President Trump recently promised to make America the “crypto capital of the world.” And his administration is working hard to make that pledge a reality.
White House officials have established a working group on digital asset markets and directed federal agencies to craft a strategy to cement U.S. leadership. The president’s legislative team, meanwhile, helped push the GENIUS Act (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act),through Congress earlier this summer, thus creating the first federal framework for stablecoins. And they’re working to pass the Clarity Act (Digital Asset Market Clarity Act), which would finally settle disputes over which regulator oversees digital assets.
It’s refreshing to see our political leaders working to bring digital assets into the financial mainstream, especially after years of hostility from the prior administration.
But the work is far from finishedand achieving universal legitimacy will require not just favorable laws and regulations, but also behavioral changes at leading crypto firms.
Conflicting guidance
For more than a decade, crypto innovators faced a patchwork of state regimes and conflicting federal guidance. The lack of clear regulation led to a proliferation of scams and bad actorsand kept many investors on the sidelines. Big banks and other legacy financial institutions hesitated to adopt cryptocurrencies and the underlying blockchain technology they’re based on, even as top financiers acknowledged blockchain’s potential to reshape the entire industry.
The GENIUS Act represents Washington’s first serious attempt to genuinely regulaterather than ignore or suppressone of the leading forms of cryptocurrency. The new law requires stablecoin issuers to maintain dollar-for-dollar reserves and submit to audits.
Far from rejecting this level of regulation, crypto leaders practically begged for it. They recognized that federal oversight and transparent standards are needed to transform what the public previously viewed as a speculative product into a reliable payment instrument.
That’s why industry leaders are also working with the White House and Congress to finalize the Clarity Act, which would define the boundaries of authority between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, delivering the kind of predictability that underpins every functioning capital market.
Cultural shift
But better regulation alone won’t bring about the mainstream approval that industry leaders seek. Only an internal cultural shiftand rigorous self-policingcan deliver that.
Every blockchain transaction depends on various forms of intellectual propertyfrom patents on mobile crypto wallets and bitcoin mining data centers to trade secrets in proprietary trading algorithms, and copyrights protecting exchange software to trademarks that build consumer trust. Coinbase, for instance, holds nearly 200 active patents.
But most of the intellectual property powering today’s blockchain activity belongs to third parties outside the crypto industry. Yet even as leading platforms generate billions in revenue, the industry remains reluctant to acknowledge the legitimacy of IP rights.
This reluctance is playing out in court. In May, Bancor’s nonprofit arm sued Uniswap, alleging that the leading decentralized exchange built its multibillion-dollar business on Bancor’s patented automated market maker technology without authorization.
And earlier this summer, Malikie Innovations filed suits against Core Scientific and Marathon Digital, claiming their bitcoin mining operations infringe on Malikie’s patents for elliptic curve cryptography. Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), a cryptographic technique developed and patented by Certicom years before crypto went mainstream, was licensed by companies like Cisco and Motorola as well as the National Security Agency.
Cases like these highlight the tension: Crypto companies depend on IP to function, but too many are willing to disregard the IP rights of others, even as they clamor for legitimacy.
Not how respectable companies operate
This simply isn’t the way respectable companies in mature industries operate. Spotify and Apple Music wouldn’t enjoy their positive reputations if they refused to pay royalties to artists and record labels. Streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu would be pariahs if they pirated films. Banks would be shunned by investors alike if they treated software licenses as optional.
If leading crypto firms want to be seen as respectable, investable pillars of the global economy, they need to meet those same standards when it comes to intellectual property.
Digital assets are here to stay. But universal legitimacy will come only from a combination of comprehensive regulation and a cultural shift within the industry itself.
If you slip a tiny wearable device on your fingertip and slide it over a smooth surface like a touchscreen, you can feel digital textures like denim or mesh.
The device, designed by researchers at Northwestern University, is the first of its kind to achieve human resolution, meaning that it can more accurately match the complex way a human fingertip senses the world.
In previous attempts at haptic devices like this, once you compare them to real textures, you realize theres something still missing, says Sylvia Tan, a PhD student at Northwestern and one of the authors of a new study in Science Advances about the research. Its close, but not quite there. Our work is trying to just get that one step closer.
[Photo: Northwestern University]
The wearable, made from flexible, paper-thin latex, is embedded with tiny nodes that push into the skin in a precise way and can move up to 800 times per second. Past devices had low resolutionthe touch equivalent of a pixelated image or an early movie from the 1890s with so few frames that the movement looks jerky. Using nodes and arranging them in a particular density improves that resolution.
[Photo: Northwestern University]
Earlier devices were also bulky. The ultrathin new technology, which weighs less than a gram, is designed to be comfortable to wear. A big goal was to make it very lightweight so you arent distracted by it, Tan says. And [to make] something that we call ‘haptically transparent’that means that even when youre wearing it, you can still perceive the real world, so you can perform everyday tasks.
[Photo: Northwestern University]
In the study, users could identify fabrics like corduroy or leather with 81% accuracy. The technology is still in development, but in the future, it could make it possible to feel products as you shop online. It could also have more immediate uses for people who are visually impaired, like making it possible to feel a tactile map or translating text on a screen to braille without a large, expensive device. On devices like microwaves, where physical buttons have often been replaced by flat touchscreens, the wearable could help a visually impaired person know where to push.
It could also help improve human-robot interfaces. “In the medical field, the Da Vinci robot has very good kinesthetic force feedback,” Tan says. “But getting a surgeon to feel exactly what’s happening at your fingertip as you move the angle of your finger is not quite there. And that’s very important for high-skill workers.”
Heres a sad story: The other day, my wife and I woke up and realized we were out of coffee.
Honestly, if you want to throw a wrench into the Murphy household and hamper our routine, take away the coffee.
Anyway, the story ends much better; I threw on a baseball hat and drove to the supermarket down the road.
But it also reminded me of a study Ive wanted to share here, led by researchers at Tulane University who analyzed data on 40,725 Americans and their coffee-drinking habits over nearly a decade.
In short, they found something remarkable about when people drink their coffee.
Drink it in the morning
The study, supported by the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, was published in January in the European Heart Journal. It determined that people who drink coffee primarily in the morning had significantly lower mortality rates than people who either dont drink coffee at allor who drink it throughout the entire day.
Examples:
Morning coffee drinkers had a 16% lower risk of dying from any cause during the study period compared with non-coffee drinkers.
They also had a 31% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease specifically.
People who drank coffee all day long, by contrast, showed no significant reduction in mortality risk compared with non-coffee drinkers at all.
Research so far suggests that drinking coffee doesnt raise the risk of cardiovascular disease, and it seems to lower the risk of some chronic diseases, such as Type 2 diabetes, said Lu Qi, who led the study at Tulane Universitys School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Given the effects that caffeine has on our bodies, we wanted to see if the time of day when you drink coffee has any impact on heart health.
Morning type versus all-day type
The study included adults from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1999 and 2018. Researchers identified two distinct patterns of coffee drinking among participants:
Morning-type drinkers (36% of participants): People who consumed most or all of their coffee in the morning hours.
All-day-type drinkers (14% of participants): People who spread their coffee consumption throughout the day and evening.
The remaining 50% of participants either didnt drink coffee or didnt fit cleanly into either pattern.
Over a median follow-up period of 9.8 years, researchers recorded 4,295 deaths from all causes, 1,268 deaths from cardiovascular disease, and 934 deaths from cancer.
After adjusting for factors like total caffeine intake (both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee), sleep hours, diet, and other lifestyle variables, the morning-type pattern emerged as significantly protectivewhile the all-day-type pattern did not.
More coffee, better resultsbut again, only in the morning
Heres where it gets even more interesting.
Among morning coffee drinkers, the protective effect increased with the amount of coffee consumed.
People who drank moderate amounts (two to three cups per day) or heavy amounts (more than three cups per day) in the morning showed the strongest associations with lower mortality risk.
But among all-day coffee drinkers, no such association appeared.
Drinking more coffee throughout the day didnt provide any measurable mortality benefit at all.
Coffee drinking timing significantly modified the association between coffee intake amounts and all-cause mortality, the researchers wrote. Higher coffee intake amounts were significantly associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality in participants with morning-type pattern but not in those with all-day-type pattern.
Why timing might matter
The researchers proposed two potential mechanisms to explain their findings.
First, consuming coffee in the afternoon or evening may disrupt circadian rhythms.
A previous clinical trial found that heavy coffee consumption in the afternoon or evening reduced peak nighttime melatonin production by 30% compared with controls.
Lower melatonin levels have been linked to higher oxidative stress, elevated blood pressure, and increased inflammationall risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
Second, coffees health benefits come largely from anti-inflammatory compounds.
Pro-inflammatory markers in the blood follow a circadian patterntheyre typically highest in the morning and gradually decline until reaching their lowest levels around 5 p.m.
Therefore, drinking coffee when inflammation is naturally highest may amplify its anti-inflammatory benefits more effectively than spreading consumption throughout the day.
Not the first time
We should acknowledge that this study shows correlation, not causation. Its possible that morning coffee drinkers have other habits or characteristics researchers didnt identify that contribute to their longevity.
That said, this study takes its place alongside a growing body of research suggesting that coffee consumption is associated with significant health benefits.
Among them:
A 2018 study of 500,000 people in JAMA Internal Medicine found a clear across-the-board increase in longevity among people who drink lots of coffee.
A 2025 study of 47,513 women from Harvard found that drinking at least one cup of coffee daily was associated with significantly higher odds of healthy agingdefined as reaching 70 or older with good mental and physical health, no memory problems, and freedom from 11 major chronic diseases. Every additional cup increased those odds by 2% to 5%.
A study published in 2022 following 171,616 people in Great Britain found that both men and women between ages 37 and 73 who drank 1.5 to 3.5 cups of coffee each day had up to a 30% lower chance of dying from any cause during the seven-year study period.
A 2023 study in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association that followed 12,583 participants over 20 years found that those who drank copious amounts of coffee were twice as likely to avoid becoming physically frail as they aged into their 70s.
Perhaps most intriguingly, a 2019 study from the University of South Australia analyzing 347,077 coffee drinkers found that health benefits increase with consumptionbut only up to about five cups per day.
Beyond that, the risk of heart disease starts to increase.
Head to the market
Im not ging to suggest you should race out and start pounding five cups of coffee before noon.
But for those of us who already drink coffee in the morningand I dont think the Murphy household is a rarity at all in thisits reassuring.
Just dont run out. Thats when the drama starts.
And keep a baseball cap near the door, in case you forget and have to make an early shopping trip.
Bill Murphy Jr.
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys 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.
If there’s an AI application in media that has had a rough road, it’s the chatbot. With the runaway success of ChatGPT, the whole idea that chat might be the next big thing in audience experiences took on new value, and several publications dove in, offering portals or widgets that enable readers to explore their content in a new way.
I think it’s fair to say none of these have been home runs, but some are more promising than others. Chatbots from Skift, USA Today, and The Texas Tribune have all seen some quiet success in user engagement, and while “chat” likely won’t save the media industry, it may well play an important role. Beyond the wins of improving site search and providing unique audience data, publisher-owned AI chat experiences may chart a path to the most mythical of all beasts in the AI era: the new business model.
This is where Times new AI Agent comes in. Time recently unveiled a new AI experienceyes, a chatbot, but one trained on the entirety of Times archive, about 750,000 articles going back to 1923. It has common AI-powered features like summarization, translation, and the ability to read an audio version of the article, but the main point is that the foundation of its knowledge base is a large corpus of human-verified journalism. Right now it’s deployed only on politics and entertainment stories, according to Axios.
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Times Agent vs. Perplexity
I’ve been trying out the Agent to see if it provides a better experience than a more generic AI portal like Perplexity or ChatGPTevaluating the outputs by looking at accuracy, recency, structure, and sourcing. Exploring the topic of the recent government shutdown and how it compares to other shutdowns in the past, I queried the Agent with the following prompt:
Give me a briefing on the history of U.S. government shutdowns, breaking down succinctly why each happened, when they happened, how long they lasted, and which party was presumed to have “won.”
It responded in six lengthy bullet points, each one summarizing the shutdown across the dimensions I asked for, along with a journalistic caveat at the end saying, “Time’s coverage emphasizes that winners are often a matter of political framing rather than an objective metric.” When I asked for the breakdown as a table, it said it wasn’t able to create one, though it created a more structured, numbered list as a consolation prize. Specific Time articles were linked in each bullet.
The Agent appeared a bit challenged to bring up-to-the-minute information to the query. Absent from its summary was any mention that the shutdown was on the verge of ending (I performed these searches on November 12), and it was imprecise about the length, twice saying it had lasted 35-plus days. To be fair, that figure is probably what’s most relevant to the query, since day 35 is what made the shutdown the longest in history, and the query itself is clearly focused on historical data rather than what’s happening now.
On Perplexity, the chatbot responded with a table as the primary output, plus it was more precise about the shutdown’s current length (43 days) and mentioned a tentative deal had been reached. The response had less prose overall, and it harvested the information from several different sources (the main feature of Perplexity), including Wikipedia, CBS News, ABC News, CNN, NPR, and others.
The (AI) business of information
Based on what I experienced, I’d probably call it a tie, so points to Time and its partners at Scale AI for creating a user experience comparable to a multibillion-dollar company. But user experience is only one dimension of why you’d turn to Times AI Agent. The real value is in:
The reliability of the information. As I said at the outset, because the Agent is “grounded” on the publisher’s content, which is guided by journalistic standards, it has the advantage of not potentially being skewed by unreliable sources. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t ever hallucinate or make errors of omission, but it’s starting with verified raw material.
The licensing of that information. While everyday consumers typically aren’t concerned with whether the AI chatbot they’re using respects copyright, businesses who want to build on top of AI products are. By targeting the Agent solely at its archive, Time is addressing a key fear of any partners: Will they be held liable for surfacing content that doesn’t belong to them? That provenance is especially important for compliance teams in regulated industries that want to plug an agent like this into internal research tools or customer-facing products.
All this points to the deeper strategy behind just launching a new reader experience with the “agent” label. If Times archive can power an AI experience to visitors of its website, that can also be adapted to anyone who wants to pay for it. And it wouldn’t require handing over any IPonce a deal is signed, you’d need to create just a simple technical handshake, presumably via MCP (model context protocol) between a client’s front end and Times Agent. A bank, for instance, could wire the Agent into its internal policy portal so staff can query vetted news content without ever leaving the companys systems.
This is conceptually similar to the licensing deals that Time and others have already signed with AI companies like OpenAI, but it’s technically different in an important way. A typical licensing agreement involves permission (often retroactive) to use the site’s content for training, plus access to the site for AI search crawlers so it can summarize news stories in response to user queries. Those searches rely greatly on metadata, the process is far from comprehensive, and there is limited visibility in how the content is used.
A better system would mean the publisher owns the agent layer and interface, which is what Time has done. Once you’ve done the hard work of formatting, ingesting, and processing your archive for AI, it makes its information much more reliable and easy for systems to parse, and you can choose to license it on yor own terms. That has an effect on the overall power dynamic of any deals; the publisher now becomes a tool vendor as much as a content supplier.
So new kinds of deals are possible, but the question is: Will anyone make them? Time has a big archive, but it’s still small compared to the entire news output of the media industrysomething ProRata is closer to building with its Gist search engine (which also includes Time). Then again, if buyers can get what they need from only a few specific sources, why not just pay for access to those and be done with it? This mirrors the age-old debate around cable channels: Will customers of this kind of information want to get it as a bundle, or la carte?
Either way, the transformation of big archives into AI-ready corpuses, easily plugged into information portals (public or private), could end up being a large part of how media companies monetize their content in the future.
Creating new business models is a phrase that gets tossed around all the time in the media, but hardly ever seen, kind of like Bigfoot. We might have just had a sighting.
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When it comes to podcasting, it’s Joe Rogan’s world. The Joe Rogan Experience was the most popular podcast of 2025, according to Apple’s just-released rankings.
This is the first year Rogan has topped the Apple charts. Last year, he took the bronze medal, behind The Daily and Crime Junkie (both of which still made the Top 10 this year). Two years ago, he didn’t make the list (thanks to an exclusivity agreement with Spotify, signed in 2020where he also currently holds the No. 1 spot).
Rogan’s podcast certainly had head-turning guests this year, including a much-listened-to interview with Elon Musk. The Daily, from The New York Times, was Apple’s second-most popular podcast this year, with The Mel Robbins Podcast debuting at No. 3, after not making the list in 2024.
Robbins, whose podcast offers advice to people who want to change their lives, said she was shocked by the high placement. (Her podcast was also the most followed show on Apple in 2025 and had the most shared episode.)
“I just cant believe it,” she wrote to listeners on social media. “Our small team, you, and this global community turned this little podcast that started in a room above my garage into one of the biggest podcasts in the world. I am so proud and so grateful.”
Alex Coopers Call Her Daddy and The Ezra Klein Show were the other new additions to the 2025 list.
True crime, news, and big podcasting names dominated the top shows. Here’s how the list ranked the podcasts for 2025.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The Daily
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Crime Junkie
Dateline NBC
SmartLess
Call Her Daddy
This American Life
Huberman Lab
The Ezra Klein Show
Amy Poehler’s Good Hang with Amy Poehler was the top new podcast of the year, followed by Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce and several true-crime offerings.
Among Apple’s top series, The Telepathy Tapes, which investigates the controversial claim that some nonspeaking individuals with autism have telepathic abilities, was the leader. That podcast, hosted by Ky Dickens, has been particularly polarizing among listeners, with some listening obsessively and many calling it a grift.
“An incredible and humbling honor,” the podcast team wrote on social media. “Thank you to everyone who shared, listened, and opened their minds. We are so beyond grateful for all of the listeners.”
The most surprising ranking of the list, though, was likely the podcast that didn’t top the charts. Among the most listened-to podcast episodes of the year, Taylor Swift’s appearance on New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce only ranked third, behind offerings from The Telepathy Tapes and Crime Junkie.
In fairness, the Swift podcast aired in August, while The Telepathy Tapes episode that topped the list was from September 2024 and the Crime Junkie episode was from April, giving both more time to gather listeners.
Here’s how the other lists ranked this year.
Top new shows
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce
Deadly Mirage
Blink: Jake Haendels Story
Murder in the Moonlight
Devil in the Desert
What Happened to Holly Bobo?
Cold Blooded: Mystery in Alaska
Unicorn Girl
The Best People with Nicolle Wallace
Top series
The Telepathy Tapes
The Binge Cases
Deadly Mirage
Blink: Jake Haendels Story
Dateline Originals
Murder in the Moonlight
Serial
Three
Devil in the Desert
CounterClock
Top episodes
The Telepathy Tapes: Unveiling the Hidden World of Telepathic Communication in a Silenced Community
Crime Junkie: Murdered: The Feeney Family
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce: The Taylor Swift Episode
The Joe Rogan Experience: #2223 Elon Musk
The Daily: Trump, Again
Blink: Jake Haendels Story: Blink
Deadly Mirage: Death in the High Desert
SmartLess: Amy Poehler
Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Tina Fey
Murder in the Moonlight: In Cold Blood
In a world of hustle culture and stressors of all kinds, joy can seem both illusive and impossible. But despite barriers, you can create the conditions for happiness.
Well-being and joy are critical issues today, with 69% to 77% of Americans feeling stressed about factors like the economy, current events, violence, and lack of connections, according to the American Psychiatric Association. In addition, a global mental health study of 17,000 people across 16 countries by Ipsos/AXA found that 64% face stress, 43% are suffering from depression, and only 25% of people are flourishing.
But strategies for micro joy can be a solution to the struggles and a way to build both well-being and resilience. Micro joy is made up of the small moments of happiness, presence, and mindfulness that we can find in the midst of challenge or difficulty. It is about embracing the power of little delights in the everyday.
How can you create micro joy in your life? Heres what works best.
Take action
Perhaps most important to micro joy is realizing that you have power over your actions and reactions. There may be a lot that is getting in the way of your happiness, but you can take action to contribute to your mental health as well. Even if you cant change your situation, you can adjust your thinking and your habits.
Remind yourself of all youve achieved and all youre capable of. Reframe problems as opportunities to learn. When youre faced with a new opportunity, instead of resisting it, motivate yourself to move out of your comfort zone by saying Why not? Take a walk, spend time outside enjoying nature, get enough sleep, and stay hydrated. Also consider keeping a gratitude journal.
These kinds of actions have positive effects, according to a study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research of almost 18,000 people in 169 countries. They contribute to improved emotional well-being, greater positive emotions, feelings of empowerment, reduced stress, increased health, and better sleep.
Taking action contributes to happiness because it helps you feel empowered, and it reinforces your agency. It also gives you an opportunity to learn. When you attempt to solve a problem or you address a challenge, you get feedback about what works, what you can improve, and the best ways to keep going.
Focus on small wins
You can also create moments of micro joy by focusing on small wins. Its natural that work may include good days and not-so-good days. But in a study of 12,000 people over three years by Harvard, the people who tended to be the most motivated were those who felt like they had made progress on any given day. It wasnt always the big achievements that created satisfaction, but simply the feeling they had moved things forward. Another study published in Health Psychology found that frequent, small experiences (think: small steps) had measurable positive impacts on emotions and physical health and reduced depression and anxiety.
Small acts like keeping a gratitude journal or tracking your progress on a project at work can help you reinforce small wins. You can also track small wins in your personal life like monitoring your streaksincluding the days you meditate or the times you go to the gym or take the dog for a walk.
Focus on others
When were seeking happiness, it can be natural to focus on our own needs, but ironically, focusing on others can help us even more. In fact, a surefire way to achieve happiness through micro actions is to do small kindnesses for others. We all have an instinct to matter, and when we help others, we not only help them but also ourselves.
Based on a survey by BioLife, when people helped others, 45% felt a greater sense of purpose, 36% felt happier, 26% experienced greater mental well-being, 20% improved their self-esteem and self-confidence, and 11% said they were less stressed. And fully 49% volunteered because they expected to feel personally fulfilled.
Set a goal that every day youll actively help another person, visit a friend who needs support, or reach out to a neighbor who is sick. Do a random act of kindness for a stranger.
Focus on the present
You can also increase happiness with moments of micro joy that are focused on the present. If we ruminate too much on the past or worry too much about the future, we can exacerbate mental distress. Of course, you want to reflect and learn and you want to plan for the future, but when you keep enough focus on the present, you also stay grounded.
One way is to focus on your senses. Smell your freshly brewed coffee and enjoy that first cup in the morning. Step outside and notice the sun on your face or enjoy the new crispness in the fall air. Listen to the children playing in the yard down the street or pause to hear the trickle of the stream as you walk through a park on the way to work. Any of these will help you pause and enjoy where you are.
You are also wise to focus on what youre grateful for. When you think consciously about the people and experiences you appreciate, or the skills and capabilities that you celebrate in yourself, youll reinforce what you have, rather than what youre yearning for. When you express more gratitude, youll also tend to feel happier, according to research conducted by the University of Montana.
In a 1991 movie called The Fisher King, Robin Williams plays a man who is without a home and who has had a psychotic break. Despite his suffering, he says that he has all he needs and holds out his hand to show a few stones. Each one represents a memory or special moment. They are his touchstones for healing, redemption, and a new beginning. And they remind him of parts of his life hes grateful for.
Micro joys are like this as well. You can tap into micro joy with strategies to focus on small things in the present, as well as your own ability to embrace moments and memories with gratitude and fulfillment.
When I was learning to play bass, my first teacher told me, Find your groove and stay in it. As a musician, that meant discovering the rhythm that allowed me to lock in with the drummer so the rest of the band could shine. Years later, as a consultant and culture architect, I realized the same principle applies to productivity: Each of us has a groovea natural style of workingthat, once discovered, allows us to perform at our best.
The challenge is that most professionals attempt to replicate productivity systems that dont align with their brains natural rhythm. They read about a CEO waking up at 4 a.m. or a time-blocking hack and feel frustrated when it doesnt work for them. Thats like asking a jazz saxophonist to practice like a classical pianist. Both are musicians, but their artand their brainsrequire different approaches.
Neuroscience supports this. Research on brain plasticity reveals that each of us develops distinct cognitive strengths and energy patterns based on our experiences and genetic wiring. In other words, your productivity style is as unique as your fingerprint. Leaders who thrive are those who learn to recognize, honor, and harness their styleand then build teams that groove together like a jazz ensemble.
The Four Productivity Styles
Over the course of decades working with leaders, teaching project portfolio management, and performing music, Ive identified four broad productivity styles. Think of them as sections of an orchestra: Each contributes differently, and the magic happens when they play in harmony.
The Disciplined Virtuoso (Focus & Discipline)These are your practice room professionals. Like Prince, who mastered 27 instruments through relentless repetition, they thrive on structure, consistency, and clear goals.
The Creative Shape-Shifter (Reinvention & Innovation)Think David Bowie or the Beatles. These individuals thrive when they can reinvent themselves, innovate, and question the status quo.
The Resilient Improviser (Experimentation & Recovery)Modeled after jazz legends like John Coltrane, this style thrives in uncertain times. They treat challenges as improvisational prompts, seeing them as opportunities to adapt and grow.
The Collaborative Conductor (Collaboration & Vulnerability)Like Beyoncé, who builds a powerhouse creative team, these leaders excel at orchestrating others. Their groove is creating safe, trust-filled environments where collective brilliance emerges.
Each style can lead to extraordinary resultsbut only if you work with it rather than against it.
Why Knowing Your Style Matters
Failing to identify your productivity style is like ignoring the bass in a songit leaves everything else hollow. Heres why it matters:
Energy Alignment: When you work in harmony with your natural groove, tasks that once felt like mountains become more like your favorite tune.
Reduced Burnout: A Kronos study found 95% of HR leaders believe burnout is sabotaging retention. Misaligned productivity approaches are a silent culprit.
Team Synergy: Just as an orchestra needs strings, winds, brass, and percussion, organizations need a mix of productivity styles.
Strategic Clarity: The most successful companies, from Apple to Walgreens, found their hedgehog concept by aligning passion, capability, and economic engine. Individuals must do the same with their productivity.
How to Find Your Productivity Style
Think of this as a discovery processnot unlike learning to play music by ear. Heres a framework I use (inspired by my Productivity Smarts podcast and methodology):
Identify Peak Energy Hours Track your energy for a week. Virtuosos often peak early; shape-shifters may find evenings more generative.
Map Motivational Triggers Do you thrive on checklists or freedom? Pay attention to when you feel in flow.
Replay Your Work History Look at past projects. Were you most engaged when innovating, executing, adapting, or collaborating?
Run a Jam Session Try tasks outside your default style for a week. Notice whether they energize or drain you.
Seek Feedback Ask colleagues what they see as your strengths. Others often notice patterns you miss.
Turning Style Into Strength
Discovering your productivity style is only the first step. The real magic comes when you apply it with intention:
Design Your Environment Like a StudioVirtuosos thrive with tidy desks and project management tools. Shape-shifters may need whiteboards and inspiration boards to help them visualize their ideas. Improvisers benefit from safe sandbox spaces. Conductors need open collaboration zones.
Build Your Productivity ParthenonIn my book, Productivity Smarts, I describe the Parthenon as a metaphor for enduring productivity. Each pillarFocus, Innovation, Experimentation, Collaborationmust be represented. Your style shows which pillar is strongest and which requires partners.
Sync With the BandProductivity is not a solo act. Leaders should intentionally compose teams with a mix of styles. Thats how you avoid the all-drummers problemlots of noise, no melody.
Use Neuroscience to Hack Your GrooveNeuroscience tells us emotion, novelty, and stories enhance memory and performance. If youre a Virtuoso, add novelty breaks. Shape-shifters should ground ideas in stories. Improvisers should embed recovery rituals. Conductors should practice emotional intelligence to deepen trust.
Make Decisions Like a Jazz SoloistIn my book A Symphony of Choices, I wrote that effective decision-making is about striking a balance between structure and freedom. Let your style guide not only how you work but what you choose to work on.
When Styles Collide
I once consulted with a federal agency IT department that was paralyzed. Projects were late, innovation was flat, and morale was low. After assessments, we realized the leadership team was composed almost entirely of virtuosos. They were masters of execution but resistant to improvisation.
We introduced shape-shifters and improvisers into the project management leadership pipeline, pairing them with virtuosos in co-lead roles. The result? Innovation flourished, risks were managed, and execution remained strong. Within two years, their project delivery rate improved by 35%, and employee engagement scores jumped.
The lesson: When you know your style, you not only work better, you know who to partner with to fill your gaps.
Action Plan: Finding Your Groove
Heres a simple five-step plan you can use tomorrow:
Take Inventory: Track when you feel most energized.
Label Your Style: Decide whether youre primarily a virtuoso, shape-shifter, improviser, or conductor.
Align Your Calendar: Schedule high-value tasks during your peak windows.
Curate Your Ensemble: Partner with colleagues whose styles complement yours.
Review Weekly: Ask, Did I honor my style? Did I balance it with others?
Why This Matters Now
We live in what Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez calls the Project Economy: a world where most of our work is structured as projects with clear outcomes and stakes. In this environment, productivity isnt about doing more; its about doing what matters most in harmony with how your brain works.
Leaders who ignore this reality will continue to fight burnout, disengagement, and wasted resources. Leaders who embrace it will unlock resilience, creativity, and sustainable high performance.
Closing Note: Play Your Part
When I play in a jazz ensemble, no one asks the bassist to sound like the trumpet or the drums. My job is to provide the groove that makes the whole band sound better. Productivity is the same. Your style doesnt need to match anyone elses. It needs to be yoursand when you play it well, others will find their groove alongside you.
Your brain already has a productivity style. Its time to discover, honor, and utilize it. Because in the great symphony of work, the world doesnt need more noise. It requires your unique music.
Most personal branding advice assumes youre one thing. But what if youre not? What if youre a strategist and an artist, a CEO and a musician, a parent and a community builder?
For leaders who live at these intersections, the advice to pick a lane can feel suffocating. I know this tension firsthand. My own path has spanned finance, strategy, leadership development, writing, and creating art. Initially, I worried that showcasing this diversity would appear disjointed.
Over time, I realized that my multidimensionality isnt a liability; its part of my brand. The question isnt How do I simplify myself? Its How do I integrate my many identities into a coherent, compelling story?
Why This Matters
Research shows multidimensionality is more commonand more valuablethan ever. A recent McKinsey study found that half of American professionals now identify with more than one career identity, often blending side hustles with traditional roles. Meanwhile, the Harvard Business Review reports that leaders earn more trust when they reveal dimensions beyond technical skillsuch as creativity, vulnerability, and even hobbies. And as Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha argue in The Startup of You, the most resilient brands are those that adapt, iterate, and broadcast a multidimensional story. The challenge? If you dont actively design your personal brand, the world will do it for you, and it will often default to the narrowest version of you.
Examples of Multidimensional Branding Done Right
Too often, leaders feel pressure to pick one defining trait: strategist, innovator, operator. But the most resonant brands are those that embrace complexity. Here are some well-known examples of multidimensional personal brands that have gotten it right.
Bozoma Saint John: The former CMO at Netflix and Uber has a brand that stands for more than marketing expertise. She weaves her identity as a Ghanaian-American, a fashion icon, and a champion for diversity into her professional story. That integration has made her one of the most recognizable CMOs in the world, known as much for her bold presence and narrative as for her marketing results.
Lin-Manuel Miranda: A creator who fuses theater, history, and hip hophis brand isnt playwright but storyteller across genres.
Reshma Saujani: The founder of Girls Who Code is also a lawyer, advocate, and author. Her personal brand is built on a throughline of bravery in the face of imperfection that ties her varied pursuits together.
These leaders didnt collapse themselves into one lane. Instead, they built brands around the connective tissue of their pursuits.
A Framework: The Three Cs of Multidimensional Branding
So how do you put this into practice? When I work with leaders, I use a framework inspired by The Startup of You to help them embrace, not erase, their complexity.
Clarify Your Throughline. Whats the connective idea across your roles? Maybe its expanding access, bridging art and science, or helping people reimagine whats possible. This becomes the anchor of your brand.
Curate Your Narrative. Not every role needs equal airtime. Instead of a laundry list, craft a story arc. Example: I started in finance, which gave me analytical rigor. I layered in strategy and biotech, which taught me the importance of scale and innovation. Today, I bring that foundation into leadership development, blending structure with creativity.
Communicate Across Contexts. Your brand isnt staticit flexes depending on the audience. On LinkedIn, you can highlight your leadership coaching skills. On your podcast, your identity as a connector and storyteller comes to the forefront. Consistency lies in tone and values, not identical messaging.
Together, these steps ensure your brand reflects your wholeness, not just one polished fragment.
Practical Tips for Leaders Building a Multidimensional Brand
Frameworks are powerful, but they only come alive when translated into daily practice. Many leaders nod along to the idea of integration over simplification, but then get stuck when it comes to LinkedIn headlines, bios, or introductions at networking events.
The gap between knowing and doing can make multidimensional branding feel abstract and intangible. Thats why it helps to start small with practical, repeatable actions that align your external signals with your internal story. These arent about over-engineering your brand. Theyre about cultivating habits that make your complexity relatable and memorable.
Here are four ways to put multidimensional branding into action:
Audit your brand signals. Google yourself, review your LinkedIn headline, and ask: Does this reflect all the sides of me that matter most now?
Experiment in public. Post about a project outside your main lane. When I first began sharing my artwork alongside my leadership insights, I was surprised by how strongly it resonated with them. That integration signaled more authenticity than adhering to a single professional script ever could.
Borrow language from others. Listen closely to how colleagues describe you. The phrases that recur often point to your authentic differentiators.
Tell stories, not resumes. People remember narratives of how you moved between worlds, not a bullet list of achievements.
The old model of branding said: be consistent by being narrow. The new model says: be consistent by being authentic. You dont need to shrink yourself to be relatable; you need to integrate yourself to be memorable. So, ask yourself: Whats the throughline that ties together my many identities? How can I share my story in a way that feels both multidimensional and coherent? Because in an era where disruption is constant and roles are fluid, the leaders who thrive wont be the ones who fit a mold. Theyll be the ones who embody the power of andand in doing so, expand what leadership itself can look like.
Five years ago, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong did a bold thing. He banned political conversations at work. He made this decision because he knows what the job of a business leader is: to deliver for customers, employees, and shareholders.
More recently, another executive did the opposite. Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerrys fame left the company as part of a row with its parent company over social activism. For Greenfield, political stances are not just part of the company; they ultimately outweigh everything else.
This stark difference is very instructive at this time. Amid Americas rising polarization, what stance should businesses take? Many people who think of themselves as social justice activists criticized Armstrong and praised Greenfield. But in reality, for society, Armstrong showed the kind of leadership America desperately needs.
The degradation of public discourse is corrosive to society and individual well-being. It might be the greatest social challenge we face today. Government leaders are, all too often, exacerbating this. But businesses canand mustbring Americans together.
Years of research have proven this. Studies of intergroup contact theory find that when people work across differences and focus on common goals, they build much greater understanding. Workplaces are often the main places in which this happens, and they benefit from greater cooperation and collaboration.
By recognizing how interpersonal trust, the foundation of teamwork, is primarily formed in our workplaces through acknowledgement, respect, and relating, as well as by modeling trustful behaviors, team leaders can manage political discourse,” a 2023 study on political polarization found. They can also “acknowledge the good, and refocus on the mission, culture, and goals that united us in the first place, before polarization became so pronounced.
How is this done? Should companies take stands on controversial issues or avoid them? When a stand is taken, will that create an echo chamber of aligned social warriors that alienates the nonaligned?
Unite around meaning
Businesses must create environments in which people do their best work. Employee engagement drives productivityand its all about how people feel about work. Yes, in this data-driven world, feelings still matter more.
Leaders should build cultures that make people feel excitement and connection over shared aims. Decades ago, President John F. Kennedy confronted a perceived threat from Russia, and raging controversies in America about what to do. He responded by motivating people to share a dream of U.S. astronauts making it to the moon. That dream was so compelling that it was faithfully delivered seven years after JFKs assassination.
The lesson: focus on big goals and build camaraderie around what it takes to achieve them. Business leaders must set up moonshot aspirations. Lay out what it takes for the organization to get there. Make that the driving force of daily operations.
Build focus amid overstimulation
Anthropologist Grant McCracken talks about todays culture being concussive. People have so much coming at them at all times that theyre distracted and often triggered. They feel overwhelmed just by being alive. The pervasive complaint of overwhelm is a symptom of this condition.
An absolutely essential job of a leader today is to deliberately and methodically pull people out of that morass of overstimulation. Make work the place in which people derive a sense of meaning from achievements that become core to their identity. Create an environment in which they take pride in work well done and beautifully executed.
This happens when leaders make clear what the purpose of the enterprise is. That purpose must override everything else. So a leader should ask: Are we in the business of creating the funkiest, most creative ice cream on earth, at scale? If that’s the purpose, then everything else comes second. You dont divide the company, customers, workforce, corporate partners, suppliers, or anyone else over issues outside that purpose.
Over the years, I have noticed that the happiest people I know are a bit obsessed with their work; they find meaning and joy in what they do. The CEOs job is to foster this environment. One where a sense of purpose and meaning comes from being part of an organization larger than themselves, and where it is clear to everyone what the relevant beliefs, mindsets, and mental models are.
At its core, the job of culture is to find that which unites people. With political extremism and violence endangering Americas future, the nation needs workplaces to step up. There, leaders can create clear, positive cultures, capture peoples attention, and help them rediscover what its like to come together.
Colleagues are a critical part of what makes your work experience enjoyable and meaningful. You interact with your colleagues and (in the best of cases) create a neighborhood of peers that you can rely on both to push the work forward and to share the joys and tribulations of the workday.
Thats why annoying colleagues can be a particular thorn. When you have a peer at work that you dont want to deal with, it disrupts the flow of your day and diminishes your intrinsic enjoyment of work.
So, what can you do to deal with annoying coworkers? A lot of that depends on what is making them annoying. Here are a few possibilities.
Missing social norms
One thing that can make a colleague annoying is that they just dont understand the social norms of the office. This is particularly likely to be true of people who are new to your organization and especially those who are new to working in general. Also, these social norms can be very hard to pick up when the company works remotely.
You might want to help these colleagues get acclimated to the workplace. Talk to them about what colleagues expect in the organization. Offer to give them feedback on the interactions you witness in meetings or group gatherings. Give them a heads-up about upcoming situations.
The idea here is that annoying colleagues are particularly annoying when you feel like there is nothing you can do to avoid them. By becoming a proactive part of the solution, you are giving yourself some agency that will make your colleague feel less like a rock in your shoe.
Lack of trust
Some colleagues are annoying, because you flat-out dont trust them. You suspect that they are using any information they obtain to get ahead at the expense of others. Perhaps they have the ear of leadership and tend to badmouth members of the team. They might even try to take more credit for projects than they deserve.
This is a hard one, because you have to be able to engage with your peers to get your work done. For one thing, if you witness a colleague doing something that undermines your trust in them, find a time to talk with them. It is possible that they are insecure and doing some of the things they do to feel successful. They may not even realize that others have picked up on what theyre doing. The aim is to try to convince your colleague that playing with the team is likely to help them to be more successful than undermining the team.
If you do have this conversation, focus on the observable facts without implying a motive. Tell them what you saw them do and allow them to talk to you about why. Hopefully, the conversation will improve that colleagues future behavior. Of course, if they deny having done anything wrong, it reinforces your lack of trust.
If you do have a colleague who is truly untrustworthy, try to avoid engaging with them more than necessary. Hopefully, their supervisor will have some sense that this person isnt trustworthy and will provide some feedback to correct their behavior. Machiavellian individuals in particular may treat their peers poorly, but suck up to leadership. Still, your best bet is to steer clear and focus your efforts on your trusted colleagues.
Social awkwardness and neurodivergence
Some people are just socially awkward. They mean well, but they dont pick up on the social cues that others use to know that a social interaction isnt going well or they should leave someone alone. Some (though not all) of these socially awkward individuals may be on the autism spectrum.
There are two things to do here: First, give some grace. If youre fortunate enough to be socially skilled, you may not realize how hard it is to be socially awkward. Everyone wants to feel some connection to their colleagues, and your socially atypical and neurodivergent colleagues have a particularly hard time sustaining those connections. Being a good colleague and friend is going to improve their work experience (and yours).
As you befriend these colleagues, talk with them about whether they would appreciate you letting them know if theyre being a bother. Often, they will value getting more direct feedback about when an engagement has gone awry. That way, you can help them and also redirect interactions before they become annoying.
AITA?
If several colleagues are being annoying, it could be a run of bad luck, but there is also a significant chance that the problem is you.
Reflect a bit on the way you engage with your colleagues. Are there things youre doing that may rub them the wrong way? If you cant figure it out, find a colleague you think you get along with well, and ask.
If you do figure out (or are told) that you are driving your colleagues nuts, then sit down with your colleagues individually and apologize. Discuss the situation and assure them that you want to be a good colleague and are working to improve. Conversations like that can go a long way toward repairing your relationships with your peers.
