Heart of a Leader 2026: What We Brought Home from Frisco
Earlier this month, we packed up and headed to Frisco, Texas for Heart of a Leader 2026— one of our favorite weekends of the year. It's a gathering we look forward to every summer, and this year was no exception.
Here's a look at what the weekend was like, and what we're carrying forward from it.
A Weekend Built Around People
If you've never been part of an event like this, it's hard to explain what 5 days full of people chasing the same kind of growth actually feels like. Heart of a Leader isn't a conference in the traditional sense — it's more like a family reunion for people who've chosen to bet on themselves and on each other.
More Than Just Business Sessions
If you've never been to an event like this, you might picture back-to-back conference rooms and not much else. The truth is, some of the best growth happens outside the ballroom — in the moments in between.
Mornings started early with golf, easy conversation, and the kind of company that makes a 6am tee time feel worth it. Evenings looked different depending on the night — plates of good BBQ, more laughing than we could keep track of, and at one point, a full-on laser tag showdown.
Some of our favorite moments from the whole weekend happened in the pool, of all places — no agenda, no schedule, just good conversation in the sun. Those are the moments where the real stuff gets talked about: what's next, what we're working on as leaders, what we want for our families. It's a good reminder that growth doesn't only happen on a stage — sometimes it happens floating in a pool with people who genuinely want to see you win.
Leadership Worth Learning From
Over the course of the weekend, we heard from leaders at every stage of the journey — some just getting started, some who've been doing this for decades. What struck us most wasn't any single talk, it was the common thread running through all of them: leadership isn't about having it figured out. It's about showing up, staying teachable, and choosing to grow even when it's uncomfortable.
We walked away with pages of notes, a few new favorite quotes, and a renewed sense of what it means to lead with both conviction and humility.
A Moment to Pause
Sunday morning gave the whole weekend a different kind of weight. Between the worship, the message, and the quiet moment to just sit and reflect, it was a good reminder that all of this — the growth, the goals, the hustle — has to be built on something deeper than ambition. For us, that something is faith, and Sunday was a chance to recenter on it before heading back into regular life.
What We're Taking Home
By the time Conference wrapped up, we were still trying to find the words for the weekend we'd just had. Truly — there aren't many. We know we'll spend the flight, and probably the next few weeks, still processing everything we learned and everyone we got to be around.
There's something different about being in a room full of people who've all fought for what they have. Nobody there has to explain the hard seasons, the doubts, or the work it took to get to that room — everyone already knows, because they've lived some version of it themselves. That shared understanding creates a kind of mutual respect that's hard to find anywhere else.
Some of our favorite moments happened outside the sessions entirely — two nights spent outdoors in warm Texas evening air, surrounded by nearly 60 of our closest freinds who'd all shown up for the same reason: to grow, together.
Every time we leave an event like this, we come home a little different than when we left — more grateful, more focused, and more convinced that the people we get to do this with are worth pouring into. Heart of a Leader reminded us why we love this community, and why we keep showing up for it year after year.
We're already looking forward to next year.
