"Looking back over 2026, this is what happened that made it the best year of my life."

I stopped waking up to fires.

Not because the fires stopped. They always come. But because I finally had a team that grabbed the extinguisher before I even smelled smoke.

I had a hiring pipeline that didn't depend on luck, or desperation, or that sinking feeling in my gut every time a tech gave two weeks' notice.

My team ran the day-to-day. Not perfectly. But competently. Confidently. Without me hovering over the shop floor like a helicopter parent at a Little League game.

I made more money. And I worked fewer frantic hours.

I got healthy again. Not "I'll start Monday" healthy. Actually healthy. The kind where your kids notice. The kind where your spouse stops worrying.

I wasn't "trying to be consistent." I was consistent.

And the weird part?

None of it came from a lucky break. Or a perfect hire. Or some magical marketing campaign that fell out of the sky.

It came from something so boring I almost didn't do it.

THE STORY ABOVE COULD BE YOUR 2026 RECAP STORY

I know what you're thinking.

"Chris, it's Super Bowl weekend. The Olympics just kicked off. I've got wings to eat and games to watch.

Why are you hitting me with this right now?"

Because this is exactly the kind of weekend where micro momentum gets built — or lost.

Stay with me.

Here's the truth about most shop owners I talk to.

And I've talked to over 500 of you at this point, so I'm not guessing.

You're grinding. Hard.

But you're not always compounding.

You "do a lot." You work long hours. You put out fires. You answer every call. You stay late. You come in early. You skip lunch. You miss the game.

And more often than not, at the end of the year, you look up and wonder why nothing really changed.

Here's why.

You're confusing motion with progress.

You treat hiring like an emergency instead of a system.

You let the shop's chaos steal your personal discipline.

You rely on motivation instead of structure.

You set goals in January… and never look at them again.

Hard truth?

If your life and business feel out of control, it's usually because your days are out of control.

And if you don't choose your daily actions, your shop will choose them for you.

Every. Single. Time.

So let me introduce you to something that changed the game for me.

It's from Dan Martell. It's called the 5 Daily Non-Negotiables.

And before you roll your eyes and think "great, another productivity hack from some guru," hear me out.

This isn't about habits.

It's about identity.

The shift isn't "I do these 5 things every day."

The shift is: "I'm someone who keeps promises to myself."

That's it.

That's the whole game.

When you keep promises to yourself — small ones, daily ones — something happens. Decision fatigue drops. Self-trust builds. Momentum compounds.

And small actions, repeated daily, create inevitable outcomes.

You already understand non-negotiables. If a car is on the lift, you don't "kind of torque" the lugs. You don't "mostly" tighten them. You do it right or you don't do it at all.

Same thing with your life and business.

I like to say that goals are a focusing tool for developing potential.

Read that again.

Goals aren't about hitting a number. They're about who you become in pursuit of the number.

The goal gives you focus.

The daily non-negotiables develop the person who's capable of achieving it.

So here's what I want you to do this weekend. Not next week. Not "when things slow down." (They won't.)

This weekend.

Between the Super Bowl and the Olympics, I want you to carve out 90 minutes and build the scaffolding for your best year ever.

Here's how.

👉STEP 1 — Write Your "Best Year Ever" Receipt (10 minutes)

Grab a notebook. Open a notes app. Whatever.

Write 8–12 bullets that start with:

"Looking back over 2026…"

"The reason it worked was…"

"The day-to-day felt like…"

Be specific. Painfully specific.

Not "I made more money." How much? Not "I hired a tech." What kind? What changed because of that hire?

Hit these categories:

→ Revenue or profit target

→ Team / hiring target (headcount, roles filled)

→ Hours worked / your actual schedule

→ A health marker (weight, energy, something real)

→ A family or life marker (vacation, presence, date nights — something that matters to you)

If you can't describe it, you can't build it.

Period.

👉STEP 2 — Choose 3 Outcomes Only (5 minutes)

From your receipt, pick three:

Health / Energy outcome — because leadership requires energy. You can't lead from empty.
Team / Hiring outcome — because bays don't fill themselves and techs don't appear by magic.
Business growth outcome — profit, freedom, stability. Pick one.

That's it. Three.

More than 3 outcomes means you're not focused. You're fantasizing.

👉STEP 3 — Reverse Engineer the Outcomes Into Controllable Inputs (15 minutes)

This is where most folks get it wrong.

They focus on outcomes. But outcomes are lagging indicators. You can't control them directly.

What you CAN control are the daily inputs that make the outcomes inevitable.

You can't control "hire an A-tech by March."

But you can control:

→ 5 daily "relationship touches" (texts, DMs, referrals, follow-ups)

→ 1 piece of hiring visibility daily (a post, a story, a shop tour clip)

→ A weekly pipeline review

You can't control "work fewer nights."

But you can control:

→ 60 minutes daily on systems and delegation

→ A daily planning block

You can't control "more profit."

But you can control:

→ A daily focus block on your #1 constraint (A/R, estimates, dispatch, parts flow, labor rate — whatever your bottleneck is right now)

See the difference?

Outcomes are what you hope for. Inputs are what you show up and do.

👉STEP 4 — Choose Your 5 Daily Non-Negotiables

Here's the template. Pick one from each category. Do NOT overcomplicate this.

→Body (Energy): Sweat for 30–45 minutes.

→Mind (Learning / Clarity): Read 10 pages or listen to 10 minutes of something that makes your shop better.

→Focus (Goal Review + Plan): Review your goals AM and PM (2 minutes each). Pick today's ONE needle-mover.

→Pipeline (Relationships / Recruiting): 5 daily recruiting or relationship touches — tech leads, referrals, follow-ups.

→Visibility (Brand / Hiring Presence): Post once daily about your shop or your hiring — a photo, a story, a win, a behind-the-scenes moment.

That's it.

Your shop is already recruiting every day. The question is whether you're doing it on purpose.

👉STEP 5 — Create Your "Minimum Viable" Versions (for bad days)

This is the part nobody tells you about. And it's the part that keeps streaks alive.

For every non-negotiable, define two versions:

Standard → what you do on a normal day

Minimum viable → what you do when you're slammed, sick, traveling, or just having a terrible Wednesday

Here's what that looks like:

→ Workout: 45 min standard → 15 min minimum

→ Goal review: 10 min → 2 min

→ Touches: 5 → 2

→ Post: 1 solid post → 1 photo + 2 sentences

→ Learning: 10 pages → 5 minutes of a podcast

The streak is the point.

Minimum viable keeps the streak alive.

You don't break the chain. You just make the links smaller on hard days.

👉STEP 6 — The Scoreboard (make it visible, make it dumb simple)

Put this somewhere you'll see it every single day:

✅ Sweat

✅ Learn

✅ Goals AM / PM

✅ 5 Touches

✅ 1 Post

Whiteboard in your office. Notes app on your phone. A sticky note on your bathroom mirror. I don't care.

But here's the rule:

If you don't track it, you didn't do it.

Bonus metric for the obsessed: track one recruiting number daily.

Applications received. Interviews booked. Candidates contacted.

Just one number. Watch what happens when you actually measure the pipeline you've been ignoring.

YOUR WEEKEND CHALLENGE: The 48-Hour "Best Year Ever" Setup

Here's the play.

Saturday (60–90 minutes, before the Olympics coverage sucks you in):

→ Write your "Looking back over 2026…" receipt (10 min)

→ Choose your 3 outcomes (5 min)

→ Choose your 5 daily non-negotiables + minimum viable versions (20 min)

→ Put it on a whiteboard, a checklist, or a card in your wallet (5 min)

→ Pre-load Monday: schedule when you'll do your first 2 non-negotiables (10 min)

Sunday (30 minutes, during halftime prep or before the pregame):

→ Pick your "needle-mover" for week 1

→ Write your first daily post prompt (what are you going to share Monday?)

→ Build a list of 25 people for relationship touches this month

That's it. About 90 minutes across two days.

While everyone else is just watching the Super Bowl, you're building something.

That's micro momentum.

Let me leave you with this.

I've watched hundreds of shop owners up close. Talked to them. Listened to their frustrations, their wins, their 2 AM worries.

The shops that win aren't special. They aren't luckier. They don't have some secret advantage.

They're consistent.

Hiring success is a byproduct of daily visibility and daily relationship building.

Business growth is a byproduct of daily focus on constraints.

A great life is a byproduct of daily promises kept.

If you don't choose your daily actions, the shop will choose them for you.

But if you keep promises to yourself for 30 days straight?

You become dangerous.

Not in a reckless way.

In a "watch out, this person figured it out" way.

Your future isn't built in a breakthrough moment. It's not waiting on that one perfect hire, that one big week, or that one lucky referral.

It's built in boring consistency.

It's built in the 5 things you do before the shop opens.

It's built in the streak you refuse to break.

You don't need a new year.

You need new days.

And this weekend — between the opening ceremonies and touchdowns — is the perfect time to design them.

Comment "BEST YEAR" below and drop your 5 daily non-negotiables.

Let's build this together. Let's hold each other accountable.

Because the person you become over the next 11 months?

That person is decided by what you do on Monday.

And Monday is decided by what you build this weekend.

Let's go. 🔥

P.S. I know it's a big weekend. Super Bowl. Olympics. I'm not asking you to skip any of it. I'm asking you to steal 90 minutes from the couch and invest it in yourself. The game will still be there. The medals will still be handed out. But next December, you'll remember the weekend you finally stopped hoping and started building. That's what micro momentum looks like. Small decisions, stacked. And it starts now.

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