The Scorecard You Should Burn in 2026

What my sister’s death taught me about the difference between a "successful" career and a life well-lived.

Author

Lilah Jones
January 06, 2026

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The Activated Leader™ | Issue #28

IN THIS ISSUE:

For 20 years, I kept score the way society taught me:

The Old Scorecard:

  • Title progression (Director → Senior Director → VP)

  • Compensation growth (10% raise = winning)

  • Team size (more reports = more important)

  • Visibility (high-profile projects = success)

  • Hours worked (busy = valuable)

And by every measure, I was crushing it.

Senior Director at Google. Six-figure comp. High-visibility projects. Performance reviews that said "exceeds expectations."

Except my body was keeping a different score.

Panic attacks in bathroom stalls. Missed school concerts.

Dinners where I was present but not there.

A nervous system running on fumes.

My sister didn't get to recalculate her scorecard.

I did.

So I burned the old one. And built something new.

THE NEW SCORECARD: 5 Metrics That Actually Matter

1. Presence Hours (not billable hours)

  • Old metric: How many hours did I work?

  • New metric: How many hours was I fully present—with family, with myself, with what matters?

I track this now. Not obsessively. But enough to notice when the ratio gets off.

Last week: 36 presence hours. That's dinners without my phone. Mornings without email. Conversations without mentally drafting my response.

New Scorecard

2. Energy ROI (not financial ROI)

  • Old metric: What's the return on this investment of time/money?

  • New metric: What's the return on this investment of energy?

Some things pay well but cost everything. Some things pay nothing but fill you up.

3. Alignment Score (not performance score)

  • Old metric: Did I meet expectations?

  • New metric: Did I act in alignment with who I'm becoming?

Every Sunday, I ask myself: "How aligned was this week? Where did I betray myself? Where did I honor myself?"

No judgment. Just awareness.

4. Relationship Depth (not network size)

  • Old metric: How many connections do I have?

  • New metric: How many people would I call at 2 am? How many would call me?

I deleted 400 LinkedIn connections last month. Not because they're bad people. Because I was confusing the audience with intimacy.

5. Tuesday Dinners (not quarterly targets)

  • Old metric: Did I hit my Q4 number?

  • New metric: How many Tuesday dinners did I actually show up for?

1,460. That's how many dinners I have left with my daughter before college. I'm not missing them for anyone's Q4.

THE SHIFT

Here's what changed when I started keeping score differently:

Revenue went UP, not down. Turns out, when you're not exhausted and resentful, you do better work. I built three revenue streams in 8 months: keynotes, coaching, and fractional work.

Opportunities got BETTER, not fewer. When you're clear on what you want, you stop attracting what you don't. The wrong opportunities stopped showing up. The right ones found me.

My body stopped screaming. Zero panic attacks. Zero. My nervous system finally trusts that I'm not going to betray it anymore.

I got my daughter back. Not physically; she was always there. But I got the version of me that can actually be with her. Present. Unhurried. Not mentally somewhere else.

YOUR TURN

Here's the question I want you to sit with this week:

What scorecard are you killing yourself to win?

And more importantly:

Who wrote it?

Because here's what I learned: Most of us are keeping score on someone else's game. Our parents' game. Our industry's game. Our ego's game.

We're winning metrics we never consciously chose.

My sister's death taught me: You don't get unlimited time to figure this out.

The scorecard you're keeping is either building the life you want or destroying it.

There's no neutral.

FREE DOWNLOAD: The New Scorecard

Want to know if you're winning the right game? I turned the 5 metrics from this newsletter into a free scorecard. Takes 2 minutes; shows you exactly where you're drifting.

No email required if you're already subscribed. Just click and it's yours.

See you next Tuesday.

P.S. If this hit home, reply and tell me: What metric have you been chasing that you're ready to release? I read every response.

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