#178 – December 2025 Income Report

In this episode, Erica Nash (our Client Success Coordinator) and I unpack December’s revenue and expenses, talk about why it didn’t look like previous years, and why that’s not a problem.

We also kick off our 2025 year-in-review with a refreshingly honest conversation about expectations, mental spirals, letting go of false pressure, and how I navigated the inner drama of a launch that didn’t go the way I thought it would.

Erica and I talk a lot about “passionate detachment,” which is a concept we teach inside the Web Designer Academy, and how it applies to both your marketing strategy and your mindset as a business owner.

And of course, I share why I only worked two weeks in December (👋 butter beer and roller coasters) and still feel good about the results!

If you've ever felt like you're playing “The Price Is Right” with your proposals or spiraling over what a quiet month could mean for your business, you're gonna want to listen to this one.

🎧 In this episode, Erica and I chat about:

💸 Why December didn’t follow our typical high-revenue trend and what that actually means
📊 How to interpret income report data without making it mean something is wrong
🧠 The mindset spiral that happens when a launch underperforms and how to manage it
🎢 The illusion of urgency that comes with end-of-year promotions and deadlines
💡 How to stop playing “The Price is Right” with your pricing

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

📌 Web Designer Academy

📌 Marketing Momentum Membership

📌 Next Level Mastermind

📌 Private Coaching

⭐ If this episode resonated with you, I'd love it if you left a rating and review! Your support helps us reach more web designers who need this message.

Podcast cover for "December 2025 Income Report," episode 178 with Shannon Mattern and Erica Nash. Branded "Profitable Web Designer."

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Hi, I’m Shannon Mattern, and I’m a Pricing Coach for women web designers who are ready to stop undercharging, stop overdelivering, and finally build a simpler, more profitable business that actually supports the life they want.

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TRANSCRIPT

Shannon Mattern (00:01.431)

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer podcast. Today I am joined by our Client Success Coordinator, Erica Nash, for our December 2025 income report and our 2025 year in review. So this is gonna be a two-part podcast episode because we've got a lot to dig into. So Erica, welcome back to the show.

Erica Nash (00:27.796)

I am so excited to talk about 2025 and December, of course.

Shannon Mattern (00:32.861)

my goodness. So Eric and I were just catching up. We take the last two weeks of the year off and we were both like, like we missed everybody and we're so excited to be back. I just had our one of our live strategy calls this morning at 7 a.m. for our early risers in the U.S. and our, our UK and Europe people. And it was just so good to see everybody and

that's how you know, like, you are doing the right things when you aren't dread, aren't dreading. I just remember the days of working in corporate and being like, I just need like two more weeks.

Erica Nash (01:16.695)

Alright. Yeah, I have missed everyone for sure.

Shannon Mattern (01:21.805)

Yeah, it was good to see your face. So let's kick off. So what we'll do is we'll start with our December 2025 income report. And then we'll move into after that, the 2025 year in review recap. if we have time, we'll look forward to 2026. So I'll hand it over to you, Erica, to kick us off.

Erica Nash (01:45.32)

Awesome. So let's kick off with the inflow for December 2025. How much was it and where did it come from?

Shannon Mattern (01:53.677)

Yeah, so December 20, 25 was $16,587.46. And that was Web Designer Academy and Next Level Mastermind payment plans. We had one new student join us in December, which I'm sure we'll talk about. And so that was just like a pretty standard month with

with nothing above and beyond like all of the payments that were already committed to us, which is a little bit of a different December than historic like past December's, which is really interesting. So yeah, that was our that was our inflow in December.

Erica Nash (02:40.15)

Amazing. And what was the total outflow?

Shannon Mattern (02:43.709)

The total outflow was $19,958.99. And if you are a profitable web designer podcast listener, you kind of hear me like run the gamut of like, here's what all that includes about 10,000 of that as mine and Erica's salary and our payroll taxes and our marketing investments producing this podcast, conversion rate optimization.

Um, the rebrand project that we did this year. Um, and then the tools and training that we are the tools and subscriptions and the tech that we use to run our business professional services that I pay for, um, all of those types of things, uh, repaying the line of credit, like just all of those things, uh, added up to $19,958 and 99 cents. again, a pretty typical.

Outflow month, that's about on average like what a normal month of outflow looks like at the Web Designer Academy for all of the commitments that we have. So that led to us using $3,371.52 of our reserves, which were there because we had inflow in July, August, September.

in October of significantly more than our outflow. So it's just the ebbs and flows of the natural cycles. That's what that looked like in December.

Erica Nash (04:25.996)

I love that. So we're gonna talk about, you know, the important things that happened in December. And maybe you kind of have something in your mind planned for this, but do you wanna chat at all about like how it was a different December than normally and sort of like what that looks like, where your head was, all of that stuff?

Shannon Mattern (04:31.488)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (04:46.304)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (04:51.916)

Yeah, so interestingly, December is typically one of our higher revenue months. We have the most people making the decision to join the Web Designer Academy historically since, and I would say in the past five years, that's been my experience is like, do a promotion in December.

We like throw our best bonuses in there. You know, we like do a lot to like get people there and, all of those things. And this December was interesting because the attention paid to the things that we normally do at the end of the year, was not as much in, as in years past. And so like the enrollments usually will enroll like

five, six, seven people in December who are like so excited and ready to start in January. But also if I think about this year, we typically don't have that many people enrolling in July, August, September, October. And this year we did. So this year was like a little bit backwards in terms of like what a typical year looks like for us where we had

way more enrollments over the summer and the fall than we did in December. So on one hand, my brain's like going, what is happening? And on the other hand, it wasn't saying that when like, when the pattern was off the other way in the summer. So it all came out in the wash, right? At the end of the day, when we talk about our 2025 numbers, like 2025 was an excellent year.

Erica Nash (06:33.706)

Hmm, yeah.

Shannon Mattern (06:45.708)

Um, it just didn't happen as it did in past years. And so it's interesting for me to notice where my brain wants to go and, um, to just kind of pay attention to the thoughts that are triggered by the patterns being off and like make a decision of like, do I want to believe everything that my brain is telling me right now?

What else could be true? Are we looking at the big picture? Can we get some perspective outside of this? Just because this is different doesn't mean anything has gone wrong. Just because this was different doesn't mean that anything has gone wrong.

Erica Nash (07:26.046)

So good. Wait, say that again.

Erica Nash (07:33.646)

I just need to burn it into my brain. That's so good.

Shannon Mattern (07:39.863)

So, and when I look back on December, the first week of December, I was offline playing in Florida on vacation at Universal Studios in Disney with my husband and our friends. My husband has family in Orlando and we went and visited his family. did theme parks. I went to Harry Potter World. I was just out doing my thing and then I...

really only worked two weeks in December. There was five weeks in December, so that first week I was offline playing. And then those two weeks I was back doing our year-end promotion and our final program tour of the year and all of that. And then the last two weeks were offline for the holidays. And so when I look and I'm like, I worked two out of five weeks and we still made

You know what I would normally expect to make if nobody knew enrolled and looking at the revenue throughout the year. I'm like, I'm cool with that, you know? And I think the other thing that maybe you and I talked about is like, there's this like some, this year end energy, right? That it's like, there's somehow this like weird looming deadline of December 1st, like

Erica Nash (09:01.056)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (09:07.988)

the numbers have to hit a certain way for us to, like, obviously there's taxes, right? Like, you know, whatever comes in before December 31st is like what you're gonna pay taxes on. you know, so there's like some logistical strategic reasons to spend or not make or like whatever to do things with your money in terms of like taxes and showing income if you want to like get a mortgage and things like that.

but in the reality, it's just like January 1st is just another day. And so, you know, the pressure of like, we got to get, you know, this final promotion that happens to be happening, like even the word final, the last promo of the year, you know, all of these things, it's not like January 1, there's no more opportunity for us to, work with new web designer Academy students. So.

Erica Nash (09:42.946)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (10:00.94)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (10:07.84)

that was just a place where I had to really manage my mind because in years past, I would, like I w I was able to, create some movement because maybe we would have a price increase or, you know, there would be like some sort of reason that people needed to like do something now. whereas this, this year we, we didn't increase.

Erica Nash (10:25.294)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (10:37.292)

prices so I didn't have that type of like scarcity to lean on and plus Thanksgiving was so late like the holiday season was was a little bit shorter so that could have impacted things so it's just to me I'm like okay well that's just a piece of data and I don't think anything needs to be changed based on that.

Erica Nash (10:46.072)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (10:59.756)

Yeah, yeah, and I love like, I mean, and you know, I love data and I love tracking things and I love having access to that information. I think it's so valuable. We know that it is. But I also think that there is something to be said with just remembering that like it's just data and like it's we can't forecast the future, right? And so it's OK if

there's a time where it's like, oh, well, that didn't really reflect what we have done before. Like you said, just because it's different doesn't mean that anything has gone wrong. so even thinking about July, August, September, October in the same way, right? It's just information. And I think sometimes

At least for me, I know sometimes when I have not enough information or too much information, either might cause me to spiral. And so I think it's such a good reminder to like, yes, collect your data. you know, that's a good thing to do and to have that information to like reflect on. And also just remember that it's not the end all be all of any business.

Shannon Mattern (12:22.998)

Yeah, I think it kind of comes back to the concept of passionate detachment, right? We talk about this with our marketing strategies, right? And I think you said this in November, November's income report about like, like chasing after the bus, you know, in terms of like, you know, I had some data that said doing a two day business planning conference,

Erica Nash (12:27.118)

Mm-hmm.

Erica Nash (12:41.452)

Yeah, yeah.

Shannon Mattern (12:54.052)

historically has led to some of the highest year end enrollments that we have done. So I think that was like 2020, 2023, maybe or 2022. I can't remember the year. And so I'm like, that was super fun. Let's do that again. Let's host a two day planning retreat. Let's invite our whole list. It'll be a paid ticket. And then we'll invite those people who come to that to do a program tour.

And so I was looking at past data to say, you know, we sold X number of tickets back then. We had this many people enroll. I really liked doing that. you know, so all of those things were telling me like, Hey, let's go ahead and do that again. and it didn't turn out the same way. Like the people that came were amazing. So shout out to you. If you're listening to it, it was a blast. had an incredible time.

leading those people through, and it didn't convert the way that it did a couple of years ago. And so I'm passionately detached from that outcome. I'm like, here's some new data, you know, for whatever reason. And I'd be so interested to hear from any of you who chose not to who saw that and chose not to buy a ticket and come, you know, that didn't

go the way that it did. And that's okay. I tried it. I'm not making it mean anything other than maybe I won't do a two day event next December. And maybe if I tried it in three years, it would work. But in evaluating, everything we do is an experiment, right? We never know how it's going to turn out. Even if we've done it before and it's turned out a certain way.

Erica Nash (14:32.632)

Mm-hmm.

Erica Nash (14:42.69)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (14:50.228)

It doesn't mean that you could do the exact same thing again. And it doesn't mean you're going to get the exact exact same results. So I think just being passionately detached from the outcome is huge. And just also managing your mind. I saw so many patterns this time where I'm like, interesting. My brain wants to go there and it wants to go there. And it wants to like fix things that aren't actually actually problems.

Erica Nash (14:58.466)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (15:18.54)

where I can just stay the course and keep doing what I'm doing.

Erica Nash (15:22.7)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (15:26.284)

Yeah, so talking about managing your mind and just like, you know, this sort of event that we had that didn't go as expected and translating that into web design. Because we hear this sometimes and sometimes it's sort of like an underlying story that people are telling themselves that they have like this sort of one opportunity to do this right. And if it doesn't go well,

Shannon Mattern (15:40.852)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (15:51.914)

Mm-hmm.

Erica Nash (15:56.458)

then that's one less person available for them to potentially make money. then it just spirals from there. And so I guess I don't really know exactly what my question is, but what would you say to them? how do you see past this limited opportunity, I guess? It's very scarce.

Shannon Mattern (16:20.83)

Yeah. The way I see that really play out with, with the women in our community or the people, you know, who listened to this podcast is the price, right? So it's like, you do all the things to get a consultation and you're having the conversation with the client and it comes time to like put together the proposal and whatever.

And then the pressure point for you becomes like the price. So it's like, have a one shot to pick the right price because if I don't pick the right price for this, then I might lose this opportunity. And so it's like, it's like you're playing the prices right, right? You're trying to get like the highest number you can get without going over, but you don't know what

that number is and you're putting so much pressure on like this one thing to be like the maker break and like if I don't guess the right price, then they'll say no, then my prices are too high, then I'll never get another client or like whatever goes on. And so,

One, totally aside from this conversation, the way we teach pricing here takes all that pressure off. But two, what I would say is that there's always another client on the way. There is always another client on the way. Take the pressure off of yourself to be perfect, to get it right. Even

Erica Nash (17:57.304)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (18:08.284)

If there was something you could have done differently to get them to say yes. OK, it didn't work out. There's always another client on the way. Like we can't expect that. Think about how much pressure that puts on you to be like, there's this one opportunity, and if I don't do everything right, I could blow it, and there might not be another one like this.

My sister and I were, we got this, we're on this mailing list for this yoga company. And they do a like a hike and a yoga retreat and a thing in Barcelona, Spain, like two or three times a year where you walk the coast and it's like a 13 mile, like half marathon, full marathon, whatever you fly in, you do this walk.

You do a retreat. It sounds gorgeous, beautiful and amazing. And it's happening a couple of times this year. I sent it to my sister and I'm like, I really think we should do this someday. And she just like goes into like, we have to do it this May because what if we never get a chance to do it? like planning this trip from a place of, and if we're going to go, we should go for longer because what if we never get to do it again? And I'm like,

I love all of your ideas, but I don't love the energy that it's coming from like, what if we never get this opportunity again? What if we never get to do this again? If we don't take advantage of this thing right now, then it might go away. I'm like,

Erica Nash (19:44.898)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (19:55.388)

maybe they're not doing it, but we can, you know, there's like so many, I just don't like that pressure, you know? So I think that that's kind of like, you have to believe that there is always another client on the way and that you do not have to have it go perfectly or be perfect or do all the right things or guess the exact right price to like reach your goals and

do the things you want to do. So those are my thoughts.

Erica Nash (20:25.89)

Yeah, I love the Price is Right analogy because that's literally what it's like. It really, really is. It's like the biggest guessing game. And it doesn't have to be that way.

Shannon Mattern (20:31.264)

Yah!

Shannon Mattern (20:35.997)

It does not have to be that way. yeah, we can talk more about like things that I'm doing in 2026 to like help people with deconstructing that mentality of the price, playing the prices right every single time you do a proposal.

Erica Nash (20:59.306)

the price is right. It's no fun, no fun. So right, exactly. There's no party. So let's talk about some of the things that happened in December. Yeah, we know you went, you had fun. You got to go, you got to go play, which is awesome.

Shannon Mattern (21:03.531)

It's not as fun as it looks like they're having on the prices, right?

Shannon Mattern (21:19.327)

I had fun. I tasted butter beer. was an experience. Not my favorite. Way too sweet for my palate.

Erica Nash (21:25.866)

Noted. What else happened?

Shannon Mattern (21:35.252)

Yeah, so I mean, December was a pretty low key month in terms of in terms of activities, right? We hosted that Simply Profitable virtual retreat. We had several incredible women join us. We had two awesome student panels where we did a marketing discussion and a pricing discussion. By the time you listen to this episode, both of those will be live on the podcast.

where our students talked about like their pricing transformations and their marketing transformations. So, you know, even though that event didn't get the attendance I expected and didn't like convert into web designer Academy students the way that I wanted it to, I would hands down do it again because it was so awesome and just getting to connect with our students in that way was...

was really fun. And then from there, we hosted a program tour on the last Tuesday that we were online on December where we invited people who were considering joining us to like check us out and, you know, see what it's like to work with us here. Like here are different offers for coming to work with us. so, you know, and for me, I'm always like,

Join now, join right now. Let's get started in January. I want, and it's not because I'm like, I want your money right now. It's like, I want you to experience the shift that you are going to experience that we see our students. You see it, Erica. You see what they're struggling with when they come in. You see the epiphanies as they happen. And then you see the results of.

Erica Nash (23:13.068)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (23:18.242)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (23:29.506)

of the implementation of the strategies and how it is literally life changing for them. So that's why I get super excited for people to come in. But at the same time, I know that it's it's okay if they come when they're ready. I would much rather someone say yes when they're ready than to jump in too soon. And so,

we had several people come to the program tour. know that they're all like considering when the time is right. And that's kind of where I had to check myself and be like, December 31st is not the last day, Shannon. Like it's not like now or never. That's never the way it's been with the Web Designer Academy where we're like, well, if you don't join us now, you can never join us. And so.

Erica Nash (24:09.229)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (24:23.453)

I really had to just manage my mind around like, why wouldn't you join now to be like, they probably have so many good reasons as to why they wouldn't join now. And just like, let that happen. So then we enrolled a new student who was ready to jump in and we're so excited about that. And yeah.

Erica Nash (24:32.332)

Hehehehe

Shannon Mattern (24:52.639)

January is a new month, so.

Erica Nash (24:54.57)

A new month and not the end of any. It's just another day. Just another month. know? It's so weird.

Shannon Mattern (24:59.34)

Not the end of anything. It's so weird. The New Year energy and the end of the year energy is just false. You know what I mean? In terms of goals and whatever. Yeah.

Erica Nash (25:07.658)

yeah it is absolutely false. yeah yeah the the there it does carry an interesting sort of just like weight with it and that i think doesn't doesn't belong to it yeah this is just another thing yeah but it's so it is so it's self in society right like it doesn't help when you're

Shannon Mattern (25:21.245)

What's the point of yeah, it's like, yeah, it's just the pressure is unnecessary and self inflicted.

Erica Nash (25:33.078)

seeing everybody else doing all of their like end of year stuff and like goal setting and like all of that stuff, which is all fine and well, like that's good. But if you're already struggling with that, that's like really hard to, know, sort of like, I don't know, I internalize all of those things. One thing that I wanted to say, talking about the student panels, I can't tell you how often, and I wish I could remember exactly the way that she said it.

Shannon Mattern (25:35.253)

Sure.

Shannon Mattern (25:48.349)

Yeah. Yeah.

Erica Nash (26:00.172)

But one of our students, Lindsay, was on our pricing panel and she was talking about, we had asked the question, if somebody was going to consider joining Web Designer Academy, like what would you tell them? And her answer was so good. I wish I could remember it word for word because I was so fired up after she gave it.

In short, it was essentially something like the time is gonna pass anyway and she was telling a story about, you know, like when she had decided to put something off and then like eventually saw that like that amount of money was gone anyway and she could have invested in me more. Was it with us? I couldn't remember.

Shannon Mattern (26:40.201)

Yeah, she had put off joining the Web Designer Academy. That's what she was, yeah, she was like, I, it was like, she decided to leave her job and go out on her own. And she was like, I'm gonna try to do this on my own for a while. And the time passed. And I think she even said like,

my savings got lower and lower and I realized like, I needed support.

Erica Nash (27:08.738)

Yeah, yeah.

Erica Nash (27:13.678)

Yeah, it was the way that she told the story. was just like, that was so good and totally something I needed to hear for my own business. Yes.

Shannon Mattern (27:22.187)

I did too. I was like, I think she's talking to me about this thing that I've been like, deferring and delaying. Where she was like, the time is going to pass anyway, the money is going to get spent anyway. Why not just do it and give yourself what you need to like do the thing. And I was just like, how is she reading my mind right now about like this other thing that I've been dragging my feet on?

Erica Nash (27:38.392)

Yeah.

Hahaha

Erica Nash (27:45.518)

Yeah, yeah, it was so good. I've had that like floating around in my brain the last couple of weeks. Yeah, it was good stuff.

Shannon Mattern (27:46.644)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (27:50.643)

Duh!

Shannon Mattern (27:54.476)

So I loved that too. was just, you know, I, it is one of my favorite, like I get to hear, I get to see our students every week on our live strategy call. And so I get to see them celebrate their wins and I get to like talk them through some of the challenges that they're having, but I never like, I don't enough. And this is one thing I would love to do more in 2026, get to mind them for

the gold that is in their brain. get to do it at the next level mastermind and a lot in our next level retreat, but like our students are so freaking brilliant. Like they are some of the smartest, most brilliant, insightful women. And my favorite thing is just interviewing them and getting to talk to them on the podcast and like to hear how their, how their brains work. And you know, like some of them are like,

Erica Nash (28:33.836)

my gosh, yes.

Shannon Mattern (28:54.077)

such bold risk takers that I'm just like, I'm so inspired by them. I want to be more like them. And so that was one of those moments where I'm just like, I could listen to her talk forever about how she thinks. And I'm sure her clients are very fortunate to work with her. So yeah, that was pretty cool.

Erica Nash (29:02.604)

Yeah, absolutely.

Erica Nash (29:09.697)

Mm-hmm.

Erica Nash (29:18.208)

Yes. Yeah, what a gift to have her in your corner for sure. So let's dive into some of the things that you learned. We talked a little bit about mindset stuff and some of the, you know, managing that you were doing. Were there any other shifts or realizations that you had?

Shannon Mattern (29:23.712)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (29:42.08)

I don't know if I could categorize these shifts or realizations as December only shifts or realizations, but I think one of the things as I was listening to the student panel, I get to put them more front and center when

And And that talk about why they joined, what the transformations are and the results that they've gotten is, I noticed it's like, it's different than how I've been talking about it. Not much, just a little bit as one of our recent podcast guests talked about just a quarter turn.

I love that so much. And so I think that that's kind of one of the realizations is like, I've been speaking to

an old like a previous version of our best client.

Erica Nash (30:59.758)

Interesting.

Shannon Mattern (31:01.715)

And as, and so I think that that is kind of a realization that I had, you know, as I've seen who's been joining and why they've been joining, that there's been just like a little bit of a gap between how I've been thinking about who they are and who they are. And so I get to like close that gap a little bit and start, start speaking to those people.

Erica Nash (31:20.622)

Mm.

Erica Nash (31:26.595)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (31:31.369)

more instead of who they were two years ago.

Erica Nash (31:32.59)

That's really cool. Yeah, and I think too, like thinking about, I mean, the work that we've done with Zayn-e-Tayn on, you know.

Shannon Mattern (31:45.483)

and Riot Creative Studio and the Raybrand.

Erica Nash (31:48.366)

Yes. But just thinking about how much more information we have about who they are and where they're coming from and what they're looking for. And obviously, we have them in front of our faces and we're talking to them all the time, but like...

Shannon Mattern (31:56.223)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (32:05.097)

And who's ready for us and who's not ready for us. Like I've gotten a lot of data this year about who's ready for us and who's not ready for us.

Erica Nash (32:08.042)

Yeah.

Erica Nash (32:15.598)

Yeah, I think it's just so valuable. I think that really shows the work that we've done, right? Like this shift is like, oh, these are all of the changes that we've made in order to better serve. And now the clientele that we're serving is also adapting and growing and changing. Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (32:37.931)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yep. I think that's kind of the perfect segue to talk about like 2025 as we've mentioned, mentioned the rebrand. So I told Erica before we hit record, kind of I really thought about like 10 kind of pivotal things that happened in 2025. So

Erica Nash (32:46.904)

Beautiful.

Shannon Mattern (33:04.043)

as like things that happened and lessons learned and just unexpected things and what worked and what didn't work. So I think we can wrap up our December income report here. And then in the next episode, we'll dive into how much we made in 2025, how much we spent.

and all of the lessons learned along the way. any final thoughts you want to share about December, Erica, before we move on to 2025 as a whole in the next episode?

Erica Nash (33:46.178)

Yeah, I think kind of thinking along the lines, we talked about this a little bit before we hit record, but just thinking along the lines about, you mentioned that you worked two weeks in December and had an otherwise typical month if it wasn't necessarily December as in other years, but thinking about all of the time.

that you were able to take for yourself. like same thing with me, you know, I was able to take an extended break at the end of the year. And I just think that that is truly the greatest gift that you can give yourself as a business owner is an extended break, whether that's in December or somewhere else. But both of us, we were excited to come back.

We were excited to see clients and students and just be back in the routine of things and all of that. And I just think that one thing that I am thinking about, I know this could probably go in the next episode, but thinking about in terms of the greater 2026 is building in.

breaks for myself because that is not something that I have done and I was seeing the effects of that. And so I just think that if there's anything that you, if there's any Christmas gift you could give yourself for future Christmases, it would be an extended break when everybody is mostly taking breaks anyway. It's safe to do.

Shannon Mattern (35:23.709)

Yeah, I mean, we own our own businesses. We get to make all the rules. We get to decide when we work, when we don't. And if we're not taking advantage of that, you know, that's one of the reasons I know why I do this, why you do what you do. So we could have that freedom and that flexibility. and you have to create safety to take.

time, psychological safety for yourself to take time off. And, you know, that's, it's not easy. And that's, you know, we always talk about like pricing and marketing and all of those things, with the web designer Academy and that's great. And yes, we help you with all those things, but what we really also do is like help you.

Erica Nash (35:51.117)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (36:14.838)

run the business in alignment with your vision for how you want your life to be. And so it's not just about getting the clients. It's about how does the delivery and the operations and everything you do in your business allow you to have the freedom, flexibility and financial independence that you really want. And so if you are finding that you're worried about taking time off, you don't feel like you can all of those things like

That's the kind of stuff we work on with people too, is like designing a business that fits your life and doesn't like run your life. And so I'm so glad that you mentioned that because that's everything. Who cares if you're charging a lot and you're getting the clients, if you are miserable on the other side of that. So we want both of those sides to be.

Erica Nash (37:03.331)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (37:13.098)

to be good and I am in full support of more time off, especially for you in 2026, because I see how hard you work. I want you to get to rest just as hard and play just as hard as you work.

Erica Nash (37:34.604)

That's why you're the best.

Shannon Mattern (37:35.914)

No, you're the best. Okay, that's the perfect place to wrap up this episode. So we will see you all back here next week for part two of this conversation, our 2025 year in review. Bye everyone.