You had a long career at Advertising Age, including Vice President and Publisher of this esteemed b2b media platform. A number of years ago, you left that role to launch The Elements of Us. Tell us about that entrepreneurial business.
I was fortunate to have a wonderful career in advertising. While my current work felt like a big departure, it was my experience in advertising that led to the creation of The Elements of Us. Leading through 9/11 and the Global Financial crisis, I saw firsthand the role mental health and emotion played in creating successful outcomes. I saw this both professionally and personally as my friends and I were balancing raising young children with career demands. Yet, because emotion can sometimes seem invisible and amorphous, it can feel overwhelming and difficult to manage or even talk about. That leaves people feeling alone. It also undermines performance and stands in the way of innovation without us realizing it. I thought if I could make the subject of emotion and behaviors more visible and tangible I could help a lot of people.
Flash forward to today, at a time of tremendous division and disruption, we are seeing mental health challenges for people of all ages. Symptoms of anxiety have risen post-pandemic to 29.5% of the population. It’s as high as 45.3% among 18-29-year-olds. We are in a loneliness epidemic. While this is distressing for us personally, it also presents a significant challenge for companies, as it will cost the global economy $16 trillion by 2030. We can change that.
The Elements of Us is a visual framework and language we currently bring to leaders and teams through facilitated sessions. It normalizes mental health conversations, helps people find common ground, opens dialogues, and empowers them to build strategies to navigate feelings like anxiety or being overwhelmed so they can feel better and do better, individually and collectively. It was my time in advertising that taught me the importance of purpose and insight-driven ideas, the power of visual storytelling, and the need to create rich, engaging experiences to change behavior. The Elements of Us applies that thinking to mental health and human connection to change how people engage with their feelings and relate to each other in a way that feels natural, and even fun.
Now at the age of 53, you have just completed a Master’s Degree in Psychology at Harvard! What led you to decide to pursue the degree and what was it like being a student again?
Going back to school was not something I thought I was doing when I first set out on this path. Now my only regret is not doing it sooner. So much of my personal and professional identity was connected to my work in media and marketing. Even though I had done significant research to develop the Elements, it became important to ground myself in psychology in a meaningful way. In the business world, we often feel pressure to know everything. Going back to school changed that mindset, making me an active learner again. It helped me become a more critical and curious thinker and challenged me in a way that was both rewarding and satisfying. I was also a much more serious student this time around!
Tell us how you plan to use the degree in combination with The Elements of Us. What’s your Favorite Future for all of the great work that you are doing in this space?
My Favorite Future is one where every human believes in their capacity to overcome obstacles to create their best possible outcomes, and we all begin to see what we have in common rather than our differences. That may seem like a tall order, but from all I learned in working towards my degree, and the work we have done so far, I believe it is possible. The Elements play a big role in creating that future. It’s now time to expand on that work by building partnerships to both accelerate and amplify so we can put the Elements into everyone’s hands. In doing so, we will create healthier leaders that lead healthier, happier lives, and build healthier companies and more successful outcomes for all of us.
