That caught my attention. Not because it made me feel like I had been right all along, but because it confirmed something I had been sensing for a while. In a landscape flooded with automation, polished edits, and AI-generated content, real-time human connection is becoming harder to find. And because it is harder to find, it carries more weight.
Mari Smith made this point clearly: going live remains one of the most direct ways to connect real people with real people. Humans need human interaction. We are not going to automate our way out of that truth.
AI can help small businesses do work that once required a much larger team. That is a genuine opportunity. But there still needs to be a human in the mix. Do not automate your humanity out of your brand.
Most People Are Using AI Like an Intern When They Could Use It Like a Strategist
One session, led by the founder of AI Queens Society, made a point that landed hard.
Most business owners are using AI without strategy. They are asking it to clean up emails and write captions. That saves time, but it is also a fraction of what is available.
The shift is to treat AI less like a task helper and more like a strategic operator inside your business.
Think about the difference between hiring a Chief Marketing Officer and only asking them to fix grammar. You would be wasting their value. The same logic applies here. AI can help you sequence content arcs, map campaigns across platforms, and answer questions like what should I create next, how do these ideas connect, and what is the larger message I am building toward.
That is a very different conversation than “write me a caption.”
One thing worth saying clearly: using AI strategically does not mean removing yourself from your business. Too many people are trying to disappear behind cloned voices and over-automated systems. That is not the direction I am taking, and I would encourage you to think carefully before going that route.
“Be Everywhere” Is Lazy Advice
Every platform has its own personality, rhythm, and attention demands. Spreading yourself thin across all of them does not create presence. It creates diluted energy and mediocre results.
I had a side conversation with Nikki Saunders after her session on Instagram. Her main point was sharp, but what stayed with me was simpler.
You have to remove something to make room for the next thing.
That is the law of the vacuum. Clear the space first. For me, LinkedIn is the honest example. I understand its value. But if I am being straightforward with myself, it has not produced the kind of relational depth I want from a platform, and it has not been my happiest place to show up. That does not make LinkedIn bad. It just means it may not deserve my energy in this season.
You are allowed to choose focus over presence. You are allowed to decide a platform is not a fit right now.
A Word on Being an Introvert in a Room Full of People
I streamed from my hotel room because I had been peopling hard for two days and needed to come back to my cave for a minute.
That is worth saying because there is a misconception that attending in-person events means you have to be “on” the whole time. You do not.
You can attend strategically. Pace yourself. Step away when you need to. You do not have to become a different version of yourself to benefit from being in the room.
Some of the most meaningful moments at this conference came from simple human interactions. Running into people I have known for 20-plus years. Finally meeting online connections face to face for the first time. Having one grounded conversation that clarified something I had been wrestling with internally for months.
No analytics dashboard captures that kind of return accurately.
How to Make Your Next Industry Event Worth the Investment
Before you go, choose an event tied directly to your niche. General inspiration is nice, but specific rooms produce sharper results. Decide your intention before you arrive. Are you there to learn, reconnect, validate a direction, or find collaborators. Knowing this shapes how you spend your time.
While you are there, do not overschedule yourself. Leave room for real conversations. Pay attention to the ideas that keep surfacing across multiple sessions from different speakers. Those patterns are the signal.
After you leave, review your platforms. Conferences often reveal what still fits and what no longer does. Move your notes somewhere they can become action. Notes that stay in a notebook do not change anything.
The Part That Matters Most
I walked into this conference carrying a question. I walked out with confirmation.
Not just new tactics or session notes. Validation that the direction I had been moving was the right one. Clarity about where to focus my energy. And a reminder that the human element of this work is not optional. It is the point.
If you have been on the fence about attending an event in your industry, here is my honest answer: go. Not to perform. Not to be discovered. Go because your industry is moving fast and you need to stay awake. Go because one conversation might clarify the thing you have been quietly wrestling with for months.
Sometimes what you need is not another tactic. It is a sign that you are not off track.
One Question for You
Drop it in the comments: what is one industry event, platform decision, or content shift you have been sitting on lately.
