Clean Up the Crap & Keep Going: A New Year, A New Word
Happy anniversary! The whole gang — Vonda, Lori, Ellie, and Kami — gathers to celebrate six full years of The Business & Pleasure of Flowers (year seven now underway, once everyone finishes arguing about the math). Lori reminds the room that on the phone call that started it all, she committed to exactly two years. Now here we are. Before the reflection begins, the holiday stories fly: Lori's husband Mark — fresh off flower duty at the wedding in Rome — designed his first solo arrangement over Christmas in a rooster vase inherited from his childhood home, hydrangea in first for stability, and proudly announced "Vonda would be proud." (Lori's greater achievement: she didn't touch it.) Ellie's crew turned cookie-baking into a TikTok challenge where every baker has a handicap — Ellie blindfolded, one niece with her mouth taped, headphones blaring on another, taped wrists for Tyler — and somehow produced cookies that tasted like the State Fair bucket, despite nobody creaming the butter and sugar. Kami got emotional watching her three 16-year-olds spend their own first-job paychecks on gifts for each other without prompting. And Lori's daughter secretly arranged for a painting by Lori's late Aunt Sondra — the farm, the pond her grandma always talked about — to appear as the last present under the tree, reducing her to sobs while her 91-year-old dad demanded to know who died. (He was equally unimpressed by the anthropology-rock prank: "It's a damn rock.")
The year of Amplify — and the pivot
Flower Clique's 2025 word was Amplify, and the team gives itself honest marks. The year started strong — amplifying outward with email campaigns and social media — until the T-word arrived. When tariffs hit the industry, Vonda called the pivot: stop, check in on the members. Lori and Ellie recorded a special tariff episode, and the amplifying turned inward toward the membership for the middle of the year before swinging outward again in the fourth quarter. Ebb and flow, on purpose. And as Ellie puts it, the word doesn't go in the garbage now — it's a muscle they built and will keep strengthening alongside whatever comes next.
Four ChatGPT word-of-the-year suggestions (and two human ones)
So what should 2026's word be? Everyone brought homework: ask ChatGPT, "knowing everything you know about me (and about Flower Clique), what should the word be?" The results were a live brainstorm. Vonda came in already loyal to elevate — and Lori's ChatGPT agreed, suggesting elevate for the company and for Lori personally. Kami's said focus for Flower Clique ("stagnation is not the risk for you — focus is the right call based on everything you juggle") and decisive for herself. Vonda's returned simplify for the business — "designed to sell, not to stress you out" — and clarity for her. Ellie's offered the room's favorite: magnetic. "You're no longer pushing, you're attracting… you don't need louder marketing, you need pull. Grounded, confident, assured, and premium." Her personal AI pick was anchor, though her own brain had already chosen energy. Lori, meanwhile, has been circling a phrase since New Year's Eve that kept coming back at her in church: letting go — of past hurts, of things outside her control, of the reflex to please, and of commitments that don't deserve her shrinking time now that a grandbaby is on the way. Kami's review: "That's brave." The official Flower Clique word stays sealed until the team meeting — tune in for the reveal.
The title, explained (sorry, Roma)
Ellie had planned the perfect energized Monday: refreshed house, new rug, morning walk, journaling. Instead she woke to her dog Roma refusing to move, wrapped in a blanket, hiding an unspeakable mess in the bed — the aftermath, they suspect, of an oversized free Costco treat. Bath, full bedding change, morning destroyed, dog humiliated. But she and Tyler laughed through the cleanup, and the accidental metaphor named the episode: crap happens. Clean it up and keep going. It wasn't the energy she'd manifested — but it was energy.
The goosebump moments
The episode closes with Vonda's question: what impact are we proudest of? Lori points to the steady stream of member texts, emails, and Christmas cards that land in the all-staff Slack channel every week. Kami treasures the sweatshirt members Austin and Kayla sent with their store's logo — telling her she's part of their team — and the moment member Andy finally took his family on a cruise, their first vacation in fifteen years, while the whole members' group cheered him on. (He and his wife Snapchatted Lori the play-by-play every fifteen minutes; she was there for all of it.) Ellie is proudest of how the team has evolved from rigid service tiers to genuine flexibility — meeting shops where they are, because helping people is the whole point. And Vonda lands the theme: a team where every single person cares about the members and the industry, even the people they've never met. Here's to year seven.
Key takeaways
- A word of the year works best when you let it flex — Amplify meant outward marketing in Q1 and member care during the tariff pivot.
- Try the prompt: "Knowing everything you know about me/my business, what should my 2026 word be?" The reasoning is as useful as the word.
- A phrase counts too — Lori's "letting go" is about protecting time for what matters most.
- When the year opens with a mess (literal or otherwise): clean up the crap and keep going.
- Community compounds — members rooting for each other's vacations and wins is the culture worth building.