We asked Katie Rippel to share some of her insight from her career at Anheuser-Busch, where she started work as an intern in 2001. Rippel started as brewing front-line supervisor, steadily working her way up the ranks in a heavily male-dominated profession.

Rippel has incredible insight from her career. We asked her to share thoughts for people starting out in the workforce who are relatively early in their career.

This is part 3 in a three-part series. You can check out part 1 and part 2.

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What does work/life balance mean to you? Talk about your own approach to work/life balance and how you keep yourself centered, particularly with the amount of travel you do.

I’ve heard people talk about work / life balance in this way: there are people who live to work and people who work to live — and neither is wrong. Personally, I’m very happy with living to work. I’m the kind of person who checks my email as soon as I wake up. Managing my inbox is how I manage my stress.

There are two important things. First, figure out what work / life balance means for you. Second, be cognizant of what it means for other people. It’s very personal what work / life balance means to you. No one is wrong; it’s what you think it should be.

When I was brewmaster in Ft. Collins I would explain to my team, “Look, it will seem like I’m on my email 24/7. But if I’m sending something late at night, I’m not expecting you to respond immediately.” I would write, “Don’t respond until the morning” so I could drive home that I’m serious about not expecting an immediate response.

What advice would you give to yourself as you graduated from Purdue?

I would tell myself to balance it out better. If I had to do it over again, I would make most of the same decisions. I’ve put in a lot of sweat equity. I’m definitely proud of that and I don’t feel I’ve gotten anything for being female or any other reason. I’ve had to work for where I am. As far as what I would change, I would just tweak the balance along the way.

Turning off on weekends and evenings, picking up different hobbies and expanding them, it wouldn’t be some kind of giant pendulum shift but small changes like that earlier on my path.

Any final advice for people starting off on the careers, or considering whether or not they’re on the right path?

Are you able to get up when your alarm clock goes off and do that over and over and over? That’s the most important question. Past that: Do you like what that company does or makes? Does that company’s principles align with yours? Do you like where they operate? Are they in parts of the world where you’d like to live? What’s the potential for your career track?

If you’re not happy in that first question and you’re answering that it’s not easy to get up, you’ve got to research more for the next job, and the next companies you look at.