Prior to my work developing cultural self-awareness and intercultural competence, I didn’t realize how disconnected and isolated I felt. For the most part, I didn’t know how to be real with people and still feel safe. I had a connection problem. Now that I’m settled into this work, I see that I have the opportunity to be in authentic relationships like I’ve not encountered before. I get to experience deeper friendships both personally and professionally. Professionally, businesses hire me because they want to foster authentic connection within their employee group; and between their employees and customers. We’ve found this decreases disruption in the corporate environment and accelerates the speed at which people adopt a cross-cultural mindset; increasing collaboration, innovation, and profit. Looking back through the year, here’s a recap of my growth chronicled in my favorite blogs of 2017.