Boldly stepping into 2026…

I had an epiphany towards the end of 2025. I realised that for the past few years in business I’ve been playing the small game.

After a couple of recent years of intense personal circumstances in my family of illness, accidents, and loss; which rightly needed my focus, I concurrently felt like I gently gave myself permission to take my foot off my ambition accelerator and the growth I wanted for my business.

At the time it definitely felt it was the right thing to do, and I was continuing to do some interesting work with great teams and organisations, which nicely kept me manageably busy and stimulated; but in 2026 I’m declaring it’s time, and I’m ready to do something more purposeful with the momentum that has been quietly been sitting there in the background in recent years.

I want to share my knowledge and experience more widely. I want to help more people and organisations. I need to play bigger to enable this.

So my word of 2026 is ARENA. For me this is aligned to the phrase “stepping into the arena”. You might be familiar with this concept which originated from a Theodore Roosevelt speech, “Citizenship in a Republic”, in 1910. Think stepping up to achieve something, even if it’s imperfect, it requires vulnerability, and it has a potential risk of failure.

What I’ve translated ARENA into for me this year is stepping up to set some audacious goals and being courageous to take action to achieve them. ARENA gives me a visual focal point as a direct reminder to keep working towards my goals. Doing things differently. Doing things I haven’t done previously. Not playing the small game.

I have no doubt ARENA will push me out of my comfort zone - but this is where real change and growth occurs, and I believe it nicely builds on the work I’ve done in my previous years of STRONG and GROW.

Come along on the journey with me. I also don’t mind if you want to use ARENA as your word this year, I’m happy to share.