I'm just going to say it… |
2025 sucked. |
We had layoffs. We killed projects. We shut down companies. |
But we also grew. |
Revenue was UP 24%.
Profit was UP 36%. |
On paper, it was a good year. |
In reality? |
It was one of the hardest years I've had as a business owner. |
More tough calls…more stress…more nights lying awake wondering if I'd just made another million-dollar mistake. |
Because that's the thing about scale… |
Mistakes don't just hurt your ego…they cost real money, real time, and impact real lives. |
So instead of pretending I had it all figured out, I want to share the five biggest lessons I'm carrying into 2026…paid for with real cash, real regret, and a lot of chewing glass. |
Let's get into it. |
Lesson 1: Distributions are the ultimate sign of a healthy business |
I had to relearn this one the hard way… |
(…cough…Cashflow Waterfall…cough.) |
One of our companies finished 2024 at $6M in revenue. (Not bad.) But halfway through 2025, sales were flat. |
Worse…there were ZERO distributions, and it was looking like that trend would continue. |
The leadership team did what leadership teams always do when growth stalls: |
"How do we generate more leads and sales?" |
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Which led to the usual answers…more spend, more campaigns, more activity. |
Instead, I asked a different question: |
"What would need to be true to distribute $50K per month?" |
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This business was doing over $500K/month. Less than 10% in distributions shouldn't have been insane. |
That single question changed everything. |
Within 60 days, the company was leaner, healthier, and more profitable. In Q4 alone, it kicked out more distributions than the previous two years combined. |
The lesson? |
Sometimes the fastest way to restart growth is to force profitability, not chase more top-line. |
When growth stalls, solve with systems and margins first…not random acts of marketing. |
Lesson 2: I can only do one thing at a time. Same with everyone else. |
This lesson shows up every year…and every year I still forget it. |
In Q2, we greenlit 17 simultaneous initiatives. |
Seventeen. |
Which is especially dumb when our own planning rules say: |
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So how many did we actually finish? |
Two. |
In Q3, we cut it back to five, and… |
…we completed all five. |
We literally 2X'ed output by committing to less. |
The paradox is real… |
At scale, the path to doing more is doing LESS… better. |
Lesson 3: If it isn't on the calendar, it isn't getting done |
At the end of the year, I reviewed my calendar week by week. |
Here's what I noticed… |
The weeks that were intentionally scheduled? |
I remembered them…stuff got done. |
The "open" weeks? |
Total blur. A sleepwalk. |
If I didn't plan the time, it got consumed by someone else's emergency…email…Slack…noise. |
My most productive weeks weren't accidental. They were the weeks I booked meetings with myself to do the work that actually mattered. |
And the same was true for our clients and portfolio CEOs. Burnout was never solved with a better to-do list. It was solved with a more intentional calendar. |
Show me your calendar and I'll show you what's important to you. |
This year, every hour gets blocked with intention…even the ones labeled "Thinking time" or "Go for a walk." |
The goal isn't to work more… |
…the goal is to make sure your time isn't stolen without you even noticing it. |
(Click here to see my "CEO Calendar" system in action.) |
Lesson 4: Good content compounds…it just takes time |
This year, I finally committed to building my personal brand. |
Not because I want to be famous (I don't)…but because in a low-trust world, founders are the most trusted voice their companies have. |
I started with YouTube, then expanded into short-form. |
For the first 90 days? Nothing happened. |
No leads.
No sales.
Barely any engagement. |
I was ready to quit when my friend and mentor Roy H. Williams reminded me of his rule: |
The 13-week "Chickening Out Period." |
That's the minimum amount of time it takes for relational marketing to even show signs of life. And depending on the message, reach, frequency, and buying cycle…it can take six months to know if it's working. |
So I stuck with it. |
Around week 15, it clicked. And it's been compounding ever since. We even turned off paid traffic in Q4…and sales kept accelerating. |
Content is the only channel I know that gets cheaper and converts better over time. |
The lesson? |
Pick a channel. Commit for six months. Don't chicken out. |
Lesson 5: The excuse IS the reason |
I noticed something strange about all my biggest failures in 2025... |
In each case, there was something I knew I needed to do, BUT... |
...there was also a perfectly reasonable EXCUSE for why I couldn't do what I knew I needed to do. |
So, I just did nothing until circumstances forced me to make a decision, at which point I just did the painful thing I knew I needed to do all along. |
In retrospect, had I inverted my "excuse" for NOT doing something into the reason I MUST do something, I would have avoided a lot of pain (and saved more money than I care to admit I wasted). |
For example: |
❌ "I can't let go of that person. They're too critical to the organization…" |
...becomes: |
👍 "We MUST let that person go. They're too much of a bottleneck." |
And... |
❌ "We can't retire that product line. It has too many legacy clients..." |
...becomes: |
👍 "We MUST retire that product line. It's holding us back! It speaks to what we were, not what we are today or where we're headed." |
And… |
❌ "We can't sell premium priced services to that market…they can't afford it…" |
…becomes: |
👍 "We MUST sell a premium priced services to this market because this will be our competitive advantage. Now how do we do that?" |
Here's the deal… |
If what you were already doing were working, then you wouldn't be stuck…so by definition, you need to try something different. |
More times than not, that "different" is the very thing you're avoiding…and you're avoiding it not because it won't work… |
…you're avoiding it because you know it will be difficult and painful. |
But that's no excuse, because that's the job… |
As leaders, it's up to US to step into the gap and make the tough call…have the difficult conversation…and be the "bad guy" from time to time. |
You can't shirk your responsibility and still expect to scale. |
So, here's your action item… |
⚡️ Action Step: Starting today, take every excuse for why you can't do something and invert it into the reason you MUST do something. Let the excuse become your reason, then model it and pass it down to your team. |
If you do, I believe 2026 will be your best ever. |
So, those are the five lessons I'm taking into 2026. |
I paid for them the expensive and painful way. |
If you'd rather learn this stuff the cheap and easy way…stick around. 🙂 |
I'll see you next week… |
Ryan Deiss
Co-Founder and CEO, The Scalable Company |
P.S. I'm looking for 5 business owners who want to work 1-on-1 with my team and me to install a custom "operating system" in 2026, so your business can scale and so you can exit the day-to-day. Click here for the details. |
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