January 10, 2026 | Read online
Happy New Year!
I hope you all enjoyed the holidays and were able to find some downtime and relax a bit.
I used the downtime to reflect on how things went in 2025 and plan for 2026 and I’ve come to a conclusion.
I’m done.
I’m done trying to “scale.”
I’m done with always being in build mode.
And I’m definitely done wasting money on vendors and tech that doesn’t solve a real problem, align with my goals or have an immediate impact/ROI.
I’m also going to take back control of my social feeds and stop trying to follow all the stupid“best practices and trends for posting and just post what I want without any fancy editing, optimized hooks or annoying click funnels.
The amount of time I spent last year recording videos in different settings about “these three things” or “don’t say that, say this instead” was embarrassing. To make things even worse, there was a negative ROI on almost all of it for me when you add in the time it took me to create the content and the money I spent on vendors producing it.
None of it felt authentic to me but for some reason I felt like I needed to follow the advice of other “experts” so I went along with it.
Not any more.
The older I get, the more obvious it is to me that no one knows what the fuck they’re talking about and we’re all making it up as we go. So, as I turned 50 last month I decided I’d rather bet on myself to figure it out than spend money on someone else to figure it out for me.
Especially now with AI. It’s a super power when used the right way, especially for people who are curious and have a growth mindset. It’s a replacement for those who don’t.
The more I learn about AI and see what’s happening, the more I believe that authenticity is going to be the ultimate differentiator for us humans moving forward which is why I’m refocusing on what I want to do and the value I want to bring to my audience.
Adam Mosseri, the CEO of Instagram, confirmed this in a recent post when he said:
“Authenticity is fast becoming a scarce resource, which will in turn drive more demand for creator content, not less. The creators who succeed will be those who figure out how to maintain their authenticity, whether or not they adopt new technologies.”
So here’s the plan.
I’ve updated all my content to meet the moment and refocus on getting us back to the fundamentals while leveraging AI to help us evolve.
My two certified programs, Filling the Funnel and Driving to Close, cover the majority of the skills needed in today’s sales environment to build a strong foundation while providing an agile framework to test different approaches and find out what works as things evolve.
I’ve mapped out the modules of these programs to align with the 12 months of the year and will be delivering a free training every month on each module.
This will be free for anyone to attend but non-members won’t get the recording or any of the templates/resources I share. If people want the resources they can either take screen shots or join the membership or even just purchase a single module to address a specific skill.
I’ll be delivering the first module of my Filling the Funnel program called “Know Your Sales Equation” this coming Thursday at 11:00 am ET. If you want to learn how to back into your quota for the year and exactly what activities you need to be doing on a daily/weekly/monthly basis then you should definitely join this one.
I’ll also be doing a live Q&A every month after each training session for members only and giving members direct access to me through a private Instagram group where they can DM me with any question they have at any time and I’ll get back to them within 24 hours.
From there I'll be taking back my Instagram “Stories” and sharing what I’m learning along the way and answering any questions people have.
As I write this, I’m on my way to Dubai where I’ll be speaking at the 1Billion Followers Summit on how to build your brand on LinkedIn. I’ve been documenting the journey on IG Stories since I left on Wednesday night so feel free to follow along.
My podcast will continue to focus on people I think make a positive impact on the world and have interesting stories and insights to share like the one I did recently with my Business Coach who helped me recenter my values and refine my “Why” after I lost everything in 2023.
I’ll be continuing to post original content on Linkedin and stop chasing the algorithm and only post when I think there’s something interesting to share or I learned something new.
Speaking of learning something new, I’m constantly playing around with AI to find real world applications of it that actually make a difference. As I find or create AI tools that actually help I’ll be sharing them with you first.
And yes, I’m still going to be working with sponsors and promoting solutions and companies I’m aligned with from a values and value standpoint.
Sponsors are the ones who help fund all the free content I plan on continuing to share so if you could check them out every once in a while I’d really appreciate it. I promise I’ll never take money from a vendor I don’t believe in.
For instance, I’ve decided to partner with Consensus because of how much I can’t stand the “demo” part of the sales process, especially unqualified and canned demos. They’re literally my least favorite part of the sales process and Consensus helps solve it.
They just launched The Consensus Ecosystem which is a “complete blueprint for Revenue Excellence. It goes beyond just automating your demos; it is a unified ecosystem built to address the full spectrum of your revenue motion: the right Tech, the right Strategy, and the right People.”
Check it out and let me/them know what you think.
Finally, one more thing I’m going to be doubling down on in 2026 is gratitude.
If you’ve had a chance to watch my Keynote (Continuous Growth Mindset), you know that ‘Gratitude’ is one of the main characteristics of everyone I know who has continued to grow even through the most challenging of times. It’s also what saved me when I was lost and stuck in neutral for a while after my dad passed away in 2021.
With that, I wanted to say thank you to all of you who have supported me over the years. Every time someone spends their own money to join my membership, follows me on social, signs up to my newsletter, clicks on a sponsor link, comments on or shares a post, writes a review or sends me a DM to support or thank me it means the world to me.
I keep every positive message in a folder on my desktop and any time I’m feeling down or wondering if this is all worth it, I open up that folder and read through messages like the one at the end of this newsletter and they give me all the fuel I need to keep going.
I saw a recent IG clip from Alex Hermozi talking about “luck” that really resonated with me:
“You get lucky by staying in the game long enough for luck to find you. Winning is sure when you keep on going, you know your goal, you understand your priorities and you play it smart "not safe."
I’ve been in the game long enough to make my own luck and will continue to play smart, not safe, I’ll focus on growth, not scale, I’ll keep evolving, not building and I’ll trust myself more than anything or anyone.
So, if you want to get “lucky” with me, let’s Make it Happen together in 2026.
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