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Our culture equates busyness with importance, overcommitment with achievement, and exhaustion with value. For high-achieving professionals, this belief system isnt just inconvenient, its quietly eroding energy, focus, and fulfillment. Meetings pile up, emails never end, and the pressure to do it all becomes a measure of worth. And yet, this version of productivity is deeply misleading. The truth is, sustainable success doesnt come from cramming more into your day. It comes from aligning what you do with who you are, and giving yourself permission to prioritize energy, clarity, and presence over perpetual motion. Because motion for the sake of it is meaningless. The Cost of Outdated Beliefs Most of our thoughts are inherited patterns: echoes of beliefs we absorbed without realizing or having context. Many high achievers carry invisible scripts around their worth and value that may seem insignificant, yet arent harmless. They quietly shape decisions, drain energy, and fuel cycles of overcommitment. Left unchallenged, they keep us trapped in performance over presence, forcing a choice between professional success and personal fulfillment that shouldnt exist. The data confirms the danger: Nearly 60% of professionals report negative stress impacts, including irritability, fatigue, and decreased motivation. Chronic stress is linked to over 120,000 deaths each year in the U.S. alone. Leaders who push past their limits not only compromise their own well-being, but they also set a tone for teams that normalizes depletion. Rewriting Your Inner Story The first step to changing the way you work and live is identifying the beliefs running the show. Ask yourself: Which internal narratives drive my decisions? Which of them are inherited, unexamined, or outdated? Do they still serve me, or do they keep me misaligned? Once these scripts are visible, you can begin to rewrite them. Old belief: I must prove my worth by doing more. New truth: My worth is inherent; I do not need to earn it through busyness. Old belief: Busyness is a sign of importance. New truth: Stillness is a strategy, not a liability. Reflection and focus expand my impact. Old belief: I can (and should) do it all. New truth: Freedom comes from focus, not volume. Saying no is wisdom, not weakness. Even small shifts in thinking create space for bigger changes in behavior, energy, and presence. Story in Action Consider Laura, a senior leader at a fast-growing tech firm. On paper, she was thrivingleading teams, closing deals, and responding to emails at all hours. Yet she felt perpetually drained, anxious, and disconnected from both her work and her personal life. Every day felt like a treadmill she couldnt step off. When she began questioning her internal narratives, she realized her default belief: If Im not constantly available, Im failing. With that recognition, she experimented with small rituals to reclaim her energy. She started each morning with a 10-to-20-minute walk, phone-free, allowing her to plan her day with clarity. Before meetings, she paused to breathe and set her intention. And in the evenings, she created simple rituals that increased her presence: journaling one win for the day as she stepped away from her laptop, a gratitude circle at dinner with family, and reading for pleasure. These small, deliberate actions transformed her experience of her own life. Laura wasnt doing less; she was choosing differently. Her focus sharpened, her decisions felt clearer, and she felt more present in conversations with her team and family. By embedding rituals instead of relying on autopilot routines to just get through the day, she reclaimed control over her energy, rewrote the story she was living by, and discovered that sustainable success comes from alignment, not overextension. Rituals, Not Routines: A Practical Tool Changing beliefs is only the beginning. Without intentional action, old habits quietly reassert themselves. This is where ritualsintentional and meaningful rhythms unique to youbecome transformative. Unlike routines, which can be automatic and draining over time, rituals are infused with purpose. They create moments of renewal, grounding, and clarity. For example: Starting your day with a five-minute reflection instead of jumping straight into email. Brewing coffee or tea while you set an intention for the day or the next meeting. Closing the workday with a transition ritual, signaling the shift from professional to personal time. Winding down with reading, candlelight, journaling, or a hot shower. These intentional pauses are strategic, not indulgent. They preserve energy, enhance focus, and allow you to operate from alignment rather than autopilot. Presence as a Leadership Advantage The most effective professionals arent necessarily those who work the longest hoursthats the old way of working. Theyre those who show up whole because theyre in alignment with who they are, inside and out. Presence is a competitive advantage. It fosters better decision-making, inspires teams, and creates ripple effects that extend far beyond individual performance. Leaders who model energy stewardship and intentionality shift culture without a single memo. By choosing rituals that anchor them in alignment, they normalize boundaries, reflection, and focused contribution. And in doing so, they give others permission to do the same. Practical Steps to Begin Identify your top stress-beliefs. Notice moments you feel compelled to say yes or overcommit. Ask what underlying belief is driving the behavior. Reframe them. Convert old stories of proving and performing into new narratives of presence, permission, and focus. Anchor with rituals. Introduce small, meaningful practices that support the beliefs you want to live by. Examples include morning reflection, mid-day resets, or transition rituals between work and personal life. Observe the ripple. Notice how these changes affect your energy, decision-making, relationships, and the culture around you. Even small, consistent choices shift patterns over time. They turn pressure into presence, busyness into clarity, and stress into sustainable energy. Redefining Work-Life Success Utimately, high performance doesnt require sacrifice, but it does require alignment. When you stop measuring worth by how much you do and start measuring it by how intentionally and fully you show up, everything changes. You dont have to do it all. You have to do what matters, and do it in a way that preserves your energy, your joy, and your ability to be fully present. The rest will follow. The future of work starts now, and success is being redefined: Lead not from exhaustion, but from alignment. Lead not to impress, but to empower. Your rituals are the blueprint, not only for your own performance but for the culture you create.
Category:
E-Commerce
Do you know that the longer a decision-maker views your résumé, the more likely it is that youll get an interview? Recent research combined eye-tracking and machine learning to understand résumé decisions better. The most actionable conclusion was that Experience section dwell time predicts interview invitations. Thats next-level information. Weve had eye-tracking studies for years. They tell us what readers look at, but give no additional meaning. Now, by applying AI, we know which sections of the résumé matter the most for getting interviews. I was a retained search consultant for 25-plus years. For the last 10 years, Ive been writing executive and board résumés. When I did search, the first question I asked candidates after interviews was, How long were you there? That was the best way for me to know how well the interview went. Thus, it makes sense that résumé dwell time also predicts success. So, lets talk about how to make your résumés Experience section sticky to readers via design and content choices. Eliminate Walls of Text People dont read word by word. They scan, looking for information relevant to their needs. Large blocks of text lose readers because theyre hard to scan. In How People Read Online: The Eyetracking Evidence Report, The Nielsen Norman Group, a user experience firm, described a wall of text as a major repellent that instantly makes users think twice about engaging. To avoid that, limit résumé text blocks to three lines, four if you must. Nothing else about your résumé matters if people wont read it. Focus on Experience Help readers navigate your résumé by providing clear section labels (Professional Experience, Education, Skills, Community Service, etc.). Nielsen Norman also shared that many readers assess whether a page is worth any time in less than a second. They appraise before they even start the infamous six-second scan. Because the Experience section drives interviews, place it below the summary at the top of your résumé. You have to show your relevance immediately to earn deeper reader attention. Use a Consistent Structure Present your recent experience in a consistent structure. I include: Company names Company descriptions The locations where my clients worked for companies Job titles Employment dates Job scope descriptions Impact statements. I always place company names and job titles on left margins to help readers who are scanning. They want that information. Give it to them effortlessly. Also, lighten readers cognitive loads by separating job scope information and impact bullets. Describe scope in a narrative paragraph. Follow that with impact bullets. Dont force your readers to do the scope and impact sort. They want you to tell them what your role was and how you performed in it. Make it easy for them if you want to keep their attention. Rank Order Your Impact Stories Based on Your Readers Needs Identify a jobs deliverables. To do this, use job postings, talk with insiders, and ask AI platforms questions. Then, write your impact bullets to convince readers you can succeed in their roles. Let go of what you think is important about you; youll have time for that later. To grab and keep your readers attention, align your bullets’ content and order with their most critical needs. Provide White Space White space makes résumés easier to read and understand. That ease increases dwell time because it makes readers more willing to engage. Use these minimum parameters: Three-quarter-inch top and bottom margins One-inch side margins Half-point spaces between bulleted impact statements If you need more room, edit your content; dont fudge the white spaceyoull lose readers. When I see a crowded résumé, I think the person hasnt learned whats important to their audience. Because of that, theyre sharing everything they guess might be relevant. That erodes the likelihood readers will find what they need and, in turn, dwell time. Readers Evaluate Résumés and Make Decisions Ive talked a lot about readers here, but the reality is that the people who view your résumé are evaluators. They look at your presentation. Then they decide whether you appear to meet enough of their needs to merit more of their time. Make it easy for them to understand your relevance, and they will slow down to focus on you.
Category:
E-Commerce
Over the next 20 years, an estimated $84 trillion will change hands in the U.S.; some call this the Great Wealth Transfer, others the Silver Tsunami. This wealth is held in cash and assets, but also in the estimated 2.9 million private U.S. businesses that are owned by those over 55. Many retiring business owners will look to sell their company to private equity or larger conglomerates, while others will pass their businesses on to their heirs. A few are considering something more radical: giving their company away to good causes, like Paul Newman who gave his eponymous food company to Newmans Own Foundation when he passed away in 2008. This idea remains radical enough that when 83-year-old Yvon Chouinard and his family announced that all of Patagonias future profits would go to fight climate change in September 2022, the New York Times devoted a full-page spread to the move. Now, theres even a book dedicated to Patagonia and its transition. 100% for Purpose companies like Newmans Own and Patagonia are still the exception, but there are more of us than you think: ticketing platform Humanitix, search engine Ecosia, browser Mozilla, consumer brands like The Good Store and Thankyou, and more. Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg also announced plans to donate a controlling stake of his company to a trust that will continue to fund Bloomberg Philanthropies after his death. As President and CEO of a 100% for Purpose organization, Ive begun to hear more and more from businesses that are looking to follow in our footsteps. Why this move? You may ask: Why would philanthropically minded business owners and founders give their company away versus just selling the business later on, and creating a foundation with the proceeds? The short answer: Its a great way to cement your legacy, preserve the company, and maximize giving. Lets imagine your business makes $10M in profits and you sell it for $50Mcongrats! You can then choose to manage a foundation endowment and give away $2.5M a year (5% as per the minimum distribution rule). Or you spend it down, giving away $10M a year for five years. Compare these options to giving your company away to a foundation (like Newmans Own Foundation) or a trust (like Patagonia). The company and its employees stay in place, and continue to generate $10M annual profits, which can then be given away to good causes year after year. You have created a philanthropic annuity. But more than that, you have given your business, employees, and customers a gift as well. Every product they make, sell, or buy is now a product whose profits go to support good causes. And for those starting new business, it may not be a fair comparison today, but Paul Newman and A.E. Hotchner put in $40,000 of their own funds to get Newmans Own started back in 1982. That could have been a one-time gift but instead, Paul and Newmans Own have since given away over $600 milliona 15,000x philanthropic return! A range of models How do you get started on the 100% for Purpose journey? Here are a few models to consider, from simple to more advanced: Give Your Profits Away Today: You can do so with an existing corporate structure. Paul Newman did this at first with Newmans Own as the Foundation was established years later. Thats also how Cummings Properties and The Good Store got started. Depending on your jurisdiction, there are more or less tax-friendly ways to go about this, and if you dont already have an existing foundation, you might find a Donor-Advised Fund an easy way to get started. Donate your Business to an Existing Foundation or Non-Profit: Why re-create the wheel when there are already close to two million 5013(c) organizations in the U.S.? Id venture to say theres at least one among these that aligns to your value and your giving priorities, and that they would welcome a profit-fueled philanthropic annuity. Establish your own Foundation and Donate your Business to it: You want to be more hands on? Establish your own foundation. When Paul Newman died in 2008, he gifted the food company to Newmans Own Foundation, but that was actually not legal at the time. The IRS granted us an exception to be able to continue operating until the Philanthropic Enterprise Act was passed in 2018. This new law allows foundations to own profitable companies outright, versus in the past, being limited to no more than 20% equity stakes. Split Voting Rights and Economic / Profit Rights via a Perpetual Purpose Trust: Perpetual Purpose Trusts are also relatively new in the U.S.: the first on record dates back to just 2018, but their European equivalent, steward foundations, including Novo Nordisk, Ikea, and Rolex, have been around for decades. Purpose Trusts offer flexibility, for example allowing you to keep some or all voting rights of the company while giving away the economic rights to your foundation, a non-profit, your employees, or a mix of all these. This is what Patagonia chose to do, with a HBR case study on the details for the legal aficionados among you. Giving Tuesday is almost upon us, and while I dont expect people to make such a decision in one day, I want to invite current business owners and future founders to think about joining the 100% Purpose movement. Giving a business away is still considered a radical move, but it offers business owners, their employees, and their customers something a traditional sale never can: legacy.
Category:
E-Commerce
In early 2022, the meal delivery company I founded, Tovala, went out to raise $100mm from venture capitalists. Our business could not have been hotter. Wed crossed $110mm of revenue, growing over 100% YoY. We had retention that was 34 times better than other meal delivery services. We had low awareness, lots of room for product innovation, and a seemingly clear path to an IPO. Then the war broke out in Ukraine, and capital markets started to get spooked. All of the sudden, fast-growing, unprofitable consumer businesses were out of vogue. We managed to raise $32mm, not a small sum, but it felt like a failure. It ended up being the best thing that ever happened to us. A new game That struggle made us realize the game had changed. Investors no longer wanted to fund unprofitable growth. In fact, they might never fund unprofitable growth in our category again. So we had to find a way to stretch that $32mm as far as possible. That was easier said than done. In 2021, we burned $26mm. We had to change how we operated Tovala. Fast. This was more than just cutting some costs. It meant a complete shift in mindset of every team member. For years we had been focused on scaling as quickly as possible. For example, for our operations team, that meant thinking about how we could safely fulfill an increasing number of meals every week and, in their spare time, figuring out how to improve our margins. We had to flip that mindset on its head. And instead of thinking about rapid scaling, think about where we could find efficiencies in the business. We started to repeatedly pound the drumbeat of profitability. We talked about it at every company all hands, and most importantly, we helped everyone understand why it mattered. We celebrated wins as small as a slight reduction in our AWS fees and as big as launching new product offerings. We got much more disciplined with hiring and performance management, pushed every team to identify margin wins, and we scrutinized our P&L for any waste. We found big levers on pricing and marketing spend and small levers in renegotiating many contracts. It all mattered. Focus, focus, focus What most surprised me during this period was not just our teams ability to execute. It was the value of focus. Wed built a company culture that was frugal and yet, when the team was tasked with finding waste and inefficiencies, it was everywhere. With the benefit of hindsight, its clear to me that it is not realistic to prioritize growth, (which the team had been doing for several years), while simultaneously having real rigor on minimizing all waste and inefficiency. We ultimately achieved our goal. We havent raised a single dollar since that $32mm fundraise. Weve been profitable for two years. And weve built a culture that can operate in the chapter were now in: one defined by growth and profitability.
Category:
E-Commerce
After more than 70 years, the Ford Motor Co. finally has an architectural centerpiece. The automaker’s new global headquarters has officially opened in Dearborn, Michigan, just outside Detroit and within eyeshot of some of the main facilities that have sustained the company for more than a century. Covering 2.1 million square feet and designed by the architecture and design firm Snhetta, the new building sprawls across four circuitous stories. Getting from one side to another is a trek. During a two-hour walking tour of the building, a week ahead of its official opening, I traversed at most a quarter of the overall space. This immense size is the building’s strength, as it allows the company to bring much of its executive, engineering, design, and fabrication teams under one (very large) roof for the first time. About 2,000 Ford employees work there now, with around 4,500 expected by 2027. Jim Dobleske, CEO of Ford Land, the company’s real estate arm, says the headquarters was designed to enable collaboration and a more flexible approach to office worktwo post-pandemic prerequisites. More importantly, the building is meant to streamline how different arms of the company work together, using proximity, shared resources, and the simplicity of a single building to break down historic silos. “It’s not just a building,” Dobleske says, walking through its airy front lobby. “It’s a tool.” The Ford of 2025 is a different company than its mid-20th-century self, then still heavily influenced by the top-down approach of founder Henry Ford, even years after his death. Still, there are strands of the corporate DNA that have carried through over the company’s 122-year history. Ford has historically been a deeply stratified corporation, with a longstanding emphasis on command and control. Today, its evolving architecture is a reflection of a company that’s reconsidering its approach and priming itself for a particularly dynamic era in the history of automaking. [Photo: Ford] The new building sits 2 miles away from Ford’s former headquarters, a 12-story modernist box known as the “Glass House,” which has been the buttoned-up main office for 2,000 of the corporation’s higher-ups since it opened in 1956. Located on the other side of a highway cloverleaf and moated by a wide belt of lawn and parking lots, the building was emblematic of Ford’s corporate architectural sensibility, as well as its corporate structure. The “Glass House,” Ford’s former headquarters. [Photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images] The new building is designed as the new hub of an increasingly concentrated campus of Ford buildings, situated within walking distance to an estimated 14,000 Ford employees, each of whom can use the building’s common spaces, bookable meeting rooms, and 1,000-seat food court. That includes staff at the product development center, engineers from the recently renovated Ford Engineering Lab across the street, and researchers in its components laboratory. “It’s the most horizontally and vertically integrated building I know of,” says Craig Dykers, cofounder of Snhetta and architect of the building. His firm also created the campus master plan that has reshaped the corporate landscape of Ford. During the tour, Dykers stood near a window and pointed out the buildings and facilities in the area that are all part of the Ford machine. “We took a lot of facilities that were spread all over and pushed them together,” he says. [Photo: Ford] [Photo: Ford] Inside the HQ A few finishing touches remain before the project is officially complete in 2027including parking garages that will be tucked beneath additional performative landscape that’s able to divert and clean stormwater and building runoffbut the building is already humming with activity. From the outside, Ford’s new headquarters is a gleaming spaceship of a building, with scalloped edges covered by flat and subtly shaded glass. The building’s plan, seen from overhead, is of three hexagons arranged into a kind of triangle, with spaces cu out from their centers to create large internal courtyards. [Photo: Ford] Walking through the building, its sheer size is hard to fully grasp, and parts can feel disorienting. But there are even more places where a corner is turned, or a stairway is climbed, to reveal a view down a corridor that resets the internal map. Glimpses can often be seen of the four accessible courtyard spaces, each of which has been designed by Snhetta to reflect a different regional habitat. The largest courtyard, inspired by the Great Lakes, features cascades of stone, two bookable meeting canopies, and large sliding doors that connect to seating in the building’s dining area. [Photo: Ford] This area is accessible to any Ford employee, even those not working within the headquarters building. Jennifer Kolstad, global design and brand director at Ford Land, says it’s part of the company’s effort to rethink its global real estate portfolio and make more spaces more accessible for different types of work, be it a lunch meeting or a heads-down cram session in a private booth. It’s a far cry from the culture of desks that long reigned at Ford, she says. [Photo: Ford] The design, informed by Kolstad’s deep experience in interior architecture and hospitality design, is intended to create a human scale. “The challenge of this is 2.1 million square feet at human scale,” she says. Working closely with the architects at Snhetta, Ford’s design team integrated hotel lobby-style seating across the building, as well as grand staircases that double as seating for informal meetings or large gatherings. [Photo: Ford] The right amount of transparency With so many parts of the company situated in this one building, including highly sensitive operations like the development of new car designs, there was a challenge in making the building accessible without completely blowing the doors open. One solution has been the creation of 14 “arrival areas” outside the secured doors of specific business functions. These are café-like seating areas and meeting spaces where people can gather for coffee or a meeting without having to navigate through secured parts of the building. [Photos: Ford] This attempt at openness extends to the architecture itself. Walking through the straight spine that runs between the three hexagons of the building, Dykers points up at a narrow atrium that runs through the top three floors of the building. A skylight pours light down, and people on each floor can get glimpses of what’s happening elsewhere, even if they don’t have the badge to get them through the door. [Photo: Ford] There are four different levels of security in the building, according to Ford Land’s Dobleske, including one for the top floor where there are several design studios that often move full-scale car models and properties across the building’s 22-inch-thick concrete floors. A corporate spy’s dream, these concepts and nascent designs are cleverly obscured behind frosted glass and partitions, while still allowing the skylight and atrium to spread light and views to the floors below. “We still want people to be able to see people and properties moving through the building,” Dobleske says. [Photo: Ford] But there’s a limit to that spirit of transparency, especially when it comes to product development. The design studios are located on the building’s two top floors, including spaces along window-lined edges of the building that could potentially offer views to prying eyes outside. [Photo: Ford] To allow light in while maintaining privacy, the glass that wraps the entire building has been treated with a specially designed frit patterning that obscures the view. In a nod to Ford’s famous logo, the frit is made up of millions of tiny ovalsblack on the interior side of the window and white on the exteriorto help manage heat inside while also preventing design secrets from spilling out. “It took us over a year to develop that,” Dykers says. [Photo: Ford] The design studios are also directly connected to an even more useful space: a large exterior courtyard where scale models and concepts can be given a good look in natural daylight. Elisangela Previte, global business operations manager for Ford Design, says the space makes it much faster for designers to vet their design choices, moving a model out of the controlled environment of the modern design studio and into the harsh glare of the sun. Though there are minor concerns about the potential for drone surveillance, the bigger concern is the geese that are trying to use the courtyard for their nest. Previte says they’re still trying to figure out the right way to keep the geese out. [Photo: Ford] A quick ride in a freight elevator can bring a new model down to the building’s other prize space, a large domed showroom equipped with 10 in-floor turntables to slowly rotate cars, a large overhead light that can emulate light from any time of day, and a large conference room for executive meetings and new car reveals. The showroom also connects to its own courtyard, allowing those formal car design reviews to occur under natural light, and with the benefit of view lines that can stretch 180 feet. It’s the kind of space where the final approval for a new car model can come through or an emerging concept can be doomed to the archives. Each stepfrom a design concept to a full-scale model to a new car approved for productioncan feasibly all happen within this new headquarters building. It’s a radical concentration of abilities for Ford, marking a new approach for a company that can feel steeped in its own history, both for good and for bad. Given the pace of automaking, it will take time for consumers to see what impact all of this has on the cars that Ford produces. But for now, the building itself is a big indication of how the company sees itself evolving in the near term.
Category:
E-Commerce