johnmaconline

Today, you write the last page of your 2025 story.

What kind of a story was it for you? 

Was it a fun story? Loud? A comeback? A progression? A win? 

Maybe it was quiet. Difficult? Sad? A regression? A loss?

Stories can end a million ways. They can be tidy or messy. They can leave you hanging. The characters can walk off into the sunset — or sunrise. They can leave you feeling happy or sad. Confused or surprised. They can end with “to be continued…”

Story endings don’t have to be perfect, but they have to be honest.

Tomorrow starts your 2026 story. You can continue 2025, or you can open a whole new book. How you write it doesn’t have to depend on or even rhyme with 2025. 

Close that book if you want or keep it going. But do it with intention. 

Happy New Year. 

For some, value means quantity. Costco hopes you’re someone who’d buy 8 for the price of 5 rather than 1 for the price of 1. 

For some, value means the price tag. Aldi hopes you’re someone who’d buy the off-brand for $1 cheaper than the name-brand. 

For some, value means brand. Outlet malls hope you’re someone who’d rather buy the odd color with the logo than pay retail for the popular color. 

For some, value means convenience. Amazon hopes you’re someone who’d rather shop online than brave the traffic. 

For some, value means craftsmanship. Mercedes hopes you’re someone who’d pay a little more for German engineering. 

For some, value means uniqueness. Christie’s hopes you’re someone who’d pay for a one-of-a-kind.

For some, value means local. The farm stand hopes you’re someone who’d rather buy it from the person who created/grew it.

For some, value means status. Rolex hopes you’re someone who’d pay extra for the signal. 

For some, value means ideological alignment. Patagonia hopes you’re someone who chooses sustainability. 

For some, value means “my boss will be happy with the choice I made.” Salesforce hopes you’re someone who wants to impress the boss. 

As a consumer, I’m sure you can find yourself in these stories. I can. 

If you’re also a product developer, distributor, or sales channel, you’re gonna want to know the story you tell about value. 

Because value is a story. 

If you put it on the calendar, you’ve got the target. 

It’s one less variable to undermine your willpower. You’ve scheduled the marathon, product launch, or doctor appointment. 

Now you no longer need to focus on if. You can focus on what and how. 

Giving it a date is sneaky powerful. 

We’re odd mimetic creatures. 

We have this strong desire to immitate and fit in, and can go to awfully long lengths to do so, yet it’s that fitting in that usually gets us nowhere. 

“Look at how utterly the same I am as everyone else!”

Said no one who ever got the job, won the heart, or made a difference.

It will be uncomfortable to be different, but it’s the only way. 

We live in a consumer society. This season is an especially consumer-driven time of year.

With all of the consumption, we have an opportunity to be a producer. 

You can produce items such as art, words, and work. You can also produce generosity, leadership, and love. 

When you tip the scales toward being a producer, now you’re getting somewhere. 

We’re coming to the end of another year.

That means resolutions. The calender gives us this natural inflection point. The end of the old and a new beginning. 

Feels fresh. Feels possible. Feels optimistic.

Those are good feelings. 

But your resolutions are already underway. The conversations you’re having. The habits you keep. The actions you take. 

The New Year doesn’t start the journey. It just gives it a name. 

When designing software, we spend a lot of time and energy on understanding and specifying the control and data flow. 

The control flow describes the order in which we perform operations. Do this, then that, and finally the other thing. If X happens, then do Y. It’s the decisions and the logic that control those decisions. Control flow answers the question, “What happens next?”

The data flow describes how the information moves through the system. It starts here, and we do something with it. Then it goes over there, and we do something else with it. Data flow answers the question, “What’s being passed and how is it changing?”

Although each is separate, they don’t live in isolation. They work together to shape each other. 

Control flow sets the rules for what happens and when. Data flow carries the information that those rules act on.

The best systems balance the two. 

Get it right, and the system doesn’t just work. It flows with both purpose and adaptability. 

Reflect on the past year. Revise your practice accordingly.

This is a good personal practice. But it’s also a good organizational practice. 

Unfortunately, organizations can get caught up in formal trickled-down objectives, documentation, and tools. That distracts them from the purpose of the objectives all-together. Quite frankly, its hard (and possibly unfair) to trickle down a business objective to an individual contributor in development or QA.

So instead, the best organizations don’t try to fit square pegs into round holes. They ask different questions of themselves and their people. Regardless of the formal process. 

What went well? What didn’t?
Where were we trying to go? Where are we going?
What helped us? What hurt us?
What do we know now that we didn’t know then?
What have we learned? What do we need to learn?
Do we have the right people? How do we hire the right people?
Are we worldclass? How do we become worldclass? 

Reflect and revise. 

Ever play the game of “Which superpower would you want?”

Flight or invisibility? Strength or speed? X-Ray or laser eyes?

It’s fun to think about and interesting to debate over a beer, but ultimately meaningless. You can’t have any of them. You’re choosing between options that don’t, and won’t ever, exist. 

Decision-making 101 starts with understanding the difference between imaginary and concrete. What real options do you have in front of you right now? 

A job offer is concrete. An HR screening call for your dream job is a maybe. 
A signed contract is real. An exciting discovery call with another is not. 

The future depends on decisions. But only the ones made between real options.  

It’s OK to decide something, and then when one of the what-ifs turns concrete, make a new decision. 

The what-if game is just that — a game. Don’t confuse it with the discipline of deciding.