Shari Starkey

The Monument and the Mirror I recently visited Washington, D.C. and stood in front of monuments built for leaders who changed the world. What struck me wasn't their greatness. It was their humanity. The story in D.C. also pointed out some of the worst characteristics and moments in history that have ever occurred because of the decisions these great leaders made. I thought about leadership and how we expect leaders to be perfect. We expect them to know all the answers and to never skip a...

I recently began watching the new Little House on the Prairie series. In the first episodes, the Ingalls are moving from the East Coast to the unknown lands of Kansas after seeing a flyer that said there was homestead land available. I sat there and thought about the amount of courage it took to load up a family in a horse and buggy to head west into the great unknown. Think about it — limited resources, unknown terrain, wildlife, unknown cultures, and only the promise of land on a flyer....

I love my job. I love the company I work for, the people I work with, and the career I have built over 20 years. And for a long time, I felt quietly embarrassed to admit that — because everything in my social media feed told me I should want more. You see it everywhere. Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn. The reels that shame us into thinking we need to "Be your own boss," "Build multiple streams of income," "Escape the 9-to-5." The subtle — or not so subtle — message beneath all of it is...