This is Our Summit.

Today's Marketing Cookie is for all the attendees of the AMA Leadership Summit in Chicago.

Today marks the second day of the Leadership Summit for the American Marketing Association (AMA). It's a weekend when presidents, vice presidents, and other chapter leaders, representing more than seventy chapters across North America, converge in Chicago to learn best practices for managing their local chapters.

When I first attended the summit, way back in the "old days" before Twitter's invention, I received a copy of the first edition of "Board in a Box." It was a cool little guidebook, full of truths every chapter leader should know. Being new to the AMA, I didn't quite know what to expect at the Leadership Summit.

As the various leadership tracks unfolded that first day and into Saturday, something remarkable and unexpected happened. I had anticipated sitting through classroom lectures, but I quickly realized the sessions were conducted by individuals who had previously served as chapter presidents. Instead of lecturing, they invited us to speak and passed the microphone to us, the attendees. They encouraged us to share our experiences and ideas.

Suddenly, the Leadership Summit came alive!

We weren't learning best practices from a textbook or a professor but rather from one another. In that moment, I realized that the Leadership Summit wasn't an educational event designed for us but a learning experience created by us. It was, and always has been, OUR SUMMIT, where we come to support each other, celebrate our achievements, and help one another solve big problems.

Today will be a great day!

Today, each of you will have the opportunity to contribute something valuable to the Leadership Summit. You will also have the chance to receive real-world support from your peers. This is YOUR SUMMIT, and I encourage you to follow today's advice: "Listen these next few days to your friends to get the answers you seek."