Tanner O'Brien

Do it anyway

Growth requires the courage to have the difficult conversations

Ignore the noise

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other? - George Eliot

Ride the momentum

You’ve never gotten better when life was easy

In most industries, if the job isn’t finished/outcome isn’t achieved, the provider fixes it at no extra cost. Construction. Consulting. Legal. Etc. In medicine? If the surgery fails, you pay again. Why is the most expensive, emotional industry exempt from this accountability?

My day always feels so much better when I spend more time creating rather than consuming.

Define the role before hiring the person.

Best practice when setting big goals for your business, ensure you can translate the goal into components your team can get excited about. Successful businesses have buy in from their team at all levels. Ensure the big goal aligns with the team’s WIIFM.

What growth do your goals require of you this year?

I reserve the right to change my mind. As I learn and grow, as new evidence comes to light, and as I am allowed to view from alternate perspectives, my mind may be changed. And that’s ok. I recognize that I will never be 100% right.

Your plan is fiction until you track actuals. Budget vs. Actual. Every month. Slow January? Adjust Feb/Mar. Monster January? Raise the bar for Q2. The plan guides. The actuals decide. This is the only way I’ll know if we’re on track.

2026 has one goal… One. Everything ladders to it. If the goal doesn’t make you simplify, it’s not clear enough.

I asked ChatGPT to poke holes in my 2026 plan. 55 questions later I had: ∙Budget by month ∙Cash flow forecast ∙Hiring pipeline ∙Milestone map Not because AI is magic. Because I needed something to force extraction. Use tools. Don’t worship them.

Starting a new chapter (like beginning a new year) isn’t really about reinvention. I believe it’s really just evolution. It’s impossible to reinvent yourself as this assumes you no longer have lessons from past experience. In reality, we build upon our experience and evolve.

The reality is that it can feel uncomfortable… But the saying is true…’no’ is a complete sentence. I am excited to grow through that discomfort this year.

Win together or die alone

26 predictions for 2026: 1. Gemini will be the most used AI model because it’s baked into Google and people will use whatever shows up by default. 2. Substack will become the YouTube of writing, where a small group of writers get most of the attention. 3. LinkedIn will be full of AI slop, which will make real human writing way easier to spot. 4. Hyper-local creators will become mini celebrities in their cities and drive real business locally. 5. Facebook’s organic reach will be wildly underpriced compared to every other social platform. 6. Meta’s AI glasses will start going mainstream because they don’t ask people to change how they live. Even my wife has one. 7. YouTube will be the number one place for views, brand building, and growing a business. 8. Amazon will keep winning retail because people say they want Etsy but click Amazon when it’s time to buy. 9. Zillow will fight the entire real estate industry to assert its dominance and own more of the home buying and selling process. 10. Email will beat paid social ads for most small and mid-size businesses. 11. Direct mail will grow again as a marketing channel because email inboxes are full and physical mailboxes are mostly empty. 12. PDFs will stop working as lead magnets and get replaced by free tools and simple apps. 13. Investors will stop caring about boring 15-slide pitch decks and pay more attention to live demos and real working products. 14. Small niche creators will build tools and apps because they have distribution, but most will never get SaaS-level valuations. 15. AI that brings in customers and revenue will beat AI that saves time and costs for small and medium businesses. 16, Platforms like Coinbase, DraftKings, FanDuel, and prediction markets will grow in 2026 even as most users lose money. 17. More people will put new money into index funds than into buying homes in 2026. 18. Bitcoin will be owned by fewer people, but those people will own a lot more of it. 19. Private credit will be the biggest winner among boring asset classes and will attract retail investors who have never had access before. 20. When SpaceX goes public, it will make people remember why they liked investing in the first place. 21. Tesla will keep dominating while Elon Musk becomes so rich that even people who hate him will have to admit he won. 22. Avengers: Doomsday and The Odyssey will carry the box office and make the business of Hollywood look healthier than it really is. 23. Interest rates will come down a bit, but borrowing money will still feel expensive. 24. Lawyers will stay busy cleaning up dumb mistakes AI puts into contracts. 25. People will watch phone-style content on their TVs while using their phones as a second screen. 26. Comedy creators will dominate watch time because they give people a quick break from being online and overwhelmed all day.

2026 Goals: Travel/Experience 10 days in Europe 4 speaking gigs around the US Track day Weekend staycation at Kalahari Read/Listen to a minimum of 12 books Business Travel: India (conference) Business Travel: Tampa Bay (conference) Holiday trip with family (TBD)