Catherine Dalipe, Designing Your Life Consulting

“Introduce yourself in three words or phrases Cross-cultural connector, resilient in transition, designing what’s next What makes you get up in the morning? The sound of the ocean helps. Living near the coast means I often wake up to waves and a morning chorus of birds, which turns out to be a pretty good daily reminder that perspective is free, if you pay attention. Beyond that, I’m motivated by building things that outlast me. Programs, teams, and now frameworks that help people design more intentional lives. At this stage of my career, success feels less about achievement and more about alignment: doing work that reflects who you truly are, where your voice and strengths have room to matter, and where the work itself brings you joy. Describe a project or initiative you’re currently working on that excites you. There are themes I keep seeing in my work right now, and it never gets old. An experienced professional, someone with decades of expertise, walks in believing they’re stuck, but then they walk out with a prototype and open themselves to possibilities. After 30+ years working in international education, I understand that feeling intimately. I’ve lived the career pivots, the moments of doubt, the question of what’s next ? That experience is exactly what drew me to working at the intersection of leadership and life design, drawing on the principles from Designing Your Life to help people reframe career decisions as design challenges rather than crises. The framework is powerful because it meets people where they are. Not with answers, but with better questions. What’s a piece of work or a decision you’re proud of, and what did it teach you about yourself? The work I’m most proud of didn’t come with a ribbon-cutting moment. It came quietly, a few years into building a North American division for a summer school operation. When I looked around at the team we’d assembled, I thought, this is it! This is what right looks like! Getting there wasn’t seamless. There was ambiguity, restructuring, and more than a few wrong turns in the hiring process. But when the right people were finally in the right seats, something shifted. The numbers followed: profitability, high customer return rates, seasonal staff who came back year after year. People who wanted to return. That’s the real metric. This taught me that people don’t resist change – they resist unclear change. My job wasn’t just about strategy but to bring clarity. Making sure everyone understood not just what we were building, but why it mattered and that I had their back while we built it. What’s a small daily habit or practice that keeps you grounded — and why does it matter more than people think? Making my bed. Every morning, without exception. It sounds so simple and that’s exactly the point. Admiral William H. McRaven said it best in his 2014 commencement address at the University of Texas: “If you want to change the world, start by making your bed. One small task completed gives you a sense of pride, encourages the next, and the next. By the end of the day, that one habit has quietly multiplied.” That idea has never left me. My version adds warm lemon water in the morning. Bed made, lemon water in hand. Here’s what I’ve come to believe: the little things are never really little. They’re a practice that is embedded. If you can’t get the small things right consistently, the big things will always feel harder than they need to be. It’s not glamorous advice. But in my experience, it’s the unglamorous habits that do the heaviest lifting. What idea, book, podcast or conversation has stayed with you recently? If you haven’t listened to the recent Mel Robbins podcast episode with Bill Burnett and Dave Evans — How to Design Your Life in One Hour — stop what you’re doing! It distills the core principles of their two books, Designing Your Life and their recently released, How to Live a Meaningful Life , into a single accessible conversation that has the potential to genuinely shift how you see your career and your life. I’ll admit I’m not an unbiased recommender. This work is the foundation of what I do now. But that’s exactly why I can say with confidence: these ideas work. I’ve seen it in others, and I’m living it myself. What’s the greatest gift international education gave you, and do you think you could have found it anywhere else? Perspective! And it started before my career did. I studied abroad in Spain in the 1980s just years after the end of Franco’s dictatorship. The country was in the middle of a remarkable, complicated reopening to the world. Being there as a young person, witnessing that transition firsthand, planted something in me that never left. It taught me early that history is alive, that context shapes everything, and that showing up somewhere with humility and curiosity is not just good manners – it’s essential. That experience set the course. Three decades in international education deepened it. Working across cultures, time zones, and systems taught me that complexity is normal, not exceptional. That my way is never the only way. And that curiosity isn’t just a personality trait, it’s a leadership competency. The people shaped me most. International education attracts builders, bridge-makers, and people who are genuinely driven by possibility. Being surrounded by that energy for thirty years leaves a mark. Could I have found this anywhere else? I don’t think so. Not in this combination. Not with this intensity. Even as my work has evolved, that worldview travels with me. The global lens doesn’t turn off. It informs how I think about transition, about growth, about what it means to help someone find their footing in unfamiliar territory – professionally or otherwise. What did you think a career in international education would look like, and how wrong were you? I thought I’d have one job for life. It started with EF Education , the first company I worked at. As it turned out, it was a seventeen-year education in itself. EF had a culture unlike anything I’d encountered: bold, restless, genuinely global, and driven by a belief that nothing is impossible. Work hard, play hard and EF meant every word of it. That energy got into my bloodstream early and never left. It set the bar for what a high-performing, purpose-driven organisation could feel like, and I’ve been chasing that standard ever since. I assumed the path was linear. That if you worked hard and delivered, the story kept going in one direction. And then it didn’t. What followed was something I never would have scripted. A career winding through Study Group /Embassy English, Amerigo Education , Sannam S4 , and EC English . Different organisations, different challenges, different versions of me. Looking back, that variety was an education in itself. The pandemic humbled me further. Laid off multiple times. Humbling doesn’t quite cover it, but humbling, it turns out, is extraordinarily useful. Each ending forced a reckoning with what I actually wanted, what I was good at, and what work felt worth doing. What looked like disruption was, every time, an invitation. I didn’t plan to end up where I am now. But I’m not sure I could have gotten here any other way. The post Catherine Dalipe, Designing Your Life Consulting appeared first on The PIE News .

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