My Biggest 2025 Lessons

A very happy New Year to you, this New Year’s Eve.

This email is my annual reflection: a look back at 2025 across life and business, what shifted, what held, and what I’m carrying forward.

Further down, you’ll also find links to my most-read posts this year, a few client wins from December, and how I’ll be working with people in 2026.

Let’s begin.

A breakthrough year

Breakthrough was my word of the year, set intentionally in January. Some of my most meaningful breakthroughs are still unfolding and hopefully in time I can share more, but I am able to say with confidence that 2025 absolutely delivered on the areas I hoped it would.

Where I put my energy (and money) this year

Though I’m no stranger to investing in support, this year was pretty unrivalled in that department. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence I am counting 2025 as one of my best years yet.

I slowed down in January to process 2024 and set my intentions for the year ahead and within the first four months of the year, worked with pros across health, business and life. Think: a personal coach, a nutritionist, a therapist, a PT, a hypnotherapist, a healer, and business coach. This might sound excessive written down. At the time, it felt necessary.

I chose the word breakthrough intentionally. My 2025 didn’t start on a high. But I’m so grateful to write to share that it is absolutely ending on one. I feel that I know my mind and body better than ever and am in great shape in those departments. If you’ve been seeking out any of these experts, I’m happy to share their details.

On the business side, I committed to a year-long group coaching container, alongside additional 1–1 support for six months, and this December, am celebrating my biggest year in business to date, and have committed to the 2026 support I need to keep growing.

The work and client base truly clicked

Looking back at the 60+ clients I supported this year, every single one felt like an ideal client — in who they are, what they’re building, and the work we did together. I can’t say that about the first five years in business, and know that this has come as a result of being so much clearer and more ruthless about who I want to work with.

It’s also what happens when you consistently put out a body of work that attracts the right people, rather than just more people.

The Authority-building questions my clients are navigating are the exact same ones I’m excited to keep learning about myself, and so it has been a virtuous cycle.

I started talking about the importance of Authority (over noise, popularity, and virality) a couple of years ago, and now there are many more voices exploring similar ideas. I’m reminded — like I often say to clients — that people will always choose experts with staying power, depth, and personalities they genuinely connect with. That’s a mix of things both inside and outside your control. What is in my control (and my clients’ too) is a bias to action, sharing insights, staying intellectually curious, being generous, and staying in my lane.

The numbers

I haven’t closed the books fully yet with some live proposals still out, but it’s already clear this has been my biggest revenue year so far.

I owe this growth to both the focus, and the scalable formats I’ve been able to implement; a skill I’ve absolutely loved honing and will continue into 2026 (the scalable delivery phase of the Authority Entrepreneur’s journey).

The year also had very clear seasons. I had three strong quarters (some of the biggest I’ve ever had), alongside a much quieter summer: so quiet that some voices of doubt familiar from past years resurfaced at times. But, this lull also reflected the season of life I was in: prioritising rest, travel, and life outside of work.

It’s another reminder to plan for the ups and the downs.

The Ask is still a small outfit by most measures (I’m approaching six years self-employed in January and £600k total revenue in that period) but I know with each year I’ve grown personally in confidence, skillset, knowledge and leadership even if the revenue jumps are marginal.

Experiments, edges, and (re)learning boundaries

Whilst my message and ideal client remained tight this year, I experimented with some different offers and projects.

That included: Big Authority Energy (an intensive 1-1 programme), Authority Club (a 12 month rolling membership has now evolved into a six month cohort), KNOWN (a 6 month 1-1 engagement), Authority Letters (a six week sprint to write a Hero Piece of content) and bespoke coaching for founders growing or pivoting.

I also took on a three month consulting project which came my way in the newsletter space that was hugely rewarding and had the best team behind.

Then there was the consulting opportunity that absorbed a lot of time, energy, and goodwill: think meetings (including their family), my guidance and relationship-building and ultimately went nowhere. Being ghosted after investing that much energy is painful, and it’s something I’ve experienced on and off over the years.

It’s not the only ghosting experience I’ve had and won’t be the last. But it’s a reminder that time is not neutral. It’s energy, money, and attention away from people and projects that do want to work with you and I’m carrying that forward with firmer boundaries. I hear too many stories of clients’ being ghosted too, and wish for better standards in the industry.

Building something new — and letting something meaningful go

It’s clear that Authority Letters will be a core part of my work going forward. It sits right at the intersection of my interests, skills, and client-fit and reflects a belief I’ve held for a long time: that Authority Entrepreneurs need Long-form Content.

Amongst all the offer experimentation this year, it’s been grounding to have something emerge so clearly as a winner.

At the same time, I had to make a harder decision around Monday Mornings. That newsletter came from a deep desire to explore the future of work, stretch myself intellectually, and build something more overtly thought-leadership led. I loved the research, the interviews, and the conversations it opened up, and I’m genuinely proud of the archive that exists because of it.

But running two distinct brands came at too high a cost. I was working six days a week for months, and it wasn’t sustainable. Merging everything under Ellen from The Ask was the right decision, even though it came with a real sense of loss.

Monday Mornings was rooted in genuine anger and concern about the decline of the 9–5 and how unprepared so many people are for what’s replacing it. I felt, and still feel, deeply uneasy about the lack of serious engagement with what mass entrepreneurialism actually means: fewer safety nets, more risk pushed onto individuals, and a huge amount of misinformation about how easy it is to build a sustainable business.

Over time, I realised that raising awareness alone wasn’t enough. The content increasingly pointed to problems I cared deeply about, without giving me a strong enough lever to help people move through them. So that’s where my focus now goes.

Where I’m ending the year

Focus has a cost. I’ve felt that this year. But it also has real power and I’m carrying that forward into 2026 with much more clarity around what I want the business to do, what I’m calling in, and what I’m no longer available for.

In my final coaching session of the year, my coach who usually works with founders at a later stage than I’m at said something that stuck with me. He reflected that my entrepreneurial skillset is very advanced, but that I probably carry more self-doubt than the evidence warrants.

That line has stayed with me. Not because I feel fragile (far from it) but because growth at each new level seems to ask for a different kind of internal work alongside the external strategy.

As I head into 2026, I feel excited about deepening the work I’m already doing and continuing to build a body of work that attracts the right people. I also want more space for creativity, play, travel, and things that have nothing to do with optimisation or output … including my improv comedy team, which finally made it off my bucket list this year and has been one of the most unexpectedly joyful parts of 2025.

For the next ten days, my focus is on welcoming in the next cohort of Authority Club, who’ll have my dedicated attention from January through to July 2026.

The group already includes a people expert working with VC-backed startups, a strategic finance specialist supporting professionals leaving corporate, a senior operator becoming a thought leader for Main Street service businesses, an executive coach working with SF-based founders, and more. It’s a low-ego, intellectually curious group of people building serious businesses — and doing it together.

If that sounds like your kind of room, you can secure one of the remaining spaces inside Authority Club.

Ellen from The Ask: Newsletter Round Up

^{Top posts from 2025}

1/ This December I shared the three patterns I see occurring in Authority-led business owners that keep them stuck, once the business basics are in place. Recognise any of these?

READ: Authority without traction is a weird place to be

2/ Whilst writing this newsletter under the Monday Mornings brand, this interview with future of work critic, Tara McMullin, really hit home as to why we’ve completely moved beyond a time of reliance on social media for business growth.

READ: You cannot rely on a platform to build an audience today

3/ At the start of this year I wrote a three part series you loved, on exactly how to build an Authority-led business. Find all three parts here.

READ: A mega guide for expertise-based business owners.

^{Want help implementing what’s inside this guide from January-July this year? Check out Authority Club.}

4/ I poured a lot of time and research into this one, which you can consider my own Hero Piece about the future of work and what we all need to be aware of.

READ: The 9–5 is dying, but self-employment isn’t a panacea.

Community Wins

December wins amongst The Ask Clients

🎉 Byron McCaughey made it in Forbes with Sublime, his mental health studio for founders solving a $220bn mind gap - a well deserved win after compounding Authority-building!

🎉 Authority Club member Hannah Mayfield runs What is Wealth, and this month partnered with Conde Nast, got featured in mainstream press and asked to attend the Bank of England’s event on moderating financial content. Big Authority Energy!

🎉 Another Authority Club member, Karen Muldoon, had a viral LinkedIn moment as her body of work hit a nerve on the topic of women’s health.

🎉 Career Creator Janel Abrahami wrapped her 2025 with a massive 26M impressions for her Authority on the future of work and millennial careers. Go go Janel!

Work together in 2026?

If you’re building an Authority-led business and want more clarity, momentum, and strategic support around your body of work, Authority Club is where we do exactly that.

The next cohort starts 12 January and runs for six months. Secure your space by 9th January to join us in time (after which Authority Club won’t reopen until much later in the year).

This is a focused, supportive container where you’ll sharpen your positioning, develop your long-form ideas, get direct feedback on your work, and build alongside a smart peer group.