Written by Michael Klein, Owner & Director at Michael Klein Arts, LLC Michael Klein is best known for his work and achievements in the field of contemporary art. As both a dealer and curator, he has had a long and distinguished career as a New York gallery owner and director, representing an international roster of emerging and mid-career artists. He became the first in-house curator for Microsoft Corporation. Few painters can or desire to make sculpture. Throughout the history of art, Picasso, Giacometti, even Willem de Kooning and Robert Rauschenberg are prime examples. Today, Scully has managed to take his painting geometry and shape it into remarkable three-dimensional works. “Having made sculpture in my student days, but the big impetus was Tappan, my studio, where I had land.” From a recent book about his sculpture, its general character is described here: “Scully layers elements made of steel, stone, bronze, and painted aluminum on top of each other, creating horizontal structures that expand upward.” The simplicity of the description doesn’t prepare the viewer for the great variety of forms, shapes, and structures that Scully has produced and continues to produce in his other studio in Aix-en-Provence, France. The geometric nature of Scully’s paintings now finds its way into his vision of sculpture, sculpture that is more than minimal and highly expressive, using rectangular forms to capture our attention. He builds and engineers these sculptures as stacks with grids that are either open or closed in format. In all, there is a strong and dynamic architectonic quality to these works. Many are akin to the architecturally inspired sculpture of the British artist Anthony Caro and the Danish artist Per Kirkeby. Depending on the materials chosen, the structures can look somewhat ancient or supermodern. In conversation about his sculpture, Scully remarked, “The personality of material becomes important.” For example, this very recent stone work called Wall of Light Cubed Aix (2026) is a rough-textured limestone organized in a grid pattern, with the blocks placed one atop another and side by side. Then there is this 20-foot-tall, multicolor piece, 48,2024, built of aluminum and car paint. They represent the varied approaches at hand, with material matched to composition. Scale, too, plays an important role in the character of each work. The sculptures range from monumental works like the grand piece Boxes of Air (2015 to 2021), built of Corten steel, which sits outside the studio in Tappan, New York, and stretches some fifty feet across, to more intimate works like this elegant vertical five-part marble piece in France entitled Little London Landline, made in 2023. What is most striking about his body of work is both the range and diversity of shapes and materials. Each is a unique invention. In a way, sculpture can be more experimental than painting, since painting relies mostly on two prime elements: paint and canvas. Sculpture, instead, is potentially more variable because of the material character of its form. For Scully, it is a chance to experiment, investigate, and devise, whether he is working with stone or metal. The grid structure, which is the underpinning of his thoughts, whether in painting or sculpture, is modulated by and expanded with the materials he chooses, “their personality,” as he has remarked. Each material has certain associations, so steel or metal can be thought of as modern, while stone suggests something more ancient. For Scully, visual ideas and concepts are translated into three-dimensional forms and always stacked. The stacking method is used whether he is building with cubic shapes or flat elements. In a monograph on his sculpture, Scully states, “Sculpture is the step beyond painting. It is what you resort to when your obsession with things goes beyond an illusion of something on canvas.” Throughout his career, Scully has explored the variations and possibilities of the grid. It is the structural basis for his compositions. Color is the emotive property of his paintings. The same holds for his sculpture, with the structure being a grid format and color present through the material selected or used. When painting, color sets the mood, expresses emotion, and charges our memories. In sculpture, it can be both the material and the scale. About Indoor Sleeper (2020), made of jarrah wood, an evergreen tree, Scully writes, “I love that wooden stack because it’s like an old person that worked all their life and is now resting in retirement.” “Materials have associated qualities, and each of us relates to materials in different ways depending on our own personal stories, the same way we react to different colors that elicit different emotions and reactions in each of us.” In a 2007 letter published in a recent catalogue, Scully explained, “Jackson Pollock and James Joyce were both non-negotiable” in their separate art. Scully, too, reflects Frank Stella’s statement, “What you see is what you see.” In a Scully sculpture, there is clarity in the material and clarity in the composition, all non-negotiable. Follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Michael Klein Michael Klein, Owner & Director at Michael Klein Arts, LLC Michael Klein's expertise lies in his role as a private art dealer and freelance, independent curator for individuals, institutions, and arts organizations. Today, Michael Klein Arts works with a diverse group of artists, estates, galleries, and non-profit institutions, providing management, curatorial, and other consulting services. At the same time, the company serves institutional as well as private collectors, focusing on developing collections of emerging, mid-career, and established artists. The company also organizes traveling exhibitions both in the United States and abroad.

Written by Anya Walsh, Feminine Embodiment & Pleasure Coach Anya is a Trauma-Informed Feminine Embodiment and Pleasure Coach and Project Manager for Tao Tantric Arts. Drawing on a decade of somatic, tantric, and nervous system practices, she guides women and men to reclaim safety, pleasure, vitality, and authentic self-expression through the body. Most people’s sex lives follow a rhythm: feel arousal, stimulate ourselves or a partner, feel the build, climax, experience a moment of bliss, feel a sense of release, then feel sleepy, depleted, and ready to collapse into sleep. Our minds and bodies have been trained by the media, porn, and societal beliefs to see this as normal. But what if orgasm could be experienced differently? What if sexual energy could be harnessed rather than simply released? What if pleasure could move through the whole body, creating greater vitality, connection, and aliveness rather than leaving you feeling depleted? This is where the concept of an energy orgasm comes in. The tension release pattern Many genital orgasms can be understood as a form of tension release. There is a build-up where energy intensifies and contracts against pressure in both male and female bodies. Without another pathway for that energy to move through, the energy is most often released through its known pathway, resulting in ejaculation. The genitals can become a place where strong emotions and energetic intensity accumulate. Stress, frustration, anger, passion, and desire can all become intertwined with sexual energy. This can create a powerful pattern of seeking release. Whenever there is stress, emotional intensity, or energetic activation in the body, the body's familiar response may be to seek a release of these emotions, either alone or with a partner. There is nothing inherently wrong with pleasure or ejaculation. However, when release becomes the only known way of working with sexual energy, it can become a repetitive pattern that leaves us disconnected from the deeper potential of our vitality and pleasure. So, instead of simply releasing energy, what if you could learn to build and circulate it, allowing you to feel more alive than before rather than depleted? Or you might like to experience longer, stronger, and deeper pleasure throughout your whole body, both in your own pleasure and with a partner. Cultivating sexual energy In Taoist and Tantric practices, sexual energy is consciously cultivated and circulated through the body. Rather than allowing energy to remain concentrated in the genitals, the practice is to create pathways through which it can move upwards and throughout the body. This process is referred to as sublimation. It is best to begin by practising when you are not highly aroused. Through breath, sound, movement, and awareness, you begin to familiarise yourself with the sensation of energy moving through the body. You can begin by activating the area around the perineum, traditionally associated with the root chakra, and then consciously guiding the energy upwards through the body's energetic centres. From the root, the energy can move towards the sacral centre, solar plexus, heart, throat, third eye, and crown, eventually extending beyond the crown. The more you practise this, the more familiar your body becomes with expansive states of pleasure. From arousal to expansion Once you have developed some familiarity with circulating energy while not aroused, you can begin exploring it as a self-pleasure practice or practising with a partner. Rather than allowing arousal to build continuously towards climax, you begin to work with waves of arousal. You might reach around 20 percent arousal, then consciously circulate and sublimate the energy. Your arousal may decrease to 10 percent. You then build again, perhaps to 30 percent, and circulate the energy once more. Over time, you gradually learn how to build and circulate increasingly powerful levels of sexual energy. This allows pleasure, desire, and arousal to continue for much longer than the familiar pattern of building towards a single climax. When first learning, it can be useful to practise well below your usual point of climax. You might choose to work only up to 50 percent arousal, gradually developing the sensitivity and confidence to explore higher levels. With practice, you may become more familiar with your own energetic landscape and learn to recognise 70 or 80 percent arousal without automatically moving towards ejaculation. An important part of this practice is discovering at what point your arousal becomes so strong that ejaculation is inevitable. This is your own point of no return. Learning to recognise your own unique point of no return gives you greater awareness and choice around your sexual energy. The waves of pleasure Energy moves in waves. Rather than a rocket shooting continuously upwards, pleasure becomes more like waves moving through the body. The energy rises, you sublimate, and it plateaus. The wave of energy builds upon the previous one, you circulate it, it steadies, then rises once more. The more familiar you become with this process, the more expansive the pleasure becomes, spreading throughout the entire body. Experiencing an energy orgasm You or your partner, or both of you together, may eventually reach what feels like a climactic point where there is a profound state of bliss moving throughout the entire body, regardless of whether ejaculation occurs. For many people, this state can feel much longer lasting and much more expansive than a conventional genital orgasm. With continued practice, practitioners may increase their ability to sustain states of orgasmic bliss that can even last for hours. When this energy orgasm is combined with genital orgasm, this is what’s known as a full body orgasm. Your entire body is in a state of orgasm, pleasure, and ecstasy. From depletion to vitality Ejaculation is a potent physiological and energetic experience. Traditional Taoist approaches have long explored the relationship between sexual energy, vitality, and ejaculation. The intention is not necessarily to eliminate ejaculation entirely, but to develop greater awareness and choice around sexual energy. The recommended frequency of ejaculation depends on your age, hormones, lifestyle, and many other factors. The more your awareness of your energy develops, the more you will find the right fit for your ejaculatory choices. You will begin to feel what brings more vitality and what depletes it. This is not just about better lovemaking. The benefits of this practice extend far beyond sexuality. Your overall vitality improves, your emotional and energetic intelligence expands, and your self-esteem and mental health can improve. You learn how to work with energy in all areas of life and how to harness it rather than becoming overwhelmed by it. Over time, this supports a greater sense of personal power, self-esteem, self-worth, aliveness, connection, and resilience. A different relationship with pleasure An energy orgasm invites us to reconsider what orgasm actually means. Exploring energy orgasms invites us to relate to arousal as a source of vitality rather than something that simply needs to reach an endpoint. It can be fun to explore this with yourself or with a partner, but in the beginning, it might be beneficial to seek support and guidance from a trained practitioner in repatterning how your body relates to arousal, pleasure, and energy cultivation. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Anya Walsh Anya Walsh, Feminine Embodiment & Pleasure Coach Anya is a Trauma-Informed Feminine Embodiment and Pleasure Coach and Tao Tantric Arts Project Manager who guides women and men to reconnect with safety, pleasure, and power in their bodies. Drawing on a decade of study and practice in Somatic healing, Tao Tantric Arts, nervous system health, breathwork, yoga, and embodiment-based therapies, she weaves together a range of modalities to rebuild resilience, expanding their window of tolerance, reprogramming their approach to pleasure, and reclaiming a deeper sense of vitality, connection, and authentic self-expression.

Written by Stanislav Chufus, Personal Trainer & Rehabilitation Coach Stanislav Chufus is an International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA) certified and European-certified Personal Trainer and Nutritionist with international experience in fitness, coaching, rehabilitation, and wellness. He helps clients improve their health, strength, nutrition, and confidence through personalized, goal-focused guidance. If you stop for a second and think about your body and what it actually is, you will revalue your whole life differently: being on this earth, the time that you take for your own good, and you will also realize the necessity of investing in yourself. Self-development is the biggest asset that you can build in your life, whether it’s educational, spiritual, emotional, or physical. Every one of these aspects requires self-education or mentorship. But obviously, it’s better to take both. As a Personal Trainer, I consider all of these things (education, emotional health, spiritual life, and physical well-being) as irreplaceable parts of development because they are essential by their own nature. You will not be able to substitute any of these four elements, since nothing in the world can contribute in the same way as they naturally do. They are not available for purchase, as a gift, to be given, or to be borrowed. They have to be gained through your hard work. Whatever you sow will be harvested. If you show up every day and put in all the effort you can, results will have no other choice than to follow! This is about real investment in your life. In my profession, I have met a lot of different people. I have heard their stories and how they came to the decision to change their lives. I was a witness to many miracles, but I know that many of you who are reading this article will be skeptical or even look with concern at the word “miracle.” I helped a lot of people get to the point where they were dreaming of being on their life fitness journey or reaching that point of health. Different people, different situations, different goals, and different backgrounds. But almost all the time, they had one thing in common: a late decision. Over 90% of my clients came to me and asked for help, and sometimes down the road, admitted that they regretted not taking this step sooner. Humans are, by our nature, unfortunately ungrateful, and we take a lot of things for granted. Most of the time, we start giving true value to the things or people that are almost gone or already lost. Even to ourselves. We go to the doctor because we are sick or something hurts, but only a small percentage of us want to prevent it. We start working harder when we hit the ground. We start eating healthy when there is some hormonal disturbance or the weight scale cannot read the numbers. We go to a personal trainer, coach, or health mentor when we reach the point of saying, “I have to change something in my life,” or “I cannot take it anymore.” I have two short stories about two families that came to me and asked for cooperation. I love my clients, and most of them I will remember forever. “John” (not his real name, to protect privacy), who was 11 years old at the time, and his parents came to me and asked for help. The kid was bullied at school every day for his appearance, weakness, and lack of confidence. During our sessions, I saw that this little boy had some sort of mobility problem and a fear of being ashamed, obviously because of his situation at school. The mobility problems came from his early childhood because the kid had never played, sat, or even tried to exercise or do squats. Little kids almost always have perfect technique when squatting, and they can remain in this position for a long time. As soon as his parents were told about his little problem, they decided to pay closer attention. They took him to the doctors to have scans and X-rays of his body. The results were scoliosis and flat feet. We started taking care of those things so much that even when the gym was closed, they asked me to start home training sessions, and we did everything possible so the goals would be met. In a couple of months of hard and consistent work, the issue with his feet was gone, there was an improvement in his spinal situation, and “John” performed the three movements of powerlifting during Talent Week at his school, which made him more confident and respected among his classmates and other kids at school. The second story will be short because I refused to work with a client. One mom came with her high school child and asked me to take care of her daughter and work out with her. The reason why they were not accepted by me as clients is super simple. During the conversation, they revealed that the daughter had scoliosis, which was a result of being totally irreverent to the doctors’ recommendations. This was my turning point. It started with flat feet, which caused a difference in the length of her legs, which caused discomfort and imbalance. The difference in the length of her legs caused changes in the angle of her pelvis. Over time, a spinal deformity developed, and by the age of 15 or 16, she had scoliosis of around 30°. I was told that I had to have some kind of magic and fix it, but with their zero effort and refusal to follow every instruction. A personal trainer is not a magician or God. That is why I am saying: people are coming whenever it’s almost or already too late. As a child of God, I can preach to you for hours and for days, but I will deliver a simple message to you: every work that is not built on faith will have an unstable foundation. Your body is a gift, a Temple, and a fantastic, powerful, miraculously created instrument. You will have no chance to replace it, return it, or purchase another. There is no 2-week return policy. No 30-day, 90-day, or whatever. This is like a priceless, expensive machine that requires a lot of attention and care. If I tell you that you will have your dream vehicle in front of your house tomorrow, but it will be your only car for the rest of your days, what would you do with that? Would you take care of it or neglect it? Would you keep it clean? Fill it up with the best gas? Oil? Filters? What about brakes? It takes work and maintenance. Think about it. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram for more info! Read more from Stanislav Chufus Stanislav Chufus, Personal Trainer & Rehabilitation Coach Stanislav Chufus is a European and ISSA-certified Personal Trainer and Nutritionist and a sports academy alumnus whose career in fitness spans multiple countries. His education includes specialized training in sports anatomy, physical therapy, stretching, kettlebell training, and nutrition. Stanislav approaches fitness as more than physical transformation, combining training, nutrition, discipline, and mindset to create lasting change. Having built his own journey around continuous self-development, he leads by example and encourages others to discover what their bodies and minds are truly capable of. His purpose is to help people become stronger, healthier, more confident, and ultimately build a lifestyle they are proud to live.

Do you understand how your emotions affect the people around you? Our experts explain how greater self-awareness, empathy, and emotional control can make you a more effective leader. Expert Panelists 1. Own your impact Emotional intelligence isn’t about managing emotions so everyone feels good; it’s about understanding the difference between what you meant and what actually happened. If you intended to hit someone in the face and they’re screaming about their bloody lip, you don’t get to argue the impact. And if you didn’t intend harm, emotional intelligence is what makes you pause, assess the damage, and choose the next best step. People experience impact differently, and leaders who ignore that create unnecessary risk. The work isn’t defending your intention – it’s owning your influence. Dr. Ari McGrew, Founder, Business Psychologist 2. Embrace the edge As AI makes knowledge abundant and answers almost instantaneous, emotional intelligence will become an increasingly valuable human advantage and absolutely critical in leadership. The leaders who stand out won't be those who know the most, but those who can control themselves under pressure, lift the energy of a room, and bring out the best in the humans around them. In a world accelerating faster than any of us can predict, clarity, emotional regulation, and human connection aren't soft skills anymore – they're leadership currency. The future of leadership is human. Aran Bray, Founder of Be Outstanding | Speaker | Human Performance Coach 3. Read the signals Before you lead anyone else, answer this: Do you understand how your emotions affect the people around you? Leadership is not only what you decide, but what you transmit while deciding it, and people read your emotional state before they process your words. Self-awareness means closing the gap between how you believe you come across and how you actually land, especially as seniority makes honest feedback harder to come by. Empathy is not agreeableness; it is the discipline of accurately perceiving what someone else is experiencing, which is what makes hard feedback survivable rather than corrosive. Emotional control is not suppression either; it is the choice point between feeling something fully and letting it dictate the room's temperature. The leaders people choose to follow again are the ones who treat this as a practice, not a personality trait. Pritesh Lohar, Certified Medical Oncologist 4. Know yourself first Understand yourself before understanding others. It basically means noticing your emotions, recognizing what triggers them, and choosing your response rather than reacting automatically. A strong leader can listen to critical feedback without showing defensiveness. They create space for others to speak, even when the conversation is uncomfortable. Emotional intelligence is also knowing when to set a boundary, have a difficult conversation, or simply pause before making a decision. The goal is not to remove emotions from leadership, but to use them with awareness and intention. When you understand yourself better, you can lead others with greater clarity, empathy, and confidence. True emotional intelligence is having the strength to stand for what is right, lead with fairness, and stay grounded in your values without shrinking yourself to please everyone. Ranya AlHusaini, Mindset Transformation Guru 5. Practice empathy Begin recognizing your own emotions and understanding how they influence your decisions and interactions. Take time to actively listen to others, show empathy, and respond thoughtfully instead of reacting impulsively. Strong emotional intelligence also involves accepting feedback and communicating with honesty and respect. A helpful suggestion is to regularly reflect on your conversations and identify one way you can improve your listening or communication each day. Yujia Zhu, Social Entrepreneur, Author, Executive Coach 6. Lead from clarity A leader must first understand what is shaping them beneath the surface. The patterns, conditioning, and subconscious beliefs that drive our decisions and our reactions operate largely outside of conscious awareness, and until they are understood, leadership will default to reaction rather than intention. When a leader does that deeper work, decisions are made from clarity rather than conditioning, situations are met with steadiness rather than reactivity, and validation shifts from external to internal. The leader moves away from leading in the way that they have been conditioned or trained to lead, and towards leading in the way that they were born to lead. They begin to live how they lead and lead how they live, and that coherence is felt by everyone around them. When a leader operates from genuine alignment, their impact extends far beyond their immediate environment, because when we become the best possible version of ourselves, we naturally inspire others to do the same. Niaby Codd, Author, Dream Weaver, Transformational Mentor 7. Shape the tone Your emotions do not stay contained within you. They influence the environment you create for everyone around you. Under pressure, people often look to leaders for cues about how to interpret what is happening, which means a leader's tone, body language, and response to uncertainty can either increase tension or create stability. The goal is not to suppress emotion, but to recognize what you are feeling, regulate your response, and choose how you want to show up before reacting. A simple practice is to ask yourself, "What am I bringing into this environment right now, and is it helping the people around me perform, connect, and grow?" Emotional intelligence becomes powerful when leaders understand that managing their own state is not only personal. It is part of how they lead. Nassim Ebrahimi, Developmental Psychologist, Mental Performance Coach, Author, and Speaker 8. Think ahead Recognise that sustainable success starts with people. Like sustainability itself, emotionally intelligent leadership looks beyond immediate outcomes to create long-term resilience, trust and wellbeing. Great leaders understand their own emotions and recognise how their behaviour affects others. They listen actively, communicate with empathy and create space for different perspectives. Rather than reacting under pressure, they pause, reflect and respond thoughtfully. This builds stronger relationships, encourages collaboration and helps teams navigate change with confidence. Emotional intelligence means understanding that people are not simply resources to be managed. They are the foundation of an organisation's ability to adapt, innovate and thrive. By valuing wellbeing alongside performance, leaders create cultures where people feel respected, supported and empowered. To lead with emotional intelligence is sustainable leadership: balancing performance with people, purpose with empathy, and today's needs with tomorrow's potential. Paula Rose Castronova, Global Sustainability Voice 9. Notice the cues Pay attention to both verbal and physical cues from the people around you. Someone may not say that something is wrong, but changes in their tone, body language, stance, focus, or energy can communicate that their emotions are affecting them. As a leader, recognizing these cues gives you an opportunity to adjust your approach, ask questions, and better understand what your team member may need. Emotional intelligence is not about assuming what someone is feeling, but being aware enough to notice changes and respond with understanding while still maintaining accountability. Great leaders don't just listen to what people say; they pay attention to what people communicate. Ryan Phillips, Entrepreneur, Model & Fitness Trainer 10. Set the climate Like a tuning fork, every leader influences the emotional atmosphere around them. Your thoughts, emotions, and reactions influence the atmosphere long before you speak. After 20 years in Human Resources and now leading transformational workshops, I've found that emotional intelligence begins with one daily question: "What do I need today to show up as my best self?" When leaders regulate themselves rather than react impulsively, they build trust, encourage authentic communication, and unlock the group's collective potential. Great leadership isn't about controlling emotions – it's about understanding them and leading from self-awareness. Katalin Fligg, Trance Evidential Medium & Consciousness Educator

Written by Nadija Bajrami, Strategic Hypnotherapist, Mind Coach Nadija is a multi-award-winning trauma and empowerment specialist with a double diploma in hypnotherapy, mind coaching, and online therapy. She is also a Reiki Master and a grief educator, and she has been trained by international grief specialist and best-selling author David Kessler. Nadija is also an end-of-life doula. What if your story began before you had a voice? Before your first breath, before your first cry, before your first memory? We often speak about trauma as something that happens after birth. The childhood we survived, the relationship that broke us, the abuse, neglect, violence, abandonment, or loss that changed us. But human development begins earlier than most of us realise. It begins in the womb. Research increasingly shows that the prenatal environment can influence aspects of foetal and infant brain development, stress response systems, and biological regulation. This does not mean an unborn baby consciously remembers every argument, every tear, or every difficult day. It does not mean that a mother experiencing anxiety during pregnancy has automatically “traumatised” her baby. It certainly does not mean mothers should carry another burden of guilt. It means something much more nuanced, the developing human being is biologically sensitive to its environment. The womb is our first environment The womb is not simply where we grow. It is our first biological environment. Through the placenta, the developing foetus is connected to the mother's physiological environment while its brain and nervous system develop. Scientists study systems such as the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis, which plays an important role in the body's stress response. Stress itself is not inherently harmful. Our bodies are designed to respond to challenges. But severe and prolonged stress is different. Research has found associations between significant maternal stress, anxiety, and depression during pregnancy and differences in aspects of foetal and infant brain development, including areas involved in emotion and stress regulation. Scientists are also exploring epigenetics, how environmental experiences can influence how certain genes are expressed without changing our DNA itself. Research has found associations between prenatal stress and epigenetic changes involving genes connected with stress regulation, although this science is still developing. But let us be very clear, association does not equal destiny. Genetics, nutrition, birth, relationships, childhood experiences, and the environment after birth all matter. The prenatal environment is one part of a much bigger story. Your body can learn before your mind can remember When I speak about prenatal trauma, I am not suggesting that a foetus has the same conscious psychological experience of trauma as an adult. We are talking about biological adaptation. The developing nervous system responds to signals from its environment. The body does not need conscious language to adapt. It learns through biology. It learns through patterns. Some of that biological learning begins before birth. But here is what matters most, your beginning is information. It is not a life sentence. This is where I want to protect mothers There is a danger in talking about prenatal stress without talking about maternal guilt. A pregnant woman may hear that stress can influence development and immediately ask, “Did I damage my baby?” No. That is not the message. Pregnancy is not nine months of emotional perfection. Women experience grief, fear, financial pressure, relationship difficulties, illness, trauma, and loss. Sometimes women are simply surviving. Instead of telling pregnant women to “stay positive,” perhaps we should ask, “What support does this woman need?” If maternal wellbeing matters to prenatal development, the answer is not to blame mothers. The answer is to support them. Give them safety. Give them compassion. Listen to them. Believe them. Help them. Supporting the mother is part of creating healthier beginnings. Trauma is not only what happened after birth This is the conversation I believe we need to have. When someone tells me, “I do not understand why I am always on high alert,” “I do not understand why I struggle to trust people,” or “I do not understand why I cannot relax,” there may not be one simple explanation. Sometimes the answer is in childhood. Sometimes adulthood. Sometimes biology, temperament, or genetics. Sometimes significant prenatal adversity may be part of a much larger developmental story. Human development is a continuum, before birth, birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Every stage matters. But none of them tells the entire story. We are more complex than what happened to us. This is where I want to bring you back to empowerment. If our earliest environments can influence us, our later environments can influence us too. If the brain can adapt to adversity, it can also adapt to safety. If the nervous system can learn hypervigilance, it can learn regulation. If the body can learn survival, it can learn that survival is no longer necessary. We are not frozen in time. Neuroplasticity reminds us that the brain remains capable of change. You can learn, heal, regulate, build healthier relationships, challenge inherited patterns, and become the person who breaks the cycle. Your beginning is not your destiny Maybe your mother experienced profound stress while pregnant with you. Maybe she was grieving. Maybe she was frightened. Maybe she was living through circumstances you will never fully know. Please hear me, you do not have to spend your life blaming her. Understanding is not blaming. Understanding gives us context, and context can create compassion. Perhaps your body learned vigilance before you ever understood what vigilance was. Perhaps you became someone who needs control because uncertainty feels unsafe. Perhaps there is a reason. But a reason is not a sentence. Your past may explain you. It does not have to imprison you. Breaking cycles does not require us to hate the generations before us. Sometimes it requires us to understand them and then consciously choose something different. You are here now Maybe your story began before your first breath. Maybe your body encountered signals of stress before your conscious mind existed. Maybe some of your earliest adaptations were formed in an environment you never chose. But listen carefully, you are here now, and that matters. You can learn, heal, regulate, build safe relationships, choose differently, become the safe adult you once needed, and create a different emotional environment for the next generation. You can stop asking, “What is wrong with me?” and begin asking, “What happened, what did my body learn, and what is it ready to learn now?” That question changes everything. Because healing is not about pretending the past didn’t happen. Healing is about refusing to let the past have the final word. Your story may have started before you had words But you are holding the pen now, science is teaching us that the prenatal environment matters. Trauma research is teaching us that the nervous system matters. Neuroscience is teaching us that the brain can change. Human experience keeps reminding us, we are capable of transformation. Your beginning matters. Your history matters. Your biology matters. Your experiences matter. But none of them get to decide who you become. You are not broken because your nervous system learned to survive. You are not weak because you react to things others seem able to handle. You are not doomed because your story began with circumstances you did not choose. Your body was always trying to protect you, and now, with awareness, compassion, and the right support, you can begin teaching it something new, safety, trust, connection, and possibility. Your story may have started before you had words. But you are holding the pen now, and you get to write what comes next. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info. Read more from Nadija Bajrami Nadija Bajrami, Strategic Hypnotherapist, Mind Coach French by birth, Nadija lived in Scotland for seven years and travelled the world. After recovering from some serious health issues, Nadija had a wake-up call and came to Ireland to find her path. She has been living in Dublin since 2017. Nadija works mostly online worldwide and shares her time between Ireland, France, and Switzerland. Nadija is a multi-award-winning trauma and empowerment specialist with a double diploma in hypnotherapy, mind coaching, and online therapy. She is also a Reiki Master and a grief educator, and she has been trained by international grief specialist and best-selling author David Kessler. Nadija is also an end-of-life doula. She is dedicated to helping her clients get empowered, supercharge their confidence and self-esteem, overcome their limiting beliefs, and manage anxiety and trauma responses. She also helps people on their grief and healing journeys through her therapy, coaching, grief education and support programmes, and spiritual work.

Written by Elizabeth Ballin, Professional Certified Coach In this series, Elizabeth Ballin, PCC, offers reflections from her coaching and mindfulness practice on how people discover insight, meaning, and resilience in the changing landscape of modern life. Her perspective is rooted in years of working with people from many cultures and in a driven curiosity that understands human growth as a life in motion. Anger is an interesting emotion because, as uncomfortable and sometimes destructive as it can be, it usually has a positive intention behind it. That may sound contradictory. What could be positive about wanting to scream at someone, say something cruel, or throw something across the room? The behavior it provokes may not be positive at all, but underneath it all, anger is trying to do something for us. Anger can also feel good, honestly. Don't most people get some satisfaction out of finally letting go and saying what they really feel? In that moment, you probably don't want to calm down because the anger feels justified. That's part of why it's so hard to control. There are many techniques to control one’s overreaction to anger once it's already there, like taking a breath, counting to ten, or walking away. While these strategies can be effective in the heat of the moment, it is also important to understand how anger develops before it becomes overwhelming. There is an enormous difference between feeling anger and acting on it. The impulse can feel completely justified while we are experiencing it, but the anger may pass in ten minutes, while the consequences can remain for years. Sometimes, though, a person stays angry because some part of them believes the anger itself will get them what they want. So maybe the better question isn't, "How do I control my anger?" Maybe it's, "What is my anger actually trying to do for me?" What is the positive intention? During coach training, one approach stood out, getting curious about the positive intention behind a reaction instead of just trying to shut it down. A "positive" intention here doesn't mean the actions taken in anger are justifiable, or that the intention itself is morally good. Someone's anger may drive them toward goals that only benefit themselves, or even into controlling behavior. It means the anger serves a real personal need, like protection, power, or regaining something that feels threatened or lost. Separating the behavior from that underlying motivation makes it possible to address the real need directly. We react to the meaning we give an experience We often think an event alone causes our anger. Someone interrupts us in a meeting, and we interpret it as, "He doesn't respect me." At that point, we're not only responding to the interruption. We're responding to what it may mean to us, and that meaning carries an emotional charge we might not even notice. That's why two people can go through nearly the same situation and come out completely differently. Same words, different meaning. That meaning is where the real work with anger starts. Start with the body When anger comes up for a client, many describe it the same way, it feels like it comes out of nowhere, like a volcano, and afterward, they're left with guilt, shame, or the quiet fear that something is wrong with them. One client, a composite of many I've worked with over the years, put it this way, "I don't even recognize myself when it happens. Then I hate myself for hours afterward." So I start with, "Where do you feel it in your body?" Tightness in the chest? Rising heat in the face? A clenched jaw? Instead of rushing to make the sensation go away, I ask them to notice it. Then I ask, "If this part of your body revealed a positive intention behind the anger, what would it be?" Say the answer is self-protection. Maybe the client says, "It means people can't walk all over me." So I ask, "If you had a sense of self-protection, what would it give you?" Strength? Safety? Confidence? We're peeling the onion one layer at a time, moving toward what's actually going on inside the person. Naming what is underneath the anger The anger itself is not always about the thing that set it off. Someone's interruption, a partner's unfulfilled promise, or a friend's tone in an email may be what sets off the anger rather than the whole cause. Dig one layer down, and the disrespect they describe may mean something more specific, "He doesn't value what I have to say." Dig further, and there's a feeling underneath that meaning. Often, it lands somewhere like, "I feel insignificant." The conversation started with anger at another person over something perhaps minor and ended up somewhere much more personal. That's often where the real intensity of the reaction is coming from. If the client feels insignificant, what would help them feel significant instead? This is where the work begins. The same pattern can show up with other emotions too. Insecurity may point toward a desire for security. Rejection may point toward belonging. Helplessness may point toward personal power. Naming the emotion gives the work somewhere to go. Instead of "He's disrespecting me again," maybe they notice, "Oh, this is my feeling of being insignificant again," and ask, "What actually is important to me right now?" Keep the intention, change the strategy Just telling someone to control their anger usually doesn't work. If the intention behind someone's anger is self-protection, and they're told to stop being angry, part of them may hear that as, "Stop protecting yourself." That's why it works better to understand the intention and change the strategy instead. Take a client whose temper flared every time a coworker took credit for her work in meetings. Underneath, she was looking for self-protection, a need not to be walked over. Instead of asking her to let go of that need, we explored a strategy that was more likely to give her what she wanted. So we asked, "If she felt fully and completely protected, what would the disagreement actually look like?" The same question works for anyone. Understanding what it is that you are truly after is the first step in building better strategies in an argument. Once you are clear about what you want, you can find the courage to communicate your goal and set the boundaries you need. You haven't given up the need for self-protection. You are simply finding a better strategy for meeting it. This won’t happen overnight. Catching the eruption of emotion before it turns to rage takes awareness, and that awareness is built over time. Be compassionate with yourself in the moments when you don't catch it. Rage can move faster than thought, and it takes practice to become aware of it before it takes over. This highlights the importance of continuous, intentional practice in recognizing and reflecting on emotional needs, not just when the emotions are out of control. When coaching is not enough Coaching can help people recognize their triggers and find new ways to meet the intention behind their reactions, but there's a limit, and I've seen it firsthand. One client, a composite of situations I've encountered over the years, came in after discovering his wife's infidelity. He wanted answers, apologies, and the love he felt he had lost. His anger stayed high throughout the day and into the night, and to him, it felt completely justified. Anger often creates an urge toward action. We want to confront, fix, defend, reclaim, or change something, but with him, staying angry wasn't leading to the action he wanted. Some part of him believed that if he stayed there long enough, he would find the answer. Instead of exploring what was underneath the anger, he stayed in it, as if the anger itself was the answer. That's when I knew coaching wasn't going to be enough. What he needed was time and the support of therapy, someone who had the training to work with him on a deeper level than coaching could. In the end, it’s about knowing what you want By the time someone is in full rage, the urge to react impulsively can overwhelm everything else. That’s why taking the time to find out what other emotions are underneath the anger must happen earlier, learning what anger feels like in the body, staying curious about its intention, and naming what’s underneath it. Then, when anger starts rising again, there’s a better chance of understanding the reason before reacting. By creating that small space, you can decide what the best way to respond is. Anger is not an enemy. It can have bad manners but good intentions. It may be trying to defend you, restore a sense of power and identity, or recover something you feel you’ve lost. The work isn’t to silence it, but to understand what it’s really trying to achieve and to find a healthier way to get there. Follow me on LinkedIn and visit my website for more info! Read more from Elizabeth Ballin Elizabeth Ballin, Professional Certified Coach Elizabeth Ballin, PCC, is an International Coaching Federation (ICF)-accredited professional coach and mindfulness practitioner working globally with people and professionals from many backgrounds. She combines emotional insight, cultural intelligence, and practical structure to support meaningful growth. She brings a lifelong multicultural awareness, deepened by twelve years of coaching across more than twenty cultures, which helps her attune to the emotional and practical realities her clients face. Her writing spans themes such as curiosity, creativity, well-being, communication, judgment, and the inner shifts that support meaningful growth in the complexity of modern life.

Written by Roxy Hops, Resilience Coach & Mental Health Advocate Roxy Hops is an internationally recognized resilience coach, speaker, author, and social entrepreneur who helps leaders and changemakers transform adversity into agency. Through neuroscience-based frameworks, she bridges trauma healing, identity rewiring, and purpose-driven leadership to create lasting impact. We know the person we tend to call resilient. They are the one who keeps going when circumstances become difficult. They absorb complexity, carry responsibility, remain composed and continue functioning. They may be leading through uncertainty, holding a family together through disruption, managing a profound personal transition, or simply becoming the person others rely on when things get hard. From the outside, the evidence seems clear: they are still standing. Still delivering. Still managing. Very often, that capacity is real. But it raises a question we do not ask often enough, "What exactly are we measuring when we call someone resilient?" Resilience has become closely associated in our everyday language with endurance, the ability to withstand pressure, tolerate difficulty and return quickly to normal. Yet psychological research has long offered a more nuanced model. The American Psychological Association describes resilience as successful adaptation to challenging experiences, particularly through mental, emotional and behavioural flexibility and adjustment to internal and external demands. The distinction matters because endurance can be an expression of resilience without being the whole of it. When endurance becomes the evidence There are periods in life when continuing is exactly what is required. Persistence can be courageous. It can protect what matters during a crisis, preserve stability while circumstances are uncertain, and allow us to move through difficult periods that cannot simply be avoided. A more mature understanding of resilience should not diminish our capacity to endure. The problem begins when endurance becomes the primary evidence by which we recognise resilience. Human beings can remain remarkably functional under significant pressure. A person can meet deadlines while becoming increasingly depleted. A caregiver can remain dependable while having very little capacity left for themselves. A leader can continue making difficult decisions while privately carrying considerable strain. None of this means that competent people are secretly unwell. Continued functioning can reflect genuine strength and healthy adaptation. It simply means that visible performance cannot tell us the whole story. Capacity can conceal cost. When someone is still functioning, we tend to conclude that the existing response is working. But there is a difference between being capable of maintaining something and that thing remaining adaptive over time. This distinction becomes particularly important for people with considerable capacity. The more reliably someone handles difficulty, the easier it is, for others and sometimes for the person themselves, to use continued performance as evidence that nothing needs to change. Endurance matters. But our ability to tolerate pressure should not become the sole measure of how well we are responding to it. Resilience is not only resistance, it is responsiveness Perhaps a more useful way to think about resilience is through our capacity to respond to changing reality. Research increasingly emphasises this flexibility. Psychologists George Bonanno and Maren Westphal, for example, have argued that resilient outcomes emerge through flexible self-regulation rather than any single defining trait: the ability to respond differently depending on what a particular situation requires. That idea has an important implication. If circumstances change, the most adaptive response may need to change with them. Sometimes resilience is persistence. There are situations in which we need to tolerate discomfort, stay the course and continue doing what matters despite difficulty. But sometimes persistence stops being the most intelligent response. Resilience may then look like adapting a strategy that no longer fits the circumstances. It may involve recovering capacity before continuing, drawing on other people rather than handling everything alone, revising an expectation, or recognising that the direction itself needs to change. This is why I find it useful to think of resilience not only as resistance, but as responsiveness. Resistance asks, "Can I withstand this?" Responsiveness asks something broader, "What does this situation now require?" The difference is not an argument for giving up whenever something becomes difficult. Quite the opposite. Responding intelligently to reality can demand considerable discipline. Sometimes the difficult decision is to persist. Sometimes it is to change. Resilience lies partly in being able to tell the difference. Recovery is not always return Our common metaphor for resilience is to “bounce back.” It is an appealing idea because it suggests restoration: something disrupts us, we absorb the impact, and eventually we return to where we were. Sometimes that is exactly what recovery looks like. There are setbacks and stressful periods after which stability returns. A project fails; another opportunity emerges. A demanding period ends; capacity is restored. Circumstances settle and life resumes something close to its previous shape. But some forms of adversity alter the reference point itself. A significant loss can change a family permanently. Illness may change what is physically possible. A major transition can reshape identity, priorities or relationships. A profound personal or professional disruption can make the previous version of life neither available nor desirable. In circumstances like these, “getting back to normal” may be the wrong measure. Recovery is not always return. Sometimes resilient adaptation involves integrating what has happened into a reality that is now different. The task may no longer be restoration alone. It may be reconstruction. That does not require romanticising adversity or pretending that every disruption produces growth. Some experiences simply involve loss. Some changes are painful rather than transformational. But when the landscape has changed, resilience may mean learning how to live, decide and move meaningfully within the landscape that exists now, rather than attempting indefinitely to recreate the one that existed before. Agency after disruption This brings us to another dimension of resilience that deserves greater attention: agency. Adversity often narrows choice. Sometimes that narrowing is very real. Circumstances beyond our control can reduce financial, professional, physical or relational options. At other times, sustained pressure narrows what we can perceive. Our attention becomes organised around immediate demands. We focus on getting through the day, solving the next problem or preventing something else from going wrong. Possibilities that once seemed obvious become difficult even to see. Agency does not mean controlling everything that happens to us. That is neither possible nor a credible model of human resilience. It means having some meaningful influence over what happens next. What can I change? What cannot be changed? Where is support needed? Which response is still serving its purpose? Which one was necessary once but no longer is? What options remain available from here? A resilient person, then, may not be the person capable of tolerating the greatest amount of pressure. They may be the person who can recognise that circumstances have changed and retain or gradually rebuild enough agency to respond accordingly. People exercise agency within conditions But our capacity to exercise agency is also shaped by the conditions in which we are operating. We do not respond to adversity from a neutral starting point. Our available choices are shaped by relationships, resources, safety, autonomy, culture, leadership and access to support. Research supports this broader view. A 2024 umbrella review drawing on 44 reviews and more than 556,000 participants identified factors including social support, community cohesion and self-regulation among those associated with resilience after adversity. This does not make resilience purely environmental any more than it makes it purely individual. Individual capacities matter. Self-awareness matters. Decision-making matters. Coping skills matter. Our ability to act matters. Conditions matter too. People exercise agency within environments that can expand or constrain the responses available to them. Someone with strong relationships and meaningful support is navigating adversity from a different position than someone carrying the same disruption in isolation. A person with some autonomy has options that someone without it may not. Resources, trust and stability do not remove adversity, but they can alter what becomes possible in response to it. That gives us two questions rather than one, "What capacities does this person need?" and "What conditions are they being asked to function within?" We do not need to choose between the two. A more useful question Perhaps the problem is not that we value resilience too much. It is that we have sometimes learned to recognise it too narrowly. We see the person who keeps performing and admire their endurance. We see someone return quickly after disruption and call it recovery. We notice composure because composure is visible. What is harder to see is adaptation. The decision to change course because reality has changed. The recovery period that preserves future capacity. The willingness to use support. The acceptance that something cannot be restored. The gradual rebuilding of agency after circumstances have taken choices away. These responses may look very different from one another because resilience is not a single behaviour. One useful way to understand it is as the capacity to remain responsive as circumstances change: to persist when persistence is appropriate, adapt when reality shifts, recover when capacity has been depleted, draw on support when necessary, and rebuild meaningful agency when adversity has narrowed our choices. That understanding changes the question. Instead of asking only, “How much can this person withstand?” we can ask, “What does this reality require, and what capacities and conditions make an adaptive response possible?” That is a larger conversation than resilience as endurance. It asks us to strengthen human capacity without assuming that capacity is limitless. It asks us to value persistence without confusing it with permanent tolerance. It asks us to pay attention not only to how people respond to difficult circumstances, but also to the conditions within which that response must take place. Because resilience should not be measured simply by how much pressure a person can absorb without stopping. It should also be understood through their capacity to recognise when reality has changed and respond to it. Continue the conversation My work connects resilience, mental health, leadership and human systems to help people and organisations respond to pressure and change with greater clarity, agency and sustained effectiveness. If this work is relevant to you or your organisation, connect with me on LinkedIn or visit my website to book a conversation to explore potential collaborations and how these ideas may apply to you, your team or your organisation. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram for more info! Read more from Roxy Hops Roxy Hops, Resilience Coach & Mental Health Advocate Roxy is an internationally recognized resilience coach, speaker, author, and mental health advocate who helps leaders and changemakers rise from burnout and adversity into clarity, purpose, and authentic leadership. Combining evidence-based neuroscience with deep emotional work, she bridges brain science with soul, empowering others to rebuild from the inside out. Her transformative frameworks have inspired leaders and visionaries worldwide to redefine success on their own terms. She is the founder of Centro Gracia, a youth-focused movement in Chile that brings emotional intelligence and suicide-prevention programs into schools and communities. Her mission is clear: to make emotional resilience a cultural foundation, not a crisis response. References: American Psychological Association. Resilience. APA Dictionary of Psychology / Help Center. https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/resilience Bonanno, G. A., & Westphal, M. (2024). The three axioms of resilience. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 37(5), 717–723. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.23071 Abate, B. B., Sendekie, A. K., Tadesse, A. W., Engdaw, T., Mengesha, A., Zemariam, A. B., Alamaw, A. W., Abebe, G., & Azmeraw, M. (2024). Resilience after adversity: An umbrella review of adversity protective factors and resilience-promoting interventions. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 15, 1391312. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1391312

A popular version of self-employment focuses almost entirely on freedom. You control your schedule, make your own decisions, and do not have a boss telling you what to do. Alaa Jaber understands the appeal of that description because independence is one reason he values working for himself. However, his experience has also shown him how incomplete that picture can be. The freedom to make your own decisions comes with the responsibility of making those decisions when the answer is not obvious, and there is not always someone else available to tell you whether you are making the right call. Jaber grew up in New Jersey as one of six children and later attended Hudson County Community College. His professional path eventually led him toward self-employment rather than a traditional career built around corporate titles and promotions. For people searching Alaa Jaber Missouri, those basic details provide an introduction, but they don't explain much about how he thinks about work. His experience has made him skeptical that a successful career needs to follow a predictable sequence. He is more interested in whether the path someone chooses actually makes sense for the life they want to build. “I like being able to make my own decisions, but you also have to accept what comes with that,” Jaber says. “If it is your decision, you have to be prepared for the possibility that you might get it wrong. Then you have to figure out what you are going to do next.” That willingness to accept uncertainty has become an important part of the way he approaches self-employment. Learning to measure progress for yourself A traditional career often comes with recognizable signs of advancement. Someone receives a promotion, takes on a new title, earns more responsibility, or moves into a more senior position. Those milestones make it relatively easy to explain progress. Self-employment does not always provide the same kind of scoreboard, which means Jaber has had to think differently about how he measures whether he is actually moving forward. One lesson he has learned is that being busy and making progress are not necessarily the same thing. A day can be packed with phone calls, messages, small problems, and routine responsibilities. By the end, there may be plenty of evidence that work happened. The harder question is whether any of that work changed something meaningful. “You can have a really busy week and feel like you did a lot,” Jaber says. “Then you look back and ask yourself what actually moved forward. Sometimes you realize you spent most of your time dealing with whatever showed up instead of the things that probably deserved your attention.” Jaber does not believe routine work is unimportant. Every business has responsibilities that need to be handled, and some days solving small problems is exactly what the work requires. His concern is that those tasks consume so much attention that more difficult decisions are constantly pushed aside. That distinction has also changed the way he thinks about long hours. There are periods when working late is necessary, particularly when something unexpected happens or an important responsibility needs attention. At the same time, he no longer assumes a longer day is automatically more productive. Twelve hours spent on the wrong priorities do not become valuable simply because they required twelve hours of effort. Lessons that started long before business Some of Jaber's comfort with different personalities began well before his working life. Growing up with five siblings meant being surrounded by different opinions, temperaments, and ideas about how things should be done. He does not try to turn his childhood into a carefully packaged business lesson, but looking back, he can see how those experiences influenced the way he deals with people today. “When you grow up with that many siblings, you are not always going to get your way,” he says. “Everybody has their own personality. You disagree about things, you figure it out, and eventually you move on.” That experience taught him something that has remained useful in adulthood: disagreement does not automatically mean that a relationship or situation is broken. People can look at the same problem differently and still find a way forward. For someone who works independently but still depends on relationships with other people, that perspective matters. Self-employment may sound individualistic, but Jaber does not see it as working in isolation. Business still requires communication, trust, judgment, and the ability to understand what other people need. Independence means being responsible for your own direction. It does not mean assuming your perspective is always the only one that matters. Making decisions without complete certainty The decision-making side of self-employment is something Jaber believes people underestimate. When you work inside an organization, there are usually limits to what falls within your responsibility. A difficult decision can sometimes move up the chain. When you work for yourself, the chain can end with you. Those decisions are rarely as simple as choosing between an obviously good option and an obviously bad one. Jaber has faced the same questions that many independent businesspeople encounter. Is an opportunity worth pursuing? Should an idea be given more time? Is a problem serious enough to require a change, or would changing direction too quickly create another problem? How much information is enough before a decision needs to be made? “There are times when I wish there was a clear answer,” Jaber says. “Sometimes you know what you want to do, but other times you are looking at two options, and both have advantages and disadvantages. You can keep thinking about it, but eventually you still have to make a decision.” Experience has made him more comfortable with the possibility that a decision may need to change later. He no longer sees adjusting a plan as automatic evidence that the original choice was a mistake. Circumstances change, new information becomes available, and something that made sense several months ago may no longer be the best option. The challenge is knowing the difference between making a thoughtful adjustment and abandoning something simply because it has become difficult. Jaber admits that distinction is not always obvious. Patience can be valuable, but patience can also become stubbornness if someone refuses to acknowledge what the evidence is showing them. What football gets right about preparation Outside of work, Jaber has long been interested in football, baseball, and basketball. Football in particular has given him a useful way to think about preparation because so much of the work happens before spectators ever see the players take the field. A football team can spend an entire week studying an opponent, practicing plays, preparing for specific situations, and repeating fundamentals. Even after all of that preparation, the game can immediately produce something unexpected. An opponent changes its approach, a player gets injured, or one mistake changes the momentum. The preparation was not wasted simply because the plan had to change. Preparation gives the team a better chance of responding when it does. Jaber sees something similar in business. It is impossible to prepare for every opportunity because you do not know exactly what is coming. What you can do is learn from previous experiences, understand your priorities, pay attention to mistakes, and become better at recognizing situations when they appear. “You prepare so you are in a better position when something happens,” he says. “That does not mean you can predict everything. You just do not want to be starting from zero when an opportunity is already in front of you.” Preparation also has an important limit. Jaber knows that it is possible to spend so much time analyzing an opportunity that preparation becomes another form of hesitation. At some point, there will always be another question to ask or another possibility to consider. The difficult part is recognizing when you know enough to act. Defining success beyond someone else’s career Jaber has also become more careful about comparing his career with other people's careers. It is easy to see an impressive title, successful company, or certain lifestyle and assume that the person has found the better path. What is harder to see are the trade-offs behind those achievements. Someone with a traditional career may have greater stability but less control over their schedule. Someone who is self-employed may enjoy more independence while carrying more uncertainty. One person might value building a large organization, while another might be perfectly satisfied working independently. Jaber does not think those choices can be ranked without understanding what the individual actually wants. “I do not think everybody should work for themselves,” he says. “There are good things about it and difficult things about it. The same is true of a regular career. You have to decide which tradeoffs make sense for you.” That perspective has made his own definition of success less rigid. He does not believe every professional move needs to fit neatly into a long-term plan or that changing direction means someone has failed. Careers develop over years, and people change along with them. What mattered at one stage of life may become less important later, while priorities that once seemed secondary can move to the front. Building a career that fits Jaber's approach to self-employment is ultimately less about rejecting the traditional career path than recognizing that it is only one option. He understands why people value stability, clear responsibilities, and an established route for advancement. He prefers greater independence, even though it brings more uncertainty and requires him to take responsibility for decisions that do not always have comfortable answers. The experience has also made him less interested in presenting success as something that happens according to a perfect plan. Some opportunities work, some ideas do not, some decisions need to be reconsidered, and some periods make progress hard to measure. What matters is paying attention to those experiences and becoming better at deciding what should happen next. For Jaber, there is also no reason to copy another person's career simply because it looks successful from the outside. Other people can provide ideas, examples, and lessons without becoming a blueprint to follow exactly. “I think you can learn something from almost anybody,” Jaber says. “That does not mean you have to make all the same choices they made. Their situation is not your situation.” That may be the simplest way to understand his approach. Alaa Jaber is not trying to prove that self-employment is the right answer for everyone, and he does not pretend to have every step of his own future mapped out. He has simply become comfortable with the idea that a career can be built one decision at a time. For someone who has chosen to work for himself, that may be the point. There may not always be a title, promotion, or predetermined next step showing where the path should lead. Sometimes progress means having enough experience to make the next decision with more confidence than the last, while remaining willing to change course when the situation calls for it.

Some careers follow a straight line. Others grow through a mix of business experience, education, personal challenges, and a growing sense of purpose. For Akshay Kumar, that mix has shaped a career that crosses business development, real estate, finance, marketing, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy. Akshay Kumar Friendswood area business professional, has spent much of his professional life learning how ideas move from concept to execution. Based in the greater Houston area, he has worked across the United States and India, helped grow family business ventures, pursued advanced business education, and supported nonprofit efforts focused on long-term community impact. His approach is grounded in a simple belief: strong results usually begin with a strong process. “Sometimes the desired result may not happen immediately, but the process still improves,” Kumar says. “When the process becomes stronger, more disciplined, and more consistent, the outcomes eventually follow.” How Akshay Kumar’s family shaped his approach to business Kumar grew up in Houston in a family where entrepreneurship was part of everyday life. His parents immigrated to the United States and started a small business in 1984. Over time, they developed it into a successful real estate company. Watching that process gave Kumar an early lesson in patience. Businesses were not built through one big decision. They grew through discipline, risk-taking, and years of steady work. “My biggest influences and sources of motivation have been my parents,” he says. “Their lives have been a constant example of determination, sacrifice, resilience, and faith.” Those lessons later became part of his own management style. Instead of focusing only on short-term wins, Kumar became interested in systems, long-term growth, and the reasons behind major business decisions. From Penn State to business development Kumar earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Penn State University in 2015, graduating with honors. That same year, he joined his family office as an intern. He later moved into broader responsibilities based on his performance and contributions. His early work covered areas including marketing, finance, portfolio management, and business development. One project showed him what can happen when a new idea is paired with clear execution. Through marketing and business development efforts, Kumar says he helped increase revenue by about 14 percent, representing nearly $1 million in growth. That result led to a larger role across several business functions and ventures. The experience also reinforced a lesson that has followed him throughout his career. Ideas alone are not enough. Someone must build the structure that allows those ideas to work. “Success is measured by both the outcome achieved and the standards maintained along the way,” Kumar says. “It is not only about what you accomplish, but also how you accomplish it.” Why Akshay Kumar returned to business school As his responsibilities expanded, Kumar continued building his formal business education. He later attended Rice University, earning an MBA with honors in 2024. His studies strengthened his background in strategy, leadership, finance, operations, and organizational management. By that point, his career had already stretched beyond one field. He had worked across real estate, finance, marketing, portfolio management, education, and business development. He had also gained experience working across both U.S. and Indian markets. That range helped Kumar see business as more than a collection of separate departments. Marketing affects growth. Finance shapes what can be built. Operations determine whether an idea can last. Leadership connects all of them. Bringing business thinking into social impact Kumar’s biggest ideas have not been limited to commercial work. His personal life played an important role in shaping his interest in philanthropy. Growing up with his sister, Shipra Kumar, who has a mental disability, gave him firsthand exposure to the challenges faced by people with disabilities and their families. That experience helped inspire his interest in disability support and wider community service. Much of his philanthropic involvement has focused on India. His interests include supporting impoverished women and girls, food distribution, clothing support, education access, and programs that help vulnerable communities. What connects this work to his business career is his interest in sustainability. Kumar believes community programs should aim to build systems capable of continuing their work over time rather than relying only on temporary support. That same thinking has also influenced his interest in education. He has worked on educational technology curriculum designed to improve learning outcomes and create more engaging experiences for students. Why purpose matters in Akshay Kumar’s career As Kumar’s career has developed, philosophy and spirituality have become increasingly important to how he defines achievement. He does not view success only through titles, revenue, or professional recognition. “True success means discovering and stabilizing an inner sense of happiness, peace, and purpose,” he says. “Professional achievement is important, but it should be balanced with personal growth, meaningful relationships, spirituality, and service.” That outlook helps explain the varied path his career has taken. Business development, entrepreneurship, education, philanthropy, and social impact may look like separate interests. For Kumar, they are connected by the same question: how can an idea be turned into something useful and lasting? When challenges arise, he returns to that purpose. “Purpose is what keeps the engine going,” Kumar says. “It gives meaning to the work, direction to the effort, and strength during difficult moments.” For Kumar, bringing big ideas to life has never been only about thinking bigger. It has been about building the discipline, systems, and sense of purpose needed to make those ideas real.

Some careers begin with a single defining moment. For Leigh Tesar, the path into event coordination developed more gradually. Growing up in Miami, she was often drawn to projects that involved organizing people, planning activities, and figuring out how different pieces could work together. That early interest eventually became a career centered on bringing ideas to life. Today, Tesar works as a Senior Event Coordinator in Miami, managing corporate gatherings, private celebrations, community events, brand activations, fundraisers, award ceremonies, and other events. Her work requires creativity, but she has learned that the strongest ideas only succeed when they are supported by careful planning. “An idea can be exciting, but the details are what make it real,” Tesar says. “You have to understand what the client wants and then build a plan that can actually deliver it.” How Leigh Tesar became interested in event planning Tesar was born in 1997 and grew up in Miami, a city known for its mix of cultures, neighborhoods, businesses, entertainment, and community events. She became involved with school activities and local events at an early age. She often found herself helping organize group projects or activities. What interested her was not only the final result, but also the process behind it. “I’ve always liked seeing how everything connects,” she says. “You might have a lot of different people working on something, but someone has to make sure everyone understands the bigger picture.” After graduating from high school in 2016, Tesar attended Miami Dade College. She studied Business Administration and completed her studies in 2019. Her coursework included business communication, marketing fundamentals, hospitality management, project coordination, customer relations, and organizational leadership. Those subjects would later become practical parts of her daily work. Learning event management behind the scenes Tesar began her professional career as an Event Assistant in 2019. She worked with a Miami-based event planning company that handled corporate gatherings, private celebrations, nonprofit events, and community functions. The position introduced her to the less visible side of event planning. She helped prepare materials, communicate with vendors, organize registration, manage timelines, and support on-site operations. It also taught her that events rarely happen exactly as planned. “You learn quickly that being organized doesn’t mean everything will go perfectly,” Tesar says. “Being organized means you’re better prepared to respond when something changes.” That ability to adapt became an important part of her approach. Instead of viewing event coordination as simply following a checklist, she began seeing it as a combination of preparation, communication, and problem-solving. What does an event coordinator actually do? In 2021, Tesar moved into an Event Coordinator position. Her responsibilities expanded significantly. She began working directly with clients and managing events from the early planning stages through final execution. Her work included client consultations, scheduling, vendor coordination, budget tracking, timeline development, venue communication, event execution, and post-event reviews. She also worked with caterers, venues, entertainment providers, decorators, and production teams. Each group had its own deadlines and responsibilities, making communication essential. “A client might describe the experience they want in a few sentences,” Tesar explains. “Your job is to take that vision and break it into dozens of smaller decisions that all need to work together.” That process helped Tesar develop a practical approach to creative ideas. Rather than beginning with what looks impressive, she focuses first on what the event is supposed to accomplish. Why event planning requires both creativity and structure By 2024, Tesar had advanced into her current role as a Senior Event Coordinator. She now oversees a wide range of events for businesses, organizations, and private clients. Her experience includes conferences, networking events, private celebrations, community gatherings, brand activations, fundraisers, award ceremonies, and company events. Although these events may look very different, Tesar says the planning process often begins with similar questions. Who is attending? What should guests experience? What matters most to the client? What needs to happen for the event to run smoothly? “Creativity gives you possibilities,” she says. “Organization helps you decide which possibilities can actually work.” Her role also requires her to think ahead. Vendor schedules, venue requirements, guest movement, technology, food service, entertainment, and production may all need to happen within the same limited period. For Tesar, strong event planning means creating enough structure that attendees never have to think about it at all. How Miami influences Leigh Tesar’s approach to events Miami continues to influence both Tesar’s work and her interests outside the office. She enjoys exploring different neighborhoods, trying restaurants, attending local cultural events, and discovering new spaces. Photography has also sharpened her attention to detail. She particularly enjoys photographing architecture, city scenes, and moments from local events. “Photography makes you notice things you might normally walk past,” she says. “That same attention helps in events because small details can completely change how a space feels.” Travel, cooking, hosting, live music, farmers markets, and interior design also provide creative inspiration. However, Tesar believes inspiration is only the beginning. Turning ideas into experiences people remember As Tesar’s responsibilities have grown, she has also become interested in helping newer event professionals develop their skills. She encourages them to learn the operational side of the industry rather than focusing solely on the finished event. Her own career has followed that same path. She started by learning how events work behind the scenes, moved into managing complete projects, and eventually took responsibility for larger and more complex experiences. “People usually remember how an event made them feel,” Tesar says. “Behind that feeling is a lot of preparation, communication, and people working together.” For Leigh Tesar, bringing big ideas to life has never been about making them bigger for the sake of it. It has been about understanding the goal, creating a realistic plan, and making sure every detail contributes to the experience people were meant to have.

Building a company requires a founder to be deeply involved. Growing one eventually requires that founder to let other people become deeply involved, too. Alexei Orlov has experienced both sides of that transition. Over nearly three decades in global business, Orlov has worked as a CEO, CMO, entrepreneur, and strategic adviser across the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia. He has held senior leadership positions at Volkswagen, Omnicom, and Wunderman/WPP, and he co-founded MCW Brand Design Group before it was acquired by Ogilvy & Mather/WPP. Then he built a larger organization himself. Orlov founded MTM Choice and grew it into a multidisciplinary creative and advisory group of approximately 200 people. He secured $35 million in growth funding, expanded internationally, and built the company to approximately $55 million in annual revenue before transitioning it to new leadership. Today, he remains an adviser to the chairman. For Orlov, however, the interesting part of that story is not simply how large the company became. It is how much had to change as it grew. A founder's job at 10 people is not the same job at 50 people, and it certainly is not the same job at 200. The habits that help an entrepreneur get a company moving can eventually limit the company if they never change. That realization shaped the way Orlov came to think about growth. Growth changes the founder's job In the earliest stages of a company, being involved in almost everything can be an advantage. A founder may know every client, participate in every important meeting, review the work, solve problems, and make decisions without much distance between an idea and its execution. That stage of entrepreneurship has its own energy. It also has a practical reason. Small businesses simply do not have endless layers of people to distribute responsibility among. Success gradually changes the equation. As more people join, a founder who keeps trying to personally influence every decision can unintentionally slow the company. Decisions begin waiting for one person. Capable employees become accustomed to asking for approval. Leadership positions can exist on an organizational chart without those leaders having genuine authority. For Orlov, growth required learning that responsibility could not remain concentrated in one place. “I do not have the license on brains,” he has said when describing his approach to leadership. It is a simple phrase, but it captures something important about how he views a growing organization. Hiring talented people creates value only if they are allowed to contribute their judgment. Orlov learned to ask for help, listen, and debate ideas rather than assuming leadership meant personally supplying every answer. He sees that willingness as a strength rather than an admission of uncertainty. A founder may start a company with a particular vision, but hundreds of people cannot be expected to operate as extensions of the founder. At some point, the organization needs its own leaders. The numbers represent people Business growth is often described through milestones. Revenue increased. A new market opened. The company hired more people. An investor came aboard. Orlov understands the importance of those measures. He has spent much of his career in positions where commercial performance mattered. But his experience building MTM Choice also gave those numbers a more human meaning. A company of approximately 200 employees is not merely a larger version of a company of 20. It represents hundreds of individual careers, ambitions, ideas, and responsibilities. Clients are placing trust in the organization. Employees are making career decisions based on its future. Investors are backing its direction. Leaders within the company are accepting responsibility for teams and outcomes. That changes what growth means. Orlov believes people want to know that their contributions matter and that they have been heard. His own definition of success reflects that idea. For him, success includes knowing that something he has done or said created meaningful value for another person or organization. That philosophy does not mean lowering expectations. Alexei Orlov MTM describes himself as capable of being firm and relentless in pursuing excellence. He believes standards matter. He rejects the idea that demanding high standards requires leading through fear, cruelty, or unnecessary politics. A growing company needs accountability, but it also needs people who feel trusted enough to act. The two ideas can coexist. Investment is an opportunity, not the finish line Securing $35 million in growth funding was a major milestone for MTM Choice, but Orlov's experience also taught him to distinguish between raising capital and creating value with it. Investment can accelerate what a company can do. It can support hiring, expansion, acquisitions, new capabilities, and entry into new markets. It can give an ambitious organization resources that would otherwise take years to accumulate. But money does not make the underlying decisions for the leadership team. Once capital arrives, the questions may actually become harder. Where should the company invest? How quickly should it expand? Which opportunities genuinely support the long-term business? Which opportunities are simply attractive because the resources are suddenly available to pursue them? Orlov's career has exposed him to founder-led, investor-backed, and publicly listed organizations. That range has reinforced his belief that ambition needs commercial discipline. Growth should leave the organization stronger. That sounds obvious, but growth can become a goal in itself. Headcount, geographic reach, and revenue are easy to measure. Organizational health is more complicated. A business can become larger while also becoming harder to manage. The challenge is to make sure the company develops as it expands. Structure does not have to kill creativity This is especially important in creative businesses. As companies grow, they usually need more processes. Responsibilities have to become clearer. Leaders need to know what they own. Teams need reliable ways to work together. Creative organizations can sometimes resist that kind of structure because they fear becoming bureaucratic. Orlov sees a distinction between the two. Useful structure gives people clarity. Bureaucracy creates obstacles without adding corresponding value. The goal is not to surround every decision with another process. It is to build enough structure that talented people can concentrate on doing their best work. That balance has been a recurring theme throughout Orlov's career. He has spent decades at the intersection of creativity and commercial performance. From global brand leadership to agency businesses and entrepreneurship, he has seen that creative ambition and business discipline do not have to work against each other. In the right organization, they reinforce one another. A commercially strong business can invest in talent. It can pursue bigger ideas. It can give teams resources and room to experiment. Discipline can create the foundation that makes creative risk possible. The difficulty is knowing when structure supports the work and when it simply creates more work. Eventually, leadership means letting other people lead Perhaps one of the clearest signs that a company has matured is that important things can happen without its founder in the room. Getting there can be uncomfortable. Entrepreneurs often spend years making themselves indispensable. They win early clients, recruit employees, make decisions, solve crises, and carry much of the original vision themselves. Success eventually asks them to do something that can feel counterintuitive: make themselves less necessary to the company's everyday operation. Orlov's transition of MTM Choice to new leadership after a decade of sustained growth represented that stage of the company's development. He did not disappear from its story. He remains an adviser to the chairman. But the transition reflected a broader principle that has become important to how he thinks about organizations. Building leadership is part of building the business. A founder who creates an organization that cannot function without them may have created something valuable, but they have also created a limitation. A stronger organization distributes knowledge, judgment, relationships, and responsibility among capable people. That requires trust. It also requires accepting that another leader may approach a problem differently and still reach an excellent result. Experience looks different from the other side Today, Orlov works with boards, founders, investors, and leadership teams facing questions around growth, transformation, brands, and organizational change. The advisory position gives him a different view from the founder's chair. Operating a business means living among its immediate demands. Something always needs attention. A client needs an answer. A hiring decision has to be made. A financial question appears. An opportunity has a deadline. When leaders are surrounded by urgent decisions, it can become difficult to see which ones will matter six months or several years later. Orlov now sees part of his role as helping leaders create that distance. He does not approach advisory work as someone who believes decades of experience have given him a universal formula. His career across countries, cultures, companies, and stages of growth has taught him almost the opposite. Different circumstances require different answers. Experience is useful because it provides perspective. It gives someone more situations to draw from, more patterns to recognize, and more mistakes to remember. It can help a leader ask a better question before committing to an answer. For Orlov, that may be one of the most useful things he can offer at this stage of his career. Building something that can continue There is an obvious way to measure a founder's accomplishments. Look at what was built. Another measure becomes visible later. Look at whether other people can continue building it. Orlov's journey with MTM Choice took the company from an entrepreneurial venture to an international organization with significant revenue, outside investment, hundreds of employees, and a leadership structure capable of taking it into another chapter. That experience changed the way he thinks about what founders ultimately create. They may begin with an idea, but successful businesses eventually become collections of people, capabilities, relationships, and knowledge that extend far beyond one individual. For the founder, growth therefore requires more than learning how to add. It also requires learning what to hand over. After nearly three decades spent building, transforming, and leading businesses, Orlov increasingly sees value in helping other leaders navigate that transition. His experience has taught him that the strongest companies are not simply those that grow quickly or become large. They are the ones that become strong enough to keep moving forward through the people entrusted with what comes next.

Brandon Torres Declet didn't begin his career expecting to spend the next two decades building companies around drones, robotics, and autonomous technology. In fact, when he started working in national security, the commercial drone industry as we know it today barely existed. His early career took him into places where technology was viewed through a very different lens. As counsel with the NYPD Counter Terrorism Bureau and later as National Security Counsel in the U.S. Congress, Torres Declet worked on questions involving security, intelligence, policy, and emerging technology. The work taught him to think beyond whether something was technically possible. He had to consider how technology would actually be used, what could go wrong, and how institutions would respond when innovation moved faster than existing rules. Years later, those same questions would follow him into entrepreneurship. “I think I learned pretty early that technology does not exist by itself,” Torres Declet says. “You can have an extraordinary piece of technology, but somebody still has to figure out where it fits, who needs it, how it gets used, and whether it actually solves a problem.” That idea has become a recurring theme in his career. Brandon Torres Declet saw more than a flying machine As Torres Declet moved deeper into the commercial drone industry, drones attracted plenty of attention. What interested him was not simply the aircraft. He was thinking about what businesses could actually accomplish with them. That distinction eventually helped shape MEASURE, the company he founded in 2014. Instead of expecting businesses to become drone experts, MEASURE focused on using drones to do useful work across industries such as energy, infrastructure, agriculture, and insurance. The idea sounds fairly straightforward today. At the time, it required convincing companies to think differently about a technology many were still trying to understand. “There was a lot of excitement around drones, but excitement does not create a business model,” Torres Declet says. “We had to get past the novelty of the aircraft and understand what the customer was trying to accomplish. If the customer needs an inspection or better information about an asset, the drone is only part of the answer.” That experience changed how he thought about emerging technology. Being early could create an advantage, but it could also mean spending years educating a market. A founder could be right about where an industry was heading and still be wrong about how quickly customers would get there. The work therefore became as much about timing, operations, and customer behavior as it was about technology. Building the company was harder than proving the idea As MEASURE grew, Torres Declet encountered a problem familiar to many founders. The challenges changed as the company became larger. The question was no longer simply whether customers wanted drone services. The company had to hire people, develop repeatable processes, manage increasingly complicated operations, and determine which parts of the business could scale. MEASURE also developed Ground Control, software designed to help manage drone missions and the information they produced. Torres Declet saw a significant difference between proving that an idea could work and building an organization capable of delivering it repeatedly. “A founder can spend a lot of time thinking about the product, and that makes sense because the product has to work,” he says. “But eventually you realize that you are also building a company. You are building teams, processes, customer relationships, and a way of making decisions. If those pieces do not work, having a great product does not rescue you.” His later experiences leading and advising other drone and technology companies reinforced that lesson. Growth brought more resources and opportunities, but it also brought more complexity. That has made Torres Declet more cautious about treating size as a measure of success. Growth can solve problems and create new ones After years of operating companies, Torres Declet still believes in ambitious growth. What has changed is how he evaluates it. Adding employees can give a company capabilities it desperately needs. It can also create more layers of communication and management. Raising capital can allow a business to invest in products and opportunities that were previously out of reach. It can also make it easier to spend money around problems that should have been solved another way. Acquisitions create the same tension. Torres Declet has acquired and integrated businesses, and the experience taught him that the most visible part of a transaction is often the easiest to understand. “People see the announcement, but that is not where the value gets created,” he says. “Afterward, you have employees who need direction, customers who have questions, different systems, different products, and sometimes very different ways of working. You have to make all of that function as one company.” That experience has made him more interested in organizational capacity. A company may have enough capital to make an acquisition without having enough management attention to integrate it properly. It may be able to afford another 20 employees without the structure needed to make them effective. For Torres Declet, growth is valuable when it makes the company more capable, not simply larger. Robotics has brought him back to an old question Today, Torres Declet's work in autonomous robotics has brought him back to a question familiar from his national security years: What happens when the technology encounters conditions its creators cannot completely control? This matters because autonomous systems are increasingly being designed for difficult environments. Robots may need to operate underground, inside complex structures, around industrial sites, or in defense settings where GPS and reliable communications aren't guaranteed. For Torres Declet, this is where robotics becomes particularly interesting. A machine that performs well when every system around it is functioning correctly has demonstrated something useful. A machine that can recognize uncertainty and respond intelligently when those systems disappear has demonstrated something more. “I am always interested in what happens when the conditions change,” he says. “If GPS is no longer available or communications drop, what does the machine do? Does it understand enough about its environment to keep operating safely? Does it know when it should stop or return? Those situations tell you whether autonomy is actually useful.” The same thinking applies to companies. Business plans are built on assumptions, just as autonomous systems operate on information about their surroundings. Eventually, reality changes something. A market moves more slowly than expected. An acquisition proves harder to integrate. A product needs to change. Capital becomes more expensive, or a customer behaves differently than the model predicted. The organization's quality becomes visible in how it responds. Experience has changed what Brandon Torres Declet looks for Torres Declet's career has now taken him from government and national security into entrepreneurship, public-company leadership, drones, and autonomous robotics. He has been a founder, CEO, board director, investor, and operator. Yet the years have not made him more certain that there is a formula for building successful technology companies. If anything, they have made him more interested in the questions that come after the big idea. He wants to know whether customers will actually use the technology, whether the organization can deliver what it promises, and whether growth makes the company stronger or simply larger. He also wants to know what happens when the assumptions behind a plan prove wrong. “I think experience makes you a little less impressed by the announcement and a lot more interested in what happens afterward,” Torres Declet says. “The idea matters, and the technology matters, but then you have to build something around it that can survive the real world.” That may be the most consistent thread running through Brandon Torres Declet's career. He has spent years working with ambitious ideas, but his attention keeps returning to execution. The interesting part is not simply imagining what new technology could make possible. It is doing the much less glamorous work required to make that possibility useful.