Belonging Starts When We Stop Editing Ourselves

The strange thing about events is that people often decide how they feel before anything has even begun.

Creator Day is this week (Thursday 14th May), and at this stage, it would be easy to think the work is about the final checks. Such as the slides, the workbooks, the lunch and the plan for the day.

The part I keep coming back to is how people feel when they walk in.

Some people will arrive knowing lots of familiar faces. There will be people who will arrive knowing no one. Some people will feel excited, others will feel nervous. Some people will be wondering whether they have made the right decision to give a day to something they still don’t fully know how to describe.

That is where most of the thought and care now go. An event doesn’t begin when the host walks on stage, it’s when people start to feel they have a place in it.

The question sitting alongside us before we step in is, “Do I belong here?”

Over the past few years, I have been paying more attention to figuring out how each year develops.

In 2024, I wrote about closeness. The idea was that people don’t want to feel detached from the event they are part of. They don’t want to feel like they are watching from the outside, unsure where they fit. They want to feel close to the people, the ideas, the rhythm of the day and the reason for being there.

In 2025, I wrote about getting the room right. This was about the environment you make and the way people are brought together. The best events don’t just deliver content to an audience; they bring people to each other.

This year, my thoughts have moved on again.

The room only works when people know they belong in it. This feels more important where many people feel disconnected today.

B2B has also become easier to create polished versions of ourselves. AI can help us sound clearer, more confident and more complete. It can tidy our words and make the presentations have a valid structure in seconds.

That is useful, I use it too. Perhaps the most important thing now is not how polished we can become. It is how willing we are to present our imperfect selves to the world and that it’s ok to be curious, to ask questions and to still be figuring it out.

In the build-up to Creator Day ’26, people are not searching for perfection or the answers to everything; they are searching for relief, in terms of relief from not having to pretend.

Connection is not created because everyone in the room tries hard to look successful or knows exactly what they are doing.

Connection is created between people when they feel seen, heard and valued. It happens when people can give and receive without judgment. People mustn’t feel they have to perform a version of themselves just to be accepted.

There is a shift that is coming with live events. Many events are still designed around information. You sit, you listen, you write down notes.

The events that have more of an impact will be the ones designed around permission to ask, to contribute and step in as you are.

That is what I want Creator Day to do.

As we move forward, the intention is not to create a room where everyone feels they have to impress each other, but a room where people feel able to meet each other properly.

A lot of business spaces still make people feel like they have to arrive as the professional version of themselves. This could be the expectation for people to explain their business in one neat sentence.

What if there are spaces where you can figure it out with other people on your side and be ok to say, ‘I’m not sure yet.”

Belonging is not about everyone being the same, it’s when you don’t feel you have to become someone else to be accepted.

That has become a big part of how I now think about You Are The Media.

For years, the work was about helping people build an audience, promote their business and share their ideas. It still is, but underneath all of that, it is about helping people find the confidence to show up as themselves, not as a version they think other people will approve of.

That is why the room matters as the flagship events, such as Creator Day, give people the space to convene. When the room is right, people are encouraged to participate. From joining conversations, speaking to people they don’t know and saying ‘see you next year,’ I hope we create this.

It’s a day where people feel looked after as well as a day where the town, the theatre, the conversations and the people all become part of the same experience.

When so much of our work is becoming more automated and more efficient, the imperfect human moments become more valuable as they cannot be prompted or downloaded. You have to be there, with others on your side.

I don’t want Creator Day to be perfect, that was never the point.

I want it to feel alive, generous and people can arrive as they are. I want people to leave feeling closer to themselves, to others and to the work they want to do.

That is the thread that has been running through the past few years. I looked at closeness, then the room, now it’s what it means to belong. This is what I know all of this has been building towards.

A room where people can be seen properly, where connection is not forced, but allowed to happen because people feel able to give and receive without judgement.

That is what I hope people feel when they leave Creator Day. Not that they attended an event, but that for one day, they didn’t have to edit themselves to belong.