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Most entrepreneurs will waste the first months of 2026. Not because they have no plan, but because their plan is built on other people’s strategies.

In this episode, I talk about building a 2026 plan that makes sense for you, and why the next year will require more clarity than ever.

Key Takeaways

• Don’t go into 2026 without a plan
• Plan around your life goals and business journey, not other people’s fomo
• Don’t blame AI, the economy or the algorithm. Take control of next year now

This is part 1 of my unpopular 2026 opinions series!

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh: 

Most entrepreneurs are gonna waste the first six months of the year. Most entrepreneurs are going to start the year. Unclear, are going to have strategies that are out of alignment. What if we win into this year with the mindset of, I’m gonna be successful? The reality is, if you don’t make the decision for your plan.

And where those resources are being allocated, it’s gonna be made for you. You gotta ask yourself all of these questions and then work backwards. Embodied CEOs don’t chase trends. They pave the way they lead from within. Move by purpose, unshaken by noise. When you are the source, you do not need permission.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you guys are doing amazing. I keep looking at my calendar and I’m like, I literally cannot believe the date. Like, how, how are we in the holidays again? I’m sure a lot of you feel that way. I can’t believe it. And every year that I get here, I’m like, soak it up.

Soak it up, right? Because. Man with kids, you just know that it’s very loud that you only get so many holidays with them as young kids. So I always try to make it so special and just be present and that’s where I’m at. We are going to Tahoe for Thanksgiving and I’m super excited to be in the mountains and be with my whole family and my three brothers.

We have so much fun together. And my kids are so excited. So it should be a beautiful week of being present and unplugged. I am gonna do a four-part series on the podcast for the, so for the next two weeks, for the two episodes that come out, I’m turning it into a series. And true Emily’s style. It will be the unpopular predictions that I have for 2026.

It’s funny, it really is true Emily’s style. So we use Claude and chat for copy sometimes, especially when choosing like podcast titles and just. Analyzing transcripts. And the other day it told my team member like, something, like, it’s very on brand for you to choose the, the most polarizing of these options or something.

And I’m like, cool. So we know that my brand is, is calling out and being direct with communication. So I wanna do unpopular predictions, not the boring stuff that everybody’s gonna be talking about. Not necessarily, you know, the shiny object. Here’s the really cool trends that you need to pay attention to more so like what are the really important needle movers that you’re not even paying attention to, or you haven’t thought about or you haven’t really challenged within your business as we head into 2026 and, and using that to, to call out.

I think so much of business growth, personal growth, making those strategic decisions comes from asking the right questions and comes from perspective and perspective shifts and thinking about things. And, and I, I love to do that on my podcast because I wanna say things that really get you going, oh, I didn’t, I didn’t think about that, or I didn’t ask that.

And that’s kind of what this first prediction is gonna be about because I think it’s, it’s gonna sting for people to think about. But there’s also an easy fix to it. My first prediction is that most entrepreneurs are gonna waste the first six months of the year, and not on purpose. And not because they’re lazy, not because they’re not doing enough work, but because most entrepreneurs.

Real clarity and, and do not intentionally take the time and the energy to create the clarity. And so what happens is they end up pivoting a bunch of times. They end up allowing the industry and feedback and things that they hear or they see to dictate their actions and they don’t actually sit down and create a strategic plan.

And a place for them to constantly follow and come back to and make sure, okay, is our time and energy and, and money allocation in alignment with where we are going. Most entrepreneurs are going to start the year, unclear, are going to have strategies that are out of alignment. This is a big one. A lot of people are looking at, you know, trends or what their coach said or what they saw X, Y, z, other entrepreneur do, or what they heard on my podcast, whatever.

Instead of coming back to the alignment of like, what is my actual goal this year? Where are we going? And they’re gonna waste time. Because they’re unclear, then spinning their wheels and procrastinating and, and not really making the tough decisions or having the hard conversations. And then what I see usually is when entrepreneurs do this and they, they go, well, it’s just the economy.

It’s just the economy. Or it’s ai, or it’s X, y, z. And that’s why. My business isn’t doing what I wanted to do. But what if we went into this year with the mindset of, I’m gonna be successful no matter what, no matter what happens with ai, no matter where the economy’s at, no matter where my market and my niche and my industry is at.

Like what if success was not an option? And I said to you, you have to make. Whatever your dollar amount is, whatever that is, and you have to create the plan that you believe is going to create that success no matter what. I bet you you’d go into the new year a little bit differently and, and what this really does is it puts you as an entrepreneur into a place of power, and I think that that is such a goal for you to have is instead of reacting.

Being a victim to the things happening outside of you on the platforms, ai, the economy, it’s real that that’s gonna change, but you still have the power over how you show up in the decisions you make and the strategy you execute, and the plan that you create. So instead of reacting to all of that and kind of letting it happen.

What is the plan within that plan also has to be room for flexibility, and I think that’s also not talked about enough, and I used to make this mistake all the time is I’d make the six month plan or the 12 month plan, and then I would be so rigid to that plan that something would come up three months in.

That was feedback. Oh, this thing we didn’t realize is working better than we expected. Okay. We need to adjust the plan to accommodate to that, but that’s not us reacting and pivoting out of fear or uncertainty or lack of clarity that’s intentionally adjusting the plan. So when I teach this at, at our live event, I create your 12 month plan.

With you in a workshop and we create your annual plan and your annual marketing strategy, but we build in there, review and coming back to the plan, coming back to the intention, coming back to the goal, and making sure that we don’t need to pivot something intentionally. You want to spend as much of the year as possible, if not all of it, in a place of intention and power versus reactivity and.

I’m calling it victim. I don’t even know if it’s victim. It’s, it’s not intentional victim, but it’s like, oh, this thing happened and so therefore I don’t have the power. But you really do constantly have the power of decision and intention, and most of that comes down to the power of decision and intention behind how you allocate your resources and how you allocate where your time and your energy and your money is going.

The reality is, if you don’t. Make the decision for your plan and where those resources are being allocated, it’s gonna be made for you, right? Because you’re not gonna just sit around, you’re not gonna waste your time, you’re not gonna not do anything. But if you’re reacting and you’re not making that decision intentionally, it’s gonna be made for you.

And right now, like in this current economy, this market, this, you know, time with AI and business is not the time to not have a plan. I feel like I need to say this again. When I say a plan, there’s room in the plan for flexibility. ’cause I think on the flip side, there’s the overly rigid entrepreneurs who then put blindfolds on and they’re like, no, this is the plan and this is all I’m gonna do.

So again, part of your plan is a feedback loop. Part of your plan is here are the things we’re gonna do because we believe based on the feedback we have up until this point, that these are the most strategic things we could possibly do to grow the business and to move the needle. And then we’re gonna have a feedback loop that questions that, and we’re gonna do that again.

And we’re gonna follow that pattern throughout the year because I can tell you 100% at the end of this year right now, are there things that we are executing that I didn’t plan at the beginning of the year? Yes. That is how business works. And you have to have that nimble flexibility, but that’s different than reactivity.

And my prediction is that most entrepreneurs are gonna waste the first six months of the year. And I think that happens most years. And it’s because they don’t have the plan, they didn’t set the intentions and maybe they, they created the vision board, but then there’s no structure behind it. I ask entrepreneurs all the time, like, what’s the goal?

Where are we going? What’s the revenue goal? And they don’t know. You do not wanna be in business reacting to, oh my gosh, you know, we signed four clients, now we need team. Or, I don’t know how much money I wanna make this year. I don’t know how much I wanna pay myself. You gotta ask yourself all of these questions and then work backwards with the knowledge that you have, the feedback that you have, the information that you have, the intuition that you have, and all of that combined.

If this is the target for the year, what are the actions? And then where’s the feedback loop to evolve that and to stay fluid with that and not rigid. Most entrepreneurs don’t have this. Then they get in the loop, they consume and they overly pivot and they go, that thing’s not working. I’m gonna jump all the way over here because I’m scared and I’m in that mode of fear and desperation and overwhelm and noise.

Another thing that I do at our event is I actually have people plan out how they will not have too much noise, take them away from. Where they’re heading and from being intentional and from being present and connected and, and I really think so much of business comes down to connecting back to this, connecting back to yourself and connecting back to, okay, where are we going?

What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Are we connected to it? Are we being intentional? Is this coming from a place of alignment or are we reacting, are we scared? Are we coming from a place of scarcity? Are we coming from a place of fear? Are we coming from a place of we think we should be doing this or not?

So it’s the end of the year and. What I would do is spend some time reflecting, but then also thinking about that plan, thinking about where you’re going, and not just about where you wanna go. I want you also questioning and thinking about where do you think the industry is going. I said this to a mastermind member in our call this last week is.

Every industry is experiencing massive change, whether it’s AI or GLP ones in, in the health and wellness industry, and she’s in the health and wellness industry. And my question to her was, what is your prediction for the next few years? Where do you see the problems? Where do you see the shifts and the changes?

And where do you see the industry going? And based on that, how do you become the leader? How do you solve the problems before there are already problems? How do you lead the way? Because that’s the thing with entrepreneurship is there are no rules. We are creating this, and with the amount of change that’s happening in our society because of technology and because of the like speed revolution that we’re in, of speed of results and speed of feedback, we have to pioneer and still provide value as the human.

And so thinking about this next year, like where do you see your industry going? Where do you see your potential customers needing? More support. Where do you see there are gaps that are gonna need to be filled? And does this mean that you might have to pivot your offer? Does this mean you might have to pivot your messaging, how you serve your clients, how you serve your customers?

Like ask yourself those questions now. Before you’re like, everything isn’t working and I don’t know what to do, because there’s always a delayed reaction in business. And the more proactive you can be and the more intentional you can be, the less you’re gonna feel those things. And I think a lot of business owners are feeling that right now.

They’re feeling like it’s not working, I don’t know what to do. And then they get in this panicked energy and then that never works and that’s not gonna convert. And that’s, that’s not how you find solutions. And so as much as you can look ahead. Connect with that. It comes down to that connection with yourself and asking these questions, and I think that’s where, you know, I host our live event in January and so much of it, I think January is my favorite month to do it.

We do do it twice a year, but it’s like January is such a good month for Kate. Holidays are done. Let’s get out of the day to day. Let’s dig deep into your business and. Pull you out of that energy of like doing the same thing every day and ask different questions and create the 2026 plan and the plan, not just for your business, but you, you know, like we’re building our business also to be in alignment with our life and to have it all and to create that reality, like what needs to happen for that to happen.

Having this, you know, constant intention is one of my secrets is I go like, here’s where I wanna be, here’s where I am, how do I fill the gap? What are the actions that need to be taken to fill the gap? Who do I need to become? We’re not gonna get into that in this episode, but that’s definitely part of it, and we definitely cover that at the event.

So my prediction is most entrepreneurs, they’re gonna waste the first half of 2026. They’re gonna waste it without a plan. They’re gonna not have fully reflected and asked themselves the questions from this year, but also where their industry is going. They’re gonna step into the year thinking that they’ve got really good actions, maybe and a plan in place, but it’s a lacking and it’s a lacking.

The ability for them to be intentional and to not start consuming and. Getting overwhelmed. I mean, you’ve gotta radically protect that today because everything around you is trying to overwhelm you and bombard you with noise and get you to consume and get you to have shiny object syndrome and get you to chase, and you are the only one who can hold that boundary and be intentional with it and keep coming back to that throughout the year.

I would love to see you at our event embodiedmarketing.com/live. It’s January 15 to 17th in Austin. It is the best thing that I do. It is the most transformative experience that I put on that in my retreats. It’s a way lower price tag than my my retreats, and I promise you like it is the way to start your year.

And one of the things we’re gonna do there is create your entire 2026 business and life blueprint based on what I feel is important, the questions I know that I am asking as a business owner and the strategies, ai, all of those things. All right, everybody. Next episode, I’m gonna come back with the second unpopular prediction. Thanks so much for listening.