I bet this final 2025 issue of Drunk Business Advice will inspire you to view them through a different lens. Because unlike the productivity gurus who are flooding your feed with execution hacks, I’m going to invite you to slow down a little.

Let’s find some love in the process — not just the outcome.

Oh, and happy new year from Philly, ya filthy animal. 😘

👉 If you stop tying your self-worth to your business outcomes, you’ll probably stop feeling shitty all the time. Just sayin’. 🤷

And now — the story behind why this advice matters. 👇

No, none of them are adopted, nor is it a blended family. My grandparents had 14 natural children. So I have a lot of aunts and uncles.

And many of them read Drunk Business Advice, so I’m not going to pick a favorite, but there is one who I connect with regularly on business topics, and who has inspired the subject of today’s newsletter:

My mom’s little brother, Dr. Michael Winters. ♥️

Uncle Mike holds a PhD in counseling psychology, and is also an exceptional entrepreneur, running several different businesses in the field of psychology.

And not only is Uncle Mike one of 14 siblings, he is also… a TWIN! Hot damn. That’s a recipe for an existential mind-f*ck, but according to him:

Specifically, Uncle Mike was drawn to the practice of logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy which emphasizes the importance of finding meaning in all life circumstances — no matter how horrendous, confusing, or banal.

As an entrepreneur, that speaks to me. 

Mainly because business is the art of extracting meaning from outcomes, not process. And since outcomes are never guaranteed, we’re all just working our asses off to feel like crap most of the time.

Tying one’s identity to the success of one's business is the plague of entrepreneurship.

Enter Uncle Mike — who has been generously popping into my entrepreneurship mastermind to lead regular mental health sessions, keeping the principles of logotherapy top-of-mind for those who grind. 👇

In our last session, Uncle Mike introduced an exercise that had us all cheesin’ with relief.

And today, for this audience of goal-oriented business badasses, during the most goal-oriented time of year, I invite you to try it too.

Trust me. You’ll feel better.

Whether or not you’ve written it down, I bet you have a list of goals you would like to accomplish before you die — a “bucket list”, as it’s colloquially called.

And that’s a great thing.

Cataloging our ambitions motivates more virtuous living. Life is a finite window. We should have goals. We should act with intention. We should do cool shit.

But here’s where bucket lists can get sticky—

They tend to be pretty damn lofty. After all, you have your whole life to achieve them. Why not shoot big?

Annual goals often face the same struggle. In January, we feel like we have all the time in the world to tackle that huge goal… until Halloween hits us in the face and “lord have mercy, where has the year gone?”.

Here’s the thing — I’m not going to tell you to make your goals more chewable.  Keep ‘em high.

Instead, I’m going to encourage you to perform this exercise from Uncle Mike, which will help you:

When Uncle Mike introduced this exercise to us, he revealed one of his bucket list goals: to visit Machu Picchu. 👇

Uncle Mike asked himself, “Why am I drawn to visit this place?”. Our planet is colossal. There are countless destinations to explore. Why was Machu Picchu on his bucket list instead of, say, Galapagos?

He explained that when he thought about it deeply, it was Machu Picchu’s unique convergence of nature with spirituality that landed it on his bucket list. With that in mind Uncle Mike then asked himself another question:

“How can I experience the convergence of nature and spirituality on a regular basis?” 

The answer was simple. Uncle Mike lives near a lovely park, but he rarely spent time there, and never visited it with spiritual intention. So he began visiting the park a few times per week for moments of intentional meditation and prayer.

He still has a life goal to visit Machu Picchu — that hasn’t changed. Maybe he’ll get there someday, or maybe he won’t. But for now, he’s found a way to integrate the meaning behind that ambitious travel goal into his daily living, without leaving his own damn neighborhood.

He’s receiving the benefits of the outcome before ever achieving the goal. That’s some Jedi Master-level skill.

And you can repeat this exercise for yourself:

So WTF does Machu Picchu and meditation have to do with business? 

Well, I think this is an excellent exercise to practice with your career goals — not just your personal goals.

Start by making a list of your career goals (to make it simpler, you can start with your 2026 career goals). Then follow the same process.

And to avoid just breaking your big goals into smaller units of progress (a valid exercise on its own, but not what we’re getting at here), try asking yourself “but why?” a few times to drill down to why that goal truly has meaningful value to you.

Here are some examples of how that might look. 👇

This exercise is different for every person, but my hope is that you’ll find some new ways you can start living your work-life in better alignment with your values.

Enjoy the process. ♥️

I think one of the reasons this exercise has resonated so deeply is because 2025 was a pretty chaotic year for me.

I didn’t achieve any of my big goals. I lost money on some bad investments. I was bedridden for months, and continue to experience painful complications from my hip surgery. 

But through it all, the biggest motivating constant has been publishing this spunky little newsletter, week after week. Showing up for you has given me an unbreakable sense of purpose throughout a hugely distracting year.

I’m so proud to announce that in 2025, I published 52 issues of Drunk Business Advice, totalling over 74k words.

And I’d like to dedicate every single one of them to another uncle — my immensely talented and outrageously creative Uncle Joe, who we sadly lost in July. 

Uncle Joe was the eldest sibling of the rowdy clan of 14 kids, and joyfully worked as a theatre and voiceover actor for most of his life. He found meaning in every moment.

And I wish the same for you in 2026. 

See you in the new year. ✌️

Cheers! 🍻

-Kristin

P.S. — Uncle Mike is a practicing counselor in Houston, and is licensed to practice virtually in 16 other states. If you’d like to work with him, hit reply to this email, and I’ll introduce you.