THE FIERCE ADVOCATE AND THE POOR PRACTITIONER: A LESSON IN SELF-CARE
by Jon-Michael Hice, MPA
There is a contradiction I have carried throughout much of my professional career: I am a fierce advocate for self-care and one of its poorest practitioners.
In social services, the work can follow us home. We remember the family facing eviction, the veteran awaiting housing, or the problem we could not solve before the end of the day. Yet this challenge is hardly exclusive to our field. Teachers, healthcare professionals, managers, business owners, and parents all carry responsibilities that do not disappear when the workday ends.
How do we remain committed to others without losing sight of ourselves?
An Interview That Became a Lesson
Several years ago, I interviewed a candidate for a case management position who had completed the educational requirements for her Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) credential. We discussed the emotional demands of the profession, professional boundaries, and self-care. I asked her a familiar interview question: “What do you do for self-care?”
She offered a thoughtful answer. Then she turned the question around: “What do you do for self-care?”
Instead of delivering a polished leadership response, I told her the truth: “I’m a fierce advocate for self-care, but I’m probably one of its poorest practitioners.”
She responded with a recommendation I did not expect during a job interview: “You should get a dog.”
She explained that when I came home, a dog would greet me with unrestrained excitement, entirely unconcerned with the meetings, deadlines, or difficult decisions of the day. That welcome would create an immediate break from work. A dog would offer companionship without judgment and a reason to be present outside my professional role.
Then she made a point that stayed with me: even on a day when I did not want to get out of bed, my dog would still need to go outside. Caring for another living being would get me moving, into the fresh air, and engaged with the day.
It was practical, uncomplicated advice. And I acted on it.
A Full-Circle Moment Named Bentley
That conversation started my search for a dog, which eventually led me to the Wallis Annenberg PetSpace in Playa Vista, California.
The connection was remarkable. Earlier in my career at the Annenberg Foundation, The PetSpace had been one of the final projects I worked on. I had known it through the lens of philanthropy and community investment: an effort to strengthen the bond between people and animals. I had not imagined that I would one day experience that mission so personally.
That is where I adopted Bentley.
Bentley has become a living reminder of the candidate’s advice. His excitement when I arrive home has nothing to do with my job title, the size of a budget, or whether I resolved every challenge that day. He is simply glad I am there. His routines draw me into the present, and his companionship gives me something that cannot be measured in a performance report.
A project I helped advance professionally ultimately became part of my own well-being. Sometimes the impact of community investment finds its way back to us in ways we never anticipated.
Finding the Space Between Work and Home
Bentley helps me reconnect with home. I have also developed a practice that helps me disconnect from work before I get there.
For the past couple of years, I have regularly stopped at a Habitat for Humanity ReStore, a thrift store specializing in furniture, household goods, and building materials. I spend 30 to 45 minutes wandering the aisles and browsing the changing inventory. There is no agenda, no deadline, and no expectation that I accomplish anything.
The staff know me, understand the work I do, and recognize that these visits help me wind down. They are cheerful and welcoming. Our connection has even created opportunities to identify household resources for clients. But the purpose of my visits remains simple: to give myself time to decompress before going home.
Recently, my niece shared something I had long forgotten. My mother, who taught alternative education, used to stop at a local thrift store after work for years. She had explained that it helped her de-escalate after a demanding day before returning home.
Without knowing it, I had developed a version of the same ritual. Her experience reminded me that self-care need not be elaborate or expensive. Sometimes it is a familiar place, a friendly greeting, and a little unstructured time that belongs to us.
A Responsibility Shared by People and Organizations
For years, I treated self-care as another task I ought to add to an already crowded schedule. These experiences taught me to look at it differently. Self-care can be built into ordinary routines that create a boundary between what we do and who we are.
That does not mean a dog or a thrift-store visit will solve burnout. Nor should self-care become another demand placed on employees while organizations ignore excessive workloads, inadequate staffing, or a culture that rewards constant availability.
Leaders have a responsibility to make healthy boundaries possible. We cannot tell employees to take time off while praising those who never disconnect. We cannot speak about well-being while treating exhaustion as proof of commitment. Sustainable service requires both personal habits and organizational accountability.
I remain a work in progress. I still think about work when I should be disconnected, and I still struggle at times to practice what I advocate. But I have learned to recognize the restorative value of what is already part of my life—and to protect that time rather than dismiss it.
So I return to the question that candidate asked me: What do you actually do for self-care? Not what you recommend to others or plan to do someday. What do you do now?
Our well-being matters not only because it helps us serve others, but because it has value on its own. Sometimes caring for ourselves begins with a small, deliberate pause on the way home. And sometimes it is waiting at the door, wagging its tail.
