The Year Everything Changes: A Letter About What 2026 Really Asks of Us

Hey friend,

I'm writing to you from a moment that feels different. Not in a dramatic, earth-shattering way, but in that quiet way where you sense something fundamental shifting beneath your feet.

This is my ninth year hosting an annual planning session at the start of January. Nine years. And if you know anything about cycles, you know nine years marks the completion of something and the beginning of what comes next.

What strikes me most this year isn't what I'm telling people—it's what I'm hearing from them.

The exhaustion is real. Since 2020, we've been in this relentless cycle of crisis, adaptation, crisis, adaptation. And 2025? For many, it was the year that finally extracted its toll. Businesses closed. Relationships fractured. Health declined. Dreams got shelved indefinitely.

But here's what's fascinating: beneath that exhaustion, there's something else. A hunger. A readiness. A quiet voice saying, "Okay. Enough. Now we move."

Everyone's asking what they should do differently this year. What goals to set. What strategies to deploy. What habits to build.

But I've learned something through working with hundreds of people across nearly two decades: the what doesn't matter if you haven't addressed the who.

Let me ask you something, and I want you to really sit with this:

If we could fast-forward to December 31st, 2026—who do you want to be?

Not what you want to have accomplished. Not the metrics. Not the milestones. Who do you want to be? What kind of person do you want to look at in the mirror?

This isn't semantic gymnastics. This is the entire game.

Because here's what I've witnessed repeatedly: people achieve their goals and feel empty. They hit their revenue targets and still feel stuck. They lose the weight, get the promotion, launch the business—and wonder why it doesn't feel like they thought it would.

The problem was never the goal. The problem was believing the goal would transform them, when transformation only happens by becoming the person capable of holding that goal lightly.

In 2022, I nearly lost everything. My health collapsed. My business suffered. I entered what I can only describe as a dark night of the soul—a depression I don't talk about often, but one that fundamentally changed me.

2023 could have been more of the same. But I made a decision. Not about what I would do differently, but about what state I would operate from.

I decided I was done with survival. Done with contraction. Done with playing defense.

That year became one of my best in terms of pure results. I launched Flowtasking. I created new programs. I traveled. I expanded. But none of that would have happened if I hadn't first transformed my internal state.

The external followed the internal. It always does.

Most people try it backwards. They think achieving something external will change how they feel internally. But you can't outrun your state. If you're in fear, you'll find things to be afraid of at every level. If you're in scarcity, more money just means more expensive scarcity.

The work—the real work—is shifting your state first.

Right now, humanity is bifurcating into two groups. You can feel it in every conversation, every social media feed, every news cycle.

Group One is contracting. Waiting. Blaming. Cynical about what's possible. They see all the reasons things won't work and none of the possibilities that exist anyway.

Group Two is creating. Despite uncertainty. Despite fear. Despite having zero guarantees. They understand something essential: waiting for ideal conditions is just a sophisticated form of surrender.

I'm not going to pretend Group Two has it easy. They don't. They face the same chaos, the same economic pressures, the same existential anxiety as everyone else.

But they've made a different choice about what to do with that reality.

You know what costs more than anything? Waiting. Time you don't get back. Opportunities that don't circle around again. Versions of yourself you never become because you were waiting to feel ready.

After all these years of working with people on transformation—from burned-out executives to first-time entrepreneurs to multi-passionate creatives who can't pick a lane—I've identified what actually moves the needle.

It's not more discipline. It's not better time management. It's not even clearer goals.

It's this: precision over intensity.

We've been sold the gospel of hustle. Of grinding. Of outworking everyone. And for a certain season, that works. Until it doesn't. Until you burn out. Until your relationships deteriorate. Until you realize you've been climbing a ladder leaned against the wrong wall.

What if 2026 wasn't about doing more, but about being more precise?

Precise about what deserves your energy. Precise about which opportunities to pursue and which to decline. Precise about the state you operate from and the quality of presence you bring.

I learned this the hard way in 2024. After the breakthrough of 2023, I thought I could coast a little. And you know what happened? Opportunities fell through. Projects stalled. I got comfortable, and comfortable is where momentum goes to die.

Not because I wasn't working. But because I lost precision. I lost the edge that comes from knowing exactly what matters and refusing to be distracted by what doesn't.

Here's something nobody tells you about growth: every new level brings new self-doubt.

People talk about impostor syndrome like it's a bug to be fixed. But I've come to see it differently. Impostor syndrome isn't the problem—it's the evidence you're evolving.

Think about it. When you're comfortable in your competence, you don't question yourself. You know what you're doing. But when you're reaching for the next level, when you're attempting something you haven't proven you can do yet, of course you feel like an impostor. You haven't done it before. The confidence comes from doing it, not before.

This means feeling like an impostor isn't a stop sign. It's a green light. It's your psyche saying, "Hey, we're growing here. This is new territory. Let's prove ourselves."

The people who break through aren't the ones who wait until they feel confident. They're the ones who act despite the doubt, and build confidence through evidence they create for themselves.

Every major thing I've done—launching my first program, writing my first book, hosting my first event—started with me feeling utterly unqualified. The qualification came after. The confidence was built, not found.

So if you're waiting to feel ready? You're going to wait forever. Ready is what happens on the other side of action, not before it.

I had a client recently tell me she wanted more certainty. She was exhausted by the unpredictability of entrepreneurship and just wanted things to be more stable.

I understood. In a chaotic world, certainty feels like the ultimate luxury.

But then I asked her: "Has anything ever been truly certain? Even before 2020, did you really have guarantees?"

She paused. "No. I guess I just had the illusion of certainty."

Exactly.

What we're experiencing now isn't a crisis of certainty—it's a crisis of realized uncertainty. We've always been uncertain. We just weren't confronting it.

So if certainty is impossible, what do we optimize for instead?

Clarity of direction over certainty of outcome.

You don't need to know exactly how things will unfold. You need to know what direction you're pointed and what your next step is. You need a compass, not a map.

Marcus Aurelius wrote: "You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."

This is the practice for 2026. Not controlling the uncontrollable. But getting crystal clear on what you do control—your response, your decisions, your standards, your state—and mastering those relentlessly.

I've been thinking a lot about energy lately. Not in a woo-woo sense, but in a very practical sense.

You have finite energy. Every day, you wake up with a certain amount. Some days more, some days less. That energy gets allocated—consciously or unconsciously—to various people, projects, and pursuits.

At the end of this year, when you look back, the shape of your life will be determined by where that energy went.

Did it go to what matters? Or did it leak away to what's urgent but unimportant? To other people's priorities? To doom-scrolling and comparison? To worry and rumination?

Energy is the currency of creation. Time is just the container. You can have all the time in the world, but without energy, nothing gets built.

This is why state matters so much. Your state determines your energy. Fear drains you. Enthusiasm fuels you. Resentment depletes you. Purpose sustains you.

The question isn't "how do I manage my time?" The question is "what deserves my life force, and am I directing it there intentionally?"

Money is one of the most emotionally charged topics, and in times of economic pressure, that charge intensifies.

Here's what I've observed: the people who struggle most with money aren't always the ones with the least. They're the ones with the most conflicted relationship to it.

They want more but believe wanting more makes them greedy. They charge too little because they don't believe in their own value. They make it but immediately feel guilty. They lose it and spiral into shame.

Money is a mirror. It reflects your beliefs back to you with brutal accuracy.

I'm not here to tell you money doesn't matter. It does. Security matters. Being able to take care of yourself and your people matters. Having choices matters.

But I am here to tell you: your money problems are rarely actually about money. They're about your relationship to it.

Scarcity creates more scarcity. When you operate from "not enough," you make desperate decisions. You undercharge. You overwork. You burn out. And ironically, you repel the abundance you're chasing.

The shift to abundance isn't about pretending you have more than you do. It's about recognizing that you are your greatest asset. Your capacity to create, to serve, to solve problems—that's what generates wealth. Not what's currently in your bank account.

This year, what if you changed your relationship with money from one of fear to one of creative partnership?

One of the most underrated factors in transformation is who you're surrounded by.

You've heard it before: you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. But let me add a nuance: you're also the average of the five narratives you consume most regularly.

If you're constantly exposed to doom and cynicism, that becomes your baseline. If you're surrounded by people who complain but never create, that becomes normalized. If every conversation is about what's wrong rather than what's possible, that shapes your perception.

I'm not saying to ignore reality or only consume positive content. I'm saying to be ruthlessly intentional about your inputs.

One of the best decisions I ever made was getting crystal clear about my tribe. Not in an exclusive way, but in a protective way. These are the people who challenge me to grow. Who celebrate wins without envy. Who speak truth even when it's uncomfortable.

Where's your tribe? Who are the people who make you more yourself, not less? Who stretch you without diminishing you?

And just as importantly: who are the energy vampires you keep giving access to because you feel obligated?

Boundaries aren't walls. They're gates. They let the right people in and keep the wrong energy out.

Last pillar, and maybe the most important for those of you who've been feeling lost: your career, your work, your calling.

People ask me all the time: "How do I find my purpose? How do I know what I'm supposed to do?"

And honestly? I think that's the wrong question. It's too heavy. Too absolute. Too final.

What if instead of finding your purpose, you found your thread?

Not the singular thing you're meant to do, but the throughline that connects everything you've ever been drawn to. The pattern. The common element that shows up again and again.

For me, the thread is transmission. I've been teaching since I was a teenager. Whether it's through writing, speaking, coaching, creating programs—the medium changes, but the essence remains. I come alive when helping people see possibilities they couldn't see before.

That's my thread.

What's yours?

It might not be obvious. It might require some excavation. But I promise you, it's there. It's been there all along, running through your choices, your interests, your natural talents.

When you find it, suddenly career decisions get simpler. Not easier, but simpler. Because you have a filter. Does this align with my thread or not?

I'm going to be direct with you. This year will not be easy. Economic uncertainty will continue. Political chaos will persist. AI will disrupt more industries. Change will accelerate.

But here's what I know for certain: within all that chaos, there is profound opportunity for those willing to see it.

The ones who will thrive aren't the ones with perfect plans. They're the ones with clear direction, adaptable strategies, and unshakeable resolve to keep creating despite not having guarantees.

They're the ones who stop waiting for permission and start making decisions. Who trade certainty for clarity. Who build confidence through action rather than hoping it appears magically.

They're the ones who understand that the best way to predict the future is to create it deliberately, one precise choice at a time.

So here's my question for you:

What's the one decision you've been avoiding that you know you need to make?

Not the safe decision. Not the comfortable one. The real one. The one that scares you a little because you know it would change everything.

That decision? Make it this week.

Take one concrete action that makes it real. Tell someone. Invest in something. Start building. Schedule the call. Write the first draft. Whatever makes it impossible to pretend it's just a nice idea.

Because ideas don't change lives. Decisions do.

And 2026 is asking for decisions from you. Bold ones. Clear ones. Authentic ones.

The world will keep spinning regardless. The question is whether you'll be a passenger or a pilot.

I'm betting on pilot.

Welcome to the new cycle. Let's make it count.

Jo

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