2025 in the Rearview. 2026 in the Windshield.

I did something crazy in the last two weeks of 2025: I took Linkedin off my phone for about 10 days. It was the longest break in six years and I gotta say, it’s been refreshing. I was a lot more present with my family over the holidays than I would have been otherwise. Poor family. :D

And in this edition of The FoLD, I’ll reflect some. I’m not writing this as some grand “year in review” post. I’m writing it because I sat down on New Year’s Day wanting to process what 2025 taught me and what I’m carrying into 2026. So consider this less of a polished newsletter and more of me thinking out loud with you.

The Biggest Surprise

The thing that caught me most off guard in 2025 was just how deep my curiosity runs around artificial intelligence and this moment we’re living through.

It feels like a green field opportunity. A chance to learn and evolve into something greater than I’ve ever been before. If i’m honest, it’s overwhelming—there’s so much happening in technology that it’s hard to know what to focus on. But that’s a good problem to have.

What lights me up most about AI is simple:

AI lets me do more things I’ve never been able to do before, and it lets me do things I have done before a lot more efficiently than ever before.

For years I regretted not being a software engineer. I had so many ideas for apps but no way to build them. Now? I can create an app in half an hour with tools like Lovable.

For decades, I built efficient, scalable systems at companies because that was the only way to get access to the tools and resources you needed. But now? Most humans can create and systematize their entire day-to-day, freeing up space to focus on creativity and passion.

If you can remove the administrative and rote tasks that humans do and replace them with their true scope of genius, you’re going to have a lot of happy, healthy, fulfilled humans running around (hopefully making money doing what they love!)

That’s the promise I see. And I want to be part of making it real.

Still Figuring Out What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

Two years into entrepreneurship, I’m still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

That’s an interesting thing for a 42-year-old man to feel. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve felt it my entire career. But this feels different. This feels more like the world is my oyster and I can become and take on whatever I want.

2025 is the year I realized being a generalist is actually a huge advantage in an AI-driven world.

That’s a departure from the first 20 years of my career when I was insecure about being a generalist instead of a specialist. But now? I feel like I’m well on my way to getting where I need to go. Even if I don’t know exactly where that is yet.

In the future, I believe that a person’s ability to keep an open mind, feed their curiosity, follow their fascination, and embrace new ideas and ways of working is going to be an important trait to develop going forward.

For everyone.

Why Year Two Was Harder

They say the second year of business is harder than the first. They’re not lying.

Your first year as an entrepreneur is the most terrifyingly exciting thing you can do. It’s new, it’s fresh, you’re just so pumped to be doing this thing you’ve never done before.

In year two, it becomes more of a job than a passion pursuit. Not to suggest I wasn’t pursuing my passion, but it took more effort to keep building in year two than it did in year one.

Mindset matters more than ever in year two. And it can be really hard for someone who’s an incredibly social human being, an extrovert by nature, to spend all his time inside his home office with his dog and the voices in his head that are often doubtful.

That’s a head trip.

I started working with Josh Perry, a fantastic mindset & performance coach who helps people get out of their own way. It’s been really impactful for me and although I’ve got a long way to go, I’m on my way! JP taught me something I feel like I should have known already:

Emotions & feelings are not reality. They’re a biological response and our nervous system’s way of trying to protect us, keep us safe, seen, and heard, which are ultimately all humans want in the world.

(he also told me I need to stop “shoulding” all over myself, which really resonates).

If you’re struggling with mindset, talk to JP.

What I’m Proud Of

In 2025, I’m proud to have launched a group cohort to teach people how to build personal brands and sell socially on LinkedIn. Thirty people took it. I’m proud to have fine-tuned my curriculum to a place where I feel good about it.

I’m proud that I’ve been going to the gym five days a week for almost a year now and how strong I’m getting as a result. Even if the weight loss isn’t coming off as fast as I’d like, I know I’m doing the right things and becoming a healthier human.

I’m proud of my health. I’m proud of being healthy.

That’s the first time in my life I’ve ever said that and it feels like quite an accomplishment.

But most of all, I’m proud of the patience I’ve learned to embrace. Partially by force, but mainly because patience is something I’ve never really had a whole lot of.

My weight loss journey and my entrepreneurial journey have taught me that it’s really about putting in the work one day at a time and trusting that all of that effort will compound to yield the results you want eventually.

What I’m Leaving Behind

Something I’d like to intentionally leave in 2025: fear of what others might think of me and limiting beliefs rooted in self-doubt.

There is no way I’m going to reach my full potential if I’m constantly worried about what people might think about what I’m saying along the way.

One of my favorite philosophers is Popeye, who says, “I am what I am.”

The older I get, the more I resonate with that phrase. But deep down inside, there’s still an insecurity about how others will perceive me, and that belief limits my potential.

I have an exceptional personality, if I may say so myself. And when I put it out there, good things happen. But sometimes I don’t put it out there. In fact, I would say there are many places where I don’t put it out there, and that seems like a mistake.

So I’m just going to start doing it more. Nothing bad is going to happen from it.

I also struggle with starting small. Something about having 47,000 followers that I’ve built over six years on LinkedIn makes me uncomfortable with the concept of starting small or starting over somewhere.

Take Substack, for example, I sometimes think I don’t invest the time I should because I’m not getting the same dopamine responses and quantity that I get on LinkedIn. But I know Substack is a good channel for me, so I need to build it further.

And one more thing I’m leaving behind: the last-minute nature of my content creation.

I want to start creating content when I’m inspired, scheduling it, and letting it go out on its own. Not putting pressure on myself every single day to write something and publish it.

Forcing myself to pick a post every day that I think is going to perform well or be good for that day is wildly inefficient and heavily friction-filled. I need to get in the habit of just putting my content in Buffer, adding it to the queue, and letting it fly. Not even knowing what I’m posting some days.

Create when inspired. Schedule it. Detach from the outcome.

That’s the move.

What 2026 Looks Like

If I fast-forward to December 2026, success for me looks like someone who feels comfortable showing up online on video, has built a system to post content across multiple channels, and is detached from the outcome of that posting activity.

I don’t need virality. I don’t want to become famous.

I just truly believe that having an online presence is non-negotiable anymore and that following your fascination, feeding your curiosity, and posting about what you’re passionate about is one of the greatest opportunities we have as humans right now.

By December 2026, I’d like to have launched The FoLD community—an online space where I can go deep with people who are most passionate about the topics I like to talk about.

The FoLD, for me, is a community of intelligent, curious, passionate, and personable human beings who are sitting around a fire shooting the shit about business, life, technology, and more. A group of supportive humans who want to share their knowledge freely and willingly and help cultivate a small village of people who derive great fulfillment from relating to and helping others.

It’ll probably skew heavily toward founders and small business owners so we can all talk about growing our businesses. But also about family and life and artificial intelligence and what it’s like to be alive right now.

I want to be showing up a lot more consistently here on Substack. I’d love to be 250 pounds and have more peace of mind on a daily basis, not letting my thoughts hijack me.

By December 2026, I want to have a smaller tech stack that I can go deeper into, automating systems and processes for content creation and really making the most of the efficiency gains that AI enables.

More Patient, Less Patient

In 2026, I want to be more patient with my family—my kids specifically.

I have wonderful kids. They’re the best. They’re good humans, they’re smart. I have no reason to worry about them, and yet so much of my brain space is taken up by a fear of messing them up or raising kids that are addicted to screens or otherwise doing things that aren’t healthy for them.

I think sometimes what ends up happening is I try to control too much and not just let them be.

I view the role of a parent philosophically as bumpers in a bowling alley. We’re there to watch that ball navigate the lane, chasing strikes and spares. And we only really intervene to prevent them from going into the gutter.

But realistically speaking, I’m not that hands-off. I tend to sometimes be a bit neurotic and controlling, and I want to change that.

I want my kids to not worry about me losing my temper or upsetting me or that love is conditional. I think they feel that deep down inside, but I know I could do a better job of making it easy for them to know those things.

As for what I want to be less patient with: I’d like to really focus on developing my bias for action over thought.

I can get lost in thought. I’ll go down rabbit holes thinking about how to do something or what I need to do and why. And oftentimes that creates a sense of anxiety and uncertainty that is not productive for me.

So I’d like to develop more of a bias for action—just doing what needs to get done instead of thinking about what needs to get done.

The Advice I’d Give Myself

If I could give myself one piece of advice on January 1st, 2025, it would be this:

Get out of your own way.

Stop talking about what you should do, what you need to do, and what you want to do, and just start fucking doing it.

The only thing holding me back from reaching my truest potential is me, and I have to do everything I can to remedy that.

What This All Means

I don’t have some grand plan for 2026. No aspirational roadmap. No performative resolutions.

I’m just going to keep showing up. Keep learning. Keep building. Keep being patient with the process while developing a bias for action.

I’m going to share my personality and perspective more authentically. I’m going to pour into my family. I’m going to leverage AI to create more with less effort without losing my voice.

And I’m going to get more comfortable with starting small in new places, trusting that consistency compounds just like it has everywhere else.

Thanks for being here. For reading this. For being part of whatever this thing is that I’m building.

Here’s to 2026.

Hi5,

LD

🌶️

P.S. — What are you leaving in 2025? What are you carrying into 2026? Hit reply and let me know. I’d love to hear from you.