Toni Reece: Hi there. I’m Toni Reece, and welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living Magazine. Today I have Kristi Gage with me. Welcome.
Kristi Gage-Linderman: Thank you so much. Glad to be here.
Toni: Absolutely. Kristi, welcome to the Project. Tell us just a little bit about yourself.
Kristi: Sure. I’m Kristi Gage-Linderman. I am currently COO of Gage Personnel. We’re a local staffing and recruiting firm. My grandmother started our company in 1985, so I’m proud to be the third generation of leadership in our company. I’m also serving on several boards, and I’m currently the chair of the Berks County Workforce Development Board as well.
Toni: Oh my goodness. You’ve got a lot going on.
Kristi: Sure do.
Toni: Let’s go into the Project. What does inspiration mean to you?
Kristi: Inspiration to me means that you’re able to inspire others through what you do on a day-to-day basis, whether it’s through your work or through your personal impact on the community, or your friends and your family. I’m inspired by people that follow their dreams, that create goals, and just have something that they want to accomplish every day, no matter how big or how small. It’s just great to be inspired and inspire others to do more.
Toni: Do you know when you’re inspired?
Kristi: Yes. I would say that to know that you’re inspired, even on the little things, it’s certainly something that people should stop and recognize—the small things and the big things.
Toni: So, when you’re inspired, do you feel it in your gut? Do you go, “Oh, oh! That’s pretty cool!”? How does that happen for you?
Kristi: I would say it’s definitely a gut. It’s something that I do a lot of notetaking. I started journaling. If there’s something that stands out to me, I’ll write it down, and I’ll give it some more thought. I do a lot of nighttime reading, sending myself notes in the middle of the night of something that I thought of earlier in the day that had an impact on me; things that I can bring into our business to encourage our staff to want to be more and do more. Absolutely, there’s things day by day of individuals that inspire me that probably don’t even realize that they do.
Toni: It sounds to me like impact also means progress; people are who doing something to advance progress, or progress a cause of some sort.
Kristi: Absolutely. Yeah. I would say progressing different causes, following your gut on something that you know may have an impact on somebody else, or an organization or your community. It’s absolutely progress in every sense of the word. Inspiring others again to be more and do more I think is just so important.
Toni: How do you take that definition of inspiration for you and put that into practice here in Berks County?
Kristi: I put some thought into this for Berks County Living magazine a couple of weeks ago. I ended up jotting down notes and rewriting a quote that meant something to me that I knew might inspire others. I just want to take a minute to read it to you and your listeners.
“Never stop learning. Stay motivated and become the best in your field. Don’t overthink. Learn by doing, and trust your abilities. Keep things in perspective. Follow your instincts, and recognize your strengths along the way, and know that at least for right now you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”
That’s something that I knew that I needed to hear. I couldn’t find it anywhere. No one was telling me that, so it’s something that I wanted to write and something that I could then share and hopefully impact others and inspire others to know that no matter what they’re doing right now, it’s for a reason, and they’re making a difference.
Toni: Do you feel that now?
Kristi: I do. I’m a new mom, so a lot has changed for me within the past year. Lots of changes, and I definitely think that I found my spark. I’m excited, and I want to share that with other people. It doesn’t mean that we have to move mountains tomorrow, but it means that just by sharing our message and inspiring others, again, to do more, be more, even think more about what they’re doing today and how it impacts those around them, I think it’s really important to keep sharing that message.
Toni: Sharing that message from your personal perspective is really just one example of how you are putting inspiration into practice here in Berks County, correct?
Kristi: Absolutely. That’s just one way. Absolutely.
Toni: Are there other ways that you take an inspired action and put it into practice in Berks County?
Kristi: I feel very lucky that I have the opportunity to put a lot into practice through my business. I work with a fantastic team of people, managers, and recruiters. We’re all thinking of what we can do next. What we do impacts the lives of others. At the end of the day, we’re recruiting. We’re finding people jobs, and we’re educating companies in the area about what we’re seeing in the market. Everything that we do today, we can create it. We can change it as early as tomorrow. New initiatives, new ideas, new ways of thinking. We’re absolutely seeing the results.
Toni: There’s a lot of inspiration that can happen in that space.
Kristi: Working with people. I mean, that’s what we do all day, every day, and we love it. If we didn’t love it, we wouldn’t be doing it. Being around that type of creative energy really inspires me.
Toni: Who in Berks County inspires you?
Kristi: There are a lot of people in Berks County that inspire me. The first person that comes to mind I’ll say would be my mom. She worked her whole life in the business, since 1985. She showed how she could be a working mom running a business, an entrepreneur, being able to give back to the community. She still tells stories of the folks that she found jobs for, and those folks are still telling me the same story. It’s just really nice to see how the legacy has evolved, and just knowing that what we’re doing makes a difference, and seeing that you can hold a full-time job, be a mom, and impact others’ lives.
Toni: What a great testimonial for your mother.
Kristi: I hope she hears this.
Toni: Anybody else in Berks County you want to talk about that inspires you?
Kristi: I would love to sit here and list all the names of folks that inspire me. This is going to make me go back and perhaps make a list of folks that I can personally thank that have impacted me along the way. Even just seeing the people that are winning awards in our community just for stepping up and doing something different for the community; giving back—it’s those people that are selfless and volunteering their time, their energy, their resources. Those folks that are constantly thinking of new ways to build our community. Those are the people that really inspire me.
Toni: What would you like your legacy to be?
Kristi: I would love for people to look back and say, “Wow, Kristi was really just a very kind person. She wanted the best for everybody. She did her best in everything that she did, and at the end of the day, she impacted our community.”
Toni: That’s fantastic. I cannot thank you enough for showing up for the Get Inspired! Project and for doing what you do.
Kristi: Thank you so much.
