Written by Lotte Mikkelsen, Laughter Yoga Master Trainer Lotte Mikkelsen’s journey from early entrepreneurial ventures to becoming a Laughter Yoga Master Trainer reflects a lifelong dedication to well-being and joy. Since founding UnitedMind in 2002, she has pioneered innovative stress-relief methods and trained thousands to harness laughter's transformative power. In my last Neuroplastic Fantastic post, I talked about acetylcholine, the brain’s chemical “yellow highlighter” that marks new habits when you focus deeply during the day. But highlighting a blueprint doesn’t build the house. To permanently lock in your new skills, mindset shifts, or healthy habits, you have to hand the blueprint over to your brain’s midnight construction crew. Real neuroplastic change doesn’t actually finalise while you are awake. It happens while you sleep. Why your brain rewires in the dark When you go to sleep, your brain undergoes a massive physical and chemical shift. It stops taking in new information from the outside world and turns entirely inward to optimise its hardware through two critical processes: Synaptic pruning: Your brain clears out the clutter. It systematically weakens and dissolves the unused pathways, like that bad habit you successfully resisted during the day, freeing up vital mental energy. Memory consolidation: The brain replays the highlighted “focused” moments of your day at up to 20 times normal speed. It physically strengthens those specific connections, moving them from short-term temporary storage into the permanent, automated highway of your long-term memory. Without high-quality sleep, the brain’s “construction crew” never shows up. You can focus all day perfectly, but if your rest is skimpy, then the highlighted pathways fade away, and you wake up right back at square one. 3 ways to supercharge your midnight construction Protect the 90-minute window: The deepest stages of sleep, which occur early in the night, are vital for structural change. Avoid caffeine or heavy meals within 4 to 6 hours of bedtime so your brain can drop smoothly into this deep rewiring state. Do a “brain dump” before bed: If your mind is racing with tomorrow’s to-do list, your brain stays in a high-stress alert mode, blocking deep restorative cycles. Write everything down on paper before your head hits the pillow to signal to your nervous system that it is safe to begin construction. Keep a cool construction site: Your body temperature needs to drop by about 1°C to initiate deep sleep. Lower your thermostat or crack a window open. A cooler room actively triggers the biological signals required for deep, neuroplastic rest. The neuro-action step for this month Tonight, view your sleep not as “dead time,” but as active construction time. When you turn off the lights, take 30 seconds to think about the one positive habit or skill you have practiced today. Give the Midnight Construction Crew their exact blueprint and let neuroplasticity build a better brain for you while you drift off. Speak to me about how you can benefit from workshops and training. I can be easily contacted by email here or by mobile at +44 (0) 7736341717. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Lotte Mikkelsen Lotte Mikkelsen, Laughter Yoga Master Trainer Lotte Mikkelsen’s legacy is one of laughter, growth, and positive change, echoing her mission to enrich lives through laughter and joyfulness. Since founding her business, she has trained over 2,000 individuals and shared laughter at thousands of festivals, conferences, and wellbeing events around the UK and Europe. With a background in corporate, national, and international workplaces, she has a deep understanding of how stress can affect physical, psychological, and emotional health and wellbeing.

Written by Jessica Hastings-Lesperance, Realtor®, Director of Operations & Co-Owner Fierce and epic all rolled into one, she’s an absolute rockstar. Jessica Hastings-Lesperance was raised with Real Estate™ for her entire life. She is co-owner, Marketing Visionary, Director of Operations, and Realtor® at the Terri Hastings Real Estate Group/Keller Williams Realty Centres, one of the top-producing Keller Williams teams in all of Canada. She came to the open house on a Sunday afternoon, walked through every room slowly, and then stopped me at the door. "I'm not buying," she said, a little embarrassed. "I wanted to see what my granddaughter is up against." She had lived in Owen Sound for more than fifty years. She had raised a family here, buried a husband here, and knew half the people on the street by name. She was standing in a stranger's front hall, trying to work out whether the next generation of her family would get to have the same life she did. I have thought about her many times since. Because it turns out she is not alone. Not even close. The number that stopped me This spring, Nanos Research surveyed 769 residents of Owen Sound, Kincardine and Collingwood for the OnePoint Association of REALTORS®. A full 84% said they are worried about the next generation's ability to afford a home. Eighty-four out of a hundred. Think about how rarely that many people agree on anything. We argue about parking, roundabouts and whose butter tarts are best. On this, we are nearly unanimous. The same survey found that 54% are frustrated by the lack of progress on housing affordability where they live. Only 27% of Owen Sound residents and 13% in Kincardine rated their community as a good place to afford a home. That is not a political statement. It is a kitchen table statement. It is the grandmother at my open house, the young couple renting a basement apartment and saving, the nurse who took a job at the hospital and can't find a place, and the retired couple who would love to downsize and can't find anything smaller nearby. Why the municipal election matters more than we think On Monday, October 26, communities across Ontario vote for mayors, councillors and school trustees. Voting in many of our communities opens before that. In Owen Sound, it starts October 16. In Saugeen Shores, internet and telephone voting runs from October 19 to 26. Check your municipality's website for your own dates. Municipal elections rarely get the attention that federal or provincial ones do, although many of the decisions that shape whether homes get built in your town are made close to home. These include zoning, approvals, local fees, water and sewer capacity, and which neighbourhoods can grow and how. I am not here to tell you who to vote for. I work with people of every political stripe, and I want every one of them to have a home they love. What I would ask is that housing be part of the conversation when a candidate knocks on your door. 3 questions worth asking any candidate These are not trick questions. They are the questions I would want answered if I were deciding whether my own community could grow in a way that works for everyone. "How would you help get more kinds of homes built here?" Not only large houses. Smaller homes, rentals, apartments, places for seniors to downsize and young people to start out. "How long does it take to get a housing project approved in our town, and what would you change?" Time is cost. Every month a good project waits shows up in someone's rent or price. "What is your plan for the infrastructure needed for growth?" Water, sewer, roads, health care. A community can't welcome new neighbours without the pipes and services to support them. Listen for specifics. Listen for honesty about trade-offs. Every candidate will say they care about housing. The good answers sound like a plan. What your family can do now, without waiting on politics Elections matter, although your family's next chapter does not have to wait for one. Have the conversation: If you are a parent or grandparent worried about the next generation, ask them what staying would actually take. You may be surprised by what they say, and by what they don't need. Know your options: Many Ontario municipalities now allow additional units on some residential properties. Ask your town what is permitted where you live before assuming it isn't. Get real local information: Headlines are built for the whole province. Your street, your town and your plans are what matter. A good conversation with a local professional costs you only an hour. The worry is a sign of love When I think back to the woman at my open house, what stays with me is not the fear. It is the love underneath it. She was worried because she cared about someone else's future more than her own comfort. That is what 84% really means. It means most of us care deeply about who gets to call this place home next. On October 26, or whichever day you vote, bring that care with you. Ask good questions. Expect real answers. Then keep the conversation going long after the signs come down. Because the kind of community we hand to the next generation is decided one kitchen table and one ballot at a time. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Jessica Hastings Lesperance Jessica Hastings-Lesperance, Realtor®, Director of Operations & Co-Owner Fierce and epic all rolled into one, she’s an absolute rock star. Jessica Hastings-Lesperance was raised with Real Estate™ for her entire life. She is co-owner, Marketing Visionary, Director of Operations, and Realtor® at the Terri Hastings Real Estate Group/Keller Williams Realty Centres, one of the top-producing Keller Williams teams in all of Canada. Jessica is an inspiring entrepreneur, real estate investor, coach, speaker, and published author. She has been featured on major media outlets, including podcasts and real estate TV talk shows, and has been published in various magazines. Recently, she was recognized as one of Canada’s Top Fitness Instructors for 2023 by Impact Magazine. Disclaimer: This article is non-partisan general information and does not endorse any candidate or party. Not intended to solicit buyers or sellers currently under contract with a brokerage.

Downtown Austin held a 20.6% office vacancy rate in the 2026 State of Downtown report, with roughly 13,976 residents living in a district that draws more than 160,000 visits a day. Nationally, cities have reached for an obvious fix: a record 90,300 apartments now sit in the office-to-residential conversion pipeline for 2026, up 28% in a year, while office demolitions and conversions exceeded new office construction across the country in 2025. Austin, with all that vacancy, has completed exactly one modern office-to-residential conversion in its history. The gap between the idea and the record is a math problem, and Shravan Parsi has spent this year talking about it from the practitioner's side. The CEO of Austin-based American Ventures, a former pharmaceutical scientist with a roughly $600 million mixed-use development pipeline along the Austin-San Antonio corridor, joined Hines and Mark Hart Architecture on Bisnow's "Turning Office into Community" panel downtown in late August. "A conversion is three deals stacked on top of each other: you buy the building, you buy it out of its old use, and you buy your way through its physical limits," Parsi said. "Most towers fail at least one of those purchases." The math that kills most conversions Start with the physical screen. Gensler assessed more than 1,300 office buildings across North America and found only 25% make suitable conversion candidates, because apartments need the window access, the everywhere-plumbing, and the shallow floor plates that offices were built to avoid. Austin planning staff have put the local threshold at floor plates of 15,000 square feet or less, a test most of the city's modern towers fail. The financial screen is harder still. Morgan Stanley pegs the average cost of buying and converting an office at $685 per square foot, against $588 to build new multifamily from the ground up, and considers 30% occupancy the ceiling at which a conversion can even pencil. A tower only becomes convertible after its price collapses, so the deals happen at the bottom of a market, not the middle. What survives both screens looks specific: A shallow floor plate, roughly 15,000 square feet or less, so every unit reaches a window A price reset, since sellers still holding out for office values price out the conversion buyer Deep vacancy, because a building at 61% leased is an office with problems, while a building at 25% leased is a site Bones from the right era, as pre-war and mid-century towers convert more readily than the deep-plate glass boxes of the 2000s Where does Austin actually stand? Austin's stock mostly fails the era test in the opposite direction from older cities. The buildings are too new, too expensive, and built with the deep floor plates that conversion punishes, and local developers have long told reporters that scraping an old industrial site beats converting a tower here. The one modern precedent, the Brown Building, dates to 2004, and a 2024 city audit exploring conversion feasibility concluded the economics remained out of reach at then-current prices. The reset may now be arriving on a building-by-building basis. A 12-story, 162,000-square-foot tower at 211 East Seventh, last appraised at $23.8 million, went to market in January pitched partly as an adaptive-reuse play, and JLL's marketing language told buyers to position "ahead of a 2026/2027 leasing rebound." When brokers sell the same tower as either an office or a residential site, the market is quoting both answers at once. Why Shravan Parsi argues for districts instead Parsi's read is that the conversion question is usually framed one tower too narrowly. The demand Austin actually has, in his telling, is for places where housing, work, and retail share ground, and a district can deliver that mix even where no individual tower converts. "The cheapest office conversion is the one you never do, because you added the housing next door instead," Shravan Parsi said. "A district can rebalance itself parcel by parcel. A tower has to solve everything inside one concrete frame." His firm's own slate is built on that logic, spanning mixed-use projects from Austin's South Congress corridor to San Marcos, and his corridor thesis frames the whole region as one housing market. "People always need places to live and work, and that survives every cycle, every rate environment, and every panic," Parsi said in the August panel announcement. The case for converting anyway The counterargument deserves its numbers, because other cities are making conversion work at scale. New York leads the country with more than 16,000 pipeline units, and Manhattan's 25 Water Street turned a 1969 deep-plate office block into roughly 1,300 apartments by carving courtyards through the middle and stacking ten new floors on top. Cleveland has targeted 10.8% of its entire office inventory for conversion, Washington's downtown tax abatements had a dozen projects moving within two years, and Calgary pays $75 per square foot toward conversions and has approved ten of them. Every success story leans on one of two crutches: buildings that were old and shallow, or public money that closed the gap physics and price could not. Gensler's data shows that when a building passes the screen, conversion can run about 30% cheaper than new construction, which means the payoff for finding the rare qualifying tower is real. Austin has subsidized neither side of that equation so far, and roughly a third of downtown land sits in public hands, an inventory the city's own housing push has started to eye, naming sites along East Fifth Street, the former HealthSouth property at 15th and Red River, and Congress Avenue north of the Capitol. What the next two years decide Downtown's vacancy is edging down rather than up, sublease space has shrunk by a quarter from its peak, and Austin still ranks first nationally for office-using job growth, which cuts against the fire-sale scenario that makes conversions cheap. The Downtown Alliance's own president framed this year's report as a district managing growth rather than managing decline, which is not the language of a market about to hand towers to converters at land value. The likelier Austin outcome is the one Shravan Parsi described on the panel circuit, a handful of true conversions where the rare building qualifies and a much larger wave of district-scale mixed-use adding the housing around the towers instead of inside them. Whether that is a failure of imagination or a correct reading of the spreadsheet depends entirely on which building you are standing in. The math has an answer for each one, and for most of Austin's skyline, the answer is still the neighbor's lot.

Some people spend years thinking about starting a business. Others find that the best way to move forward is to begin, learn as they go, and build from there. For Brian Wright of Gonzales, Louisiana, entrepreneurship has become a way to put his ambition into action while creating a future for his family. As the owner of Wrights Road Maintenance LLC, Wright works in the asphalt paving, gravel, and road maintenance industry. His business operates in a field where the results are physical, the challenges are practical, and every project requires attention to detail. But Wright's story isn't only about starting a company. It's also about how his experiences as a husband, father, and community member have shaped the decisions he's made along the way. From Breaux Bridge to business ownership Brian Wright was born in Sacramento, California, in 1994, but his childhood unfolded in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Growing up in a community where family and personal relationships were important helped establish the values he continues to carry into adulthood. Wright completed high school and eventually began building a life centered on work and family. He married at 21, taking on responsibilities that influenced how he approached his future. "Getting married young taught me that you can't just think about what you want today," Wright says. "You have to think about the people depending on you and what kind of life you're trying to build." As his family grew, so did his interest in creating something of his own. Today, he and his wife have four children, and Wright considers his role as a father one of his biggest motivations. Rather than pursuing a conventional corporate career, he found his place in an industry built around hands-on work and practical results. Why Brian Wright chose the asphalt paving industry Through Wrights Road Maintenance LLC, Wright has made asphalt paving and gravel services the focus of his professional career. Road maintenance is easy to overlook when everything is working properly. However, driveways, access roads, parking areas, and gravel surfaces all require attention over time. The work also involves different materials, site conditions, and customer needs. No two properties are exactly alike, which makes understanding the requirements of each project an important part of the process. For Wright, working in this industry offers something he values: the opportunity to make improvements people can actually use. "I like work where you can see the difference you've made," he explains. "When something needs attention and you can help improve it, that gives you a sense of accomplishment." His interest in the industry reflects a practical view of entrepreneurship. Instead of building a business around an abstract idea, he's focused on services that address everyday needs. Turning a small business idea into daily responsibility Starting a company and operating one are two different challenges. Once a business is established, its owner has to make decisions that affect customers, scheduling, operations, and long-term progress. For Wright, owning Wrights Road Maintenance LLC has meant accepting those responsibilities while continuing to learn through experience. "Having your own business sounds good, but there's a lot that comes with it," Wright says. "You have to make decisions, handle problems, and be willing to do things that aren't always easy." That experience has helped shape his understanding of what it means to be an entrepreneur. He recognises that business ownership isn't simply about having control over your schedule or deciding which direction a company takes. It's also about being accountable when plans change or unexpected challenges appear. Wright's approach is to stay focused on the work in front of him while keeping his long-term goals in mind. How being a father shapes his approach to success Although Wright spends much of his time focused on his business, he doesn't measure his progress through work alone. He married at 21 and is now raising four children. Balancing those responsibilities with entrepreneurship has required him to think carefully about how he spends his time. "My kids are a big part of why I do what I do," he says. "I want them to see that you can work toward something and build a life by staying committed." His family also gives him a perspective that extends beyond business growth. He wants to be present for his children while showing them the value of responsibility through his actions. That balance isn't always simple, particularly when running a business requires time and attention. Still, Wright considers both roles essential parts of his life. Finding purpose through faith and community service Another important part of Wright's background is his involvement with his church. He serves as both an evangelist and a deacon, taking an active interest in helping people through difficult circumstances. He's especially concerned about young people and individuals struggling with drug or alcohol addiction. For Wright, community involvement means being willing to offer encouragement and support rather than overlooking people who need help. "Sometimes people just need somebody who cares enough to talk to them and encourage them," Wright says. "You never know what somebody might be going through." His involvement with the church has helped reinforce the importance of patience, personal accountability, and service. These are also qualities he hopes to bring into his professional life as he continues developing his business. Building a future with Wrights Road Maintenance LLC Today, Brian Wright of Gonzales is focused on growing Wrights Road Maintenance LLC while maintaining his commitments to his family and community. His experience shows how a business can grow from a straightforward idea: identifying work that needs to be done and accepting the responsibility of doing it. For Wright, the goal isn't to create an image of success that looks impressive from the outside. He wants to continue building something useful, remain involved in his children's lives, and contribute to the community around him. "I don't think you ever get to a point where you've learned everything," he says. "There's always something you can improve, whether that's in business or in your personal life." It's a perspective that continues to guide Wright as he develops his career in the paving and road maintenance industry. His ambitions may be tied to business ownership, but the reasons behind them remain personal.

Florida-based professional Adam Joerres shares his perspective on navigating different industries, building practical skills, and finding value in experiences that don't always follow a predictable career path. Professional success is often described as a straightforward progression. Individuals enter an industry, gain experience, take on additional responsibilities, and gradually advance within their chosen field. Yet for many professionals, the reality is considerably more complex. Opportunities change, interests evolve, and experiences that initially seem unrelated can eventually contribute to a broader understanding of business and leadership. For Adam Joerres, a business operations and management professional based in Inverness, Florida, working across different professional environments has reinforced the importance of adaptability, communication, and remaining open to new experiences. Originally from Clearwater, Florida, Joerres has a background spanning business operations, technology distribution, and construction management. His professional journey has given him opportunities to see how different organizations approach challenges, coordinate responsibilities, and maintain efficient operations. Rather than viewing career development as a process defined entirely by job titles or promotions, Joerres believes meaningful professional growth often comes from applying lessons learned in one environment to unfamiliar situations in another. "I don't think a career necessarily has to follow one perfectly defined path," Joerres explains. "Different experiences give you different perspectives, and sometimes the skills you develop along the way become valuable in ways you didn't originally expect." The value of experience across different industries Every industry operates according to its own requirements, procedures, and expectations. However, many of the challenges professionals encounter share common characteristics. Whether coordinating responsibilities, managing competing priorities, or responding to unexpected disruptions, individuals often rely on similar foundational skills to navigate complex situations. Joerres believes that working in different environments can encourage professionals to reconsider familiar assumptions and develop a more flexible approach to problem-solving. "When you've worked in one environment for a long time, it's easy to become comfortable with how things are done," he says. "Moving into a different setting can remind you that there isn't always just one effective way to approach a challenge." That perspective can be particularly valuable when evaluating existing business processes. An approach that works well in one organization may not translate directly into another, even when the underlying objectives are similar. Understanding those differences requires observation, communication, and a willingness to learn before introducing changes. For Joerres, adaptability does not mean abandoning established practices whenever a new challenge arises. Instead, it involves understanding why a process exists, recognizing its strengths and limitations, and determining whether adjustments would improve the outcome. He also emphasizes that experience across multiple industries does not automatically make someone more capable. The real value comes from reflecting on those experiences and recognizing which lessons apply elsewhere. Why solving problems starts with asking better questions Unexpected challenges are an unavoidable part of professional life. Projects encounter delays, priorities shift, and even familiar processes can produce results that differ from expectations. Joerres believes effective responses begin with understanding the problem rather than immediately searching for a solution. "When something goes wrong, I think there's a tendency to focus on whatever problem is most visible," he explains. "But sometimes what you're seeing is the result of something else that happened earlier in the process." For example, a missed deadline may initially seem like a time-management issue. A closer look might reveal unclear responsibilities, incomplete information, or expectations that were unrealistic from the start. Addressing the deadline alone may not prevent the same issue from occurring again. Joerres encourages professionals to consider what was expected, what actually happened, and where the two began to differ. This approach also requires recognizing the value of perspectives from individuals who work directly with a particular process. Those closest to day-to-day operations may identify complications that are less apparent to someone reviewing the situation from a distance. "Sometimes the most useful thing you can do is ask a few more questions before deciding what needs to change," Joerres says. "You want to make sure you're solving the actual problem rather than just reacting to the outcome." He believes practical solutions don't necessarily need to be complicated. Clearer communication, more realistic expectations, or a small adjustment to an established workflow may be enough to produce meaningful improvements. Leadership is not about having every answer Leadership is frequently associated with confidence, authority, and the ability to make difficult decisions. While these qualities can be valuable, Joerres believes that effective leadership also depends on less visible characteristics. Reliability, consistency, and a willingness to listen can influence how people work together and how much trust develops within a professional environment. "There's sometimes an expectation that being in charge means you should immediately know the answer to every problem," Joerres observes. "I don't think that's realistic. There are situations where taking the time to understand what's happening is more valuable than making a quick decision just to appear confident." He believes that strong professional relationships are built through everyday actions rather than occasional displays of authority. Following through on commitments, communicating expectations clearly, and acknowledging mistakes can establish a foundation of trust that supports collaboration over time. Joerres also values recognizing that different individuals bring different perspectives to the workplace. Someone responsible for completing a particular task may understand its practical challenges differently from someone overseeing the broader operation. Both perspectives can matter when deciding how to move forward. For Joerres, leadership involves balancing the responsibility to make decisions with the willingness to consider information that may challenge an initial assumption. This does not mean avoiding difficult conversations or attempting to satisfy everyone. Instead, it means approaching decisions with a clear understanding of the circumstances and communicating the reasoning behind them. The difference between being busy and making progress One professional assumption Joerres believes deserves closer examination is the idea that working harder will always produce better results. Effort and dedication matter, but he recognizes that extra hours or more activity don't necessarily fix inefficient processes. "You can spend a lot of time working on something and still not make the progress you expected," he explains. "Sometimes the issue isn't how much effort you're putting in. It's whether you're approaching the work in the most effective way." In business operations, this distinction can matter most when teams manage several responsibilities at once. An inefficient process can create unnecessary steps, duplicated work, or delays that continue no matter how quickly individuals try to complete their tasks. Joerres believes evaluating how work is organized can be as important as evaluating how much work is completed. This might involve reconsidering the order of responsibilities, clarifying expectations, or identifying tasks that consume time without contributing meaningfully to the desired result. However, he also recognizes that efficiency should not come at the expense of quality or accountability. Some responsibilities require careful attention, and certain challenges cannot be resolved simply by moving faster. "The goal shouldn't always be to do more in less time," Joerres says. "Sometimes it's about making sure the work you're doing is actually moving things in the right direction." Finding perspective beyond the workplace While professional development remains an important part of Joerres' life, his interests outside work also influence how he thinks about effort, patience, and personal growth. Having played soccer himself, Joerres stays interested in athletics and enjoys supporting his children's participation in sports. Watching young athletes develop their abilities offers a different perspective on progress, particularly when improvement does not happen immediately. As a parent, he appreciates that sporting experiences involve much more than winning or losing. They give children opportunities to build confidence, work with teammates, experience disappointment, and recognize the value of continued effort. "It's natural to want to see your kids succeed," Joerres says. "But I think it's also important for them to understand that they're not going to get everything right the first time. Learning how to handle those moments is part of growing." He believes that recognizing effort and improvement can be more meaningful than focusing exclusively on the final result. A difficult game or disappointing performance does not necessarily indicate a lack of progress. In many cases, those experiences provide opportunities to identify what needs improvement and develop greater resilience. Joerres sees parallels between that process and professional development. Adults can also become discouraged when results do not arrive as quickly as expected. Comparing progress with others or placing too much emphasis on immediate outcomes can make it difficult to recognize gradual improvement. "Everybody develops at a different pace," he explains. "Whether you're learning something new at work or trying to improve at a sport, you have to give yourself room to make mistakes and get better." For Joerres, supporting his children's interests also reinforces the importance of being present and maintaining a healthy perspective on achievement. Building a career without following a single formula As professional environments continue to evolve, traditional ideas about career progression are also changing. Individuals may take on responsibilities outside their original field, discover unexpected interests, or pursue opportunities that require them to develop unfamiliar skills. Joerres believes that these transitions should not automatically be viewed as setbacks or departures from success. "Having a plan is important, but I don't think people should feel that changing direction means they've failed," he says. "Sometimes an opportunity comes along that gives you a chance to learn something you wouldn't have experienced otherwise." He encourages professionals to consider the value of transferable skills when navigating career changes. Communication, organization, accountability, and problem-solving remain relevant across many industries, even when specific technical responsibilities differ. At the same time, entering an unfamiliar environment requires humility. Previous experience may provide a useful foundation, but it does not eliminate the need to understand new procedures, expectations, and challenges. Joerres believes that remaining curious and asking thoughtful questions can help professionals make more effective transitions. He also suggests that career development should not be measured exclusively through promotions or changes in job title. Becoming more confident in decision-making, developing stronger professional relationships, and learning to manage unfamiliar responsibilities can all represent meaningful progress. "Not every important step in your career is going to come with a new title," Joerres says. "Sometimes growth is simply recognizing that you're better equipped to handle something that would have been difficult for you a few years earlier." Defining success through consistency and character For Joerres, the qualities that matter most professionally are closely connected to the values he considers important in his personal life. Dependability, respect, patience, and accountability are principles he believes remain relevant regardless of a person's industry, responsibilities, or stage of life. He recognizes that success is often tied to visible accomplishments, but believes everyday actions can be equally meaningful. Showing up prepared, following through on commitments, and treating others fairly may not always attract attention, but those habits can shape how people are perceived and the relationships they build. That perspective extends to his role as a parent. "I think about the example I want to set for my kids," Joerres reflects. "You want them to understand that effort matters, that you should treat people with respect, and that making a mistake doesn't mean you stop trying." He also believes that learning to acknowledge mistakes is an important part of personal and professional maturity. Challenges and disappointments are inevitable, but individuals retain control over how they respond and what they choose to learn from those experiences. As he continues navigating his professional and personal responsibilities, Joerres remains focused on the value of learning, maintaining perspective, and approaching challenges with a practical mindset. For him, building a meaningful career is not necessarily about following a predetermined route or reaching a particular title. It is about developing useful skills, remaining open to new experiences, and maintaining the qualities that matter regardless of circumstance. "At the end of the day, I think success is about more than one accomplishment or position," Joerres concludes. "It's about continuing to grow, taking care of your responsibilities, and being there for the people who matter most."

An American story of public service, hands-on experience, professional responsibility, and the decision to turn years of observation into a larger conversation about accountability, government, and the future of human judgment. A Brooklyn beginning JonCarlo Oren grew up in Flatbush, Brooklyn, in an immigrant family with three sisters. Like many New York neighborhoods, Flatbush brought together people from different backgrounds, cultures, and walks of life. Its streets offered an early education in the realities of everyday life: people had responsibilities, families worked to make ends meet, and a person's reputation was often shaped less by what they said than by what they actually did. Oren's early life did not come with a predetermined career plan. He did not set out to become a construction quality control manager, serve in public safety, or publish books examining government and artificial intelligence. Those pursuits developed over time, through different opportunities, responsibilities, and experiences that gradually shaped his interests. What connects those chapters is not a carefully engineered path to success. It is a recurring willingness to learn, take on responsibility, and examine how things work in practice. That distinction matters. Professional life rarely unfolds exactly as people expect. Careers change direction, opportunities emerge unexpectedly, and experience often teaches lessons that formal education alone cannot provide. Oren's path reflects that reality. Each stage introduced new challenges and gave him a different perspective on the relationship between rules, responsibility, and the people expected to uphold them. The values he associates with his upbringing, family, perseverance, and service remained relevant as he moved into adulthood. They became part of the foundation for a career that would take him from public service into construction and, eventually, into writing. Service before a professional title Before construction drawings, inspection reports, and federal project meetings became part of his working life, Oren volunteered with the NYPD Auxiliary from 1998 to 2006. He later served as a State Constable in Pennsylvania. These experiences introduced him to public service through direct participation rather than observation from a distance. Public-facing responsibilities require people to follow established procedures, communicate with others, respond to changing circumstances, and understand that their actions can affect people beyond themselves. Such work also offers a practical view of institutions. Policies and procedures may establish the framework, but their effectiveness depends on how people carry them out. The individuals doing the day-to-day work often determine whether a process functions as intended, whether information is communicated clearly, and whether responsibilities are taken seriously. Service does not always produce an immediate or visible result. Sometimes it means being present, following through, or completing a responsibility without receiving recognition. Those experiences can shape a person's understanding of accountability in ways that are difficult to learn from a job description alone. For Oren, public service was an important chapter in his development, but it was not simply a stepping stone to a construction career. It was an experience in its own right – one that contributed to his interest in how organizations operate and what responsible conduct looks like in practice. The transition from public service to construction would bring different technical demands, but it would also introduce a familiar question: when a responsibility has been assigned, how do you know it has actually been fulfilled? That question would eventually become central to his work in quality control. Building a Career in Construction Learning the Field Oren earned a Bachelor of Science in Construction Management and continued developing his professional knowledge through specialized training, certifications, and hands-on experience. His qualifications include Project Management, Construction Quality Control Management, OSHA 500 Authorized Outreach Trainer, safety and environmental management, and erosion and sediment control inspection. Each area addresses a different part of the construction process, from worker protection and regulatory compliance to installation quality and environmental controls. The value of this combination becomes clearer when considering how a construction project operates. A project begins with plans, specifications, schedules, and contractual requirements. Those documents establish what must be built, the materials and systems to be used, the standards the work must meet, and the procedures that govern execution and acceptance. But the work itself takes place under real-world conditions that can differ from what the design team anticipated. Existing infrastructure may present unexpected constraints. Equipment dimensions may not align with available space. Electrical schedules and mechanical requirements may need clarification. Different subcontractors may be working in the same area, creating coordination challenges. Weather, material availability, and sequencing can affect how the work progresses. These are not unusual exceptions. They are part of the practical complexity of construction. Quality management requires more than identifying whether an installation looks correct. It involves understanding the governing requirements, reviewing the relevant drawings and specifications, examining field conditions, coordinating inspections and tests, documenting deficiencies, and following corrective actions through completion. Safety management adds another dimension. Work must be planned and performed with appropriate controls, training, hazard recognition, and compliance with applicable requirements. Environmental management requires attention to matters such as erosion, sediment, waste, and the protection of surrounding areas. Oren's professional development reflects the reality that these responsibilities often intersect. A technically acceptable installation must also be executed safely, coordinated with other work, and documented accurately. The credentials provide a foundation, but experience develops the judgment needed to apply that knowledge when conditions are complicated or the answer is not immediately obvious. The difference between the drawing and the reality One of the recurring challenges in construction is the gap that can emerge between what the documents indicate and what is happening in the field. A drawing may show an equipment location, a pipe route, or a structural arrangement. The field team must determine whether the proposed installation fits the actual conditions and complies with the contract requirements. When something does not align, the discrepancy needs to be investigated rather than dismissed as a minor inconvenience. That process can involve checking dimensions, comparing drawing revisions, reviewing approved submittals, consulting specifications, coordinating with subcontractors, and requesting clarification from the design team or government representative. It also requires understanding the limits of one's authority. A quality control manager may identify a discrepancy and document its implications, but design changes and technical interpretations must be handled through the appropriate review and approval process. The objective is not to make assumptions on behalf of the engineer. It is to identify the question early enough that the responsible parties can resolve it before the work advances. This is where Oren's approach to quality control becomes particularly important. Good oversight is not about finding fault with every detail or slowing a project unnecessarily. It is about distinguishing between work that has been verified and work that merely appears ready to proceed. A problem discovered before installation may require a conversation and a revised plan. The same problem discovered after concrete placement, equipment installation, or the closure of a wall can require demolition, replacement, additional inspections, and significant rework. The technical details vary by project, but the principle remains consistent: verification is most valuable when it occurs before a decision becomes difficult or expensive to reverse. Federal projects and mission-critical responsibilities Working within complex organizations Oren's professional career has included roles with Chenega Security International, The Building People, and Chugach Government Solutions, spanning safety, health, environmental compliance, quality management, and facilities operations. His experience has included supporting federal construction and facilities projects associated with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, as well as work at government and military installations where coordination, documentation, and adherence to established requirements are essential. Federal projects operate within defined contractual and technical frameworks. Depending on the project, the work may involve detailed specifications, formal quality control procedures, government inspections, safety requirements, testing and commissioning, and multiple layers of contractor and government coordination. A quality control professional must understand not only the physical work but also the documentation that establishes whether the work satisfies the contract. That includes reviewing the applicable requirements, coordinating with subcontractors, monitoring construction activities, recording inspection results, identifying deficiencies, tracking corrective actions, and ensuring that unresolved issues receive appropriate attention. When the work involves mechanical systems, electrical equipment, building infrastructure, or other interconnected components, a discrepancy in one area can affect several other trades. Resolving it may require coordination among engineers, equipment manufacturers, installers, electricians, controls technicians, and government personnel. The challenge is to maintain a clear picture of what has been completed, what remains outstanding, what requires testing, and what must be resolved before the next phase can proceed. This work is not always visible to the public. An installation that passes inspection may attract little attention, while a well-maintained record may be consulted only when someone needs to verify a requirement or investigate a later issue. Yet these processes help protect the integrity of the finished project. Leadership through accountability Oren's progression through construction and facilities management has given him experience with both technical oversight and the operational responsibilities involved in coordinating people and work. Leadership in these environments is not simply a matter of assigning tasks. It requires setting expectations, communicating priorities, recognizing when work is falling behind, addressing deficiencies, and ensuring that the right people have the information needed to make decisions. It also requires balancing schedule demands with quality and safety requirements. Construction teams work under pressure to meet milestones and manage costs. Those pressures are real, and unnecessary delays can affect the entire project. But the schedule cannot replace the technical requirements that define acceptable work. Effective quality management means addressing issues proportionately and professionally: identify the discrepancy, establish the applicable requirement, document the condition, involve the appropriate personnel, and verify the resolution. Oren has contributed to project teams whose work received Exceptional ratings for safety and quality through the federal contractor performance evaluation process. Such evaluations reflect project-team performance rather than an individual accomplishment in isolation. He recognizes that successful delivery depends on the combined efforts of field personnel, subcontractors, supervisors, engineers, and quality and safety professionals. His contribution is part of that larger effort. For Oren, professional credibility is built through consistency: understanding the work, communicating clearly, documenting accurately, and following issues through rather than assuming they will resolve themselves. That approach may not always be the easiest route through a demanding project. It is, however, essential to maintaining confidence in the work and the people responsible for it. From professional experience to two books Construction and public service gave Oren direct experience with organizations, procedures, and accountability. Writing offered him another way to examine those subjects. Rather than limiting his attention to the individual decisions made on a job site, he began exploring larger questions about the systems that shape public life: how authority is exercised, how institutions are held accountable, and how technological change may affect human judgment. These interests became the foundation for two books that address different subjects but share an emphasis on responsibility. America's Shadow Government: The Rise of the Fourth Branch Oren's first book examines government power, institutional authority, and accountability. America's Shadow Government: The Rise of the Fourth Branch invites readers to look beyond the visible structure of government and consider how administrative institutions exercise authority, how decisions are made, and what meaningful oversight should look like. The subject raises questions that are important to anyone interested in public institutions. How should authority be delegated? What mechanisms exist to review decisions? How can the public evaluate the actions of organizations whose work may be complex or difficult to follow? And what happens when the practical exercise of power becomes disconnected from clear accountability? These are questions that require examination of institutions, their legal authorities, their procedures, and the evidence surrounding their actions. Oren approaches the subject from an interest in how systems operate in practice. His experiences in public service and regulated professional environments have exposed him to the importance of procedures, defined responsibilities, and accurate records. Those experiences do not make government and construction interchangeable, but they provide a practical context for thinking about the relationship between formal rules and the people who implement them. A procedure can establish what is supposed to happen. Effective oversight helps determine whether it actually happened, whether the decision was properly supported, and whether the responsible parties can explain their actions. The book encourages readers to examine those questions for themselves and to think critically about the relationship between institutional authority, transparency, and public trust. Its central subject is government, but its broader concern is accountability: how it is established, how it is maintained, and what can happen when oversight fails to keep pace with the exercise of power. Not Without a Fight: Reclaiming Humanity in the Age of AI Oren's second book turns toward artificial intelligence and the changing relationship between people and technology. Not Without a Fight: Reclaiming Humanity in the Age of AI explores what happens when automated systems become increasingly involved in tasks that once depended primarily on human judgment, experience, and decision-making. Artificial intelligence can help people analyze information, identify patterns, automate repetitive work, and improve efficiency. These capabilities offer real opportunities. But the growing use of AI also raises questions about the quality of decisions, the limits of automated systems, and the responsibilities that remain with the people and organizations using them. The key question is not simply whether technology can perform a task. It is whether people understand the result well enough to evaluate it, recognize its limitations, and decide when additional verification is necessary. Construction provides a practical illustration. Software can assist with design coordination, calculations, schedules, and documentation. Digital tools can help identify discrepancies and organize large amounts of information. But a recommendation still needs to be evaluated in the context of the actual installation, the applicable specifications, and the conditions present in the field. A system may produce an answer without fully accounting for every relevant circumstance. Someone must determine whether that answer is appropriate for the situation and whether the supporting information is reliable. The same issue appears in other industries, including public administration, where automated systems may influence decisions affecting individuals and communities. As technology advances, Oren encourages readers to consider the difference between using AI as a tool and surrendering independent judgment to it. Efficiency matters, but so do transparency, human agency, and the ability to question an outcome. The book's central concern is preserving the human capacity to think, judge, question, and accept responsibility in a world where automated assistance is becoming increasingly common. It is not simply a question of what technology can do. It is a question of what people must continue to do for themselves. Two books, one continuing question At first glance, government accountability and artificial intelligence may seem like separate subjects. One concerns institutions and authority; the other concerns technology and human agency. For Oren, however, they intersect around a common challenge: the relationship between complex systems and the people responsible for their decisions. In government, accountability requires understanding how authority is exercised, what rules apply, and whether decisions can be examined and challenged. In technology, responsible use requires understanding what a system can and cannot establish, evaluating the information it produces, and ensuring that people remain accountable for consequential decisions. In construction, the same general discipline appears in a more physical form. Plans, specifications, inspection records, and test results provide essential information, but they must be checked against actual conditions. A discrepancy cannot be resolved simply by assuming that the paperwork or the installation is correct. The comparison is not that these fields operate identically. Each has its own standards, risks, and methods of oversight. The connection is the importance of verification and clearly assigned responsibility. Oren's books extend that interest beyond the job site. They ask readers to consider what responsible oversight looks like when decisions are made within institutions or influenced by technologies that can be difficult to understand from the outside. His writing reflects the belief that people should remain engaged participants in the systems that affect their lives, rather than assuming that a formal process, official explanation, or automated recommendation is necessarily beyond question. Where the two paths meet Oren continues to work in construction quality control while developing his writing. He lives in Stafford, Virginia, with his wife and three children. His story is not a straight line from a childhood ambition to a carefully planned professional destination. It is a series of chapters, each with its own demands and lessons: growing up in Brooklyn, volunteering in public service, serving as a State Constable, studying construction management, developing technical expertise, and working on projects where accuracy and accountability matter. Writing became another way to apply the habit of examining how things work and asking what happens when they do not. The connection between his career and his books is not a claim that professional experience provides all the answers to questions about government or technology. Rather, it reflects how years of practical work can sharpen a person's appreciation for evidence, procedures, responsibility, and the consequences of decisions. On a construction project, that perspective may mean asking for clarification before an installation proceeds. It may mean identifying an incomplete inspection, reconciling conflicting documents, or ensuring that a deficiency is corrected and documented. In writing, it means examining larger questions, distinguishing assumptions from evidence, and inviting readers to think carefully about institutions and technologies that increasingly influence modern life. The settings are different, but the underlying responsibility is familiar: do not confuse the appearance of completion with proof that the work is right. A career still in progress Oren's professional identity is not limited to a single title. Public service, construction management, quality control, and authorship represent different ways he has chosen to engage with the world around him. His construction career demands attention to physical details, technical requirements, safety, and coordination. His books examine questions that operate on a broader scale, including institutional accountability and the future of human judgment. Neither path offers simple answers to every problem. Both require continued learning, a willingness to examine information, and an understanding that responsibility does not end when a task appears complete. That may be the most enduring lesson in Oren's journey. A career does not have to unfold according to an original plan to become meaningful. Different experiences can contribute to a broader perspective, and skills developed in one field can help inform the questions a person asks in another. From Flatbush to public service, from construction sites to published books, Oren's path reflects a continuing interest in how systems function and how people can make them more accountable. The hard hat and the written page may appear to represent different worlds. In his experience, both demand attention to detail, respect for evidence, and a willingness to look beyond appearances. His story continues through the work he does, the questions he explores, and the lessons he hopes readers will consider for themselves. About JonCarlo Oren JonCarlo Oren is a construction quality control professional with BL Harbert International and the author of America's Shadow Government: The Rise of the Fourth Branch and Not Without a Fight: Reclaiming Humanity in the Age of AI. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Construction Management and has professional experience in construction quality control, safety, environmental management, and facilities operations. His career includes supporting federal construction and facilities projects associated with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command. Before entering the construction profession, he volunteered with the NYPD Auxiliary from 1998 to 2006 and later served as a State Constable in Pennsylvania. He lives in Stafford, Virginia, with his wife and three children.

Success in corporate sales rarely comes from one great meeting or a single closed deal. It is often the result of years spent building relationships, understanding customers, and showing up prepared. For Floyd Rembert, those habits have become the foundation of a career working with some of America's largest companies. Now a Government Account Executive based in Marietta, Georgia, Rembert has spent his career developing his skills in corporate sales and earning recognition for his leadership and performance. Along the way, he has drawn on lessons from competitive athletics, family values, and years of working directly with customers. His approach is built around a simple idea: lasting success requires the same discipline every day, regardless of past achievements. How Floyd Rembert's athletic background shaped his career Long before entering corporate sales, Rembert learned about competition while growing up in Newark, New Jersey. As a student at Irvington Tech High School, he competed in basketball and track and field. He was particularly successful as a runner, setting state records in the 200-meter and 400-meter events. He also earned academic awards before attending Seton Hall University for one year. Athletics introduced him to the importance of preparation, consistency, and performing under pressure. Training for competitive races required a commitment to improvement, even when progress was not immediately visible. Those lessons would later become central to his professional life. "My parents always told me I could achieve anything I put my mind to," Rembert recalls. "They taught me to have good values and work hard for what I wanted to achieve." That encouragement gave him a foundation that extended beyond sports. It helped shape his belief that effort, preparation, and personal responsibility could open doors throughout his career. Building a career in corporate sales leadership Rembert went on to work for several Fortune 500 companies, developing experience in corporate sales and earning numerous awards for sales leadership. Working in large organizations meant learning how to navigate complex customer needs, communicate with different decision-makers, and maintain relationships over time. Rather than viewing sales as a series of individual transactions, Rembert developed an approach focused on understanding customers and delivering consistent service. Today, as a Government Account Executive, he continues to apply those principles in a role that requires planning, product knowledge, and ongoing communication. His experience has also taught him that relationships cannot be built through occasional contact alone. They require consistent attention and a willingness to understand what matters to each customer. "I'm relentless when it comes to servicing my current customers and new customers," he says. For Rembert, that commitment is a central part of professional leadership. Achieving sales goals matters, but so does building the trust that allows business relationships to continue. Why preparation matters in corporate sales One of the defining features of Rembert's professional approach is his daily routine. His day begins at 5 a.m., when he focuses on his physical and mental preparation. Exercise is an important part of that process, helping him establish the energy and focus he needs before beginning his work. Once the workday begins, much of his attention turns to prospecting, customer meetings, and understanding the products and services he represents. Face-to-face meetings are particularly important to his approach. Rather than relying entirely on last-minute conversations, he often schedules customer visits weeks in advance. "I start at 5 a.m. getting mentally and physically focused with my morning workout," Rembert explains. "I prospect and plan to meet with customers face-to-face, usually weeks in advance." His preparation also includes studying the products and services he offers. He believes knowing what he represents is essential to having useful conversations with customers. Over the years, Rembert has also explored different approaches to business through books such as Good to Great, The Challenger Sale, and The Art of War. These influences reflect his interest in learning how strong organizations operate, how professionals communicate, and how preparation can support better decisions. What coaching youth baseball taught him about leadership Rembert's interest in leadership extends beyond the workplace. Since 2011, he has coached several youth baseball teams, spending time helping young athletes develop their skills and confidence. The experience connects two important parts of his life: a love of sports and an interest in helping others improve. Coaching also offers a different perspective on leadership. While corporate sales often involves individual performance goals, working with young athletes requires patience, encouragement, and an understanding that people develop at different speeds. The same principles that helped Rembert succeed in athletics and business also influence his involvement with young players. Outside coaching, he enjoys running, lifting weights, attending NFL games, and improving his golf skills. He also participates in holiday food and clothing volunteer events. Floyd Rembert's perspective on long-term career success Looking across Rembert's career, a common theme emerges. His professional growth has been shaped less by dramatic changes than by consistent habits maintained over many years. From competitive track events in New Jersey to corporate sales roles at Fortune 500 companies, he has carried forward the same emphasis on preparation, hard work, and personal accountability. Now working in government account management, he continues to focus on customer relationships while making time for fitness, coaching, and community involvement. His career offers a practical example of how lessons learned early in life can remain valuable through changing professional responsibilities. For Rembert, leadership is not simply about receiving recognition. It is about continuing to prepare, maintaining relationships, and putting in the work long after an achievement has been celebrated.

Charissa Newport was born in Portland, Oregon, on October 10, 1980, at 30 weeks. She was an identical twin, but her sister was stillborn due to twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, a condition where blood passes unevenly between twins sharing a placenta. Newport arrived with a zero Apgar score and no medical complications followed. She calls her survival the grace of God rather than a milestone she earned, and it set the tone for how she talks about the rest of her life: as something built on circumstances she did not choose, and then on choices she did. Her childhood took her far from Oregon. She spent early years in Quebec, Canada, and in Ivory Coast, West Africa, before the family's path eventually led to Texas, where she now lives in Keller. A family that turned grief into an organization Long before Newport had a career of her own, her family had already built one kind of legacy around service to people with disabilities. Her paternal grandmother, Carolyn Newport, had two sons, Steve (Charissa's father) and Timmy, who was born with Down syndrome. In 1959, Carolyn gathered a small group of parents around a kitchen table to find resources and support for children like Timmy. That kitchen-table effort became The Arc of the Ozarks, formally established in 1964. Carolyn served as its founding president until she passed away on October 10, 2015, Newport's own birthday. Her grandfather, Russell Newport, had a different kind of public life. He was a professional singer who performed around the world and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show singing The Lord's Prayer. He and Carolyn were married 67 years before he passed away in 2022 at the age of 100. Newport says his singing shaped her own love of music, and she has left a comment on the surviving footage of his Ed Sullivan performance, a small way of staying connected to a story that predates her. The family connection to Down syndrome runs on both sides. Newport's mother, Gaynelle, also had a brother, Donnie, with Down syndrome. Gaynelle and Steve met at Baylor University in Waco, a connection Newport traces directly to the fact that both of their siblings had the same diagnosis. It is the kind of detail that, in most families, would stay a footnote. In hers, it became the reason two people met. Building a career from the ground up Newport's own working life has taken a different shape than her grandparents', built piece by piece rather than around one defining institution. She works as a mobile notary public based in Keller, Texas, and recently started a listing on a notary public directory to make that work easier to find. She is also a member of the Association of Texas Appraisers and has been training as a real estate appraiser, a field that requires its own separate credentialing path alongside her notary work. Running two professional tracks at once is not an unusual way to build a career, but it does require a certain comfort with starting over in pieces. Newport was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, a detail she mentions plainly rather than as an obstacle to explain away. It is simply part of how she describes the way she works. Where the threads meet More recently, Newport has pursued an interest in chaplaincy, including completing a chaplain internship questionnaire that asked her to reflect on her own strengths and story. Chaplaincy sits at a different angle from notary work or appraisals, less about paperwork and valuation, more about presence. But it is not a hard turn away from where she started. Her grandmother built an organization because a family needed one. Her grandfather sang in front of audiences who wanted to feel something. Newport's own path, from a mobile notary business to appraisal training to an interest in chaplaincy, reads less like a series of unrelated jobs and more like someone testing which room of service fits her best. She also gardens, a hobby that rewards the same patience her other pursuits require: showing up consistently, long before there is anything to show for it.

Long before Dr. Theodore L. Gerstle held a scalpel, he learned how to plan. Growing up in Westchester, New York, he joined the Boy Scouts of America and worked his way to Eagle Scout, a rank that rewards patience and follow-through more than talent. He also played lacrosse and ran cross country at Iona Prep, two sports that punish anyone who skips the boring parts of training. None of that guaranteed a career in medicine, but it built the habit of finishing what he started, which turned out to matter more than any single class he took. West Point and the idea that discipline is a system, not a personality trait Dr. Gerstle's path did not run through a typical pre-med track. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Engineering Management at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Engineering management is not a glamorous major. It is about planning the right steps, understanding what resources are available, and pivoting when a plan is faced with challenges. That framework, paired with a military commitment after graduation, gave Dr. Gerstle an idea that he carried into medicine: good outcomes come from good systems, not good instincts alone. Surgery, like an engineering project, rewards people who plan the whole sequence before they face the first step. Medical school and the idea that leadership is chosen, not assigned When his military service ended, Dr. Gerstle decided medicine was the clearest way to keep serving people. He enrolled at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, where his classmates elected him class president every year he was there. He was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society, and the school chose him to speak as the distinguished graduate at commencement. Being elected repeatedly by the same group of peers says something specific: it was not a one-time impression, it was a sustained one. That is a harder thing to earn than a single award. Boston and the idea that skill and compassion train separately After medical school, Dr. Gerstle moved to Boston for the Harvard Combined Plastic Surgery Residency Program. Residency is where technical skills are built, including reconstructive cases, trauma repair, and the aesthetic work most people associate with the specialty. However, Dr. Gerstle notes that while clinical expertise is important, compassion is also a muscle in need of training. A surgeon can be technically excellent and still fail a patient who needs to be heard. Residency sharpened the technical side. The rest, he has said, came from paying attention. Lexington and the idea that a practice should widen, not narrow, over time Dr. Gerstle has been in private practice at Lexington Plastic Surgery since 2014. His scope covers facial rejuvenation, breast surgery, body contouring, laceration repair, and reconstructive work of the head, neck, chest, and breast. He also treats migraine headaches, offering options that range from nerve blocks and Botox to surgical treatment aimed at addressing the underlying cause. Adding migraine care to a plastic surgery practice is not the obvious move, but it followed the same idea that shaped his education: identify a real problem, then build the skill set to solve it, rather than staying inside a narrow lane because it is familiar. Why the idea still holds Dr. Gerstle treats every consultation as a planning exercise before it is anything else. He has described his approach as finding the least invasive option that gets a patient a natural result, which requires listening to what a patient actually wants before proposing what is technically possible. That ordering, want before method, is the same engineering instinct from West Point applied to a very different kind of system. He is a member of the Knights of Columbus, and he spends much of his free time with his three children and in his woodworking shop. Neither is part of his medical training, but both involve the same patience his early education demanded: measure, plan, then execute, and be willing to redo a step that did not come out right the first time. A career built in sequence Dr. Gerstle's path looks less like a single leap into medicine and more like a series of connected decisions: Eagle Scout, West Point engineer, elected class leader, Harvard-trained surgeon, and now a practice owner in Lexington who treats both cosmetic patients and migraine sufferers. Each stage supplied something the next one needed. That is the actual idea behind his career: not a flash of ambition, but a structure built one deliberate stage at a time.

Written by Paulina Kulikowska, Embodiment & Consciousness Guide Pauli Kulikowska is an Embodiment & Consciousness Guide, meditation teacher and founder of Healing Institute. Her work integrates contemplative practice, embodiment and self-inquiry to explore perception, awareness and psychological well-being through both traditional and modern frameworks. Sometimes the conversation is already over, but we are still inside it. You have left the room and the other person has moved on with their day. Yet we continue to replay what happened, the sentence that sounded defensive, the expression on their face when we said something we now wish we had phrased differently. At first, this can look like self-awareness because we are reflecting, we want to understand our part, or even want to repair something. Then the reflection continues. We analyse our tone, our body, our motives, and the possible motives behind our motives. The reflection becomes deeper and deeper. We ask whether we were regulated enough, present enough, honest enough. Out of nowhere, the conversation suddenly becomes material for a strict internal evaluation. What happens is that we might think we are reflective, but in reality, we are no longer in contact with what happened. We are watching ourselves watch ourselves. What a loop it is. The difference between noticing and monitoring Self-awareness is often presented as something we simply need more of. But there is something we rarely speak of, the quality of attention matters as much as its direction. Attention can open an experience, but it can also stand over it. When I notice that my chest tightened during a conversation, the sensation may become available for inquiry. I can stay close to it, and I may discover fear, anger, shame, or a wish to protect something. Monitoring has a different movement. It looks at the same contraction and asks whether it should be there. It measures the experience against an internal standard, how a conscious, healed, or emotionally mature person is supposed to respond. The difference here is subtle because both may use the same vocabulary, involving careful attention to thought, emotion, and the body. Yet one increases contact, while the other divides us into the person who is living and the person who is assessing how well life is being lived. I use the phrase self-surveillance here descriptively, not as a clinical diagnosis. It names the moment when attention stops accompanying experience and begins policing it. When development becomes an internal authority The language of personal and spiritual development can quietly strengthen this, as we learn to recognise patterns, triggers, projections, and defences. This language can be very useful. It helps us see what was previously difficult to name. But it can also create a new authority inside the mind, one that comments on every reaction and turns ordinary life into evidence of how much work remains to be done. Then, a difficult conversation no longer remains a difficult conversation but becomes proof that we have not healed enough. Fatigue becomes a failure of regulation. Ambivalence becomes avoidance. Anger becomes an unresolved wound before we have even asked what the anger is responding to. The problem appears when every experience is interpreted through the assumption that there must be something in us to locate, process, and improve. Then self-knowledge becomes endless. There is always another layer, another pattern beneath the pattern, another explanation for why we are not yet the person we think we should be. The wish to know ourselves has been joined by the fear of leaving anything unexamined. The body under observation This can happen in embodied practice too. We begin by learning to feel the body, perhaps after years of living mainly in thought. With time, sensations become clearer. We notice contraction, expansion, numbness, heat, and changes in breath. But then, the body can become another surface to monitor. Am I present in my feet? Is my nervous system settled? Am I dissociating? Is this a true yes or a conditioned yes? Instead of returning us to direct experience, attention keeps checking whether experience has the correct quality, and the body is no longer being listened to. Instead, it is being examined for signs of failure or progress. Embodiment, as I understand it, does not mean maintaining continuous awareness of every sensation. It includes the freedom to become absorbed in a conversation, a task, or another person and to return to the body when contact is needed. A living body moves between foreground and background. It does not need to remain under observation in order to be present. Reflection needs an end Research on self-focused attention makes an important distinction, looking inward is not one single process. Reflective forms of attention can support understanding, while repetitive and ruminative forms are associated with greater distress. The content may be similar, yet the movement is not. A useful reflection changes our relationship to what happened, it may clarify responsibility, reveal a need, or lead to a conversation. At some point, it gives something back to life. Self-surveillance, however, rarely knows when to stop. Because its aim is safety through complete understanding, uncertainty becomes a reason to continue. It promises that one more round of analysis will finally prevent embarrassment, conflict, or harm. But the beauty of human relationships does not lie in becoming safe through perfect self-observation. We cannot remove the possibility of being misunderstood, no matter how well we have developed self-reflection. We will sometimes speak clumsily, react too quickly, or recognise our part only later. Maturity includes reflection. It also includes the capacity to finish reflecting and act with the understanding we have. Returning to relationship and action After replaying a conversation, the important question may be very simple, is there anything that needs to be done? Perhaps I need to apologise. Perhaps I need to ask what the other person meant instead of continuing the conversation alone in my mind. Perhaps I need to recognise that I was uncomfortable and that discomfort is not evidence that something went wrong. Sometimes nothing needs to happen. This return to action matters because inner work can become strangely detached from the world it is meant to help us meet. We become highly articulate about our internal processes while remaining absent from the relationship itself. Experience can then be allowed to remain unfinished. I may understand only part of what happened. More may become visible later, or it may not. Awareness does not require a final explanation before life can continue. It will do so anyway, irrespective of our permission or lack thereof. An awareness that can rest In my own practice and work, I have noticed that the movement from awareness into surveillance is often marked by a loss of warmth, a narrowing of attention, and a tightening of the body, especially around the chest. This is a signal for me that curiosity has been replaced by the need to get something right. This is an observation, not evidence for the effectiveness of any particular method. I mention it because the distinction is easy to miss, especially in environments where constant self-examination is treated as depth. The purpose of awareness is not to place the self under permanent observation, because sometimes awareness means recognising a pattern and sometimes making a repair. Sometimes it means letting the conversation end, noticing the world again, and returning to the life that is already happening. Attention can rest there too. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Paulina Kulikowska Paulina Kulikowska, Embodiment & Consciousness Guide Pauli Kulikowska is an Embodiment & Consciousness Guide, meditation teacher, author, and founder of Healing Institute. Her work explores the relationship between embodiment, perception, contemplative practice and psychological well-being through both traditional and modern frameworks. She leads retreats, trainings and educational programs integrating meditation, yoga, Tantra, and self-inquiry. Pauli is the author of Life of Ultimate Freedom (2024) and is currently developing frameworks focused on embodied perception and contemplative education. Her work is rooted in the belief that transformation begins not in improving personality, but in learning how to inhabit consciousness more fully. References: Nilly Mor and Jennifer Winquist. Self-Focused Attention and Negative Affect: A Meta-Analysis. Psychological Bulletin 128, no. 4, 2002. Source Wendy Treynor, Richard Gonzalez and Susan Nolen-Hoeksema. Rumination Reconsidered: A Psychometric Analysis. Cognitive Therapy and Research 27, 2003. Source Edward R. Watkins. Constructive and Unconstructive Repetitive Thought. Psychological Bulletin 134, no. 2, 2008. Source

Written by Aravind Sakthivel, Author & Technology Leader Aravind Sakthivel is a global IT technology leader and the author of the book "The Leadership Trap: Why Smart Leaders Fail and How to Break Free". Some of the biggest barriers to artificial intelligence have very little to do with artificial intelligence. They are old processes that nobody questions, reports that continue because they have always existed, approval structures designed around constraints that disappeared years ago, and management habits that gradually became organisational rules. "We've always done it this way" rarely begins as resistance to change. Most established processes once solved a genuine problem. The danger comes later, when the conditions change, but the process survives. AI is making that gap increasingly visible because it does more than offer a faster way of performing existing work. In some cases, it challenges the reason that work was organised that way in the first place. When experience becomes a constraint Experience is valuable because it helps organisations avoid relearning the same lessons. Standards, controls and procedures exist for good reasons. But a successful solution can gradually become an unquestioned assumption. Many business processes were designed around limitations that once seemed permanent. Information was difficult to retrieve. Systems could not communicate easily. Analysis required specialist teams. Integrations were expensive. Reports had to be assembled manually. Managers often had to wait for scheduled reviews before they could see what was happening. Those constraints shaped organisational structures, yet many of them are now changing. Research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) suggests that a significant proportion of workers in developed economies are exposed to generative AI, particularly in occupations involving information processing, analysis, administration and management. Exposure does not mean that jobs automatically disappear. It means that substantial parts of how work is performed may change. That distinction is important. AI may affect organisations less by eliminating entire roles and more by changing how tasks, decisions and responsibilities are distributed. When the underlying constraint changes, the process built around it deserves another look. AI changes the question Most organisations approach AI with a practical question: how can this technology help us perform an existing activity faster? Can AI summarise a document? Can it answer a customer query? Can it reconcile information? Can it prepare a report? Can it analyse a contract or assist with software development? There is growing evidence that these applications can improve productivity. Research by Erik Brynjolfsson, Danielle Li and Lindsey Raymond examined more than 5,000 customer support agents using a generative AI assistant. Productivity increased by around 14 percent on average, with greater gains among less experienced workers. Other controlled studies of professional writing have also found that generative AI can reduce completion time while improving average output quality. Those findings are encouraging, but they create another question: what exactly are we making more productive? If AI accelerates a process that no longer serves a useful purpose, the organisation has not necessarily transformed. It may simply be performing unnecessary work more efficiently. This is where the leadership question should change from "How can AI improve this process?" to "If we were designing this process today, would we create it this way at all?" The difference is significant. One question leads to automation. The other can lead to reinvention. Do not automate yesterday Consider the familiar management report. Data is extracted from several systems, moved into spreadsheets, reconciled, turned into charts, discussed by analysts and finally presented in a weekly or monthly meeting. Generative AI can clearly accelerate parts of that workflow. It can summarise results, draft commentary and prepare presentations. But before automating the report, ask why the report exists. Which decisions depend on it? Which pages actually change management action? Why is it produced weekly? Why do managers wait until Friday to learn something that happened on Monday? Which sections remain because somebody requested them years ago? Once those questions are asked, a different operating model becomes possible. Instead of improving the speed of report production, an organisation might continuously monitor the indicators that actually matter, identify exceptions and route relevant information to the person responsible for acting. The objective changes from producing the report faster to improving the speed and quality of decisions. McKinsey's research into organisations adopting generative AI has highlighted workflow redesign as an important factor in moving from experimentation towards measurable business value. Simply placing AI tools on top of existing processes is unlikely to capture the full opportunity. AI can create efficiency within a process. Redesign can create efficiency across the process. From assistants to agents This becomes even more important as AI moves beyond generating content and begins taking actions. Traditional automation usually follows predetermined logic. Something happens, a rule is triggered and an action follows. Generative AI introduced much greater flexibility because software could interpret and create unstructured information such as language, images and code. Agentic AI extends this further. An AI agent can combine a model with software tools that allow it to pursue an objective, gather information, perform actions and respond to changing conditions within defined boundaries. That is a significant shift. An AI assistant might summarise a supplier problem. An agentic system could potentially investigate the issue across approved systems, compare contractual terms, assemble relevant evidence, recommend an action and escalate the case if it exceeds agreed limits. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has highlighted that AI agents also introduce new security and reliability risks because systems capable of using tools can potentially take unintended actions if they are poorly governed or manipulated. The right question is therefore not simply where AI agents can be deployed. It is where greater autonomy creates enough value to justify the additional risk. Start with value One of the easiest mistakes in a technology cycle is allowing the technology to define the problem. Organisations begin by saying, "We need generative AI," "We need Copilot," or "We need agents." Teams then search for enough use cases to justify the capability. A stronger approach begins with a business outcome. Where are customers experiencing friction? Which decisions are slow because information arrives too late? Which activities consume large amounts of employee time? Where do errors repeatedly occur? Which processes become more expensive every time transaction volumes grow? Only then should the organisation decide whether AI is the appropriate solution. Sometimes generative AI will be the answer. Sometimes conventional automation will be cheaper and more reliable. Sometimes the real problem is poor data, fragmented systems or an outdated policy. Sometimes the best solution is simply to remove a process. There is little value in using sophisticated AI to perform unnecessary work exceptionally well. Find the old constraint A useful way to challenge an established process is to identify the constraint that originally created it. Perhaps five approvals were necessary because information was difficult to verify. Perhaps analysts manually combined reports because systems could not exchange data. Perhaps customers were transferred between departments because different teams controlled different information. Now ask whether the limitation still exists. This is particularly relevant because AI increasingly affects cognitive work. OECD research shows high exposure among managers, analysts, software professionals and other occupations that rely heavily on knowledge. This makes the current wave of automation different from earlier assumptions that technology primarily affects repetitive physical work. The sensible response is not to remove every organisational boundary. It is to check whether the reason for the boundary remains valid. Decide where humans matter Human oversight should also be designed according to consequences rather than applied uniformly. An AI system drafting an internal meeting summary does not require the same controls as one making a financial commitment, altering customer rights or operating critical infrastructure. NIST's AI Risk Management Framework emphasises clear accountability, human oversight and continuous monitoring. This suggests that organisations should think in levels of autonomy. In one process, AI may retrieve information. In another, it may recommend an action. In an environment with low risk, it might perform a reversible action within defined limits. Decisions with significant consequences may remain subject to human approval. The important point is to decide deliberately where human judgement creates value and where human involvement exists simply because the old process required it. Measure outcomes, not activity AI projects are often assessed by how much time they save. That is useful, but it is not enough. Suppose an AI system reduces the time required to produce a report by 80 percent, but nobody makes a better decision because of it. The process has become more efficient without becoming more valuable. Metrics should therefore reflect the outcome the process exists to support. Depending on the context, that could mean faster customer resolution, lower error rates, reduced operating cost, shorter decision cycles, improved service quality or increased employee capacity. The customer support research by Brynjolfsson and colleagues is useful because it measured issues resolved per hour rather than simply typing speed. The focus remained on the operational outcome. That is a better standard for AI investment. Run an assumption audit Leadership teams can apply this thinking without launching another major transformation programme. Choose one recurring process that consumes meaningful time or creates obvious friction and examine the assumptions underneath it. Ask what outcome the process exists to create, why information moves through certain people, why approvals occur in a particular sequence and why ownership sits with a particular department. Then identify which constraints still exist and which have disappeared. Could information move directly between systems? Could AI interpret material that currently requires manual review? Could an agent monitor for exceptions continuously? Could actions with low risk be automated while unusual cases are escalated? Then compare the redesigned process with the existing one. Does it improve speed, quality, customer experience, cost or risk? If it does not, newer technology may simply be creating newer complexity. The real legacy system Businesses often describe old software and infrastructure as legacy systems, yet some of the most persistent legacy systems are assumptions. "This needs a monthly meeting." "Finance has to prepare this manually." "A manager must approve every case." "Customers expect this process." "We have always reported it this way." Any of those statements might still be correct. The problem begins when they are accepted because they were correct in the past. AI does not make experience irrelevant. It makes regular reexamination of experience more important. Organisations should not challenge processes simply because they are old, nor automate them simply because the technology now allows it. They should force inherited assumptions to compete with current evidence. Reinvention before automation Digital transformation has shown how easy it is to modernise technology without modernising an operating model. Paper forms became electronic forms. Spreadsheets became dashboards. Manual processes became digital workflows, but the underlying logic often remained untouched. AI creates the same risk at a much greater scale. An organisation can add a chatbot to a poor customer journey, generate an obsolete report faster or use an AI agent to navigate an unnecessarily complicated approval process. That may look innovative while changing very little. The greater opportunity is to examine the process before introducing the technology. Ask what problem it solves, which assumptions shaped it and whether those assumptions remain valid. The next time someone says, "We've always done it this way," the phrase should not automatically be dismissed as resistance. It should become the beginning of an investigation. Why was it done this way? Which constraint created it? Does that constraint still exist? If the organisation was starting today, knowing what AI now makes possible, would it design the process the same way? Sometimes the answer will be yes. But when the answer is no, the organisation may have discovered something more valuable than another opportunity for automation. It may have found an opportunity for reinvention. The most important AI question may therefore be the simplest one: are we using AI to make yesterday's organisation run faster, or are we using it to design a better one? Follow me on LinkedIn, visit my website for more info, and get my book on Amazon! Read more from Aravind Sakthivel Aravind Sakthivel, Author & Technology Leader Aravind Sakthivel is a global IT technology leader and the author of the book The Leadership Trap: Why Smart Leaders Fail and How to Break Free. He is a former Chief Information Officer (CIO) across Danaher Operating Companies, where he spent 18 years leading multi-million-dollar technology portfolios. He previously worked at market-leading organizations including Oracle, KPMG. Also provided services to General Electric and Toyota in consulting. Aravind holds an MBA from Nyenrode Business Universiteit, completed leadership programmes at Harvard Business School, and is a Certified Enterprise Architect from Carnegie Mellon University. Alongside his book, he has published research on autonomous AI for enterprises in the Well Testing Journal. He is currently based in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Written by Ruth Hutchins, Career Awakening Coach Ruth Hutchins is more than a career coach with 30 years of career experience and a unique holistic approach, helping people find clarity and direction. She is the founder of Creating Healthy Careers, author of Career Awakening: How to Align Your Career With Your Soul Purpose, and creator of the Career Awakening methodology. In my last article, I wrote about the moment the fear of staying becomes greater than the fear of leaving. But once you’re ready for change, how do you know which direction to take or what the right move for you is? This is where your values come in. If you want to avoid burnout, career plateaus or losing momentum in your career, this is the first place to look. This is where I start with just about every client when they come to me because they’re experiencing one of the above symptoms in their career, or when their organisation sends them to me because their performance or engagement has declined. Very often, these trace back to one thing, values misalignment. Why values alignment is important Every person lives by a set of priorities or values. Quite often, they are not aware of what these are, but they exist within us, and they determine how we prioritise our time, invest our money and energy, and choose which tasks we do and don’t do. Together, they form what Dr John Demartini calls our hierarchy of values. At the top sits our highest value, our highest priority, at the bottom, our lowest. When we spend our days living our lowest values, we lower our self-worth by subordinating what’s important to us. Our values determine how we perceive the world, how we make decisions and how we act, consciously and unconsciously. In our career, we want to ensure that our career is either aligned with our top three values or enables us to live our top three values. If we subordinate our top values for our career, we will eventually end up resenting our career, our manager or the organisation we work for. This can ultimately lead to us unconsciously self-sabotaging our performance if we don’t act on the signs. Quite often, the order of our values changes throughout our lives, and when you signed up for your job, it may have ticked all the boxes. But life and your values may have changed in the meantime, as may the values of the organisation you’re working for. This can be an eye-opening moment for people, with many ‘aha’ moments when we fully debrief their values and shine a light on what is missing for them. Sometimes, it just requires a one-degree pivot and can be addressed within their existing role or organisation. At other times, it confirms why they’re not happy and what action they need to take. What I’ve found is that it gives people a framework to help make sense of how they are feeling in their career and why, rather than beating themselves up for not performing at their best or not feeling fulfilled when everyone is telling them how lucky or successful they are, but they don’t feel it. Understanding your values can be a very powerful tool. For seven years before I started my business, I was playing around with another business concept, building a website and talking to people about it, but I never took action or commercialised it. When I sat down and got clear on my values, I could see that my priorities had shifted. I then had a surge of motivation, and within six months, I had registered a new business, gained my coaching accreditation and started my career coaching business. That’s why I always say to clients that it starts with clarity because, once you’re clear on what you intrinsically value, you take aligned, inspired action. How alignment looks in your career We’ve all had moments when our career is going well and when it’s not. When things are going well, we don’t often stop and look at why, but it’s a good time to reflect on what elements are present within your career that are providing you with the greatest sense of fulfilment. This will help you gain an understanding of what you value most. Is it that you’re making a difference, that you’re developing others, or that your contribution is being valued, for example? You’ll find that when your career aligns with your top three values, you’ll be in the zone. The diagrams below adapt Dr John Demartini’s Values Ladder. I’ve added a wellbeing layer based on what I’ve observed over the past nine years of taking people through their values. When we’re doing something that is a priority for us, we are more focused and observant, more self-governed and disciplined, highly organised and, therefore, reliable. Research on intrinsic motivation also suggests that when we’re doing work we love, we learn and adapt more readily, so we become better problem solvers and long-term thinkers. Because we’re interested in what we’re doing, we absorb and retain more information. When you understand this, you will wonder why a values assessment doesn’t form part of the recruitment process. Also, if you’re a leader or manager, surely you’d want to allocate tasks to people, or people to tasks, that line up with their values. It’s a win-win. From a wellbeing perspective, I’ve noticed that people have more energy left at the end of the day, so they don’t go home from work totally drained. They also sleep better. In my experience, interrupted sleep is often an early sign that someone’s values are misaligned, and that’s the time to take action. How misalignment looks in your career As you will see from the bottom part of the ladder, when our career isn’t aligned with our values, we have poor attention and retention of information. We tend to procrastinate when doing those tasks we really don’t enjoy, and subconsciously, we disown the results. Therefore, we become unreliable. That’s often when some extrinsic motivation shows up in the form of a boss or manager breathing down our neck. We’re not doing all of this deliberately, but when we don’t pay attention to the signs and take action, our subconscious mind takes over and says, “We’re not happy in this job. Let’s get out of here,” and starts to sabotage our performance. This pattern can then spiral into declining performance, making mistakes, feeling disengaged, and not liking who we’re becoming. You can see where this is heading. Over time, if we ignore the signs, it can start to manifest physically in the body. The body talks. What to do about it The first step is to identify your values and, ideally, work with a career coach to see how to align your career with them. This may involve finding an interim solution to make your current job more enjoyable and, therefore, boost your performance while you seek your next career move, one that more strongly aligns with your values, either within your existing organisation or externally. Sometimes, doing this exercise alone might remind you why you took your job in the first place and reignite your passion. If not, here are some ways knowing your values can help you decide what to do next: You might just need to tweak something within your current role to allow you to have more autonomy or engage your creativity, if these are your top values. There might be projects you can get involved in that tap into your skills and strengths and are in line with your values. It could be the realisation that the organisation’s values or purpose have changed since you joined, that it’s no longer a match, and that it’s time to move on. Learning and growth might be top values of yours, and if you’ve been doing your role for a while, you might be hungry to get that grey matter working again by taking up some study. Perhaps personal circumstances or plans have led to financial security moving up the values ladder, and it’s time to work towards a pay rise. If that’s the case, channel that newfound motivation into lifting your performance over the next few months so you can build a strong case. If family presents as a top value and increasing demands at work are leading to longer hours away from your family, it might be time to negotiate some flexibility around working from home a day a week or having more flexible work hours. If work continues to get in the way of your top values and you don’t do anything, you will ultimately grow to resent your job, and once again, this won’t end well. If you’d like support to uncover your values and align your career with them, my It Starts With Clarity program is a great place to start. You can also try Dr. John Demartini’s free online Values Assessment for some initial insights. Before you go, think of the last time you lost track of time at work. What value were you living in that moment? I’d love to hear what you discover. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Ruth Hutchins Ruth Hutchins, Career Awakening Coach Ruth Hutchins is a Career and Life Path Coach with 30 years of experience spanning recruitment, career development, and coaching. She helps people make sense of the experiences, turning points, and challenges that have shaped them, uncovering the clues that reveal who they are and where they're called next. Ruth believes even our hardest chapters contain gold, pointing us toward our values, strengths, and direction. Through her holistic approach, she helps clients reconnect with themselves and build a career and life that feels genuinely their own.