Pausing to Choose Our Tomorrow: Prism Team Retreat 2025
It’s a Friday morning in late November.
The holiday season is ramping up. The calendar feels full with not enough days left to shop, wrap, work, host, party, and maybe—hopefully— relax?
And yet every year around this time, our team pauses for an evening and a day to gather, enjoy a meal, reflect on the year in the rearview, and look forward to the one ahead. This annual pause isn’t captured on our P&L or tracked on our balance sheet, but it’s measured where it matters most: in the quality of our relationships as team members and the expression of our values as they relate to continuing to carry out our mission to give others a shot at a tomorrow of their choosing.
We say this phrase a lot around our office and in our literature. “Choose your tomorrow.” It can become banal, easily passed over due to frequent use and habituation. But the power in this simple phrase is truly at the heart of the service we deliver and our annual team retreat that we’ve made time for since our inception.
First, there’s the power of choice.
In our work with injured workers and employers, it’s easy to forget we all have a choice. It may not be an easy choice or one’s ideal choice, but the ability to choose is always there. Likewise, finding an empty day where we can gather and reflect, brainstorm, and learn is not something that just happens. It’s a choice that each team member must make and honor.
Then there’s the “tomorrow” part.
While this can refer to the literal next day on the calendar, we’re often talking about the generic future. We shape our “tomorrow” by the choices we make today. If you’re an injured worker whose life has been thrown off track by a workplace accident, mediation is a chance for you to choose what your future holds: more of the same, or the end of a challenging system and the freedom to carry on in a new direction. At our retreats, we focus a lot on “yesterday” so we can influence “tomorrow.”
What went well?
What might we need to change?
Where did we mess up?
What are we excited to try?
We try to stay keenly aware of our ability to shape the future of our work as individuals, but also as an organization as a whole.
Although these days are sacred and impactful for us, they’re still hard to pull off!
We’re a team of 13 now, spanning the state from Shreveport to New Orleans, and also spanning generations from Millennials to Boomers. We’ve all got beautiful, full lives beyond our days at Prism, not to mention the financial and mental investment required to supply these retreat days in general.
It is in those moments—the most challenging ones—when the power of choosing our tomorrow matters most. We left that late November Friday feeling connected, energized, excited, and grateful for the year behind and the one ahead. We hope you’ll consider taking your own “retreat” of sorts, whether as an organization or an individual. Reflecting, resetting, and refueling are all necessary parts of being able to show up as the company or person you value being.
Want to know more about how we plan our retreats? Click here to read the nitty gritty and get some ideas for yours!
