2025 → 2026
An honest reflection on 2025 and my hope for 2026
2025 – the year of immense growth and the lowest of lows.
Woolichooks in 2025 grew in revenue, clients, and team members. I made the budget on a prayer, and we beat it by 120%. Which is so crazy to me and I’m grateful. But I wasn’t living. I, personally, was on a downward slope.
The goal of Woolichooks was to work with clients doing good work, team members I care about, and not have to work 50+ hour weeks. I wanted to work on interesting projects with clients that solve different types of business problems. But I felt stuck.
Earlier in the year, in February, my car was totaled. I thought my life would flash before my eyes as I careened toward death. Instead, my mind was blank. I’m alive. 3 hours after that crash, I was already in a meeting with a client. Why?!
Yes, I own the business, and if I don’t work, I don’t earn. But I should have given myself time to digest what just happened to me. But I never stopped. Client work also grew, and there wasn’t a stopping point for me until November. I felt like I couldn’t stop because the business was growing and doing well beyond my initial dreams.
In November, I forced myself to stop for a whole week. In hindsight, I was burnt out or on the edge of burnout. I lost myself. Who was I? I say I didn’t know I was burnt out, but I know I’m lying. I saw it earlier in the year, but I ignored it. It never really went away. I can’t do good work for clients and be there for my team if I just work on autopilot.
Hustle culture sucks. Why was I rushing? Another goal of Woolichooks is to create a firm culture where people feel like they can have a life. Why did I feel like I couldn’t have this? I, as the founder, definitely wasn’t showcasing that. So, I took a week off. I ignored Slack. I ignored my laptop. I ignored Gmail. I ignored people outside of my family. I just laid about doing nothing.
It was one of the best decisions I ever made in 2025. It took me off the ledge of wanting to quit everything. The other best decision I made was joining the host team at church. I get to just greet, welcome, and smile at folks. I don’t have to be thinking that hard about whatever fire that needs to be put out. I can just come as I am and rediscover myself.
So, in 2026, what do I want/hope for Woolichooks?
I want to work with business clients doing good and have interesting problems to solve. I want Woolichooks to be a place where team members can grow in themselves and in their skills. I never want this company to be a place where people stagnate. I want to help clients achieve their dreams. Profit is good, but is there a bigger purpose? So, I will be reaching out to potential clients and writing unignorable emails to businesses that I think would be cool to work with.
Community matters. Making sure I work with businesses that do something good for their staff, customers, and the broader community matters to me. Yes, profit matters for the sustainability of a business, but what else can you do? How do you serve your community, your people, and your customers? The generally accepted business model of generating profit for shareholder value and nothing else is boring to me. There must be something else.
