The easiest thing you can do to hit your 2026 goals

Holy moly. Here we go. I am so happy to be here with you as we kick off this new year. Happy January. Happy February. Depending on when you're listening. Happy 2026. I gotta say, it's been a while since we have been here and connected and there were a million things that popped up today that almost prevented me from sitting down. You may maybe can tell I've got a terrible cold. It is very much present. Our Internet has been a little shoddy. Someone's been coming in and out to fix that. I may even get a call while we are sitting here. And then on top of that there were just phone calls. I don't even know what was coming up in between all of that. But I was really committed to being here with you today because it's been a while. In this particular episode, I want to share with you just a little bit of a look back and look ahead and I want to dive in and share why I disappeared. Not because it was bad, not because it was wrong, but because it was real. And one of my objectives and goals for the year of 2026 is just to simply connect more. Not always super polished, just however it is. So if you are watching this, you can see I've got some notes out today because I just wanted to go through and look at some things with you and talk through some things with you that I experienced in the last seven months that may also benefit you and give some ideas both from a life and a business perspective. So as we dive in today, I am going to frame this and look at this reflection with you using what we call our reflect and rise circle. It is simply a circle with eight pie pieces to it that divide the areas of life and business that I want to look at and I want to reflect at and share with you. And as we do this, I will walk you through those categories which are that I I look at to sort of assess how am I doing, how am I feeling in life, where am I measuring, where am I reflecting and what am I looking back on? And in fact, this look back to look ahead is absolutely 100% a reflective activity and exercise. And those of you who and I who've known each other for a while may have heard me say before that reflection is deeply powerful. Reflection is so powerful that when I was in my MBA program, our director of that program built it into our assignments that we needed to reflect every week. And I am not one to sit down and reflect, essentially a journaling activity. We were getting graded just to sit down and journal I was like, oh, my gosh, what is the point of this now? I knew there was power to it because I was being graded on it, but I still wanted to go and research and find out more about this. And. And so if you are not one who pauses to sit down and look back and reflect and journal, well, let me tell you, those people who spend even 15 minutes reflecting on their work each day performed about 23% better than those who didn't reflect. So what we are doing here is not simply wasted time. It leads to better outcomes. This is research from Gino Pisano and DiStefano and stats. And so I invite you to pause. There's other research that supports that when you sit down to reflect, it actually also increases happiness levels. So with this in mind, we're going to go through a little bit of a reflection. So I invite you to, number one, if you have any thoughts that come up as I share what I have gone through, let me know. Number two, maybe take this opportunity to reflect on these areas of your life as well and identify some shifts you may want to make, because that's exactly what I do through this process. So let's dive in. Number one, in our reflect and rise circle. I personally look at Soul Fuel. So what is Soul Fuel? To me, it is simply, does my soul feel nourished or not? Now, I'm doing this reflect with you at the beginning of a year as we end the prior year. But I actually do this reflection with myself every single week. In fact, about two months ago, I was on a walk with my husband, and he had no idea that I've been doing this since we were in Ethiopia. So it was probably 2017, 2018. No, no, no. I'm sorry. 2018. Yeah, it was 2018, late 2018, when I started this. So I have been doing this for that long, and even he didn't know it, and it is so powerful, and that Soul F was one that surprised him most. And again, it's simply, do I feel nourished in my soul or not? And if not, right. If I'm not feeling nourished, if my soul is feeling depleted, if my heart, my inner being, is feeling a little bit deleted, when I pause to do this reflection, I think, well, okay, what am I going to do about it? Is this a priority area for me? And Soul Fuel is number one because it happens to be a priority area for me. So in the last year, I got a lot of Soul Fuel. Connection is a big theme that's coming up for me. Being with Friends, I am living in Abidjan, Cote d'. Ivoire. For the first half of last year, I built up an incredible friend community. We got movement together, we did pilates together. We did CrossFit together. We would do hikes together. We would also have post workout brunch together and get coffee together. And that was really powerful for me in the first six months of the year and really got me through the entire year that after being in Cote d', Ivoire, got a little more complicated. So in the first half of last year, Matt was not around. He was working somewhere else while we were living in Abidjan, Cote d'. Ivoire. And it got more and more challenging. The closer it got to us moving away from Abidjan, Cote d' Ivoire, and the closer it got to Matt coming home, the more sort of angst I felt. So it was really a nice thing to have those that. That Soul Fuel really well built into my daily routines because they really got me through. My friends really got me through. So more on all of this as we move through. As I shifted into the second half of the year, I was so grateful that the first half of the year, my Soul Fuel cup was filled up because I needed that for what is to come in the second half of the year. So next category that we look at is family. And as I look at family for last year, and by the way, as I look at each of these categories, the other thing I'm doing on this wheel is I'm identifying how full was my cup in each of these areas. So I'm filling in that circle as I go. Yep, it's full. I was at max. I felt great. Level 10, if you scored it on a scale of 1 to 10 or visually, I just feel fill up that little sliver of the pie in this circle. Soul Fuel all fill family, almost all full. But because my husband was not there for the majority of the year last year, and so that was a bit of a challenge. But also last year, I got the opportunity to spend a lot of time with my family. Between our move from Abidjan, Cote d' Ivoire in West Africa to here in Zagreb, Croatia, in Europe, I spent the summer with family. I spent the summer with colleagues, training and going to masterminds. I hosted a retreat with my clients in Scottsdale, Arizona, where I was also a visiting family. And it was one of the most magical, special experiences that we've had. It was just fun. It was casual. It was. We were just being present together while also supporting each other and building Growing businesses, but also our lives in alignment with that. And while I said this is a family category, I. Family is a value. I pull through my work with my clients as well. So that's why they're coming up here, too. And that was just such a beautiful summer all around. So I really got a lot of family time in throughout the summer because my husband was gone. Family and taking care of my girls was certainly an emphasis for me, but Matt was still gone. So that was the thing. That is the thing here. So we were preparing for that move. We went home for the summer. We came back. Matt joined us. We moved to Croatia. Matt left again. Matt came back. Matt left again. Matt came back. I left for the entire month of December for training to see my nieces and nephews and sisters in Arizona. And then Matt and the girls met me back at home for the holidays. So all of this to share with you. There was a lot going on last year, and family was certainly something that I needed to spend more time on so that I felt present and so that I did what I needed to do. Family, to make sure that things were taken care of, especially while my partner was away. So the next category that I look at is definitely business. And honestly, as I look back all year, and I look back at the full year, this bucket's pretty full. And so Soul Fuel is probably the fullest. Then a smidge down with family, then a smidge down with business, but it is not. It probably wasn't full all year, but as I look back, we did pretty well. We had some things come up throughout the year because I was moving around a lot because we had literally an intercontinental move. I intended last year to do more of this, to do more connecting. We had intended to have a YouTube first sort of presence to connecting with you, but I got about three months, four months into the year, and I took some clients on safari, which was magical. That was incredible. I hosted a retreat with a Masai Mara with a small, intimate group, and we just had the most wonderful time. And I got back from that. Then Matt came home for a brief visit while he was living somewhere else and working somewhere else for that year. And then it was like, oh, I gotta get back to work, but Matt's here. I wanna be present, and I gotta record and I gotta do this and I gotta do that. Oh, my gosh, you guys. I just never got back in a rhythm on the. On connecting with you here, either on YouTube or on our podcast. So there was a little bit of a slowdown there. But it's just because life was happening as I described to you, in that family bucket before. And so there are ebbs and flows to everything. And this is something actually, years ago, when I was starting my business, we designed my business in a way that I could live and work from anywhere, really, really, to collaborate with Matt's job. So Matt's job takes us one place. And my career now was designed and set up for us to be able to go anywhere. And I said to a friend once, oh, man, I really gotta dial it down in this next season. And they said back, like, yeah, okay, you're out there and you're very present sometimes. And then other times you need to step back. And before I might have thought, I've gotta have a bunch of things lined up to be producing and dropping live and being out there all the time even while I'm away. And I released guilt from that this year. I released any commitment or it was really pressure that I was putting on myself to do that. And so I released that. And yeah, certainly that has impact, right? That has impact on the ripple effect that happens through our marketing. I know that. I see that. I track my numbers. I look at numbers regularly, both in my businesses and with my clients. So I know that. But do I feel bad about that this year? No. It's what needed to happen. It was perfectly right on time. And I wanted to stay really present to what I was doing and what I was creating and the people that I was with. And you heard it, both colleagues, family and clients in that situation kind of fell into my family bucket. So there was a little bit of a slowdown on me being here for the second half of last year. But we also did some really other cool things. We tested a few product ideas, we reran some experiences, but we also did some new things. And I'll tell you briefly about those. So one of the things that we did twice last year was an event called Plan Pivot Profit. It's simply an event for business owners who need a plan. They may need to pivot. They likely need to pivot something in their business. You still want to generate profit. So we hosted that event as twice in the first half of the year to then welcome people into our client experience called the Modern CEO where I consult with. So you can business owner. So if you are streamlining, if there's so much on your plate, you have all the ideas. That is what we do inside the Modern CEO. We clear it, we build the plan, we execute the plan. And so it's an implementation Incubator and our experience and our consulting to get your system set up so you are not the bottleneck from here on out. So we did that twice. We also over the summer hosted CEO camp because it is so much fun and we invited people into the modern CEO after that. And then in the fall we hosted the Plan A Thon, which we've hosted every year for the last. Oh my gosh, Was that year 14? I think this was our 14th year of hosting the Plan A Thon, the planning event of the year for entrepreneurs and business owners where you build the plan that we then you're prepared to execute that plan rolling into the new year. So we hosted those, but we did something cool in between those. We hosted something called get it Done. And get it Done was simply a 30 day execution container where I had something big I wanted to get done. So I invited people to come into that container with me for 30 days. And we had a Monday accountability and planning strategy session and there was a co working session throughout the week. And then we regrouped and we got it done. So we kicked it off with what are you getting done? What are your commitments? What's the mo? I shared my model and process for doing that. I have some cool strategies to track what's getting done. We can go into those in another conversation. But I just hosted this very time constrained get it done experience for 30 days and it was fun. And yes, we got things done. So that felt like a lot of fun. Looking back, I think that my thing that I wanted to get done was get going on YouTube and I got going, but then I then life happened. So if you are ever at that place where you're getting going, but life's happening. I feel you, I feel you. And you know what? You are right on time to restart or reset at any single time, maybe even like this moment right now. So we hosted that event. The other thing that we did was pretty cool. And you may notice and you may have seen that live experiences and creating experiences with people for people is something that is really compelling right now. I personally know, I enjoy experiences, but also in the news, right? We're seeing so much about the impact of social media. People sort of dialing back just a little bit. And then of course the rise of technology and AI. And so these experiences are becoming even more important. In fact, I was having a conversation with my friends yesterday and they were saying like, what is even real, right? What is even real anymore? And so if we had the highlight reel before and now we've got AI Doing, you know, AI, Is it real? Is it not real? I don't know. Was that AI? Did they really write that? Is that really them talking? By the way, this is really me. We did not generate this with AI. I've had people come up and be like, is this real? Or I've been on workshops that I've observed other people asking the presenter, wait, are you real right now? Is this really, really? Nobody's answering my question. Like, oh my gosh. So this question is coming up a lot for people. So in my world, consulting, business consulting, of course, that's one of my businesses. I have a couple of businesses, but that's one of my business. This is. But I was like, what is the experience that I can create? What is the experience that we can create? And we had this idea to do with the Plan A Thon, the three day challenge that we host to get your plan together for the year that happens every fall. We hosted a behind the scenes leading up to it where we invited people to come on to our planning calls for the Plan A thon and just watch our team meetings. And we did this for four to six weeks before the actual planning event, before the actual planning Plan A Thon. And so they saw, oh, how's that going? That's not working. Are your ads working? Are they not? They give us, you know, and what surprised us is that the people who joined this VIP experience, we talked to them and they chatted back. We talked to them, hey, how you doing out there? Here's what we're going to move into next. We'd give some background on what we were doing, but then they also surprised us by saying, oh, good idea on that one, or, no, don't do that. That's not a good idea. We don't want that in the Plan A Thon or we don't want that in the experience that you're creating or even in the modern CEO. So it was really fun and we laughed a lot through that experience. At times I felt a little bit like I were in the zoo and I was being watched in the zoo by the people visiting. Yes, I felt a little bit like that at times, but it was really fun. And maybe I'll do a whole separate conversation and episode on that in case it sparks some ideas for you too. Because as we were moving through that, we thought like, oh, this could be a different way to connect with people and share with people. And it absolutely ended up being exactly. That was like, oh, this is a kind of experience that we can create in our Business consulting world, which can, you know, sometimes seem a little boring, but it is so not so then business. The last note I have on business here that I wanted to share with you is about growth. Growth is about profitability, about revenue. So we did not grow tremendously last year. In the year of 2025. There are a lot of business that did not grow tremendously last year. Are there businesses that grew still? Yes, absolutely. And you know what? I'm cheering them on and I'm loving it for them. But for me, it was a year of steadiness. It was a year of consistency, especially in a year when my marketing slowed down. I was a okay with that because again, this is exactly why the business I have just my life operates a certain way, right? We move internationally every two, three years or so. My husband travels for work. I wanted to build a business that I could take anywhere. And I still wanted to be able to serve clients in a really intimate, connected way and feel connected to my clients still. So this is doing that. That is part of my purpose, financials aside, right. So the reality that I could do that and sort of continue to fulfill that purpose and revenue stayed steady, did not drop. Profitability came up a smidge from 2024. But to be fair, in 2024 I made some investments and my profitability was a little bit low. So I. I just. Norma profitability in 2025. And so I wanted to share that with you in case you were in a season of not growth. Maybe you were in a season of back going, backsliding a little bit or you were. If you grew. We are so cheering you on. I freaking love it. And it is all right on time. So good, but not wild. Growth and expansion last year and not every year is going to be about that. If you are running a business over time, there are years that are going to ebb and they're gonna flow and things are gonna slow down and they're gonna speed up. But what is so important is that we stay in it and you come back and you hit play and you hit go. Even if there are a million things that could pull you back from doing the thing that you actually want to do. Props to you and cheers to you for showing up and staying in the game. And I was thinking about you today when I. All those things were coming up for me when I was. Oh, okay. I've got a cold. I could not record today. Oh, now the Internet team is here. Excuse me. I'm so sorry. I love it that the Internet team is here, but Things to do. Should I move this to tomorrow? No, I'm ready to go. I was pep talking myself the entire morning because it is time to hit play on you getting to where you want to be going. So with that I'm going to move from Soul Fuel to family to business to now my client bucket. And if you're wondering, wait, I thought we just talked about business and your clients a couple times in your family category too. That was, that was random and unexpected but it's right on time. Yes, I also in this eight part circle that I go through in our reflect and rise circle, I look at clients separately. I run through my head, are there any clients I need to check in on right now? I need to follow up with a few people. Is there anything my clients need for me? I will check what we call our weekly focus Finder and check I'll if I checked the weekly focus Finder where clients can share what they are working on this week so I can pop in and support or curate resources for them as needed. I check is there anything I did not complete that a client may be looking for on that list? And actually I just thought of something that I need to send over to someone this week. Then my next category is money and I've already talked a bit about clients so I won't go into too much more detail there. So next category is money, Money, money, money, money. So I absolutely think about money in terms of personal finances and business finances. But I do put it into one bucket there because they flow. Bunny flows like water is a quote that recently came back to me and it remember that because I like to see funds build up and grow in my bank account. And I am reminded that investing and flowing with money, investing in masterminds, investing in consultants, certainly I invest in my team is a way of keeping the money flowing. My husband is much better at this. As we look at our personal finances, he will walk around, he's like, it's flowing, it's flowing. I was like, okay, yeah, the money's flowing. Flow some back around. And so we have different perspectives there. But it is good balance and it is a beautiful thing. And financially, as we look at all this, there are some big things happening in our world right now. So I'm keeping a closer eye on this. When we are in a year of moving, when we are in seasons of launching or we have marketing campaigns going or ads going or we're making other investments, I do track my finances a little bit. Closely. More closely. Otherwise, my routine around finances is to review Our P. L's twice a month. I'm looking at what I'm seeing mid month and what's been spent and what is still coming. And then end of month, of course, I'm looking at our entire financial picture in the business and with us personally. And then if we're in a big season of those campaigns, moving, et cetera, I will actually look at money every. Every week and sometimes every day, depending on how much is happening. So we're in a big season right now. We are building a house in Wisconsin, which will be our primary home and the place that we land and go back to when we are in the States between our international moves and travels. And so that's happening. Of course. I've got business stuff. The kids are of an age where things just keep coming up. You too, There are school trips and there are events and activities and birthday parties and other healthcare. I don't know. There's just so much that's popping up. So we keep a close eye on that. And over the years it sort of ebbs and flows for us personally. Sometimes my husband is a little bit more on that, and sometimes I am a little bit more on that. And right now it's very much a team effort. I am keeping an eye on the big picture. So just like you would have a budget or a forecast for your business, we have one for our family. So I keep an eye on that for our family. And then he is keeping an eye on the day to day and making sure everything's taken care of day to day, moment to moment. The bills that are popping up here, we have new bill routines since we moved to a new country, and we've got new vendors and utilities, et cetera to pay here, here in Zagreb. So he's keeping an eye on that. So we do divide that, we do split that. We do have very different viewpoints on money, but we've blended that and have good conversation and laugh about it over the years. The next category I look at is wellness. And this was also a big one for me this year. And I'm. I'm doing okay. I'm actually probably. I'm doing really good, but I have some more goals in here. And now that I am settled in one location, I'm not. I'm not doing any big trips. We'll do some little trips in our region, but we don't have any big trips planned for the first six months of the year. I am locking in on this just a little bit more because while I kept my routines in 2026 through moves and vacations. I did six weeks in the summer in the States. We're hopping all around. I did four weeks in December in the States or maybe five. I still kept my routines. I was really proud of myself. I kept going to Pilates. I kept doing my. Some of my hit routines. I did less HIIT last year and a little bit more strength, but I ramped them up at the year end with my husband and my daughter, so I kept all of that going. So I was really proud of myself. But now that we are stationary, I want to dial a few more things in. And this is fairly new for me. There was a season in my life in my 20s, where I was in really good. I was fit, I was eating well, I was taking good care of myself. And then, you know, again, life happens. Babies, moves, college. And in the last three migraines, oh, my gosh, my chronic migraines hit, and I was trying to regulate all of that. And then the last three years, three and a half now, beginning when we moved to Abidjan, Cote d', Ivoire, I started getting much more into movement. I had a trainer there who led community training classes and then also did privates. But the community training classes, he. They were open, invite, open house kind of style two days a week. And I started by going just once a week. That was all I could handle. Then I started going twice a week. Okay. And this was like, over months that this is happening. Then I think about seven, eight months in, I was like, all right, I'm ready to add on one personal training day a week. So I got up to three days a week. But I really liked this trainer's philosophy, and it may be relevant and helpful for you too. But he said that he knew about my migraines, so he wanted to be mindful of those. He's like, we are not going to push it too far. That trainer did not believe in no pain, no gain, because he wants you to show up another day. It's like, it's. It doesn't matter how hard we push it today if you can't show up again for training. So we don't want to push it past beyond your current limits. And that bar is gonna keep getting raised and keep getting raised and keep getting raised, but it's gonna happen over time. And honestly, I feel the same way about connecting. It is way weird to come back today on YouTube. It is way weird to come back today on the podcast, but it might be weird at first, but the more we show up, the more we Connect, the stronger we get. Our upper limit just keeps tipping up, tipping up, tipping up. So he had a big belief that no, we don't do no pain, no gain and we don't wanna push it too far. Cause I want you to come back another day. So just wanna end. And I do that in a lot of areas of my life. But that philosophy allowed me to get from one day a week that was really, really, really frickin hard to two days a week to three days a week to now I would love to work out every day, but I force myself to build in rest days. So wellness feeling pretty good. But the other thing I'd like to do is I've just got now some micro things that I'd like to dial in micro things. And I wanna just optimize, optimize, optimize all of those things in my wellness routines. I also need to eat a little bit better. Okay, enough said there. That's it, that's all I'm gonna say. And I need to drink more water. Anybody else? 2026 drinking more water? Here we go. Let's do it now. Thank you. Needed that. So wellness. In addition, I've gotten pretty good about going to regular doctor's appointments and checkups and really leveraging all sorts of wellness healing vehicles that are presented to me and made available. My friends and I go get our annual mammograms together. Do it, do it, do it. We encourage each other. Actually have to do that in January. I'm a few months behind. The last time I did it was last year with all my friends a year ago. Actually, year and a half, year and a few months now. We went together as a group, which was, made it fun and we encouraged each other. So I've got a, you know, do all those things, do all the things that we need to do. And I want to keep an eye on that because I want to stay well to enjoy this beautiful life that we are building. And then the last thing is that white space. White space, White space. White space is my next category. I got a lot of good white space in 2025 and I expect that will fully continue in 2026 because of how I have designed and redesigned my life. Let me tell you more. I used to be embarrassed about this, but I'm not embarrassed anymore. In fact, I was having a conversation with my husband actually, and I was telling him I was a little embarrassed about this. And then I realized, you know what, I love this life that we are building and there is so much possibility that I'M not going to be embarrassed anymore. So here we go. Here we go. The I have how I do my white space and my white space game has been pretty strong for about, I'd say since 20, actually 2020, 2020 when we all got a whole lot of space there. But my sister walked in once and I was in a sauna bag, like a sauna zipper zip up bag, my husband calls it my sweat sack. And I was heated up and she was like, wow, what are you doing? And I was like, oh, just in the sauna, had an ice pack on, I was cooling down. Listen. I don't know, I was listening to a podcast or meditation or something. She's like, wow, this is really impressive. This is so good for your kids to see. And that locked it in for me. I'm like, oh my gosh. Not only is this self care good for me, it is important for my kids to know that we're going to take care of ourselves so that you can pour in and serve more and give and connect with other people in beautiful ways and do the things you want to do. So, so that moment and my sister's comment really locked it in for me. But this white space is just do I have enough space in my days to relax, recharge, to reset, to reflect, to think? Or am I just spinning? Am I just running on the hamster wheel? Which you probably know is so easy to do with all of the people that you are taking care of, building what you're building, moving towards the goals that you have. Right? It is easy for that to do list to fill up. But I did something, two things very specifically to keep that space. Number one, I have one week on my calendar every month for white space. I call it Productivity week. Actually, I've called it a few different things over the years. I've called it productivity week. I've called it goal done week. I've called it right now it's in my calendar is 24 aligned, which I'll tell you about in a second. But I have this space on my calendar once a month that is blocked. So while I have booking links out there that people can book time with me, just not that week. Will I still take calls if they come up? Sure, if something comes up with someone. But it is, it is just a reset of how I'm operating that week so that if I have something big that I need to get done or if I just need reflective space, that can be the space to do it. So I know that every month from now to eternity on my calendar, the last week of every month, beginning with Sunday. So the last Sunday of every month kicks off a one week productivity week block for me. And I just know I've got space there. So I can never run too hard, too fast without having a little bit of space. So I have time to recuperate, time to recharge, time to renew, time to slow down, to speed back up. The other thing I've layered in is a limit on my work week. Now, is this something that I'll do forever? I have no idea. But I realized that I could get everything I needed to get done, like the hands on the keyboard work, the sitting here in conversation, recording, preparing marketing work, the meetings with my team, the meetings with my clients, all in about 24 hours per week. And so what I did is I said, what if you just make this real because what was happening otherwise, maybe you can relate to this. This definitely happens in offices that I have worked, worked in in the past. But what happens is you sit down, you work, you gotta run to get a cup of coffee, you sit down to work, someone comes by and says hello, you sit down to work, you get a phone call, the Internet people come, you know. And so what I realized is if I stop just like bopping around and trying to do things between other activities and I get diminishing returns because of context, swishing. Because when you get in focus and then you get out of it, it takes about 20 minutes to get back into the focus zone that you were in getting that work done. So we're losing time by the switching, switching, switching, switching. So what I did is I thought, what if I don't switch anymore? Like really don't switch. And I lock in and I compress the time that I work. So if I might have worked in the morning and then gone to work out and then I'm working again and then, then I'm doing something else and then I'm working and then I'm not, and then I'm working and then I'm not. If I just compress all of that into an after a solid afternoon, into evening block for myself, I would get as much or more done in a very short amount of time. This has been like the theme of my life. 90 day plans do this, 6 week plans do this. Like we can do sprints. There are a lot of ways we can design a bringing our strategy to life that help us do this. But then I wanted to bring it in even more to my day to day, week to week. And so how it works for me is that it is generally Monday, six hours, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, six hours. So. Oh, that's not right. What would that put us at? That would put us at the 24. Oh, yeah, that is right. And I generally don't work Fridays. Now, this week is an exception. I did not work Wednesday of this week. I did two calls and actually I did one more impromptu call. So I did three calls. I did three hours of work because I had. I did a strength training session. I did brunch with friends, which was awesome. Then I needed to run an errand, I had to take a script to the pharmacy. And then I made dinner. Over lunchtime, I made dinner for the family. Then I did my calls, and then I went back to dinner with the family. So it was only three hours, not six. So I'm likely gonna pick those up on Friday because I got goals, y', all. And it's flowing right now. So would I pick that up every week on Friday? Not necessarily, but I'll give myself that flexibility. But typically it is 6, 6, 6, 6. And Friday, Saturday, Sunday off for me. Now, if you think about that, six hours is kind of a full day if lunch breaks, et cetera. You could see how an eight hour workday kind of gets chipped away with conversations, water cooler talk, chit chat, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Context switching, right? So I just compress it. I compress it so much so that last year, one of the things I didn't mention is that I took back doing my social media for 99% of my social media and it slowed way down, way down. But it was more about me living what I was doing, where we were going, where we were moving. Family, nieces, right? My adventures in Zagreb once we got here, going to the market, my new Pilates place, finding the hair place, all the things you got to do when you move that. The friend said, I look at your social media and I wonder, amber, do you ever work? I'm like, oh, my gosh. Yeah, I work. But I go do all the things I need to do in the morning. Then I sit down around noon or 1pm and I lock, lock in. At that point, I'm not thinking about social media. I am thinking, let's go. Like, I got things I need to do. I need to knock it out. Boom, boom, boom, boom. I'm checking things off. I am locked in. No distractions. And that is a way that you can get more done in less time. So that is my 24 hour workweek that I really embraced and embodied and stuck to in a big way in 2025 that allowed me to be filled right up on this white space bucket. So if you're curious about that, definitely send me a message over on Instagram. You can message me on instagram@amber McHugh.com forward/instagram. It'll take you straight to my DMs. And if you. I'd love to hear from you if you want to say hi. And if you type in the words 24, the number 2424. I'll send you over more info on that. Now, the other thing with Whitespace is that I also did my six weeks in the States. My routines were different there. I did host a client routine. I did have a couple calls. We did do CEO camp, but I had a whole lot of space between all of that. I took. I did the safari. Harper and I went to Marrakesh on a daughter mother trip while Audrey went on a different trip. I had some good downtime with Matt when, when we were together last year. And I went home for four or five weeks without kids in December. And that was honestly, it was about three and a half, four weeks without them. That was the longest I have ever been away from my children. I did it because I needed to go back for training and it didn't make sense for me to fly back to Croatia. I was trying so hard to get them to come back to the States earlier to meet me, but they had had school and they had commitments here that they needed to see through. So I met with them. I think I left on December 1st and I saw them on December 21st, maybe 21st or 22nd. And so that was the longest I have ever been away from them. So I had that big space. But I gotta tell you, it was magical. I didn't, I didn't. It's just so different. It was so different to be on my own, not worrying about anyone but what I needed. Does everybody have their toothbrush? Didn't. It was just me. Even the little things. Did everybody eat breakfast? It was just me. That was weird. That was so weird for me. But truly it was magical. And I'm grateful that my husband was home to take to be with the girls while I was away. And then I wouldn't have done that otherwise for that long, likely. And I'm really grateful that the girls were like, yeah, we're fine. Get out of here. Like, oh, okay, good. So that was great. I went away for training and then I went to help my sisters with nieces and my nephew. They had stuff going on as well. So I was helping out a little bit there. Then I had a week where I just oh, I popped over to San Diego to see my oldest daughter Lily and spend some time with her before I met Matt and the girls back in, back in Chicago. So that was awesome. So loads of white space. I don't know if I'll have that much in 2026, but I won't complain. I won't complain if it works out again that way. That was really nice. Then the last bucket in my Reflect and Rise circle that I check in on pie number eight is general. Generally speaking, how are you feeling? Because even if I'm feeling great in all of those other areas, I might feel different generally. And even on the times when I'm not feeling great in all those other areas, I might generally not feel great. So that's something I pay attention to too. And I just ask myself what do I need to shift? What do I want to do differently? One year, my movement, I overall felt fine and felt great, but my wellness was really low. And I asked myself, you're saying wellness is a priority but you're not doing the things you want to do against that. Is this really a priority for you? Like and if it is? So my answer was yes as I reflected and self coached and asked myself these questions and then I asked myself, all right, if you're saying this is a priority, what are you going to do about it? And that started to change my thinking and I started to get in better routines there around wellness because we've just got to make those things that are important to us a priority and everything is not going to fit. There are going to be things we have to cut. I shared with you that last year I streamed line some of my organic marketing a little bit and that has impact. Yes, but we're always making a decision and honestly it's all going to work out right on time. So stay in it, keep going. Let me know if you want to DM me on Instagram as well. Amber McHugh.com forward/instagram just comment rise R I S E and we'll also pop you over the Reflect and Rise circle if you want to go through this methodology for yourself as well. But with that it is 2026 and it's go time. In fact, my word of the year. Do you set a word of the year? I said a word of the year and I like to have fun with my word of the year. Sometimes it's been, it's been like I think Grace was a word. One year, ease and flow, you know, was a word. Another year last year, my word was jackpot. Because I wanted living to feel like a jackpot. Or moved to Croatia. I wanted it to feel like a jackpot. I wanted the move to be so easy. Jackpot. Easy, easy, easy. All good. But safari retreat was definitely a jackpot. I will do that anytime. That was my third safari. Loved it. Jackpot. So word of 2025. Jackpot 2026. I feel like last year and actually the last year and a half, because my partner in crime, my husband, was gone for quite a while, I feel like I did have to slow down in certain areas of my life a little bit. Is it bad? No, I'm. I'm all filled up. It's okay. But I did. I do feel like I either hit pause or I was playing at 0.75. And this year, I am ready to press play, press go. So play is my word of the year. I'd like to hit play this year at 1.25 speed. But also I want to have fun with this. I want. I want the things that we are doing in business and life to have an element of fun and play to them. So this word has double meaning, but 1.25x speed, please. It's time to hit play. And if you are up for it, I would love to hear from you. Let's keep connecting. Let's stay in it. Remember, if you are stuck on something, just getting started is the hardest part. But start where it is easy and let's go. 2026 is gonna be a good one. I'm so happy to be here with you. Thanks for hanging out. You are right on time.