People Have Always Told Me Their Stories
Long before I had a title that gave them a reason to, people came to me with the things they were trying to figure out.
In college, I had a single room. I can still remember people sitting outside my door waiting to talk. They brought relationships, decisions, disappointments, hopes, problems they couldn’t solve, and questions they weren’t quite sure how to ask.
I listened.
I didn’t know then that listening would become one of the threads running through my entire life.
The places that nourish us often shape the way we see the world.
For more than 55 years, my work has put me in rooms where people were trying to decide what to do next.
As an organizational development and human resources consultant, I worked with more than 100 organizations and led thousands of sessions with leaders and employees.
For more than twenty years, I wrote about people and work for About.com and The Balance.
And alongside my husband, Bill Hamilton, I had the privilege of helping build TechSmith’s values-based culture with our employee-owners.
Different rooms. Different people. Different problems.
But again and again, I saw the same thing: what people believe matters—but what they do with what they believe matters more.
That conviction didn’t come from my career. It was already there. My work simply gave me decades in which to watch it play out.
I believe every human being begins worthy of love, dignity, respect, kindness, understanding, and trust. Those things aren’t prizes we award people once they’ve earned them. They’re the starting point.
I believe we owe ourselves the same.
I believe our choices matter. I believe we are responsible for the way we treat one another and for the world our choices help create.
And I believe we are here for a reason.
My faith is part of how I understand that. I believe God has a purpose for each of us, and much of my life has been spent trying to discern mine—and then having the courage to live it.
Life has given me plenty of opportunities to test those beliefs.
I’ve built a business, helped build another, written for millions of readers, raised a family, loved a man for decades, lost him, and had to learn how to build a life that was mine rather than ours.
I’ve been certain. I’ve been wrong. I’ve changed my mind. I’ve started over.
And through all of it, I’ve remained fascinated by the choices people make when life asks something difficult of them.
That’s where ValuesCrafting comes from.
I don’t write because I think I have lived life better than anyone else. Education, experience, age, success—none of those gives one person greater human worth or a monopoly on wisdom.
I write because I’ve had an unusually long opportunity to listen.
I have stories. I recognize patterns. I ask questions. And I have some deeply held convictions about what we owe one another and ourselves.
The what and the why matter.
The how is where each of us must do our own discerning.
I’m still doing mine.
Susan Heathfield
If you’d like to know more...
Read my Twelve Guiding Principles.
Explore my professional background.
Read what clients and colleagues have said about working with me.
