Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor. I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, where we help

leaders tweak how their teams do the work so that results stay strong and engagement and

well-being thrive inside of the work. When leaders struggle to make this happen, nobody wins.

I would love to come speak at your next event or offsite to deliver the clarity,

confidence, and tools your leaders need to bring this shift to life. Reach out today at

leadabovenoise.com slash connect. So this episode comes as we close the books on 2025. And I know a lot of

people around me can't seem to slam it closed

fast enough. This year has been a real doozy. It's been unpredictable, unreliable, sometimes

just unbelievable. Whether at a global, a national, or even a local level, this year just

threw so many curveballs our way. Political shifts,

economic turbulence, organizational changes, the ground just kept moving under everyone's feet.

Even just trying to stand still has felt like an exertion some days. But hard as it's been,

2025's also been in education for us.

It's taught us things that I think are worth pulling with us into 2026.

Today, I'd love to share what I'm considering to be my top five lessons from 2025

that I'll use to fuel my 26 forward towards success.

The first is that uncertainty is here to stay, invited or not.

Those aforementioned extended moments of political and economic uncertainty, they trickled down

into nearly everyone's workplace, tariffs, funding cuts, legislative changes, all of this and more, translated into open roles being put on hold,

projects being suspended, investments getting canceled, changes in policy and protocol, everyone I know

felt it. And I kept hearing around me things like, what if my project gets cut, or what if there's

another reorg, what if I lose my job?

...