The Worth at Work book is finally here. Before we point you to where to find it, here’s where it came from, because the idea behind it is a good deal older than the title.

How I Got Here

I’ve spent about thirty years helping people, first as a counselor, then building award-winning wellness and health-education programs at universities across the country, then as a professional speaker and author. Along the way, my love for the magic of Disney led me to take a part-time job as a greeter at the Grand Floridian Resort and Spa, working on the front lines of hospitality. The settings could not have been more different, and yet the same lesson kept showing up.  Every person has their own experience, and when you engage at an authentic level, you can bring peace, joy, and magic to the people you come in contact with.

The trick to the magic though is keeping yourself replenished, healthy, and aware. Someone who feels depleted and unseen has very little left to give, no matter how good the training is.  Someone who feels steady and valued brings a warmth no checklist can manufacture. The same holds for the entire team. A group that feels supported has more to offer than a group that’s quietly running on empty, even when both know every step by heart.

What the Book Is Actually About

The Worth at Work book is not another customer service manual full of scripts and procedures. The premise is more simple and, in my experience, far more durable: when people feel valued, supported, and steady from the inside out, exceptional service follows on its own.

What’s Inside

We build that case across the whole arc of a working life. The book looks at the voice in your head and how it either steadies you or wears you down across a long shift. From there we get into energy, why it drains, and what genuinely fills it back up. Psychological safety gets its own chapters, because real safety is what holds a team together when the lobby is full and three things go sideways at once. And a good portion of the book speaks directly to leaders, since they shape the conditions where any of this becomes possible.

Why Now

Part of why this book exists now is simple. After every shift in society, the old way of doing things stops working, and the people inside the system need something new that matches the current environment.. We’re in one of those situations now. We learned through COVID that people want connection. They want to be seen and heard, on both sides of the front desk, and the training built for an earlier era isn’t working. Just look at retention numbers to see this is true.

Scripts and training manuals have been the industry’s answer for a long time, and the exhaustion numbers tell us how well this is working. This turning point is significant and it hands leaders and teams a good deal more influence over the day than they may realize. If you followed our recent piece on why the inside-out approach works, some of this will feel familiar. The book is where all of these ideas come together in one place, with room to explore each one in full.

My Co-Author

I didn’t write this alone. My co-author, Kat Nisson, spent more than two decades in public service, leading teams in libraries and nonprofits, so she knows what frontline work asks of people and what it quietly costs them. Most of what she does happens behind the scenes, building the systems, scripts, and frameworks that bring exceptional service and humanity together. The people she cares about most are the ones doing hard, public-facing work who deserve to feel that they matter. She has seen first hand how important it is for the people behind the scenes to feel heard and seen.

Who It’s For

This book is for any service professional who has ever felt more like a robot than a person, and for the leaders who look at their team and know there’s more there than the current setup lets them show, but they’re not sure how to make that happen. Organizations worn out from watching good people walk out the door will find something here too, something steadier than another round of training. My hope is you come away with a clearer sense of what’s in your control on a hard day, and a few real ways to give your team more of what helps them stay and thrive.

Your worth was never meant to ride on satisfaction scores or a flawless review. It’s already yours. When people get to work from that truth, they create moments no procedure could ever produce.

An Early Look, Just for Subscribers

Because you’ve been reading along with us, we want to share something with you: a free preview of the book’s opening. It includes our “Why This Book, Why Now” note and the full introduction, which follows a concierge named Maria through one late shift that could have gone a very different way. You can read it here.

Where to Find It

Worth at Work: An Inside-Out Approach to Confident Teams and Exceptional Service fully launches June 30, 2026. The paperback is $19.99, with the ebook coming soon. You can order it right now on Amazon here. Volume pricing is available for teams and bulk orders through Press 49.

We’re glad you’re here for the launch, and we’d love to hear what the book stirs up for you once you’ve read it!