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Every January, millions of people set ambitious New Years resolutions. They do this with genuine enthusiasm, hoping to transform their lives. Yet research indicates that by January 8th, just one week into the year, a quarter of these resolutions have already failed. By the end of the year, most individuals return to their familiar patterns, and the promises they made to themselves are often abandoned. My life doesn’t permit me the luxury of being part of that statistic. I operate at the intersection of three distinct and demanding identities: a PhD scholar at Oxford researching outer space financing, the founder of a career advancement platform called Network Capital, and a father to a one-year-old. This combination creates a specific set of constraints. I do not have the luxury of surplus time, nor do I have the capacity for wasted effort. New Year’s resolutions fail not because of a lack of intention or ambition. The problem is that behavioral change is tough when you are already maximizing your cognitive load. Standard resolutions set us up for failure by demanding too much, too fast, without a realistic road map for execution. Fortunately, there is a clearer path. By viewing personal change through the analytical lens of a founder and a researcher, I have shifted my focus away from resolutions entirely. Instead, I rely on operational protocols. The Resource Constraints of Willpower The first critical realization is that willpower is a finite resource. In the business world, we understand that a company cannot scale solely on the heroic efforts of a founder; it requires scalable systems. The same logic applies to personal performance. When I have been awake since the early morning hours with a child, my reserve of willpower is depleted by midday. If a resolution depends on my feeling motivated to write or exercise, I will likely fail. Consequently, I have adopted the concept of marginal gains. Popularized by James Clear in Atomic Habits, this approach rejects the requirement for massive, immediate overhauls. Instead of attempting to change everything simultaneously, the focus shifts to becoming just one percent better each day. Psychologist Amy Cuddy refers to this as “self-nudging,” which involves setting small, manageable goals rather than overwhelming ones. In the context of my PhD, I do not resolve to finish an entire chapter in a sitting. I commit to writing one clear paragraph per day. For my physical health, I do not commit to an hourlong workout. I commit to five minutes of movement. In my role as a father, I do not aim for perfection. I commit to an hour of undivided interaction with my daughter. These smaller commitments work because they are sustainable even during periods of high stress. They compound over time, creating a trajectory of success that relies on consistency rather than intensity. Engineering the Environment As a founder, I spend considerable time optimizing workflows to reduce friction. I realized I needed to apply this same logic to my daily life. Strategies that rely on memory or discipline are fragile; strategies that rely on environmental design are robust. Multitasking behavioral change is generally ineffective. To manage the conflicting demands of fatherhood, academic research, and business leadership, I must engineer my environment to force focus. The cost of context switching is high; it takes significant time to refocus after an interruption. When I am in a specific location on campus, I am a researcher. In that space, I do not check corporate communication channels. When I enter my home, I place my phone in a separate room. This simple environmental constraint ensures that I am present for my child. I make the correct choice, the default choice, by removing the option for distraction. The Data-Driven Review The final component of this approach is drawn from Tim Ferriss. Rather than looking forward with vague aspirations, I conduct a “Past Year Review.” This process is analytical and grounded in actual performance data. I create two columns labeled “Positive” and “Negative.” I then review my calendar from the previous year, week by week. I note the people, activities, and commitments that produced the strongest results in each category. As a student and founder, this audit provides necessary clarity. I often find that certain recurring meetings drain energy without adding value to the company. I find that specific research areas were intellectually interesting but irrelevant to my thesis. Conversely, I see that specific, consistent blocks of time with my family provided the highest return on emotional investment. Once the data is collected, I apply the 80/20 principle. I identify which 20% of activities in the positive column produced the most significant results. Then, I take immediate action. I schedule more of those experiences into the calendar for the upcoming year immediately. Simultaneously, I create a “Not-to-Do” list derived from the negative column. This acts as a filter. It allows me to remove obligations that do not serve my family, my degree, or my company. The Path Forward Whether you are balancing a portfolio of careers, raising a family, or pursuing a degree, the principle remains consistent. Sustainable change does not result from a burst of enthusiasm in January. It results from small, consistent actions aligned with your actual capacity and values. We often assume that to achieve significant goals, such as building a company or earning a doctorate, we need to be rigid with ourselves. We believe we need punishing resolutions. However, when you are already operating under pressure, rigidity leads to breaking points. This year, I am not making a resolution to be a better father, a smarter student, or a more successful founder. I am simply building a system that facilitates those outcomes. I am optimizing for the one micro-improvement a day. I am trusting the protocol. Progress creates the fuel we lack. We secure the future by optimizing the present moment. For the overcommitted, this protocol offers a necessary operating system. It changes the goal from overnight transformation to sustainable high performance.
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E-Commerce
The Walt Disney Company has agreed to pay a $10 million civil penalty as part of a settlement to resolve allegations it violated child privacy laws, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. A federal court order in the case involving Disney Worldwide Services Inc and Disney Entertainment Operations LLC also bars Disney from operating on YouTube in a manner that violates the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act, the department said. The order requires Disney to create a program that will ensure it properly complies with the privacy law on YouTube in the future, it added. The law requires websites, apps, and other online services aimed at children under 13 to notify parents about what personal information they collect, and obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting such information “The Justice Department is firmly devoted to ensuring parents have a say in how their childrens information is collected and used, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division said in a statement. Disney could not immediately be reached for a comment. The order finalizes a settlement reached in September in a case referred to the DOJ by the Federal Trade Commission. Ryan Patrick Jones, Doina Chiacu, and Dawn Chmielewski, Reuters
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E-Commerce
The U.S. Federal Reserve agreed to cut interest rates at its December meeting only after a deeply nuanced debate about the risks facing the U.S. economy right now, according to minutes of the latest two-day session. Even some of those who supported the rate cut acknowledged “the decision was finely balanced or that they could have supported keeping the target range unchanged,” given the different risks facing the U.S. economy, according to the minutes released on Tuesday. In economic projections released after the December 9-10 meeting, six officials outright opposed a cut and two of that group dissented as voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee. “Most participants” ultimately supported a cut, with “some” arguing that it was an appropriate forward-looking strategy “that would help stabilize the labor market” after a recent slowdown in job creation. Others, however, “expressed concern that progress towards the committee’s 2% inflation objective had stalled.” “Some participants suggested that, under their economic outlooks, it would likely be appropriate to keep the target range unchanged for some time after a lowering of the range at this meeting,” the minutes said of a debate that saw officials dissent both in favor of tighter and looser monetary policy, an unusual outcome for the central bank that has now happened at two consecutive meetings. The quarter-point rate cut approved in December lowered the Fed’s benchmark overnight interest rate to a range of between 3.5% to 3.75%, the third consecutive move by the central bank as officials agreed that a slowdown in monthly job creation and rising unemployment warranted slightly less restrictive monetary policy. But as rates fell, and approached a neutral level that neither discourages nor encourages investment and spending, opinion at the Fed became more divided about just how much more to cut. New projections issued after the December meeting show only one rate cut expected next year, while language in the new policy statement indicated the Fed would likely remain on hold for now until new data shows that either inflation is again falling or unemployment is rising more than anticipated. The lack of official data during the 43-day government shutdown, a gap in information still not fully filled, continued to shape the outlook and policymakers’ views about how to manage risk. Some of those either opposed or skeptical of the most recent cut “suggested that the arrival of a considerable amount of labor market and inflation data over the coming intermeeting period would be helpful on making judgments about whether a rate reduction was warranted.” The data catch-up continues, with jobs and consumer price information for December coming on January 9 and January 13, back to the normal release schedule. The Fed next meets on January 27-28, with investors currently expecting the central bank to leave its benchmark rate unchanged. Howard Schneider, Reuters
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E-Commerce
The White House cannot lapse in its funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal district court judge ruled on Tuesday, only days before funds at the bureau would have likely run out and the consumer finance agency would have no money to pay its employees. Judge Amy Berman ruled that the CFPB should continue to get its funds from the Federal Reserve, despite the Fed operating at a loss, and that the White House’s new legal argument about how the CFPB gets its funds is not valid. At the heart of this case is whether Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s budget director and the acting director of the CFPB, can effectively shut down the agency and lay off all of the bureau’s employees. The CFPB has largely been inoperable since President Trump has sworn into office nearly a year ago. Its employees are mostly forbidden from doing any work, and most of the bureau’s operations this year have been to unwind the work it did under President Biden and even under Trump’s first term. Vought himself has made comments where he has made it clear that his intention is to effectively shut down the CFPB. The White House earlier this year issued a reduction in force for the CFPB, which would have furloughed or laid off much of the bureau. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents the workers at the CFPB, has been mostly successful in court to stop the mass layoffs and furloughs. The union sued Vought earlier this year and won a preliminary injunction stopping the layoffs while the union’s case continues through the legal process. In recent weeks, the White House has used a new line of argument to potentially get around the court’s injunction. The argument is that the Federal Reserve has no combined earnings at the moment to fund the CFPBs operations. The CFPB gets its funding from the Fed through expected quarterly payments. The Federal Reserve has been operating at a paper loss since 2022 as a result of the central bank trying to combat inflation, the first time in the Fed’s entire history its been operating at a loss. The Fed holds bonds on its balance sheet from a period of low interest rates during the COVID-19 pandemic, but currently has to pay out higher interest rates to banks who hold their deposits at the central bank. The Fed has been recording a deferred asset on its balance sheet which it expects will be paid down in the next few years as the low interest bonds mature off the Fed’s balance sheet. Because of this loss on paper, the White House has argued there are no combined earnings for the CFPB to draw on. The CFPB has operated since 2011, including under President Trumps first term, drawing on the Feds operating budget. White House lawyers sent a notice to the court in early November, where they argued that the CFPB would run out of appropriations in early 2026, using the combined earnings argument, and does not expect to get any additional appropriations from Congress. This combined earnings legal argument is not entirely new. It has floated in conservative legal circles going back to when the Federal Reserve started operating at a loss. The Office of Legal Counsel, which acts as the government’s legal advisors, adopted this legal theory in a memo on November 7. However, this idea has never been tested in court. In her opinion, Berman said the OLC and Vought were using this legal theory to get around the court’s injunction instead of allowing the case to be decided on merits. A trial on whether the CFPB employees’ union can sue Vought over the layoffs is currently scheduled for February 2026. It appears that defendants new understanding of combined earnings is an unsupported and transparent attempt to starve the CPFB of funding and yet another attempt to achieve the very end the Courts injunction was put in place to prevent,” Berman wrote in an opinion. Were very pleased that the court made clear what should have been obvious: Vought cant justify abandoning the agencys obligations or violating a court order by manufacturing a lack of funding, said Jennifer Bennett of Gupta Wessler LLP, who is representing the CFPB employees in the case. A White House spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Berman’s opinion. Ken Sweet, AP business writer
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E-Commerce
In a year defined by companies pouring shocking sums of money into AI, one more deal squeaked in just before 2026. Meta just made a play on Manus, the buzzy Singapore-based company with Chinese roots that turned heads earlier this year when it showed its AI agents executing complex tasks, like hunting for real estate and sorting through resumes. The deal is sure to turn heads too. Manus and its parent company Butterfly Effect are now based in Singapore but were founded in China a country with a fraught relationship to the U.S tech industry and maintain operations there. Facebooks parent company will reportedly pay more than $2 billion to acquire the startup, which it hopes will bolster its own lagging AI capabilities. In a crowded field of soaring chipmakers, nimble startups laser focused on AI, and ancient tech giants like Microsoft making themselves freshly relevant with big AI bets, Meta is far from leading the pack a fact the company seems well aware of. The acquisition will bring the startups agentic AI tech on board, allowing Meta to potentially integrate it into its vast suite of products, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Metas AI chatbot. The Manus deal follows Metas $14.3 billion investment in AI training data startup Scale AI earlier this year. Joining Meta allows us to build on a stronger, more sustainable foundation without changing how Manus works or how decisions are made, Manus CEO Xiao Hong said in a blog post announcing the news. Metas (latest) course correction Metas AI spending spree is only accelerating. After renaming itself Meta and declaring itself all in on the metaverse less than five years ago, Meta abandoned its course and its massive investments to play catch up on AI. Mark Zuckerberg declared last month that Meta plans to invest a mind boggling $600 billion into U.S. AI tech and infrastructure by 2028. Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, formerly of ScaleAI, welcomed the Manus team into the fold Tuesday in a post on X. Excited to announce that @ManusAI has joined Meta to help us build amazing AI products! Wang wrote, adding that the Meta Superintelligence Labs team will be hiring in Singapore. The Manus team in Singapore are world class at exploring the capability overhang of todays models to scaffold powerful agents. Manus is no DeepSeek, but the company is still notable as a prominent Asian AI company coming under the wing of an American tech giant. In April, Manus raised $75 million in a round of funding led by San Francisco venture firm Benchmark. The startup is also backed by Asian investors, including Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent and HongShan Capital Group, previously the China-focused wing of American venture capital firm Sequoia, which frequently invests in Chinese startups. Meta told Fast Company that it plans to wind down Manus business operations that continue in China. That process will include relocating remaining Manus employees and severing any Chinese business entanglements. The company also emphasized that Manus employees joining Meta wont have access to first party user data from Metas existing products. “Metas acquisition of Manus AI will enable us to provide the most advanced technology to our users with safeguards in place to eliminate areas of potential risk, a Meta spokesperson told Fast Company. There will be no continuing Chinese ownership interests in Manus AI following the transaction, and Manus AI will discontinue its services and operations in China.
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E-Commerce