Eight percent of New Year's resolutions actually stick. Eight. And before you go thinking I'm about to lecture you from some mountaintop of discipline, let me put my own cards on the table. I still want to lose the same fifteen pounds I wanted to lose last January. And the January before that. So this is not a finger-wag. This is a fellow traveler talking.
Here is what I've noticed in twenty-seven years of running my agency. Almost every business book I've ever picked up, almost every podcast I've ever listened to, almost every founder I've ever heard speak - they all want to talk about the launch. The first sale. The big idea. The garage. The MVP. The pitch deck.
The launch was the easiest week of my whole career.
Year four was hard. Year nine was harder. Year seventeen, when we were good enough to be confident and not yet good enough to be untouchable, was the hardest of them all. The launch is the part anybody can do. Anybody can light a match. Almost nobody keeps the fire going.
The third Tuesday in October
Here is the test I wish someone had handed me in my first year.
It is the third Tuesday in October. Nobody is watching. There is no New Year's energy in the air. Your spouse is not asking how the launch went. Your friends have moved on to whatever else is happening in their lives. Your inbox has the same kind of mediocre opportunities it had last week. Your bank account is the same number it was on Friday. The tax bill is coming. The team meeting at ten o'clock is going to require you to make a decision you don't want to make.
What do you do that day?
That day is the business. Not the launch. Not the announcement. Not the funding round. The third Tuesday in October. The one nobody will ever post a photo of.
If you can be the kind of owner who shows up that day, with the same energy you brought on day one, you are going to build something that lasts. If you can't, no January resolution is going to fix it. You will start a different business in eighteen months. And another one twenty months after that. You will be a starter, which is a fine thing to be, but you will not be a builder.
The question to ask before another January burns out
Most owners are about to do the same thing they did last year. They will write a goal list. They will buy a planner. They will tell their team about the new initiative. They will mean it. They will work hard for about six weeks. And then real life - the IRS, a sick kid, a difficult client, a slow month - will quietly take the wind out of every one of those goals.
I am not telling you that to depress you. I am telling you that because the real first question of the year is not "what's my idea." It is not "what's my goal." It is not even "what's my plan."
The real first question is: do I actually want to last?
action
1. Answer one question in writing: do I actually want to last? 2. Pick the smallest commitment that proves your answer on the third Tuesday in October. 3. Write the commitment down where you will see it four times this year. 4. Tell one person what it is, by name, this week. 5. Put the four review dates on your calendar before January ends.
So here is the question I want to hand you for the next seven days.
Forget the resolution list. Don't write a five-year plan. Don't redesign your business. Just answer one question, in writing, for yourself: do I actually want to last?
If the answer is yes, what is the smallest thing you can commit to in 2026 that proves it? Not on January 5. On the third Tuesday in October.
Tell one person what it is. That is the whole assignment.
I will go first. I'll be back next Monday. So will the work. So will the third Tuesday in October. The only question is who you'll be when it shows up.
