CHRIS LEE
Photo by Cam McCarley
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Chris, tell me about the reality check you had that helped you shift gears if life? began my education in technology, but I was always fascinated by how the mind works. I studied artificial intelligence and some psychology when I was in school. That was the start of the things that I dove into later in life. After school, my career began to incorporate technology. This is where I honed my skills for being a speaker and learned how to engage with audiences in an authentic way. I was also managing team productivity, and I was observing how the team was working harder and harder but not accomplishing more. Sometimes, it even seemed like less. This led me to start looking into work and life balance and the current state of human behavior. I saw that the more career success one was having, the 28
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greater the strain on their families and personal lives began happening at the same time. Top executives, and those under them, who were reaching for the next level in their careers, were burnt out, and their families and relationships were becoming ruined. When my mother died suddenly from a rare brain condition in 2008, it was a big wake-up call for me. She had worked hard all her life; she had a very strong work ethic. I had patterned my own career behavior after her drive and began noticing similarities between us. My mother kept putting off things that she wanted to do, believing that there was plenty of time for everything. One of the things she wanted to do was travel. When she finally allowed herself to do so, she died. At the end of all that work, my mother was never able to enjoy the fruits of those labors.
