I Wish You an Extraordinary Year
David Freund, Chief Leadership Officer

Since it’s Christmas Day, I truly hope you aren’t reading this as it hits your inbox. This is my last post of 2025. It has been an amazing year. I’ve been privileged to experience so many wonderful and challenging situations. Between today and January 1^st, I’ll spend several hours reviewing my daily calendar and journal entries to glean as many lessons as possible from 2024. My next step is to plan, as best I can, for 2025.

For me, 2024 was an extraordinary year, and 2025 will be as well. You’re probably wondering how I know it’ll be extraordinary; because I’ll make it so by being highly intentional. That’s not to say it’ll be an easy year, or a year filled with only ups and no downs, but it’ll be an extraordinary year just the same. Let’s take a deeper look at the word extraordinary.

The word extraordinary is simply “ordinary” with the word “extra” added to it. We live in a world filled with mediocrity. Very few people seem to be pursuing excellence. We have mediocre restaurants, mediocre cars, mediocre schools and, sadly, employees with mediocre performance. If you want to stand out and get out of the mediocre people pile, just do a little extra. Step up and take the lead on things. Offer to help even when it’s not required. Make the coffee when the pot is empty. Clean up the spill on the counter, even if you didn’t make it, and how about holding the door for people? When did that go out of fashion? You see, it’s not hard to be extraordinary, and please remember, people don’t pay for average. If you want to get out of the people pile, you need to choose a life in pursuit of excellence. Let’s take a look at a few more ways we can make 2025 extraordinary.

1. Keep an Abundance Mindset – In my post about this year’s Live2Lead, I discussed how John Maxwell encouraged us to develop an abundance mindset. Most people have a scarcity mindset, which keeps them stuck in a life of negativity. Rather than looking at only one piece of pie and trying to protect that piece of pie, give it away and bake more pies. Our abundance mindset will help us develop the following life stance:
   1. Life is filled with good and bad.
   2. Some of the good and some of the bad I can’t control.
   3. Some of the good and some of the bad will find me.
   4. If I maintain an abundance mindset both the good and the bad will get better.
   5. There will always be an answer. Just keep looking.
2. Create the Future You Want – You don’t get the future you deserve; you get the future you create. Everything in life that is worthwhile is an uphill journey. Losing weight and getting in shape is tough. Learning a new skill is uncomfortable. Having wonderful, vibrant relationships with people means having risky conversations at times. The problem most people have is that they have uphill dreams but downhill habits. Spend some time over the next couple of weeks and pick three to six things you value most in life. Next, ask yourself how satisfied you are with your life in those areas and then make a plan to grow in them.
3. Leverage Setbacks – I don’t like setbacks, but I’m thankful for them. In the December 11^th episode of my Navigating Leadership podcast, my son Jeremy commented that we learn much more from failure than from success. What a true statement. Success can become crippling and stifle our growth. Just ask Eastman Kodak, Sears & Roebuck, or Mike Lazaridis & Douglas Fregin, who created the Blackberry. These men founded companies that were at the pinnacle of success but are now for the most part just footnotes in history. Our setbacks are great lessons that help us see things we have missed, grow in additional areas and move closer to our God-given purpose.

As you begin to plan for 2025, I wish you an extraordinary year. If I can help in any way, please let me know. If you’d like a free copy of my “Charting Your Path for Growth” workbook, simply let me know, and I’ll send you a digital copy.

Have a blessed Christmas and an extraordinary New Year!