Last year, my New Year’s resolution was simple. I wanted to raise the stakes. I wanted to stretch myself, take bigger risks, and stop playing at the edges of my own potential. I wanted to feel like I was making the most of the time I have and the work I am doing.
And I did.
Raising the stakes pushed me into deeper creative work and bolder leadership choices. It forced a level of output that challenged every part of me. It asked more of me, and as I look back at the year, I believe I rose to meet what it demanded.
But something different is happening as we step into this new year. The work is becoming about expansion. My New Year’s resolution is to answer a bigger call. The kind that does not ask you to do more but asks you to become more. The kind that shows up when the world around you shifts and the leadership that once worked is no longer enough.
We are living through a moment shaped by political hostilities, economic uncertainty, cultural fragmentation, the acceleration of AI, and a level of collective exhaustion that cannot be solved by working harder. The instinct is to fix the system with more system, to tighten the reins, and to add process on top of process.
Here is what my work, my research, and my own transformation continue to teach me. No amount of external control can compensate for internal misalignment. Systems do not stabilize people. People stabilize systems. And right now the world is being shaken by people who are shaken.
Answering a bigger call means refusing to lead from that place. It means rooting myself in clarity, courage, and integrity so deeply that circumstances do not get to decide who I am or how I show up.
For me, answering that call this year looks like choosing alignment instead of adrenaline. It looks like choosing clarity over the chaos loop. It looks like operating from values and beliefs instead of urgency. It looks like meeting fear with faith. It looks like taking responsibility for my part of any moment, no more and no less.
This is work that I’m going to focus on every single day. It is the work that has shaped every major cultural and political turning point in history. It is the work that determines whether leaders create stability or amplify instability.
And that is the bigger call I am answering this year. To expand my capacity to lead with presence, purpose, and inner steadiness, especially when the world around us feels unsteady. My hope is that the book Joe Terry and I are releasing later this month offers a path for anyone who wants to do the same.
The next era of leadership will not be defined by more strategy. It will be defined by more humanity. The kind that begins within and moves outward into every relationship, every team, and every result.
Last year I raised the stakes. This year I am answering a bigger call. And if you feel that same pull in your own life, consider this your invitation.
Your bigger call is waiting.
If answering a bigger call resonates, the Surrender to Lead Summit is where that work moves from reflection into practice.
The Summit brings together leaders who are choosing to lead from alignment rather than urgency, and who are navigating uncertainty without outsourcing their steadiness to systems, pressure, or control. It is a space to explore what it actually looks like to lead with clarity, responsibility, and humanity as we step into the next era of leadership.
If you feel that same pull, this is your invitation to join us.
Register today at: https://www.surrendertolead.com/summit/
Elsewhere In Culture
https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/new-years-eve-times-square-2026-new-ball
The ball is dropping. Oh wait. Sorry to scare you. You didn’t drop the ball on a project, a deadline, or a leadership moment you were supposed to handle better. It’s just almost 2026, which feels dramatic enough on its own. As the year winds down and inboxes go quiet for a minute, consider this your reminder that not everything needs fixing before midnight. Some things get to end cleanly, some things carry forward unfinished, and some lessons only make sense once the confetti settles. Happy New Year, everyone.