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How board members can manage risk and complexity to drive success
In this episode of The Better Finance podcast, speakers explore the board member’s role in risk management and company structure, and the impact of AI and technology on organizational challenges.
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Host Myles Corson speaks with Jan Babiak, an independent board member and audit committee chair with extensive experience across various sectors and countries. The discussion begins with Jan's recognition as one of the top 20 value-adding directors in the US. Her career journey is then explored, from her early days at the EY organization to becoming a seasoned board member. Jan has experience in areas, such as IT security, cybersecurity, regulatory and public policy, and climate change and sustainability.
Jan emphasizes the importance of boards managing not just routine business risk strategies, but also being prepared for unexpected events and future challenges. She highlights the differences in risk management responsibilities and resources between public and private companies, noting that private companies may not have the same infrastructure and may need to be more agile in their approach.
The conversation also touches on the influence of organizational structures on risk management, the impact of founder culture on private companies, and the challenges of balancing growth opportunities with risk mitigation. Jan shares her insights on the evolving risks associated with technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), and the need for businesses to be aware of the potential misuse of such technologies.
Myles and Jan discuss the similarities and differences in board membership across various countries, with Jan noting that while the day-to-day work is largely similar, governance models and regulations can differ significantly. She also offers advice to aspiring board members, stressing the need for intentionality, breadth of experience and openness to serving on different types of boards.
Key takeaways:
- Understand the multifaceted role of board members in overseeing risks within organizations
- Gain insights into how different company structures, such as private equity and family-owned businesses, can influence risk management strategies
- Learn about the importance of board members staying informed and proactive in the face of emerging technological risks, especially those related to AI
For your convenience, full text transcript of this podcast is also available.
Jan Babiak
“I think it's probably important to start with what the role of the board is. We have three jobs — one of which is to deal with the business as usual, one of which is responding to things, and third which is looking to the future and thinking about things that are coming our way.”Myles Corson
That was Jan Babiak, an independent board member and audit committee chair. I’m Myles Corson from Ernst & Young, host of The EY Better Finance podcast, a series that explores the changing dynamics of the business world, and what it means for finance leaders of today and tomorrow by sharing insights from global leaders on key topics affecting the world of corporate finance.Jan joins me today to share her journey and insights from serving on various boards, emphasizing the strategic importance of understanding and managing risks in both public and private sectors. We also discuss how evolving technologies, like artificial intelligence (AI), are creating new risk landscapes that boards must navigate to ensure organizational resilience and success. So, without further ado, let's jump into this exciting conversation.
Corson
Jan, welcome and thanks for joining us on the Better Finance podcast.Babiak
Thank you for having me. I'm delighted to be here.Corson
Jan, we're going to talk a little bit about your role as a board member and your experiences and how organizations should be thinking about managing risk. As we get started, I should, first of all, congratulate and acknowledge your recent recognition was being one of the top 20 value adding directors in the US. So, first of all, congratulations on that. Can you talk about your journey to becoming a serial board member and how you got to where you are today?Babiak
Certainly, thank you for your kind words. I'm still mystified by that, given how many amazing board members there are in the US. It's been exciting news. I started my career with EY, then spent over a quarter of a century there. And I always had an eclectic portfolio of interests that is never one to stay in one particular area. I got involved in the founding of the IT security — cybersecurity — team for many years, and then went and established regulatory and public policy group and handed that over to someone. And then my last time was in climate change and sustainability.The interesting thing is how valuable those things, which often were orphans back when I was doing though, are to boards today. And so, it's led me to where I am now, where I've served on boards in five countries, multiple structures from huge Fortune 20-level companies, the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 100s and TSX 10, down to family-owned businesses, private equity-backed businesses and employee-owned professional services — so, a number of private sector and private structures, as well as public sectors. And I've always said that, particularly my time in technology, technology is a promiscuous lever and that you can move from sector to sector, which has also served me very well since my boards were all in different sectors. All of which of course technology is important too but name me a company where it's not important these days.
Corson
Fantastic. Well, obviously a lot of rich experience to pull from there and we'll come back and visit some of those experiences and how they've helped shape you as a board director. EY recently put out the Global Board Risk Survey, and one of the things I think stood out to me in some of the data is whilst both private and public companies probably have high degrees of confidence in the traditional areas of risk and how they're understood and how those are managed, where there's a bit of a difference is what I think are described as the atypical or the less common areas and maybe that's some of the evolving areas of risk where I think in public companies, perhaps because of their resourcing, feel more competent than private companies. In your role as a board member, how do you see the responsibility in overseeing management's focus on risk management?Babiak
I think it's probably important to start with what the role of the board is. We have three jobs — one of which is to deal with the business as usual, one of which is responding to things, and third which is looking to the future and thinking about things that are coming our way. So, I think that most boards tend to focus on that first bucket, but your risk management ought to sit down and think, are we prepared for the things that could happen, the reason of my expectations and how are we anticipating the future and what's going to happen. So, that's how I think about it is always spending too much time in that first bucket or are we also making sure that we are preparing for second and thirds buckets?Corson
That balance across the different dimensions really resonates. We talked about this in preparing. When we think about private companies, it's not amorphous. Private companies have different structures — family enterprises, PE [private equity] and employee-owned. And as you think about those dimensions and how you think about managing risk, how do some of those organizational structures impact your role as a board member and how you think about mitigating risk, but also the growth opportunities?Babiak
You start, as you say, with what is the structure and what kind of resources have they got dedicated to dealing with risk? And that risk can come into a lot of different categories. It might be financial risk. It might be health and safety risk. It might be competitive risk. And there's all kinds of matters. How and where does the organization deal with those things. And did they have somebody who wakes up every day thinking about that or is it something somebody's doing off the side of their desk? So, that's probably my starting point. And then as a board member, my role is going to vary.One of my big boards where we've got an internal audit department of 300, my role really is governance and oversight and my asking a few sensible questions hopefully. On another board, where I’m on where just a year and a half ago, which is a private board, where they hired an internal auditor, and the balance there is quite different in terms of do we have a charter? Are we clear about what we can and can't do? How are we covering off those risks if not through internal audit, what is external audit doing? We talked in bigger companies about first, second and third line of defense. Often in the private companies, that's not part of their language.
So, I'm working with them to say, “Okay, what do the business owners make sure they're covering off as part of their business plans and their resourcing? Who's deciding across the company and the various business units, because even private companies will often have a lot of different business units in different countries and things like that? Who's dealing with making sure we've got efficiencies and we don't have gaps around that? And then if we need to have some third party validation, whether that's internal audit, whether that's external audit or a compliance function depending upon the sector.” So, it's basically understanding it and then I go as deep as I need to, given the maturity of the organization.
Corson
A lot of that resourcing and structure that exists in the larger public companies may not exist in the private companies. And this is a broad generalization, but I think part of probably the perception of private companies is that they are more agile. They don't have all of their infrastructure and frankly, they may be faster moving, more rapid growth. So, bear with me on the generalization, but that clearly creates a different set of challenges, right as a board member, when the organization is moving much faster. Again, so how does that change your thinking where you don’t have all of that infrastructure and resource and you’re having to react much more real time potentially in a private company setting?Babiak
I’m not sure I would necessarily agree that smaller companies or private companies, let’s put it that way, are necessarily more agile. Again, it depends on the sector and it depends on whether they’re a disruptor or whether they are dealing with something that’s well-established. Well, then sometimes, they can get quite resistant to change as a result because the founder — we’ve always done it that way and we will continue to always do it that way, but that also becomes part of your board role is helping people break out of that when that is the case.But your point about things moving, whether that’s forced upon them or whether it’s they’re a dynamic disrupting the environment themselves or whether they’re needing to respond to what a competitor is doing or what a threat like ransomware or something like that is coming their way, what I find is that private companies often don’t build in the infrastructure, because they’re not required to by a regulator or a listing authority or something like that. And so, they’re more likely to maybe not have the resources on hand to deal with something that particularly shows up in that second category or to prepare for something into the future.
One thing that I’m always interested in is helping people. They’ve chosen to go with a very thin model of resourcing in some of these critical areas, helping them understand. I’ll call it the risk universe and then saying, “Okay, how are we covering off these and where have we decided to accept the risk?” And it goes down to what there’s an inherent risk.
There’s been the control risk; the controls we have in place. And then there’s that residual risk, and I’ve helped boards on some occasions say look perfectly acceptable, but we have decided not to have this full-fledged function around risk or internal audit or something like that, but by the way, here’s a bunch of things we’re not auditing, we’re not looking at, and we’re reacting to, “Everybody good with that?” And if everybody says they’re good, and I’m like, “Okay, then let’s move on.” But other times people go, “Wait a minute, we can’t have that risk.” I’m like, “Okay, then we need to resource it.”
Corson
You made a very interesting point about the impact of that founder culture in private companies, perhaps you do have in the strong founder influence, very significant shareholding. How does that change the dynamic of the board member where you’ve got a very strong voice potentially in some of these situations?Babiak
One of the things that has come out of the risk study that they’ve done — it shows that culture is important and it’s very important because if you have a tone at the top that says I like to think about health and safety. If you have a tone at the top that says that’s more important than profit, we’ve got to make sure we do that. Now, of course, profit is important, but we’ve got to make sure we cover that. That really sets the tone for everyone else. And if you have someone at the top who it’s all about flying by the seat of our pants and approaching things in a different cultural way, then I think that influences as much as anything.It’s that tone that gets set. And then it’s not just the leader or the founder, but it’s the people they hire and what they instill in them. One of my favorite quotes is what interests my boss fascinates me. And I always say to CEOs [Chief Executive Officers] and CFOs [Chief Financial Officers] and all that, all you have to do is ask a question about risk or cyber or climate change or whatever, and everybody else will think, oh, that's important to you, because they only get so much time with you and that which you express an interest in, everybody else will begin to have some focus on. That's an important way for the tone to be set. It's just by asking questions. So, what are we doing about?
Corson
That's pretty helpful. Thank you. One of the other characteristics of the private companies is they obviously have different sources of funding and capital to grow the businesses, again, is that something that as a board member how does that change your thinking and the way you approach risk management?Babiak
Very much. The funding gets back often to the shareholders or the owners, if you wish. I can think about a family-owned business, where I had one owner and she owned it and we as a board were an advisory board. We didn't have fiduciary responsibility, because ultimately, she owned 100% of it. She could do what she wanted, but she was astute enough to realize that having a board was going to be valuable to her and so she would bring us challenges that she was dealing with.That is one way of looking at it. There's others that we are representatives of private equity who may be part of a bigger group who have policies and procedures around how they want to deal with risk. And one of the private equity boards that I went on, they had previously been owned by a different private equity group. And their group had a philosophy, the first group had a philosophy that they put their own partners on and they know enough that they don't need an audit committee.
And they don't need that risk looked at it that because they know how to handle that. Well, they then sold to another private equity group who had a philosophy that they always have an audit committee on all of their portfolio companies and they always have an independent audit chair, which I was delighted with because that gave me a job on the first group. I wouldn't have had a job because it just wasn't as important to them. Ugh, third example, by the way, would be an employee-owned board that I'm on now where the employees elect the board.
They have nine to 10 board members two of which are independents and the rest are employees. And it's their assets and they have a lot of views about things. And when we get into the risk discussions again on health and safety, this happens to be in the construction sector around climate change and sustainability areas, they care a lot and they don't care as much necessary about profit.
I mean profit is important still that but if you gave them a choice between making sure that lives were saved when you're talking to the employee owners, you know they may have a higher priority on that than somebody who's trying to make sure that Wallstreet has the right share price.
Corson
You talked about your background in IT security and the IT world. And I know you still keep a lot of time investing and staying relevant and up to date on that. And clearly a lot of conversations at the moment about artificial intelligence [AI], about the impact of automation. One of the things from a technology perspective, you're focused on from a risk management perspective and what are you expecting to see from the companies you're working with as they manage some of those risks?Babiak
Myles, thank you for asking that question because it allows me to talk about my number one soapbox topic right now, and that's around AI. You go to these conferences, you speak at these conferences, you interact with people in the technology space and in the audit and risk space, and I'm finding that people talk about that particular technology, if you will, of course, which has been around since 1955, by the way.It's just taken a little bit of a step change in the last couple of years with generative AI, but we talk about two things. We talk about the opportunity and the opportunity also carries with it risk and that like you aren't doing something? Are your competitors and are you losing a marketplace and all that? So you've got to look at those opportunities and see how you're going to leverage them. What are the use cases? How are you using it for your business or even for your functions? Can you be more efficient in HR using it versus your engagement with your clients or customers and all that? We all talk about that.
The other thing we talk about is we know that AI has some challenges and that it's based off of large language models that are based on human history, where we have biases. And if we aren't careful, we'll just build those biases in and basically put them on steroids and have them go out and just reinforce the biases and the errors and things that we have. So, we have a lot of effort around good people getting it right, and what do we need to do to get it right? But the third area that I worry about is what I call the need for a defense against the dark arts we spent probably the last decade plus training people not to click. Don't click.
Because these are ways that people get in, infiltrate our systems and make mischief and we lose money. And we have systems taken down and all of that. Well, AI, we're not spending time educating people about how to identify a deep fake. We're not educating people how to notice that a communication from a political party is complete rubbish now written by somebody who's trying to undermine.
We're not training people how to challenge the outcomes that don't make sense or validate information, even if it does make sense. And so, from a risk standpoint, this is just one of the things that I'm feeling very strongly that we as a business community, private companies, public companies, governments and not-for-profits, all of us need to begin to think about the dark forces, because they all have the same capabilities that we do, but they don't have quarterly results.
They don't have earnings per share. They don't have employees to be accountable for. They can just go out and create mischief, steal money, steal identities and cause real problems. And we have got to recognize that this is not a myth; it's not the boogeyman under the bed. It is happening and we have to prepare for it.
Corson
That resonates and I'm sure will hit home with a lot of the audience. And I was blown away a month or two ago with that example in Asia, the person was taken in on a video call with two deep fakes of their boss representing and again, the creativity that's being applied, that is always evolving and always changing.Babiak
And that particular example was the best advertisement possible to the bad guys of the art of the possible. And they're like, wow! That's a great idea. Let's go recreate that. We're advertising how to do it to everybody. It's really great.Corson
Lot to come on that area, no doubt. As you mentioned, you've been a board member in five different countries, I think, four at the moment. As you think about the different cultural aspects and the roles of the board membership across the geographies that you've been part of, what are some of the similarities and where are some of the differences that you'd observe?Babiak
It's more similar than different, to be honest with you. Some of the accents are different, some of the analogies. Every once in a while I find myself explaining to somebody a hockey expression or somebody explaining one to me versus a cricket or rugby or something like that. Because there's a lot of sporting analogies out there, but they're just different sports, but you feel the same, a lot of the same internal control, making sure that people are accountable for their budgets and their strategies.And so, if you look at the agendas, they are not terribly different other than there seem to be a few more Zs in the United States than some other countries around the world who favor Ss over Zs. The day in day at work is not really that different, but there are other things that are. The governance models can be quite different where many countries have independent chairs versus the US, where that is not the norm.
You have term limits in some other countries. In the US, you have Sarbanes-Oxley [Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2022], and other countries may not have that. The regulations, the laws, what's allowable. If you look at some of the things, questions that you can ask when you're trying to understand the demographics of your workforce or your customer base, sometimes it's illegal to ask certain questions in certain jurisdictions than others.
You've got the privacy laws that will vary. So, it's more about the laws and the application than actually the work. And that required, for me, my daily reading load is a lot more than somebody who only serves boards in one country, because I'm looking what's the latest thing that's just come out of the UK? What's the latest thing out of Australia? What's going on in Canada? What's going on here? And then also because I'm on different sectors, you're also reading the trade press for those as well as companies, but the benefit to that is also tremendous. Can use COVID [the COVID-19 pandemic] as an example.
I was on a British board that had really big Asian opportunities. So, somewhere around December of 2019, we started dealing with this big problem and the rest of the world wasn't even awake to it yet. So, by the time I got to March, I had already dealt with it. I remember the CEO of the British board had written a memo to everybody outlining things and it was so clear and concise. I asked him, can I provide this to these companies.
I was asking in March whether we can do that, or you look at something like accounting standards as they go in. I was finding that IFRS [International Financial Reporting Standards] was ahead of US GAAP [Generally Accepted Accounting Principles] and I had put it in like four times before I got to my big US company, and I had probably more experience doing it than the local team. So, there's a lot to be pulled. Climate changes are really great when Europe and some of the other countries around the world are more advanced than we are in North America. So, there's some great benefits to it, but there's a lot of similarity as well.
Corson
You've described all of the complexity that you have to think about, and I've heard you describe you're seeing this as work, right? And you're obviously very diligent in preparing yourself regular to sector views. How do you think about that structure and making sure, again, you've got access to the right resources to be up-to-date and relevant and credible?Babiak
You guys are great as well as your competitors and that I'm on all the feeds from all kinds of sources and I'm also on company secretary feeds, which is always really interesting, what's going on in that sector. I’m on legal feeds, I’m on medical feeds. So, part of it is just being inquisitive enough to go out and find them and then figuring out which ones are valued and every once in a while I’ll unsubscribe to some because it's really not providing me value or it's duplicative.So, it's being intentional about finding ways to make sure that you are current. In my case, because I'm a CPA [Certified Public Accountant] and a chartered accountant in the UK and a CCISO [Certified Chief Information Security Officer] and a CISM [Certified Information Systems Manager] and so, I've got IT qualifications, accounting qualifications and things like that, I've got an obligation to maintain my continued professional education [CPE] and that actually forces really good discipline on me and I learned some funny lessons when I'm very first left the profession in my first year.
I never really thought about it because it's kind of in the water when you're in the Big Four and at the end of the year usually like I had 80 hours. It was fine. I got to November and all these renewals came up and I didn't have any because I left the firm. I wasn't thinking about it. So, I ended up going to a local in Tennessee, something in late December that I could get to that was like four days. And it turned out to be very intense tax preparation, which I don't even do my own taxes. It's too complex with the world I'm in. And I also had to pay about two and half grand for it.
So, I just said at that point, “Okay, I didn't have that right?” And so, from then forward, I made sure that all of my continuing professional education was somehow linked to what I was doing in my day job, which is serving on boards. And so, I'm constantly seeking out courses or conferences that will give me CPE and will help me be better at my day job. It's about being intentional and not thinking, well, this is a nice thing to do.
I always said the worst board members from my view are those who are 3G plus one, their grandparent, golf and garden and they have one board so that when they're at the country club and people say what do you do, they can go, “I'm on the board of X.” For me this is a job and I'm more worried about being under-boarded. That doesn't give me the ability to bring benefit to the companies I serve.
Corson
I was going to ask because I've heard you use that expression under-boarded and over-boarded before and again you're in this position where you are serving on public and private boards and how do you balance, where do you think that right balance of the board responsibilities is? And do you see the public and private roles being complementary in terms of making you a more valuable board member?Babiak
I think it's complementary, again, having for countries, different sectors, different structures, because it's quite interesting how something that will go on in a private board, particularly if they're into heavy disruption or something like that, or maybe they're serving a public company or maybe on the other hand, a public company is using some private foundation founder-owned companies in their business that knowledge that I can bring around and share I think makes me a better board member as a result.You find that there are some companies that by their nature are disruptors and cutting edge, maybe even bleeding edge. And you have others that are because of how big they are or the risk profile they have they need to be a fast follower. And there're even ones who by definition will be a laggard. So, this mix gives you the ability to experience things and share it to those different lifecycles. In terms of managing that workload, once you get the schedule set, and that's the important thing, you know sometimes we get a call saying, can you go on this board? And I have capacity, but when I look at their board schedule, it's a complete overlay to one of my other boards, in which case I have to say no.
But once you get the scheduling right, and that helps if you have like I'm very fortunate and then I have different year ends. I've got March year ends, June year ends, August year ends, October year ends, no December year ends, which is really nice for someone like me who is a skier, but making sure that you can work that, then there's plenty of time to serve multiple boards. And I have to say coming out of the Big Four, I was used to managing a lot of different clients simultaneously and all of them thinking they were my only clients. So, that's the goal here too.
Corson
Jan, I'm sure some of the audience will be potentially aspiring board members. You've obviously established this incredibly successful career as a board member, following a successful career in the profession, what would be some of the key words of advice you'd give to someone that's aspiring to serve on a board?Babiak
There's a lot of advice, but maybe I'll focus on three things. One of which is there is a lot of supply and limited demand for board members, and that's whether you're a diverse candidate or whether you are a more traditional, shall we say, white male candidate — half the board whilst they are still going to with more traditional candidates, about half are now 40% or so are going to diverse candidates.If you take something like an ACGA [Asian Corporate Governance Association], I think it has 40,000 members. So, you think about how many boards there are. There's a lot of competition. So, you need to be intentional. Think about understanding your audience and what they would be wanting from a board member and making sure that you are presenting yourself in a way that is going to be competitively strong. Man sits at the desk a long time before roast bird flies into mouth.
You got to go out and hunt these things down and really be intentional about that. The second thing I would say is that too frequently people focus on too narrow, have somebody who's a great finance director and so they think they should be on a board, but you need to be able to contribute to the wider agenda. So, what else have you done in your career with strategy? Have you led M&A [Mergers and Acquisitions] deals? What have you done that is broader? The reason why CEOs are favored on boards is they have kind of done all, they had responsibility for HR and sales and expansion and all of these things.
So, what breadth do you bring as well as that more detailed experience that you bring to bear. And probably the third thing that I would say is don't be limiting in terms of thinking, well, I've only been on public companies, so therefore I should be on the public board. Private boards have a lot of need for people. I went on one that was private. They were interested in the fact that I had worked with big public companies who was — that's their customer base.
So, they need somebody on the board who understood their customer base and I explained to them, yeah but I don't know a lot about your structure. I learned it and they didn't care because they were looking for something else from me. So, don't limit yourself in terms of thinking, well, I've always been a public bank person, so therefore, I'm going to need to go on a public bank board, definitely not, think broader from that standpoint.
Corson
As we wrap up, Jan, again some rapid-fire questions. Is there one or two quotes that you have that you come back to and help shape your thinking and your career?Babiak
I love quotes. I use them all the time in different things. So, that was a really hard assignment for me, but I guess I was thinking about ones that I use a lot. And one of them I use is I reserve the right to be smarter today than I was yesterday because I think it's very easy, particularly when you're in a leadership position, you're on audit committee for seven years and you're like, they did it that way last year and people are like, oh, we did it that way last year. I'm like, we can get better. We can do better. So, constantly trying to get smarter and to do smarter I think is a really important thing. Another one that I like, it's a long one, but I think it's important.This was George Washington Carver, and that was how far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because at some point in your life you will be all of these. And I think sometimes we're less tolerant. It's been said about me that I don't suffer fools, well, I try to really focus on the fact that there are really no fools and that I need to be more compassionate, tender, because I've been all of those and will be all of those over the course of my life.
Corson
Those are great. I appreciate you sharing those and again, I'm sure you've got a lot more, but that those are two great ones to share. You've obviously and I'm sure had a lot of people influencing your career, mentors responsible along the way, but has there been any particular piece of advice that you've received that has really stood you in good stead?Babiak
On that one, if you don't ask, you don't get is probably important. That doesn't mean that when you do ask, you always get, but if you don't ask, you don't. And there have been many times when somebody would tell me, “Well, you know, they haven't chosen me for this.” I'm like, “Have you told them that's what you're looking for?” So, asking and then being willing to accept rejection and following that up with okay, help me understand what I need to do to achieve that then. So again, kind of that inquisitive nature, but don't accept no for a lack of a question.Corson
You mentioned you're a keen skier and you have this incredibly busy schedule and all these responsibilities. What else do you do to maintain wellbeing and balance?Babiak
I've always worked really long hours, because I love work and get fascinated by the subject and everything like that. But I also love my friends. I've been married for over 40 years to the most wonderful man in the world. He's lovingly referred to as St. Brian by most people. They literally will send me a note saying how St. Brian, he's just a great guy, but I think it's about being intentional. I've already booked the condo for skiing for March 2025. And I know where I'm going to be and what and then I try to hold those times. Now, I am not always successful.I call it work from slope, but I'll get up and I'll work from 5:30 till 8:30, click into my boots, and I'm on that first lift at 9 o’clock. So, I fit the work in around that. I know this is more for women than men, but I don't sit and chat with my hairdresser or my nail technician when I'm getting those done, I walk in, I say, “Hi, how are you? How are the kids? Good,” and then I work. I use time to really good effect.
If I'm in the car, I'm usually running something like there is this outstanding series on sustainability. And they're usually about 20 minutes long, which is a nice car journey and I'll listen to the latest on what's going on, renewable energy or something like that. So, I have found that I'm just very good at using my time, but then very intentional about making sure I make time for my friends, my family and for the things that matter for me.