January 24, 2026 | Read online
I was catching up with a good friend recently who had been through a lot in the past few years both personally and professionally.
She had finally shed some of the baggage that was holding her back and was now working with a company where she said she finally felt heard, she finally felt valued.
She was lighter, happier and more optimistic than she had been in a long time and I could hear/feel it in her voice.
I’ve never been big into astrology or daily horoscopes, but my Instagram feed has been persistent lately. It keeps surfacing this idea that we’re entering the Year of the Fire Horse, and I’ll admit, it’s starting to catch my attention.
According to Chinese astrology, 2026 is a Fire Horse year which is a rare combination that comes once every 60 years and carries bold, dynamic energy, passion, and momentum.
Here’s what my GPT tells me about what it symbolizes:
The Horse symbolizes freedom, independence, action, and movement. The Fire element represents energy, intensity, and transformation. Together, they create a year that isn’t about staying put. It’s about growth, forward motion, and honest moves.
On the contrary, 2025 was the Year of the Snake which apparently was about being more introspective, quieter, focused on shedding and inner work.
So, if 2025 was about shedding and outgrowing what no longer fits you, then 2026 is about stepping into what we’ve shed and who we really are.
If you read my newsletter two weeks ago, you’ll know that I reached my breaking point and that I’ve shedded a lot recently and still have some more to do.
I’m shedding second-guessing myself and thinking that other people know my business better and are smarter than me. I’m shedding vendors who pretend to care but just run the same playbook they run for everyone else. I’m shedding working with customers and reps who don’t care and are just going through the motions. I’m shedding “friends,” family and colleagues who are negative influences on me and don’t give me energy.
So hearing my friend say she had finally cut ties with the negative influences in her life and was now somewhere she felt valued wasn’t just refreshing, it was a reminder.
Everyone wants to be heard. Everyone wants to feel valued. Not superficially, but genuinely
Chris Voss says it well in Never Split the Difference - people want to feel understood. When someone listens well, everything else becomes easier because trust grows first.
That’s true in life and especially true in Sales.
People don’t care about your pitch. They care that you paid attention and listened to them.
They don’t care about how you’ve helped other clients. They care about how you can help them.
They don’t care about your features and functions. They care about solving a problem and making their lives better.
People feel authenticity. They can feel if you genuinely care and they open up when you do.
On the flip side, they can absolutely feel you going through the motions. They can feel you checking off the boxes and going through a script.
This is why active listening and really giving a shit matters.
It’s why it’s so important to do your homework and prep for meetings so you can skip the scripted statements like “tell me about your business” and stop asking stupid questions like “what keeps you up at night?”
It’s why you need to remove all distractions during meetings and shut down your email and turn off your Slack alerts.
It’s why it’s critical to practice active listening by rephrasing what the client tells you to make sure you heard them correctly and they feel heard. As Chris Voss teaches, after you rephrase what someone said to you, you want the response “That’s right” and NOT “Your right.”
It’s why you should send a Summary email after every call.
A lot of the mechanics around active listening can be supported by AI but should not be replaced by it.
AI can take notes and summarize conversations but the danger is in assuming it will do it for us and therefor getting lazy with it.
I used to write my own summary email after every call that allowed me to reflect on the conversation and gain even further insights. Then I switched to having AI record the call send a link to the summary instead of doing it myself.
Was it more efficient? Definitely. Did it save me time? Absolutely. Did it make me a better Sales rep and allow me to have a deeper understanding and connection with my client? Absolutely not.
The value isn’t in the data. The value is in the intent.
That’s how someone goes from feeling ignored to feeling valued.
It’s how you go from surface level relationships to more meaningful ones.
And it’s also how we go from surviving some of the harder cycles in life to thriving in what comes next.
Maybe this Fire Horse year energy isn’t mystical. Maybe it’s symbolic. Maybe it’s just a pattern people use to make meaning. But at the core of it, I see something real which is a push toward honest action, toward showing up as ourselves, toward living in a way that reflects what matters most.
I hope you’ve shedded whatever negative energy, activities, colleagues, friends, habits and whatever else has been holding you back and are ready to step into what you’re meant for.
I still have a few more to shed myself but I’m almost there.
Let’s fucking go!
