A Fresh Perspective for the New Year

Over the last year, my husband has undergone what can only be described as a personal style renaissance.

He has moved decisively away from the standard North Texas uniform of golf polos, performance shorts, and sneaker and into a world of fine Italian suits, double-breasted blazers, and leather shoes that appear to have opinions of their own. So complete of a transformation that he no longer has a working definition of “casual.” If you have ever seen a man in Frisco, Texas walking two Scottish Terriers while wearing a full suit ready for the Milan runway, you have probably seen my husband.

This evolution has been impressive.

It has also been…contentious.

For the past three months, Eric and I have been locked in a spirited debate over the color of several blazers in his closet. He insists they are one color; I maintain they are another. He calls one midnight navy. I call it charcoal. We have gone back and forth, entrenched in our respective corners, each of us certain we were seeing reality clearly.

This finally came to a head earlier this week when he accused me, with my near-perfect vision, of being...colorblind. As a self-proclaimed color expert, I was appalled. There was simply no way my eyesight could betray me like that.

Determined to clear my name, I did what any reasonable millennial would do: we turned to our trusted friends... our AI chatbots. We took a photo of the blazer in perfect daylight and uploaded it to ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. We wanted consensus. We wanted data. We wanted the truth.

And if I’m being honest, as the little thinking… bubbles appeared on the screen, I was sweating. What if I was wrong? What if this was the moment I discovered that I was, in fact, colorblind? A series of very unhelpful thoughts raced through my mind. Had I been confidently mislabeling colors my entire life? Were there entire palettes I had misunderstood? Would this disqualify me from ever giving him fashion advice again? All of this unfolded in the span of a few seconds, as we waited for our digital jury to deliver its verdict.

And as we stood in our very opposite corners, the results appeared: the blazer was charcoal gray....with a subtle hint of blue. Not midnight blue with a hint of charcoal gray. A distinction that may sound trivial, but felt monumental in the moment.

Eric was wrong. (This feels important for me to note, of course, but not the morale of this story.)

More interesting than the verdict was the conversation that followed. Because while we were debating a blazer, what we were really confronting was our perspective and the egos associated with that perspective.

But no two people see the world exactly the same. Not even two people standing in the same room, looking at the same object, under the same light. And perhaps more importantly, no one sees the world the same way forever. Not even ourselves.

We tend to think of perspective shifts as dramatic events: major losses, big wins, life-altering moments. But often, they happen subtly, in disagreements over color, in conversations we didn’t expect, in moments where certainty gives way to something we didn't consider.

As we head into 2026, many of us will feel the familiar pull of reflection. We will think about what worked, what didn’t, and what we want to do differently. I don’t believe the new year is the only time we can change our perspective. That can happen on a Tuesday in March or a random Thursday afternoon. But the turn of the year does offer something powerful: a collective pause. A moment where we are more willing to ask, What if I’m not seeing the whole picture?

Perspective isn’t about abandoning your point of view, but instead loosening your grip on it. It’s about stepping out of your corner, not because you’re wrong, but because there might be more to see from somewhere else.

The world looks different depending on where you stand. It looks different depending on who you are, what you’ve lived through, and what you’re carrying with you. And when we allow ourselves to consider that when we entertain the possibility that another view might be just as valid we expand our capacity to learn, to connect, and to grow.

So as we move into a new year, my hope is not that you reinvent yourself or radically overhaul your life. My hope is simpler, and perhaps more challenging: that you stay curious. That you remain open. That you let go of your own ego. Resist the urge to dig in your heels and instead ask, What else might be true?

Because sometimes the difference between midnight blue and charcoal gray isn’t about who’s right. It's being open to seeing something different that can change your entire perspective on the world around you.

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From all of us at Well•Led, we wish you a very intentional start to the new year! Stay curious, friends.

And for those of you wanting to see the blazer in question, you decide for yourself: