Two decades of coaching leaders and developing myself as a leader have taught me a key lesson: Leadership isnt a destination. Just when you think youve reached the top of the mountain, look upyoull see another peak waiting.
The truth is, theres no secret sauce for leading yourself or others. Leadership is an ever-evolving process of learning and growing. The best leaders never stop evolving.
Here are four lessons every great leader eventually learns.
1. Humility is a strength
Humility is often mistaken for weakness. In one survey, more than half of fifth and sixth graders described humility as embarrassed, sad, or shy. Adults often confuse it with humiliation.
But groundbreaking research tells a different story. Bradley Owens and David Hekman found that humble leaders dont assume success is guaranteed. They test their progress, revise plans, and seek feedback. They empower others to take initiative and celebrate team wins over personal credit.
Far from soft, humility gives leaders flexibility and strength. They avoid reacting from ego or abusing power, and instead lead from integrity, self-control, and emotional intelligence.
2. Great leaders learn from others
Strong leaders know they dont know it all. They constantly seek wisdom from others and expand their perspective beyond their own experience.
Remember the saying: If youre the smartest person in the room, youre in the wrong room.
The best leaders deliberately put themselves in spaces where they can learn, grow, and connect with people further down the path. They remain lifelong students.
3. Patience gives you an edge
Patience doesnt always get attention and it wont make any headlines, but its one of leaderships most underrated strengths. (I cover patience extensively in my new book.)
Research shows that patient people make more progress toward tough goals, feel more satisfied when they achieve them, and experience less stress and depression.
Impatient leaders tend to jump to conclusions and act impulsively. Patient leaders, by contrast, are steady and rational. In conflict, they listen first, respond calmly, and diffuse tension. That kind of presence builds trust and resilience in teams.
4. Self-awareness is nonnegotiable
In a study reported by Harvard Business Review, teams with less self-aware team members made worse decisions, coordinated poorly, and struggled with conflict compared with teams led by self-aware individuals.
Self-awareness is the foundation of emotional intelligence. Leaders who cultivate it see the bigger picture, regulate emotions, and empathize with others. As emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman put it:
If your emotional abilities arent in hand, if you dont have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you cant have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.
In closing, remember: Leadership is about committing to the climb. And heres the real test: You dont prove your leadership on the easy days when everything goes smoothly. You prove it in the moments when your patience is tested, your humility is questioned, and your self-awareness is the difference between escalating a conflict or inspiring a breakthrough.
Keep climbing. Keep growing. The best leaders arent defined by the peak theyve reached, but by their willingness to take the next step.
Marcel Schwantes
This article originally appeared on Fast Company’s sister publication, Inc.
Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
On a recent flight, I watched a woman try to sneak an oversize briefcase and suitcase onto the plane. When challenged, she waved her boarding pass at the gate agent and declared, Do you see what that says? pointing to her top-tier status. That means I get to do what I want.
Her sense of entitlement was staggering, but familiar. Leaders of organizational transformation, such as major digital/data analytical capability overhauls, or launching a new set off offerings across the globe, often cling to equally delusional rationalizations. And just like that traveler, their self-justifications backfire.
The odds of transformation success are already dismal: 70% to 80% of efforts fail. While external forces can derail even the best-laid plans, more often its leaders self-inflicted fallacies that undo their own initiatives. Ive identified five particularly destructive fallacies that appear again and again. Recognizing them is the first step. Choosing better responses is the only way through.
1. The Myth of the Mandate: Repeating Yesterdays Wins
Justification: Ive done this before, and I was hired to do it again.Reality: Past victories offer wisdom, not formulas.
Many leaders believe their résumé is a ready-made solution. They assume that because a strategy, campaign, or turnaround worked once, it should work again. A consumer-products executive I advised had saved a skincare brand with a precise campaign. When he joined a tech firm, he tried to cut-and-paste the same formula. The market, customer base, and competitors were different, and the approach failed miserably.
The danger of this fallacy is that it hides behind genuine strength. Leaders should use their experience, but if they impose it as a mandate, they miss the nuances of the new context. Teams sense the mismatch, and enthusiasm drains as people see yesterdays playbook failing on todays field.
The antidote: Treat mandates as invitations, not marching orders. Start by studying your new environment as if you were an anthropologist: walk the halls, ask questions, listen deeply. Instead of asking What worked last time? ask What does this context demand? Extract principlessuch as how you built trust or navigated resistancefrom your past, but resist the temptation to replicate recipes. Thats how you turn past wisdom into present credibility.
2. Excessive Tolerance: Making Change Optional
Justification: Im sure theyll get on board eventually, we just need to give them time.Reality: Some people have no intention of getting on board.
When leaders become exhausted, confrontation often feels harder than compromise. Deadlines slip, underperformers are excused, and resistance festers. Employees learn quickly that change is recommended but not required.
The costs are steep. Accountability erodes, peers resent double standards, and even those committed to change begin asking, Why should I bother if others arent held to it?
The antidote: Sharpen accountability and send clear, early signals. Use symbolssometimes tough onesto show that the urgency of now is real. Dashboards of metrics tracking progress and regressions are common. Sometimes removing long-tenured leaders whose behavior contradicts the change is necessary. When actions dont match commitments, call it out. Consequences matter. Research on loss aversion shows that people fight harder to avoid losses than to gain bonuses. That means accountability must accompany rewards.
Yes, it will feel lonely. Yes, you may lose popularity. But credibility depends on consistency. Tolerance masquerades as empathy, but it undermines urgency. Leaders who name and enforce consequences create trust, because people know the rules apply to everyone.
3. Settling For Dysfunction: Accepting the Wrong Norms
Justification: It is what it is. With time, people will come around.Reality: Without sustained pressure, dysfunction becomes the new normal.
One COO I worked with entered his role determined to challenge entrenched practices. But when resistance persisted, his frustration grew. Eventually he lost his composure in a board meeting, mirroring the very volatility of the previous CEO hed been hired to replace. Employees sighed, At least with the old guy, we knew what to expect. Instead of disrupting dysfunction, he had absorbed it.
This rationalization is subtle. Leaders begin doubting their instincts: Maybe its me. Maybe Im asking too much. Surrounded by colleagues who shrug and say Rome wasnt built in a day, leaders can slowly adopt resignation as their operating norm.
The antidote: Stay differentiated. Make time to decode the unhealthy patterns you seewhy do meetings after the meeting carry more energy than the actual meeting? Why does feedback trigger overreaction? Then encode what should be trueoptimism, accountability, or healthy debateand measure progress against it. Even incremental wins reinforce hope and prevent you from being seduced into complacency.
Transformation requires leaders to behave differently than the culture they inherit. Settling into dysfunction might feel like relief, but it heralds surrender.
4. Dismissing the Devil You Know: Protecting the Wrong People
Justification: She may not be perfect, but I cant afford to lose her now. Better the devil you know.Reality: The devil you know is still the devil.
Few decisions are harder than removing a long-tenured executive. Leaders justify delay by citing loyalty, sunk costs, or fear of disruption. But keeping misaligned leaders is corrosive. It demoralizes others, who see that performance doesnt matter. It consumes disproportionate time and energy. And it erodes credibility, as people conclude the leader lacks the courage to act.
The antidote: Evict the devils. Not everyone should make the journey. Leaving someone in a role they cannot succeed in isnt compassion, its cruelty. It sets them up for failure and broadcasts to everyone else that standards are optional.
Yes, exits are painful. But acute pain from a tough decision is far better than chronic pain from avoiding it. Free yourself to focus on people already predisposed to advance the vision. When you remove dams, momentum flows again.
5. Reporting Enmeshment: Confusing Emulation with Growth/h2>
Justification: Weve been a great team for years, and shes now ready to succeed me.Reality: Long-term reporting relationships often breed co-dependence, not development.
Mentoring is essential. But when a promising leader spends too long in one bosss orbit, they risk becoming a replica rather than an original. Ive seen organizations elevate successors who sound and act just like their predecessor, only to find that more of the same isnt what transformation requires.
Enmeshment feels safe but creates blind spots. It can also choke off opportunities for broader growth. Without varied assignments, leaders stagnate, lacking the agility transformation demands.
The antidote: Move talent around, early and often. Diverse experiences stretch leaders styles and voices. Assign high-potentials to struggling business units, rival functions, or cross-border roles. The more of the organization they see, the strongerand more authenticthey become. Emulation is admirable, but growth requires mobility.
Choosing the Path of Progress
Transformation isnt undone by markets alone. More often, its these rationalizations, comforting stories leaders tell themselves, that derail progress. The woman at the airport thought her special status exempted her from the rules. Leaders often think the same.
But leaders who resist these fallacies, and instead choose accountability, contextual wisdom, differentiation, courage, and mobility, create transformations that last.
The costs of indulging rationalizations are dire: wasted time, lost credibility, and failed change. The benefits of escaping them are equally profound: resilient organizations, energized people, and futures worth building.
Dont let the justifications win.
The announcement came suddenly on Thursday. A Fortune 500 technology client needed an interim CFO immediately. Its previous executive had departed unexpectedly, leaving a $2.3 billion merger and reorganization in limbo. By Monday, Denise, the number two finance executive, occupied the interim CFO post. She faced 10,000 skeptical employees and a board expecting miracles.
Interim leadership has exploded: The number of Fortune 1000 companies that have used an interim CXO has increased 117% since 2022. Yet most leaders enter these roles unprepared for the unique demands that await.
Not only do these leaders suffer, companies do as well. When leadership transitions fail, organizations face a 20% higher likelihood of losing direct reports, experience 20% lower employee engagement, and incur replacement costs up to 10 times the executive’s salary. I’ve helped several interim executives land the job: here’s what worked.
In this piece, paid subscribers will learn:
Five tried and true strategies interim executives can use to land the job
The questions they should ask to assess their performance
Common pitfalls to avoid
1. From Methodical Relationship Building to Accelerated Trust
Unlike executives afforded the luxurious nine months before performance expectations kick in, interim leaders face immediate scrutiny. Organizations typically place them during crises that don’t afford more reasonable onboarding runways. If externally hired, their high fees create financial pressure for quick returns.
It can take months to build relationships, and understand where the problems in an organization lie. I worked with an interim COO at a manufacturing company who cracked this code. The COO and a small team conducted 20-minute interview sessions with 70% of the 350 stakeholders over a two week period to map the real power structure of the organization. This allowed him to identify needed wins neglected by the prior COO within 18 days.
The learning: dont assume people with big titles have the deepest and most impactful influence. Here are some questions to surface needed relational information quickly and accelerate trust building:
Who are the three most influential people beyond the org chart?
What’s the one thing everyone complains about, but no one fixes?
Which relationships will make or break my first initiative?
What unspoken rules govern how decisions really get made?
2. From Holistic Solutions to Getting Traction with Visible Wins
Instead of focusing on holistic solutions that include too much at once, getting traction in a few critical areas through visible and well-timed wins can take you to the finish line of landing the big role. These wins must coincide with high visibility, broadly supported parallel initiatives, and experience minimal disruption.
As an example, an interim CHRO I worked with in a rapidly growing global Fortune 500 retailer was appointed to stop a talent hemorrhage in a flagship brand. The loss of recently hired talent was causing confusion, communication problems, and erroneous product assortments being sent to stores. Sales were suffering and internal teams started blaming each other for the errors. There were several areas across the company that needed to be addressed, but the CHRO honed in on what was underneath her control: onboarding new talent.
The existing onboarding program for employees was expensive, lengthy, and outdated. However, a full redesign of the program would have taken eight months and rolling out the program would have taken another year. Instead, the CHRO and her new team laser focused on redesigning a module for field and merchandising employees: the employees who could make the most impact in fixing the organizations problems.
The team transformed the 21-day onboarding program, which had a 23% dropout rate, into an efficient 10-day program with an 8% drop rate. The program also trained new hires in the field more efficiently on how to communicate with product decision-makers in merchandising.
The result: better product assortment and sales for the brand, more collaborative relationships across merchandising and field organizations, and an improvement of 15% retention in the onboarding program. All of this was done within the interim CHROs tenure, over the period of a month without disruptions, and was universally celebrated as an all around win.
Well-timed wins to focus on can be easily identified with some simple questions:
What’s causing the most visible pain across departments?
Which broken process would everyone celebrate fixing?
What improvement would make my biggest skeptic an ally?
Where can I demonstrate competence without threatening existing structures?
3. From Moving Quickly to Progressive Decision-Making
I often observe new leaders put immense pressure on themselves to achieve something quickly, as a means of demonstrating their worth. Many times this leads to catastrophic overaction.
An interim CTO inherited a cybersecurity software product failure crisis that resulted in a public customer backlash and a steady quarterly profit loss of 45%. Instead of a five-alarm fire reaction, he chose a graduated approach. His 30-day plan included an initial round of tactical fixes, while continuing to gather intelligence and keeping open lines of communication with both customer and investment communities.
By day 60, armed with data and buy-in, he unveiled a short-term strategy to fix the points of failure using customer feedback to improve security and user intuitiveness. For those existing customers that participated and were pleased with the new softwares performance, discounts and incentives were provided through a new program. Overall, the CTO mitigated an initial potential profit loss of 34% and increased sales steadily 20% per quarter thereafter. Both metrics fed into a longer-term strategy that was being developed in parallel.
Hitting pause on moving hastily allows you to step back and ask what decisions can be made incrementally for progressive success? Questions that can help are:
What decisions are easily reversible if wrong?
Which stakeholders must I consult before irreversible changes are made?
How can I test hypotheses on small scales first?
What data moves me from tactical to strategic decisions?
4. From Steward to Serious Candidate
Interim executives are often perceived as more stewards of the status quo, seat warmers, until the permanent executive arrives. To avoid this pitfall, I recommend taking two precautions.
Buffer risk by coalition building: Denise’s tech company merger carried enormous risks stemming from clashing cultures. Rather than freezing at the face of this risk, she identified 12 “culture carriers,” advocates from both organizations, forming an integration advisory committee, who became the companys informal culture coalition. The merger, projected for 22 months, was completed in 18 and considered widely as a success.
Role clarity negotiation focusing on management success: Because interim executives are automatically given shorter-term objectives as a test-drive strategy before being offered the permanent spot, I advise interim leaders to ask for more.
By actively working with sponsors to clarify the longer-term expectations of the job, interim leaders can make headway on demonstrating their managerial skills and ability to deliver on longer-term goals.
One interim CFO I advised drafted her own ideal CFO description of the role and what would be required of her so she could clarify what impact she could make if she were operating as the full-time, permanent CFO. She reviewed the description with her board sponsor and documented weekly progress reports with this criteria after their meetings. This created transparency about both short- and long-term operational plans and their intended strategic outcomes. This systematic communication transformed perceptions of her as a placeholder executive to a proven C-suite ready leader within three to four months. By month six, she had landed the job.
Demonstrate your abilities by asking the following:
What evidence can demonstrate my ability to perform in a longer-term capacity?
How do I maintain momentum while navigating the potential Caretaker perception?
What three initiatives warrant acceleration versus transformation?
What’s my exit strategy if the role doesn’t convert?
5. From Shifting Assumptions to Reputation Intelligence
Two to three months in, stakeholder misperceptions crystallize but haven’t hardened. This critical window is the perfect opportunity for course correctionyet most operate blind to ones internal reputation.
Dr. Chen’s cautionary tale illustrates this perfectly. As acting head of medicine within a highly esteemed healthcare institute, she delivered strong financial results with her CEOs support yet remained oblivious to her profound unpopularity amongst peers and her teams. When a permanent appointment seemed imminent, 40% of medical staff departed within six months.
A 360-feedback check would have revealed trust scores 70% below average at a time when she had a chance to turn it around. Unfortunately, this feedback was obtained in exit interviews as most knew of the strong relationship between Dr. Chen and the CEO. It took several months before Dr. Chen began to intellectually process the disparity between what the exit data showed and her CEOs exuberant support of her. Sadly, because the transition was not well supported through proper vetting and personal development, it simply became too late for the board to regain confidence in Dr. Chen as a full time candidate.
Unlike external recruitment’s gradual relationship-building, interim leaders are left in limbo. They arent given proper evaluations but people form impressions of them anyway. Companies should treat interim appointments like external searches from day one: establish formal evaluation criteria, capture feedback systematically, and reset relationship expectations immediately.
I advise leaders to get ahead of such challenges by negotiating support: 360 leadership evaluations with recommendations and follow up, 1:1 executive transition and team coaching that surfaces differing needs, values, and personalities.
Get ahead of potential reputation challenges by shifting assumptions to intelligence through these questions:
How might peers perceive me differently as their leader?
What concerns are discussed privately but not raised directly?
Which actions have been misinterpreted, under which context(s) and how?
Who provides genuinely candid feedback?
When and how should I seek feedback?
Interim does not always mean temporary if you possess a serious drive and desire to land the permanent role. If mastered, these five strategies can transform interim appointments into securing your role in the C-suite. And the rewardsboth personal and organizationalcan prove remarkable.
When David Dominé moved to Louisville, Kentucky, for law school in the 1990s, he was captivated by the historic district of Old Louisville, lined with stately Victorian mansions. After he bought a reputedly haunted home in the neighborhoodand had “some strange things happen” therehe began researching the ghost stories told in the area. That led Dominé to write books about the communitys legendary hauntings.
Soon, reader interest convinced him to offer tours, leading to a business he calls Louisville Historic Tours. Dominé’s company now has about nine tour guides, mostly people interested in local history. Many live in the neighborhoods where they give tours. We started off with ghost toursthose seem to be the most popularbut we also do history and architecture tours, [and] we do food tours, he says.
Across the country, people passionate about history and curious about the supernatural have followed a similar path. In an age of ghost-hunting TV shows, YouTube channels, and podcasts, they combine historic storytelling with spooky local legendsand frequently operate at night after other attractions close down. “They surprised me for being these rich and kind of complicated little storytelling projects, even though they were clearly sensationalist sometimes,” says Heidi Aronson Kolk, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis who has written about ghost tours.
But the game has changed, thanks to the ascendance of multicity ghost tour chains. As with other industries, from ride hailing to news media, the internet has contributed to their rise. These outfits take advantage of economies of scale in centralizing operations like reservations, human resources, and even tour route planning, while leveraging search engine optimization and online advertising expertise to be the first ghost tour option tourists see.
The rise of online marketing has, however, brought with it numerous disputes between local ghost tour operators and a handful of national chains over intellectual property, with tour companies accusing one another of copying tour titles and business names in an effort to game search listings. Big tour companies have also faced allegations of plagiarizing tour content from local operators in a rush to expand. Some have also faced allegations of violating labor laws around subjects like independent contractor classification and overtime pay as they recruit a national workforce of tour guides and other staff.
Long-standing tour operators say chain operators can appear to be just another internet-based hustle with little consideration for what was once a cozy industry presided over by local history buffs. Competition isn’t a bad thing, but you’ve got to kind of be respectful,” Dominé says. “You can’t just go in and copy what someone’s doing, use their information, and things like that.”
You cant own history
Dominé has firsthand experience with these sorts of disputes. In 2022, he sued a ghost tour chain called Ghost City Tours, which bills itself as “the world’s largest and best ghost tour company,” serving more than 600,000 customers per year and advertising tours in at least 26 U.S. cities. Dominé alleged copyright infringement and unfair competition, saying Ghost City incorporated stories from his booksincluding fictionalized elementsinto its tours and worked his name into marketing materials, falsely implying his endorsement. Citing a nondisclosure agreement, Dominé declined to comment on the case, which settled in 2023. Ghost City Tours declined to make someone available for an interview for this article, citing concerns about revealing proprietary information.
Another chain, called US Ghost Adventures (USGA), offers tours in more than 150 cities, from Akron, Ohio, to Yorktown, Virginia, and claims to have more than 1,000 local experts and trained guides on staff. The company was founded by serial entrepreneur and Marine Corps veteran Lance Zaal, who has said the business grew out of efforts to build a mobile tour guide app. Zaal, who did not respond to questions asked via email, also operates a broader tourism website called Tourismo.
In recent years, Zaal has also purchased reputedly haunted historic properties. They include the Lizzie Borden House in Massachusetts, site of the notorious 1892 axe murders of Borden’s parents and now a bed-and-breakfast, and New Orleanss LaLaurie Mansion, a French Quarter site associated with the torture of enslaved people in the 1830s. (Zaal currently lives at the mansion.) Zaal also operates an online ghost hunting equipment store called Ghost Daddywhich boasts that it tests its merchandise at the Borden houseand even founded a Ukraine-focused aid organization called Ghosts of Liberty.
Zaals businesses have been on both sides of ghost industry intellectual property disputes. In 2023, US Ghost Adventures sued Miss Lizzie’s Coffee, a newly opened coffee shop next door to the Lizzie Borden House, for allegedly infringing trademarks on the Lizzie Borden name and a hatchet logo. USGA says consumers and even local officials had been confused into believing the businesses are related. I said, This is ridiculous, because I always knew Lizzie Borden as a historical figure, says Miss Lizzies owner Joe Pereira. And you cant own history. So far, USGA has failed to convince a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction in the matter, and the case remains before the court.
Mimicry
USGA has itself been repeatedly accused by other ghost tour companies of mimicking their business and tour names. The company was sued in 2024 by the owner of Queen City Tours in Charlotte, North Carolina, for allegedly infringng its trademarks in operating tours under the name Queen City Ghosts. USGA has filed its own legal challenge to the Queen City Tours trademark, and the cases remain pending. Queen City Tours did not respond to an inquiry from Fast Company.
Terror Tours, the company behind a line of haunted pub crawls known as Nightly Spirits, also sued USGA in 2024 for allegedly infringing its Booze and Boos trademark. In its lawsuit, the company said USGA operated Boos and Booze tours, which confused consumers, including some who mistakenly brought complaints to Terror Tours. The case was settled in 2024. Founder Jared Broach declined to comment on the matter, citing a nondisclosure agreement.
In Baltimore, USGA has advertised under the name Baltimore Ghosts, which is similar to the name of a local ghost tour company founded in 2001. Melissa Rowell, one of the founders of Baltimore Ghost Tours, says her business has received messages from customers seeking USGA, including an angry voicemail she shared with Fast Company. And, she says, Google at one time erroneously merged the business listings for the two tour operations. The two companies have exchanged cease-and-desist letters, which Rowell shared with Fast Company.
Lawyers for Rowells company have claimed USGA is infringing on Baltimore Ghost Tourss trademark as part of a plan to ride on the coattails of an established business in various cities through similar naming. USGA attorneys have questioned the validity of the geographically descriptive Baltimore Ghost Tours trademark and alleged misconduct and defamation involving allegations around the Google issue.
Jeanine Plumer, owner of Austin Ghost Tours, says shes spoken to multiple tour companies whove reported similar tactics by USGA. Mike Carter, owner of Tours & Crawls in Annapolis, Maryland, says hes also received texts and voicemails from confused customers who will often turn out to have actually booked with USGA. I get calls almost daily from somebody who’s confused or wants to verify which company it is, he says.
USGA entered that market around 2023, using a variety of names including Ghosts of Annapolis, which Carter had previously used, he says. After he complained through an attorney, he says USGA began using the name Annapolis Ghost Tours, which Carter also previously used.
Taking on the Goliath
In 2024, Carter registered the domain usaghostadventures.com, one letter off from the USGA site, listing local alternatives in cities where USGA operated, along with the message: Don’t be tricked by the large national chains who pretend to offer the local tour experience you’re seeking, according to Zaals legal filings.
Zaal filed a legal complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization, which handles domain name trademark disputes. The organization awarded Zaal ownership of the domain after finding Carter went beyond offering criticism and advocacy in linking to USGA competitors, including his own business. I abided by that decision, Carter says. I understood where it came from.
But in June, Zaal and USGA sued Carter and his company in federal court. They alleged Carter continued to infringe USGA trademarks with a new Local Ghost Adventures site and defamed USGA and Zaal through disparaging blog and social media posts, as well as comments to an Annapolis tourism organization. Zaals lawsuit also cites comments by other ghost tour operators around the country criticizing the company, arguing Carter and his company actively engage with fellow competitor ghost tour operators and potential customers to encourage harmful and misleading attacks, in part via a private Facebook group for local ghost tour operators.
Carter acknowledges that he is active on such a group, but says members are more likely to share SEO and marketing tips or recommendations for graphic designers, along with other advice for operating a ghost tour in the internet age, than they are to discuss particular competitors. It’s more about sharing information than it is taking on the Goliath, he says.
Death trap
Like some other businesses that have rapidly expanded thanks to the internet, USGA has also faced accusations of violating employment laws. In 2023, two Pennsylvania women sued USGA and Zaal, saying they had been employed by the company as content creators documenting ghost tours but were improperly denied overtime pay, even when working more than 80 hours per week. Plaintiffs protested the lack of overtime wages to Mr. Zaal personally who erroneously stated that Plaintiffs were 1099 [independent contractors] and refused to discuss the matter further, they alleged.
The women also alleged that Zaal and USGA provided them with an RV and pickup truck to use for ghost tours but said the truck wasnt large enough to tow the RV, with customers allegedly referring to the arrangement as a death trap. When they complained, they said Zaal and USGA traded in the RV for a smaller model at a loss, and began to illegally deduct the cost difference from their paychecks. Zaal and USGA denied the allegations, and the case was settled for an undisclosed amount earlier this year.
In another case that remains pending, a Kentucky woman named Emily Menshouse alleges she worked for USGA-affiliated Zaal Ventures in administrative roles and was misclassified as an independent contractor, illegally underpaid for overtime and breaks, and fired when she complained. Menshouse, who previously appeared in a TV show called Paranormal Journeys and has a supernatural-themed video podcast, says she had hoped the position would be her dream job. Zaal Ventures has denied the allegations but made a payment to Menshouse after the lawsuit was brought, though Menshouse says the amount was inadequate to resolve the matter
Ghost City Tours also faced an employment lawsuit filed in 2024 by San Antonio tour guide JoAnn Valenzuela, who alleged she was fired after complaining to the federal Department of Labor that she wasnt paid her $50-per-hour wage for more than 20 hours of mandatory training. The company said in a legal filing that Valenzuela was fired for not showing up for shifts, not because of the complaint, and that while she had attended the companys public tour guide training classes which are offered to members of the public, she had signed an offer letter that said she wouldnt be paid until she finished her first solo tour. The case was settled in 2024.
Committed to the supernatural
For their part, leaders of ghost tour chains have generally said they have the same commitment to supernatural storytelling as their independent rivals. Mike Huberty, founder of American Ghost Walks, which has expanded from a single operation in Madison, Wisconsin, to more than 25 cities across the country, says he still gathers stories personally before launching tours in new locales. He claims to talk to everyone from museum workers to busboys about legends that might fit into a tour, and often simply asks whether a particular place might be haunted. I’ve repeated that question probably to 5,000 people in my life, he says. Thats how you start collecting the stories.
Zaal and USGA have emphasized their devotion to preserving their historic properties and bringing meticulously researched stories to life. And in a blog post, Ghost City Tours founder Tim Nealon wrote about becoming interested in ghosts after believing he had recorded the voice of one in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and his companys commitment to telling real, well-researched stories.
But to some local competitors, certain chain operations can feel like just another online get-rich-quick scheme, disrupting long-standing mom-and-pop businesses in pursuit of a buck.
AI is radically changing the future of the workplace from redefining jobs to fueling the rise of so-called work slop. Live on stage at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, Box CEO Aaron Levie, LinkedIns Chief Economic Opportunity Officer Aneesh Raman, and Metas Head of Business AI Clara Shih share their insider perspectives on AI optimism, uncertainty, and navigating this unprecedented era.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian and recorded live at the 2025 Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
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Aneesh, there’s a real debate about the impact of AI on work and some say it will be positive, some say it will be negative. You’ve said it will be spectacular. Why?
Raman: I’m at LinkedIn, we are if nothing else, a platform of people. We go where the species goes. So for two years I have thought about human intelligence as my core focus For humans, work has kind of sucked since the industrial age. We have turned ourselves into efficiency machines, whether you’re at the assembly line or sending emails, it’s more, better, faster. More, better, faster… That isn’t who humans are. AI is going to out-efficiency us, robots going to out efficiency us.
That’s okay. We became the apex species, not because we were the most efficient, but because we were the most imaginative, the most innovative AI is going to force us finally to broaden our view of human intelligence. I’m pessimistic about our state of being ready for that because it’s entire new systems of education, employment, entrepreneurship, but we’re going to have to fix that and that’s great, I think.
Clara, we’ve heard this term that’s become very popular, work slop, that AI-generated work is creating more work. It’s like volume over quality Is work slop just a phase for AI? Is it like a bug that we’re going to fix or is this a feature and something that we’re always going to have to be vigilant about when we’re in a world where so much can be created so easily?
Shih: I think there’s always been work slop. I’ve been responsible for some work slop, especially earlier in my career. I think certainly AI makes it easier to create lots of work slop, and so just like any new technology. I can imagine the very first spreadsheets when they were invented, people weren’t sure how to use it. The features probably didn’t include checking the formulas, and so there were probably some really bad, incorrect spreadsheets. The same thing is happening now.
Raman: Like any tool, use it. Do not misuse it. Do not overuse it. There’s already lots of research. MIT has great research with brain scans that if you overuse AI, you’ll deplete your ability to grow critical thinking skills. AI helps individuals get started, but if everyone’s using it across a team, sameness creeps in. So it’s all about how you use it.
Aaron, you founded Box. You know how important and distinctive a culture can be in an organization. Each company is different. All of our cultures, each one is different. When we add AI agents to our work, do we need to orient them like we do new employees? If we all use off-the-shelf AI, are we going to end up with off-the-shelf culture?
Levie: Certainly. And by the way, I’m actually fine with lots of work slop because all I see is lots of files that are going to get generated
That’s good for you.
Levie: I think everybody here is familiar with context engineering. It’s sort of a simple analogy, which is if you have an employee off the street, super-intelligent person, doesn’t know kind of what job they’re in, they just appeared and you’re like, “Okay, today you’re a lawyer and the next day you’re a marketer and the next day you’re a coder.” That’s kind of what an AI model is. And so you have to give it the context necessary to be able to perform its tasks.
And so maybe actually ironically, if anything, you’ll have to get more context than the person would. It’s actually very easy for an employee to pick up the general cultural sort of norms and work practices because they can just look over at one other person and say, “Oh, I see the way that you just collaborated over there.” And so we’re more of a collaborative culture versus we just make really quick decisions and then move forward. An AI agent again doesn’t know, “Did I just join SpaceX or did I join Patagonia?” I’m assuming those are two different ends of the cultural spectrum. So you’re going to have to tell the agent effectively like, “Who are you right now? And here are the norms in our organization, and here is the context about the business process that you’re involved in.”
Clara, I talked to one CEO last week who said like he’s being pressured to adopt AI in areas that he’s not sure it’s actually beneficial for the business, but he feels like, “Oh, I’m getting this push from all different parts of the organization, investors, and the board.” How do leaders strike the balance between, “I got to be in this,” versus, “It’s not really showing any measurable impact now yet”?
Shih: I see this all the time from various leaders that I meet with. I think it’s first being hands-on and really getting in there and understanding the capabilities because I think with that judgment, with that firsthand experience, only then can leaders really know, “Okay, I want to apply it here but not here.” Another really great success formula is splitting up the team, having people focus on immediate use cases. What can I unlock today that will show me ROI this quarter, next quarter, versus what are the bigger bets where just I see the secular trend and we have to skate to where the puck is going
Levie: One pitfall that a lot of existing organizations will fall into, like us included when I walk around and try and talk about what kind of processes we can bring automation to, I think there is this idea that we have this sort of end-state utopian view of AI can do anything and can automate anything. The reality is that if you drop AI into today’s business process, it’s going to actually do very little and you have to actually re-engineer your workflow and you have to re-engineer your process. I think a lot of times, unfortunately, you’ll see people try and drop in AI into a process where then even with thebest automation, you’re going to get a 10% gain or whatnot of that workflow.
It’s not world-changing.
Levie: It’s not world-changing, but it’s because you didn’t think about re-engineering the workflow for AI. And we thought AI would work how we do. It turns out it might be the case that we have to work how AI does and we have to be actually in service of the agent to make it most productive as opposed to this unfortunate reality where we probably thought it would make us productive.
It’s a little terrifying. Your job is to make the AI more productive?
Levie: Totally. Well, so there was some offsite 15 years ago where one of our engineering managers told me about the inverted pyramid. His job is to enable all the people below him technically in a hierarchy, but to be as productive as possible. And it was sort of this inversion of like he works for them to make them as effective as possible. And the reality is that that’s kind of what we’re going to be doing with AI agents for quite some time because we’re going to be working to make them effective And if you look at the five and 10 and 20-person startups that are AI-native fully, they don’t have a single business process, that’s basically what they’re doing. They’re working to support agents to be super effective, and that’s just a totally different way to work.
Raman: Make them more productive to make you more impactful.
Shih: Yeah, help you help me.
Raman: I think we have to be affirmatively pro-human. It’s hard to state how radical it is.
The U.S. Department of Energy has struck a $1 billion deal with Advanced Micro Systems (AMD) to build two supercomputers that have unprecedented power to supercharge scientific advances ranging from nuclear power to developing cancer treatments.
The partnership, first reported by Reuters on Monday, will ensure the U.S. government has the necessary computing power to accommodate enormous amounts of dataand could deliver about three times the AI capacity of current supercomputers. The artificial intelligence-powered supercomputers could be deployed for advancing nuclear power and replicating fusionthe process that fuels the sun and creates massive amounts of energy.
Were going to get just massively faster progress using the computation from these AI systems that I believe will have practical pathways to harness fusion energy in the next two or three years, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Reuters.
Shares of AMD rose nearly 1% in midday trading on Monday. The semiconductor makers stock has more than doubled in value this year, and the company recently forged a partnership to supply its chips to OpenAI to build out AI infrastructure.
Neither the Department of Energy nor AMD responded immediately to a request for comment from Fast Company.
SUPERCOMPUTER TIMELINES
The forthcoming supercomputers could be used to further advancements in technologies for defense and national security, including helping the U.S. government to manage its arsenal of nuclear weapons, along with accelerating drug discovery for the treatment of cancers, Wright told Reuters. My hope is, in the next five or eight years, we will turn most cancers, many of which today are ultimate death sentences, into manageable conditions.
The first of two supercomputers, Lux, could be up and running within the next six months and will be based on AMDs MI355X artificial intelligence chips and the companys central processing units (CPUs) and networking chips. The supercomputer system is co-developed by AMD, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
The timeline for Lux will mark the fastest deployment of this size of supercomputer that AMDs CEO, Lisa Su, has ever seen, she told Reuters. “This is the speed and agility that we wanted to [do] this for the U.S. AI efforts.”
A second, even more advanced supercomputer, called Discovery, will have a longer timeline for completion and is expected to be ready for operations sometime in 2029.
Rare earth stocks find themselves underground on Monday as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expects that China and the U.S. will work out a trade deal in the near future.
Meanwhile, stock markets largely soared on news of the trade optimism, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up roughly 0.5%, the S&P 500 up 1%, and the Nasdaq up 1.6% as of midday Monday.
Bessent, appearing on CBS Face the Nation Sunday news program, said that he anticipates that China will resume soybean purchases from the U.S., and that there could be an announcement on Thursday when President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in South Korea.
I’m not going to get ahead of the two leaders who will be meeting in Korea on Thursday, but I can tell you we had a very good two days, he said. “So I would expect that the threat of the 100% [tariff] has gone away, as has the threat of the immediate imposition of the Chinese initiating a worldwide export control regime.
Part of those export controls concerns rare earth minerals, which are used in the manufacturing of a wide variety of products, such as vehicles and consumer electronics. And Bessents comments led to some earthquakes in the market on Monday, as rare-earth stocks fell significantly.
Shares of MP Materials, for instance, were down more than 9% since the market opened, as of midday Monday. USA Rare Earth Inc., likewise, was down roughly 10%.
Notably, MP Materials share price is up more than 312% year-to-date and USA Rare Earth shares are up roughly 85%. So investors are still making out well, despite todays downturn.
The issue at the molten core of the rare earth trade is the fact that China controls the vast majority of rare earth mineral production and refining. By some measures, the Chinese control as much as 70% of rare-earth mining, 80% of refining and processing capacity, and more than 90% of the worlds supply.
That means those minerals are scarce, which drives up pricesand share prices of companies operating in the space outside of Chinese control.
While we dont know yet what kind of trade deal or agreement will surface later this weekor if one will at allBessents signaling that things are heading in a positive direction is whats having an effect on rare-earth stocks today.
If it seems like Black Friday deals, and holiday shopping in general, is starting earlier and earlier, you’re right.
Just in time for, um, Halloween, both Walmart and Best Buy have announced plans for their 2025 Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
Black Friday, always the day after Thanksgiving, falls on Friday, November 28 this year. Deals generally continue through that weekend into Cyber Monday, which falls on December 1.
However, in recent years, many retailers have jump-started the sales some two, or even three weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. And this year is no different.
Here’s what to know.
When do Walmarts Black Friday deals start?
The world’s largest big box retailer often sets the schedule for Black Friday deals, according to Axiosso take note.
This year, Walmart said it will hold two different Black Friday sales events, rolling them out at different times online and in stores nationwide.
Walmart+ members (those who pay for the retailers subscription tier) get first access to the deals starting on Thursday, November 13 at 7 p.m. ET, with sales opening for everyone else online and in-stores on Friday, November 14 and ending on November 16.
The second event starts on the Monday before Thanksgiving, on Monday, November 24 at 7 p.m. ET for Walmart+ members; then online-only on Tuesday, November 25 through Thursday, November 27; and finally, both in-store and online on Black Friday itself, Friday, November 28 to Sunday, November 30.
Walmart Cyber Monday 2025 sale
The same drill goes for Cyber Monday, when Walmart+ members get early access beginning at 7 p.m. ET on Sunday, November 30 for the online-only sale.
The sale starts on Monday, December 1 for all shoppers.
Best Buy 2025 Black Friday, Cyber Monday sales
Best Buy is starting even earlieron Halloween (yes, you read that right).
This Friday, October 31, Best Buy is rolling out its early Black Friday tech deals called “DoorBOOsters”available on the Best Buy App, BestBuy.com and in-store. Members of Best Buy’s two programs, My Best Buy Plus and My Best Buy Total members, also get up to $25 in bonus rewards on select products.
More Black Friday sales kick off Thursday, November 20, with savings on computing, gaming, home theater, wearables, and more.
Cyber Monday comes a day early, on Sunday, November 30, with up to 50% off select tech.
No one does the holiday shopping season like Best Buy, so we decided to expand the definition of holiday and start the fun on Halloween this year, Jason Bonfig, chief customer, product, and fulfillment officer at Best Buy, said in a statement. Whether you want to shop in your costume, or wait until Black Friday, well be here all season long with the best gifts, unbelievable deals and endless ways to discover the coolest products.
Holiday shopping is forecast to increase at a lower rate than last year, as Americans feel the effects of Trump’s tariffs; inflation and the skyrocketing cost of living, including higher grocery costs; and a government shutdown which has many federal workers going without paychecks amid mass firings.
Holiday retail sales are likely to increase between 2.9% and 3.4% in 2025, according to Deloittes annual holiday retail forecast, versus 4.2% in the same period in 2024.
Its official: Twitter.com is about to bite the dust forever.
According to a series of tweets from Xs @Safety account, posted between October 24 and October 25, the social media platform plans to finally retire the Twitter domain on November 10. Currently, searching for Twitter.com still leads directly to X, but soon, that will no longer be an option.
The domains phase-out comes more than two years after Twitter owner Elon Musk renamed the platform X in July 2023, much to the dismay of many loyal users.
At the time, critics argued that the rebrand was destined to fail, with some going so far as to call it brand suicide.
And while many former users have indeed jumped ship to competing platforms like Threads and Bluesky in the years since Musks $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in 2022, it looks like the new name is here to stay.
The announcement that Twitter will soon disappear into the annals of internet history came subtly buried in a message from Xs @Safety account that, due to the domains retirement, users who rely on certain two-factor authentication (2FA) methods will need to update their log-ins before November 10.
Heres what you need to know about the notice:
How to make sure your X account doesn’t get locked
According to an initial post from @Safety, all X accounts that use a security key as their 2FA method will need to re-enroll their key in order to keep accessing X after November 10.
Per a second post, a security key does not refer to users who rely on an authenticator app to log into X.
Instead, this notice only pertains to anyone using a physical security key (like a Yubikey), or a passkey, which is an encrypted, passwordless log-in option that typically requires users to enter a face scan or fingerprint scan.
These methods are typically used to keep accounts safer, since they make it more difficult for hackers to access passwords and log into accounts remotely.
If you use a security key or passkey to log into X, heres what you can do before November 10 to avoid locking your account:
Open your account and navigate to Settings.
Select Security and account access, then click “Security” and open the Two-factor authentication section.
Click the Add another key option and follow the steps to create a new security key or passkey thats linked to the x.com domain rather than the former Twitter.com domain.
Per the @Safety post, After November 10, if you havent re-enrolled a security key, your account will be locked until you: re-enroll; choose a different 2FA method; or elect not to use 2FA (but we always recommend you use 2FA to protect your account!)
X did not immediately respond to Fast Companys request for comment on what other steps its taking to ensure that the Twitter retirement process proceeds smoothly.
Small importers for large U.S. retailers rushed in China-made strollers and wares meant for spring and are storing the goods in their own warehouses to avoid the big tariff bills that had been threatened over the next month.
Before Sino-American talks on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur eliminated the threat of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 100% tariffs on Chinese imports starting November 1, importers were expecting to shoulder the staggering levies.
In response, importers of goods sold at retailers Walmart, Amazon, and Target chose to risk loading their balance sheets with inventory that may take months to move out, and pay more for warehousing costs. They’re also betting consumer spending holds up in the spring as lower-income consumers rein in spending and the economy remains uncertain overall.
“We are trying to front-load spring orders,” said Leslie Stiba, CEO of high-end stroller-maker Austlen Baby Co. “We brought in as much as we could manage.”
Stiba said she placed orders for 20% to 25% more strollers for spring 2026her biggest seasoncompared to the last. Overall, she is holding 50% more inventory than before the start of Trump’s trade war, and has held off on hiring due to the new expenses.
Front-loading has become the norm for months now, as businesses have tried to get in front of Trump’s vacillating levies. Importers bulked up shipments from China during the six-month tariffs truce between the two countries, triggering a surge in shipping rates and port activity.
Reuters reporting, in the days before the framework of a tariff truce was hashed out on Sunday, shows the phenomenon continued for spring 2026 shipments.
Like many importers of China-made goods, Stiba had to stop shipments earlier this year when Trump first imposed tariffs of about 145%. The halt hurt her business because she did not have enough inventory to fill orders.
Ahead of schedule
Some Chinese suppliers took a more relaxed view, baking tariff-related uncertainty into their business plans.
“Whatever happens on November 1 will happen, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t,” said a toymaker in southern China, who did not want to be named for privacy reasons.
“I don’t think very many people are assuming that tariffs will rise dramatically. People might be doing some front-loading deals with the assumption that we will have a three-month extension window, but there wasn’t enough time to move orders forward to meet the November 1 deadline even if you wanted to.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday he anticipates that a tariff truce with China will be extended beyond the November 10 expiration date.
Deng Jinling, manager of a Chinese company that exports thermos flasks to the United States, told Reuters before Sunday’s development that her shipments were still going out normally and she wasn’t worried about further levies.
“Theres no rush,” she said. “Most of the goods have already been shipped. Only about 20% of the U.S.-bound cargo is left.”
Not all U.S. importers ramped up shipments.
Spreetail, which distributes large items like trampolines, was waiting to see if the tariffs would stick, said chief merchandising officer Owen Carr.
Spring merchandisefrom warmer-weather apparel to Easter basketsusually arrives stateside at the end of the year, with volumes peaking right before China’s Lunar New Year celebration in winter.
“Until there is a clear path forward or a resolution (to the trade war), we can expect to see more front-loading,” said Noel Hacegaba, chief operating officer at the Port of Long Beach, the U.S.’s second-busiest. “It has resulted so far this year in a tsunami of cargo.”
This year, record volumes including spring goods are far ahead of schedule, he said.
Mitigating risks
Retailers are ordering more from suppliers’ domestic warehouses, rather than picking up directly from China, executives at toymakers Hasbro and Mattel have said on recent calls. That allows them to mitigate tariff risks and control the pace of stocks on their shelves as shoppers tighten budgets.
Holiday toymaker Hey Buddy Hey Pal, which imports Easter-egg decorating kits from China, already has 50% of its goods for the spring ready to be shipped from a warehouse in Dallas, said Curtis Gill, co-founder of the company.
Balsam Hill, which supplies artificial Christmas trees and seasonal decor, recently decided to move forward with spring orders of floral wreaths it had been holding back on placing, said CEO Mac Harman.
“We did a scaled-back order for spring,” Harman said, adding that he raised prices.
Jessica DiNapoli, Siddharth Cavale, and Arriana McLymore, Reuters
Additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein, Casey Hall, and Sophie Yu.
