Uncomfortable and unreasonable. Those are my strengths.

2016. And I am amazed that I stopped blogging about all things dental pretty much as soon as I started my role with Philips. I must have got comfortable.

I guess it was the focus on one portfolio and brand, and the constrictions that come with that.

I had no idea what I was getting into in 2011. For starters, the company officially announced the Discus acquisition weeks after I started. And so I grew by learning about chemical interactions with the tooth structure and whitening products.

Then I grew my knowledge of governing and legislation in 2012 when the EU 6% law came in to affect. That period was uncomfortable and Safetoothwhitening.org is the product of that growth and I am proud of what it has achieved. Being unreasonable, and working with a team who were also unreasonable, delivered a new product in record time.

2013 and the growth here was a painful lesson that sometimes businesses have to make hard cuts to grow and we lost all of our education funding for our student programmes. As a manger the growth this year was not an easy one. From that pain came the decision to be unreasonable and not give up our website and this has now grown to having over 11000 dental members.

2014 saw my growth as a marketeer, owning the running of the business, it's budget, forecasts and strategy, resetting from the painful cuts to start to regrow in a healthier way. My growth was learning how working in an unhealthy way can impact your family. Not my finest hour. No one needs to be on 24 hours. And it makes you a boring person too.

2015 saw me grow in my understanding of a business on a European and Global level, the painful growth of running Europerio 8 as a Global activity has been valuable. Being unreasonable and working outside my remit with our research team brought valuable insight and allowed us to launch a new product in the most successful way yet. Breaking my arm in August has taught me growth is required in all areas to maintain a balance as a person, and also not to take my health for granted.

And my whole experience at Philips, which is a positive one, taught me you need to be unreasonable to drive change. And that comfortable people do not like you doing it. But I believe there is a way to do it to achieve results when you need others to support your change. It took time and a lot of one to one conversations and interpretations. And that was almost always uncomfortable for me.

And so back to 2016. And a blank page for me. It is daunting to say the least. But I am reminded that painful growth and the discomfort I am experiencing at not knowing my future just yet are exactly what I need.

I got too comfortable, too safe and too set in my mindset. Too willing to settle. A great quote a good friend used today - "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw.

And so I will play to my strengths and embrace the discomfort, and be the unreasonable voice and see what it to come.