2025 Wrapped Part 1 (what worked, what sucked and what I’m celebrating this year)

Let’s be honest. 2025 was not a neat, tidy, “look at all my wins” kind of year. It was messy. Disruptive. Emotional. Profitable and painful in equal measure. The kind of year that forces you to look at your business, your systems, your capacity, and yourself, and admit where things aren’t as solid as you thought. This episode, and this post, is part one of my 2025 wrap. Today isn’t about the polished lessons or the motivational bow. That’s coming next. This is about:

• Where 2025 was genuinely messed up
• What worked (even when it didn’t feel like it at the time)
• And what I’m choosing to celebrate, because there’s more here than your nervous system wants you to see

If 2025 felt heavy for you too, I want you to read this slowly. Not to compare, but to recognise yourself in it.

The Context: Ending One Year on a High, Entering the Next in a Fog

I ended 2024 on a high. A $100,000 revenue month, strong launches, solid momentum. From the outside, it looked like the business was primed for a big growth year. But I knew something important going in. 2025 wasn’t going to be a “push” year. We had a major house renovation planned. Not cosmetic. Not light-touch. A full, disruptive, life-consuming renovation. And I thought I’d accounted for that. What I didn’t account for was:

• How deeply constant disruption would impact my ability to do deep work
• How much mental energy it would siphon
• How thin my margin for error actually was

I went into the year thinking, this will be an autumn season. Integration. Refinement. Coasting on what already works. The problem is that there were critical flaws in that plan.

Renovation Reality: When “Some Disruption” Becomes Daily Chaos

Every day this year, my house was full of trades. Electricity switched off. Power tools going. People asking questions. Needing access. Needing decisions. Needing attention. And while I run a flexible business, I also run a depth-first one. I don’t work well with constant interruptions. I don’t do half-focus efficiently. I need protected space to get into flow. If I can’t get there, everything slows down. Once I am in flow, I’m fast. Sharp. Productive. But the cost of getting there this year was huge. By mid-year, I was seriously considering whether an external office space would be a non-negotiable next time I launch. Not because I want more, but because I need fewer interruptions to operate at my best.

Perimenopause, Brain Fog, and the Cost of Ignoring Capacity

Layered on top of the renovation came something I hadn’t fully anticipated. Perimenopause. The exhaustion. The fog. The moments where I genuinely questioned my intelligence. For the first time in my life, I was forgetting things in ways that scared me. Standing in car parks with no recollection of where I’d parked. Cooking dinner and forgetting what I was making mid-recipe. This wasn’t busy brain. This was neurological interference. Once I started HRT, the difference was immediate and profound. Not perfect, but functional. Clear. Human again. And this matters, because business decisions made when your cognition is compromised cost more than you realise.

Where 2025 Truly Fell Apart (And Why It Matters)

Some years are challenging. This year stacked challenges.

The Launch That Was Never Meant to Be

I went into my Scalable Signature Society launch intending to hit six figures. The strategy was sound. The offer works. The demand exists. But timing and life had other plans. In the middle of that launch:

• One daughter had Influenza B, then Influenza A
• My Facebook ads were delayed, then glitched
• Meta burned through testing budget during a platform issue
• And then the day before the waitlist opened, my mum suffered a massive brain haemorrhage

ICU. Uncertainty. Fear. I was physically present with her, not at my desk, while emails went out that I’d written weeks earlier. I wasn’t live. I wasn’t visible. I wasn’t available. And still, the launch converted at 1.5%. Not what I wanted. But not nothing either.

The Hidden Cost of “I’ll Just Hold It Together”

Around the same time:

• Our cat died suddenly, the one who’d been with us through IVF, babies, and life
• A close family friend passed away in his sleep at 33, leaving a four-month-old baby
• I made the decision to dismantle my team and operate solo temporarily, which was the hardest season I’ve had in years

There is a point in business where being a one-woman show is no longer brave. It’s unsustainable. I crossed that point. But sometimes, you have to pull everything apart to rebuild it properly.

And Still, 2025 Wasn’t a Failure

Here’s the part most people skip, because negativity bias is real. Despite all of this:

• I hit my highest revenue year ever
• I paid myself my highest salary ever
• I worked 15 to 20 hours a week
• I scaled the Mastermind to its highest enrolment level
• I took a full month off and still had a five-figure month

This is the part you need to sit with. Because if your nervous system is fried, your brain will tell you: “This year didn’t work.” When the truth is: “This year revealed what needs to work better.”

What Worked (Even When It Didn’t Feel Like It)

1. My Business Model Is Strong

Even under pressure, disruption, grief, and reduced capacity, the business held. That’s not luck. That’s systems, positioning, and one clear signature offer acting as the breadwinning bedrock.

2. Client Results Continued Without Hustle

Inside the Mastermind, clients:

• Replaced income from platforms they’d outgrown
• Sold out beta rounds
• Booked out months ahead
• Hit their highest-ever revenue with calmer launches

That’s how I know the work works, even when I’m stretched.

3. Ads, When Done Strategically, Are Leverage

Despite the issues, lead quality improved dramatically. Some ads were running at $6 to $6.50 per lead, with aligned buyers, not freebie hunters. This reinforced something I already believe deeply. Organic alone is not a scalable plan.

4. Flexibility Is the Real Win

No school refusal issues this year. No constant firefighting. Presence with my kids, because the business allowed it. This is why we build businesses this way.

The Quiet Wins That Matter Most

Some things don’t show up in revenue dashboards, but they change everything.

• I saw my kids thrive in ways they hadn’t before
• I navigated family crisis without burning the business down
• I rebuilt foundations instead of slapping on more tactics
• I stopped pretending that harder equals better

And perhaps the biggest win of all. I’m no longer confused about what scaling actually requires.

If 2025 Felt Hard for You Too, Read This Carefully

If you’re feeling disappointed with 2025, I want to offer you two truths: First. More worked than you think. You’re just not counting it. Sit down and write everything that didn’t fall apart, even the small things. Second. The answer is never to shrink. It’s to refine. To systemise. To simplify. To build something that can hold you when life happens. Because it always will.

What Comes Next

This is part one. In the next episode (and post), I’ll share:

• The 11 lessons I’m taking into 2026
• What I’m radically doing differently
• And why the next phase of my business will be simpler, leaner, and more profitable, not bigger for the sake of it

If this felt like I was speaking directly to you, you’re probably one of my Cloud 9 clients. And if you’re ready to build one scalable signature offer that can hold both ambition and life, that’s exactly what we do inside Scalable Signature Society. For now, take a breath. This year wasn’t a waste. It was a setup. I’ll see you in part two.