What We Choose to Invest Our Time In

While we were walking, my husband asked me (again) why I do what I do. Aligned with my goal of being intentional about where I invest my time and energy, it seemed like a good question to revisit as we enter a fresh new year.

Each of us must find our own source of motivation – and what works for me may not work for you. However, let me encourage you to take a few moments to reflect and consider what we each are doing and why as we enter a new year. To be mindful and intentional about what matters to us. To seek to learn, equip, and position ourselves to grow, thrive, and matter during our time here. Now, as I approach my sixth decade of life, I find that there are both new constraints and a more profound desire to be deliberate and intentional because I will not live on this earth forever. I can imagine the end of my time here, perhaps decades hence, and I want to finish well. I hope that a peek into my musings will inspire your own reflections.

As we enter 2025, for me, the core answer continues to be that I want to invest my time and energy in innovation and impact. I want to get up every day excited to make a difference in our world. I want to be passionate about how I spend my resources, even though the journeys are long, the challenges are steep and intense, and the disappointments and frustrations happen regularly.

For me, the most incredibly dynamic innovation engines are in the startups and smaller organizations that passionately pursue solving problems in our world. There is something intense and dynamic about the focus of a small team striving to make an impact that both appeals to and challenges me to engage in the energetic problem-solving. I love these adventures!

Entering 2025 with thirty-five years of professional experience under my belt, I am currently supporting first-time CEOs in four different organizations. This is a wonderful new vantage point to contribute to the high-impact work and epic problems these smaller organizations are tackling. I am looking forward to being part of the continuing progress in tackling the challenges each face. What I love about all of them are:

• Meaningful, life-saving missions. Each of these organizations is tackling something important with creativity and innovation:
  • Saving people’s lives through new medical devices that show promise of calming out-of-control hyperinflammation that damages the body’s vital organs
  • Providing the insight to enable cleaner healthcare environments to avoid healthcare-associated infections
  • Delivering help and healing in the form of free medical care, dental care, food, and behavioral healthcare for people without insurance in one seamless, whole-person experience
  • Tackling climate change by providing the tools to achieve affordable carbon reduction as a service to health systems.
    
    
• Smart, passionate, committed people. The people who start, lead, and power these organizations all care deeply about the impact they are trying to create. Working with such high-integrity people who care deeply about the impact and value we are collectively trying to create is powerful and exciting. The people are core to what matters to me – and I find that the people I enjoy working with and supporting those who choose to invest their lives in making a difference by pursuing meaningful, life-saving missions.
  
  
• Breaking through previous boundaries. Creating change that makes things better is what excites me. I get bored with the status quo because I want to pursue a better world that blesses more people. That means finding the seams, overcoming the hurdles and limitations of the status quo, and breaking through the boundaries to bring something new to life that matters. Breaking boundaries comes with the ever-present risk of failure, yet that sharpens the challenge and means that only those with the guts to tackle the unknown will go there. Those are the problems I want to help solve and the teams I want to help succeed.
  
  
• Learning. One of the great things about working in innovative spaces and bringing forth new solutions to complex problems are the endless learning opportunities. Learning about how to develop and apply new AI tools. Learning how to build a body of evidence proving the value of the new approach including experiments, pilots, case studies, clinical trials, and testimonials. Collaborating with teams and their customers to figure out how to apply the innovations to realize a positive difference. Continually expanding on my experiences and expertise to personally bring value to the CEOs and teams I support to help realize our impact dreams.
  
  
• Expanding Networks and Experiences. In recent years, I have been investing in expanding my networks of people who help me discover new insights about the world and inspire me with their lives and their work. From the Women Business Leaders of Healthcare to the National Association of Corporate Directors to traveling around the globe to experience new countries and cultures, I find that these people and experiences are expanding my horizons and deepening my insights so I can grow, learn, and contribute more effectively.

This list could probably go on, but I think that captures the critical dimensions that motivate and inspire me. Entering 2025, I hope to build on these and perhaps find one or two more opportunities to cultivate and contribute to, likely as a corporate Board member. My personal growth goals include continuing to expand and deepen my understanding of governance, leadership, and CEO whispering so that I can leverage my unique experiences and insights into helping create successful ventures by empowering innovative leaders to succeed in accomplishing big, high-impact visions. I stand on the threshold of 2025, hopeful for the future and excited for what this new year will bring as I develop my current roles and expand into new ones both professionally and personally.

What excites you as you peer ahead and discern the path you embark on?

Have you considered what matters to you, and are you cultivating a life that focuses on those things?

Can you find excitement, beauty, impact, and love to power your day-to-day actions intentionally?

Happy New Year!