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Entrepreneurs typically contribute less to the overall economy than people who are employed by others. Transitioning from being formally employed to working for yourself or starting a business typically results in working longer hours to earn less and contribute less to the economy and society at large. However, theres no question that entrepreneurs still command high levels of popular approval and appreciation. In particular, we tend to glorify self-made billionaires no matter what they do, how they impact society, and how they behave. To the point that even antisocial acts, contrarian rants, or counterproductive work behaviors can be celebrated if they come from Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, or Peter Thiel. But the truth is, it’s unwise to blindly follow in these folks’ footsteps. Here are four particular habits to avoid. 1. Being a jerk and calling it vision Many successful entrepreneurs are lionized for being difficult. The logic goes like this: if youre abrasive, impatient, or rude, you must be brilliant. After all, ordinary people cant see the world-changing picture youre obsessing over. But in most domains, being disrespectful or treating others poorly is a recipe for failure, not success. Unsurprisingly, these difficult personalities often resort to founding their own business after they are fired or rejected from other peoples businesses, since they are dispositionally unemployable. And if your genius only shines through when you belittle or ignore others, it may not be genius at all. It may just be bad behavior that got rewarded because the outcome was profitable. 2. Obsessive overwork masquerading as passion The hustle culture narrative has convinced many aspiring entrepreneurs that burnout is a badge of honor. But glorifying 100-hour weeks and chronic sleep deprivation doesnt build resilience or productivity. It breeds tunnel vision and poor decision-making. Many of the worlds most iconic founders have spoken openly about their struggles with exhaustion and breakdowns. Yet somehow, the myth persists that if you’re not killing yourself for your company, you’re not serious. In reality, it’s not noble to sacrifice your well-being for work. It’s just avoidable. 3. Disdain for rules and norms Disruption is often code for breaking things without thinking about the consequences. From dodging taxes and ignoring labor laws to trolling regulators and bypassing democratic processes, some celebrated entrepreneurs treat norms as nuisances. But rules exist for a reason. They are not always efficient, but they are meant to protect the many from the power of the few. When tech CEOs behave as if laws dont apply to them, we shouldnt call that boldness. We should call it what it is: entitlement. 4. Being yourself as a leadership strategy Be yourself is the kind of advice that sounds profound on a coffee mug but performs poorly in the real world. The myth of entrepreneurial authenticity suggests that success comes from unleashing your unfiltered self, no matter how impulsive, erratic, or unlikable that self may be. As I argue in my forthcoming book, Dont Be Yourself: Why Authenticity Is Overrated and What to Do Instead, the most effective leaders arent radically transparent; they are strategically self-aware. They know when to adapt, how to filter, and which version of themselves is most useful in a given situation. If being yourself means ignoring feedback, resisting self-regulation, or broadcasting your every mood swing, its not authenticity, its self-indulgence. And when your decisions affect thousands of employees or millions of users, indulging your quirks becomes a liability, not a virtue. In short, there is a fine line between charisma and narcissism, between vision and delusion, and between confidence and arrogance. When we admire entrepreneurs, we should separate their contributions from their character. Otherwise, we risk turning toxic traits into aspirational goals, and forgetting that success is not a moral justification for how you got there. The irony is that we often celebrate these traits not because they are rare but because they are familiar. The workplace is already filled with insecure overachievers, domineering micromanagers, and burned-out strivers. When the most famous founders exhibit these behaviors, it legitimizes them. It tells the rest of us that being insufferable is part of the price of ambition, that success excuses everything, and that empathy or humility are optional luxuries rather than core leadership competencies. But leadership is not just about being right. Its about making others better. And while many entrepreneurs have indeed changed the world, the best ones do so without leaving a trail of broken people behind them. Admiring entrepreneurs should not mean excusing toxic behavior. It should mean holding them to higher standards, especially because of the influence they wield. If were going to celebrate their impact, we should also expect them to be decent humans.
Category:
E-Commerce
Thinking of leaving the United States for life abroad? Youre not alone. A record-setting 21% of Americans expressed a desire to emigrate in 2024. While politics might play a role in the uptick, an increasing number of creative professionals are also leaving for career reasons. They want to embrace work cultures that foster balance over burnout, escape design echo chambers, and have the ability to afford launching their own studios. In the Bay Area in particular, it just felt like the treadmill was getting faster and faster, says Lisa Baird, president and principal strategist of the creative consultancy Fraīche Design Thinking. Baird moved to Paris with her family in 2022. I knew that quality of life was sort of slowly but surely disintegrating, because people were becoming more and more attached to work, like a religion. We were curious about how creatives like Baird made the move, so we checked in with designers who have decamped for other countries to learn more. In this story you’ll learn: The French program that gets you in the country and doubles as a business plan Why even expats need to maintain a mix of U.S. clients and make occasional return visits How Europe’s social programs foster personal and professional growth The ways in which designers adapt to being hours ahead of the U.S. The great emmigration Baird, who is originally from the Dallas suburbs, has spent time at a kaleidoscopic array of creative shops, including Ideo, Collins, and Frog. Long ago in San Francisco, she noticed one word rising in prominence and impact: hustle. It led her to rethink her life choicesspecifically how she might tip the balance less toward work and more toward life. I just didn’t want to be on my deathbed wishing that I had spent more time with my kids or with family, or pursuing personal interests, or just living life, really, she says. It’s a similar story for Rachel Gogel, a fractional creative director, who is relocating to Paris in January 2026. Gogel was born in Paris to American parents, but she moved to the U.S. to attend the University of Pennsylvania in 2005. From there she worked in publishing in New York City, followed by Facebook in Silicon Valley and other gigs. After a decade in the Bay Area, the dual U.S.-French citizen found herself fatigued by the hustle culture as well, and witnessed the impact of golden handcuffs, where employees trade heaping salaries for overworked misery. But working hard isn’t a golden ticket to the American dream. Meredith Hattam, founder of design studio A Present Force, says she left the U.S. because she grew disillusioned by the design of American systems at large. I don’t want to be ridiculously wealthy. I don’t want to have some crazy life. I want to be able to buy a house one day, Hattam says. I want to be able to raise children and not have debt. I want to be able to run a creative studio or do creative things and not be super stressed about having to take jobs to make ends meet. I don’t want to be worried about healthcare. So she took a job in Berlin in early 2023and now manages her own studio, something she says would have been prohibitively expensive in New York. Moving strategically The first step to moving abroad is obtaining a visa. Given how they vary by territory, it’s too expansive a topic to dig into here, but it’s worth noting how Baird obtained hers: Frances talent passport program. Launched in 2017, it offers a way to relocate ones business to France. It demands a robustly documented plan that involves specifying the number of jobs youll create for French citizens, among other things, but the upside to all that work is that you have a plan in place. By the time I finally got it all approved and landed in France, in a weird way, all I had to do was open up this business plan and look at page one, and be like, Well, what did I say I would do? Baird says. She advises deciding up front if moving abroad is a fun, novel thing you plan to do for a year or soor whether youre looking to full-on emigrate, and let that dictate whether youll work with immigration attorneys, as she did. Gogel has been consulting with one as she looks ahead to her move. Strategically, she has also been taking on more international speaking engagements to carve out a global footprint, adjusting her verbiage to more commonly understood international terms (e.g., focusing more on the term creative consultant in lieu of fractional leader), and rekindling East Coast relationships since maintaining clients there will mean less of a time zone discrepancy with Europe. A new work schedule Baird adjusted the entire cadence of her work life; rather than establish the days marching orders through a client call in the morning, she shifted that call to the end of her workday, and then hits pause until the following morning. Hattam, meanwhile, works a modular schedule based on the meetings or standing calls on her calendar, starting late on days when she has an evening meeting. Thanks to Slack, Loom, and other services, she says she works completely asynchronously, and establishes that up front with clients. At first, she was worried that would be seen as a problem but notes instead, If they want to work with you, they’ll work with you. Most of the people interviewed for this story maintain a mix of U.S.-based clients and some local work. What they all note: U.S. clients pay better. Cari Sekendur, founder of Butter Studio in Berlin, says European budgets are a lot lower in general. In her experience, clients in Europe invest less in marketing across the board. Her advice is to have a solid client network before leaving the U.S. I think it would have been really hard for me if I had just moved here straight after leaving my last full-time job, she says. The perks of life abroad If you’re working anyway, what makes life in Europe any different? Sekendur and Gogel both note that theres a prevailing cultural ethos of working to live, rather than living to work. Hattam says that in Berlin, the shift is palpable: All the noise around the next achievement you should be seeking and how youre doing compared to your peers is quieter. She says she had to adjust to a culture where What do you do? is not the first thing asked in the course of conversation. It’s actually been really healthy to decouple my professional status from my life, she says. I have actually had to undo a lot of toxic patterns in thinking about careerism, finances, all of these things. It’s not that you can’t think about these things at all, but it’s just that they’re not front and center in the same way. For Sekendur, the international life finds its way back into her work. Belin has long been a hub for art and music, and the city has always had a strong DIY culture as well. Being around a lot of creativity and people creating things from scratch gives me inspiration, whether it’s a direct connection or not, she says. But it comes with a practical boon, too. In Sekendurs case, Berlin is a very international city, and thats reflected in the people on her team; while New York is, too, she says the Brooklyn studio where she worked was comprised of people from the same cultural backgrounds. Being able to bring different experiences and backgrounds to the work just makes it better, in the same way that any kind of diversity makes work better, because you’re having more perspectives coming to it, she says. What that looks like practically: In her current studio, for example, Sekendur worked with a copywriter from Syria on a menstruation activewear line for Puma. That colleague was able to offer critical perspective on how to talk about the subject with a Middle Eastern audience. Ultimately, as Baird adds, Not everybody’s just on some tech treadmill, trying to help the next rich guy get richer, which, you know, God bless you, everybody’s got to have a way to put bread on the table. But you just meet a broader mix of people here, because the way society is structured enables more types of careers to exist in a shared community. It’s not a panacea One thing in particular that Sekendur misses about the States is networking. So she dedicates a couple of annual visits to New York City, where she crams in as many meetings as possible. She says shes also been beefing up her LinkedIn presence. The creatives we spoke to don’t play up the fact that theyre not based in the States. Sekendur says she doesnt tout it, but she also doesnt hide it (Berlin is indeed on her LinkedIn profile). It’s so interesting to me because [being based out of the U.S.] felt like the most important thing for so long, until the pandemic, and now nobody even asks, she says. Baird says her best advice is to not bring it up constantly. There’s no need to just be like, Hey, its Lisa dialing in from Paris at the start of every Zoom call, she says. It’s not relevant. It doesn’t need to be the focus or the focal point of any and all conversations. After all, as it happens, location isnt everything, and Hattam cautions against romanticizing a move abroad at large. It’s still really hard in different ways. Living in Europe isnt going to fix all of your problems, she says, though shes grateful for some of the structural differences that she wishes America could fix, like healthcare, education, gun violence . . . She adds: It’s more about wanting to find more of your own voice and challenging yourself. I never thought I was capable of moving abroad, period. But once you do something like that, you’re like, Oh, I can do all these other things that I was scared oflike starting my own design studio, or going freelance, or pitching clients that I never thought I could pitch. Whatever it is, you’re going to feel more and more empowered. I think that’s just a really beautiful thing. Do these designers have any plans to move back to the U.S.? No, Hattam says. No, Sekendur says. No plans, Baird says. And in all likelihood, Gogel is hoping to soon be able to say the same.
Category:
E-Commerce
Have you ever found yourself desperately wanting to move forward in life or at workwhether its launching a new venture, making a bold pivot, or finally saying yes to the idea thats been tugging at your mindbut somehow, you cant gain momentum? You might be living out what I call the Gas and Brake Paradox. This paradox shows up when you press the gas pedal of ambition, opportunity, or desire while unknowingly stomping on the brakes through unconscious resistance. You’re accelerating and stalling simultaneously. And heres the thing: The most visionary, high-performing leaders Ive worked with often dont even realize theyre caught in it. Its not laziness. Its not a lack of clarity or capability. Its usually an unspoken inner conflict between expansion and safety. The Hidden Drag on High Performers A Deloitte study found that 59% of high-level leaders feel trapped in successtheyve hit the outward milestones but feel unfulfilled, stagnant, or quietly disengaged. Meanwhile, a Harvard Business Review survey revealed that 71% of executives cite internal resistance, not external barriers, as the biggest roadblock to innovation. The Gas and Brake Paradox is often the invisible force behind that drag. It manifests subtly: You plan obsessively but never hit “go.” You say yes to everything except the thing that matters most. You dream of change but cling to whats familiar. And just like a car doing both at once, you create friction, burnout, and inertia. You move nowhere, exhaustingly fast. Why We Hold the Brake At the root of this paradox isnt just a fear of failure; its often a fear of transformation. Real growth demands letting go not only of titles or routines, but also of identities. And thats terrifying. Because who will I be if Im not this anymore? Many leaders push forward externally while holding onto internal stories that no longer serve them. One of my clients was poised to launch a disruptive new startup after spending decades in corporate leadership. But he kept defaulting to one more safe project. Another was ready to write a book that would redefine her field, but she couldnt stop editing chapter one. Both had one foot on the gas and the other on the brake. And heres the reframe: Resistance isnt weakness. Its often a form of inner wisdom, a message from your psyche: This next move requires a new version of you. 5 Ways to Release the Brake Without Losing Control You dont need to floor the gas or stomp on the brakes. True momentum comes when you learn to navigate both with intention. Heres how. Name the pattern. Awareness is the first unlock. Ask yourself: Where do I feel both excitement and dread? What patterns keep repeating, despite my best intentions? One client described it like reaching for the door but never turning the handle. He journaled his stuck points for a week and discovered a subtle pattern: Anytime he came close to clarity, hed immediately flood his calendar with distractions. That awareness changed everything. Use a habit tracker for a few days. Highlight moments where you feel conflicted. What triggered the brake? Reframe the story. Most resistance lives in outdated personal narratives. You might believe that success requires sacrifice, or that changing will result in losing everything you have built. In my coaching practice, I guide leaders through rewriting their origin stories. Because transformation doesnt mean erasing your past; it means integrating it. When you shift from Im starting over to Im evolving forward, a whole new possibility opens up. Create a future snapshot. Instead of fixating on what to do next, picture a day in your life two to three years from now. Where are you? What are you doing? Who are you becoming? Choose one image or object that symbolizes this version of you and keep it visible. Its not about fantasy; its about anchoring into possibility. Have a mirror conversation. We all need someone who can reflect us back to ourselves, without an agenda. Ask a trusted peer or coach: Where do you sense I am holding back? Where do I seem most alive but also most hesitant? What feels ready to emerge in me that I might be missing? A single honest conversation, when grounded in curiosity and care, can surface insights you cant reach alone. Sometimes, clarity doesnt come from more thinking, but from truly being seen. Take a micro-move. Instead of leaping into the void, start with a courageous toe-dip. Small, aligned action builds confidence while creating momentum. Write the first sentence of the book, block off one hour to explore the bold idea, or share your vision with a trusted colleague. As behavioral scientist BJ Fogg puts it: Tiny habits lead to big change. Micro-moves signal to your nervous system: This is safe. This is possible. And it’s okay to keep going. The Gas and Brake Paradox isnt a flaw; its a signal. It means youre on the cusp of something important. So instead of asking how you can go faster, ask: What part of me am I ready to release so I can move freely? Success without fulfillment isnt success, and movement without alignment is just motion. However, when your ambition meets inner claritywhen gas and brake begin to harmonizeyou stop spinning your wheels and start driving with purpose.
Category:
E-Commerce
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