The Activated Leader™ | Issue #70
Hey {{first_name | default: friend}},
You’re finishing a year that asked a lot of you.
Maybe your company restructured, and you’re now doing your old job plus part of someone else’s. Maybe new performance guidelines moved the bar while you were already running toward it. Maybe you’ve been told AI should make you more productive, so the expectation is simple: do more.
And now 2027 is coming, with a bigger ask and less certainty about what’s next.
If you’re already tired and quietly wondering how you’ll do more next year than you did this year, you’re in good company. When I talk with leaders right now, I keep hearing the same sentence: “I’m already running on empty.”
I know that feeling from the inside.
A few years ago, the week before Christmas, I closed one of the hardest deals of my career. For months, it followed me everywhere, including the sideline at my kid’s soccer games. My boyfriend, now my husband, had just had hip surgery, and he spent the final negotiation lying on the couch in that conference room while I ran the call.
When the contract signed, I lay down on the floor. I had nothing left.
I won the deal. My family spent those months with a version of me who was always somewhere else.
That was one deal. A lot of people are about to try to run a whole year that way.
Here’s the question I wish someone had asked me back then:
What am I giving up to hit this goal, and did I decide it was worth it?
DECIDE BEFORE 2027 DECIDES FOR YOU
Right now, before 2027 goals land, you still get to choose what you’ll give up and what you’ll carry into January.
Once the new goals arrive, the pressure starts making those choices for you.
THE COST CHECK
Three questions, five minutes. Answer them for the goal taking up the most space in your head right now.
What am I giving up? Name it: sleep, your health, dinner without your phone, your patience with the people you lead.
Who else is giving something up? Your partner, your kids, your team. They feel your intensity before you do.
What will I protect going into 2027? Pick one thing and put it on your calendar like a customer meeting.
You don’t have to care less or lower your ambition. You get to decide what’s worth it, on purpose, so next year’s bigger ask doesn’t come out of a tank that’s already empty.
IF YOU LEAD A TEAM
Your people are feeling all of it: the restructuring, the new expectations, the uncertainty. Most of them won’t say it out loud. They’ll give you the forecast instead. The ones feeling it most are often your top performers, the same people you’ll need most in Q1.
Before you hand them bigger 2027 goals, run these three questions with them. Their answers will tell you more about next year than any planning deck.
I lead year-end sessions for directors and their teams, in person or virtual, built to get them ready for 2027. Together we get clear on what next year is asking for, what each person is ready to commit to, and what they’ll protect so they can keep the pace. Your team walks into January clear-headed and ready to move. That’s how my teams got a fast start every year.
If you want one for your team before the year closes, reply with the word TEAM and the month that works for you. I read every one.
P.S. Know a leader whose team is heading into 2027 already exhausted? Forward this to them.
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