What 2025 Taught Me About Building a Business That Actually Fits Your Life
19 December 2025 - FROM LAURA
This year did not look anything like the plan I set in January. And as I reflect on it, it has been a year of enormous growth. Which was, as growth usually is, uncomfortable and messy in the middle.
2025 was a year of highs and lows, clarity and chaos, wins I could not have predicted and challenges I did not see coming. Life threw curveballs I was not expecting. Loss, grief, family health challenges, and the reality of being in the sandwich generation while running a business and raising children. There were moments when I questioned everything.
But somehow, through all of it, this business held me. It flexed when I needed it to. It gave me the stability and breathing room I had spent five years building it for. And that, more than any external milestone, is what I am most proud of.
What happened in 2025
In the middle of the difficult bits, there were moments worth celebrating.
Hit 10,000 followers on LinkedIn.
Finalist for Mentor of the Year at the National Coaching Awards.
Featured in Stylist Magazine - “5 expert-backed tips to give your LinkedIn profile a 2026 glow-up”.
Featured in Authority Magazine discussing women's visibility in leadership.
Spoke at a Summit and at The Business Booster in Liverpool.
Attended UpLift Live, the world's only LinkedIn-focused conference, in Birmingham.
Spoke on two podcasts with Laura Perkes and Debbie Gilbert.
Delivered training to students at the University of Liverpool Management School.
Successfully launched The Liverpool LinkedIn Launchpad, my first in-person full-day workshop. The feedback was extraordinary.
Navigated a copyright challenge that reinforced exactly why protecting your intellectual property matters.
We got a puppy. Bramble. Equal parts chaos, cuteness, and a great deal of extra cleaning.
And through all of it, I worked with brilliant women whose leadership quietly shapes entire industries. Women who secured new roles, keynote invitations, podcast appearances, and press coverage. That work, more than anything else, is why I do this.
The biggest shift was internal
After five years of experimenting, across mentoring, training, group programmes, different audiences and different models, I finally found clarity. Not the kind you plan for. The kind that arrives after enough honest reflection about what is working and what is costing more than it is worth.
Executive ghostwriting and profile transformation are the work I am choosing to take forward. I work with senior women, founders, and leaders whose expertise is already proven. They do not need to perform online, but they do want their thinking, authority, and leadership visible in the right rooms. It is the work that uses every part of who I am: the linguist, the writer, the strategist, and the woman who understands what it is like to rebuild a professional identity from scratch.
What I am leaving behind
The pressure to scale in ways that never suited me. Offers I had outgrown. Programmes that worked beautifully but cost more in time and energy than they returned. The Liverpool LinkedIn Launchpad was one of the highlights of my year and I am proud of what it became. But it also taught me something important about where my energy is best directed. I retired it at the end of 2025 without guilt and without apology.
You do not move forward by doing more. You move forward by choosing what actually matters.
What 2026 looks like
Simpler. Clearer. More deliberately built around the work that matters and the life I want to be living while I do it.
Voice: Executive Ghostwriting Partnership.
A high-trust partnership for senior leaders who want their LinkedIn presence fully handled, strategically, thoughtfully, and consistently, without having to think about LinkedIn at all. Limited availability by application.
Transform: Executive Profile Repositioning.
A complete LinkedIn transformation for senior women ready to be recognised for the expertise they already have. My signature service and the foundation for everything else.
A final thought
2025 was the year I stopped doing things because I thought I should and started doing things because they were genuinely right. For my clients, for my family, and for me. That clarity, hard won as it was, is what I am carrying into 2026. I hope something in this resonates with you too. Because you deserve a business and a visibility strategy that fits your actual life, not the one you thought you were supposed to build.
Laura Taylor is an executive LinkedIn strategist and ghostwriter working with senior women and C-suite leaders on visibility, reputation and authority. Based in Liverpool, working globally. ©️
