After eight years, this podcast has a new name, a new format, and one very specific focus: principals who have decided that 100Percent student success isn't an aspiration. It's something they're going to build. In this first episode, I'm telling you exactly what The 100Percent Principal Podcast is, who it's for, and what you can expect every week when you show up. Whether you're a sitting principal, an aspiring one, or a district leader who supports them, there's something here for you. Subscribe to the newsletter at 100percentprincipal.com and I'll see you April 15th.

For the last four weeks I've been naming something you already knew but couldn't say out loud — what's happening with your students, your teachers, your communities, and why everything you were trained to do feels like it's working less than it used to. Today is the final episode of this series. And I have two things for you: the answer you've been waiting for, and an announcement I've been sitting on for a long time. I'll give you the answer first. The announcement comes at the end — and no, before you say anything, I know what day it is. This is not a joke.

The teacher you were trained to lead and the teacher standing in your building right now are not the same person, and nobody told you that. That's why in this episode, I'm going to show you exactly who the New Teacher is, why the tactics that used to work have stopped working, and what it actually takes to reach a teacher who evaluates authority, interrogates truth, and is no longer defined by the profession the way teachers used to be. It's not you. It's not them. It's that the old playbooks no longer work. So you can stop blaming yourself, stop blaming your staff, and start building a school worth committing to #LikeABuilder.

I've spent eight years watching brilliant, dedicated principals do everything right — and still hit the same invisible ceiling. More effort. More initiatives. More of themselves poured into the work. And yet the results plateau, the staff drifts back, and in the quiet moments nobody else sees, the principal starts asking the most dangerous question in education: if I'm doing everything I was trained to do… why isn't it working? In this episode, I'm giving that ceiling a name — the Leadership Ceiling — and I'm going to show you exactly what it looks like in your building, why it has nothing to do with your ability or your effort, and why the principals who finally break through it don't do it by becoming better leaders. They do it by deciding to build #LikeABuilder.

Are you doing everything you were trained to do and still feeling stuck? The problem might not be you. It might be the playbook. In this episode, I'm naming the three forces that have converged to make school leadership harder than it's ever been: widening academic gaps that didn't go away when the headlines did, community instability that walks through your front door every morning with your kids, and financial resources that are shrinking just when you need them most. Then I'm going to show you why the traditional leadership playbook, even when you execute it beautifully, was never designed for a moment like this one. If you've ever wondered why working harder isn't moving the needle, this episode will help you see the real problem—and start thinking about your work differently #LikeaBuilder.

This month marks eight years of this podcast — and instead of celebrating with a highlight reel, I want to do something more honest: tell you what these eight years have actually changed in me. I started convinced that the biggest problem in schools was a failure of imagination. What I've learned since is harder, more uncomfortable, and more useful than that. So, tune in for a very real examination of what I've learned, what has surprised me, and where we need to take the work next #LikeABuilder.

Are you really sure your staff believes in your 100% vision — or are they just saying what sounds right in the staff meeting? In this episode, I'm sharing a simple but powerful diagnostic I call the Struggling Student Test: four things you can observe this week that will reveal more about your school's true beliefs than any survey or walkthrough ever could. Once you know what you're really dealing with, I'll show you why the answer isn't more motivation — it's smarter systems, so you can make sure every struggling student gets what they need no matter how any individual teacher feels on any given day #LikeABuilder.

Right now, schools everywhere are ramping up test prep, adding review sessions, and trying to make sure nothing slips through the cracks before testing begins. In this episode, I'm breaking down the three biggest mistakes I see schools make right before testing season and show you how these mistakes quietly undermine results even when everyone is working hard. Plus, I'll show you exactly what to do instead so your efforts actually pay off. You'll hear a smarter, more strategic way to approach these final weeks so you and your students can go into this years' tests with clarity and confidence because you've directed your team's energy where it matters most #LikeABuilder.

By this point in the school year, I see the same pattern play out over and over again: a system isn't working, so we compensate. We work around the gaps, carry the weight ourselves, and tell ourselves it's just what this season requires. But over time, that compensation drains our capacity, and eventually, it drains something even more dangerous: our belief that a better solution is possible. In this episode, I talk about that "compensation cycle," how broken systems train us to survive instead of replace, and why awareness alone doesn't lead to action. If you've ever known something needed to change but felt too depleted to even imagine a different way, this episode will help you step out of the compensation cycle and start building real success #LikeABuilder.

We all love a good redemption story in schools—the students who struggle for years and finally turn things around. Those stories make us feel good. They also let us avoid a harder question: why did success take so long in the first place? During Coaching Week, that question kept coming up for me, and it forced me to look at how deeply we've normalized struggle and delayed success in the systems we call "good." In this episode, I challenge the idea that suffering is a necessary part of learning, examine what our favorite stories reveal about our expectations, and explore what changes when we stop centering heroics and start interrogating design, #LikeABuilder.

I see this pattern over and over again: capable principals implementing solid ideas, working hard, and still feeling like progress won't hold. When that happens, we usually assume the problem is us—our clarity, our follow-through, our leadership—or we blame the moment we're in. In this episode, I unpack a harder truth that explains why so much good work fades, even when the strategies are sound. If you've ever wondered why effort keeps increasing but results don't, this conversation will help you see your school (and your role) differently, #LikeABuilder.