Last year, my Word of the Year episode was my most-listened-to show, bar none. So we're doing it again for 2026—but this time, I'm pulling back the curtain on how I actually choose that one word and use it to design my year on purpose.

I've never really connected with New Year's resolutions. They've always felt like a chore list wrapped in good intentions. Instead, for almost a decade, I've picked a single Word of the Year to act as a design principle for my life and work: Abundance, Expansion, Possibility, Consistency, Effortless, Determined… and now, Amplify.

In this episode, I walk you through the simple method I use to get there—something I now call ART: Assemble, Refine, Try:

• Assemble the words, ideas, and themes that keep circling my life,

• Refine them down to the ones that actually feel like mine

• Try them on with my future self before I commit.

I share how last year's word, Determined, showed up in some very real ways, how these words stack and evolve over time, and why Amplify is the word I chose to guide 2026—not as an excuse to do more for the sake of it, but as an invitation to turn up the volume on what's already working and aligned.

If you're over resolutions but still want your year to feel intentional, this one's for you.

• 00:00 – Resolutions Were Never My Thing

• 01:42 – Discovering Word of the Year

• 02:29 – A Decade of Words & Why They Matter

• 03:01 – The ART Method: Assemble, Refine, Try

• 05:22 – Using AI as a Mirror

• 09:07 – Past Words: Abundance to Effortless to Determined

• 12:34 – Determined, the Book, and Big Dreams

• 15:49 – My Word for 2026: Amplify

• 18:23 – Your Turn: Choose Your Word

Connect & Subscribe

• Watch the video version on YouTube → youtube.com/@itsdavidpeck

• Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts

• Follow me @itsdavidpeck TikTok and Instagram

What do Houston's most legendary art patrons and fashion's most famous ponytail have in common? In this episode, Paris-based journalist and biographer William Middleton—author of Double Vision: The Unerring Eye of Art World Avatars Dominique and John de Menil and Paradise Now: The Extraordinary Life of Karl Lagerfeld—joins me to connect the dots between the Menils' quiet power in Houston and Karl's global influence at Chanel, Fendi, and beyond. We talk about fashion, money, art, and how he's designed a life between Kansas, New York, Houston, and Paris.

Connect & Subscribe

• Watch the video version on YouTube → youtube.com/@itsdavidpeck

• Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts

• Follow me @itsdavidpeck TikTok and Instagram

• Follow William @wfmiddletonauthor

Let's be honest: Glinda's bubble was cute until it wasn't. And "good" was working for her… until it really, really wasn't.

In this episode, I break down Wicked: For Good the same way Glinda breaks down emotionally in Act II: publicly, dramatically, and with a surprising amount of self-awareness. We talk about why Elphaba shows up morally certain while Glinda shows up morally… adjacent. We also unpack how "Wonderful" is basically the Wizard's propaganda TED Talk, why mirrors are everywhere in this movie, and how "Girl in the Bubble" reframes Glinda's entire character through complicity and awakening.

I also get into Elphaba's new song "There's No Place Like Home," how it quietly echoes The Wiz and the Black experience of Oz, and why that matters for her story as the ultimate outsider.

If you've ever performed "goodness," got the dream job/partner/life, and then thought, "Oh. This still didn't fix me," congratulations—you're Glinda. And this episode is for you.

Connect & Subscribe

• • Watch the video version on YouTube → youtube.com/@itsdavidpeck

  • Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts

  • Follow me @itsdavidpeck TikTok and Instagram