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As our attention spans and cognitive abilities are increasingly damaged by digital overuse and AI-mediated shortcuts, the ability to focus deeply and learn something in depth is quickly becoming a critical skill. Never have we had such broad access to information. And never have so many people felt unable to concentrate long enough to truly master anything. Learning is everywhere, yet depth feels elusive. In a world where artificial intelligence can retrieve, summarize, and recombine information faster than any human, what remains valuable is the capacity to incorporate it. And for that to be possible, you need to stay with a subject long enough for it to transform you. To develop judgment, sensibility, and embodied understanding. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/01\/PhotoLVitaud-169.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/01\/PhotoLVitaud-11.jpg","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Laetitia@Work\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Women power the worlds productivity its time we talked more about it. Explore a woman-centered take on work, from hidden discrimination to cultural myths about aging and care. Dont miss the next issue subscribe to Laetitia@Work.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"http:\/\/laetitiaatwork.substack.com","theme":{"bg":"#2b2d30","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#3b3f46","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91472264,"imageMobileId":91472265,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} Engineering scarcity in a world of abundance It is striking that some of the wealthiest people on the planet are actively trying to recreate conditions of scarcity for learning. Silicon Valley billionaires famously send their children to schools with no screens. The goal is to give the young brains of their offspring the chance to build attention, memory, and imagination without constant digital solicitation. And to give them an edge over hyperconnected, cognitively eroded plebs. Conscious of the erosion of their cognitive abilities, more and more people attempt to engineer artificial information scarcity for themselves. They block websites, silence notifications, use distraction-free devices, or retreat into deep work bubbles. A growing number deliberately swap smartphones for so-called dumb phones, accepting inconvenience in exchange for cognitive space. Among younger generations, a curious trend has emerged on TikTok: videos of people filming themselves doing absolutely nothing. What looks like absurdity is, in fact, a rebellion against overstimulationa desire to recover the ability to sit with oneself without external input. All these strategies point to the same intuition: Abundance without boundaries is not liberating. It is paralyzing. And learning, in particular, seems to require limits to flourish. Learning when the future is radically uncertain This matters all the more because learning has lost one of its traditional motivations: predictability. For decades, acquiring skills was tied to relatively stable professional trajectories. You learned accounting to become an accountant, law to become a lawyer, engineering to become an engineer. The link between effort and outcome was broadly intelligible. Today, nobody knows which skills will be valued among future white-collar workersor whether many of those will still be hired at all. Entire professions are being reshaped, fragmented, or automated faster than educational institutions can adapt. In such a context, learning can feel strangely demotivating. Why invest years mastering something that may soon be obsolete? And yet, this very uncertainty may make deep learning even more meaningful. When external guarantees disappear, learning becomes less about employability and more about orientation, about building internal resources like discernment, aesthetic sense, and intellectual resilience. This is where Taoist-inspired approaches to learning suddenly feel increasingly relevant. Whats Taoism? As one of the great spiritual traditions of China, it is traditionally associated with the Tao Te Ching, attributed to Lao-Tzu (around the 6th century BCE), and later texts such as the writings of Zhuangzi. At its core lies the concept of the Taooften translated as the Waythe underlying, ever-changing principle that governs the natural world. Taoism is not a doctrine of control or optimization. It emphasizes alignment rather than domination, and harmony rather than performance. One of its central ideas is wu wei, often mistranslated as nonaction but better understood as effortless action: acting in accordance with the natural flow of things rather than forcing outcomes. Another key idea is pu, the uncarved block, symbolizing simplicity, openness, and unconditioned potential. Taoist wisdom consistently warns against excessof desire, of knowledge, of interventionand values emptiness, slowness, and restraint as conditions for clarity. In short, Taoism offers a sharp lens through which to rethink how we learn today. A lesson from Fabienne Verdier: scarcity as a teacher I was reminded of this while reading Passenger of Silence, French artist Fabienne Verdiers remarkable account of the 10 years she spent in China in the 1980s, studying calligraphy and immersing herself in Chinese artistic and philosophical traditions. (Until March 2026, some of her striking works are being exhibited at the Cité de lArchitecture museum in Paris, offering a visual echo to the intellectual journey she describes.) Verdier recounts the ascetic teaching methods of her calligraphy master. The caricature comes to mind immediately: the merciless master in Kill Bill, forcing Beatrix Kiddo to repeat the same gesture endlessly, withholding validation until the student is almost broken. Repeat and repeat and repeat the same strokeuntil boredom, frustration, and despair surface. Wait months, sometimes years, before being deemed worthy of moving on. Prove motivation, patience, and humility before even being accepted as a student. At one point in her book, Verdier recounts a decisive moment of collapse after being asked to paint endlessly the same strokesone that her master greets not with concern, but with joy. After months and months of training, I burst out one winter morning in front of my master:I cant go on anymore; I dont know where I am. In short, I dont understand anything anymore.Goo, good.I dont know where Im going.Good, good.I dont even know who I am anymore.Even better!I no longer know the difference between me and nothing.Bravo! The more I fumed, the more delighted he became, his face radiant with happiness and amazement. He was hopping with joy, tears in his eyes. I went on, overwhelmed by an inner pain, thinking he hadnt understood what I was saying:After all these years of practice, I realize that I am still just as ignorant in the face of the universe. I will never manage to accomplish what you are asking of me.Yes, that is exactly it, he said, clapping his hands with joy. He danced in place with an incomprehensible delight. At that moment, I thought he was delirious.You have no idea how much pleasure youve just given me! There are people for whom an entire lifetime is not enough to understand their own ignorance. 5 Taoist principles of learning we could all adopt 1. Learning as transformation, not acquisition: In Taoism, knowledge is not something you accumulate but something you become. The Tao Te Ching repeatedly suggests that true understanding comes not from adding more, but from stripping away the superfluous. Mastery is not about collecting credentials or information, but about internal change. Learning is successful when it alters how you act in the world. 2. Patience as a prerequisite: Lao-Tzu famously writes: I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Patience is a condition for learning to occur at all. Progress cant be forced. Growth unfolds in its own time, like the seasons. In learning, waiting is not wasted time but part of the processespecially when what is being learned is judgment, taste, or sensibility. 3. Scarcity and simplicity as cognitive discipline: Taoism consistently warns against excess. The ideal learner is not surrounded by infinite resources but protected from distraction. Fewer tools, fewer references, fewer stimuli allow attention to settle. As Lao-Tzu notes: When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. 4. Process over outcomes: Taoist wisdom is skeptical of linear progress and measurable outcomes. Learning does not move smoothly from beginner to expert; it circles, deepens, stalls, and restarts. This stands in stark contrast to modern learning cultures obsessed with efficiency, milestones, and KPIs. If you focus too much on results, you miss the internal transformations that constitute real mastery. 5. Boredom and not-knowing as thresholds: Perhaps the most radical principle is the role of boredom. Taoist practices value stillness and emptiness as gateways to insight. In learning, boredom is often the point where superficial motivation collapsesand where something deeper can begin. To tolerate boredom, uncertainty, and silence is to resist the constant stimulation of digital environments. Learning humility in an age of hubris Taoism dismantles the illusion of mastery and domination. It reminds us that knowledge is always partial, that control is fragile, and that force ultimately backfires. Water defeats rock.Those who claim to know do not truly know. Learning, in this tradition, is inseparable from the recognition of ones ignorance. Verdiers master does not celebrate her despair out of cruelty, but because she has finally reached a point where ego, certainty, and ambition collapse. Only then can real learning begin. This stands in sharp contrast with our contemporary climate of hubristechnological, economic, and politicalwhere confidence is rewarded more than doubt. Taoist learning offers a counter-ethic. It teaches that in brutal times, restraint may be the most radical form of resistance. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/01\/PhotoLVitaud-169.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/01\/PhotoLVitaud-11.jpg","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Laetitia@Work\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Women power the worlds productivity its time we talked more about it. Explore a woman-centered take on work, from hidden discrimination to cultural myths about aging and care. Dont miss the next issue subscribe to Laetitia@Work.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"http:\/\/laetitiaatwork.substack.com","theme":{"bg":"#2b2d30","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#3b3f46","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91472264,"imageMobileId":91472265,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
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Quiet quitting. Silent space-out. Faux focus. Call it what you want, a lot of todays workers are going through the motions on the surface while quietly powering down beneath it. Nearly half of Gen Z employees say theyre coasting, and overall U.S. employee engagement sits at a decade low. When engagement fades, performance becomes performative. But disengagement isnt just a problem to solve, its a signal to heed. Employees arent turning off. Theyre trying to tell us something. As CEO of SurveyMonkey, Ive witnessed how curiosity can be the cure to the workplace phenomenon resenteeisma state of resentment combined with absenteeismwhich is often fueled by the current economic uncertainty, high-profile layoffs, and the always looming threat of a recession that compels employees to stay in difficult jobs. Here are a few best practices: When you ask better questions, you reveal truer truths By asking better questions, you can get to the heart of what employees really need. A few small shifts in your approach to asking can make a big difference. Ask about feelings and solutions separately. Instead of asking, What do you think about manager-employee communications? Ask, How do you feel about manager-employee communications? Then, separately, What do you think would make it better? Dividing feelings and solutions into two distinct categories enhances understanding of each, providing a better roadmap to real change. Keep it simple. Avoid double-barreled questions that blur answers. Instead of asking, How satisfied are you with your managers communication and support? Ask two clear questions: one about communication and one about support. Be receptive to harsh truths. When you ask questions with a genuine interest in the answers, employees will be more likely to open up, share ideas, and re-engage. Asking harder questions often reveals truer answers that get to the heart of the matter faster. Youll hear frustrations, confusion, and even criticism. But discomfort is often where innovation starts. Plan to be uncomfortable, and you wont be disappointed. Be clear about anonymity. Anonymity can surface more honest feedback, but its not always the best route. Sometimes youll want to follow up on a great idea or recognize the person who shared it. Either way, be transparent about whether feedback is anonymous. People will keep sharing when the ground rules are clear. Make every day listening second nature Too often, conventional check-ins like annual reviews and quarterly surveys feel like impersonal boxes to check. Approached clinically, managers are more likely to miss early signs of disengagement. When people feel like their feedback is lost in a dashboard, they stop providing it. Employees know when feedback requests are performative, and they respond as such. Sincere listening needs to be lighter, faster, and less formal. You can normalize curiosity in small, consistent ways, including: Ask a simple question at the end of a team meeting: Whats standing in your way today? or What can we improve this week? Run short, focused pulse surveys that take 60 seconds or less to answer. Follow up verbally when something needs clarification, rather than using email or Slack. Share one piece of feedback youve acted on recently. My team has seen that a five-minute feedback loop can reveal what a 50-question survey misses. Its less about frequency and more about follow-through. When employees see their input lead to action, trust grows, and engagement follows. Take every comment seriously Even the tiniest morsel of feedback can spark outsized change. A lone remark can connect teams, bridge silos, and turn passive frustration into active progress. One of the best examples Ive seen came from a deceptively simple comment in a benefits survey from our Chief People Officers team. While the overall feedback was positive, one person asked: What about the janitorial staff? This simple yet powerful question led her team to re-evaluate benefits for the vendor partners who keep our offices running every day. Within months, she expanded health insurance, paid time off, and transportation benefits to all contract employees. The ripple effect of this change was immediate. Our contractors said they felt more motivated, and regular employees were proud to work for a company that took care of everyone under its roof. That motivation and pride translated into stronger engagement, higher productivity, and a more unified culture. All of it started with a single comment, taken seriously. Start small, stay curious Resenteeism isnt just a blip. Its a signal. If we know how to listen, we can turn that signal into strategy. The key is to start small and stay consistently curious. Ask one question. If you dont get specific feedback, such as a vague All good! or Its fine!, reframe it: What part of this experience didnt land for you? If its a 9 out of 10, what would make it a 10 out of 10? You cant reverse disengagement overnight, but you can make incremental progressand progress compounds. Its a philosophy my team and I try to live by: better is better. What question will you ask today?
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E-Commerce
Another year, another fresh start. And if you’re like me, that fresh start often comes with the best intentions of getting into shape. But then reality hits: It’s January, it’s cold, and the idea of leaving the house to brave the gym (and all the other resolution people) is wholly unappealing. Fear not, fellow homebody. This year, we’re going to conquer those fitness goals from the comfort of our own living rooms. No gym fees, no icy commutes, no waiting in line for a treadmill. Seven (iOS/Android) For better or worse, if you have a phone and seven minutes, you no longer have an excuse. Seven is the heavy hitter in the “micro-workout” space. It focuses on high-intensity interval training (HIIT) circuits that require no equipment other than a chair and a wall. While the app has a subscription Club for extra variety, the classic Full Body circuit is free and stays true to the original scientific study that started the craze. Its gamified, too, so you earn achievements and lose “lives” if you skip a day. Down Dog (iOS/Android/Web) For those looking to find their zen while building strength and flexibility, Down Dog is a revelation. While it offers premium subscriptions, the free version still provides a fantastic yoga experience. What sets it apart is its dynamic sequencing. Each time you start a practice, it generates a new flow, so you never get bored. You can customize the length, focus (like hip openers or sun salutations), and even the instructor’s voice. It’s like having a personal yoga teacher on demand. Nike Training Club (iOS/Android) If you get bored with the same workouts time and time again, then Nike Training Club is for you. This free (as in truly free) app is packed with hundreds of workouts, ranging from strength and endurance to yoga and mobility. You can filter by workout type, muscle group, equipment (or lack thereof), and even duration. Many of the workouts are led by Nike master trainers, providing excellent guidance and motivation. It puts a massive, high-quality fitness library at your fingertips. Darebee (Web) My personal favorite, Darebee is a non-profit, completely free resource chock full of thousands of visual workouts that you can print out or follow on your phone. It offers everything from ever-changing daily exercises to structured 30-day programs. Its a community-run project that proves you dont need a fancy subscription to get results. If youre looking for a straightforward, easy to follow, self-paced workout hub, this should be your first stop.
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If youve already given up on your 2026 rebrand because you couldnt stick to your six gym sessions a week and no-sweet-treats resolutions, adopting a vegan plus bacon mindset may be the answer to all your problems. TikTok creator @addietheoptimist broke the idea down in a recent video: Someone on here went viral because they said if you think you cant go vegan because you love bacon too much, just become vegan plus bacon, she explained in the now-viral clip. Im here to tell you you can just apply that mentality to so many things in your life. While the original creator was referencing harm reduction in relation to veganism (that if you only eat bacon sometimes but are 100% vegan otherwise, its still making a difference), the potential applications of the general concept behind vegan plus bacon are limitless. Dont feel like going to the gym? Rather than not going at all, go and give 10%… eve if that looks like 10 minutes walking on the treadmill, scrolling TikTok. You dont have to be imprisoned by your own rules, the creator concluded. The video currently has over two million views, with the comments full of examples of instances where others have unknowingly adopted the vegan plus bacon mentality. One person quit smoking, but still permits the occasional cigarette while among friends. Another is pescatarian, but allows themselves steak once or twice a year. Others are California sober, when a person gives up on alcohol and hard drugs, but continues to smoke weed. Perfect is the enemy of done, as one comment read. Anything worth doing 100% is still worth doing at 10%, another suggested. Perfectionism allows no room for mistakes or occasional slipups. Something has to be perfect, or its not good enough. Whats more, researchers found rates of perfectionism have surged in recent decades, having been a core part of Western culture since the 80s. There could be a number of causes for this, including pressure from school or parentsand today, social media also creates an additional pressure to portray a perfect image online. But perfectionistic tendencies have been linked to an alarming number of clinical issues, including depression and anxiety, even in children, as well as early mortality and suicide. Meanwhile, one of the most effective protections against anxiety and depression is showing compassion to oneself. Here, the vegan plus bacon mindset acts as the perfect counter-narrative to a culture unhealthily obsessed with self-improvement. Sometimes good enough is good enough. And, as I recently read somewhere (i.e., saw on TikTok): such a mindset shift only has to make sense to me, and I dont feel like explaining it to anyone else.
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E-Commerce
A few weeks ago, my iPhone woke me up at 3:30am. In a way, it was my fault. Id technically set the alarm for three thirty. In another way, it was Siris fault. Apples AI assistant never thought to question if I was asking for AM or PM. And it simply assumed the most painful option for me. Its just one of countless tiny examples of how Siri, 16 years since Apple acquired the technology, has been a disappointing product. Siri was already looking dusty before modern LLMs, and with the launch of ChatGPT, it has been completely left behind. Which is why in June 2024, with fans and investors growing impatient, Apple promised a new era of AIApple Intelligence. But that new intelligence never arrived. Reports of infighting at Apple abound, talent left the company last year as Tim Cook held an emergency all-hands in August promising a bigger focus on AI. This week we learned the results of that renewed focus. Instead of building a new Siri itself, Apple will license AI from Google, and stick Gemini inside its assistant. Siri will get this more personalized, capable upgrade later this year. This is a significant announcement. Apple had toyed with third party AI before, most recently via an agreement with OpenAI where users could opt in to have Siri ask ChatGPT a question. But this approach was always a silly stopgap. No one wants a go-between between an incapable chatbot and an all-knowing AI. People remove friction from their workflows. They want to just talk to the AI that knows the stuff. The agreement with Google eliminates middle men. Specifically, it doesnt just mean Siri might send a question over to Gemini to get an answer. It means that Siri is Gemini. Siris foundational architecture is Googles AI tech. Apple is Google now. [Illustration: FC] Is this a failure for Apple? (No) Its easy to look at this moment as cementing Apples own failure, as the company underinvested in artificial intelligence for years. But while Im hardly an Apple apologist, Id argue exactly the opposite. Apple doesnt need to make every part of its products to make those products successful. Yes, Apple has been designing its own mobile processors, for instance, since 2010. These processors have allowed Apple to push the boundaries of performance while cutting back power consumption. They are a big reason that Apple phones and laptops are so appealing to creative professionals. But Apple doesnt use manufacturing partners build its own screens, which it buys from LG, Samsung, and BOE Technology. It doesnt make its own RAM, either, which is why so many Apple execs are currently holed up in South Korea, hoping to secure the vital hardware from Samsung as its recently ballooned in price. Even in this challenging supply chain, Apple simply doesnt need to build anything that it cant build best. Screens and RAM are commodities that Apple can acquire, integrate into their products, and no one will know the difference. Increasingly, AI is a commodity, too. Thats one reason that, for Apple, this deal with Google is a steal. While headlines focus on the shocking nature of Google powering Siri, its a fact that, I suspect, most iOS users will forget about in day-to-day use as they encounter more and more touchpoints of Apple Intelligence. Consider that Google pays Apple more than $20 billion a year to be the default search engine on Safari. Cleary, thats considered a worthwhile investment for Google, to get its search engine front and center on Americas most popular phone brand. But all Apple has to do for those dollars is set up a URL. Theres no significant technological investment on Apples part. If Apple was training an advanced LLM on its own, it would cost a lot of money now, and even more into the future. Thats because, on one hand, yes, AI models are increasingly commoditized, and the core science driving them is more widely understood than it was a few years ago. On the other, developing those modelsand specifically, staying on the cutting edge in an industry that feels new every three monthsis still a costly practice thats growing costlier by the day. According to Bloomberg, Apple is paying Google $1 billion a year for AI. Thats a figure remarkably close to the increasing cost of developing AI. Whereas the ChatGPT 3 of 2020 cost a mere $2 to 4 million to train, the latest generations of LLMs built upon vastly more data (like ChatGPT 4 and the latest Gemini) have cost over $100 million to train apiece, with the vast majority of cost going to computing power. And some rumors point to OpenAIs ChatGPT 5 costing another jump more than what weve seen spent thus farbetween $500 million and $2.5 billion according to analysts. Meanwhile, Apple is getting the worlds top AI model for a mere 1% of its annual profits. $1 billion is barely a line item for a company with a company boasting approximately $400 billion in annual revenue. If Apple has done nothing else than lock in a $1 billion rate for the near future, to have a top tier AI service from a proven competitor thats paying 20x that to you for a search referralthen thats a considerable business win. Let the engineers focus on tuning an AI to Apples specifications. Then Apple can focus less on building a competent AI and more on how that AI appears across its products. Indeed, if we should question anything, its how much Apple can lead the industry, not through AI models, but through the design and manifestation of the AI experience. What does the Apple mean in Apple Intelligence? Now that its sitting on a solid technological foundation, thats the question Cupertino finally gets to answer in 2026.
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