A 2026 Word of the Year Reflection

Every December, I slow down and pay attention to one question. What is the word that will shape the next season of my life? It is not a trend-following exercise or some cute motivational trick. It is a discipline that forces me to look at my life with honesty and ask God what needs to deepen, change, or surface. Some years, the word clarifies my priorities. Other years, it exposes something I have avoided. Either way, it sets the tone for how I want to live.

For 2026, the word that keeps rising is presence.

I felt the weight of it before I understood it. Presence with Jesus. Presence with my wife and my family. Presence in my community. Presence in my work instead of the typical distracted, fragmented way modern life pushes us to operate. Presence instead of noise. Presence instead of performance. It is a simple word, but it carries more force than anything else I could choose right now.

A Cultural Backdrop I Didn’t Expect

Around the same time this word was taking shape, I came across a commentary by Chris Smith, a real estate industry influencer, that hit a surprising nerve. He was reacting to a Business Insider article about the rising expectation that looking “hot” has become an unofficial job requirement. Not stated in an HR manual, but felt everywhere.

The article centered on a 44-year-old PR executive who spends thousands on fillers, Botox, lasers, and everything else the modern anti-aging industry offers. Her motivation wasn’t vanity. It was fear. Fear that the moment she stopped looking young enough, her career would stall.

It is easy to dismiss that as superficial, but real data backs it up. Attractive workers often receive higher pay, better evaluations, and faster promotions. Technology has only amplified the pressure. Video calls forced everyone to stare at their own faces. Cosmetic procedures jumped almost 20 percent. Injectables doubled. AI-polished headshots raised the standards even higher, and suddenly “average” felt like “falling behind.”

None of this is foreign to real estate. Our industry has been face-forward long before Zoom existed. Your face lives on signs, social posts, marketing pieces, CMAs, and everything else. People decide whether they trust you well before they know anything about your competence.

But here is the twist Chris Smith highlighted. When one executive showed clients his AI-airbrushed headshot, they hated it. They told him not to use it again because it felt fake.

In the middle of all the pressure to look flawless, people still trust real faces.

That line stayed with me, not because I’m trying to critique beauty standards, but because it exposes the deeper truth that connects directly to my word for the year.

Presence Beats Performance

Presence is not about doing an impressive version of authenticity. It is not about looking grounded. It is not about appearing approachable. It is about actually being rooted enough that you can show up in a room as a whole person, not an edited projection.

In my life with Jesus, presence means being aware of Him instead of living distracted by everything that claims to be urgent. It means letting Him shape my tone, pace, and priorities before I ever consider my calendar or my deadlines.

In my family life, presence means giving my attention instead of the half-listening that always comes when I let my mind drift back to work or the next task.

In real estate, presence means the client sitting across from me gets the actual man God is forming, not a polished salesman performing certainty. Clients are smart. They know the difference. They trust the person who is steady, attentive, calm, and honest. They trust the person who doesn’t flinch at hard truths or sugarcoat reality to win approval.

Presence always creates trust. Performance only creates pressure.

The irony is that the more people chase perfection, the less believable they become. In a business built on relationships, credibility is currency. The agents who create the deepest loyalty are the ones who show up as real humans. Not flawless. Not filtered. Not algorithmically optimized. Fully present.

The Most Powerful Move I Can Make in 2026

The more I sit with it, the clearer this becomes. Presence is my path for the year because it forces the right kind of transformation. It calls me to slow down. It calls me to listen. It calls me to trust God more deeply instead of trusting my own hustle. It calls me to interact with clients in a way that isn’t dominated by performance anxiety. It calls me to let my actual humanity be visible.

There is no shortcut to trust. There is only presence.

If I want anything to define the way I show up in 2026, it is this. A man who is grounded. A man who is attentive. A man led by Jesus in a way people can feel without me needing to announce it. A man my clients, my friends, and my family recognize as consistent and steady.

Not polished. Present.

An Invitation

I am sharing this publicly because transparency matters. I do not want to talk about presence like a concept. I want it to be something you can see in my life, in how I communicate, in how I work, and in how I follow Jesus. My hope is that this word will challenge me, shape me, and ultimately make me a better human to the people around me.

And maybe it nudges you too. If I had to guess, most of us are starving for presence, from others and within our own lives.

So here is my commitment for 2026. The most powerful move I can make is showing up as a real, relatable, trustworthy human. That is the direction I am heading. And I hope you notice the difference.