Archives for December 2025

Resolution vs. Reality: Building Change That Actually Sticks

Posted on: December 31, 2025, in:

Look, I get it. January rolls around and suddenly everyone’s a different person (or wants to be). You’re going to connect with all those contacts you always say you will, finally get organized personally and professionally, and go to the gym five days a week – and this time it’s all going to stick. The problem is that by February, maybe March if you’re stubborn, you’re right back where you started, on the same treadmill of life and nothing has really changed. The issue is that a New Year’s resolution and actual sustainable change are two completely different things.

A resolution is theater. It’s you announcing to yourself and maybe to others that you’re suddenly going to behave differently, as if the calendar flipping to January grants you superpowers you didn’t have in December. There is motivation that shows up when you’re excited and inspired but it seldom seems to last. Sustaining change is hard, which is why instituting change in your life any day of the year is a good but challenging step to take.

Sustainable change works differently because it acknowledges that you’re the same person with the same constraints, tendencies, and limitations you had before the new year started. Real change happens when you engineer your environment and habits to make the desired behavior easier. It’s not about wanting something more or trying harder. It’s about removing friction from what you want to do and adding friction to what you want to stop doing. This isn’t easy but nothing worthwhile is.

The difference between resolution and reality comes down to systems versus intentions. A resolution is the intention to be better, but an intention without a system is just a wish. Sustainable change means building a system that makes the behavior automatic or at least significantly easier to maintain when motivation inevitably disappears.

If you’re serious about setting new goals and having the best chance to achieve the, I suggest you create SMART Goals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria). By doing so, the behavior you want to create or avoid will become part of your day, life, routine, rather than something you have to remember to do. Structure survives when motivation fails if you commit to following through. That’s how you actually change, and that’s how change lasts beyond the first few weeks of the year.

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No deal is better than a bad deal

Posted on: December 17, 2025, in:

Look, I’ve seen it a so many times. A client sits across from me, eager to close a deal or settle a dispute, convinced that this deal is the only way or is that breakthrough they’ve been chasing. The terms are terrible. The other side is asking for everything and giving nothing. But they’re ready to sign anyway because walking away feels like failure. But walking away from a bad deal isn’t failure, it’s good business sense. No deal is almost always better than a bad deal, and if you don’t internalize this principle, at some point in your career you’re going to learn an expensive lesson.

The problem with bad deals is that they don’t just cost you money upfront. They consume your resources, your time, and your attention for months or years afterward. Bad deals create ongoing liabilities, disputes, and headaches that compound over time. They tie up capital and management bandwidth that could be deployed elsewhere. Meanwhile, the opportunity cost is staggering because while you’re trapped in a bad arrangement, better opportunities are passing you by.

The pressure to close deals can make people lose perspective. Maybe you’ve been negotiating for months, you’ve spent money on due diligence, and the sunk cost fallacy kicks in hard. Maybe you’re worried about looking weak or indecisive if you walk away. These psychological factors are powerful, but they’re also dangerous.

Having the discipline to walk away when the terms don’t work, even when it’s uncomfortable, is a superpower. It means you understand that your willingness to walk away is actually your greatest source of leverage because once the other side knows you’ll sign anything just to get a deal done, you’ve already lost.

So what does a good deal look like? It’s not about getting everything you want or crushing the other side. A good deal creates mutual value, allocates risk fairly, and gives both parties room to succeed. Most importantly, a good deal makes you excited about the future relationship. If you’re having doubts, trust your gut. If the terms don’t work, don’t sign. Always remember that your ability to say no is one of the most valuable assets you have in business.

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Don’t believe everything you think

Posted on: December 10, 2025, in:

The fastest way to lose credibility is to treat your first thought as your final answer. You’re in a meeting, someone asks a complex question, and your brain immediately serves up a response. It feels right. It sounds confident. And it’s probably wrong. The nightmare isn’t that you had the thought—it’s that you believed it without scrutiny and shared it. Professionals who confuse thinking with knowing make decisions on hunches, give advice based on assumptions, and wonder why things blow up later.

Your initial reaction to a problem is rarely your best analysis. That gut feeling about what a contract means, what a client needs, or how to handle a personnel issue is just your brain’s rough draft. It’s working with whatever information is quickest to access, which usually means stereotypes, recent experiences, and emotional associations. Smart professionals recognize this and instead say something such as: “Let me think about that and get back to you” or “Let me research the issue and get back to you.” This isn’t weakness. It’s the difference between being responsive and being reckless.

The trap is believing that certainty equals competence. You think clients want immediate answers, so you provide them—even when you’re uncertain. You think colleagues expect decisiveness, so you commit to positions you haven’t fully thought through. But the reality is that people respect professionals who verify before they assert. Telling someone you need to research an issue or consider it more carefully doesn’t diminish your authority. It demonstrates you understand the stakes and won’t gamble with their interests to protect your ego.

The antidote is simple but uncomfortable: treat your thoughts as drafts requiring revision. When you feel certain, get curious. The best professionals build time into their process to challenge their own thinking before they present it as advice. Not everything that crosses your mind deserves to be trusted or shared. Stop confusing what you think with what you know.

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The 2025 version of why it’s time for an annual check up for you and your company

Posted on: December 03, 2025, in:

Beginning in 2014, many of you probably read my blog regarding having a checkup for you and, if you have one, your business. This does not involve the doctor, but it does involve all of the other professionals in your personal and business life. Based on the positive feedback, I have made this an annual tradition. I originally made this post the week between Christmas and New Year’s but that’s too late, which is why I now share this a few weeks prior to the end of the year to give you time to take action and look into possible changes before year end.

It’s good to check in with various professionals you or your company work with, be they attorneys, accountants, insurance professionals, financial planners, investment professionals, etc. The list depends on you and your business.

Some of you said “What a great idea. I am definitely going to do that.” Others said “Sounds like a good idea, maybe I will look into that.” Another response was “I wish I had thought about this before the end of the year or when certain contracts automatically renewed.”

I’ll bet in most years the majority of you were busy with or recovering from the holidays and probably did nothing in response to my push for you to do this type of “annual checkup.” To be honest, this response is okay and ignoring my advice may not have had negative effects to you or your business.

The point of the advice is that you only know what you know. For example, I always check in with my accountant prior to the end of the year to ensure that all is right with taxes and withholding because I don’t want a big surprise that I owe more money or am being assessed penalties for under withholding.

A few years back I had a reminder related to a different item you should check on annually, auto insurance. We had teenagers on our policy at the time and a number of vehicles, and the premiums always seemed so high to me. But my insurance person knows me and shops the policy every year looking for the best rates rates for similar coverage from quality insurers. He did that for me and we ended up with a new insurer, with pretty significant savings.

Does your  insurance person do this? If not, why not? You should ask. Or you should switch to a new insurance person who cares as much about you as they do about the commissions and income you represent to them.

With life being so busy, sometimes it’s hard for me to move beyond the higher-level checkup, but when I do I usually end up with some benefit. Unfortunately, in our time-crunched world, the question of who to check in with at year end is expansive, from your estate planning attorney, to your investment person, to your insurance person, to vendors you may use such as a yard or pool maintenance company, or your cell phone carrier or your Internet provider. You may be surprised what a company will do in lowering monthly costs to satisfy or keep a current or longtime customer. Try it and see what happens. Start with your cell phone provider – there always is a promotion happening that will lower your monthly costs.

I know, I know, who has the time? None of us do, which is why the choices are yours. Are your contracts up to date? Did you pay enough estimated taxes or withholding? Are you paying too much for the cleaning service at your office or your lawn service for your home ? The choice of what professionals to consult, what costs to check or compare, and what services to put out to bid is yours. Choose wisely.

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