I live my life like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel.
There’s a version you’re living — but at any point, there are alternate paths. The practice is learning to see them before you need them.
Here’s the short version: I spent 20+ years across five complex organizations. It ended — not on my timeline. An opportunity in the disguise of an ultimatum. 17 months I didn’t choose but decided to use. My daughters were 16 and 13. I built a business around the future of work.
I am the case study.
Historians study what already happened. Futurists project what’s next. I’m in the middle — watching what’s shifting right now, before it has a name.
Here’s the longer version.
For more than 20 years, I watched organizations talk about change while doing everything possible to avoid it. I sat in rooms where the answer to shifting conditions was to double down on what already wasn’t working. I watched leaders confuse the comfort of precedent for the safety of good strategy.
And I stayed. Not because I didn’t see it. Because seeing it and leaving are different skills, and I hadn’t built the second one yet.
The end came anyway. And in the space that opened, I had a question I’d been carrying for years and finally had time to answer: what does it look like to actually practice futurism, every day, in real decisions — not just talk about it on stage?
That question became Everyday Futurism. Not prediction. Not trend reports. Not someone else’s map to follow.
It starts with self-trust. The ability to watch your own thinking, name the stories keeping you stuck, read signals across industries you don’t work in, and make small, intentional moves. Not dramatic. Not disruptive. Just honest.
I’ve explored this question across 100+ podcast episodes, national media features in CBC, Maclean’s, The Globe and Mail, and The Canadian Press, a panel at Elevate TechFest, and advisory work with organizations that are ready to stop clinging and start adapting.
The common thread through all of it? Trust. The kind you have to build with yourself before you can build it with anyone else.
Trust is the starting point
Not the reward. You can’t convey alignment to someone else if you don’t have it with yourself first. The performance of alignment is detectable. The real thing isn’t strategic — it’s what happens when your interests are actually clear to you.
The status quo is a choice
The belief that the way things are is the way they have to be — that’s the thing keeping people stuck. Current arrangements aren’t inevitable. They’re choices that can be unmade.
Small moves beat big plans
You don’t need a transformation roadmap. You need one honest conversation, one brave decision, one small step taken before you feel ready. Momentum builds from action, not certainty.
AI’s Impact on Trust and Workforce
How is AI reshaping trust dynamics inside organizations? From the Mama What’s Next podcast — what leaders need to understand about the workforce shift that’s already underway and why trust is the variable most companies aren’t measuring.
Hosted by Melanie Elsbeth on the Mama, What’s Next podcast.
- 20+ years across five large, complex organizations in account management, sales, and training
- Led employee resource groups, coordinated employee engagement alongside HR, senior leaders, and communications teams
- Award-winning work in teamwork and strategic thinking
- LinkedIn Top Voice 2024 & 2025
- Panelist at Elevate TechFest and enterprise events across North America
- Host of the Hope + Possibilities podcast (100+ episodes) — Goodpods Top 100 Leadership Indie Podcast
- Writer on Substack covering self-trust, leadership, and the future of work
- Trusted advisor to leaders and transformation teams
- Featured in CBC, CTV, Maclean’s, The Canadian Press, and other major media outlets
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