2025: The Year That Forced Me to Grow Up as a Leader

2025: The Year That Forced Me to Grow Up as a Leader

If there’s one sentence that captures my entire year, it’s this:

You can’t scale a business unless you scale yourself.

And 2025 made that truth unavoidable.

This was the year I finally admitted that the real bottleneck in my companies wasn’t the competition, the economy, or my team.

It was me.

My habits. My discipline. My limits. My ability to evolve.

I’m not saying that from some enlightened mountaintop, I’m saying it as someone who spent all twelve months sprinting, questioning everything, feeling the weight of a midlife crisis, and realizing that I’m not physically invincible anymore.

Fortunately, the hairline survived. Small miracles.

What 2025 Actually Taught Me

The merger with Nym and the birth of Thesis changed everything.

For years I’d been trying to build a connected system of businesses. At some point, though, founder-led sales and founder-led service hit a wall. I needed partners who cared about quality as much as I did, partners who made the work better, not louder.

This merger gave me air, focus and leverage.

It put us on a real path toward stable cash flow and meaningful growth heading into 2026.

The world was chaotic, and I had to keep taking risks anyway.

The economy made no sense. Global instability rose. Competition tightened everywhere.

Running one business is hard. Running multiple is a different sport entirely.

Doing it with a young family depending on me stretched me more than anything I’ve ever done.

I’ve never been this uncomfortable, but discomfort grows people, and this year forced me to grow.

Work-life balance isn’t real. Integration is the only thing that works.

Life doesn’t wait until your calendar says you’re available.

Parents age. Kids grow. Bills appear. Sickness shows up whether it fits your schedule or not.

This year, Amy and I learned that our partnership has to be emotional and tactical. We need shared logistics, shared plans, and shared systems just as much as bonding time. Without that foundation, there’s no space for the deeper conversations that actually keep a relationship healthy.

A lot didn’t go as planned. And that’s an understatement.

People I love got sick.

Cash flow targets were missed.

The bigger companies had fewer problems, but the problems they did have were huge.

Travel drained me, and the emotional load drained me even more. And yes, I’m in a version of a midlife crisis. Not the sports-car one.

The one where you stare off into the distance wondering why your back hurts.

But the joy came from home.

My family stayed solid, warm, and happy.

If everything else had fallen apart, that alone would’ve been enough.

Leadership had to shift this year. And so did I.

I had to get more direct. Clearer with my yes and my no. Willing to risk sounding blunt if it meant solving problems faster.

I had to delegate in a real way, not in a symbolic one. And I had to start becoming the strategist and advisor my companies now need. Because the work changes at scale. And the leader has to change with it.

This year I stopped wasting energy on things I can’t control.

Zero to one requires fire.

One to two requires measurement, maturity, and the willingness to hold steady even when it’s not exciting.

I expected problems. I planned for them. I adapted. I executed. And for the first time, I saw my operating system work everywhere.

With clients. Through my team. On myself.

It consistently takes a business from zero to a million in revenue. Because of that, the imposter syndrome finally quieted down.

This confidence isn’t noise. It’s earned.

If I could talk to myself at the start of 2025, here’s what I’d say:

• Slow down on the risk.
• Hold more cash.
• Stop trying to build twenty companies at once.
• Focus on the few that are truly marching toward eight figures.
• Context switching drains the soul.
• Big businesses have big problems, and they demand a bigger version of you.

My promise to myself for 2026

• Professionally, I want to launch three more businesses.
• Personally, I want to break 100 in golf and play with my dad twice a year.
• I want to learn to box and compete in my age group, mostly because it sounds fun to do something slightly crazy at this age.
• And with my family, I want to take each daughter on a dad-daughter trip and start a new Christmas travel tradition.

The real lesson of 2025

You cannot scale a business unless you scale yourself.

This year forced that growth out of me.

Next year, I want to pursue it intentionally.

And if you’re building, sprinting, scaling, or simply trying to stay afloat, I hope you grow into the leader your next chapter needs.

Most importantly, I hope you build a life that makes the entire journey worth it.