What We Built Together in 2025, No Matter What

Dec 8

DECEMBER 8, 2025

2025 worked because people stopped waiting for perfect conditions and started acting from truth instead of comfort. And that mattered, because you don’t shift just because you want to, you shift because you commit to something that requires a new version of you. That shift, individual by individual, is what builds teams, cultures, and movements that last.

Before the year ends, name one discomfort you avoided in 2025 and commit to facing it cleanly and directly as you enter 2026.

Most years start to wrap up with resolutions. This one ends with gratitude.

Not the Hallmark card kind.

The real kind. The kind that comes from watching people choose growth when it would’ve been easier to stay comfortable. The kind that comes from seeing teams take risks, leaders face the truth, and individuals step into who they’re becoming. The kind you earn.

This year, the No Matter What Movement didn’t just get bigger. It got stronger, more courageous and more transformative.

What We Did Together

In boardrooms, on stages, in airports, mountains, and meeting rooms across the world, something shifted. The Movement continued to take shape, not because of me, but because so many of you decided to take the message personally.

You applied it.
You lived it.
You turned it into action. Action No Matter What.

We saw teams break through avoidance, not because conditions got easier but because they stopped waiting for easier conditions.

We watched leaders take responsibility for their culture instead of outsourcing it to HR decks and annual off-sites.

We heard story after story of people confronting fear, not with bravado but with courageous honesty.

And then there were the adventures.

Five days in the Dolomites, where many realized they weren’t chasing the summit…they were chasing themselves.

The No Matter What Leadership Adventure in Peru, where we stood in places the Incas once stood and remembered that transformation doesn’t happen in theory; it happens in your feet, your breath, your choices.

And every keynote, from Europe, to the Midwest, to down under in Australia, where teams showed up ready to do more than listen. They showed up ready to commit.

If 2024 was a year of building momentum, 2025 has been a year of ignition.

The Quiet Wins That Never Make the Highlight Reel…

Behind every public moment were thousands of private ones.
People having hard conversations they’d avoided for years.
Companies launching new initiatives because they finally trusted their teams to handle real responsibility.
Managers choosing presence over problem-solving.
Individuals dropping the stories that kept them stuck.
Even a few of you emailing me about cold plunges, marathons, new businesses, reconciled relationships, and breakthroughs that had nothing to do with work but changed everything about how you show up at work.

Those moments matter more to me than any standing ovation.

Because they prove something: You can change your life by changing the way you face the unknown and uncomfortable.

And here’s the deeper truth underneath all of it:

2025 worked because people stopped waiting for perfect conditions and started acting from truth instead of comfort. They learned something essential.

You don’t shift just because you want to. You shift because you commit to something that requires a new version of you. And when enough people make that kind of commitment, individual by individual, that’s what builds teams, cultures, and movements that last.

That’s the real heart of this movement.

Thank You. Thank you for the Work, the trust, and the courage.

I don’t take your attention for granted.

You can read anything. You can follow anyone. You can listen to any voice.

You choosing to be part of this work means something.

Thank you for showing up to keynotes ready to participate instead of passively consuming. Thank you for emailing your commitments, sharing your breakthroughs, and letting me in on your stories. Thank you for the curiosity, the courage, the accountability, the vulnerability, and the willingness to go first.

Most of all, thank you for treating growth as something sacred. Not just a strategy, not a trend, but a way of living.

Where We Go From Here:

2026 isn’t asking for a new you.
It’s asking for a truer you.
More honest.
More aligned.
More willing to meet what’s in front of you, especially the parts you haven’t wanted to meet.

Next year, we’re taking this work deeper.
More adventures to Morocco, Chile and 14ers in the Colorado Rockies.
More tools.
More cool merch.
More ways to strengthen the muscle of discomfort so you can build the life, leadership, and impact you’re actually here for.

But before we turn the page, I want you to hear this clearly:
Everything you did this year counts.
Every step. Every risk. Every failure you learned through. Every moment you chose truth over comfort.

That’s how change happens.
That’s how transformation builds.
That’s how a movement grows. Not in giant leaps, but in the countless choices you make when nobody is watching.

Here’s to the year we lived No Matter What.

And to the one we’re about to create, together.

Key Idea

Growth isn’t something you plan for next year. It’s something you commit to now,
because commitment is what creates the next version of you.

2025 worked because people stopped waiting for perfect conditions and started acting from truth instead of comfort. And that mattered, because you don’t shift just because you want to — you shift because you commit to something that requires a new version of you. That shift, individual by individual, is what builds teams, cultures, and movements that last.

Takeaway

Before the year ends, name one discomfort you avoided in 2025 and commit to facing it cleanly and directly as you enter 2026.

Build your Movement

Where did you grow the most this year, and what does that reveal about who you’re becoming?