Everyone's Rebranding in 2026. Here's Why You Shouldn't.
5 questions you should ask yourself before you rebrand.
Happy New Year!
Am I the only one that’s noticed everyone teasing a rebrand for 2026? Maybe I’m just chronically online. But I keep seeing it. New positioning. New language around what people do and why. It would be easy to dismiss this as marketing theater. People inventing work for themselves. But something else is happening.
There’s a gap between how people see themselves and how others perceive them. And that gap is getting wider. It’s a form of identity anxiety. When you can’t assume people understand you, you become responsible for making yourself understood. So everyone’s clarifying. Rushing to close the gap before the narrative gets written without them.
I live in that gap. It’s why I make a vision board at the start of every year. It’s a way to recenter. To balance what the world expects of me with how I actually see myself. But this year was different. I realized I’d been building a life that looked good instead of one that felt true.
The problem was I didn't know what I was actually building toward or what I wanted. So a rebrand wouldn't close that gap for me. It would just widen it. So before I opened Pinterest, I stopped and asked myself the hard questions. The kind that force clarity instead of creating more distance.
Here’s what I actually worked through:
What am I tired of tolerating?
What drains me but I’ve normalized? What do I complain about but haven’t changed? What would I feel relieved to no longer deal with? And here’s the hard part: what does tolerating this protect me from doing or admitting?What would make my life feel lighter in 90 days?
Not ambition. Relief. If one burden disappeared, what would it be? What decision, if already made, would free up mental space? What am I over-carrying that doesn’t need to be mine?
What am I already doing that I wish more people saw?
What do people compliment me on privately? What effort feels invisible but meaningful? Where do I downplay what I’m actually good at? If this were visible, what would change about how people understood me?
Where do I feel friction that shouldn’t exist anymore?
What used to feel tolerable but now feels heavy? Where am I working harder than necessary? What systems or relationships feel outdated? And is this friction coming from fear, or from misfit?
If I stopped trying to impress anyone, what would I choose?
What choice feels quieter but more honest? What would I do if no one could comment on it? What do I want that I immediately justify or over-explain? The answer is usually simple. Almost boring. And that’s the point.
After working through those questions, I finally made my vision board.
And it felt different. For the first time in a while, it didn’t feel distant. Every image has a reason now. I can point to each one and explain it. Some are literal. Work out more. Make this amount of money. Some are metaphor. A photograph representing something bigger. A feeling I’m moving toward.
The difference is I know what I’m building. I’m not collecting images that look good together. I’m building a map. Everything connects to something I can name.
Those five questions forced something in me. They made me stop romanticizing change. Nothing on this board asks me to become someone else. It asks me to be more precise about what I’m already choosing.
Intention doesn’t always make things prettier. It makes them honest.
This year’s vision board doesn’t feel like reinvention.
It feels like alignment.
And that’s the only place worth building from.
Weekly Tip: Micro-Habits of the Most Successful People I Know
Micro-habit: The 1-1-1 Method
Now that it’s the new year, let’s get off on the right foot. I’ve been listening to Aspire with Emma Grede, who recently spoke with Sahil Bloom, author of The 5 Types of Wealth. He talked about a simple practice that the most intentional people he knows have in common. It’s called the 1-1-1 Method, and it takes about five minutes.
Each evening, we write down three things:
1 Win. Acknowledge something good we accomplished or experienced during the day. It doesn’t have to be big. It can be small.
1 Point of Tension, Anxiety, or Stress. Write down a problem or worry. Get it off our minds and onto paper. There’s something therapeutic about naming what’s heavy.
1 Point of Gratitude. Reflect on something important we’re thankful for. Something that matters.
The benefits are simple. It builds clarity about our days. It helps us see progress instead of just moving through. It releases stress by naming it. And ending our days this way, with calm reflection instead of scrolling, actually changes our sleep.
Current Obsessions
Everything in this article came from asking myself harder questions and building toward clarity. These are the pieces that helped me think through what that actually means.
Books:
5 Different Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom: Redefines wealth beyond money to include time, knowledge, relationships, and health.
The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga: A dialogue on how to live authentically, free from the need to be liked.
Podcasts:
Aspire with Emma Grede: Real conversations about building wealth, business, and a life aligned with your values.