Annie Kell

One of the biggest pieces of advice I've received is that life is really not that serious, so we don't really need to take it all that seriously. I think a lot of times there's this immense fear of failure, or fear of doing it wrong, or just fear in general that can kind of hold us back. It's definitely held me back before. Letting go of caring so much about perception, and instead just kind of leaning on what you know to be right and what feels good for you, and just not taking it so seriously, opens up so much with life.

I think there is an immense opportunity to have a large-scale impact in my field. The company I work for does an immense amount of infrastructure and industry development, and part of the reason I moved to this company was because of the scale of work that they do. Infrastructure doesn't maybe get as much attention, especially with sustainable design, because we don't spend as much physical time in it as we do in an office building or a house, but it's everywhere. The scale at which these things get built means that if we can start executing on elements in the design and construction process that improve their impact on public health, environmental health, and climate health, that has a large-scale impact across all the infrastructure that we're working on. The industry itself is growing at an immense pace, which has been very exciting.

My top three values are, first, being part of a larger group that's all working towards something that matters - that purpose-driven approach to things. Knowing that we know how to do it better, so we should be doing it better, we can do it better. Second, creating a sense of connection and belonging in community, whether it's in your personal life or your work life, makes such a big impact on everyone's mental health and how well we're able to execute work. I believe really strongly in making work environments feel emotionally safe for folks and helping enable them to grow and explore and be able to test boundaries without fear of failing. And the last one is just really the idea of embracing life - that life is short, we never know when our last day is going to be, and trying to see beauty even in the small things and really getting out and seizing the day as much as possible.