Mission Possible

This is the story of how one little bear dared to dream of saving a very big world. 

For the past year and a half I’ve been back in school, pursuing an MBA in Sustainability. I just started my last semester in this program and one of the first assignments I had to complete was about my personal mission in life.

What drives me?
What are the underlying passions and values of those drivers?
What are the challenges on the way to realizing that mission?
And how do I plan to overcome those challenges?

While I’ve always been a huge proponent of introspection and living with intention, this was the first time that I was asked to convey all of that into a 5 minute presentation. And, y’all, it was way tougher than I thought it was going to be.

I’ve been very clear about my mission for almost a year now: to move industries, businesses, and communities closer to their zero waste goals. I’ve even identified how I plan to achieve that mission (by running my own business as a sustainability consultant for the circular economy) and which industries I’d like to hone in on (packaging, events, and textiles). And while nothing has ever felt more right in my entire life, it took me a while to concisely and clearly articulate what exactly brought me to this point. I ultimately decided that four main drivers brought me to right here, right now: nature, order, knowledge, and autonomy.

1. NATURE

I mean… it’d be pretty silly to be pursuing a career in sustainability if I wasn’t passionate about the environment. While I enjoy all aspects of nature, I am definitely having an affair with the sea. I experienced the ocean for the first time when I was about one and a half years old, and clearly I hated it…

I feel most calm when I am in the ocean. In college, I got SCUBA certified as part of an internship for PADI and my affair intensified. There’s something about swaying with the ebb and flow of the waves that just puts me at ease. Being alone in the water with nothing but the sound of my own breath is my deepest form of meditation.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when my love for the ocean manifested itself in wanting to protect these sacred waters from plastic pollution. But my interest in sustainability goes beyond simply reducing plastic pollution. I want to improve waste management systems, develop innovative ways to reduce resource consumption, and preserve all natural habitats for future generations to enjoy. The world is a pretty spectacular place. It’d be a shame for our great grandkids to not experience the serenity of an open water dive, the majesty of reaching the summit of a hike, or the warmth of the sand on a beach day.

2. ORDER

Some may call it OCD, but I call it sanity. Anyone who knows me, knows that my greatest love in life is ‘the list.’ I have lists for everything: groceries, things to do, places to go, books to read, people to send handwritten letters to, random thoughts I have, mortal enemies to destroy, clients to pitch, blog posts to write. I live and die by my lists. If it’s not on one of my many lists, chances are it will never get done. Lists aren’t just how I keep things organized, it’s how I keep myself efficient. They allow me to clear up much needed brain space and prioritize tasks that need to get done.

My love for organization goes beyond the list - I also strive to keep my home tidy and decluttered. Long before Marie Kondo took hold of mainstream culture, I was a huge proponent of doing a purge and deep reorganization of my entire home every spring and fall. More recently, I’ve been working my way towards minimalism and trying to only keep things that I absolutely need in my home. While recycling and reusing are important principles of the circular economy, many people forget that the first one is actually reducing.

Keeping things organized and orderly has manifested itself in my professional life as a passion for developing systems and processes. I’ve spent the majority of my career finding ways to maximize efficiency and streamline workflows. As a champion of the circular economy, I see this as being my primary strength. The circular economy model relies heavily on value retention, and for that we need robust recovery systems and reverse logistics models. Nothing gets me hotter than optimizing systems and innovating new ways of distributing and recovering materials. 

3. KNOWLEDGE

I’ve always been a mega nerd. As a toddler I would burn through books faster than my parents could buy or borrow them. As a child and teenager, I was a straight A student and overachiever (spoiler alert, not much has changed). And in my adult life I am always striving to learn something new everyday. One of the reasons I picked journalism as my undergraduate major was because I was exhilarated at the prospect of acquiring more and more knowledge with every article I was assigned to write/report about.

More recently, my passion for knowledge has manifested itself in two ways: (1) my desire to educate future generations on responsible consumption and (2) my firm belief that the world needs more collaboration for sustainability to truly take hold and become the dominant way of thinking. Companies shouldn’t be keeping secrets from one another in the name of competition. We need the dissemination of information, best practices, and lessons learned to make industries more agile and resilient in a rapidly changing world. Knowledge is power, and power in sustainable strategy doesn’t belong to the few. It must belong to the masses.

4. AUTONOMY

One of the 10 principles of Burning Man is ‘radical self-reliance.’ I have never resonated with anything so deeply before. As the daughter of immigrant parents and the first-born grandchild on both sides of my family, I was raised to value hard work and autonomy. There was nobody to bail me out, nobody to show me the way, nobody to hold me hand through trying adolescent times. Fumbling through the unknown terrains of applying to colleges, dating, dealing with heartbreak, seeking jobs… it was tough. But I am eternally grateful for the sense of autonomy, empowerment, and identity that those experiences have given me.

If it weren’t for those experiences, I’m not sure I would have had the balls to start my own freelancing business, to dive headfirst into a senior operations role for my father’s business, or to start this MBA in Sustainability. At a very early age, I identified my strengths and weaknesses, my passions and pitfalls, my morals and values. I have always been the kind of person to set a goal and then put her head down and work till she reaches it. The greatest lesson I’ve learned along the way is that there is no singular path to success. You must define your own journey and make agile adjustments in real time to reach your goals.

This has manifested itself in my professional world as a deep desire to help small businesses, big brands, and even entire industries find ways to make the principles of the circular economy work for them. The strategy that worked for a Fortune 500 company with a massive budget is never going to work for the mom-and-pop shop down the street. But that doesn’t mean that zero waste is unattainable for them… it just means that we need to find a new strategy that works with their resources while reinforcing their own unique mission.

Let’s back up for a second…

I just want to be clear about something. When I made my decision to leave the family business and go back to school, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to be in business. It was because I wanted to be in BETTER business. Now for most people… better business means more profitable. But for me, it means a lot of different things: higher quality products, improved management of people and resources, better standards of living for all parties involved, longevity, innovation, waste reduction, increased efficiency, empowerment, thought leadership, continued growth… AND greater profits. 

The world is changing. The definition of mission is changing. We are no longer confined to simply exchanging goods and services for money. Today’s workforce needs more than that - they need a purpose. So, friend. Now I ask you. What’s YOUR mission?

Cheers to doing bigger and better things,
xx Bear