As the daughter of immigrants, I was trained from a young age to work hard, sacrifice in the name of getting ahead, and constantly prove yourself. Then one day, in my late 20’s, I was in a soul-sucking job, with dreams of trying to pivot my career, but feeling completely stuck. I developed inexplicable tingling in my hands, feet, spine, nose. As I sat in an MRI, trying not to cry, I thought that surely I was dying. My next thought was that I hadn’t yet accomplished what I wanted to with my career.

The doctors told me I wasn’t dying - it was a physical reaction to stress. I didn’t believe it at first - I wasn’t THAT stressed, I thought. But lo and behold, I got another job a couple months later where I felt needed, fulfilled, challenged but capable, and all my symptoms disappeared in a week.

That’s when I realized how important work can be to our identity and to our health. When people ask us who we are, we default to our job title. We scroll LinkedIn solely to see who has been promoted lately. We feel trapped in golden handcuffs at jobs where we’re truly miserable but don’t feel empowered to change the situation or to leave. We put all of our energy and time into work only to be given more work, or to be fired in the next round of layoffs.

We believe this is not sustainable and we’re here to change the paradigm. Work should be a source of inspiration, learning, fulfillment, friendships. That starts with us. We’re here to help people form the habits that can break this toxic cycle.