What I Wish More People Understood About the Emotional Side of Career Transitions
By Kendra Stearns Drozd, Bluffton, SC The Part No One Talks About in Exit Interviews When I left Kraft Foods to become an executive recruiter, people congratulated me on the new opportunity. When I stepped away from recruiting to focus on raising my daughters, people nodded and said supportive things. But almost no one asked […]
The Art of Being There: What Decades of Relationships Have Taught Me About Showing Up
By Kendra Stearns Drozd, Bluffton, SC The Power of Presence You can hear it in their voice. That slight shift when someone realizes you’re not half-listening while checking your phone or mentally running through your to-do list. They know when you’re really there. I’ve spent over a decade as a Stephen Minister, walking alongside people […]
The Power of Purpose After Life Changes: How Reinvention Can Lead to Unexpected Growth
By Kendra Drozd, Bluffton, SC Learning That Life Does Not Always Follow the Plan When I was younger, I thought I had a pretty clear idea of what success would look like. I imagined a career path where I would continue building experience, taking on new challenges, and moving forward in a fairly predictable direction. […]
What Four Daughters Taught Me About Raising Confident Young Women
Motherhood Has Been My Greatest Teacher If someone had told me years ago that one of my greatest life lessons would come from raising four daughters, I would have smiled but probably underestimated just how true that would become. Motherhood has brought me more joy than I ever imagined, but it has also challenged me, […]
Why Showing Up Matters More Than Saying the Perfect Thing
We All Worry About Saying the Wrong Thing One of the biggest lessons I have learned through life is that people rarely remember the exact words you say during their hardest moments. What they remember is whether you were there. I understand why people worry about saying the perfect thing. We do not want to […]
Why Active Listening Matters More Than Ever in Leadership, Recruiting, and Everyday Relationships
We Live in a World Full of Noise I sometimes feel like true listening has become a lost skill. Everywhere we turn, people are talking, posting, reacting, and responding quickly. Conversations move fast, attention spans feel shorter, and many people are already thinking about what they want to say next before the other person has […]
Holding Space Through Hard Seasons: Faith, Fertility Struggles, and the Power of Presence
When Life Does Not Go the Way You Planned There are seasons in life that do not follow the plan you imagined. For me, one of the most difficult chapters came through years of fertility struggles and multiple miscarriages. I had always pictured motherhood as something that would unfold in a more straightforward way. Instead, […]
From Boardrooms to Care Rooms: What Recruiting Taught Me About Listening Well
Learning to Listen in the Business World When I think back on my time in recruiting, I do not first think about resumes or job descriptions. I think about people. I think about conversations. I think about how often the most important thing I could do in a meeting was not talk, but listen. I […]