At a recent Women’s Health Leadership TRUST event hosted by the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business, Christopher Wong Michaelson invited us to sit with a deceptively simple question:
It is a question that feels especially relevant in health care, where mission and metrics often coexist. Many of us entered this field to make a difference. Yet meaningful work can also be complex, demanding and, at times, difficult to sustain.
One important reminder from the evening was that a calling is not always the “highest” or only worthy version of work. A job can provide stability and space to pursue meaning elsewhere. A career can build mastery, influence and opportunity. A calling can bring deep purpose, but it can also require real sacrifice.
Meaningful work can take different forms across different seasons of life, which is why the job-career-calling framework resonated. It creates space to reflect honestly on where we are today, what gives our work purpose and how that sense of meaning may evolve over time.
That theme connected beautifully to the wisdom Jean Rivet shared in her “Rivetisms,” — practical leadership lessons that speak directly to meaningful work no matter the season we are in — at the 2026 TRUST Forum: trust your instincts, assume positive intent, pay it forward, be present, execute flawlessly and remember that you cast a shadow every day.
As we move into this next month, I invite you to pause and ask yourself: Is my work functioning as a job, a career, a calling, or some combination of all three? Where am I finding meaning? Where might I need to redefine it?
I hope you will continue the conversation through upcoming TRUST opportunities. On June 16, join our Book Club Live Virtual Discussion with Bree Bacon on Your Elite Energy, focused on sustaining energy, performance and well-being. On June 19, join Making the Shift: Selling Your Expertise as a Consultant or Contractor, facilitated by Mary Jacobs, MA, to explore how meaningful work may evolve through consulting, entrepreneurship and confident self-positioning. And this summer, make time for connection through the TRUST Boat Cruise.
Meaningful work is not something we discover once and hold forever. It is something we revisit, renew, sustain and sometimes reclaim together.
Holly Scholl serves as the 2026 TRUST President and is the Director of Strategic Alliance Management for Omada Health, where she oversees strategic health plan partnerships to help their members reduce the prevalence of chronic diseases, improve outcomes and lower overall health-care spend. Throughout her 20+ year career, Holly has held a series of leadership and account management roles at prominent health care organizations, including serving as Senior Director for Population Health Sustainability at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, a Customer Success Executive at Zipnosis and a Strategic Account Director at Solera Health. In these roles, she partnered with health care organizations to develop strategies that improve health outcomes, drive sustainable health solutions and streamline access to care. Holly is a long-standing member of the TRUST, having served on the Sponsorship and Programming Committees as well as Chair for the Associate Board.