Summary:

In this reflective and grounding solo episode, I invite you to pause and take a powerful year-end inventory—one that goes beyond goals, metrics, and checklists. Inspired by the symbolism of the Year of the Snake, I explore what it really means to shed what no longer fits: outdated habits, misaligned roles, relationships, and identities that quietly drain our energy.

As I look ahead to the action-driven fire energy of 2026, I share personal reflections from my own life—including divorce, career shifts, and the intentional pauses I had to take along the way. This episode is a reminder that transformation isn’t about rushing forward—it’s about creating space so we don’t carry old baggage into new chapters.

If you’re standing on the edge of a new season and want to enter it with clarity instead of chaos, this episode is for you.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

Leadership Requires Inventory, Not Just Intention

I believe real growth begins when we take stock of what we’ve outgrown—not just what we want next.

Audience follow-up → What did you carry through 2025 that no longer serves who you’re becoming?

Shedding Creates Space for Alignment

Like the snake, I’ve learned that leaders must release old skins to grow. Letting go creates the energetic and emotional room needed for transformation.

Audience follow-up → Where are you holding on out of habit instead of alignment?

Pause Before the Pivot

I share how major life changes in my own journey required intentional reflection—so I didn’t bring unresolved patterns into new beginnings.

Audience follow-up → What do you need to process before you move forward?

Harness the Energy of What’s Coming

The fire energy of 2026 calls for focus, action, and passion—but only after we’ve cleared what’s outdated.

Audience follow-up → What deserves your full energy next year—and what doesn’t?

Reflection Is a Leadership Skill

I don’t see reflection as passive—I see it as preparation. Leaders who pause and look inward lead with more clarity, purpose, and power.

Audience follow-up → How often do you intentionally slow down to reflect as a leader?

🔎 Mentioned in the Episode:

• The symbolism of the Year of the Snake and the power of shedding
• The energetic shift into 2026 and its fire-driven leadership theme
• My personal reflections on divorce, career transitions, and intentional pauses
• The practice of taking a year-end leadership inventory

✨ Reflection Prompts:

• What did you release in 2025—by choice or by force?
• What space did that release create in your life or leadership?
• How do you want to feel as you step into the next season?
• What must stay behind so you can move forward lighter? 

🧠 Who This Episode Is For:

• Leaders navigating transition, endings, or new beginnings
• Entrepreneurs and executives preparing for a new year with intention
• Anyone feeling the urge to reset, realign, or start fresh
• Women leaders ready to lead with clarity, not carryover

📩 Want to Go Deeper?

Follow Lori on LinkedIn to continue the conversation

• Book a Leadership Strategy Call with Lori: loripine.com

🎧 Subscribe to The Joy CEO Podcast

⭐️ Leave a review to help other heart-centered leaders find the show

📲 Share this episode with someone who’s navigating pressure and wants to do it with more grace

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Joy CEO podcast. I'm your host, Lori Pine, and today we are going to talk about the year end inventory every leader needs. Before you plan what's next, this is an inventory you might not have even known that you needed. We are going to. Explore something that I've actually been talking about in my community, the connect with the female leaders who are in there, and it's about the year we just lived through and this very rare, powerful energy that we're stepping into right now.

So after listening to this podcast episode, here are the three things that you should be able to walk away with. One. A way to gently inventory what you might have shed in 2025. Even the things that you might not realize that you actually let go of. Number two, why the space you created [00:01:00] matters more than you might actually think.

And number three, how to harness the rarest energy that we have had in our lifetime. So with that, let's get to it. I've been noticing 2025 was the year of the snake according to the Chinese zodiac, and here's what the snake teaches us when we grow. We shed it. It's just natural. You get bigger and bigger and the skin has to fall away, and new skin is made.

It is a physical phenomenon, not always intentional, and it's not always clean or neat or feel good, but it happens naturally, a natural consequence to growth. And sometimes when you look back, you don't even [00:02:00] realize what you let go of or the ways you grew. But when you take this time for an inventory and you put pen to paper, you can look back and say, holy smokes.

I didn't even recognize that. I didn't know how much space or time that thing took up, and now it's not even here anymore. Maybe it was an attitude, a way of apologizing for yourself. Maybe you're one of those people who's constantly saying, I'm sorry. Then one day you just stopped doing it. Maybe it was a behavior, the thing that you used to do to perhaps keep the peace, and you did that even when it exhausted you, but you still kept doing it.

It was part of who you were. Maybe it was something more tangible. Maybe you actually shed or let go of a person. [00:03:00] Maybe you had a breakup, maybe it was a job. Maybe you found a new job. Maybe you were caught up in a reorg. Maybe it was a home. Maybe you moved, maybe you downsized. Here's the thing, the snake doesn't ask for permission.

It just knows when it's time to shed the old skin, and it just does it automatically. So I wanna ask you something, not as a formal exercise, but as a way of noticing what feels lighter to you now than perhaps it did a year ago. What stopped fitting you and when did you finally realize it? Did you outgrow something that you didn't even plan to release?

It just perhaps unfolded naturally. And if you can pause with that for a second and reflect a little bit, something might spring to mind. [00:04:00] And here's the thing about shedding it. It might not always be comfortable in a moment, or you might not even realize that it's happening. Sometimes the loss can feel pretty grave before it feels like freedom.

You can't necessarily become who you're meant to be while still carrying everything that no longer serves you. And I have personal experience with this. I'm sure you have personal experience with this. When we shed. When we clear the clutter, literal or energetic, we make room for something new, even if we don't know what that something is yet.

You know, when you finally clean out your closet, like you've got stuff all over your closet, stuff's on the floor, stuff's hanging, stuff's hanging over the hanging stuff, and it's coming down over the shelf on the top, and finally you're like. I have to [00:05:00] clean my closet. And that day that you do, and you walk into this clean, organized, tidy closet, and you've got the 17 bags that are going to the Salvation Army or the Goodwill, and you can finally breathe easier in your closet and you can see everything and it's all lined up and it's color coded.

And the long sleeve shirts, and the short sleeve shirts and the pants and the jeans are all organized. That's what happens energetically when we shed what no longer fits our life. It's like standing in the closet that's now tidy and neat. And so let me give you an example of what I mean, other than the closet, which we can all relate to.

So when I got divorced, I didn't date right away. My marriage, you know, in full transparency was a bit of a disaster, and I really needed to take [00:06:00] some time, not only because I had really young children, but to do some introspective work, like how did I get myself into this situation and mm-hmm. I ended up being single for a really long time because I needed to be, I needed to do that inner work so that I didn't end up attracted to or calling in to my vibration, the same type of person who I had just divorced.

In order to change that energy, I had to change me, and so I was. I was able to get myself in order and understand who I wanted to be on my own merit. What did I like? What were my hobbies? What were my interests? What did I actually want and what mistakes did I [00:07:00] contribute to the marriage? Failing what was on my side of the street.

It was really important that I do that inventory. So that I could understand myself in order to show up at some point in the future, in a relationship as the best version of me, not somebody that was wounded or hurt or full of self pity or victimized, but somebody who could do an inventory, take some stock and make some real changes in myself.

If I had been rushed to fill that space, like, oh, I've gone through a divorce now I need a new boyfriend now I need to date, I would've just jumped into another relationship, you know, just to not be alone, but also I would've brought all that same baggage with me, all of my own pattern. With me, and it was the space [00:08:00] that allowed the transformation to happen.

It was the space that allowed me to breathe and to recalibrate. The same thing. When I left my corporate job to become a stay at home mom. My son was 17, I left. I could have gotten another job. I could have done some consulting, but the whole point was for me to stay home and to be present and to show up and to give my undivided attention.

I can't tell you how difficult that was. I couldn't busy myself with other projects and other jobs that would've defeated the entire purpose, and it was in that space, the intentional emptiness that I found so many gifts, as uncomfortable as it was gifts I would've never, ever [00:09:00] discovered if I had kept myself.

Occupied, preoccupied, busy and distracted. So here's what I'm really trying to say. You don't have to immediately fill space that you've just created, just like if you cleared out a section of your closet. You don't automatically have to go out and buy new clothes to fill that part of your closet. You can actually just let your closet breathe and see what happens.

And so you don't have to know what comes next. You don't have to create room in order to make sure that you are comfortable because energy. Is on its way to you and energetically the universe knows that you're freer now, that you're lighter, that you are available, and so that [00:10:00] availability shifts what's possible for you.

So if you've been feeling a little spacious lately, a little more open than you felt in a while. That is not a coincidence at all. That's what happens when you shed the weight you've been carrying and that space you're now in right now, it's not a problem to be solved. It's where the real transformation and shift is about to happen.

So 2025 was intentionally this year of shedding, shedding, shedding, shedding. We're getting rid of. Stuff that no longer serves us. Which brings me to what is so exciting this moment that we're in 2026. According to the year of the Zo Chinese, Zodiac is the year of the fire horse, and there has not been a year of the fire horse in our [00:11:00] lifetime.

It has not happened since 1966, and here's why this matters. The year of the fire horse is this rare, concentrated energy that we've never experienced in our lifetime. This fire horse is going to bring passion, focus, action, and an energy that just doesn't wait around. It is like, let's go get 'em. Let's go.

It's not a hustle energy. It's not, let's be busy for the sake of being busy. It's this passion that's just waiting to be channeled. And so there's a reason why you were making room last year for something new that's on its way to you. And the question the fire horse is asking is this, now that you're lighter, now that [00:12:00] you have shed, what no longer serves you?

What are you making room for? That's the question for you to answer. And here's what I'm learning. The fire horse doesn't force you. It invites you. It invites you into this energy, this energy that is like, you can do it, and I'm gonna be right there pushing you along, helping you, encouraging you. So if you're already feeling this energy stirring.

It's not a coincidence. It starts on February 17th, officially the Chinese Zodiac calendar for the new year, and it's already stirring kind of in the EERs. So there's some time to continue shedding what's no longer serving you in order to make space for this fire [00:13:00] horse energy, this passion. You want to invite in so that you can be ready?

Alright. Here's the invitation I have for you. It's what I want to offer. You do not need to have all the answers. You don't have to know exactly what you're making room for, but you can start by noticing, by paying attention, seeing what feels lighter. Notice what you're not carrying anymore, and notice with some curiosity, not not pressure.

We want to be curious where you feel a spark. Where is your energy moving towards? Is it a pull? Is it a whisper? Is it something that just wants your attention? That's the fire horse energy and it's available to you. You just need to be aware, and it's nothing that you have to earn or prove. It's just there for you for the making and the [00:14:00] taking.

And because for the past 12 months, you've already been making space for it. That space matters. So here's what I wanna make sure that you do. Grab a pen when you have a moment and take an inventory of everything that you've shed in 2025, the things you've gotten rid of, the things that have changed, the things that are no longer the same.

And all of that will lead you to kind of a visual representation of room that has opened up for you. As you think about how you're going into 2026 with this passionate fire horse energy that's going to be focused and full of action, and not just action, but the right action, the action that's going to get you where you want to go, where [00:15:00] you are meant to go, where you're destined to be.

Think about what that starts to look like for you, where your energy starts to pull you towards. All right. That's it for our episode. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening. If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear what you have shed and what you're making room for. You can always send me a note on Instagram or LinkedIn.

You can email me at [email protected], and if you haven't already. Please make sure you share this episode with one of your besties. We always share with our besties, whether it's our favorite lipstick or our favorite new shoes. But share this episode and be sure to join my email list. That's where I share all my favorite thoughts, ideas, and ways that you can lead with joy.

Head on over to lori pine.com [00:16:00] and you can join my list. Glad to be doing it with you. Until next time, let's lead with joy. Take care everybody. See you next week. Thanks for listening to the Joy CEO. I hope today's conversation left you feeling seen, stretched, and a little more grounded in your own joy. If something resonated, be sure to hit subscribe.

Leave a five star review and share this episode with someone walking a similar path. And if you're ready to take this work deeper, connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram at Lori Pine. Or head over to my website, lori pine.com, to learn more about coaching retreats and how we can work together. Because joy isn't just personal, it's powerful, and when you lead with joy, you don't just rise, you bring others with you.

Until next time, keep leading with heart and don't forget to claim your joy.