Today’s Perspective Shift

From: planning to do more
To: designing to become more

Theme for the Quarter: Intelligent Innovation
Theme for the Week: Cast the 2026 Vision

✨ In Today’s Episode:

• Shift from output goals to input design

• Map the inner systems that support your outer ones

• Build identity-based architecture for your 2025 growth

Design a Year That Builds You

The future is built by what you become while doing it.

🧠 ONE Smart Idea

Most founders design their year around output:
Revenue targets. Headcount. Product roadmaps.

But the real leverage lives upstream—in your inputs.
Specifically, the patterns that stabilize your state and sharpen your judgment.

Want to multiply your results in 2025?

Don’t start with “What should I do?”
Start with “Who do I need to become to make that feel obvious?”

📖 Story Spark

A few years ago, I planned a big Q1.

It looked sharp on paper: stretch goals, a new product launch, upgraded systems.
But six weeks in, everything felt brittle. I was chasing the plan, not building from center.

That’s when I realized something:

I didn’t need better goals.
I needed a better rhythm.

That year I rewrote my plan—not to lower ambition, but to upgrade alignment.

I baked in weekly states, not just strategic outcomes.

I added rituals, not just meetings.

And that’s when the momentum became sustainable.

⚙️ Tactical Application: Identity-Based Annual Design

Step 1: Start With the Source Code

Write this prompt at the top of your doc:

Then write 5 characteristics, behaviors, or mindsets of that version of you.

Step 2: Turn Them Into System Design Filters

For each trait, ask:

• What would that version of me stop doing?

• What would they schedule more often?

• What would they track weekly?

• What would their decisions be shaped by?

Step 3: Codify Your “Build Me” Blueprint

Distill your answers into 3–5 Core Inputs.
These become the foundation for the rest of your annual planning.

Examples:

• Protect deep work Mondays

• Weekly state check-in before strategy

• No goals that require hustle over nervous system

• Monthly review of energy, not just revenue

This isn’t fluff.
It’s how you design a self that builds the year, not burns out in it.

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🧭 Intelligent Elevation

The most valuable outcome of your next year…
is who you become while creating it.

So make that the center of your plan.

Design around your state.
Build around your identity.
Plan from the inside out.

Because your best systems don’t start with tools.
They start with you—fully resourced, clearly aligned, and designed to grow.

💬 Closing Insight

You’re not just building a business.
You’re building the builder.

Design the year that builds the identity.
The rest configures itself.

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✍️

AiScaleTips is your founder clarity compass.
Most scale with chaos. You scale by design.

— Justin Glover