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Work has a way of waking up parts of us we thought wed outgrown. You can move forward professionally, take on more visible roles, and be widely regarded as capableand still find yourself unsettled by moments that seem, on the surface, fairly ordinary. A comment lingers longer than expected. A meeting leaves you tense for days. A role you worked hard to earn suddenly feels exposing rather than energizing. When that happens, its tempting to assume something is wrong now: that youre underprepared, out of your depth, or simply not built for this level of responsibility. But often, whats being stirred up has less to do with the present moment than with experiences that shaped you much earlier in your career. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/acupofambition_logo.jpg","headline":"A Cup of Ambition","description":"A biweekly newsletter for high-achieving moms who value having a meaningful career and being an involved parent, by Jessica Wilen. To learn more visit acupofambition.substack.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/acupofambition.substack.com","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}} The past isnt gone. Its patterned. Consider Anna, a senior public health leader who had built a reputation for sound judgment and steady leadership. When she accepted a high-profile role in government, it looked like a natural next step. Internally, it felt like a step backward. Almost immediately, she began doubting herself in ways that were unfamiliar. She grew anxious before meetings and unusually sensitive to tone and hierarchy. After speaking, she would replay her comments, convinced shed revealed some fundamental gap. What made this disorienting was that nothing objectively negative was happening. Her colleagues were engaged. Her supervisor was supportive. Her performance was strong. And yet her body reacted as if the stakes were much higher. Over time, a pattern became clear. Anna had trained in an elite graduate program where intimidation was framed as rigor. Public critique was common. Questions were treated as exposures. Authority felt unpredictable. At the time, she adapted in ways that made sense. She became meticulously prepared. She learned to anticipate criticism before it arrived. She made herself intellectually airtight. That strategy worked. She succeeded. She moved on. Except that some part of her never quite did. Her new role didnt create anxietyit activated an old internal map, one shaped in an environment where visibility carried real risk. Intellectually, she knew she belonged. Psychologically, she was responding to an earlier chapter. This is how the past often shows up at work: not as a memory, but as a reflex. Why some roles feel heavier than others Psychologists have long observed that unresolved experiences dont fade with time. They flatten. They remain emotionally vivid and are reactivated when something feels familiar enoughespecially situations involving evaluation, authority, or public exposure. In those moments, the brain doesnt reliably distinguish between then and now. The body responds as if the original stakes have returned. This helps explain why certain roles or environments feel disproportionately taxing. Its not always about the workload or the people involved. Sometimes its about what the role resemblesearlier contexts where the cost of being visible, wrong, or unprepared felt genuinely high. Professional life has a developmental history We tend to think of our professional selves as separate from our psychological development. But careers have formative periods, too. Early mentors, first failures, environments where we learned what was rewarded, punished, or ignoredthese experiences quietly shape how we lead, speak, take risks, and respond to authority years later. Most of us already accept this logic when it comes to parenting. We know that unexamined childhood experiences can spill into how we parenthow we discipline, soothe, or overcorrect. Professional life follows the same pattern. Unprocessed career experiences dont show up as stories we consciously tell ourselves. They show up as leadership styles, communication habits, and emotional reflexes that can feel confusing in hindsight. What effective leaders tend to notice Leaders who navigate this terrain well arent necessarily the most confident or fearless. Theyre often the most curious. They notice when a reaction feels bigger than the situation warrants. They pause before assuming the problem is a lack of skill or effort. Theyre willing to ask whether an old pattern is being activatedand whether it still fits the present context. That kind of reflection doesnt make leaders less decisive. If anything, it tends to make them steadier. Decisions become less reactive. Authority feels less charged. Visibility becomes tolerable rather than threatening. Letting the present have more say This isnt about fixing yourself or endlessly revisiting the past. Most high-performing professionals are already capable, conscientious, and deeply invested in doing their work well. Whats often missing isnt insight, but the space to notice whats being activated and to treat those reactions as information rather than directives. Unexamined professional experiences tend to resurface indirectly: as tension, hesitation, over-effort, or a familiar sense of bracing. Its easy to mistake those signals for evidence that something is wrong now, rather than residue from an earlier context. Over time, what tends to change isnt the absence of discomfort, but how much authority its given. The past doesnt disappear. It simply stops running the meeting. And for many people, thats what makes work feel steadier again. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/acupofambition_logo.jpg","headline":"A Cup of Ambition","description":"A biweekly newsletter for high-achieving moms who value having a meaningful career and being an involved parent, by Jessica Wilen. To learn more visit acupofambition.substack.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/acupofambition.substack.com","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
Bobs Discount Furniture, a Connecticut-based furniture retailer backed by Bain Capital, is putting it all on the table. The company is going public, with shares expected to begin trading on Thursday, February 5, after being priced at $17. The retailer raised $331 million in its initial public offering (IPO). Shares will trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol BOBS. The IPO was originally announced last month. The company’s retail operations are expansiveit has more than 200 locations in 26 states as of September of last year, but the East Coast is its stronghold. Data from Renaissance Capital shows that 61% of its revenue came from stores in New England, New York, and the Mid-Atlantic. Retail headwinds and risk factors Bob’s listing will test investor appetite for traditional retail businesses as the space has faced headwinds. Many brick-and-mortar chains are pushing through a difficult environment and market conditions, particularly as consumers have struggled with increased prices in recent years. Home furnishings retailers, in particular, have had a rough run lately. Chains including Circle Furniture, American Signature, and At Home have all filed for bankruptcy, along with adjacent retailers such as Bed Bath & Beyond and Big Lots. Another important detail: Bobs sources a lot of its furniture stock from Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia, which are subject to (or could become further targeted by) the Trump administrations tariffs. It’s a risk factor that stands out in the company’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). We may not be able to fully or substantially mitigate the impact of these or future tariffs, pass price increases on to our customers or secure adequate alternative sources of products, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial performance,” the filing reads. The company has been performing well, however. It reported net revenue of more than $1.7 billion for the nine months ended September 28, 2025, which was an increase of more than 20% during that same period the year prior, per the filing. During that same period, net income rose 64%.
Category:
E-Commerce
The Trump administration announced Wednesday that it wants to create a critical minerals trading bloc with its allies and partners, using tariffs to maintain minimum prices and defend against China’s stranglehold on the key elements needed for everything from fighter jets to smartphones.Vice President JD Vance said the U.S.-China trade war over the past year exposed how dependent most countries are on the critical minerals that Beijing largely dominates, so collective action is needed now to give the West self-reliance.“We want members to form a trading bloc among allies and partners, one that guarantees American access to American industrial might while also expanding production across the entire zone,” Vance said at the opening of a meeting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted with officials from several dozen European, Asian and African nations.The Republican administration is making bold moves to shore up supplies of critical minerals needed for electric vehicles, missiles and other high-tech products after China choked off their flow in response to President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs last year. While the two global powers reached a truce to pull back on the high import taxes and stepped-up rare earth restrictions, China’s limits remain tighter than they were before Trump took office.The critical minerals meeting comes at a time of significant tensions between Washington and major allies over President Donald Trump’s territorial ambitions, including Greenland, and his moves to exert control over Venezuela and other nations. His bellicose and insulting rhetoric directed at U.S. partners has led to frustration and anger.The conference, however, is an indication that the United States is seeking to build relationships when it comes to issues it deems key national security priorities.While major allies like France and the United Kingdom attended the meeting in Washington, Greenland and Denmark, the NATO ally with oversight of the mineral-rich Arctic island, did not. A new approach to countering China on critical minerals Vance said some countries have signed on to the trading bloc, which is designed to ensure stable prices and will provide members access to financing and the critical minerals. Administration officials said the plan will help the West move beyond complaining about the problem of access to critical minerals to actually solving it.“Everyone here has a role to play, and that’s why we’re so grateful for you coming and being a part of this gathering that I hope will lead to not just more gatherings, but action,” Rubio said.Vance said that for too long, China has used the tactic of unloading materials at cheap prices to undermine potential competitors, then ratcheting up prices later after keeping new mines from being built in other countries.Prices within the preferential trade zone will remain consistent over time, the vice president said.“Our goal within that zone is to create diverse centers of production, stable investment conditions and supply chains that are immune to the kind of external disruptions that we’ve already talked about,” he said.In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said in response to a question about the trading bloc that “we oppose any country undermining the international economic and trade order through rules set by small cliques.”To make the new trading group work, it will be important to have ways to keep countries from buying cheap Chinese materials on the side and to encourage companies from getting the critical minerals they need from China, said Ian Lange, an economics professor who focuses on rare earths at the Colorado School of Mines.“Let’s just say it’s standard economics or standard behavior. If I can cheat and get away with it, I will,” he said.At least for defense contractors, Lange said the Pentagon can enforce where those companies get their critical minerals, but it may be harder with electric vehicle makers and other manufacturers. US turns to a strategic stockpile and investments Trump this week also announced Project Vault, a plan for a strategic U.S. stockpile of rare earth elements to be funded with a $10 billion loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and nearly $1.67 billion in private capital.In addition, the government recently made its fourth direct investment in an American critical minerals producer, extending $1.6 billion to USA Rare Earth in exchange for stock and a repayment deal. The Pentagon has shelled out nearly $5 billion over the past year to spur mining.The administration has prioritized the moves because China controls 70% of the world’s rare earths mining and 90% of the processing. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by phone Wednesday, including about trade. A social media post from Trump did not specifically mention critical minerals.Heidi Crebo-Rediker, a senior fellow in the Center for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the meeting was “the most ambitious multilateral gathering of the Trump administration.”“The rocks are where the rocks are, so when it comes to securing supply chains for both defense and commercial industries, we need trusted partners,” she said.Japan’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Iwao Horii, said Tokyo was fully on board with the U.S. initiative and would work with as many countries as possible to ensure its success.“Critical minerals and (their) stable supply is indispensable to the sustainable development of the global economy,” he said. Agreements and legislation move forward The European Union and Japan together as well as Mexico announced agreements to work with the United States to develop coordinated trade policies and price floors to support the development of a critical minerals supply chain outside of China. The countries said they would develop an agreement about what steps they will take and explore ways to expand the effort to include additional like-minded nations.Also Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House approved a bill to accelerate mining on federal land despite objections from Democrats and conservation groups that it amounted to a blank check to foreign-owned mining corporations.The bill, which next heads to the Senate, would codify Trump’s executive orders to boost domestic mining and processing of minerals important to energy, defense and other applications. Associated Press writers Matthew Daly and Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report. Didi Tang, Josh Funk and Matthew Lee, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
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