EP # 233 - Reflect, Reset, Scale - 5 Powerful Lessons to Close 2025 and Start 2026 Strong

As 2025 comes to a close, this episode is your invitation to pause, reflect, and intentionally choose what you're bringing into 2026and what you're leaving behind.

Maggie shares five key lessons and coaching concepts from 2025, shaped by her own experiences as a business owner and by what she's seen while coaching service-based entrepreneurs. You'll hear practical mindset shifts, real examples (including navigating a tax audit), and simple frameworks you can apply to your planning, your leadership, and your growth in the new year.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• Why year-end reflection is a CEO skill (and how it helps you avoid repeating the same year)
• How to stop avoiding challenges and use them to become stronger and smarter
• What it really means to trust your support system (and why resistance is often a sign you're on the right track)
• Why creating value is never wasted and how it comes back in unexpected ways
• A simple mindset for events, collaborations, and networking that removes pressure and increases results
• Why Maggie chose  Connect (Connected)as her 2026 word of the year and how connection fuels growth

Key Lessons & Concepts (Highlights)

1) Lean Into Challenges (They Make You Stronger)

Challenges don't disappear as you grow; they change. Maggie shares how daily journaling and intentional mindset work helped her face difficult situations (including a tax audit) with less avoidance, less emotional spiraling, and more clarity.

2) Trust Your Support System (and Do the Work)

Whether it's a bookkeeper, mentor, coach, or financial expert, support only works when you actually lean into it. Maggie shares a powerful insight: the more her brain resisted a mentor's suggestion, the better the results were on the other side.

Reminder: Investing is not the transformation. Implementation is.

3) The More Value You Create, the Better You Feel (and It Comes Back)

Maggie reflects on how giving value through VIP coaching sessions and complimentary events created fulfillment, stronger relationships, and unexpected opportunities.

4) One Event, One Client (A Pressure-Removing Framework)

If you're an introvert or you overthink networking, this concept is for you.

Instead of expecting one event to make it all worth it, Maggie teaches: show up fully, be yourself, and trust that one event can lead to one client, whether immediately or months later.

Important: Be strategic about what you attend and create, but drop unrealistic expectations that create pressure and disappointment.

5) Connection Starts With Being Connected

Maggie shares why connection is her guiding theme for 2026, starting with connection to self (growth, mindset, identity), then expanding to family, clients, community, and purpose.

She also references how 10x Is Easier Than 2x influenced her thinking and her 10X Expansion Retreat.

Before you jump into 2026, pause and reflect. Decide what you're keeping, what you're releasing, and what you're committing to so you don't repeat the same year on a new calendar.

If you want support scaling your service business in 2026, book a complimentary consultation with Maggie here - https://calendly.com/maggie-s2l/discovery-call-1

Transcript

As we are approaching end of the year 2025, I think all of us should create time to pause and reflect. I don't think anybody should be running into the new year just by doing everything the same

like they did in the old year. The new year, it's a great natural circumstance that can allow us to pause, reflect, drop, what didn't serve us, bring over what served us, and come up with some new ideas and new goals that can drive us in the new year. Make us better and challenge us to be better. So that's why I decided that the last Diamond Effect podcast episode of 2025 will be me sharing my five key lessons from 2025 that I also [00:01:00] turned, or some of them I turned into coaching concepts.

Because those lessons came not only from my own experiences, but also my experience coaching clients. I'm definitely a person who learned. From other people's experiences. I don't need to always learn the hard way by doing things on my own. I like to observe people, businesses, market whatever I can and learn from that. So let me dive into it. I have some five key lessons and concept for you to share so you can learn from me, and I hope that you'll do that for yourself, for your own business before the year ends. So you can learn from your own experiences as well, because that's very powerful to do.

So the first one is. As business owners, we. Experience a lot of challenges every year, right? Sometimes, and they're always different, and hopefully they are different, right? [00:02:00] That when you experience a challenge, you overcome it, you learn from it, and hopefully it doesn't come back. But then at every stage of growth of our business, new challenges will come up because.

We're faced with new situations, new circumstances, new growth levels that then create certain challenges we need to solve for. So the lessons that I have from this year is for me learning to really lean. Into those challenges. And when you do that, it makes you stronger and smarter. Usually as human beings, when we're faced with a challenge, especially a bigger one or a scary one, we tend to, it's very uncomfortable and the natural response of our brain is to hide or avoid, or.

Procrastinate or do other things that distract us, rather than facing a challenge, like whether [00:03:00] it's scrolling on internet, sleeping right, pretending that all is good and doing the same thing over and over, hoping for different result. We all experience that. And this year what I worked on is as challenges came up in my business, I.

Worked on leaning into them and minimized. Really avoid the time where I would procrastinate and avoid because I didn't wanna feel the negative emotions that came with leaning into challenges. And what allowed me to do that was really having.

A habit of daily journaling where I would, unpack what was going on in my mind, what I was thinking about those challenges, how I was feeling about it, and redirect my brain towards [00:04:00] thoughts about those challenges that were serving me, that pushed me to face them, solve for them, and deal with them.

And with that rigorous mindset work that didn't really take a long time, it's, I spent anywhere from five to 15 minutes in the morning to journal. I actually amazed myself how well I handled different challenges. And I have been going through, for example, tax audit this year. I don't think I've shared it a lot with, yet, because it was something I've never went through as a business. I had once, I've been audited once as an individual, and it was very small audit. This one is more extensive because Canadian tax department decided to audit on me, and that can be very stressful despite the fact that, I've.

Always [00:05:00] had my taxes. Since I started my business handled by a professional, I didn't wanna take on that responsibility and I don't even have knowledge to do it on myself. I've had bookkeeper for the past, I think, three or five years. Like I like to delegate things that I'm not expert in, to the experts who then, when situations like that happen, I know everything was handled well.

I have expertise to lean in through and so on. But I have to say it's been. Sometimes stressful having to deal with the auditor and pulling all the documents and dealing with the stuff and so on, and I handled it pretty well. I can't say there weren't moments when I was, fed up with it or angry or like, why do I have to go through it type of thing.

But those were really very short moments, and just dealing with it, not being too emotional about it, just like it is what it is. I know I'm good, I just need to, provide the [00:06:00] information, deal with response, . Surprised me and I truly

believe that I was able to do that with that particular. Challenge, let's just say, or situation and other things that came up this year because I have a mindset work routine, and I intentionally lean into those challenges and that made me so much smarter. Of course, I'm always learn as I go and so much stronger.

With that, the lesson number two was. Trust your support system. Lean into your experts that you bring to help you in your business. So often I see people, let's say, invest in coaching or invest in programs and so on, and then they don't do the work, and then they think that only the fact of investing will [00:07:00] bring them results. Or they do the work for the first two months and then they fall off because they wanted immediate results if they didn't get the immediate results right. When you make a decision and invest into support, whether it's an expert doing things for you like me for bookkeeping and taxes, whether it's an expert helping you get to certain results like a coach, whether it's a financial planner who you hand who is helping you handle your investments and build wealth and so on.

Trust those experts. You chose them, right? They're there to help you. Like I can't imagine going through that audit alone. I can't imagine if I was doing everything like the bookkeeping and taxes, having to deal with. The tax department throwing some tax laws at me that I really don't know much about, right?

Leaning into the experts that I hired was [00:08:00] such a relief. It saved me a ton of time, a ton of headaches, and just made the whole experience. Better. I can't say it's great because it's not a great experience, but better.

Another thing is I also as a coach, hire mentors and coaches to help me grow, right? To unlock. My blind spots or show me my blind spots and push me to think differently about my business, push me to do things that can serve me and can help me achieve the goals that, again, my brain resists. And this year I've been really working on refining my one-on-one coaching offer and try.

Different strategies actually to build a funnel to grow offer. And I have to say, my mentor has had me do things that I really was surprised how my brain [00:09:00] resisted. In the beginning, right? It's, I did those things, but in order to get there, I had to talk myself to it because my brain didn't wanna do it.

My brain was telling me it's not gonna work. That's not right. All the things to avoid doing something new and uncomfortable in the beginning. But then I realized the more my brain resisted when I leaned into it and actually did the thing that my mentor. Suggested I got amazing results and I couldn't believe how it tolerated.

The more my brain resisted, the less it wanted to do it, the better result I got. I remember I was running this campaign, like two email campaign to offer something special to my email list, I. Was skeptical about it. And again, my brain resistance oh, is that gonna really [00:10:00] work? I sent the first email of the campaign and literally without minutes, I had multiple consults on my books and that never happened to me before.

And I was like, whoa, okay. That was a great, interesting experience.

So actually within this lesson, there's two lessons, right? One, lean into support. If you're paying experts and mentors to do either thing for you or do it with you, help you through. Do what they're suggesting. Try it right? Work through your resistance or fear, whatever that is. So that's one lesson within that.

And then the second lesson I realize is like you actually, the more your brain resists to do something that ultimately you know it's gonna look good for you because you hired an expert to help you with that, the better the results you will have at the end. That's definitely. [00:11:00] A huge lesson for me this year.

Okay. Lesson number three is the more value I create out there, the better I feel

and the more of myself I can be. The value you give out will come back to you 10 x anymore. Now what you can't control is how it will come back. When it will come back. And it's not always direct correlation oh, if I do this for this person and that person will give me back the value.

It doesn't always work this way. Sometimes it is a direct correlation, sometimes it isn't, and it's just this. She reinforced my belief that when I do that. Not only the value comes back, but I also feel great about it.

And therefore I show up better as a coach in my business, as a business owner, as a CEO. So the, [00:12:00] and when I show up better and I feel better, I wanna do more of that, right? So I wanna create more value, show up bigger, fight for what I want to achieve for my goals and so on. Couple of examples here was.

I did couple of campaigns this year where I invited selected people who are not my clients to do a VIP session with me, VIP coaching session with me, and it was true coaching. It wasn't a sales call. I. Genuinely wanted to help and I will run two campaign one in the first half of the year, the second in the second half of the year.

It was very small, very selective, and I realized the people who took me on it, we had such. Great conversations and great connection and I actually helped one person connected them with somebody who helped them sell their business. They were thinking about exiting their business and [00:13:00] they couldn't actually believe that they could sell their business and I connected them with someone who could.

I have a big network of amazing people that I've built over the past. Few years that I ran this business. So I know a lot of amazing professionals who can help business owners with many different things.

And then in multiples of those sessions, I was able to give people big aha moments, show them again, things that they weren't seeing, give them a bit different perspectives, and seeing them uncover that and finding huge value in those sessions was great for me. It felt very fulfilling. And yes, I did sign clients from those sessions in a way where.

A business owner saw a true value, saw that they were missing certain things, that their perspective wasn't serving them, that they needed to expand their knowledge about business or whatever it is, and wanted to [00:14:00] work with me,

I really love doing that and I might do it in 2026. That's why it be, might be one of the value creation initiatives that I'll do once or twice next year.

Then another. Initiative that I did to create the value was free events, and I've been doing free events since I started my business, but this year I tried a new format of the event that is condensed, but still longer than let's say one hour training or 90 minute workshop. And it's curated as a group experience where it we're not only working through certain topic that are chosen.

So for example, for design year success 2026, it's a strategic planning event. So it's a [00:15:00] planning for 2026, but we're working through that and creating a plan, but also masterminding networking and so on. So it's a very curated event for two days, three hours each, and having business owners go through that.

I've already run two this year, and I'm gonna run another one in January because I had business owners who really wanted to attend and the timing didn't work or they got sick in Swan. So I'm gonna run one more. January 13 and 14. So if you're listening to that before those dates, I highly

recommend and invite you to join us. It's a complimentary event, but the value you will get is amazing. So I created those, I tested them, and I love them because people get so much [00:16:00] value. And I feel good about it and it's fun to run for me. So let me give you like three testimonials that I received from the last event just to get you to attend and join us.

So the first one is from Bobby who said, I thought the event was amazing. I can't believe. You gave it to me for free. You basically gave me the formula for free. I was like, whoa, this is revolutionary. It's extremely helpful. I was definitely running too much this year, and now I have immense clarity on what I need to do to grow in 2026.

Then Jennifer said. Design your success planning workshop was truly transformative. Maggie's an exceptional business coach, knowledgeable, inspiring, and incredibly practical in her approach. Over the two days, I gained so much clarity about my goals, along with actionable [00:17:00] strategies to move forward confidently.

Maggie creates a supportive environment where you feel empowered to think bigger, plan smarter, and take real steps towards success.

And then Susie said, I've been attending ME'S Design new success planning event for over four years. And just a footnote, yes, I have been running strategic planning events since I started my business because I truly believe in planning and I think everybody should plan for New Year's, but this year was a new format, so just keep that in mind.

The two day, three hour each day format. It's very new, so I changed that a little bit. But what Suzy think, what Suzy's been saying has been truly the best way for me to reflect on my past year and set clear intention goals for the year ahead. Maggie's presentations are insightful and she builds plenty of time to actually do the planning work.

So always leave with clarity, solid plan, and real excitement for what's next. The [00:18:00] breakout rooms were a great addition this year, connecting and sharing ideas with other business owners and even networking at the same time. Overall, it's 10 out of 10 I recommended to business owners, so when I have reviews like that from free, things that I do to create value, I feel great.

People feel great, and I build a lot of goodwill this way. The more value I create, the better I feel, the more of myself I can be. When I created the value my way, I truly believe it comes back to me. So I highly recommend you take on that lesson. Okay. Lesson number four, and that's a lesson and a concept that I started teaching my clients.

The concept is one event, one client, this is what I mean very often [00:19:00] as introverts, for example. We talk ourselves out of going to, let's say, networking events because we think, oh my God, there will be a lot of people. I have to talk to all those people, but I don't know them. I don't know what to say and so on.

So that's why also sometimes business owners, what I find not only. Introverted when they go to events or do collaborations or do their own complimentary free events, like I, the ones that I talked about, they set such big expectations for the returns of those events that when they don't get those returns, they get disappointed.

They get disillusioned and they're, and then they don't wanna do them again, or they don't wanna do collaboration, so they don't wanna. Do any free events or they don't wanna attend things 'cause they're like, oh, it wasn't worth of my time. I, I put so [00:20:00] much effort in it, or I spend this time and nothing happened.

So then. They miss out on opportunities this way, or they go to the next event with the same mindset and that creates the same result. Not because the event is not good or the collaboration couldn't work or whatever, but because they're creating it by thinking about it that way. And I'm not saying here that if you're, trying different things, you're trying different networking events or.

Going to conferences or building collaborations, you don't assess and. Think about whether you would wanna repeat it and if so, in what format, what to improve, what to stop doing, and so on. Just as I said, like with my planning event, I've been doing that event pretty much every year since I started my business.

But what I'm changing is the format, not the event, let's say I created so big [00:21:00] expectations of returns from that, that if I don't get them, I don't deem it worth doing so.

So in order to help my clients, and it helps me, and I created it as I went into those events, collaborations this year to help me to be grounded, to be myself, not to overthink, to tame my inner introvert. I created this concept as. If I attend one event, or do an event or do a collaboration and be the best I can be, show up the best I can be just myself right then out of that event.

I will, and that's just the belief. Create a client and whether that client will happen right away or whether it's gonna be two years from now, it [00:22:00] doesn't matter, right? Whether I know it straight away, it just doesn't matter. Because when I have that small, realistic expectation. The pressure of trying to create amazing results and everything being perfect in order for me to be worth doing, it goes away.

And then what I can do, I can just focus and ground myself just to be myself. Just to go out there, show up as Maggie, the coach, Maggie, a former storytelling leadership, and be me. And when a me the right people get attracted to that and I attract the right people, whether they're networking partners, referral partners or clients.

And that strategy works like magic. So I'll give you two examples that ultimately prove that belief. Not every single event that I did this year prove that [00:23:00] belief right away, but I believe that the one event, one client works. So I went to at Thanksgiving gathering from organized by one of my.

Networking colleagues. And every year his company does that when they invite people they collaborate with and the clients for, very informal but very nice networking. And I went there mostly to, honor the invite because I enjoyed the event. Meet other networking colleagues that attend and really with that.

Thought, right? If I connect more even with people that I network with on a regular basis, I deepen that relationship. It's another opportunity to deepen that relationships, which then they will think of me when they go out and they're at work. And yet at that event, I met some new people [00:24:00] and one of them became a client within.

A week or less, and it wasn't me chasing them. I didn't even realize that they were looking for a coach, but it was them seeking me out after the event, after we had a very short conversation. It wasn't even in depth, long conversation, seeking me after the event, meeting for coffee, booking a consult, become my client within a week, and then another.

Collaboration that I did, it was collaboration with a software company that I'm a client of, and they asked me if I could do a client case study for them. And again, I didn't expect anything. I just love the software. I, happy to do it. I was happy to do a case study just because I've used the software for many years and I just loved it.

So I said, yes, no problem. Happy to do that with nothing in exchange, nothing promised. Just giving value because [00:25:00] I feel their software helped me grow my business and gave me value throughout the years and within that collaboration when it was published and people started reading about it, I gained my client, I gained.

New connections. People who approach me on LinkedIn saying, Hey, I read this and I love the story. I wanna connect with you, and I get some gift, and thank you appreciation without expecting it, right? Instead of putting too much pressure on yourself and on the events or things you attend or people you work with from the start, keep it simple. One event, one client. Don't have expectation of timing, don't have expectations of the magnitude. Sometimes the timing will be long, sometimes will be immediate.

Sometimes it will be literally one event, one client, and sometimes it will be much more [00:26:00] than that. And when you just keep that in mind and then focus on showing up the best you can, doing the events the best you can, the universe will deliver, I promise you. Now, one more caveat to that, of course, still choose.

The events, the collaborations, the networking, or whatever it is, the free events you'll be organizing strategically, right? Don't do ad hoc, random, spread yourself too thin, do it strategically. I always guide my clients and do it show a powerfully and it will pay off, I promise. Okay, one last.

Lesson

and that's about connection. I actually chose Connect and Connected a version of it to be the word that for 2026 Word of the Year. For me, [00:27:00] connection starts with being connected. To yourself, and again, growing yourself as a leader, growing yourself as a human, really knowing yourself and understanding yourself. And I strive to grow every year, but I think this year I worked a lot on my mindset, pushing myself to.

Think 10 x one of the books that I read this year that I highly recommend is, 10 X is Better Than two X by Dan Sullivan, and I don't remember the other author, somebody Martin Hardy, I think,

and what it would take or what kind of change in thinking, or who do you need to become to create 10 x results? Because two X results very often are. Easier to achieve when you just do better what's already working for you. But if you wanna achieve 10 X results in your personal or professional life, you actually [00:28:00] need to change how you do things, how you approach things, and so on.

And I love that book. It really, the book inspired my 10 x expansion retreat this year, like the first in-person RET retreat I've ever run. And I've been thinking about it. So I've been pushing myself this year harder. To grow and in self development, and that led me to really connecting with who I am and who do I wanna be?

Like what version of me, who is Maggie, right? The better version of me When Maggie creates 10 X results in her life and in her business, that led me also to like on a. Connecting to my spiritual part. And with that, the more connected you are to yourself, the more connected you'll be to the people around you to the world.

Connection with my family to my loved, my ones, my family is one of my values. Right? Key values and [00:29:00] being an immigrant in Canada with me and my husband, like very often, it's only us, the four of us that live in the same household with our two kids and then expanded six of us with my two step boys that live close to us,

24 7 with us. So we have a very strong bond and relationship because it's just us. But then, having family abroad, I sometimes miss them. So this year we met with my immediate family, my parents, my sister and her family, and also seeing my husband's family in France. So we had two weeks vacation in France, and that reminded me how much I need to be connected with them

people you love, people that are important in your life on a regular basis, not only through WhatsApp and wan, but in person. And even with my little nephew, 4-year-old who is turning four soon, I haven't seen him before since he was a six month old baby. So seeing him like a little [00:30:00] boy running around with big personality was such a joy, I have to say.

Connection to my clients. I appreciate every single client that I have. I think about them. More than they realize. It's not just on a coaching calls, but I think about them outside of the coaching calls and how can I help them? And I go over what we talked about in the previous sessions to prepare for the upcoming session.

And through all of that, when I'm connected to me, to people that I love around me, to my clients, I'm also connected more to my business. I'm more motivated. I appreciate. The journey. It allows me to focus on my path rather than looking at others' journey. I coach my clients on it so often that when we look at others and start comparing ourselves, it can have a detrimental mindset effect on [00:31:00] us.

So looking inwards and connecting. With who you are, where are you going, who you wanna be that you have right now. Appreciating it, being more of yourself and challenging your growth so your business can grow. That connection is truly valuable and that's what brings better and bigger results.

So there you go. Strengthening the connection. Staying connected to what matters was a big lesson for me this year because I've done so much more of that than any other year, and it will guide me in 2026. So with that, I wanna wish you. All the best in the new year. Make it the best year yet. Make it count.

And in order to do that, reflect on 2025 for yourself. Don't [00:32:00] go into a new year without that reflection. Stop, pause, renew, and refresh your perspective through it. And if you want a coach who can help you take your business to the next level in 2026, book a consultation with me. I'll share the link to my website in the notes.

Happy New Year. All the best. Talk to you soon.