As 2025 comes to a close, this episode is your invitation to pause, reflect, and intentionally choose what you're bringing into 2026and what you're leaving behind.

Maggie shares five key lessons and coaching concepts from 2025, shaped by her own experiences as a business owner and by what she's seen while coaching service-based entrepreneurs. You'll hear practical mindset shifts, real examples (including navigating a tax audit), and simple frameworks you can apply to your planning, your leadership, and your growth in the new year.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• Why year-end reflection is a CEO skill (and how it helps you avoid repeating the same year)
• How to stop avoiding challenges and use them to become stronger and smarter
• What it really means to trust your support system (and why resistance is often a sign you're on the right track)
• Why creating value is never wasted and how it comes back in unexpected ways
• A simple mindset for events, collaborations, and networking that removes pressure and increases results
• Why Maggie chose Connect (Connected)as her 2026 word of the year and how connection fuels growth

Key Lessons & Concepts (Highlights)

1) Lean Into Challenges (They Make You Stronger)

Challenges don't disappear as you grow; they change. Maggie shares how daily journaling and intentional mindset work helped her face difficult situations (including a tax audit) with less avoidance, less emotional spiraling, and more clarity.

2) Trust Your Support System (and Do the Work)

Whether it's a bookkeeper, mentor, coach, or financial expert, support only works when you actually lean into it. Maggie shares a powerful insight: the more her brain resisted a mentor's suggestion, the better the results were on the other side.

Reminder: Investing is not the transformation. Implementation is.

3) The More Value You Create, the Better You Feel (and It Comes Back)

Maggie reflects on how giving value through VIP coaching sessions and complimentary events created fulfillment, stronger relationships, and unexpected opportunities.

4) One Event, One Client (A Pressure-Removing Framework)

If you're an introvert or you overthink networking, this concept is for you.

Instead of expecting one event to make it all worth it, Maggie teaches: show up fully, be yourself, and trust that one event can lead to one client, whether immediately or months later.

Important: Be strategic about what you attend and create, but drop unrealistic expectations that create pressure and disappointment.

5) Connection Starts With Being Connected

Maggie shares why connection is her guiding theme for 2026, starting with connection to self (growth, mindset, identity), then expanding to family, clients, community, and purpose.

She also references how 10x Is Easier Than 2x influenced her thinking and her 10X Expansion Retreat.

Before you jump into 2026, pause and reflect. Decide what you're keeping, what you're releasing, and what you're committing to so you don't repeat the same year on a new calendar.

If you want support scaling your service business in 2026, book a complimentary consultation with Maggie here - https://calendly.com/maggie-s2l/discovery-call-1