Hi entrepreneur,
Back in 2016, from the outside, everything looked great.
I had three different companies on the Inc. 500 list.
Revenue was growing.
The team was expanding.
By most measures, I was "winning."
But at home, things were quietly falling apart.
I was leaving for the office before my kids woke up... and getting home after everyone was already in bed.
Missing family dinners...
Missing soccer games...
Missing recitals...
I was there on the weekends… but I wasn't really there.
And one night, it all came to a head.
I came home well after midnight. My wife was still awake, sitting up in bed. It was clear she'd been crying.
I don't remember every word that was said that night.
It was emotional.
Uncomfortable.
Necessary.
But I will never forget one sentence.
She said:
"You can keep doing what you're doing.
But you can't pretend like you're doing it for us anymore."
She wasn't angry.
She wasn't threatening.
She wasn't giving an ultimatum.
She was calling me out on my priorities.
And she was right.
Somewhere along the way, the business had stopped being the vehicle and had become the destination.
It wasn't supporting the life I wanted anymore.
It was consuming it.
What made it worse is that my calendar told the truth long before that conversation ever happened.
If you had looked at my calendar back then, you wouldn't have seen my family anywhere on it.
Which meant, no matter what I said…
They weren't actually the priority.
That realization changed everything.
One of the first promises I made was simple:
My calendar would belong to my family first.
Not in theory.
Not in intention.
In actual, blocked-off time.
The Pre-Loaded Year was the first structural change I made to fix that.
Not to work less.
But to work intentionally.
To make sure the things that mattered most didn't get whatever scraps of time were left over.
If any part of this resonates with you, I'd encourage you to start here:
👉 https://scalable.co/preloadedyear
It's not about perfection.
It's not about doing everything right.
It's about making sure your life doesn't get quietly sacrificed to a business that was supposed to support it.
-Ryan
P.S. One thing I've learned after working with hundreds of founders:
Most don't need more discipline.
They need a business that doesn't collapse when they step away.
If you're curious what that kind of operating system actually looks like in practice, this doc lays it out →
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