Happy Monday!

The first true week back to work in 2026 and I feel completely refreshed. We spent 2 weeks on an island off the coast of Africa and we just returned Saturday!

Here’s a newsletter with a bit of a mindset shift for 2026. If you’re stuck doing the client work still, this one is for you.

So far in my firm, I’ve built linearly.

More clients → more work → more effort → more people.

That approach works early on.

But as we’ve grown, it’s become painful, reactive, and inefficient.

The business wasn’t growing per se, it was stretching.

Each client, no matter how small, included more involvement from me as well.

That’s when it clicked: growth wasn’t exposing execution problems. It was exposing design problems.

This year, I’m focusing on a mindset shift. No more linear growth, I’m thinking about the scalability of every action.

The bigger issue wasn’t workload.

It was where pressure went when something unexpected happened.

A tricky client question. A rushed onboarding. A moment of ambiguity.

In those situations, the system didn’t absorb the pressure.

It routed it to a person. Usually me.

That made the firm feel responsive.

It also made our systems feel fragile.

I realized I’d built a business that worked as long as things went right. But when they didn’t, the default was always more effort instead of design.

At a certain size, that stops being manageable.

Once I saw this, the fix wasn’t a better version of the same approach.

It was changing how I think about scale altogether.

I stopped trying to make the current system more efficient and started designing for when things go wrong.

That means building a firm where progress doesn’t depend on heroics. Where we’re not being reactive with client work, hiring, etc.

The question I’m using more often now is simple:

Would this still work if I wasn’t involved?

If the answer is no, that’s not a capacity problem.

It’s a design problem.

This year isn’t about doing the same things better and adding more complexity.

It’s about building a firm that doesn’t depend on constant intervention to function. One that can handle growth without becoming reactive. One where systems hold the weight instead of people compensating for them.

I’m less interested in how much we can handle.

More interested in whether the business is designed to outgrow me.

That’s the focus for this year. The big shift. What got us here, won’t get us there

I thought this would be a fun exercise considering I read a TON last year. Here are my top 5¹ books:

I love reading so shoot me an email if you have any good book suggestions!

Have a fantastic week!

Tailor