At the start of a new year, I take the time to set my focus for the coming year. By being selective about where I direct my energy, I believe I can achieve results that are exponentially greater than if I split my attention.

More details about the process are in this blog post and you can review the results from past years here.

2026 Theme: (en)courage

Of all of the ‘en’ words, this one is my favorite. I especially love the contrast between the two words.

Courage stands bold and classically masculine – a warrior going into battle, a knight going to fight the dragon.

Encourage, in contrast, seems softer, like words from a cardigan sweater wearing kind old neighbor.

But both words share the same root. They are about acting in the face of difficulty. As someone said, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” (Attributing that is surprisingly difficult)

The courage that allows you to run into a physical challenge is the same as that which allows you to quietly step into a difficult situation is the same as that which you can pass to a discouraged fried in month 8 of a job search.

I love that and am excited to seep in these terms a bit this year.

2026 Challenge: Find three people to encourage to act

I am going to find three people in my circles who want something but are held back by fear and help them find the courage to try.

I’ve seen this story play out a few times in my life where someone I knew was afraid to try something, often for an unjustified reason. With a bit of extra knowledge and a talk that instilled courage, they were willing to try, and more often than not it worked out.

I recall a newly graduated student from my alma mater who reached out to my when I was a few years into my career to ask about the tech world. They wanted to try and get a job in the west coast tech scene but were unfamiliar with it and thought it might be a stretch. Their fear was from lack of knowledge – they just didn’t know anyone who worked it tech and it seemed foreign to them, even impossible. After one phone conversation it was obvious to me that they were at least a fit to interview and likely had a decent shot at landing a job. Sure enough a month later they let me know they’d be starting a new job in Seattle at one of the major tech companies. They ended up in a place they had every reason to be but might have missed out on for a fear of trying.

Some people are brash beyond reason, but in my experience, most people lack courage to try things that are important. This year I want to focus on helping three people to overcome their fear and make some change that they desire but are held back from. To encourage them to act.

2026 Habit: Encourage A Member of My Household

I am not good at saying positive things, unsolicited, to the people around me. It is a weakness of mine. I focus all of my mental energy on what can be improved and sort of ignore things that are already pretty great. That leaves me doing silly things like forgetting to appreciate the meal in front of me and to say it out loud.

One aspect of this types of positive things I don’t say frequently enough is encouraging words.

Sure, if it is a heart to heart or someone is crying, I know how to say something encouraging. But I am not in the habit of saying little encouraging things day in and day out – of leaving a trail of positive breadcrumbs in the trails behind me. I would like to be.

This year I want to get better at this. I would like to get so good at it that it just becomes a natural habit of mine for the years I have left on this planet.

To do so, I am going to practice with the five other people I live in very close proximity with – my wife and kids.

I’ve begun looking up little things I can say and trying to find places to insert them. My goal will be to build the practice over the year, one day at a time.

• One step at a time, you’re almost there!
• Don’t worry, you can do this!
• This is tough, but you’re definitely tougher.
• Things will get better, hang in there!
• It didn’t go well, but you learnt something important today.
• Mistakes are part of the learning process. Don’t beat yourself up.
• Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

2026 Exemplar: Bill Campbell

Bill Campbell is a figure I’ve heard about for years. He was a mentor the the early leaders of Google and much of his advice has trickled its way down to me through the management and mentorship chains of the company.

From what I understand, he was extremely encouraging of bright young CEOs to try big new things. I’d love to learn a bit more about his approach, which seemed to have worked well and where that bubbled out of.

There is a book about him that happens to be on my ‘to read’ shelf already and I’m sure I can find a few articles to support it given the public nature of his role and that that of those he mentored.

2026 Misogi:

I’m not going to write about the specifics of my Misogi here. I don’t want my reason to select or complete it to be influenced by how other people perceive it.

For now I will continue to write that I have one, in case anyone decides to follow my yearly focus practices, as I think this is a really important thing to do. In fact, if someone were going to copy only one thing I do, this would be what I would recommend.

Some thirteen years ago I challenged myself to surf Mavericks. After that I continued to repeat it each year, slowly evolving the challenges through big hikes and endurance races into silly feats of perseverance; running up a local mountain as many times as I could in 24 hours or walking around the local track from midnight to midnight to see how many steps I could get on my fitness tracker.

Somewhere along that journey I learned what I actually liked was the difficulty, the surprises and the reality of failure I was faced with. These challenges forced me to dig deep into myself and find a reason to keep pushing past what I thought my limits were. They slowed down time and logged a disproportionate amount of memories in my head for a single day. They gave me confidence as I faced other days – heck, if I could do that, then this would be easy.

So in 2026 I will attempt something big and silly and that I have a pretty good shot of failing at. I will do so safely, and with backup plans to ensure I return home. And this year, for the first time, I will do so quietly, without taking pictures or blogging, of live streaming. I know I can do hard things with my reputation on the line and I’m looking forward to finding out what I do when no one else is watching.