College was a long time ago, and when I think back to “how smart I was back then,” I realize how lucky I was to find a fulfilling career in an area I never even knew existed when I graduated. I, like many, stumbled into the risk management field early on and grew to love the pace and variety of the role. As I reflect back on my 30-plus years, it’s clear that our world is a relatively small world of professionals. People have long-term memories when it comes to others’ mistakes. Good behavior and professionalism are important at all points in your journey. Strange as it sounds, I can still recall the people who made fools of themselves at company events or conferences 15 years ago. You do not want to carry that baggage with you for the rest of your career, so behave!

Align yourself with people who are smarter than you. You cannot be the smartest person in the room all the time. Trust those people and their opinions. It’s okay to change your mind when you receive input from experts. Changing your mind does not make you look weak. Instead, it shows you are open and willing to grow and learn. Collaboration is truly the key to success. You will get buy-in from your colleagues when you take a little of their view and opinion and craft it into your final solution. Everyone wants to be part of the solution.

Relationships matter. People you meet early on in your career can come back into your world later on in your career, so you want to be sure that you maintain an impeccable reputation. Sometimes that’s all we have when we are meeting with colleagues. Be the professional who is honest and trustworthy and not trying to take the last nickel off the table. Business deals are an equation in which both parts need to feel at least equal or perhaps slightly ahead. If your goal is to always win on the deal, you will run out of people to sit across the table with you. Be sensitive to what matters in a negotiation. Sometimes you may have to compromise on something you really want, but if it gets you closer to the ultimate goal of closing the deal, then be ready for it.

If you are really fortunate, as I have been, you will align yourself early in your career with people who become your lifelong colleagues. I have relationships that extend throughout my entire career—people I can trust and who I know are working in my best interest. As I have changed jobs and roles, these are the people I count on to help me master the challenges. My lifelong colleague Elsa Lynch was my insurance broker and client executive at Marsh. We met when we were in our 20s, young mothers trying to navigate our jobs, our companies, and our industries. We learned a lot in those early years, both the technical aspects of our positions as well as the hard lessons of balancing work life and home life. I am not sure we always got it right, but I do know the journey was wonderful. I often tell colleagues to “find their Elsa,” that one person who has your back.

Never stop learning. The world is ever changing with new products and services. Do not be afraid to try new things. I remember back in 1987 when the excess liability market tightened and Marsh came to me proposing a new risk transfer vehicle called Ace, which had a unique hybrid claims-made policy. We bought into the Ace concept, which at the time required you to purchase Ace stock in an amount equal to your premium. Never at that time did I expect that Ace would become the dynamic insurance market leader that they became.

Embrace technology and be willing to change past practices, but do not lose sight of personal connections. I was around long before the Internet and e-mail and look back on how much has changed by adding those two technical innovations. The whole world sped up around me, and expectations grew around immediacy. E-mail and text are great, but do not hesitate to pick up the phone or meet with colleagues face to face. Sometimes it is important to look at someone across the table to get an understanding of what is needed.

Do not be afraid of a career change. I spent almost 20 years in one job and made a job move where I stayed for five years and then made another job change. We are never too old for change. It is energizing, and you would be surprised how much your experience in other industries and roles can be relevant in your new role.

Be sensitive to your colleagues’ life outside of work. Flexible job arrangements are optimal for people with a number of outside commitments. It may not necessarily be due to children and child care issues. Many employees are challenged with aging parents. Some employees just want the opportunity to flex their creative muscles in another area entirely, such as music or writing. I was blessed to have a flexible job early in my career when there were not many employers interested in it. What it did was build a tremendous amount of loyalty in me for my company. Many employees are willing to trade salary for flexibility.

Encourage your employees to use all of their vacation time and when they are on vacation—be on vacation. Everyone deserves time away from work. Set the right expectation for your employees. If you absolutely must talk to your employees while they are on vacation, limit the time and scope.

Set realistic expectations on working hours and tell prospective employees how many hours outside of the office you expect from them. If you want employees to stop checking their phones at 7 P.M. outside of work, then stop e-mailing and texting them after 7 P.M.

Be a mentor. There are many young people coming up through our industry; take the time to help develop them. We owe it to our employers as well as our industry to groom the next generation of risk professionals. Lead them by example as well as by taking time to coach and counsel. Do not tell the next generation what to do but rather be there as a guidepost. No one learns when someone else tells them what to do.

Perhaps one of the most important lessons I learned later on in my career is to embrace diversity. People tend to gravitate to people who look like they do or think like they do. It keeps your lens of the world very narrow. In my current role at US Foods, I work in a department that has joined a number of people from different backgrounds and cultures to create a mix of thought and talent. It is incredibly refreshing to work with a group that has a completely different view of the world than I do.

Be an advocate for diversity at your workplace in both employees and vendors. Look closely when a firm says they are minority-owned. Be sure it is not just window dressing. True diversity should be natural and not forced. If you are scavenging the landscape looking for diverse firms or job candidates, then perhaps you are looking in the wrong places. There are plenty of diversity network groups that can point you in the right direction.

Be happy and have some fun at work. It is perfectly okay to laugh a little. Set the tone for others. If you are grumpy, you can be sure others around you will take on some of your tone. Even when you are not always feeling it, try to put on a positive persona. If you are a leader, you will be surprised how much your positive tone will rub off on colleagues. People gravitate toward positive colleagues. I have enjoyed many Friday mornings in the office leading the early arrivers in some line dancing. Yes, line dancing. Why? Because it is fun and people in my office look to me bring on the fun. For the record, I am an awful dancer, so I believe deep down it makes others feel way more accomplished than the VP of Safety & Risk Management! This may not work for everyone, but it works for me. If ever there are meetings or events requiring some unashamed dancing, you can count on me.

Anyone who has had a career as long as I have at some point mishandles a situation or problem. How you recover from it is the key. Early on in my career I had a budget meeting with my chief financial officer (CFO) and he was raking me over the coals asking me to defend my budget. I had that epic moment when I lost my concentration and I had tears sprinkle down from my eyes. Oh, the horror! I won’t actually say the CFO was amused, but he was not exactly upset that he got a few tears out of me. I pushed through the rest of the meeting and made a vow that would never happen to me again. Going forward, for every budget meeting after that, I was completely prepared for every question and pushback he gave me. I even made copies of checks of money that I brought in the door on subrogation recoveries. No CFO can argue with money in the door.

Be clever and think outside of your own job and try to make your surroundings better. As a result of my habit of showing off recovery checks to my CFO, I asked him if I recovered an extra $100,000 on subrogation matters whether I could use that money to remodel the women’s restroom on my floor at the office, which was in desperate need of updating. It was 30 years old if it was a day. Sure enough, with a goal of remodeling the women’s restroom, I was able to recover $120,000, and I got permission to remodel the men’s and women’s restrooms. I was a hero to my coworkers, who, on the day of the bathroom reopening, had a pizza party and a plaque dedicated to me, which hung above the door to the women’s restroom until the day I left the company. Today, the “Carol Arendall Memorial Bathroom” plaque sits humbly on my wall in my basement. Strange as it may sound, it was one of my biggest accomplishments because it was totally outside my core job and it just made peoples’ lives better.

There will always be difficult people in the workplace. How you deal with them can truly set you apart as a leader. It is never going to work to exacerbate the situation and be difficult in return to another difficult person. We have a saying here at my employer, US Foods, “Keep it above the line.” In other words, do not disparage a colleague no matter how difficult they are to deal with. Try to find some common ground, if possible. Focus on the problem solving, not the problem storytelling. I have generally found that the less comfortable someone is in their job, the more likely they will be difficult to work with. If you add bluster to your words, perhaps no one will notice that you are weak in your role. Eventually, people will figure it out. If you have a difficult coworker, you need to try even harder to make it work.

What if you hate—truly hate—your job? Leave. No amount of money is ever worth staying at a job you truly hate. Do not just quit in a fit of rage, but start looking. Sometimes just looking for another job and seeing that your skills are valued by other employers will help make you feel better. However, you should still leave. Be diligent and find the next right opportunity.

How do you know when you select the right new job? Listen to your gut. Much as we try to go against our gut sometimes and go for the big money, it may not make you happy. Sure, the extra money makes life a little easier, but if you are expected to work 80 hours a week, you should take a pause and think about it. Will that type of job commitment work for you at this point in your life?

What if you need to relocate for a new position? This works for some and not for others. We all have different commitments. There is no universal right answer. I have had a few opportunities to relocate for some really big jobs, but I chose to stay close to home. Now more than ever, I am glad I did as I deal with an aging parent who lives minutes from me. Aging parents are challenging but even more so when you are not geographically close.

All of this advice gets us to the heart of the matter. Be a leader in your organization. You should be more than just your job title. Leadership is cross-functional. Be the leader people want to follow, not the leader who demands. As a leader, you are only as good as your team. Keep developing the talent below you instead of looking for opportunities to manage up. If your team is strong and you keep achieving your overall goals, recognition will come.

Keep in mind that every member of your work team is important, and it is just as important to manage down as it is to manage up. We all know to put our best suit on when we are meeting with the CEO and to practice multiple times what you are going to say when you get that magical moment with your CEO. The problem for most of us is that the number of meetings with the CEO will be limited. How do you prepare when you meet with your full team? Every person on that team is important, so value all of them. Be sure to have an agenda that shows some thought and foresight before you meet. Let team members know what is expected of them when you meet. They should also be prepared.

How do you know if you are a leader or a manager? Three hundred sixty–degree interviews are quite good at getting feedback. If your organization does not believe in this type of spend for these interviews, perhaps your human resources department has someone who can assist you with this. As important as it is for you to believe you are successful, it is critical that you know what others think of you. One of our cultural values at US Foods is called “Straight Talk.” It sounds catchy, but in reality it is not an easy thing to deliver. We all like delivering good news, but it is not easy to provide growth advice. My boss recently solicited feedback from me, and her exact words were: “I am not going to grow if you do not give me constructive feedback.” That really is the way to think about it. We all want to be the best at our jobs, but if no one tells you how to be better, you will remain where you are.

Upon reflection of a long career, what would I have changed? I am sure there are many things I could have done better. I don’t want to sound clichéd, but I really did sweat the small stuff. I should not have, since the small stuff was not going to make that much of a difference.

I have many people to thank for helping me be successful. I learned the basics from a risk management legend, Dave Haight, who was an early leader in the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS). I then went on to work for Ann Roberts (at the time the director of risk management at Carson Pirie Scott) in my first real managerial position. Ann taught me so much, from where to sit in a meeting to when to be firm with a vendor and how to laugh at the chaos. Many of the fundamentals I learned from Ann remain with me today.

I am grateful for all the wonderful coworkers, vendors, and partners that I have crossed paths with throughout my journey. They are too numerous to name them all, but many I have cherished for 20 years or more.

As I close in on the sunset of my career, what am I the most proud of? Easy question. My family and being able to balance my career with a full home life. Sometimes when I am reading through the Sunday newspaper, I will flip through the obituaries. Creepy, I know, but I do it. Obituaries are a short paragraph meant to summarize a person’s whole life in 200 words or less. I have never seen in an obituary “worked 80 hours a week,” “never took a vacation,” or “died peacefully with his cell phone in hand.” If these three phrases sum up your work-life balance, please take notice. No one is going to care about this in the end. What will matter is the relationships you have created and those you love and those who love you. Never lose sight of that.