Happy New Year! In this first episode of 2026, I'm pulling back the curtain on Painter Growth's journey to nearly $5M in 2025, and it wasn't pretty.

This year was our hardest yet. We dealt with team issues, profit struggles, toxic employees, and some of the most expensive mistakes I've ever made. But we also grew 40%+ and set ourselves up for another 100% growth year ahead.

In this raw, behind-the-scenes episode, I'm sharing the 5 biggest lessons that transformed how I run Painter Growth—lessons that will save you years of wasted effort:

Lesson 1: Why keeping the wrong people is one of the most expensive mistakes you can makeLesson 2: How focusing on just 1-2 KPIs can 4x your results (we went from 1% to 4% conversion)Lesson 3: The forecasting framework that gave me emotional control as a CEOLesson 4: Why raising your standards is the only way to attract A-playersLesson 5: How to stop being the bottleneck in your own business

This isn't about painting companies—it's about the real lessons from scaling a business, making hard decisions, and building leverage that doesn't depend on you grinding 24/7.

If you're in a messy phase of growth right now, this episode will give you the clarity you need to break through.

Comment "template" on Spotify if you want the monthly forecast template mentioned in this episode!