Sunbridge appears to be a quintessential example of 21st century sprawl. A 27,000-acre residential mega-development taking shape outside of Orlando, Florida, its set to include more than 30,000 new homes in total when completea few neighborhoods, miles of trails, and a K8 school have already been completed. Its riding a growth boom in Central Florida; this fast-growing section of the Sun Belt has added more than 1,000 people every week in recent years.
But within the different subdivisions being constructed at Sunbridge over the next 30 years, a landscape will emerge with each new home and green space thats much more wild, native, and sustainable than the stereotypical manicured, monoculture green lawns ringed with white picket fences.
My spiel for Sunbridge is that you leave your house and in 10 minutes, youre immersed in nature, says Clint Beaty, senior vice president of Operations at Tavistock Development Company, which is developing Sunbridge. Im not talking about a single tree next to a retention pond. I mean a deer is going to walk up to you, and you may see bald eagles, all 15 minutes from the Orlando International Airport.
Sunbridge was just named the nations first Homegrown National Park Community, a designation highlighting the projects focus on native plants, nature conservation, and sustainability focused on restoring a measure of biodiversity. Containing an array of different single-family homes, constructed by different developers, mostly ranging in price between $300,000 and $600,000, the larger development will feature a slate of standard suburban homes.
According to Tavistock, a majority of the plants will be native, and interspersed with all those homes will be 13,000 acres that will be preserved as an interconnected network of natural habitats, including lakes, wetlands, and oak hammocks, a type of forest habitat native to Florida and the Southeast.
[Photo: Scott Cook Photography/Tavistock Development Company]
Conservation goes private
Typical Florida developers often put the most expensive homes on the water and charge a premium; Sunbridge will leave those waterfronts open and wild for all to enjoy. In the long term, Beaty says, this philosophy will drive value; the challenge is, in the short term, getting homebuyers to understand that.
The Homegrown National Park concepta marketing term, not an actual registered and protected public placewas cofounded by scientist and author Doug Tallamy, and aims to regenerate and restore 20 million acres of native habitat across the U.S., mostly on private land, in an effort to stem the biodiversity crisis. The pollution and the loss of habitat have put roughly 40% of animals, plants, and ecosystems in the U.S. at risk. The nation currently has 44 million acres of traditional green turflawn, which Tallamy calls dead space in terms of its ability to support diverse species and local ecosystems. Why should we develop property in a way that expels nature?
And while Tallamy says there are parks and preserves for preservation of wildlife, if 78% of the U.S. is privately owned85% of land east of the Mississippi is in private handssomething has to make landowners take biodiversity more seriously. He hopes Sunbridge becomes the first of many such developments, and can help make the case to landowners that this strategy is both cost-effective and consumer friendly.
If we dont do conservation on private property, were going to fail, he says. You cant say were not going to do conservation where we develop, because thats everywhere.
[Photo: Tavistock Development Company]
Landscaping the future
While the Homegrown National Park focuses on flora and fauna, the team behind Sunbridge came to the idea while looking at water. Like other fast-growing parts of the country, such as Phoenix, Central Florida faces water shortages and hard limits on growth if business-as-usual development continues. The Central Florida Water Initiative predicts the region will face a 96 million gallon-per-day water shortfall starting in 2045.
The landscaping philosophy of Homegrown National Parknative plants that require much less water, less maintenance, and less fertilizercan reduce irrigation and fertilizer runoff. Sunbridge developers estimate that when the entire project is complete and occupied in the coming decades, the planned Florida-native and drought-tolerant landscaping palette will save between 39,000 to 146,300 gallons of water daily, and help cut outdoor water use by 75%.
In addition, it will contain whats called keystone plants, native species, such as live oaks, that support local insects and animals. Tallamy says that traditional American landscaping, which uses a variety of non-native plants for decorative purposes, doesnt feed local species and can disrupt the existing food web.
Developers hope this plan not only allows the development to grow without bumping up against resource limits, but also proves to be a point of differentiation that attracts future buyers and even adds a premium to home prices. Theyve been aggressively marketing the developments trails, greenspace, lakes, and landscape, dubbing it a naturehood.
Beaty, who grew up in Florida, remembers playing in backyards in July with brown grass as a kid, since it was so challenging to water. Ever since Disney came to Florida, he says, thats the (artificial) expectation people have of the Florida front yard.
This is the horticultural challenge of our time, says Tallamy. How do we make ecologically accesible landscapes that are also pretty?
[Photo: Scott Cook Photography/Tavistock Development Company]
Finding the solution in sprawl
It may seem counterintuitive to count suburban developments as part of the solution to the biodiversity crisis, since theyre a significant cause of the problem in the U.S. Sprawl development in the 21st century alone has eaten up more than two million acres annually in the U.S., according to the Center for Biological Diversity, leading to significant habitat and species loss: roads, fences and structures break up habitats; fertilizers and pollution harm plants; and light and noise pollution impact animal health.
While Sunbridge remains the first large development to sign on, Homegrown National Park has also been busy with other collaborations, partnering with regional and state Native Plant Societies, including the Native Plant Society of Texas, to engage and support developers and HOAs that are interested in integrating the Homegrown National Park model.
One of the challenges going forward will be maintaining the initial philosophy of native plantings and more sustainability minded landscaping. Since there arent necessarily strong ways to mandate lawn care or plant choicethere wont be an overarching homeowners association enforcing standardsBeaty hopes the good faith approach theyre taking, which favors carrots instead of sticks, will prove itself over time.
This will include a number of resources and support, including publishing a curated list of native plants, and a variety of community programs to help with lawn care and to promote conservation. Residents will also be given digital water dashboards to help monitor their consumption, and messaging about how a healthier, more native lawn means fewer chemicals that aren’t good for your kids and a lower utility bill every month.
Advocates say these kinds of development agreements, and efforts at urban rewilding in cities, can, along with the vital preservation of remaining natural habitat, help slow and ideally reverse the biodiversity loss being felt around the globe. Tallamy says that scientists already understand what needs to be done to fix the biodiversity crisis. Projects like Sunbridge, which seek to sell residents on the benefits of a more biodiverse landscape, can help get more momentum behind deploying those solutions.
We know how to increase biodiversity, he says. What were fighting now are sociological problems.
With over 800 student organizations on campus, the University of Pennsylvania already seems to have a club for every interest, from investment banking to beekeepingeven cheese. Now, add AI to the mix.
In September, dozens of Penn students gathered in the engineering school auditorium for the debut of the Claude Builder Club, sponsored by AI company Anthropic. Over the course of this semester, the Builder Club has plans to host a hackathon, demo night, and other opportunities to create projects using artificial intelligence.
I need the Claude premium for a year, says Crystal Yang, a freshman who attended the first meeting. Claude, she had heard, is better for coding and sounding more human in writing.
Like Yang, many attendees were interested chiefly in the free Claude Pro and API credits offered. But according to their responses at the first meeting, a number of attendees also wanted to spend the semester working on problems with climate, healthcare, and manufacturing.
Hearing other Penn students stand up and share what problems they were working on solving with the help of AI was genuinely inspiring, says Alain Welliver, one of the Builder Club ambassadors leading Penns chapter. As an ambassador, Welliver is responsible for promoting the club and developing programming. Hell receive a $1,750 stipend for his work.
Welliver, an engineering student, saw the ambassadorship opportunity this summer on LinkedIn and was quickly interestedhe had considered creating a similar club before. To land the role, he completed a written application form about projects hes built and his perspective on AI, and did an interview.
The Builder Clubs are part of Anthropics broader Claude for Education initiative, which also includes a Learning mode in Claude and free campuswide access for partnering universities. Drew Bent, the education lead on Anthropics Beneficial Developments team, suggests that economics students who take part in the Builder Clubs could, for example, use their Claude app to create an interactive simulator for a macroeconomics concept in minutes.
The first iteration of Builder Clubs debuted this fall semester; there are now over 60 participating universities. Theyve launched at seven of the eight Ivy League schools, SEC schools like the University of Georgia and Vanderbilt University, and international universities like the London School of Economics.
According to Greg Feingold, who leads the Builder Club program for Anthropic, over 15,000 students have signed up. More than 25 of the chapters exceed 100 members.
By the end of the semester, Feingold hopes to empower students to build projects theyre interested in, especially those who have found AI tools too costly or otherwise inaccessible before.
I really want us to find those students who are not technical students and have them participate, Feingold says. I just know that were going to get some really amazing stories of people who have never written a line of code but were able to make an app for the first time.
A certain type of agency
Victor Lee, a professor at Stanford Universitys Graduate School of Education, says tech companies have launched similar programs in the past, pointing to Apples Swift Coding Clubs as an example. A lot of groups are trying to jockey for position and recognition, especially amongst a user base that is likely to be core to them, he says.
Across college campuses, AI companies are everywhere. During the last finals season, OpenAI offered free ChatGPT Plus. At Penn, students recently waited in line for over an hour at a Google Gemini pop-up eventwhich included free Gemini-branded Owala water bottles. This has created concerns for educators, who worry many students are using AI to cheat.
In addition to being a Builder Club ambassador, students can apply to be a Campus ambassador and promote Anthropic products directly to peers. Anuja Uppuluri, one of the first ambassadors, shared on X Anthropics $1/month Pro subscription deal for Carnegie Mellon University students this spring. Her post received tens of thousands of views, and in the comments section, multiple students asked for the offer to be available at their schools too.
Uppuluri feels thankful that she took her introductory computer science courses before LLMs got popular: The temptation to use an AI tool would have been all too alluring.
Theres some type of agency about Claude Code that makes it different, Uppuluri notes. It doesnt make it a tool. I think it makes it more like a pair programmer.
Welliver finds Anthropic to be one of the few AI companies with an approach that fully aligns with his values. Part of the Builder Club programming that Anthropic has developed is education about AI safety and the societal impacts of AI.
If you ask my friends, theyd probably be like, Alains the last person to become a brand ambassador, Welliver says. Anthropic, though, is really intentionally trying to do an ethical approach to advancing AI. I think those values transfer over to the club.
Its not often that headlines about customer brawls end up morphing into good news for a brand. But thats arguably whats happened to Starbucks thanks to the bungled rollout of its limited-run Bearista cups becoming the first new craze of this holiday seasoneven including good-natured copycat tributes from the likes of Aldi and Walmart.
At first, the Bearista debut on November 6 seemed like a black eye. The 20-ounce glass tumbler, shaped like a cute bear sporting a Starbucks beanie, sparked immediate viral demand, with customers at some locations lining up at 3 a.m. to score one. This apparently caught the company off guard, and supplies of the $30 object ran out almost instantly.
Frustrated customers slammed the brand online (some claiming stores were woefully understocked), and in a few cases physically battled each other for what was available. ‘Bearista’ cups brew up brawls at Starbucks, Fox News reported. With fistfight accounts and clips circulating online, the fiasco took on a Waffle House vibenot exactly the community-centric third place experience the coffee giant tries to cultivate. Starbucks apologized for the disappointment.
But the story didnt go away. It evolved. Of course the bear tumblers materialized on eBay, on sale for hundreds of dollars. But less predictably, a new round of social media videosand mainstream press coverage of themexplained how to DIY your own bear-shaped drinking vessel dupe by draining honey packaging and perhaps drawing on the Starbucks logo for fun. Aldi began winkingly promoting a $5 gingerbread-figure cup for those who missed out on that $30 bear; Walmart chimed in with its own version, a bear-shaped bottle of its Great Value brand honey filled with coffee.
All of this has been lighthearted, and ultimately a tribute. Thus the Bearista mini-craze was pulled back from becoming a borderline squalid tale of corporate fumbling and manic consumerism. Instead, its as if the market has decided that thanks to this absurd incident, bear cups are, somehow, out of nowhere, now a Holiday Thing.
And that works out rather neatly for Starbucks, which this week, in the direct aftermath of the Bearista freakout, began rolling out this years version of its traditional holiday-object lineup. On November 13 it started offering the new iteration of its annual reusable Red Cup promotiona free, limited-edition cup, in four design choices, for certain orders from its holiday menu. And it has teased new holiday merch additions to its lineup, including a collaboration with fashion brand Roller Rabbit slated for early December.
Meanwhile, though Starbucks has declined to comment on whether the Bearista will return (a McRib-style mystery?), demand clearly transcends any ill will about the botched debut. We want the cup , reads the top response to one Starbucks Instagram post hyping the new Red Cup designs. Dont ignore our bear cup requests! echoes another response. We want more!
In other words, what looked like a brand blunder is now arguably the happiest story of the early Brian Niccol eracertainly better than news of store closings or lagging earnings or union disputes. The Bearista tale, however chaotic, has ended up making Starbucks feel relevant, in a good way. If there is such a thing as the right kind of brand brawl, this was it.
For years, weve treated confidence in the workplace as something that rises with seniority. The longer youre in the game, the more secure you should feel, at least in theory. But new data is telling a different story. Confidence is quietly increasing among early and mid-career employees, while many senior leaders are facing a growing sense of doubt. The emotional center of the workforce is shifting, and it says a lot about how work, identity, and leadership are changing.
The View from the Ground
Glassdoors latest numbers show something many leaders might not expect: Confidence is rising among those at the beginning and middle of their careers. Entry-level confidence ticked up 1.9 points and mid-level roles rose 2.3. After several years defined by layoffs, volatility, and reorganization, youd think this group would be the most anxious. But instead, theyre slowly stabilizingand in many cases, feeling more empowered.
One possible explanation is that younger employees, particularly Gen Z, have grown up in uncertainty. They graduated into disrupted schools, unpredictable labor markets, and news cycles dominated by instability. Adaptation became the norm. So rather than viewing change as a threat, many see it as the default environment, something to work within rather than fight against.
Hybrid work and flexible career pathways also matter. Many early-career professionals now build identity and stability not from a single employer, but from a mosaic of work, skill-building, networking, and side projects. They have learned to diversify not only their income but their sense of purpose. This gives them a form of psychological safety: When your career has multiple anchors, no single wave capsizes the ship.
And importantly, younger workers are redefining what it means to succeed. Its less about climbing a ladder and more about gaining agency, having influence over how, when, and why they work. Even small signals of autonomy can boost confidence: the ability to negotiate schedules, contribute ideas early, or move laterally to explore new roles.
So, while the headlines focus on uncertainty, many early-career employees are quietly reframing it. Theyre not waiting for perfect stability to feel secure. Theyre building confidence through adaptability, community, and self-direction.
The Shifting View from the Top
While those in the frontline are earning their sea legs, it seems executives and their peers are losing their footing. Many aspects of workforce management stabilized post pandemic, but confidence in executive leadership teams abilities to manage their teams, responses to critical issues, and readiness to address technical disruptions has trended downwards. From board members to C-suite team members themselves, there is an increasing belief that leadership teams are unable to withstand the demands of conflicting constituents and put the interests of the company above their own. These votes of incompetence are taking their toll in the confidence of those at the top.
For a long time, it seemed the era of grey-haired expertise was impenetrable. The sentiment was that having seen it before, you would be trusted to resolve any problem and people would trust you. The Boomers and even Gen Xers who would fit that mold, however, are not perceived to be able to keep up. In some instances, it is made explicitly obvious that their value is waning. But regardless of age, leadership is exhausting. In the face of technological advancements and AI, topics that any employee may grapple with, executives are too often seen to be out of touch.
It seems that the complexities of leadership are taking their toll. There are endless questions about the pros and cons of remote, hybrid, (or return to office) work modalities; international economic instability and politics are impacting trade and augmenting cost pressures; and retention is still a problem that has not fully recovered from the Big Quit. While leader responsibilities are not new, there do not seem to be right answers or resolutions to strive to achieve. Decision fatigue, and constant uncertainty may be eroding their sense of control. As a result, senior level employees have seen employee confidence fall month over month, a concerning trend as it may impact hiring and investment plans.
In addition to task-related burnout, senior leaders are also unsure of how their reactions to colleagues and direct reports are measuring up. Many feel the weight of being both empathetic and decisivea balance thats emotionally taxing. This dip may reflect a growing leadership gap: leaders caring deeply, but struggling to sustain optimism.
Despite moving in opposite directions, both groups reflect the same reality: The workplace is changing faster than people can adjust. For younger employees, that change still feels full of possibility. For leaders, it feels like exhaustion. Understanding both sides could be key to rebuilding trust and confidence across the organization.
More than two decades of researchfrom Harvard professor Amy Edmondsons pioneering studies to Googles landmark Project Aristotlehave found that the strongest predictor of high-performing teams isnt talent or strategy, but psychological safety. As Edmondson defines, its a shared belief held by team members that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. Its what gives people the confidence to speak up, take creative risks, and learn from failureand its foundational to innovation.
But one critical truth is often overlooked: Leaders cant create psychological safety for others if they havent first cultivated it within themselves.
I learned this the hard way.
While earning my MBA at Stanford, I cofounded Embrace, a social enterprise that created a low-cost, portable incubator for premature babies in underserved communities. Our device has now helped to save over 1 million newborns. As CEO, I was praised for my vision and tenacity. I moved to Indiahome to over 20% of the worlds premature babiesand routinely worked 80 to 100-hour weeks.
Over the years, we saved thousands of lives. We were recognized by President Obama, received funding from Beyoncé, and were featured in media around the world.
On the outside, I appeared unstoppable.
On the inside, I was running on fumes.
One day, in the middle of a team meeting, amid an endless string of fires, I broke down in tears. Mortified, I thought I had failed as a strong leader. But the next day, my head of operations pulled me aside and said: Thank you for being so open yesterday. You seem superhuman to us. You never sleep. You never stop. Seeing you be vulnerable allows us to be, too.
He went on to share how exhausted the team was. By hiding my own fatigue and pretending to have it all together, I had unknowingly created a culture of burnout. My team didnt feel safe to speak up or admit strugglebecause their leader didnt either.
That moment cracked something open in me.
Achievement as currency
Raised in a first-generation Taiwanese-American household, I had learned early that love was conditional and achievement was the currency that earned it. When I failed to meet expectations, I was punishedsometimes violently. So I became a perfectionist. I learned to work harder, aim higher, and never show weakness. As a leader, I held my team to the same impossible standards I held myself to. I avoided discomfort, rewarded overwork, and unintentionally reinforced burnout and emotional suppression.
When Embrace nearly collapsed after a decade of challenges, I was forced to confront the pain that had long driven me. I finally realized that feeling so powerless throughout my childhood had driven me to help the most powerless people in the world. But my drive was also fueled by fear.
Fear of not being enough.
Fear of letting others down.
Fear that if I stopped striving, I would lose my value.
Many high-achieving leaders are driven by a deep desire to make an impactand an equally deep fear that they are not enough. From an early age, we learn that achievement earns approval, so we keep raising the bar. But the very qualities that fuel success can also become liabilities: overwork that burns out teams, perfectionism that stifles innovation, control that suffocates creativity. Over time, these behaviors create cultures where exhaustion and disengagement take root.
The antidote is not more strategy. Its self-awareness.
As I began doing my own inner workthrough leadership coaching, therapy, and mindfulnessI started to recognize the unconscious patterns that had long gone unquestioned. I learned to honor my emotions, listen to my body, and lead from a place of balanceone that makes impact not only meaningful, but sustainable.
When leaders build inner safetyby acknowledging emotions, setting boundaries, and extending compassion to themselvesthey make it safe for others to do the same. Thats where empathy and authentic connection begin. Its how trust takes rootand how cultures of innovation and resilience are built.
In a world of accelerating change, where AI is transforming industries, the leaders who will build lasting impact arent those who power through at all costs. Theyre the ones who pause, reflect, and build safety from the inside out.
The Action Plan
So what can leaders do?
Feel your feelingsand listen to your body. Leaders often suppress uncomfortable emotions to appear strong or composed. But unprocessed feelings dont disappearthey resurface as tension, anxiety, or burnout. When you pause to fully feel your emotions, you can lead from awareness rather than reactivity.
Your body often signals what youre feeling before your mind catches up. Tight shoulders, shallow breathing, or fatigue are quiet cues that something needs attention. Learning to notice and respond to these signals with care strengthens emotional intelligencethe ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions in yourself and others.
Practice self-compassion. Research shows that self-compassionnot self-criticismis what fuels resilience and growth. Treating yourself with the same understanding youd offer a friend allows you to recover faster from setbacks and lead with greater empathy and authentic connection.
Cultivate self-awareness. A powerful tool for this is parts work, which helps you identify the different inner voices that drive youthe perfectionist, the critic, the people pleaser. When you begin to understand these parts, you can lead from your center instead of your fears. This awareness helps to cultivate inner psychological safety. Download a free parts work exercise here.
Model vulnerability. When leaders are open about mistakes, fears, uncertainty, or difficult emotions, it creates permission for others to do the same. This builds trust and encourages psychological safety at every level. True leadership is not about control or perfection. Its about the courage to face discomfortin ourselves and others.
Let go of outcomes and focus on values. Were conditioned to define success by results. But outcomes are not always within our control. Leading from your valueslike compassion, service, or growthkeeps you grounded and connected to why you do the work. Outcomes may change, but values endure. Theyre what sustain both purpose and mental well-being over the long run.
Its an experience almost everyone is familiar with: that moment after youve been mindlessly snacking on a bag of Cheetos, when you realize that your fingers are now coated in a gritty, fluorescent orange dust. The finger dust phenomenon is so ubiquitous that Doritos and Cheetos have each run their own ads centering on the topic. Now, PepsiCo is debuting a version of both iconic snacks that come sans artificial orange.
PepsiCo recently announced a product line called Simply NKD, a new sub-category of Doritos and Cheetos that come with no artificial flavors or dyes, rendering them completely colorless. The collection will include orange-dust-free versions of Doritos Nacho Cheese, Doritos Cool Ranch, Cheetos Puffs, and Cheetos Flamin Hot, set to arrive on shelves starting on December 1.
[Photos: PepsiCo]
PepsiCo already sells a line of Cheetos and Doritos called Simply that are made with no artificial colors or flavors, but they come in separate flavor offerings like white cheddar. Simply NKD, on the other hand, are supposed to taste exactly like the classic Doritos and Cheetos you know and love, just with a less vibrant appearance.
[Photo: Brielle Patton/D3 Studio/PepsiCo]
For PepsiCo, the Simply NKD line is part of a larger effort to expand the companys focus on health and nutrition, as a growing number of customers (especially young people) become more invested in wellness. It also signals a broader trend across the snack and beverage industry, as major corporations rush to replace artificial food dyes amidst new legislation from the Trump administration designed to phase out certain artificial dyes.
PepsiCo’s next move
PepsiCo has recently been on a mission to shift its brand toward a healthier product lineupincluding, most recently, by rebranding its corporate identity to resemble stalks of grain and a droplet of water.
In a February earnings call, PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta explained that the company has seen a higher level of awareness in general of American consumers toward health and wellness, which he said was driving shifts in how consumers approach snacking. PepsiCo has followed that trend by pouring more investment into health-conscious moves, including by acquiring the grain-free, healthy tortilla chip brand Siete Foods and the prebiotic soda brand Poppi, as well as prepping to launch its own prebiotic cola brand this fall and introducing Lays and Tostitos with no artificial colors or flavors by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, PepsiCo is facing another external pressure to change some of its core offerings: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.s plan to phase out eight petroleum-based artificial colors from the nations food supply. Already, many major companies have pledged to remove synthetic dyes from certain snacks and candies, including Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Nestlé, and Campbells.
PepsiCo announced in April that it would accelerate a planned shift to using natural colors in its foods and beverages. As of now, about 40% of its U.S. products use synthetic dyes, including Doritos and Cheetos, which both rely on a combination of Yellow 6, Yellow 5, and Red 40 to achieve their iconic hues.
Right now, PepsiCo is actively working on finding natural alternatives to color its core products like Gatorade and Cheetosa process that could take several years. In the meantime, the company is betting that some customers will prefer a new version of their favorite snacks without any color additives at all.
[Photo: Brielle Patton/D3 Studio/PepsiCo]
How PepsiCo designed dust-less chips
Simply NKD are Doritos and Cheetos as youve never seen them beforeboth in and out of the packaging.
Compared to their electric orange original counterparts, these naked versions of the snacks are both a light yellow hue. In an interview with Bloomberg, Rachel Ferdinando, CEO of PepsiCo Foods U.S., said that expert tasters tried the chips under special red lights that prevented them from seeing the chips color in order to ensure that the NKD versions are just as tasty as the orange ones.
The chips packaging has similarly lost its quintessential color. Both the Cheetos and the Doritos bags are mostly white, with pops of orange, red, and blue depending on the specific flavor.
To communicate that the new products are free from artificial flavors and dyesmaking them colorlesswe intentionally stripped away the classic bright hues that consumers expect, starting with a blank canvas, a PepsiCo Foods U.S. spokesperson told Fast Company, adding that the design differentiation is enhanced by incorporating elements like a matte finish, metallic accents, and a simplified presentation. And in case anyone is still confused, every bag comes with the phrase, Naked of dyes alongside an arrow pointing to an image of the chip.
When you see the Simply NKD bag on the shelf against the sea of colorful bags, its hard to miss, the spokesperson says.
The visual identity is obviously walking a fine line between communicating the nakedness of the chips while also steering clear of any visual signals that would consign them to the health food category. In other words, these arent healthy Cheetos and Doritos; theyre just colorless.
A few days ago, I wrapped a coaching call with a senior executive navigating a complex restructuringwork that demands steadiness in ambiguity, patience when emotions rise, and the discipline to stay grounded while others are spinning. Minutes later, I walked into my kitchen and found my child in a mismatched Halloween costume, eating shredded cheese out of the bag, and crying because her Lego creation was too wobbly to be art.
The contrast was sharp, but the underlying lesson was familiar. Parenting and leadership rarely feel similar in form, but they draw on the same internal architecture. Both require influence without force, emotional regulation under pressure, and the ability to create clarity in chaotic, unpredictable environments. Both ask us to decide when to step in, when to step back, and what it means to act with intention instead of urgency.
Across my work with senior leaders, and in my own life as a parent, Ive seen these patterns repeat. The skills we associate with leadership are often forged in everyday family life, and the habits that make parenting sustainable often strengthen our leadership. Here are six lessons that cut across both domains.
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1. Emotional steadiness is a leadership skill
Composure is often misunderstood as restraint or politeness. In reality, it is the capacity to tolerate emotionyour own and otherswithout reacting impulsively. At home, this can look like staying calm through a meltdown or responding thoughtfully to a childs frustration. At work, it means anchoring your team when uncertainty is high or when interpersonal tensions flare.
Across settings, emotional steadiness supports psychological flexibility: the ability to remain centered enough to think clearly, consider options, and choose a productive response. The more leaders practice this, the more they can navigate ambiguity without defaulting to control, reactivity, or avoidance.
2. Clarity beats complexity
Parents learn quickly that children thrive with specific expectations and simple instructions. Adults are no different. Leaders often overexplain to project expertise or avoid difficult conversations, but complexity usually obscures rather than illuminates.
Clarity requires the discipline to say: Here is what were doing. Here is why. Here is what success looks like. Clear communication reduces cognitive load, increases accountability, and strengthens follow-through. When leaders simplify the path, teams can focus on execution instead of interpretation.
3. Boundaries are care, not control
In family life, boundaries allow routines to run, needs to be understood, and conflicts to be resolved without constant negotiation. They protect rest, attention, and relationships. At work, boundaries function similarly. They create predictability, prevent burnout, and help teams focus on what matters most.
Many leaders struggle more with boundaries at work than with children at home. Over-functioning often comes disguised as praise: Youre the only one I trust with this. But taking on too much erodes capacity and models unhealthy norms. Boundaries are not barriers; they are structures that support shared responsibility and mutual respect.
4. Repair matters more than perfection
Parents inevitably make mistakesraising their voices, rushing through routines, reacting too quickly. The critical practice is repair: circling back, naming what happened, and reconnecting. Repair teaches accountability, empathy, and relational safety.
Organizations benefit from the same ethic. Leaders sometimes avoid repair because they fear it signals weakness, but unaddressed ruptures undermine trust. A brief acknowledgmentI want to revisit that; I didnt handle it as well as I could havecan diffuse tension, clarify intent, and rebuild confidence. Repair is the foundation of psychological safety, which drives performance far more reliably than perfection.
5. Autonomy develops courage
Watching a child wobble on a bike for the first time is uncomfortable, but it builds resilience. The workplace equivalent is resisting the urge to overmanage. Empowering people to make decisions and learn through experience expands their competence and confidence. Micromanagement, by contrast, signals fearfear of failure, judgment, or loss of control.
Autonomy is not abdication. It requires clear expectations, appropriate guardrails, and support when needed. But real leadership involves stepping back enough for others to step forward. Growth happens in the wobble.
6. Purpose lives in the mundane
Parenting quickly teaches that meaning is built less through big milestones and more through accumulated micro-moments: answering questions while cooking dinner, revisiting hard conversations, showing up consistently even when enthusiasm is low. Steadiness matters more than spectacle.
The same is true in organizational life. Culture is shaped not by strategy decks or keynote speeches but by everyday interactionshow leaders greet people, how they listen, how they give feedback, how they respond on difficult days. Purpose is expressed through small behaviors that signal what the organization values and how people should treat one another.
The contexts are different, but the core work is the same. Leadership, in any environment, asks for clarity, steadiness, and intentional action. The setting changes, but the work is the same: stay steady, stay human, and lead with intention wherever you are.
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Youve decided to start a solo business. Congratulations! Ive been a solopreneur for years and love being my own boss.
My decision to become a full-time freelance writer happened overnight. I lost my full-time job at a marketing agency. Looking around, the job market seemed bleak. Working for myself was a way to start earning money immediately to pay bills.
However, Id been thinking about a solo business for months. So while the timing wasnt my decision, it was a direction I was headed anyway.
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I had been freelancing alongside my 9-5 job for a few years, so I had the infrastructure in place to turn my side hustle into a full-time business. What you need on Day 1 is a lot different than what you need on Day 1,001.
Here are some of the minimum things you need to get started.
1. Pricing
Before you even start talking to potential clients, you need to know what youll charge for your services. Will you charge by the hour? By project? On a retainer?
Pricing is one of the hardest things to figure out when you start your own business. You often dont have a good benchmark to know what you should charge compared to other solopreneurs doing similar work.
You can start with your salary if you were working full-time at a company. Break it down into an hourly rate (even if youre charging on a per-project basis). Keep in mind that youll also be paying taxes and covering your own business expenses.
In addition to determining pricing, youll also need a way to present pricing to a potential client. You might want to consider software that lets you put together polished proposals for clients. Some can even collect e-signatures and payments as an all-in-one tool. But this isnt necessary. You could also put together a proposal in a tool like Canva.
Youll also want to have clients sign a contract, agreeing to your pricing and terms. You could pay a lawyer to draw up a contract for you, but thats often cost-prohibitive for new solopreneurs. Instead, you could look for a template that you can modify, or use this free one from the Freelancers Union.
2. A website
Im a big advocate for launching a website for your solo business. It doesnt have to be fancy. Mine isntit simply provides some information about my background and the services I offer. It includes a link to my portfolio of work and a Contact Me form.
A website, even if its a one-pager, gives your business credibility. It also provides more information than you can showcase on a site like LinkedIn.
Ideally, you would connect your website to your own domain. If youve never done this before, it sounds scarier than it actually is. Most website builders will provide step-by-step instructions to connect to a domain you buy from a company like GoDaddy or Cloudflare.
If you want to take it a step further, you can connect your domain to Google Workspace so that your email address is @yourdomain.com. However, Google Workspace isnt free. If youre not ready to pay for it, you can always connect your domain to your email later.
3. An invoicing and payment tool
My first invoices were created in Google Sheets. I was lucky that my clients paid me via check, because otherwise, Im not sure how I would have collected payments.
Youll want to make it easy for clients to pay you, in the method of their choosing. Some may want to send you a bank transfer, while others want to use a credit card. Ive even worked with companies outside of the U.S. and needed to collect international payments. Payment should never be a point of friction.
Some tools provide invoicing, payment, and accounting all in one. Or, you can use a standalone product like Stripe to create invoices and collect payments. Platforms like Stripe will charge you a fee (a percentage of the invoice), but they will handle the payment processing for you. They collect money from the client using whatever payment method the client choosesand then send it to your bank account.
4. A plan to find clients
Once you have the foundational things in place (pricing, a website, and invoicing/payment), you can start to think about how youll find clientsor how theyll find you.
This is not a single-day activity. Everything else Ive mentioned can be pretty quick to set up. Marketing yourself is a long-term strategy.
When I first started freelancing full-time, I was desperate for work (Id just lost my job!). I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn. I joined several Slack communities and networked with potential clients. I was a guest on podcasts to get my name out into the world.
Effective tactics will depend on the services you offer, but youll need to do some hustling to find your first few clients. Your approach will likely evolve as your business grows. What worked for me in my first few months looks very different now. Over time, I learned which clients and projects aligned best with my skills and servicesand which ones didnt.
Starting a solo business can feel overwhelming at first, especially in the early days. However, you get to design and build something thats fully your own. Start with the foundation you need on Day 1, and youll figure out the rest as you go.
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Earlier this year, TikTokers declared the start of the Great Meme Depression of 2025. In the months since, things havent picked up much.
As 2026 approaches, some internet users have decided to take matters into their own hands rather than risk yet another year of AI slop and brainrot humor. Its time to take it back to 2016.
The Great Meme Reset of 2026 was first proposed by TikTok creator joebro909 in a video from March, according to KnowYourMeme, in the thick of The Great Meme Depression. In the clip, he suggested that all memes be wiped from memory in an effort to rescue TikTok from the drought.
In September, TikTok creator golden._vr took up the call, proposing a time and a date for what they dubbed, The Great Meme Reset.
“The last resort for memes,” the video’s caption read. “The Great Meme Reset. December 31st, 2025, 11:59. Memes are rising from the grave.”
Since then, internet users have been reup0ping classic memes, like Nyan Cat and Harambe, made popular before TikTok was even a glint in millennials eye, thus wiping clean the last decade of internet culture.
With Elon Musk threatening to bring back Vine but in AI form and a new six-second app backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey reviving more than 100,000 archived Vine clips, now seems as good a time as ever to introduce such classics as FRE SH VOCADO” and Damn Daniel to the youth of today.
Everything old is new again. The appeal of a return to an internet undiluted by AI slop is undeniable, but is 2010 humor really so much better than the brainrot trends of today? Awkward Turtle and Annoying Orange just dont hit the same in the cold light of 2025.
With the rapid pace of the meme cycle these days (who even remembers the Conclave memes earlier this year?!), the pull of nostalgia for a time where memes evolved at a slower pace is strong.
Yet, the algorithm marches onwards, in some cases eating itself in its insatiable demand for viral content. Trying to force it backwards is futile. Inevitably, The Great Meme Reset Of 2026 will soon meet the same fate as Evil Kermit and Big Chungus before it.
Its the circle of life.
Stories about AI-generated fabrications in the professional world have become part of the background hum of life since generative AI hit the mainstream three years ago. Invented quotes, fake figures, and citations that lead to non-existent research have shown up in academic publications, legal briefs, government reports, and media articles. We can often understand these events as technical failures: the AI hallucinated, someone forgot to fact-check, and an embarrassing but honest mistake became a national news story. But in some cases, they represent the tip of a much bigger icebergthe visible portion of a much more insidious phenomenon that predates AI but that will be supercharged by it. Because in some industries, the question of whether a statement is true or false doesnt matter much at allwhat counts is whether it is persuasive.
While talking heads have tended to focus on the post-truth moment in politics, consultants and other knowledge producers have been happily treating the truth as a malleable construct for decades. If it is better for the bottom line for the data to point in one direction rather than another, someone out there will happily conduct research that has the sole goal of finding the right answer. Information is commonly packaged in decks and reports with the intention of supporting a client narrative or a firms own goals while inconvenient facts are either minimized or ignored entirely. Generative AI provides an incredibly powerful tool for supporting this kind of misdirection: even if it is not pulling data out of thin air and inventing claims from the ground up, it can provide a dozen ways to hide the truth or to make alternative facts sound convincing. Wherever the appearance of rigor matters more than rigor itself, AI becomes not a liability but a competitive advantage.
Not to put too fine a point on it, many knowledge workers spend much of their time producing what the philosopher Harry Frankfurt calls bullshit. And what is bullshit according to Frankfurt? Its essence, he says, is not that it is false but it is phony. The liar, Frankfurt explains, cares about truth, even if only negatively, since he or she wants to conceal it. The bullshitter, however, does not care at all. They may even tell the truth by accident. What matters to bullshitters isn’t accuracy but effect: how their words work on an audience, what impression they create, what their words allow them to get away with. For many individuals and firms in these industries, words in reports and slide decks are not there to describe reality or to conduct honest argumentation; they are there to do the work of the persuasive bullshitter.
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Knowledge work is one of the leading providers of what the anthropologist David Graeber famously called bullshit jobsjobs that involve work that even those doing it quietly suspect serves no real purpose. For decades, product vendors, analysts, and consultants have been rewarded for producing material that looks rigorous, authoritative, and data-driventhe thirty-page slide deck, the glossy report, snazzy frameworks, and slick 2x2s. The material did not need to be good. It simply needed to look good.
And if that is the goal, if words are meant to perform rather than inform, if the aim is to produce effective bullshit rather than tell the truth, then it makes perfect sense to use AI. AI can produce bullshit better and more quickly and in greater volume than any human being. So, when consultants and analysts turn to generative AI to help them with their reports and presentations, they are obeying the underlying logic and fundamental goals of the system in which they operate. The problem here is not that AI produces bullshitthe problem is that many in this business are willing to say whatever needs to be said to pad the bottom line.
Bullshit vs. quality
The answer here is neither new policies nor training programs. These things have their places, but at best they address symptoms rather than underlying causes. If we want to address causes rather than apply band-aids, we have to understand what we have lost in the move to bullshit, because then we can begin figuring out how to recover it.
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig uses the term quality to name the property that makes a good thing good. This is an intangible characteristic: it cannot be defined, but everyone knows it when they see it. You know quality when you run your hand along a well-made table and feel the seamless join between two pieces of wood; you know quality when you see that every line and curve is just as it should be. There is a quiet rightness to something that has this character, and when you see it, you glimpse what it means for something to be genuinely good.
If the institutions that are responsible for creating knowledgenot just consulting firms but universities, corporations, governments, and media platformswere animated by a genuine sense of quality, it would be far harder for bullshit to take root.
Institutions teach values through what they reward, and we have spent decades rewarding the production of bullshit. Consultants simply do in excelsis what we have all learned to do to some degree: produce something that looks good without caring whether it really is good.
First you wear the mask, they say, and then the mask wears you. Initially, perhaps, we can produce bullshit while at least retaining our capacity to see it as bullshit. But over time, the longer we operate in the bullshit-industrial complex, the more bullshit we produce, the more we tend to lose even that capacity. We drink the Kool Aid and start thinking that bullshit is quality. AI does not cause that blindness. It simply reveals it.
What leaders can do
Make life hard. Bullshit flourishes because it is easy. If we want to produce quality work, we need to take the harder road.
AI isnt going away, and nor should we wish it away. It is an incredible tool for enhancing productivity and allowing us to do more with our time. But it often does so by encouraging us to produce bullshit, because that is the quickest and easiest path in a world that has given up on quality. The challenge is to harness AI without allowing ourselves to be beguiled into shortcuts that ultimately pull us down into the mire. To avoid that trap, leaders must take deliberate steps at both the individual and organizationl levels.
At the individual level. Never accept anything that AI outputs without making it your own first. For every sentence, every fact, every claim, every reference, ask yourself: Do I stand by that? If you dont know, you need to check the claims and think through the arguments until they truly become your own. Often, this will mean rewriting, revising, reassessing, and even flat out rejecting. And this is hard when there is an easier path available. But the fact that it is hard is what makes it necessary.
At the organizational level: Yes, we must trust our people to use AI responsibly. Butif we choose not to keep company with the bullshitters of the worldwe must also commit and recommit our organizations to producing work of real quality. That means instituting real, rigorous quality checks. Leaders need to stand behind everything their team produces. They need to take responsibility and affirm that they are allowing it to pass out of the door not because it sounds good but because it really is good. Again, this is hard. It takes time and effort. It means not accepting a throwaway glance across the text but settling down to read and understand in detail. It means being prepared to challenge ourselves and to challenge our teams, not just periodically, but every day.
The path forward is not to resist AI or to romanticize slowness and inefficiency. It is to be ruthlessly honest about what we are producing and why. Every time we are tempted to let AI-generated material slide because it looks good enough, we should ask: Are we creating something of quality, or are we just adding to the pile of bullshit? That questionand our willingness to answer it honestlywill determine whether AI becomes a tool for excellence or just another engine that trades insight for appearance.
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