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Below, co-authors Suzy Burke, Rhett Power, and Ryan Berman share five key insights from their new book, Headamentals: How Leaders Can Crack Negative Self-Talk. Suzy, president and co-founder of the leadership consultancy Accountability Inc., is an organizational psychologist and seasoned executive with an exceptional track record in a diverse array of businesses, from a Fortune 20 technology company to a highly successful beverage start-up. She is also a National Institute of Mental Health scholar and member of the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches Agency. Rhett is the CEO and co-founder of Accountability Inc. and was named the #1 Thought Leader on Entrepreneurship by Thinkers360. He is also a Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coach. His expertise has been featured in Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Wall Street Journal, and on CNBC. Ryan is the founder of Courageous and host of the Courageous Podcast. For over 25 years, Ryan has helped corporations who are stuck, scared, or stale to choose courage. He has counseled many companies, including Google, Procter & Gamble, Kelloggs, Kraft Heinz, LA Galaxy, and Snapchat, to name a few. Whats the big idea? Leaders arent failing because they dont have a strategy or skill. They are stuck because of their internal battlestheir self-talknot because of the challenges happening with customers or in the market. Headamentals is about directing that inner voice so that it becomes a competitive advantage and helps you build great teams. Once you fix that conversation in your head, you fix how you lead, connect, and perform. Leading others starts with self-leadership. Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Suzy, Rhett, and Ryanbelow, or in the Next Big Idea App. 1. Self-talk is the hidden saboteur of leadership Weve always had societal-scale worry wars, but we like to refer to the pandemic as Worry War I. Now we are in Worry War II, which confronts the rising cost of food, the emergence of AI, the erosion of empathy at work, and political division. If Worry War I was the pandemic, fueled by isolation and fears of illness, then Worry War II is pandemonium. It is all these forcespushing us, nudging us, spiraling us outand each of us is dealing with it in our own way. Layer on top of that the things we told ourselves as kids, what our parents mightve said, which have stuck in our minds. You start to see why were spiraling and where our self-talk comes from. Think of that voice inside your head: Where does yours come from? That voice triggers how you show up in different situations. Sometimes a self-talk spiral is triggered by whats happening in the world right now, like when you try to watch the news. Or other times, even as an older adult, your self-talk can spiral when something reminds you of a challenging experience or feeling from your childhood. Self-talk, unbeknownst to those around you, can spiral out of control and become a hidden force holding back yourself and your teams. 2. Every leader has a monster The hardest part of being a leader isnt the market pressure. Its not the late nights, the impossible deadlines, or even your fiercest competitor. The hardest part is the voice in your head that makes you rewrite an email at midnight because of how it might land, pause before you speak (even when youre the expert in the room), and turns every compliment into a question mark. This voice is the one that whispers, or sometimes roars, that you dont belong. That voice doesnt just shape your day, it shapes everything. It determines whether you share your thoughts in that high-stakes meeting or let the moment pass; whether you inspire confidence or let doubt leak into the room; whether your team feels a calm, steady presence or the weight of uncertainty. It shapes the culture your team breathes every single day. What gets celebrated, what gets overlooked, and what never gets said out loud. Your self-talk becomes team talk. If you want a team thats bold, resilient, and innovative, it doesnt start with your strategy. It doesnt start with your offsite. It starts with a conversation happening in your headthats your monster. And almost every leader has one. What matters is whether this voice is left in charge, because when your monster speaks, your team listens. Your self-talk becomes team talk. According to the National Science Foundation, we have up to 60,000 thoughts a day: 80 percent of them are negative, and 95 percent are repetitive. Thats 48,000 mental reruns of doubt every single day. Given that reality, it is no surprise that most of us wrestle with imposter syndrome: 62 percent worldwide, 71 percent in the U.S. If youre a high achiever, that percentage is even greater. Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientific minds in history, once confessed that he felt like an involuntary swindler. The man who reshaped our understanding of the universe worried that he was faking it. Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice, has also admitted to feeling like a fraud. She once said in a speech, Im always looking over my shoulder, wondering if I measure up. And Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks, admits that very few people get into the CEO seat and truly believe they belong. If Einstein can doubt his brain, Sotomayor can doubt her success, and Schultz can doubt his right to the corner office, then self-doubt isnt a glitch. Its the default. Your monster doesnt care about your resume, titles, or trophies. 3. Your mindset isnt fixed Your mindset is programmable, and you are the programmer. To program it, its important to understand why were plagued by our monsters in the first place. The answer is evolution. Our brains are wired for survival, not growth. Our brains default mode fixates on past threats to help us avoid future danger. If you were laughed at for speaking up in class, your brain filed that away so that now, when youre thinking about speaking up in a meeting, that same voice might whisper dont. If your first boss pounced on every small slip, your inner critic learned that imperfection equals incompetence. Years later, it still sounds the alarm. Dont try to ignore your monster. Conventional wisdom says to cast your inner critic as a bully and either ignore, suppress, or conquer it. But our monsters are trying to protect us, not destroy us. The moment you step outside of whats familiargiving tough feedback, launching a bold idea, taking on a new roleyou invite risk and vulnerability. Thats when your monster pipes up, saying, What if you fail? But staying safe trades impact for comfort and progress for predictability. The irony is that true psychological safety doesnt come fom avoiding risks, but rather from knowing that you can take them and still be okay. Dont try to ignore your monster. Get curious about it. The 3-C Maverick Method as a tool for reframing negative self-talk in real time: Catch, Confront, Change. When you think about something, it shapes how you feel about it, which in turn shapes how you act. When you recreate the story you tell yourself, you change the outcome. If you see setbacks as invitations to grow, then feedback stops feeling like criticism and begins building confidence. Thats the power of changing the conversation in your head. You often cant control what happens to you, but you can control how you think about it and respond. This is the essence of cognitive reframing and our antidote to negative self-talk, and the cornerstone of our three-step method: Catch yourself when your mind is saying youre not smart or tough enough to succeed. Your emotions are an alarm system. Anxiety is often the first indicator that the monster is moving in. Tune in, identify the counterproductive thought. Confront that thought. Challenge your monster with facts that prove it wrong. Change the narrative by reframing the story your monster is telling you. 4. There is more than one type of monster Sports coaches say you practice 95 percent of the time for the 5 percent of the time that you actually play. In business, it is almost entirely the opposite. Think about how long the orientation phase is as a company: youre given an hour of orientation to find out where youre supposed to go, and then practice is over. But we need more practice, specifically for retraining the brain to have stronger tools for dealing with self-talk. There are five monster archetypes holding us back that we need to practice dealing with. We call these cognitive distortions CAMOS, because they camouflage or conceal your truth: Catastrophizer assumes the worst will happen, even if it probably wont. Always Righter needs to be right, no matter what. Mind Reader tries to tell you what youre thinking, before you even know what that is. Over-generalizer takes one bad thing and paints everything with it. Should-er lives by unrealistic should and musts, creating unnecessary pressure. 5. Self-talk can be your leadership plutonium All leaders eventually discover that self-talk is their most powerful, volatile energy source. It can fuel extraordinary growth or cause quiet, invisible damage. Every day, theres a voice running in your headevaluating, judging, predicting, doubting, encouragingand it never stops. As a leader or founder, that voice becomes the unseen soundtrack for your company. We tend to think of our thoughts as private, but theyre not. They leak out in our body language, decisions, energy, and how we communicate. When a founder walks into a room and hes full of stress, teams dont just hear it; they feel it. If your self-talk is full of fear, your team starts to operate out of fear. If your self-talk is reactive, your team becomes reactive. But if your self-talk is grounded in belief and clarity, then your team learns to respond the same way. You cant create a calm, confident, accountable team if youre running around with a chaotic inner dialogue. Culture starts with what you say to yourself in those private moments before the big decision, before the investor pitch, or before the tough conversation. Leaders who have built billion-dollar companies share the quality of disciplined thinking. They dont let the wrong stories take root. They challenge their own narratives and are intentional about what they say to themselves because they know it shapes how they show up for everyone else. Plutonium, like the power of self-talk, can power cities or destroy them. The teams that are winning are not just on the same page strategically, but are also on the same page emotionally and mentally. Theyve built shared language and a rhythm of confidence and clarity that amplifies everyones performance. That alignment is leadership plutonium. When your self-talk and your teams talk are synced, youve created an unstoppable force. Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea App. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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E-Commerce
Self-growth requires two things parents often lack: time and energy. Between cleaning messes, cooking meals, and managing extracurriculars, the average parent gets just two hours a week to focus on personal development. Growth doesnt stop when you become a parent. Raising children offers lifelong learning. Yet, for parents used to measuring their success in qualifications and promotions, it often doesnt feel like growthespecially when youre sleep-deprived and energy-drained. To them, professional development and personal development are one and the same. Its no wonder 50% are left feeling as if parenthood has hijacked or delayed their growth. As Headways productivity coach, Ive seen this situation play out all too many times. Working parents worry theyre falling behind, so they spend every spare second they have trying to catch up, often sacrificing their sleep, social life, and self-care. Its mentally taxing and typically leads to self-doubt, burnout, and parents putting their career growth on pause rather than any meaningful progress. Ambition on hold: Self-improvement is designed for the childless Growing by almost 5% annually, the global personal development market is on track to reach $69 billion by 2032. With a constant flow of new material from leading experts, its never been easier to improve yourself. Unless, of course, youre a parent. When the best self-help books span hundreds of pages, for those lucky to find two hours a week for themselves, its a nonstarter. Parents arent excluded from growth by ability or desire, but by design. The booming self-improvement industry simply wasnt built for those without free evenings and quiet weekends. Parents might not be reading a book a week or asking for career development funding, but they still want to learn. They do, and they try, sneaking in learning while the children are napping, during their commute, or over the weekend instead of resting. But it rarely sticks. And when it doesnt, it can feel like failure. That sense of falling behind fosters frustration, discouragement, and hopelessness. While the most laborious moments of parenthood are temporary, 41% admit that having children has sapped their ambition, and 18% say it has destroyed their career prospects. But it doesnt have to be that way. With the right tools and approach, parents can keep learning and growing without burning out or putting their children second. Burp, feed, learn, repeat: Making self-growth possible for parents Traditional approaches to self-growthlong courses, bulky books, and complicated appsarent compatible with the realities of raising children. What parents need is short and flexible content and tools that enable micro-learning, enabling them to make progress in small pockets of time without making learning draining or burdensome. Studies show its no less effective. In fact, micro-learning can boost knowledge retention by as much as 20%. Even small amounts of consistent learning add up, making progress possible for parents without feeling like theyre sacrificing in other areas of life or constantly falling behind. How to maintain your self-growth during parenthood (without losing sleep) If it feels like you have to choose between parenting and personal development, heres how you can banish the self-doubt and get your self-growth back on track: Set realistic goals: Hustle culture insists we should sleep less and do more, but it doesnt work. Burnout isnt effective for learning. Youll just spend your free time worrying about your job performance, stressing over your home life, and questioning whether you should give up. Speak to your employer: Your productivity may slump, but your employer already knows youre capable. Have the conversation and ask how they can support you. They might offer a few hours out of the workday each week for personal development or cover the cost of a micro-learning subscription. Show yourself compassion: Parenthood is never easy, despite what some claim. You will face interruptions, skip days, and completely forget things you learned five minutes ago. Thats normal, so show yourself some compassion. Learning to be kinder to yourself is still a form of growth, even if it doesnt come with a certificate or qualification. Remember, this isnt forever: My career is over, The person I was is gone, Ill never achieve my goals. Its easy to fall into a mindset of doom and gloom, but thats the sleep deprivation talking. Kids grow up, demand less time, and normalcy resumes.
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E-Commerce
On Tuesday, SoftBank, the Japanese financial giant, announced plans to dump all 32 million of its shares in Nvidia, the AI chip maker. The news wont be the needle that pops the AI bubble, but it did cause enough of a stir to make Nvidias shares drop 2% Tuesday morning. The bad vibes were muted somewhat by news of what SoftBank says it will do with the proceeds of the sell off, along with those from the sale of some of its $9.17 billion T-Mobile stake: The firm will double down on another big bet in the AI spaceOpenAI. SoftBank expects to directly invest $30 billion in OpenAI this year, according to its second-quarter financial statement in September. And it had already committed $19 billion to the $500 billion Project Stargate infrastructure initiative (with OpenAI and Oracle). To bankroll these commitments, Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s CEO, likely needed to free up funds. Hence the Nvidia sell-off. For years, Son has talked about SoftBank’s strategy to invest in the computing platforms of the future, including AI. His firm amassed a reported $4 billion stake in Nvidia back in 2017, only to dump the shares in 2019. At the time Son had called Nvidia the the core company of the AI revolution. He now believes that OpenAI will be that core company. During SoftBanks annual general meeting in June, Son declared he is all in on OpenAI. Hed always wanted to be an early major investor in the AI super-startup, he said, but Microsoft beat him to the punch. OpenAI, he predicted, will one day go public and eventually become the most valuable company in the world, he said. Nvidia reported $46.7 billion in revenues during its July-ending quarter (and crossed $4 trillion in market cap), while OpenAI doesnt expect to turn a profit until 2029. But by divesting of Nvidia and doubling down on OpenAI, Son can play a more active role in the platforms expansion via initiatives like the Stargate Project, which will finance a major buildout of AI infrastructure. SoftBank is still indirectly entwined in Nvidias fortunes, which also rest on the broad expansion of AI. The entire stock market is being propped up by confidence in big tech companies that are investing huge amounts in AI. Investors are placing a lot of faith in the idea that generative AI, a mostly unproven technology, will create valuable new efficiencies for businesses in the coming years. Compounding the concern is the fact that a relatively small group of wealthy companiesSoftBank, Nvidia, and OpenAIare investing in each other, which has fed fears that theyre involved in a sort of self-inflating bubble. Its unclear if or when that bubble will popThat bubble may well pop at some point. For nowUntil then, Son has made his preference clear: software over hardware, a bet that feels like a big vote of confidence for AI.
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E-Commerce
When Amazon proposed building its Project Blue data center in Tucson, Arizona, the company faced intense pushback. Residents raised concerns about the enormous amounts of water and electricity that the data center would need, two major ways such projects impact the environment, especially in a desert city. Ultimately, Tucsons town council rejected the proposal (though its developer hasnt given up). But the story highlights both the growing environmental impacts of data centers, and how location matters to that impact. A study published this week in the journal Nature Sustainability makes that connection even clearer. Led by researchers at Cornell University, the study analyzed the environmental impact that data centers could have in the U.S. as their growth continues, and created a state-by-state look at where those data centers should go to avoid the worst effects. The growing impact of AI Data centers demand a lot of electricity, so much so that they are straining our energy grid. In order to quickly meet that growing energy demand, developers are building more fossil fuel infrastructure, like natural gas power plants. The data center surge has also delayed the planned retirements of coal plants. The current rate of AI growth in the U.S. would put 24 to 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by 2030, the study authors found. Thats equivalent to adding 5 to 10 million cars to the countrys roads. That growth would also drain 731 to 1,125 million cubic meters of water every yearas much as 6 to 10 million Americans annual average household water usage. All together, that means the AI industry is unlikely to meet its net-zero aspirations by 2030, the study reads, without massively relying on carbon offsetswhich the researchers call highly uncertainor water restoration efforts. Still, researchers didnt only want to see the environmental trajectory that this AI boom would take. They also wanted to figure out what choices could steer it toward sustainability, Fengqi You, a Cornell engineering professor who led the study, said in a statement. How location matters The location of data centers matters to those impacts, and developers could cut data centers environmental footprints by building them in different places, the researchers found. Some data centers are being planned in regions that are already water scarce, like Arizona or Nevada, even though data centers require a lot of water themselves. Instead, locating projects in regions with lower water-stress and improving cooling efficiency could cut water demands by 52%, per the study. In other places, the massive surge of data centers can strain the grid or water resources; Virginia, for example, is the biggest data center market in the world, with more than 600 facilities clustered around Washington, D.C., and Richmond. Data center companies have wanted to be close to workers in D.C., but continuing to build data centers there just adds to that strain. What powers the grid that supports a data center matters too. Some states like New York may have energy grids powered by more renewables or may be investing in more clean energy, which means fewer carbon emissions. But just focusing on reducing a projects carbon footprint could actually increase its water footprint, the researchers found. Conversely, putting data centers in the best locations for water use reduced their overall carbon footprint, too. Researchers used a combined carbon- and water-focused strategy to find the best places to build data centers to minimize their environmental impact. And those states are clustered in the midwest, specifically Texas, Montana, Nebraska, and South Dakota. The researchers acknowledge that certain technologies, like better liquid cooling and improved server utilization, could bring down data centers environmental impact toopotentially removing 7% of carbon dioxide and lowering water use by 29%. Those are just more decisions, like location, that companies could consider when building more data centers. This is the build-out moment, You said. The AI infrastructure choices we make this decade will decide whether AI accelerates climate progress or becomes a new environmental burden.
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E-Commerce
Just when you thought youd seen it all on Capitol Hill, reopening the federal government appears to have hit yet another roadblock: Hemp. A day after Democratic Senators reached a deal with their Republican counterparts in the Senate to end the longest government shutdown in history, a vote on the agreement was held up by a provision in the bill that would ban the unregulated sale of hemp-based or derived products. The provision relates to funding for the Department of Agriculture, and was flagged by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, home to a burgeoning hemp industry. Paul introduced an amendment to strip the language on Monday, but the amendment failed. Subsequently, the Senate passed the bill with the prohibitive language intact. However, the bill, which would impact everything from smokable hemp products to hemp-derived THC drinks, wont take effect until 365 days after it is signed into law. Sales of hemp and hemp-derived products were allowed under the 2018 Farm Bill, and thats led to the sale of certain cannabis-derived products around the country, sometimes in contrast to state laws. The new language would ban sales of any products containing THC, of which hemp may contain trace amounts, effectively outlawing it. On X, Paul defended his amendment, even if it slowed the reopening process, saying that protecting constituents jobs is under his purview. Just to be clear: I am not delaying this bill, he wrote on Monday. The timing is already fixed under Senate procedure. But there is extraneous language in this package that has nothing to do with reopening the government and would harm Kentuckys hemp farmers and small businesses. Standing up for Kentucky jobs is part of my job. Notably, Kentuckys other Senator, Mitch McConnell, was at odds with Paul over his proposed amendment. The hemp industry in Kentucky employs roughly 3,500 people, and worries about a potential ban have been floating around since earlier this year. A statement released in June by the Kentucky Hemp Association seemingly preempted this weeks action in the Senate, too. Kentucky has emerged as a national leader in hemp production and innovation, it reads. Now is not the time for the federal government to impose arbitrary changes that disrupt this progress. The hemp industry has consistently called for thoughtful regulation that protects consumers while preserving economic opportunities for farmers, it continues. Rather than rolling back years of responsible development, federal policy should reinforce this thriving sectornot seek to recriminalize it.
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E-Commerce
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