I went to RizeCon last month at Shoshone Bannock. Two days, packed lineup, a lot of talks. Some hit. Some didn’t. That’s how every conference goes.
These insights are some of the most valuable rizecon takeaways I’ve ever encountered.
But three moments stuck with me hard enough that I’m still chewing on them weeks later. Not the quotes I scribbled in my notebook. The moments where something actually shifted in how I think.
In summary, the rizecon takeaways are a vital part of my learning journey.
Here are the three.
McKay Christensen and “no straight lines”
McKay is the CEO of Thanksgiving Point in Utah. His talk was about leadership, brand, and what he calls a leadership brand promise. Real talk, the whole thing was good, but the part that got me was when he started talking about the woman who swam across the English Channel and back.
One of the key rizecon takeaways is that leadership often takes a non-linear path.
He said someone tracked her path. Plotted it on a map. And the line was a complete zigzag. Not even close to straight.
His point was simple. There are no straight lines.
Not in business. Not in life. Not in entrepreneurship.
These rizecon takeaways have reshaped my understanding of business growth.
I needed to hear that. I think most business owners do. Because when you’re in it, when you’re three years in or seven years in or fifteen years in, you look at your own path and it feels like a mess. You feel behind. You feel like you should have arrived already.
Evaluating these rizecon takeaways has made me rethink my strategies.
But the woman crossed the Channel. The achievement was real. The line was never going to be straight, and that didn’t change what she did.
Stop expecting your path to be linear. It’s not. It never was. Nobody’s is. The achievement is the achievement.
Hemming Morse and the predictable lead gen problem
Ethan Lee and Tim Vavla from Hemming Morse Advisory Practice did a breakout on building, scaling, and positioning. Both accountants. Both extremely dry. Hard to listen to in places.
But buried in the middle of their talk they said something I think most people in the room missed.
They were talking about what makes a business actually scalable. Cash flow that’s predictable. Low risk profile. Scalable growth. Standard stuff.
Then they said the line. You need predictable lead gen to even get to the point of scaling.
That’s it. That’s the whole game.
Most businesses I talk to don’t have predictable lead gen. They have referrals when things are going well. They have a couple of repeat clients. They have a season that’s good and a season that’s bad. What they don’t have is a system where they can say with confidence, “we will get X new leads this month, and we know what it costs to get them, and we know what they’re worth.”
Without that, you’re not scaling. You’re surviving.
The essence of these rizecon takeaways is presence and engagement.
The marketing world has gotten really good at selling the dream of growth without ever fixing the foundation underneath it. That’s most of what’s being sold right now. And those two dry accountants saw it more clearly than most of the marketers in the room.
You need predictable lead gen. Or you don’t have a real business yet. You have a job that pays variably.
Michael Landers and what presence actually looks like
Michael Landers spoke during lunch. I wish he hadn’t. I wish I could have taken better notes. But honestly, I think the fact that I was eating and not writing is part of why this one stuck.
I just watched him.
These rizecon takeaways emphasize the importance of storytelling in leadership.
He was a master in the room. Multilingual. Lived all over the world. Told stories that landed. Funny when he wanted to be. Real when he wanted to be. Engaged the audience like he was having a conversation with each person at every table.
Reflecting on these rizecon takeaways, I realize the need for presence in every interaction.
It wasn’t about what he said. It was about how he carried himself.
Implementing these rizecon takeaways can lead to substantial improvements.
Ultimately, these rizecon takeaways guide my business philosophy.
These key rizecon takeaways will stay with me as I move forward.
I left that lunch thinking about the small groups I lead here in Pocatello. Connect Idaho on Wednesdays. East Idaho Mastermind on Mondays. The workshops I run. The talks I give.
Am I in those rooms the way Michael was in his?
I don’t think so. Not yet. I’m in them prepared. I know my material. But the craft of being a presence in a room, of telling stories that actually land, of being engaging in a way that makes people lean in, that’s a different level. And it’s something you can get better at on purpose.
That moment didn’t give me a quote. It gave me a standard.
What I took home
Three moments. Different speakers. Different topics. But they all pointed at the same thing for me.
Stop expecting a straight line. Build the boring infrastructure. Show up in rooms with presence, not just preparation. These are the key rizecon takeaways.
That’s the work.
