2025 Year-End Connection Reflection

In 2025 I further validated two of my core beliefs:

1. Do good things with good people.

2. Pursue working relationships where you have shared values and complementary skills.

Counting down the Top 10 clips from our most popular Just Press Record episodes in 2025 made it even more clear.

Every clip is really about those two beliefs in action.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, this is a post about the Best of Just Press Record in 2025 -ten moments from across the most popular episodes of the year that, together, tell a story about connection, change, and finding your people.

Going through these clips with my podcast partner, Jack Forehand, was an experience I am very happy we actually just pressed record on.

We talk through ideas like this to prep anyway, but I realized I wanted to put our relationship inside this video. The show is a manifestation of us combined, so I should show that off a little.

Jack embodies both principles I put at the front of this post. Our relationship embodies both, too. We put the good things and good people into practice, with each other, and our shared values and complementary skills keep us tumbling forward.

We are different, as you can probably tell when you watch us interact, but that also means when we combine, we can cover a lot of ground together.

I know just how rare that is.

And, most of all, with no spoilers for where this one falls, there’s a perfect John Candeto clip here that sums it all up.

John talks about seeing a painting, at least once a year, every year.

When he sees it, he reflects.

The act of reflection becomes an act of appreciating how the painting is the same, but he’s a little bit different every time he stops and stands and stares.

Revisiting these clips works the same way as John in front of the painting: the conversations are the same, but we’re a little bit different each time we come back to them.

The entire episode is a meditation on this theme, and I feel extra happy to share it with you, here, in my Personal Archive, on New Year’s Day.

It’s full of stories about reinvention cycles in life, journaling (to capture those changes over time), and connecting with others - proactively.

Share it with friends, share it with family.

Spend time with it yourself. I know I’ll be replaying this one a couple of times. I really want to take all these ideas in.

My invitation to you, in 2026, is to encourage you to reach out to people who matter to you. Surround yourself with “switched-on” people, as they’ll continue to grow and evolve alongside you. And, last but certainly not least, measure progress in terms of joy and community, and not just the standard set of societal metrics.

I am so grateful I get to share this episode with you all here. Join me in making 2026 about more presence, more reflection, and (much) more choosing people we actually want to grow with.

And, for now, watch the clip show. See what clips grab you most. Then, pick one full episode to sit with, and treat it like getting coffee with a friend. My network is your network. By the end, reach out to the guest (or me) and let them know what you think!