Do It Yourself: A Mindset Shift for 2026
On doing things yourself, staying human, and why that’s where results compound.
I’m excited about the first few episodes coming out this year.
Each one touches on mindset in a way that I think can actually get our year started on the right foot. Not just motivated, but oriented.
Most of us start new years the same way. So many goals. So much hope. So much confidence that this year… THIS YEAR… I’ll get it right.
What I noticed, though, is how quickly that energy can turn into pressure. And how easy it is, once the year starts, to look for ways to make things cleaner, faster, more efficient. To hand things off. To trust systems, people, or tools to carry the weight so we don’t have to feel the friction ourselves.
My first episode of the year talks about a lot. It touches on betting on yourself. On believing before there’s proof. On how being exceptional, not just competent, is often what creates outsized results.
But there were a couple moments in this conversation with Dave Teitelbaum that really stuck with me.
Because as much as this year is about hitting our goals, I caught myself noticing how easily I was leaning toward letting other people do the work… or trusting that AI, frameworks, and systems would somehow be the solution.
Dave reminded me of something simple and uncomfortable: How much success can come from going the other direction. From doing more yourself. From being more human. Less robotic.
That’s where I want to start us all off in 2026.
🎙 The full conversation is live on Spotify.
Why we avoid doing things ourselves
At one point in the conversation, Dave paused, leaned into vulnerability and shared:
“The biggest mistake I ever made was hiring someone to do something I didn’t know how to do myself.”
Not because the people were bad. But because he had no real way to know if they were good.
When we outsource something we don’t understand, we’re not delegating… we’re guessing. We’re trusting confidence over competence. And most of the time, the only signal we have is whether it sounds right… not whether it actually is.
It’s a solid strategy to lose a lot of time… and money.
Dave talked about how the most successful person he knows operates with what he calls a “do it myself” mindset. Not forever. Not out of control or ego. But long enough to actually understand the work. Long enough to know what “good” looks like.
Because once you’ve done it yourself:
you can assess talent
you can spot gaps
you can fix things when they break
and if someone leaves, you’re not stuck
Listening to him, I realized how often outsourcing isn’t really about scale. It’s about relief. Relief from feeling bad at something. Relief from responsibility. Relief from the discomfort of learning (or failing) in public.
Sometimes outsourcing is the right move. But sometimes it’s worth asking a harder question:
Where in my life am I handing something off because it’s truly strategic… and where am I doing it because I’m avoiding an opportunity to grow?
That could be work.It could be a professional skill. It could be something as small as our laundry.
The question isn’t should I outsource? It’s why am I outsourcing this?
👉🏻 Watch the clip: “Why I Stopped Outsourcing So Early”
Be more human. Not more perfect.
One of the other moments from this conversation that stayed with me had nothing to do with tactics, systems, or scale.
It was about being human.
We talked about AI and how it’s only going to keep getting better this year. Smarter. Faster. Cleaner. More capable. And I noticed how easy it is, when that’s the direction everything is moving, to think the answer is becoming more like a robot ourselves.
More polished. More precise. More controlled.
But what Dave reminded me is that the opposite is often where the connection actually lives.
More humanity. More honesty. More vulnerability. More mistakes.
He talked about why he’ll intentionally misspell things in his marketing. Why he’ll leave rough edges. Why he wants people to feel, immediately, that something was “touched by a human.”
Because that’s the signal people trust now.
“When everything is done by committee, no one can say or do anything real. Playing in that cheeky, imperfect space is aggressively human.”
Perfect feels automated. Polished feels distant. Human feels real.
And it’s not just true in marketing. It’s true in conversations. In leadership. In relationships. In the moments where we usually try to clean ourselves up before showing up.
Our mistakes are often the very thing that makes us relatable. Our vulnerability is what creates resonance. Our humanity is the one thing that can’t be replicated or replaced.
So as this year unfolds, as AI gets better, faster, and more capable, I keep coming back to a simple set of questions:
Where do I get to lean into my humanity more than ever? Where can I be more honest instead of more impressive? More present instead of more perfect? More myself instead of more optimized?
👉🏻 Watch the clip: “The Power of Being Insanely Human”
A different way to start the year
This year is about moving fast. It’s about hitting the goals we’ve set for ourselves.
But it’s not about rushing past the work or sanding off who we are to get there.
The real leverage comes from being willing to stay in it. To do the work ourselves. And to bring our full humanity along the way.
That’s when things start to compound.
🎧 Listen to the full episode on Spotify
More soon.