We were lucky to catch up with Anais Wittrock-Roske recently and have shared our conversation below.

Anais, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

My mother and I immigrated from Ukraine when I was young, and our household was a mix of American politeness and Ukrainian directness. This verbal juxtaposition from different cultures taught me much about the importance of tone, rightful expression, and most importantly, perseverance.

My mother’s favorite saying is: “What do you mean no?”. This statement is one of the many great teachings of my mother. When someone said no to her or got in the way of her goals, she would always find another person to say yes and keep moving forward to achieve her goals. My parents always taught me to never give up, to keep moving forward with resiliency, and to believe in myself and my abilities.

Parents need to make their children feel like they are in control of the outcome, and the first step is for people to learn how to believe in themselves and be committed to what they are trying to accomplish.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hello! My name is Anaïs, I am a nurse turned user experience (UX) designer, but I mostly like to call myself a public servant.

All of my career and life have been about giving back to the world with the skills and knowledge that I have. That is really what inspires me and makes me happy.

I started my journey to help others in the medical field as a nurse. I’ve done anything and everything from emergency/trauma nursing, to intensive care, and finished my career in sports medicine leading some of the most amazing professionals in the healthcare space. On the side, I had my own jewelry business and did creative UX work. Albeit I loved medicine, and especially my patients, I wanted to serve differently. So, I transitioned to being a full-time UX designer.

Now I work at Optum Behavioral Health, creating systems, and digital products that help people get back to living life and giving them the tools at their fingertips to get resources for mental health. This is important work. My team and I are digital soldiers helping break down barriers for people to get care, fight against the stigma that people may face, and create intuitive online spaces for our members to obtain the resources they need to succeed.

We may never get to meet our customers in person, but I truly believe that we are saving lives, one small pixel and change at a time. It is truly an honor and a privilege to be helping people in this way.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The driving force behind my creative journey is to help people. I believe that everyone has different talents and skills and we owe it to our communities and the world to share our talents for good.

Success is a long, and sometimes grueling road. So, external factors such as income, recognition, or selfish reasons can only take you so far. There needs to be something greater than yourself to keep moving forward, to give you purpose and that “fire” that keeps you going when times get tough.

When your work is no longer about you, and someone else is depending on you to succeed, that is when you become unstoppable!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I have a couple of stories that required great personal resilience, but today, let’s talk about micro-resilience.

We all hear great stories of someone having a tough situation that they had to overcome and how resilient they were, but rarely do we discuss miro-resilience and it’s a powerful impact on the success of your life.

Every day we face challenges: you are stressed about work, someone took credit for your idea, your coffee maker broke, there is an expense that is way beyond what your paycheck provides, and your toddler is out of control … What do you do? How do you show resilience to these tiny occurrences in life?

I believe that the way we approach the little things is how we know how we will handle the big things. How we respond to the little things also builds our character.

So, throughout my journey, I showed resilience by letting go and giving grace to people who showed hostility, I focused on the bigger picture, I got my gratitude journal out and remembered the good things, I took care of myself and set boundaries, and I let myself rest.