About
Our Story...
WellSort (formerly Balanced Card Sorts) was founded when career and mental health counselor, Anush Hansen, noticed her counseling clients struggling to articulate what specific factors in their careers and personal lives were leading to their stress, anxiety, burnout, and lack of balance.
While many clients expressed their need for better work-life balance, it became clear that “balance” means very different things to different people, depending on their professional and personal priorities, values, responsibilities, and circumstances.
The Work-Life Balance Assessment (our original card sort) came to life in 2020 when work and life as we knew it came to a screeching halt due to Covid-19. In a time where the world of work, family, health, and balance had been completely flipped on its head, it seemed there was no better time to dive into creating a tool to help as many people as possible sort out what they want and need to feel happy, healthy, fulfilled, and more balanced.
Anush set out to create a simple and holistic resource, grounded in the Eight Dimensions of Wellbeing, to help people clarify and untangle these factors, identify their career and life priorities, and develop goals and a concrete plan for improving how they feel and function in their day-to-day lives. This is where the inspiration for our first card sort tool, the Work-Life Balance Assessment originated.
With the help of a committed team, WellSort has since developed three additional card sort solutions:
- The Holistic Wellbeing Deck, which helps adults clarify and articulate their holistic wellbeing priorities and take small, manageable steps toward balance and wellbeing.
- The Student Wellbeing Deck, which helps adolescents and young adults identify their priorities, needs, and goals when it comes to their mental health and wellbeing.
- The Career Values Deck, which helps anyone age 14+ identify their career and work-life balance values and align career decisions with what's most important to them in work and life.
Meet Our Founders
The WellSort team is passionately dedicated to sharing our tools with adolescents, young adults, and adults to help them clarify, communicate and build what they want and need into their lives to find better work-life balance, health, and wellbeing.
Anush Hansen, Founder & Chief Product Officer
Hi there! I'm a Licensed Professional Counselor, Certified Career Counselor, former epidemiologist and public health researcher, and Founder of WellSort (formerly Balanced Card Sorts). I'll be the first to admit that I have a near-obsession with connecting people to resources that allow them to lead healthy, happy, fulfilling lives.
I own a holistic career and wellness counseling practice in Kennebunk, Maine where I support clients in finding meaningful, fulfilling work that also allows them to take care of themselves and pay attention to the other parts of their lives that matter most to them.
Prior to opening my private counseling practice in 2019, I worked for nearly 20 years in higher education, first as a public health and health promotion researcher at the University of Vermont and the University of Southern Maine, and later as a mental health counselor and wellness educator at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and the University of New Hampshire.
I hold a Master's in Public Health and a Master's in Counseling Psychology. The combination of my training and experience in mental health counseling, wellness education, career development, health promotion, and public health is what fuels my commitment to using a holistic, wellness-centered approach with clients, and helped to shape the development of the WellSort platform.
I live in in Maine with my husband, two children, a very energetic chocolate lab/Aussie mix, and two extremely fluffy cats. Outside of doing work that I love with colleagues I genuinely adore, I enjoy exploring Maine with my family, taking advantage of our beautiful local beaches, "gardening" (mostly just moving plants around until they're happy), getting cozy in front of the woodstove with a great book, and perfecting my favorite home-made soup and pizza recipes.
Tim Seavey, Co-Founder & CEO
Hello! I couldn’t be more excited to lead the WellSort team, alongside Anush, in bringing our meaningful, practical solutions to thousands of students, employees, and others who want to "sort out what matters most" to them in school, work, and life. People of all ages and backgrounds have had it pretty hard in recent years, struggling to take care of their mental health and wellbeing, so it’s a special privilege for all of us at WellSort to help in such an important way.
My interest in people, mental health, and wellbeing started as a psychology student in college. It further evolved through my career in employee benefits, where I've developed a passion for bringing real solutions to life's challenges - helping people recover, cope, and find new direction when it's needed most. I've been lucky enough to live and work in several countries, experiencing fascinating diversity in business practices and cultural norms, but also affirming my belief that at our core, we're more similar than we are different…we all want to be healthy and happy. Since leaving my corporate career, I've been having fun growing some small companies and startups with people I really like in the areas of disability management and technology, and serving on several non-profit boards.
I grew up in VT, a small state with an outsized impact on how people think about the world around them. But, Maine has been our home-base for most of the last 30 years and we love it here. I live with my artist wife, two college-aged daughters, and several pets in Portland, and when we're not coordinating transportation to school and summer jobs, you'll likely find us outside walking, skiing, and visiting local breweries. Cheers!