Welcome to the first Monday of 2026!
I don't know about you, but I holiday'ed HARD. I needed a true break.
A chance to disconnect from work, gain some new perspective. But mostly, a chance to connect with my family and friends. And to reconnect with myself.
Over the last couple years, I have redefined my relationship with the New Year.
It is no longer about fresh starts or new resolutions. It isn't about hitting January hard and accomplishing a list of goals.
No, the New Year has become more of a pause. A surrender, a rest.
And after 2025, I needed a pause and a rest. But when I look back over the last two weeks, what I got was a rebalance.
Yes, there was plenty of rest (if you can call finishing Stranger Things restful...) but there was also 7 Christmases, 4 New Years and a few games nights in there.
Rest looks different for all of us, and can look different season to season.
"If you work with your mind, rest with your hands. If you work with your hands, rest with your mind." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
And let me tell you, that rest worked. I am ready to jump into the first Monday of 2026 with a renewed energy and focus.
So, if you aren't feeling recharged after the holidays, here is your reminder that often the best thing you can do for your business is take care of yourself.
Or, if you're feeling ready to jump into 2026 head first, here's your first win of the year...
Update your copyright date in your website footer.
- Teresa
LATEST BLOG
Legally Prepare for 2026
One easy legal win: Update the copyright symbol in your footer with the current year; I want you to just have that little copyright symbol, ©, with the year and the name of your company.
For example:
©2026, Creative Law Shop, LLC, or
© 2017-2026, Creative Law Shop, LLC.
The copyright designation is essentially just putting a flag in the ground and saying to anyone using your website, “I own the information on this site and any claim to it, this is mine, and I don’t want you to use it impermissibly.” While it’s a simple change you can make, it’s an effective one.
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The Brand Summit:
Another kind of reset
Can I ask you a personal question?
How are you feeling about your brand?
After almost 10 years as a company, the Creative Law Shop® has had many evolutions (and is undergoing the biggest evolution as we shift to the Creative Law Foundry).
We've had at least 2 full visual rebrands. New logos, new websites.
You might know the feeling of creating a brand and falling in love with it... only to feel out of alignment with your brand a couple years later.
If that's you, then I want to introduce you to a friend of mine, Kadie Smith of Drop Cap Design®. If you haven’t been able to officially connect with her online yet, you’ve probably seen her work.
Kadie has been building and launching brands since 2014 in the online space and has been the creative brain behind influential brands like Copy Uncorked, Philosophy of Leisure, Anni Graham, and over 200 more.
With a formal education in art direction & design, she switched gears from a trajectory in publishing to a career as a brand designer and now runs a full creative agency while also teaching designers and non-designers alike how to style their brand and others’ with confidence.
You might think it requires a design degree and hours of practice to master branding, but Kadie has taught her branding techniques to hundreds of non-designers, from scientists to medical technicians, mompreneurs to executive coaches for over a decade. And she can definitely help you do the same.
Join us at The Brand Summit
Each year, Kadie brings together all of her expertise & experience to offer a FREE virtual Brand Summit, teaching YOU how to stand out as a premium brand online, and the next one will be hosted in just a few short weeks from January 19-21.
Kadie will be hosting three brand workshops to help you craft and curate your brand style, while also hosting branding focused fireside chats with some very special guests that she’ll be announcing soon.
The Brand Summit is 3 consecutive days packed with branding workshops, special guests & Q+A sessions with experts who are behind the most influential online brands on the Internet today. Not only is it inspirational, it’s packed with easy-to-implement steps to elevate your brand & leave you with more conviction & clarity than ever before.
If your brand feels stale and you didn’t work with as many clients or make as many sales as you wanted to last year, join us at The Brand Summit.
Maybe this sounds familiar...
- You’re still chipping away at your brand, knowing it’s holding you back from launching your business and generating actual sales. 😖
- You have a general business idea, but there’s no way you’re going to be able to hire a designer just yet; you need to learn how to do this stuff yourself.
- You get so overwhelmed by all the noise on social media and don’t know who to listen to or what actually matters to grow your online brand into the business you know it could be
- Everything in your business, from writing copy to choosing what to post, feels “heavy” and takes so.much.time. You know you’re missing something, but you’re not sure what it is
- You help clients with their website and social media… but you know their brand needs help the most, and it would make your job WAY easier. You just don’t know where to start to help them out.
You are not alone in feeling this way.
It’s why Kadie started The Brand Summit in the first place—she saw just how many people were trying to get a business off the ground, but kept getting stuck when it came to making their brand look and sound legitimate.
I can’t wait for you to join me inside The Brand Summit this year as Kadie & her guest experts share what’s trending and what’s actually important to help you and your brand stand out in 2026!
During the Brand Summit workshops, Kadie will walk you through the highlights of the methodology she uses with her exclusive clients, who pay over $10,000 for the privilege. But you can learn the same techniques and apply them to your own business by tuning into The Brand Summit for free.
Join us at The Brand Summit
Here’s the full schedule:
Mon. January 19: The Brand Summit, Day 1
1:00 PM CST - Branding Workshop: Unlocking Your Brand’s Personality
1:45 PM CST - Expert Q+A: Visible by Design
Tues. January 20: The Brand Summit, Day 2
1:00 PM CST - Brand Workshop: Attracting Your Ideal Customers with Color
1:45 PM CST - Expert Q+A: The Branded List
Wed. January 21: The Brand Summit, Day 3
1:00 PM CST - Brand Workshop: Raise Your Voice, Own Your Style
1:45 PM CST - AMA with Kadie (+ a very special exclusive announcement)
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All the sessions are taking place inside the pop-up Facebook group of The Brand Summit, which you’ll gain access to when you sign up.
Not only had Kadie played a huge part in my own brands over the last decade, she is also a dear friend and I am so excited for you to meet her.
- Paige
P.S. After the Brand Summit takes place, you’ll be ready to dive headfirst into your brand in a whole new way. You’ll probably be wondering what you can do next… You’re in luck, because Kadie will be opening the doors for her course The Brand Edit® so that you can take what you’ve learned and apply it in an even bigger and better way throughout your business. It’s the only course of its kind on the Internet, so keep your eye out for more details coming soon.
P.P.S. If you are not interested in receiving any more emails from us about the Brand Summit but want to remain on our newsletter - Opt-Out of The Brand Summit emails here.