40 Years In, I Walked Away. Then the Road Started to Wind.

For 40 years, Bernie Borges built a career in B2B marketing, including nearly two decades running his own agency. Then he walked away. Burned out and unfulfilled, he started researching fulfillment, published a report on it, and identified the five areas where we all seek fulfillment: health, fitness, career, relationships, and legacy.

In this first of two solo episodes, Bernie shares how that research became his encore career. In 2023, while partnering with the Inspired Leadership Initiative at the University of Notre Dame, he presented his hypothesis for Fulfillment-Centric Leadership to a room of alumni and faculty. After working through their hard questions, he heard a clear message: go for it. He launched Fulfilled@Work Academy in 2025 and took the framework to any stage he could find.

Then the road started to wind. Audiences asked him to apply the framework to AI adoption, which became the Human Dividend program. A client asked for a version focused on personal growth, which became Leading Self, Leading Others, and Leading Through Change. Bernie walks through that program and the self-awareness thread running through all three parts: why most of us misjudge ourselves, how neuroplasticity shapes the pathways we run in every room, why recognizing low and medium complexity work matters, and how to avoid the three silence traps during change.

He closes with the twist he didn’t see coming, a new application of self-awareness that’s the focus of Part 2 next week.