Bringing Our Message to Lexington: Reflections from Next Wave Summer Conference 2026

This summer, we had the honor of taking the stage at the Next Wave Summer Conference in Lexington, Kentucky — a room full of dreamers, builders, and people brave enough to ask "what's next?" It was a full-circle moment for us, and one we're still sitting with weeks later.

Here are a few reflections from the talk, and the story behind it.

Grateful for the Room

Before anything else, we opened with gratitude — for the leaders who built the stage, and for a room full of people willing to bet on themselves. It's rare to find people who will speak the truth to you and still walk beside you. That's what this community has been for us from the beginning.

Chasing a Dream Before It Made Sense

We took the room back to the beginning — to the early days of building our business, when the hours were long and the outcome wasn't guaranteed. One thing I told the room was, "We were hair on fire for this". "We still are today."

We talked openly about the "restless phantom of doubt" that shows up any time you step toward something bigger than your circumstances — and how easy it is to let other people's comfort with staying still convince you that you're the one who's wrong for wanting more.

That's the trap: most people want the opportunity. Very few people want to do what it actually takes to earn it.

Staying Rooted When People Don't Understand

One of the more vulnerable parts of the talk touched on what it felt like to be misunderstood early on — hearing "you're changing" from people close to us, and realizing that comment usually said more about their own fear than about us.

That moment forced a decision: who do you want to be, and what do you actually want? For us, the honest answer wasn't about fitting in. It was about building a life with more flexibility, more presence for our family, and the ability to look our kids in the eye and show them it's okay to stand out.

We also shared one of the more personal parts of our story — investing in ourselves in ways that felt small at the time but weren't: trading late nights of noise for late nights of reading and learning instead. It's a habit we credit with quietly changing the trajectory of everything else.

Living Below Our Means, On Purpose

We didn't shy away from the early, unglamorous years. We described a season of intentionally living below our means — not because it was easy, but because we had a vision that mattered more to us than short-term comfort. It wasn't always something people understood from the outside looking in. But holding onto that vision is what made the harder seasons worth it.

A Backbone, Not a Wishbone

Toward the end of the talk, we shared what's become one of our favorite lines to teach: "You need to develop a backbone, not a wishbone." Wanting something isn't the same as being built for it — and every stretch of uncertainty, from the first step to the long plateaus, is part of what builds that backbone.

We closed with a thought rooted in faith: that the ability to dream and imagine is a gift, and what we do with that gift is our way of giving something back. The line that landed hardest in the room may have been this one — that some of the most tragic places aren't graveyards full of the unlived, but people who carried a dream their whole life and never gave it a chance.

To the Next Dreamer

We left Lexington the same way we arrived — full, grateful, and reminded of why we do this work. Our hope is simple: that someone in that room, or reading this now, will recognize a little of their own story in it, and decide their dream is worth building toward too.

Are you the next dream someone's been waiting to invest in?