December 2025 - What Mattered
Aloha, Peripheral Thinkers™,
December is a different kind of month.
The pace shifts. The noise fades just enough to notice it’s been loud for a long time. And, perhaps for the first time all year, there’s a little space to breathe.
That space is where reflection wants to happen—but reflection isn’t always comfortable.
Because when the urgency slows, the questions change.
Not What’s next?
Not Did we hit the number?
Not How do we finish strong?
Instead, quieter, more honest questions start to surface.
What actually mattered this year?
What didn’t fit—but won’t let go?
What changed me?
2026 will be here soon enough. Today. During these few moments
As you read (don’t skim) the newsletter...
Allow your heart and mind to connect and reflect.
Really reflect. Three and a half minutes. You can spare that, right?
I’ve seen the future…
As leaders, we’re conditioned to make sense of things quickly.
To resolve tension.
To explain outcomes.
To package experiences into lessons learned and best practices.
But before we rush to summarize this year into something neat and defensible, please pause with me.
Because if you’re honest, some of the most important moments of this year didn’t make sense when they happened.
They weren’t goals.
They weren’t milestones.
They weren’t even recognizable as progress.
They were sideways moments.
Moments that didn’t fit the current narrative. Moments that didn’t belong in the plan you were executing. Moments you weren’t quite sure what to do with at the time.
Moments from the periphery—where your future forms long before it becomes obvious.
A conversation that stayed with you longer than it should have. A frustration that kept resurfacing, no matter how hard you worked around it. An idea that appeared at inconvenient times and refused to leave. A situation that felt uncomfortable… but also strangely energizing.
At the time, you may have dismissed those moments as distractions.
Looking back, they may be the most valuable things you experienced all year.
I’ve seen this consistently—across industries, leadership teams, and decades of work…
The future rarely shows up fully formed.
It doesn’t arrive with a clear title or a polished rationale. It takes shape quietly, through experiences that don’t resolve cleanly.
Through moments that feel unfinished. Through patterns that don’t yet have a name. Through questions that linger after the meeting ends.
Peripheral Thinking™ lives there.
Not at the center of what you already understand—but at the edges of what’s still forming.
It lives in the experiences that don’t fit neatly into your strategy deck. In the observations that you don’t have language for yet. In the growing tension between what’s working and what no longer feels right.
Those moments matter—not because they gave you answers, but because they subtly changed how you see.
And seeing more always comes before thinking differently and building innovatively.
Don’t Push It – Sit With It
One of the biggest mistakes leaders make during calendar milestones (like the end of the year) is forcing clarity. Closing loops. Extracting lessons. Declaring meaning before it’s ready.
But December doesn’t need to be the month for conclusions.
Let it be the month for recognition.
For noticing what keeps showing up at the edges of your thinking. For acknowledging what you didn’t resolve—but also didn’t forget. For identifying the experiences that quietly reshaped your perspective.
So instead of asking yourself, “What did I accomplish this year?” (You’ll do that anyway)
I invite you to sit with a different set of questions.
Not to answer quickly. Not to turn into goals yet.
Just to notice what’s there.
Questions Worth Sitting With
If you’ve read one or 36 of my newsletters, you know I don’t ask these kinds of questions rhetorically.
So… Ask yourself each of these perspective questions.
Pause. Reflect. Answer.
A few words or phrases are plenty.
If nothing comes to mind, move to the next question.
❓ What didn’t make sense at first—but keeps making more sense now?
❓ What problem did I keep bumping into from different angles?
❓ What experience changed how I think, even if I haven’t acted on it yet?
❓ What felt inconvenient… but important?
These are not performance questions. They’re perspective questions.
And perspective is the raw material of innovation, leadership, and meaningful change.
To make this practical—and to help you capture these insights before they get buried under year-end noise—here’s a simple way to document what you’re noticing.
Nothing complicated. Nothing academic. Just enough structure to hold what matters.
A Peripheral Reflection Template
Use your answer to one of the previous perspective questions as your answer to "1. The Moment." ↓ No essays required. A few honest notes will do.
(download template here)
1. The Moment — What was the experience, conversation, frustration, or idea that stood out?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
2. Why It Didn’t Fit — What made it feel out of place, unresolved, or inconvenient at the time?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
3. What Changed in Me — Did it challenge an assumption? Reframe a problem? Shift how I see something?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
4. Where “It” Keeps Showing Up — Where have I noticed this theme again—recently or repeatedly?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
If you only capture one or two of these, that’s enough.
The goal isn’t completeness. It’s awareness.
Choices
Not every insight you capture is meant for 2026. And not every experience deserves equal weight right now.
So how do you determine which insights are the right ones?
The right insights are usually not:
❌ The loudest
❌ The most obvious
❌ The easiest to act on immediately
The right insights tend to:
✔️ Resurface without asking permission
✔️ Create a productive discomfort
✔️ Change how you see a problem, not just how you solve it
✔️ Feel incomplete—but important
If an insight keeps returning across different situations, conversations, or contexts, it’s worth paying attention to.
If it quietly reframes how you think about your work, your team, or yourself, it’s already doing its job.
NOTE: You don’t have to act on these insights yet.
Please let that sink in.
You don’t have to act on these insights yet.
Today is not about execution. It’s about recognition.
You’re simply deciding what’s worth more reflection as you step into a new year.
Your reflections—what you choose to see differently—will shape how you execute, refine, or redefine your plans throughout next year.
Peripheral Perspective before Calendar Close
As this year comes to a close, don’t just look at what you finished.
Instead, look at what stayed with you. Look at what didn’t fit neatly—but refused to disappear.
Look into the periphery.
That’s often where the most meaningful shifts begin. It’s where perspectives, insights, lessons, and direction already exist. Where they're waiting to be applied, when…
You can see more of them
You can think differently about them
Can use them innovatively to build the extraordinary
You’re already closer to what’s next than you think.
Review, Reflect, and Rock On 🤘🏽
One more thing(s):
🧠 Rent My Brain. A new offer for 2026. Rent my Peripheral Thinking™ brain for a few hours or a few days. Whatever is top of mind or that perpetual issue: growth strategies, product/service expansion, market positioning, futureproofing… Follow the link, select “Advisory,” fill in the fields, and I’ll contact you. https://www.pauldanielsjr.com/contact
🎤 Book me to speak at your 2026 events now. Annual Sales Kickoff and President's Club event. All-Company meetings. Mid-year retreats. International, national, regional, and local conferences. Let's discuss how I can make your event unique, powerful, and transformational. https://www.pauldanielsjr.com/speaker
Until next time... I'll be looking for you in the periphery!
Image Credits: Image Creators
© 2025 Paul Daniels, Jr. and Peripheral Thinkers™