4 Things to Do NOW to Make 2026 Your Breakthrough Year
11 Dec 2025 · 23 min
Podcast episode by Lori Harder (recorded Dec 11, 2025) advising small business owners how to prepare for 2026. Central message: "slow down to speed up" — build clarity, systems, and congruent messaging before chasing rapid growth; four practical rules are presented (clarity over volume; systems before speed; clean up leaks; congruency creates trust), plus traffic strategy and capacity checks. The episode contains multiple sponsor reads (Next Insurance, Glossy/GetGlo, Blinds.com, Northwest Registered Agent, Aura Frames) and CTAs promoting two paid masterminds (Elite Entrepreneur Mastermind for higher-earning founders; Mentor Collective Mastermind for those under ~$500k). Tone is motivational, practical, and promotional.
Chapters
Up the next year and heading into a new one. A time when small business owners reflect.
We plan, we reset.
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It because of the Year of the.
Snake or shedding or not, you can't deny that this is the type of year that we had. And moving into 2026, if you want, you could make it your Fire Horse Energy year, which is about momentum, it's about speed, it's about just making a lot of progress. Now there's going to be certain things that you're going to have to embody and do, whether you believe in Fire Horse or not, whatever you want to say. It's kind of fun just to put some, some names on and titles on it that if you do these things, you will notice momentum anyway during what could be a very challenging time in the world, because how people are buying is different. The way that they're thinking is different, the way that they're trusting is different. So if we can follow through on these things, you will be setting yourself up for a year where you can ride that fire horse and have that massive momentum in your life, relationships and business. But the theme for the end of year and the beginning of next year is slow down to speed up. It's kind of that idea where you have to pull back the arrow in order to launch. Because what's going to happen is if you start doing all of the momentum actions, top of funnel actions, your social media starts popping off, your messaging is getting clear, but you don't have the foundation. What can happen is that you're driving the eyeballs to something that will not convert, right? Or you have something that could convert, but you're not driving the eyeballs if you don't have the foundation of the different things that you know that you want to be doing. So even though you've heard me saying a lot that you're definitely going to have to work a bit harder. It's not necessarily a push harder season. It is a clarity season, it's a skill set season. It's a deep learning season. So I don't want you to just go and push harder everywhere and be like, I just have to do more, do more. It's about getting very clear and specific and working very hard in those areas to learn that skill set and get very clear and build the foundation. So people are feeling a lot of pressure right now to sprint into the new year, but sprinting without clear direction is going to lead to exhaustion because it's just going to be chaos. It's not going to create customers. Right? It's not going to create conversion if you're sprinting without a foundation. It's only going to create chaos. So this is what we're talking about this year. Fire Horse is speed, visibility, risk and bold moves. Snake energy with systems precision, sustainability and alignment. You need both of these. You need both of these, but you don't want them in the wrong order because that energy of 2026 that's coming in is super powerful. But if it runs without the systems, without the sustainability, without the clear messaging, without feeling really aligned with this message and clear on what it is, you're going to burn everything down. So this last year was trying to show you where your cracks are. It's trying to show you what foundation that you need to work on. So any of the things that stopped working, there it is. There is the exact sign of you need to spend some energy here. If you notice that your social is not working, if you notice that even if you were driving traffic, that once they got to your landing pages, that your landing pages were not converting, maybe your copy was not good, maybe you weren't giving enough info about the product, Maybe the product wasn't good. So you don't need to speed up by adding more. You speed up by creating systems and having really clear messaging. So I'm learning so much of this literally right now in Glo and we have a lot of foundational work that we are working through right now, which is so exciting and things that we're cleaning up. Because as you grow, you start to really get clear on what your messaging is. And this is a message that I want you guys to get. Like, you don't get to fully know who you are out in the world and what your message, even to your customers, even if you think you do know, you don't know until you put it out in the world and people reflect back to you how they're experiencing you, your message and what you're doing. So we could put massive dollars behind certain ads, right? Or certain messaging. But if I haven't tested that messaging, if I don't know for sure it is working, why would I ever put so much money to drive eyeballs to something that I'm not sure how it fully converts yet? So if your branding is not fully dialed in, if the messaging isn't tight.
If the back end is not ready.
For it, more eyeballs is just going to expose more of the cracks because you're going to watch it fall off, you're going to watch it not convert. So this season is about tightening Your messaging first, tightening your messaging first and making sure that all of the ways that you're going to be catching that traffic and converting that traffic are solid. So scaling doesn't break a business, but scaling something extremely unprepared does. So there's going to be rules for next year that you're going to make sure that you do. So rule number one is clarity over volume. So it's not necessarily about more offers at all. Right. I just did a podcast with Maria, went, and she was like, one offer. Get so clear on one offer for one year. And I really, really believe this to my core, you guys. It's so powerful. If you could just put all of your messaging there, then as you grow, you can do more. But if you are newer and people don't know who you are yet or what you do, one offer is going to be your ticket. Going deep on one offer. So it's about a clear message that people can repeat back to you. Okay, Taking a moment for a rich girl tip for you. If you're somewhere between 500k and a million and trying to scale beyond that and feeling weirdly stuck right now, I'm gonna tell you something that no one in your circle is gonna ever tell you. You're not stuck. You're just surrounded by people who can't take you where you want to go. So we need to be honest. You've outgrown your current circle. You've outgrown the rooms that you're in. And probably a whole lot of the advice that you have been getting is only going to have you regress or keep you stuck exactly where you are. So, rich girl rule number one, proximity is a power move, you guys. You can't scale from asking people who haven't built what you want. And number two, if you're the one mentoring everyone, you're in the wrong room. So trust me, Chris and I have learned this the very expensive way. I have to tell you, this is going to hurt. We once paid 75k each for a mastermind where we were the most successful people in the room. Cute for our ego, terrible for our business and our pocketbooks. That was one of the most expensive, expensive lessons we've ever had to learn. No one was stretching us. No one had the answers that we really needed to scale. No one was playing much bigger than us. And we will never do that again. You guys, everything changed when we finally got into the spaces where people talked. Investments, systems, scale, and hiring like CEOs, not just hustling more rooms where conversations Literally collapse timelines, you guys. And that's why we created the Elite Entrepreneur Mastermind. It is two, three and a half day luxury in person retreats with incredible experiences and it's monthly challenge solving calls, it's direct access to Chris and myself. It's a curated high level network where money moves faster because everyone is thinking so much bigger. Thinking big and making millions of doll is the baseline in this room. So if you're ready for that type of room that finally matches your ambition, if you're done being the biggest thinker and pouring into everyone in your space and not getting poured into, just go to Instagram and DM me the word apply. Or you can go to show notes and you can click on the link below that says Elite Entrepreneur Mastermind. I will send you all of the details and from there we can book a call if you have more questions. You guys, don't forget about rule number three is to not wait for your circle to elevate you. Get in the room that literally upgrades your entire identity. And we also have the mentor collective Mastermind. If you have not hit over 500k yet, so go and check that out and I am so excited to spend time with you in these incredible in person rooms next year. Rule number two is systems before speed. If you couldn't handle five times the traffic tomorrow, you're not ready to scale. You want to build the systems and the infrastructure before you start chasing those dopamine hits by trying to get a viral reel or something where it drives a ton of traffic, but you don't have the page or the message or the sustainability to convert. So rule number three, you want to clean up leaks in your life and in your business. So money leaks, energy leaks, maybe there's someone on your team that you're like, they're just bringing the team down. I'm telling you, one bad team member can absolutely change the entire game for everybody. And it is your job as the person who owns the business to be the end all. Like to be the person that really protects that team and makes sure that every single person on that team is a fit and that you're all working together really well and everybody is holding up their end of the bargain. Or what happens is resentment builds and the team literally will end up being determined by the person who is robbing all of the energy. And it tells your team that they are not someone who's important on the team if you are not willing to protect them. So your A players are not going to want to stay with you if you are not willing to fight for the culture of your business. So you're going to want to clean up all those leaks. And if something hasn't been working, you have to get honest in your business. You can't drag it into next year. It's not going to work. It's going to bring your business down faster than it did this year. You need to face the hard things. Number four, congruency creates trust. Does your brand look and feel the same everywhere? This is something I'm working on with Glossy and my personal brand. You guys, I am a multi passionate Sagittarius. I have never struggled with something more like brand congruency everywhere. I like want to talk about this over here and that over there. It's not working anymore. The biggest brands on earth, literally the brands that are unicorns, that are billion dollar companies, they have a repeatable tagline. People could say exactly what they do and what it is and that's what they lead with. It doesn't mean that's the only thing they do.
It means that's what they lead with.
And people can repeat that back to them. So is your story aligned between your podcast, between your website, between your social, your pitch that you do? Like, this is all things you'll see being cleaned up in my brand right now, it is not even fully cleaned up. I'm fully preaching to the choir right now. And when I say that, it's like I am going to be taking the next three months to work really, really hard on the foundation so that I can run and really drive people to a brand that feels cohesive and very clear. And this is going to take some work. Like I said, I am in this for probably the next three months working to clear everything up and look at what that is like. I am going to be a weekend warrior for a while right now because people buy what they understand, not what they have to decode. So any cutesy words, any overly spiritual jargon, anything that they're like, what the hell does that mean? I don't understand. I don't relate to it. It's not gonna work. That does not convert anything super cutesy. And this was something I used to do in the past all the time. Like even my book title, Are you kidding me? I would go back and change that in a hot second. A Tribe Called Bliss. What the hell is that for? Who is it for? What does it do? Oh, my God, what a terrible name. Anyway, you know, it's. If that title was more clear, I can only imagine what would have happened. Because it did pretty good. But if that title was clear, can you imagine if people were like that's for me? People can't say that's for me to a title. They don't know what it means or what it does or spot themselves in it. So I want you to think about your messaging. Could you clearly explain what you do in a sentence? Is it the same everywhere? Do your bios change all over the place from place to place like mine do right now, which I'll be changing very soon? Brand identity does it feel cohesive or chaotic? Which one is it? Does it feel really good? Is it clear? Is it like oh this feels so good to see what I do out in the world and feel like this is my stake in the ground. It feels amazing. And this is where how it shows up Every single platform I have for your offers? Is the path from follower to buyer to repeat buyer obvious? Do they know the path that they should be taking and is it clear? Is it like this is where you start, this is what you could move into. This is where you could buy again or purchase again, whatever that looks like.
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Number four, traffic strategy. Are you trying to go viral or are you trying to convert? Because chasing virality or learning to convert is two very different things. And then the last one, capacity. Could your current systems sustain real growth? Are they repeatable? If you lost one or two people on your team right now, could somebody else come in and have a system to know exactly how things work in your business? So. So I really want you to take this year. I know we're talking so much about momentum. January is going to hit and you're going to want to feel like you're going to do all of the things, but one of the most important things you can do is slow down. And it's not failure, it's precision, you guys. It's precision for the next year so that you can absolutely run. And when you think about a race car, which I have watched all of the race car shows, my husband is obsessed with cars. So Ford versus Ferrari. When you watch what goes in to a race car and what they have to do and how much time they spend tweaking and going back to the track and tweaking again and going back to the track, they have to be so precise and work so hard and so often with so many different teams to make this car something that can go faster. So there's so much time that goes into going fast that people don't realize. It's like we just see it on the track, right? We're like, whoa, that's amazing. Amazing. That person's amazing. The car is amazing. That's insane. But there was so much tweaking and dialing in in order to do that. And that's exactly what it's going to be like in your business. Because the most powerful businesses take a major pause whether it's with their team, with whether it's with themselves. You'll see a lot of big business owners and founders go on retreats. They'll go on silent retreats, they'll go do meditation retreats because they have to go get quiet. They have to go figure out what's not working in the business. They have to go and take those team meetings where it's a week long and you just grind and figure out out what's not working in the business because you have to pause to really align before you can accelerate. So next year's success is determined by the cleanup that you are willing to do. So you don't speed up by adding more. You speed up by creating systems and having really clear messaging, you guys. So I'm so grateful for you, if you are ready to speed up with a group of people and go through all of these things, if you're really ready to really have somebody to help you integrate a solid foundation for next year, you're going to want to be in our mentor Collective Mastermind. If you're making 500k or below. So anywhere from 25k to 500k, if this is the range that you're in, you're going to want to join mentor Collective Mastermind because it is where you're going to get a coach for every single area of your business, whether that is marketing, whether that is funnels, whether you have questions on many chat, whether you have questions on your messaging, whether you have legal questions. We have an attorney in there, we have an AI expert in there, we have a teams expert in there. So whatever it is that you are working on, or maybe you're really building your team team, maybe you're trying to figure out how to let go of team. These are all things that you get to work out with the coaches in there. And we have on demand answers. So we do loom coaching back and forth, which means that when you give your question whether you have a problem literally this moment and you want to know the answer, you're going to get a loom video back within 24 to 48 hours from 1 of our incredible coaches in there. Depending on who you're asking, and this is unlimited, you could be asking all the coaches things you can work with. One coach coach and Chris and I are in their coaching every other week answering all of your questions face to face. You guys, it is one of the most fun things that I get to do. So all you have to do is go drop the word mentor on any of my posts on Instagram, any of them, and I'll send you information on it. Or you can send me a DM and ask me questions as well. So you guys, I can't wait to work with you. These are all the exciting things that we'll be working on throughout the next year and I'm working on them in my business as well. So whatever is really working for me, I'm sharing in there as well. And, and I am excited to be able to spend this time with you and get to know you and get to know your name and your face and all of the things, because those people in our program really are the people that we're so excited to be working with. So you guys go and check it out and I will see you next week.
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