This Is The Worst Business Advice For 2026 (& I fell for it)

Right now it feels like everywhere you look, somebody's posting a video about how to make a million dollars in your business this year. And I want to be very clear about something because I love being completely transparent. Most of that advice because I've watched those videos is built on a version of life Most business owners that I work with on a day to day basis don't actually have. It assumes you can work whenever you want to, that you don't have kids home during the summer, that you're not the default parent to take kids to appointments, pick them up if they're sick from that you don't possibly have caretaking responsibilities of your own parents. And that sometimes your business isn't the main source of income for your entire family. And when you're already in fight or flight mode with your business trying to keep sales consistent, trying to stay visible and trying not to burn out, being told to just plan your million dollar year can feel honestly insulting. Here's what I don't hear anyone ever talking about in these videos. Most people chasing that dollar year have never actually stopped and asked if they even need it. A lot of us get wrapped up in this number because the industry decided that's what success looks like right now. And a few years ago, that number was 10k months. Same pressure, just different packaging. The moment this advice stopped making sense to me wasn't because I couldn't do it. It stopped making sense to me because I sat down and I did the math. Not aspirational math, not dreaming math, not vision boarding math, the real math. How much I actually need to live, how much I need in my business to keep it moving forward. How much I want to save, how much I want to invest, how much time I want off, how I want my days to actually feel. And when I added that all up, it wasn't even close to a million dollars. And that's when I realized something that changed everything for how I look at my business. I wasn't exhausted because my business wasn't big enough for me. I was exhausted because I was chasing a number I didn't even need. You don't need a big business. You need a simpler one. Here's the part nobody's saying out loud. Most million dollar year advice assume you have some type of margin. Margin in your time, margin in your energy, or margin even in your finances. It assumes you're not trying to keep your business alive. It assumes you're just optimizing it. Most business owners that I've been working with in the last few months aren't just trying to optimize their business, they're trying to stabilize it. In the last year so many things have changed in the online space with online courses and coaching and services that what used to work doesn't work anymore. And my clients are trying to figure out what is it that can work right now and get their business stable again. They're trying to make sure sales don't keep dipping. They're trying to stay visible and balance their client work without needing to be online all the time with a boatload of content to do that. And when you're in that place of balancing, keeping sales consistent, seeing sales drop from what they used to be, and doing your client work while trying to do content that brings more people in to keep your sales consistent, being told to vision board your way to an a million dollar year, it's disconnected I want to pause for a moment and ask you to answer this question down in the comments. What is the biggest problem that you're having in your business right now? Is it that what used to get you sales isn't working anymore? Is it that had an offer that converted well, that's not converting. Is it not getting in front of the same amount of people that you used to with the content you created? I just love to hear where everybody is at right now with their business. So please share in the comments. Another thing I want to mention here that a lot of people giving you this million dollar business advice, they aren't telling you the full picture. This is why I came out to decide to be completely transparent in my business. Because when I watch these videos what I'm not being told is how big is their team? So how many people do they actually have working for them? How much are they spending on ads? What does their profit margin actually look like? Because cool, you can make a million dollars, but if you spend a million dollars to make a million dollars, what's the point? And they're not telling us how many hours a week they are actually working to do this. Here's my rundown for transparency. My team is myself and one full time employee, Aaron who is my client success coordinator. And then we also work with a contractor that is our Facebook ad manager. How much do I spend on ads? I spend between 9 to $10,000 a month on ads and I'm making anywhere between 40,000 to $50,000 a month, sometimes upper to 60,000amonth and I am working about 25 hours a week. I do not work on Fridays. I start my work days at 10am and I wrap up at 3:30pm Monday through Thursday. So just making a million dollars in your business does not mean the same thing as keeping a million dollars in your business. And it's definitely not having a business that supports your life. Because I don't know about you. I don't want my business to run my life. I've been there and I've decided to never go back there again. I want to ask you the question that changed everything for me and if you feel open enough to share your answer down in the comments box, I would love to hear from you. Because I think this is the question that is missing from all of these conversations. When it comes to a million doll business, how much money do you actually need to live the life you want to live? Not the industry number, not the Internet number, your number. I told you earlier when I sat down to do this and I looked at my family monthly expenses, my business monthly expenses, what I wanted to save, what I wanted to invest, how much time I wanted to take off, how much I actually wanted to work each week, and the kind of stress I was willing and not willing to carry. That's when I saw my number was nowhere near a million. And maybe yours isn't either. I would love to hear. Because that's when it finally ticked. That's when it finally set in. I realized I don't have a bad business. I realized I was actually running a business that worked for me in my life and what I needed. Let me be very clear with all of this though. I'm not saying a million dollar business is a bad thing. Just take caution when you are watching these people advising you on growing your business and hitting a million dollar year. Is what they are sharing with you actually working in this right now? Or is it what worked in the past? Because what's working right now in 2026 is completely different because the online industry has shifted, has changed because of AI. Passive courses alone are not going to get you to a million dollars in one year. Information is readily available everywhere now because of AI. And what's going to scale? What's going to actually make you sales in your business right now is access. Access to you. Your perspective, your feedback, your insight. And that's why the business models that still work are built around community building or having a community space, coaching, proximity, real one on one support or group support. And that requires simplification. Not more offers, not more content and not being on more platforms. The fastest way that I'm seeing my clients slow their growth is by fragmenting their business Panicking because they're not making the sales they used to. So they try to come up with another offer, they try to create another funnel, they try to create more content. And all of that does is creates more chaos for you and for your audience to understand what to actually buy from you by having one clear offer, one clear audience, and one clear way for people to find you is what is going to work in 2026 if you do want to get to a million dollar year. I did an ent on how I simplified my business to the power of one. One offer, one platform, one strategy. I will link to that video up here that you can watch next because I gave you the exact way I was able to scale my business to the most successful place in 2025 without working more. Because in my business everything points back to three things. YouTube, my YouTube coaching experience mastermind and my one primary conversion path, which is a webinar. YouTube brings new people into my world. With the support of AD, we do a lot of retargeting. YouTube drives a lot of people to my sites and then we're able to retarget them. My webinar does the converting heavy piece for me and then my mastermind is where I get to do the transformations one on one with my clients. I don't create daily content. I don't run a massive team. I don't want to and I don't chase trends. And no, I'm not hitting a million dollar year, but I'm working fewer hours than ever before and taking more time off than ever before and finally running the healthiest business in my 11 years in this industry. And for me that success. Now if you take nothing from this video, let it be this. You don't have to build a business that the Internet is yelling about. You don't have to chase a number that exhausts you just thinking about it. And you don't have to feel behind because you decide to chase simplicity over chaos. The goal isn't a million dollars. The goal is a business that is going to support the life you want to actually have and not have a business that runs your life. And if that means opting out of all that noise, that's not failure. That's major leadership development for you. Now if you're looking for that more sustainable way to run your business, I will always tell you, creating content here on YouTube is the most sustainable way to grow an audience and attract leads without needing to be online all the time. This is how I'm able to work 20 to 25 hours a week because my YouTube strategy is built to work for me while I'm off being a mom or off getting a massage. If you want to see how I build my YouTube strategy, you can do two things right now. Join me in my next YouTube workshop where I will show you my YouTube playlist, funnel strategy, and how I create content on YouTube for conversions, not to become a YouTuber. Or you can watch this video that is on your screen right now where I share why it feels like you're working harder than ever before in your business, but sales still seem to be slowing down.