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2026 can be the best year of your life, but only if you start Preparing now. At 22, I was broke, I was super lost, and I was terrified that I was never going to figure out what I needed to do. But now I run a multi million dollar business and I feel like every new year is a basically completely different life for me. And if you can actually apply these five principles, then you can make 2026 one of the best years of your life. And I want to help you do it. Number one, fire yourself from jobs you're good at. The biggest threat to to your future is actually not your weaknesses. It is your competence. It's what you're good at right now. So when I had my first company, this is about 10 years ago, I had been in sales my entire career. And so at my company, when we stand up the company, I'm selling people in the programs. And so I was the best salesperson that we had. So I stopped selling. So it felt like when I did that people would be like, why would you do that? That's like the worst thing you could do because it feels like cutting off your right hand when you're right handed. But the company didn't need another great salesperson. It needed somebody who, who could build a team of them. And so what I had to do and what I've continued to do to build a company, I had to get bad at something. I had to be okay being bad at something new to become valuable in a new way. Something I talk to people about, entrepreneurs especially time and time again who you are today and all the things that you're so amazing at, all the things that you're great at, are all the reasons why you're not gonna be able to get to the next level. And it's like the hardest thing to hear. Cause it's like you being really good at sales, you being really good at customer service, you being really good at building the product. The those become the reasons why you're not able to build a bigger company, not able to build a bigger business, and not able to attract a better team. And so what growth requires in anything is it requires trading mastery for incompetence. You feel like, well, now that I've mastered this thing, I'm done. And like I should just keep mastering it until I keep getting better. But the reality is that the next skill that comes once you've mastered something is not more of mastery. There's nothing more there. It's the top. It's getting bad at the new thing. And Then mastering that one until you hit the next ceiling. Every new level is going to demand a different version of you, which means that you have to kill the old one that you're very proud of and really good at. So in business, for example, a lot of the times people are like, I'm going to delegate all this stuff that I'm bad at and hate. And that's a great way to start. In fact, that's how you usually should start. But that is not how you're going to keep growing. It is how you will maximize the current stage you're in. But, but it's not gonna get you to the next stage. In fact, what gets you to the next stage is outsourcing the things that you're really good at. The goal is temporary regression in service of a long term expansion, not permanent mediocrity. Right? Just temporary mediocrity, knowing that it's gonna lead to your long term goal. Oftentimes when you're doing bodybuilding, which is something I used to do, and it's like I'm really good at dieting. And so for example, for me it's like I spent years losing weight. And then what I realized is that the skill of losing weight actually was the opposite skill. For when I wanted to learn how to build muscle when you're losing weight, I got really good at that. I knew how to be hungry, I was okay with being hungry. I knew how to eat less, I knew how to count my calories, I knew how to walk a ton, I knew how to do cardio, I knew how to do all these things to build muscle. I actually had to be full more. I actually had to eat more food. I had to learn how to pack food with me so I wouldn't skip meals. It's not that they were in contrast with each other and not getting me to my long term goals. It's that this one had to come before this one for me, this one I lost weight and then I said, I want to put on muscle. Me learning more and mastering how to lose weight was not going to help me or transfer over to me learning how to build muscle. The same goes for business. For example, it's like, okay, me learning how to run a team of 10 and be like the head salesperson, the head CS person, take all the escalations and work 14 hours a day to run a $10 million business is actually the opposite skill I need of the person that runs a hundred million dollar business. Because a hundred million, I can't do any of these Things I have to learn how to not be a salesperson, not be a C, not take any escalations and not work 14 hours a day. So you see what I'm saying? The things that have made you so valuable for where you're at in your life right now are often the very things that will make you invaluable in the next era of your life. Now here's what you can do. List what you're absolutely best at and then delegate it entirely. Take on roles where you will be the worst person at them and then get comfortable being terrible at something that really matters to your long term goal. Me learning how to unlearn all these things that got me to one level and learning how to get to the next level. It's a completely different skill. I realized about a year ago a skill that got me to a hundred million dollar company was that when there was a huge big problem with the department, I would go in, I would fix it and I would, you know, tie a little bow on it and I'd replace somebody in there. And then I said, does Layla running a billion dollar and $10 billion company, does she jump into a department? No. She would say, I'm going to hire the person to go do it. Even though I could do it. My goal now and what's more important to my growth is me focusing on the long term plan. There are so few things that are short term in my company that are now more important than me focusing on the long term plan. So I can't react like that anymore. So then the skill that got me to a very large company of being able to jump in and turn around a very important department is now the very skill that will prevent me from having a bigger company. So I have to trade the skill. I now have to have the skill of the moment that happens. I have to go recruit somebody. So now the skill of recruiting executives and CEOs on a regular continuous basis is more important than the skill of being able to jump in and fix something. Doing becomes less valuable than thinking different skills. Number two, normalize regressing to progress. If you can't handle looking dumb, do not complain about being average at something. When I went from running my one person led solo business with 30 clients to being the CEO of a company that had a hundred people in it. My output, the quality of my work was much lower being the CEO of that company than it was being the solopreneur with 30 clients. I went from being like very decisive, very sharp, doing things very easily, almost like second Nature to being slow, uncertain, confused. And there were times where I was like, I don't know if I'm actually built for this, because it felt so hard. And it wasn't until I realized this is what growth looks like. It looks like regression. And so anybody who tells you that they leveled up smoothly and that it was like, so easy to, like, they're lying, okay? It is not. The dip is the price you pay for the success you get later. But you have to be okay with the diploma. The experience of being in the dip is awful, which is why most people skip through it. Because they start on something, they say, I don't know if I'm made for this. I don't know if I'm built for this. I don't know if I've got the skill. We're all humans made of the same shit. Seriously. Like, I say this to be. I'm like, we're made of the same material. We're the same teddy bear. I don't know what else to say. You can do it. It's just that most people correlate the dip with meaning that they suck. The dip means that you're new. The dip means that you're trying. What happens after a dip? It has to come back up. And so, like, new skills, new roles, new scale. It all comes with a performance dip. It's not failure, it's a learning curve. And if you're not willing to look incompetent temporarily, then you will cap yourself permanently. Like, the willingness to suck is the price of admission to mastery. When you don't see that, then you risk staying in the dip forever because you're not actually learning, then you're just suffering and you're ruminating and you're procrastinating. But like, every dip expires it. Whether you want to make it through the dip or not, it will end. It's not up to you. And if you're still incompetent after six months, then maybe the problem is not the learning curve. Maybe it's like, oh, maybe I need a different strategy. Maybe this isn't right for my business. And you can, you know, take something and think about it. Now, how do you apply this to 2026? Expect a 3 to 6 month learning curve with every new challenge. Do not expect to be good at things immediately. Do not expect things to be easy just because they're easy for you right now. Your skills that you have right now are keeping you where you're at right now. So you're good at them. They're also not good enough to get you to the next level. Now, to do this, you need to judge yourself based on your trajectory, not your current state. The best advice I can give you, communicate the dip to your team so they don't panic when you and the rest of them are figuring it out. I normalize this so much with my team. We're going to suck it at this first. It won't work at first. It's probably not going to be what you think at first. And I feel like what I'm constantly doing is setting the right expectations for people because when they think reality is here, but it ends up being here, expectations plummet and they feel bad. But when they expect reality to be here, they and it ends up here. Like, oh, that makes sense. That's what we expect. Number three, measure recovery with the same vigor that you measure progress. I used to think that, like, being very tired and being fatigued was, like, really an accomplishment at the end of the day and also the price of ambition. And then I realized tired minds make expensive decisions. For example, I used to track revenue down to the penny, but I would ignore my recovery and other people's recovery entirely. And then I started correlating any bad decisions I made with my state of mind. Every major mistake I had made, like mishire a blown deal, it always came after, like, one of a few things. Making a decision during a meeting that was like after 10 hours of meeting. Making a decision after, you know, many days strung together of, like, high stress, low sleep, and many days strung together of, like, having zero fun in my life at all. You know, I started correlating essentially, like, myself and my recovery to one of an athlete. If I'm going to go really hard, I have to rest really hard. And if I'm not recovered, I can't make big calls. If they're not recovered, they don't go run a race. They say, I need to recover before I run another race. I'm not going to run a marathon every other day. And so something I've realized, like, the ROI on recovery, on sleep, on rest, a lot of the times is higher than the ROI on the work ethic if you only know how to go. I remember, like, the first time that I recognized this was I had a really big hire to make. I was really stressed because I was covering the department that I was trying to hire the executive for. And because of that, I was taking these interviews and I didn't feel like I was frustrating them. Like, I felt like I was just like I was Trying to bang them out as fast as possible. Like, it was like I was taking them, like, you know, six, seven exec interviews a day, plus normal meetings, which is, like, a lot to do. I remember finally, I was like, oh, this is the guy. Like, I think this is the guy. But I'm pretty sure if I were to rewind back, there was, like, a nagging feeling in the back of my head, like, I don't know if this is the right person. But I was so tired, I was so exhausted that I just hired the guy. Then what happened? Hired the guy three days in, not the guy. I've already rejected all the other candidates. I've already stopped the recruiting process. I've lost my momentum. And I asked myself, I'm like, what correlated to this bad decision? And then I was like, I was really tired. I was really tired. And when we're tired, sometimes we can't think as clearly as when we're well rested and when we're, like, recovered. I was like, wow. Me being tired is a threat to my business. Every decision that you make, tired costs you twice, which is what I learned. Once in the bad call and now once in the cleanup. So something that I have had to understand is that, like, you have to match your psychology with your biology, But I've had to learn your biology does help determine your judgment. When you treat recovering as a leading indicator, you're going to prevent a lot of expensive mistakes that come from operating when you're really depleted. So something, for example, that I've trained myself to do is I know that past, like, 4:35, I don't make good decisions for my business. So when my husband comes to me and he says, hey, big decision, big thing. What do you think? I'm like, I'm gonna have to get back to you tomorrow. He's like, what do you mean? I'm like, I've had, like, a full day. Like, I don't. I'm not putting my best brain juice to this. Like, I just. I can feel it. I don't have discretionary effort. And every time, he's like, okay, whatever. Like, I can tell doesn't like it, but I feel good every time. Because I'm like, I'm not gonna give you the answer. And then what do I do? I write it down. I come back to it in the morning. What do I do? I'm like, boom, decision made. Because I know that my best decision making is actually, like, first thing in the morning. So I protect that time to make sure that's what I'm doing first thing in the morning. But it's about optimizing your performance. What's the right amount of recovery to support the work that you have to put in to achieve your goals? Something that I used to do is I used to factor in, like, all the things I have to do to achieve my goals into my calendar. But I put zero recovery into my calendar. What did I change to do this? I put recovery in my calendar. Just like I plan in the things I'm going to do to achieve my goals. Just like pro athletes have, like, when they rest and recover and they have an on season off season, so should you. So how do you apply this one? You could, like, wear a device that tracks your recovery if you feel like doing that. Second is you could just schedule decisions based on your energy state, not just your time availability. I'm not going to schedule important meetings. At the very end of the day, I'm probably going to show up like. And then when recovery tanks, I'm going to cut the scope before I overextend myself. You want to develop the skill of, like, catching yourself at a 6 out of 10, 6 out of 10, depleted 6 out of 10 stress, and then pump the brakes and be like, I don't want to get to a 10 out of 10, because guess what? Way harder to take a 10 out of 10 to a 2 than a 6 to a 2. Number four, make expensive decisions early to buy back time later. You think that you're saving cash, but you're actually spending time. The most expensive currency that there is is time. See, I used to cheap out on hires and investments because, like, I wanted to be scrappy. I thought that I was saving money and I was like, being a responsible founder, but all that it did was cost me years. And so every time I said, like, oh, we're not ready for that yet. We're not ready for someone that big yet. We're not ready for that investment yet. I was just delaying getting big. So now what? I ask myself, what's the decision I'll make in 12 months? Let me make it today, and I will buy myself back that year. Because time is the only asset that you can't get back. And so you need to stop trading it for dollars because you can always make more money, but you cannot make more time in your life. So a great example of this is, you know, about 18 months ago in my business, I was like, I need to hire some executives. So I hired three executives, but I actually needed like eight executives. Now why didn't I hire eight, I was like, oh, my gosh, that's very expensive. Executives are super expensive. It's gonna take so much time. I don't think we need it. And now, looking at how much growth I had with three, I can't help but think how much time I lost by not hiring the other five, then how much growth I lost by consequence. If I had just said, I'm going to hire eight, I think I would have probably grown my business by 40% more last year. So now I'll capitalize on that next year. But now, anytime I'm thinking, oh, maybe in a year I should get this, I'm like, but why not now? Why not open up that second HQ now? Why not expand internationally? Now? There's cost, and then there's opportunity cost. And you have to ask yourself, which one's going to cost you more? It's going to cost hard dollars. But say you hire that executive, that can double your revenue. Well, then not hiring them costs you your revenue. So you have to think in terms of that rather than in terms of, like, oh, I'm putting up too much costs right now to, you know, initiate this growth. Most people optimize for cheap in the short term, but then expensive in the long term because they have lost the opportunity. And they delay those hard calls and very expensive decisions until they become, like, a crisis. And what I've learned is, like, every delayed decision compounds in cost, financially, emotionally, strategically. And so, like, reversing this pattern, you front load the pain and the cost, but you backload all the growth and the freedom. Now, I would say don't just throw money at problems without understanding what you're buying. You know, expensive decisions only work if they're the right decisions. But also avoid using this to justify reckless spending, because there's a difference between, like, strategic investment and, like, waste. Like, notice I said, like hiring big executives, opening up another headquarters. Like, those are things that, like, plow a business forward. I'm not talking about, like, buying cool tables and desks for my office. I'm thinking about things that move the needle. You only have so much time and money that you can invest in things. Make sure it's on the things that give you the biggest bang for your buck. So, like, early in my career when I was starting, I'm not gonna go out and, like, pay someone to make this, like, super fancy website. I'm gonna pay somebody to teach me how to make a sale, how to run an ad. I'm gonna invest in my skills to learn, because those Are gonna compound more than that, like fancy looking website. Now, how do you apply this? This might mean that you might need to hire that, you know, senior person before you think you need them. You might need to fire some of your misaligned with right now, not six months from now. Or you might need to invest in like a new office or new infrastructure, a new system before it becomes urgent later on. Number five, build systems that work when you don't. The season that I made the most amount of money in my business is when my team stopped checking with me before making decisions. Like, the best quarter that I ever had. I was the least involved I've ever been. I had finally built something that could run without me. And that is when I knew that we had made it. Not because I was essential, but because I was optional. Most founders optimize to be needed. You want to optimize for zero. This is something I was literally talking about with my husband last night. We were talking about every time someone brings something to me and they're like, how about we do this to grow the company? If it involves me or one of the key people, I'm just like, no, no, no. Why optimize to be irrelevant? Optimize for the most scarce resources in the company to be the most irrelevant in the ways that grow the company. So for me, when my team stops checking with me before they make decisions, I know that I have built the right thing. I'm trying to build a company, not a job that involves Layla. So an example, like for a lot of founders is they're like, hey, I'm thinking of this new product. You're like, I want to build a business. Well, what am I really good at? Do you want to build something based on your strengths, or do you want to build something based on the strengths of a team that you can assemble? It's a very different kind of thinking. Now, it doesn't mean that you should know nothing about it, but it does mean that it's more important that something be able to grow and scale without you needing to tend to it than it is that you should be tending to something because you're needed to make it work. And a lot of people, it's like they cannot separate themselves from their business, which makes this the difficult part. So every time they want to increase revenue or every time they want to expand, a good one is like, they're like, how can I use more of my time to grow the business? I would like to know how to add 10 million of revenue with 0 of my time. Next year, wouldn't you? Like, I can't tell you how many people come to me and they're like, how do I grow my business next year? Here's what I'm thinking I'm going to do. I'm going to do this, I'm going to start here, I'm going to invest my time in this. I'm going to. And I'm like, yeah, all I heard is that you're a bottleneck. Optimize for founder at level zero. How do you double your business without doing anything? Because you're the bottleneck. And if you build your business based on the bottleneck, the moment your business needs you to function is the moment it stops scaling. And so, so many people set them up for failure from the get go because they've already done this. Whereas if you have systems, right, which are like intentional decisions you've made ahead of time by other people, then, then you can have things grow without them falling apart. If you're not involved and your value to the business shifts from you being an execution to the architect of the business. Now I would say this. You want to avoid building systems that require perfect conditions to function, right? Like if it only works when all the stars are aligned and moon is bright and all the like, then it doesn't actually work. But you also want to avoid creating systems so rigid that they can't adapt when reality changes, because that doesn't work either either. So how do you actually do this? Super simple document decisions so they can be made without you. What are the decisions that you make right now? Who else can make them? And what framework should they follow to think about how to make a good one? Give them three steps. Here's the three things I ask myself when I make this decision. Start asking yourself those. How do I make those decisions? People like, ah, nobody can hire people like me. They probably could if you taught them. What questions do you ask yourself when you hire people? Nobody can build a product like me. What questions do you ask when thinking about what product? Take a second, build some awareness in your loop and then what will happen if you do this is that that feedback loop solves problems, grows the company and catches problems before they ever reach your desk. And so the goal is to create a system where it makes you unnecessary. The more necessary you are to the things that help you achieve your goals, the harder it's going to be to achieve really big ones. So now that you know how to make 2026 your best year yet, it can be just as important to know what can quietly be destroy that progress. So watch this next video where I will show you the nine things guaranteed to ruin your 2020.