You can choose to win or to lose

Colleagues,

Welcome to the last month of 2025. This year has gone fast in some ways and been a long painful trainwreck in others.

This is an easy time to lose focus. If you work in or with schools, there are only about two weeks left before Christmas break. I’ve seen a lot of educators and administrators take their foot off the gas at this point. I get it, everyone is tired and the holidays bring a certain energy that can easily spill into the classroom (or whatever your workspace happens to be).

I wrote and talked about in the podcast last week about how I keep score of each day. It is a win or a loss. It is silly, but I also couple that practice with Tony Robbins’ seven morning affirmations (the last of which is “Today, I choose to win.” The real power in this is that I make a conscious choice. There have been a couple times I have said, “I am spent today, I will take the loss.” There also have been many more days I have said, “I am spent, but I choose to win today.”

The point: we all can choose each day from now until break. We can choose to coast (lose) or choose to focus on making a difference, on being a lighthouse, on supporting and growing our people. 

We all face the same choice.

What choice will you make?

Cheers!

Frederick