JLL exec’s new book offers advice to build a career, with purpose (updated)

As she puts it in the introduction to her new book, Caroline Gadaleta is a “wife of one, mom of two, and mentor of many.” In her work, she’s executive managing director/head of tri-state property at JLL where she oversees office property management for New Jersey, New York, Long Island, Westchester and Connecticut. After an ambitious start building her career, she left the corporate world for eight years to raise her young daughters. Following that time off, she returned to the workforce, well – different. It was inevitable, she was older, for starters, but she was also a mother, involved in her community and – she realized – a role model. That shift in perception started her on a course that would change her outlook and lead her to share it with others.  

Gadaleta’s “Feed Your Future: Morsels on Building a Meaningful Career” was published by Inspired Forever Books in 2022. The 130-page  paperback is personal – filled with vignettes from throughout Gadeleta’s life – and that’s the point. It’s also familiar, the stories are relatable and the straightforward writing and calls to action make it feel like she’s speaking just to you. 

About four years ago, Gadaleta was in between roles at JLL. In anticipation of leaving a team she had grown fond of while heading into a challenging assignment, she turned to social media, LinkedIn specifically, and shared a post about her appreciation for the group she was leaving — 20,000 or so views later, she realized she might be on to something.  

“I started to realize that if I posted little inspirational stories on LinkedIn, that not only did it inspire me and make me feel happy, but it was actually resonating with my audience and building a following,” she told NJBIZ. 

Gadaleta said that sharing with others on the public platform served as an outlet for her. “And then when I was in the new role, it really helped to keep me grounded and inspired during that time.” So, she kept writing. 

Though she said several people urged her to compile the vignettes into a book, it wasn’t until someone from her own corporate sphere – a fellow JLL colleague – approached her and said her wife, a publisher, would like to put a compilation out that she decided to pursue the effort. So, the process began in January, all the editing took place through the winter and spring, and “Feed Your Future” was published in June. 

According to the author, it was during that work of compiling and organizing the content for the book that the theme really came to the forefront. “Anybody can build a career, but you want your career to have meaning,” Gadaleta said. “You want it to be something that helps you follow your passions and your dreams. And so that’s the idea – that it’s really intentionally … nourishing it.”  

That message is one that resonates, particularly coming out of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, as people reevaluate their relationships with and to work and the things that they want to get out – and put into – the careers they build.  

When she returned to work in 2010, Gadaleta said she made a conscious decision that she was going to “kill everyone with kindness; that I was going to do it differently.” And it’s working. Successful in her own work, Gadaleta is a mentor to many – a symbiotic relationship, as she describes it – and her book comes across as an extension of that role.

“The mentor-mentee relationship is really a two-way street for me,” she said. “I am always learning from the people that I’m mentoring, and in fact, I can say with full confidence that the exact issues that I am dealing with myself personally or in my career are brought to me by my mentee. It’s almost like the universe forcing me to address whatever the challenges are that I’m facing, because now I have to solve that problem for somebody else.”

That understanding informs and is reflected in her writing, which pulls in examples from experiences – shopping for flowers at the garden supply store, watching a fast-food manager deal carefully and respectfully with an employee – that are relatable no matter your line of work.

She’s also still posting on LinkedIn to followers from the commercial real estate world and beyond – she estimates the breakdown is about half and half – and at work on a second book. About a third of the way through – “so I still have a long way to go,” – her next publication will offer insights on how to survive in the corporate world. 

“[M]y goal in all of this is really just to have an impact. And if I have an impact on, you know, a few people or a few thousand people … I’m not in this to do anything but help people,” she said. “I want to take my lessons learned and make sure that other people learn as well and, and benefit from my experience. I think we should all do that, frankly.” 

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 2:53 p.m. ET on Oct. 21, 2022, to include Connecticut in the list of regions overseen by Caroline Gadaleta.