A person I admire very much once said, “I only want to surround myself with smart, happy people”. This is sometimes easier said than done. During my adult life, I can honestly say that I have met a few of the most miserable people on Earth. The type who, when I am smiling, asks very critically, “Why are you smiling?” The type who always finds fault, many times belittling others simply because they are jealous of that person. As I grew older, I learned to distance myself from the miserable ones as much as possible. But what makes so many people so miserable? Why can’t they find “joy”?

I may well have found the person who can help them. I recently had the opportunity to interview success coach, author, and speaker Laura May Culver. Laura May is the creator of the Joy Journal©. As the owner and founder of Knowself Services, she is dedicated to offering personal exploration through speaking, coaching, and consulting. Laura May is enthusiastic and optimistic, motivating, inspiring, and empowers others to live their very best lives.

Laura May explained that she is a therapist of more than twenty-five years and says she has helped people live the way they want to with every session. She believes we are successful just as we are. She explained that a success coach helps people live authentically from what is truly a success according to them. A person experiences success in life by working toward a goal that is authentically their own. A worthy ideal (or in other words, a goal) can be anything that brings forth a person’s JOY. An example of this is a person that wants to be a wife and mother and feels authentically themselves doing it. Another example is a carpenter that builds tables and wakes up excited to build, create, and share their tables with the world, or with themselves. If a person considers their goal as an expression of self and experiences joy in doing, pondering and/or sharing, and they are working toward it, that is success.

She explained that a success coach encourages and gives clarity, holds space for, and holds one accountable to, what their client deems to be success – for them. A person can have one or multiple worthy ideals in their lifetime. Laura May specializes in partnering with ambitious individuals to optimize their strengths, unlock their potential, and accelerate their professional and personal growth.

The Joy Journal

Laura May believes that we all have the light of joy inside us, it is a light in our hearts, and the Joy Journal is a tool to bring forth the light of our JOY. She explained that from a very young age she was encouraged to keep a journal. She did – she wrote everything down, with mostly negative events documented. She rarely wrote about what she wanted or what was good or going right in her life. She didn’t realize that the written word is actually creating further of the same. It was not until after fourteen years of clinical experience and decades of keeping personal journals that she came across information that changed her life.

Focus on the good in life in order to create more good in your life

The business program in which she was studying at the time pointed out the importance of focusing on the good in life in order to create more good in her life. The coaches kept telling her to “write down what you want and focus on the good. There is power in focusing on the good, the joy of life”. They said: Do you have a goal? Write it down. What do you dream of having? Write it down. What do you really want?  Write it down. Do you have things in your life that you are grateful for?  Write it down. Do you dream of wonderful relationships, travel, and adventures? Write it down in all its detail. Well, she did! She did not allow any negativity in any of the numerous notebooks.

One day, in the fall of 2014, while reviewing the process with a coaching client, she heard herself say out  loud,  “Write it down in a book that holds only the good stuff—like a  journal for your joy—and let’s call it your Joy Journal”. That day, The Power of The Joy Journal© was born.

Laura May has also created something called The Red Telephone Booth Meditations https://theredtelephoneboothmeditations.bandcamp.com/ She has found that these meditations have been particularly helpful with teenage groups with which she has worked. She describes the teen years as such a powerful time in life, full of adventure, change and challenge.

Unfortunately, many youth do not have a fun time during high school or in their first years of post-secondary. If anything, their lives are stressful, and they are filled with deep emotional pain, insecurity and fear. In an attempt to feel better and handle their painful lives, youth will model adults. The idea that a ‘quick fix’ is a solution to life’s problems is prevalent in our culture. Laura May says we see this in the use of drugs, alcohol, excessive online scrolling, prescriptions, sex, self-harm and toxic relationships for pain relief. Popular glorified ‘solutions’ are destructive, and our children are the most vulnerable. She has many examples of sharing her meditations with youth groups and how they have helped them ‘wake up’ and to remember their power, their connectedness, and their truth. She has taught them that they can take certain actions to live amazing lives. She has seen amazing results with youth who have learned destructive coping habits but with her help and meditation practices, they found relief and feelings of peace.

Remember Who You Really Are

Laura May has many such meditations that can help one re-focus their attention away from the mainstream messages that keep us ‘half alive’ and living ‘half true’. She suggests finding your own way to take time out of your busy day and just ‘be’, to ask yourself, Who am I? What do I want? What am I willing to practice and cultivate to live my best life?

So, are so many of us fussy because we forgot who we really are?

Laura May is available for customized speaking engagements and is willing to travel. Companies, businesses and organizations benefit greatly from her talks and this is a great way for her to share her message with more people all at once. Book a call with Laura May and she will set it up.

If you would like to learn more about Laura May, please visit www.hotforsuccess.com. To learn more about Laura May’s more recent version of The Joy Journal Guided Joy, please visit https://a.co/d/09P44YeW.

This article was originally published on OpsLens.com.

I recently had the opportunity to interview the founder of Soul State Wellness, Inc., Cindy Hyde. As she explains, her story isn’t a quiet one. Chronic fatigue. Chronic illness. Two cornea ulcers in six months. Temporary vision loss. Intermittent aphonia (her voice coming and going). Memory loss. Brain fog. By the time all these symptoms had presented multiple times it was too late.

She had a deep feeling that something wasn’t right. She was healthy by every other metric (diet, fitness, water, spirituality) so she got curious. As she describes it, obsessively curious. She came to understand that she had been operating in high stress states for far too long. She was a high performer and a people pleaser. She was unable to say no and had no personal boundaries. She was working 24/7. She had minimal connection to nature or the relationships that mattered to her deeply. She had cognitive dissonance. She was unable to catch her breath and settle. She was eating on the fly, running from meeting to meeting. But eventually, her body stopped whispering and started speaking louder. She took her health into her own hands and she explored everything: family physician, ophthalmologist, otolaryngologist, psychologist, psychotherapist, speech language pathologist accompanied by breath work, chiropractor, pelvic floor physiotherapist, metabolic coach, burnout coach, fitness coach, lymphatic RMT, teladoc / Best Doctors Program, naturopath, IV immune therapy, Reiki, somatic practitioner including training, yoga, and qigong.

Ms. Hyde explained that every one of these modalities served a beautiful purpose and supported her in some way. She describes it as putting the puzzle of herself together. Picking up one modality at a time to see if it fits and completes the puzzle she was trying to build – a puzzle of understanding herself. But the real game changer happened when the nervous system was studied and understood, and she received help from a somatic practitioner. That is when she saw the symptoms dramatically improve.

It helped her so much that she became a certified somatic coach. She now seeks to help others with her business, Soul State Wellness, Inc. She specializes in nervous system literacy and supporting people to reconnect with themselves.

Somatic Experiencing is a therapeutic method developed by Dr. Peter A. Levine, aimed at addressing the effects of trauma, grief and stress on the body. It emphasizes the importance of bodily sensations and experiences rather than solely focusing on the cognitive aspects. The goal is to help individuals to complete an incomplete threat response by releasing stored energy from traumatic experiences, and/or chronic stress (including burnout) allowing for healing and a return to a state of balance within the nervous system. It is a form of coaching that is created in a safe supportive environment where Cindy’s clients feel deeply seen and supported.

She explained that nervous system regulation is about supporting individuals to become connected to their bodies to feel safe and connected to the world and themselves, in the here and now. It is about understanding sensations in the body and being able to move between the three states of our system (Ventral, Sympathetic & Dorsal). She says that how we do this varies by client, however what is similar is in the approach is that we use various tools to support them to be in the here and now while slowing everything down. She likes to say it is about creating enough capacity to manage our day-to-day activities.

At the center of everything Cindy is working on now is burnout. She believes that learning about the Nervous System is a key skill in Fatigue Risk Management – something she now wants to devote her life to. The prevention. During her speaking engagements Cindy likes to highlight that your biggest risk has a heartbeat.

Not just recovering from it but preventing it in the first place. She believes that we have normalized exhaustion to a degree that genuinely concerns her, and she believes that when women understand what is actually happening in their bodies and their nervous systems, everything changes. That is the mission underneath all of her current work.
Right now that is taking a few different shapes. She is building out training material around Fatigue Risk Management (burnout recovery and prevention) that weaves together nervous system literacy and somatic practice in a way that is both deeply educational and deeply felt. It is not just information; it is an experience that helps people understand themselves in a whole new way.

She is also planning a wellness retreat for October 2026 that she is genuinely excited about. It will be a space for women to step away, slow down, and do this work in a real and embodied way. She says that there is something that happens when you give yourself dedicated time and space that just cannot be replicated anywhere else. That is what she wants to create.

She said that she is most excited to talk about her keynote work. Whether that looks like a lunch and learn, a half day workshop, or being brought in as a guest speaker, this is where she gets to take everything she teaches and bring it into a room full of people who are ready to hear it. She explains that there is an energy to that kind of gathering that she absolutely loves. When a group of people experiences nervous system literacy together, something shifts collectively, and that is really powerful.

From there, for the people who want to go deeper, she offers one-on-one coaching. This is where the real personal transformation happens. She says we slow down, we get specific, and we do the work in a way that is completely tailored to that individual and exactly where she is in her life.

And then there is something Cindy truly loves talking about because it surprises people every single time. She offers holistic facials specifically designed for vagus nerve activation and relaxation. It is luxurious and it is deeply therapeutic at the same time. The nervous system is being tended to while you are being cared for from the outside in. Cindy explains that it is such a beautiful entry point for women who are maybe not quite ready for the deeper work yet, but know they need something.

Ms. Hyde wants to highlight that according to recent data from the Global Wellness Institute, only 9.8% of employed workers are actually benefiting from the wellbeing programs currently available to them. That is 349 million people out of 3.56 billion. Read that again. We have built an entire wellness industry and we are reaching less than ten percent of the workforce. That tells her that we have a real problem, and she does not think we are talking about it honestly enough.

Burnout is not a personal failure. It is not a willpower issue. It is what happens when human beings are asked to operate beyond their capacity for too long, without the knowledge, the tools, or the support to understand what is actually happening inside their own bodies and nervous systems. The hustle culture that shaped the last decade is beginning to crack, and people are feeling it deeply. But the systems around them, the workplace cultures, the wellness programs, the leadership models, have not caught up yet.

This is where nervous system literacy becomes not just relevant but essential. When people understand the three states their nervous system moves through, when they can recognize what state they are in and why, they stop blaming themselves for struggling. That is not a small thing. That is everything.

She states that this is not about pointing fingers. This is not about blaming individuals for not doing enough or blaming companies for not caring enough. This is about recognizing that we have a shared responsibility to do better. Individuals looking inward, building self-awareness, learning to communicate their needs and hold their boundaries. And organizations genuinely reimagining what employee wellbeing looks like, not as a checkbox but as a true cultural commitment.

The ROI is there. Absenteeism, short term disability numbers, employee engagement, leadership capacity, better decision making. All of it is connected to how safe and regulated people feel in their nervous systems. When we invest in that, everything shifts.
Cindy believes we can do better on both sides, and she genuinely believes we will.

If you would like to learn more about Cindy Hyde and Soul State Wellness, please visit www.soulstatewellness.com.

This article was originally published on OpsLens.com.

One thing I remember about my parents was their ability to be present. My father traveled a lot for work, and had a pretty dangerous career during my early childhood. I can remember him coming home to us in a certain snow-covered area of the United States, having been in some exotic location overseas. It didn’t matter that he had been gone, but it mattered that when he came home, he was present. We moved quite frequently and had the chance to live in a foreign country, as well as travel quite extensively at a young age and in to adulthood. I believe that these experiences shaped me and gave me a unique perspective as an adult now with my own children. Today, the knowledge that I can share with my children comes from my unique experiences growing up.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Roger Duthie, Founder & CEO, BearFish Sports Marketing and the Former Head of Global Sponsorships, Emirates Airline. Mr. Duthie is not only a very successful businessman, but he also appears to have mastered the skill of work-life balance and being present with his own children. He is a globally recognized leader in sports sponsorship and brand strategy, with over thirty years of experience delivering high-impact marketing platforms across global sports and entertainment. During his nineteen-year career with Emirates Airline, Roger was instrumental in transforming the brand into a global powerhouse through strategic sponsorships and integrated marketing campaigns. He now has his own consultancy, BearFish Sports Marketing as well as his own sports apparel brand, BearFish Sports Apparel. His signature line of lightweight, breathable caps has gained popularity among athletes and lifestyle enthusiasts looking for stylish performance wear under the sun.

Roger is originally from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, but he now lives in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. I spoke with him about how he ended up in Dubai, and he explained that he and his new wife moved to Dubai from the Bahamas. He explained that while living in Freeport was an amazing experience, he wanted to start his professional career rather than just playing tennis, soccer, and rugby on a tropical island while being broke. He saw a television show segment on Dubai and it intrigued him. He decided, after five fun years in the Bahamas, to take a job with a PR company in Dubai. He worked for a few months with the PR company and his boss asked him if he wanted to join Emirates Airline, where, by that time, he was the head of the communications department. They were starting a new department in sponsorships. Roger applied, got the job, and had a wonderful nineteen year career with them helping them build the brand globally using sports as a marketing and communications tool. It worked – as the Head of Global Sponsorships, Roger oversaw a portfolio valued at over $300 million, leading the development, negotiation, and execution of major partnerships across football, tennis, golf, motorsport, rugby, and cricket. His work included long-term collaborations with the ATP, FIFA, ICC, Formula 1, and premier football clubs such as Arsenal, Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan, and Benfica. These partnerships not only boosted global brand exposure for Emirates but also helped drive record levels of consumer engagement, media value, and ROI.

Roger’s stewardship of the sponsorship portfolio led to Emirates being ranked the 4th most valuable airline brand globally from 2017–2019, and among the Top 200 global brands by Brand Finance. Under his guidance, Emirates generated over $4 billion in international media exposure from golf and tennis partnerships alone. He also directed the Dubai Football Challenge, organizing a 42,000-seat event featuring elite international clubs. His hands-on approach to partnership activations ensured Emirates was always a standout brand presence across events, digital media, and consumer touchpoints.

Roger started BearFish Sports Marketing because of what he experienced on the brand side at Emirates. Time and again, they would be sold to by senior agency leaders, only for them to disappear once the deal was signed. The work would be handed down, the accountability would fade, and the original thinking they bought into often got diluted. As a brand spending serious money, Roger wanted to work with smaller, agile teams, good people who genuinely understood what they were trying to achieve and stayed involved throughout. Instead, the market felt crowded with too many “sharks” chasing Emirates’ budget, and that never sat right with him. Eventually, he decided to step away and build the kind of consultancy he would have wanted to hire.

That experience shapes everything they do at BearFish Sports Marketing. Roger explained that most consultants come from agency or rights-holder backgrounds; he spent nineteen years on the buying side as Global Head of Sponsorship at Emirates, managing over $300M per annum across thirty plus sports and making the final yes-or-no decisions with senior leaders. Roger knows what brands look for because he was the one approving the invoices.

Combined with a global network built over two decades and a boutique, founder-led model, BearFish offers something different: clients work directly with Roger from strategy through negotiation and activation planning. The person who closes the deal is the person who delivers it ensuring accountability, continuity, and partnerships built on trust rather than transactions.

When people ask him about Dubai, he tells them without hesitation that it’s the greatest place in the world to live, and he genuinely could never imagine leaving. What makes Dubai special is not just the skyline or the ambition, but the culture and the people. It is an incredibly welcoming and diverse city where people from all over the world live side by side with respect and openness. He explains that the government’s focus is clearly on the welfare, safety, and quality of life of its citizens and residents, and that shows through world class infrastructure, outstanding healthcare and education, and a city with little to no crime. It is a place where families feel safe, professionals can thrive, and opportunity feels limitless. He went on to say that the lifestyle is equally unmatched. You can play almost any sport imaginable and enjoy food from virtually every culture in the world. He still plays in a men’s baseball league there, and there are also communities for ice hockey, Aussie Rules football, Irish hurling, rugby, cricket, and many more. Add in wonderful beaches, an incredible sports and events scene, and year round energy, and Dubai becomes very hard to beat. It combines global diversity with a real sense of community and ambition with humanity. For Roger, it is home, and he truly believes there is no better place in the world to live.

“Always lead by example. It’s not that complicated or hard. Always be there for the team. Let the team have a life. Family is always more important than work, so enjoy.”

Mr. Duthie travelled a lot while at Emirates and he still does. He had two children in Dubai, Isabella and Oliver. He always tells younger friends who are having kids that to be present is the most important thing in the world to maintain a lifelong relationship with your kids. So when he wasn’t travelling, he made sure he went to every swim meet, every play, and every school assembly. He coached his son’s baseball teams and drove his daughter to ballet and piano. He explained that parents become taxi drivers when kids are young and doing activities, but that’s the time you get to groove with Prince in the car with Isabella or talk in depth about the Toronto Maple Leafs with Ollie. Roger explained that if his job ever got in the way of his relationship with his children, he wouldn’t have done it. Eventually he was able to hire younger, single males and females who took on more of the business travel so he could stay grounded.

“I am the happiest person I know.  Sadly I’ve seen too many people pass away over the years far too young, so I continue to embrace life.”

Mr. Duthie is a great example of a family man who balances his very successful career with a wide range of activities, to include travel, sports, and being present with his friends and family. He described his childhood as growing up in a blended sports-minded family. He explained that the main reason he started to travel was because one of his stepbrothers passed away at a very young age but his exuberance for life, adventure, and travel provided the impetus to move away from Toronto and see the world. The greatest advice he can offer is to pursue travel and education. These things have shaped his career and the person he is today.

If you would like to learn more about Roger Duthie, BearFish Sports Marketing, and BearFish Sports Apparel, please visit bearfishsportsmarketing.com.

This article was originally published on OpsLens.com.

Sometimes you meet someone who has defied all of the odds, confronted bias and hatred, and made it through to become incredibly strong and successful. Dr. Susan Levit is just such a person. I recently had the opportunity to interview Dr. Levit about her amazing life and her new book, Susanna: Journey to my Dream.

Dr. Susan Levit’s inspiring journey began in a small Soviet town and has spanned four continents. She explained that she believes she was genetically preconditioned to become a doctor. During her childhood she was surrounded by her parents and her siblings, who were all doctors. She described being around the dinner table listening to them tell stories and jokes about their lives as doctors and realizing that to her, nothing was as exciting as medicine. It was as natural as eating and sleeping.

Dr. Levit began medical school in the former Soviet Union. The horrific realities of communism and anti-Semitism prompted an exodus to Israel, where she completed her education. This was challenging, as she did not speak Hebrew, but had to learn. She served in the Israeli army as a doctor, and when her husband was asked to work in Africa as a civil engineer, she moved to Africa where she continued to work as a medical doctor. She specializes in internal medicine and there she treated the local people as well as the expatriate community.

When asked what her biggest obstacle in life has been, she didn’t hesitate to answer: Anti-Semitism.

Dr. Susan Levit lived in a world that held her nationality against her. Every obstacle was constructed to make life more difficult. While in Israel, she had to learn Hebrew and English. Whether it was holding medical school lectures and exams solely in Hebrew, which was not her first language, or shaming her for leaving the communist Soviet Union to make a better life, Dr. Susan Levit dealt with it.

Dr. Levit learned Hebrew and English. She finished medical school despite all odds. Susanna found herself fighting in the Yom Kippur War. She lived through a coup d’état in turbulent Africa. Then, she finally arrived at Lady Liberty’s shores.

What stopped her from just giving up? She explained that she never even had the thought of giving up. She didn’t have any choice, she needed to succeed.

And succeed she did. Dr. Susan Levit was awarded with the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. She considers this the pinnacle of her success and recognition for her contribution to American society. A girl from a small Soviet town had become the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, an award given to those who became inspired by the American dream, and fully realized it.

This incredibly elegant woman credits her father and husband as her biggest inspiration in life. They held her high and believed in her, and they knew she had the ability to succeed. When asked what the hardest thing she has ever had to do in her life, her answer was to raise children to be successful and good members of society. Dr. Levit considers both of her children her crowning jewel and greatest accomplishment, with both being highly successful. Her response to my question, regarding if she still believes in the American Dream echoes the message her son, Dr. Eyal Levit, also shared with me:

Yes, she does still believe in the American Dream. She advises to believe in your dream, persevere and achieve.

Dr. Susan Levit’s book, Susanna: Journey to my Dream, is a fascinating story of perseverance that follows her family’s astonishing rise, spanning three generations, four continents, and three wars. It is available in English on Amazon.com and in Russian on Lulu.com, Dr. Susan Levit Stremlenie kmechte.

Dr. Susan Levit’s goal is to influence by personal example; specifically to influence a new generation by personal example. She believes that if you want something strongly enough, and you work to achieve it, it will not only be a dream, but a reality.

This article was originally published on OpsLens.com.