Denise Zack

I attribute my success to a supportive family, hard work, and good role models - my parents, my siblings, and my husband have all been instrumental. I've always had this internal drive inside of me, this kind of motivation to create change in the world. I always wanted to make things better, help people fix things, and support people who were struggling or hurting. I feel like those were huge drivers in my life, and I wanted to be as educated as I could in order to be able to do that.

The best career advice I've received is to do what you love, stay consistent, and take care of yourself along the way.

From an individual standpoint, I would say belief in yourself and belief in your ability to be able to do whatever it is that you want to do and what you want to create in your life. Our society, and women in general, are often made to feel like they're less than, or that they can't achieve what they want to achieve, and I think that if you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything. So I think self-belief would be the main one. And resilience - if you fall down, it doesn't mean that you failed. If you fall down, it means that something isn't working in your life, and it could be something you're doing, it could be the company you're keeping, it could be other circumstances. Mindfulness, by taking a step back and observing what's happening, allows you to really take a look at and understand what's impacting you and holding you back, so that you can get back up again and keep going. Because sometimes we get stuck feeling powerless when, in fact, it's something that we can actually change or shift to be able to create that resilience and get back up again. The other piece I would add is that it's truly okay to ask for help, because we don't have every resource in the world. Sometimes we don't know what we don't know, so ask for help when you need it. It doesn't mean you're weak, or that you're failing. It just means you need some support.

One of the biggest challenges in my field is sustaining focus, motivation, and resilience while navigating profound personal hardships that inevitably intersect with professional life. These experiences also create an opportunity to deepen empathy and bring greater authenticity, presence, and compassion into the work I do with others.

For me, honesty, authenticity, and responsibility are really important. Those would probably be my core fundamental beliefs that guide my actions and my decisions and my priorities. Beyond that, I would say creativity, flexibility, and continued learning are really important as well. I'm always trying to self-improve. My whole life is about self-improvement. I'm always taking a look at myself and thinking, what can I do better? How can I change? Am I being healthy enough? Am I exercising enough? Am I doing enough? Am I supporting my family enough? And how can I support other people? So it's self-improvement, and then trying to help others be their best as well. That's kind of the guiding forces in my life.