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Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. The authors of the most powerful memoirs, self-help books, and leadership bibles combine deep research and self-reflectionin the same way todays executives need to blend data insights with emotional intelligence. As we look ahead to 2026, I asked eight authors of recent business and business-adjacent books to share their recommendations for books (not their own) that will help you lead in the year to come. Here are their picks, in their own words: Maha Aboulenein, CEO, Digital and Savy, and author, 7 Rules of Self-Reliance The Correspondent by Virginia Evans Hands down the book I am gifting to everyone this year is The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. The protagonist, Sybil Van Antwerp, is witty, sharp, and just like usshe has lived a life of triumphs, love, tragedies, and regrets. The book is a series of letters that she writes to family, friends, politicians, and strangers. She reminds us that, in the art of letter writing, there is no gray, just black and white, and that is where themost beautiful and honest stories unfold. I devoured the book and hope everyone reads it. They will be utterly delighted they did. This book will help business leaders think clearly about the power of storytelling. When we look at consumer behavior and how [people] are choosing more long-form content, this book gave me perspective. [How will] letter writing in the age of AI matter? How can we go back to thinking about what connects us as audiences? Its about the power of building a relationship directly: the one-to-one (versus the spray-and-pray approach). Building trust with your audience is not about influence. Its about connecting over a story that moves us. Paul Achleitner, former chair, Deutsche Bank, and author, Accelerate Your Experience Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis by Graham Allison In this 1971 classic, the author uses the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis to demonstrate a key theme:The traditional approach of interpreting political outcomes as the consequence of rational action by individuals falls short of reality.Instead,internal organizational processes workinghand in hand with bureaucratic power politics may have just as much to do with the results. I have always felt that applying different perspectives generates better explanationsas well as outcomesin business as well. As Austrian philosopher Friedrich Hayek stated,many events are theconsequence of human action but not human design. Kevin Boehm, cofounder and co-CEO, Boka Restaurant Group, and author, The Bottomless Cup The Dream of Solomeo: My Life and the Idea of Humanistic Capitalism by Brunello Cucinelli There are so many lessons in that book that echo my own life and my evolving ethos: that success in business is noble only if it lifts the human spirit. The way Cucinelli resurrected Solomeo while building his empire gave his purpose a kind of dignity that is aspirational. Blind ambition was lauded as admirable for generations but is often detrimental to an entrepreneurs development as a human. In todays more enlightened world, making sure there is nobility behind the purpose allows us to sidestep the potholes that leaders like Steve Jobs were never able to evade. You can be a capitalist and a kind human. Jon Gluck, senior editor, Fast Company, and author, An Exercise in Uncertainty Endurance: Shackletons Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing Endurance tells the story of the ill-fated 19141917 expedition led by the British Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. The expeditions ship, the Endurance, was trapped in the Antarctic ice and crushed. After surviving for months on ice floes, the crew undertook a grueling 1,000-mile journey in an open boat, then traversed glaciers and scaled mountains before finding help. Never mind that Endurance is a gripping and inspiring read. The story offers a master class in navigating every manner of crisis and every type of uncertainty, which leaders will encounter in abundance in 2026. If nothing else, it makes business challenges seem manageable by comparison. Mita Mallick, workplace strategist, and author, The Devil Emails at Midnight Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect by Will Guidara As our lives get even more digital, more seamless, with just a few clicks or a touch of a button, we will crave human interaction. This is why Unreasonable Hospitality, about extraordinary service delivered by and for human beings, should be on every leaders reading list. In a rapid race to embrace AI, we get personalization at scale: We can anticipate what customers need and want based on the data we collect on their ehaviors. But how about a human being noticing your needs at a particular moment, offering a spontaneous, heartfelt gesture? Noticing and connecting with one another is becoming an underrated superpower. The companies that thrive will not only treat their customers with unreasonable hospitality, but hospitality [will] become the new leadership imperative. Forget the oversize hoodies, fancy snacks, and another free meditation app. Treating your employees with care will become the biggest retention tool we have at our disposal. Leila McKenzie-Delis, CEO, Dial Global, and author, The CEO Activist From Intent to Impact: The New Blueprint for Inclusion by Asif Sadiq Asif Sadiqs From Intent to Impact is a must-read for 2026 because it gives leaders a practical, no-nonsense blueprint for turning inclusion from well-meaning intentions into real, measurable change. Rather than offering theory, it delivers actionable frameworks that help organizations build inclusive cultures, design inclusive products, and create sustainable impact. With Sadiqs deep global experience and timely relevance in a rapidly shifting social and business landscape, the book stands out as an essential guide for anyone serious about meaningful progress. Kurt Strovink, senior partner and global head of CEO practice, McKinsey, and coauthor, A CEO for All Seasons Meditations by Marcus Aurelius A book I return to often is Marcus Aureliuss Meditations. Written nearly 2,000 years ago, it remains one of the clearest guides for navigating the tensions and responsibilities of leadership. What makes the book enduring is its integration of the inner and outer dimensions of leadership. Aurelius believed in the power of stoicism to accept what was uncontrollable and work productively on what was controllable. Leaders today face pressures Aurelius himself could never have imagined, yet the fundamentals he wrestled withclarity of thought in the face of change, humility of perspective, and the discipline to separate what can be controlled from what cannotare strikingly timeless. In a world defined by rapidly evolving markets, geopolitical uncertainty, AI innovation, and a growing disparity between signal and noise, having the temperament to absorb change is essential to todays leadership. Meditations doesnt offer outright solutions; it offers ways of thinking that help leaders stay grounded while making consequential decisions, leading through others, preparing institutions for change, and renewing ones energy as a protagonist in lifes journey. Aureliuss reflections compose what we might call an ethic of leadershipthe standards leaders must hold themselves to in both the inner game and the outer game of their roles. Angela Williams, president and CEO, United Way Worldwide, and coauthor, Navigating the Age of Chaos Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi Yaa Gyasis Homegoing is one of those books that stays with you long after you close it. The story follows two branches of a family across generations, and it shows how connection and resilience thread through even the hardest histories. Working with communities every day, Im reminded of how much we all inherit: grief, strength, possibility, and most importantly, the power to heal together. Leaders today can take that same lesson to heart. Seeing people fully and honoring the shared histories is how we build trust, collaboration, and stronger communities. Heading into 2026, with all the uncertainty around us, it feels urgent to remember that real community begins when we refuse to give up on one another. Homegoing is a beautiful reminder that hope is a practice that grows every time we reach across difference and walk alongside our neighbors anyway. What Are Your Top Book Picks? What books do you think leaders should read to get ready for 2026? Please send your picksnew books and classics alike are welcometo me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com, and well publish your recommendations in an upcoming newsletter. Read more: reading is fundamental 4 reasons reading for pleasure can make you a better person How reading rewires your brain, according to neuroscience Modern CEOs summer 2024 reading list
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Burnout and boredom are the two dreaded b-words of the modern workplace. We fear one, dismiss the other, and often fail to see how easily they trade places. Too often, boredom masquerades as burnout. To the untrained eye, exhaustion and disengagement can look identical. Boredom is typically a form of cognitive under-stimulation, while burnout is emotional and physical overextension. Both can leave people feeling unmotivated and fatigued. But heres the twist: in cultures that tend to glamorize busyness, many employees feel safer saying theyre burned out than bored. Burnout signals you worked “too hard.” Bored, on the other hand, signals the opposite. Recent reports show 82% of knowledge workers across North America, Asia, and Europe have varying degrees of burnout. And if youre in Australia, welcome to the burnout capital of the world. Burnout has a costly link to organizational issues such as attrition, absenteeism, lower engagement, and decreased productivity. But dont underestimate the grim impact of a bored workforce either. When you dont address it, it metastasizes into cynicism and passive sabotage. Given the higher prevalence of bored employees than burned-out ones, the distinction between burnout and boredom is too important to ignore. Why does this matter? Because when we mistake boredom for burnout, we prescribe rest, when what we really need is challenge. We pull the wrong levers. We give rest to those who crave renewal and pressure to those who need pause. If you cant figure out whether youre experiencing burnout or boredom in disguise, the following are five signs to be aware of: 1. Youre feeling fatigued, but not stressed Feeling constantly fatigued, even when sleeping and eating well? Irritated but not exactly stressed? Thats a boredom clue. If your fatigue is tinged by feelings of resentment or dread, you might be experiencing burnout. But if its laced with numbness, clock-watching, or a nagging wish for a fire drill just to break the monotony, thats boredom. Both are crises of connection that are likely related to purpose, people, or growth. 2. Busy yet unfulfilled Your calendar is filled to the brim with meetings, and the emails never end. Even when sleeping, your remit seems to increase exponentially, and there are endless deliverables. You keep going because everyone needs you, and you dont want to let people down. But none of it lands anymore. You dont experience meaning and satisfaction, and you feel somehow hollow. Youre on a track to burning out. Boredom, on the other hand, may see you doing “busy work” but choosing less critical tasks. The challenge-reward loop fueling motivation has broken down, which leaves you mentally checked out. Boredom can become problematic when its rooted in a deeper sense of purposelessness. And if you’re easily distracted and are distracting others, thats also boredom. 3. You crave escape (any escape) With burnout, you fantasize about quitting and disappearing. All you want is some peace and quiet. No emails, pingszero contact. Just some silence. Even a trip to the dentist for a root canal becomes appealing if only for the escape and genuine, “out of office” experience. When youre bored, the escape looks different. You want a thrill. You scroll job ads, online shopping, airline specials, anything just to feel a flicker of excitement. Either way, youre forming an exit strategy. 4. Quality of work slips Maybe youre noticing that your quality of work is slipping. With constantly increasing workloads and being overwhelmed for prolonged periods, its inevitable. Thats a clear sign of burnout, especially if its not your normal state of play. What if the decreased quality of work is due to procrastination? Maybe its a missed deadline here and there. Its not quite enough effort to make it a killer presentation, but it was passable. Thats boredom. Its also a precursor to quiet-quitting, doing the bare minimum of ones job and putting in no more time, effort, or enthusiasm than necessary. 5. Emotionally flatlined You used to get excited, be passionate, even push back. Now its just neutral, no irritation and no excitement. The highs dont lift you, and the lows dont move you. You stop reacting because it takes energy that you no longer have. It feels a bit like emotional autopilot. In burnout, that numbness is self-protection. When you are bored, its detachment, not from energy depletion, but lack of stimulation. There is no challenge to rise to, no cause to push for, so you quietly disconnect. When disconnection feels better than engagement, that is a sign that something deeper needs your attention. The key to distinguishing between burnout and boredom lies in tuning into the disengagement and understanding its source. For bored employees, its about restoring agency, novelty, inspiration, and purpose: Ask better questions: What parts of the job feel under-stimulating or misaligned with their skills? Curate challenge: Provide opportunities for responsibility and problem–solving, not just task execution. Reinforce relevance: Help them see the impact of their work. Strong leadership modeling: It always comes back to who manages and leads. Purpose–driven leaders and relatable managers engage, connect, and inspire. Burnout says, “I gave too much.” Boredom says, “I stopped giving at all.” One makes you feel overdone, while the other makes you feel underwhelmed. Either way, its a signal that we’ve drifted from meaning, and it’s time to get back to being
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E-Commerce
In 2021, two people you’ve probably never heard ofFaZe Rug and Adin Rossfaced off in a one-on-one basketball game at a Los Angeles gym. Winner gets $25,000. Sam Gilbert led a two-person team that streamed it live on YouTube from a single iPhone. The players weren’t professional athletes, and it was, Gilbert says, a very below average basketball game. Still, nearly 80,000 people tuned in live, most of them under 34 years old. That was the biggest eye opener to me, says Gilbert, director of content for Bleacher Reports House of Highlights. Thats when I knew there was something here. Gilbert saw that something fundamental had shifted in sports consumption. The names mattered in the same way fans tune in to watch Luka Doncic or Victor Wembanyama. But personality and creator fandom trumped talent and quality of play. FaZe Rug and Adin Ross command audiences of millions across YouTube and Twitchdeeply engaged fans who, when the two faced off in real time, showed up. It was a test, Gilbert says. And its success became the foundation for Bleacher Reports Creator League, a sports league where social medias biggest personalities compete in basketball, dodgeball, and flag football for cash prizes that can stretch well into six figures. [Photo: Warner Bros Discovery] Young viewers are tuning in. A dodgeball match at DreamCon in 2022 generated over 80 million views with 7 million engagements and climbed as high as the No. 2 trending video on YouTube. In 2025 alone, the league generated 606 million viewsa 60% increase from the previous year. So how does a made-up sports league that features average, amateur athletes regularly outperform mainstream sports and entertainment on social media, all while reaching the seemingly unreachable Gen Z demographic? Meeting them where they are isn’t enough Drew Muller had a numbers problem that didn’t make sense. As Vice President and GM of House of HighlightsBleacher Report’s social-first sports vertical founded in 2014 and acquired in 2015he watched highlight consumption explode year over year. The brand was on its way to over 100 million followers across platforms, driving billions of monthly views. But Muller also saw the other side of the equation. As part of Turner Sports (now TNT and part of Warner Bros. Discovery), he had a front-row seat to traditional sports broadcasting, and the data showed that the under-34 live sports viewing audience was collapsing. According to Bleacher Reports research, Major League Baseball’s median viewer is 56 years old. The NHL’s is 52. The NBA’s is 49. Even NFL viewers skew older47% are 55 and over, and only 17% are under 35. “Something doesn’t add up here,” Muller recalls thinking back in 2020. House of Highlights’ numbers kept climbing. Gen Z’s appetite for sports content was undeniable. Yet they wouldn’t watch live games on TV. But they would, Muller noticed, enthusiastically watch a four-hour livestream of a YouTube creator playing video games. The solution to bridge that gap and satisfy that audience was the Creator League. And the hypothesis was simple: Meet Gen Z where they areon YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok. But also meet them with people they care about, and in formats they understand. Creator League built rosters for reality TV, not sports To build a sports league out of thin air, you have to start with the games, right? No, says Gilbert. I think the creator content is first and foremost. We know the space we’re playing in. Were leveraging the biggest names in the creator space, so we always have to stay true and authentic to that space. It makes sense. Traditional sports leagues have built fandom over generations through geographic loyalty and decades-long story arcs. Its why leagues like the XFL and USFL, which lack that history, continually sprout up and fold. So, rather than fight that same battleand risk the same fateGilbert and Muller dug into years of YouTube beef, Twitch streams, and TikTok drama. This is the new generations mythology, and the Creator League is built on it. “You’re almost like a casting director for a Survivor-style show where you’re trying to introduce different personalities that could lead to controversy,” Muller explains. “You want someone that’s going to be the shit-talkerthe villain. You want the good guy. You want the underdog. You really need to cast for every role.” [Photo: Warner Bros Discovery] Casting creators goes beyond beef and personality. The league also needed creators who could actually move audiences. This meant targeting creators not with the largest followings, but with the most rabid, most engaged fans. lot of times, Muller says, we’ll prioritize working with someone who might have a fraction of the followers of someone elseif we see they can move 15,000 people to a video in an instant if they want to.” How Creator League works The 2025 season featured four team owners who exemplified this approach: JasonTheWeen, a 21-year-old FaZe Clan member known for viral IRL stunts; RayAsianBoy, who rose to fame after linking with Kai Cenat in Japan; YourRAGE, a veteran creator known for raw humor and live-streaming dominance; and Mark Phillips, the creative force behind RDCWorld1, the viral sketch comedy crew with over 1.7 billion YouTube views. Each owner assembles a roster of fellow creators to compete across five sports from May through Novemberdodgeball, slamball (trampoline basketball), flag football, knockout basketball, and five-on-five basketballwith a $500,000 prize pool on the line. The rosters feature creators from each owner’s network: friends, collaborators, and fellow content creators who bring their own followings to their team. The competition unfolds like a season-long reality show where creators compete, trash-talk across platforms between events, and rally their fanbases to vote for in-game advantages. They may not appear to be household names. But to Gen Z, theyre as recognizable as LeBron James and Lionel Messi. These selections werent random, either. Gilbert and Muller looked for creators with strategic platform diversitymixing Twitch stars with YouTube and TikTok personalitiesall while hunting for preexisting storylines. Mark Phillips and YourRAGE have been talking trash for years about who’s more athleticwho’s better at this, who’s better at that, Gilbert says. We were able to leverage that to give a history to something that was basically still brand new.” Fast-paced, fluid rules, no dead air Casting solved the who. The harder question was howhow do you design competitions that keep a digital audience locked in when it has infinite options to click away? They started with a constraint: No inventing new sports. “They had to be familiar,” Gilbert says, “because we knew that with this generation, you only have such a short amount of time to clearly articulate what you’re trying to get them to come and watch.” They settled on basketball, dodgeball, and flag footballsports everyone recognizes and understands. But understanding doesnt equal engagement. For that, Gilbert’s team had to strip away everything that makes traditional sports drag so the pacing mirrors the live streams Gen Z already consumesconstant action, no lulls, face-forward intensity. One timeout instead of three. Running clocks. No halftime. Creators addressing the camera directly between plays. “We’re not trying to make any of these moments a dead period where we know the audience can look on the side of the screen, find another video, and click off pretty easily,” Gilbert says. Even the rules themselves stay fluid. When a three-point conversion felt clunky during flag football’s regular season, Gilbert met with the creators, and they decided to pivot to a painted areaa conversion zonefor the championship instead. Problem solved. Its our league,” Gilbert says. “We’ll change up rules as much as we need to to make it entertaining for the audience.” The proof of concept came through incremental tests. In 2020 and 2021, House of Highlights created shows tied to major events like The Match, then tried standalone basketball knockout games. The FaZe Rug versus Adin Ross experiment in 2021 validated the core thesis. By 2022, they were ready for more structure: a one-on-one basketball tournament that culminated at the Final Four in New Orleans. The format kept evolvingtwo-on-two basketball at the 2023 Final Four, a one-on-one flag football season, and massive five-on-five events at DreamCon. [Photo: Warner Bros Discovery] “It really evolved from big event to big event into something that could feel bigger or have this continuity and through line,” Muller says. The tentpole strategy became crucial. By tying Creator League events to TNT Sports’ biggest momentsMarch Madness, MLB playoffs, major soccer tournamentsthey gained access to production infrastructure and built-in audience attention. Bennett Spector, General Manager of Bleacher Report, saw the strategic advantage: “When TNT Sports is covering the college football playoff or Roland Garros or the MLB playoffs, he says, we thought that being able to power up Creator League events as a property and component of what those weekends feel like is where this could really blow up and grow from.” Giving the fansand the creatorscontrol The Creator League breaks a lot of rules that anchor traditional sports league modelsfocusing on creators instead of athletes being chief among them. But perhaps the biggest rule they’ve cast aside is not in how they’ve built the league, but in what they have given away. Control. Fans can vote in real-time on game-changing advantages. Which team gets an extra player in dodgeball? Fans vote. Who gets a power-up that makes all their baskets count for double the points for two full minutes? Viewers decide. Which teams two-point conversion will be worth four points?You get it. Gilbert admits it’s “one of the most fun but most stressful parts of each live event” because outcomes become genuinely unpredictable. But that chaos creates the engagement that traditional sports can’t replicate. If enough supporters show up in the live chat at a given time, they can make sure that the creator they lovewhose team they supportgets a power-up or a boost that could help them win the game, and the prize money. This means the creators themselves become recruiters. During voting windows, team owners lean into their cameras, practically pleading: “Go vote, go vote, go vote!” This is not a brand begging for eyeballs or a commentator asking for engagement. It’s someone fans have watched for years, with whom they feel they have a relationship, asking for helpand the fans respond. [Photo: Warner Bros Discovery] Control isnt all the Creator League has given away. Its given away some power, tooover both distribution and monetization. For 2025, team owners secured revenue-sharing deals and IP rights to create their own team merchandise. “We really wanted to change the feeling of, Here’s a check, come and show up for a couple of hours, Muller says. “If we’re going to have you put your name on this team and your face and the logo, we want you to feel both incentivized and proud to be a part of it.” And while most media companies would lock down their intellectual property, the Creator League encourages co-streaming. Creators stream the events on their own channels simultaneously alongside House of Highlights and Creator League channels, so fans can watch the main broadcast on one screen and Mark Phillips’s handheld sideline stream on another. The key is that, to participate in polls and voting, users need to migrate to the main Creator League stream. The result is “a uniquely complementary distribution model,” Gilbert says, where multiple streams amplify each other rather than cannibalize. And its working. In 2025 alone, the Creator League generated 606 million views. Events averaged 123,606 concurrent viewers, with 81% of that live audience under 34. On House of Highlights’ channel, Creator League content averaged 2.9 million cross-platform views per postoutperforming both college football and NHL content, and nearly matching NBA and NFL highlights. That reach has attracted big brand partners. Pizza Hut signed a seven-figure deal to sponsor three events, joining a roster that includes Nissan, Apple, Samsung, Netflix, PlayStation, and Corona. The insight: Giving away control doesn’t dilute the product. It multiplies it. Bleacher Report systematized disruption The Creator League is not a one-off success story. It’s the latest example in a pattern that Bleacher Report has repeated for nearly two decades: identify where audiences are going before they get there, build for that future, and don’t bind yourself to what worked yesterday. “Bleacher has a rich history of disrupting itself,” Spector says. “You have to accept fate, that this is a reality. People have gone off-platform, and this is what fans want. And once you accept the reality that you might not have all of the ingredients owned, your world looks much more free. Its not only okay to disrupt yourselves, it’s actually encouraged within these walls.” The companys late-2015 acquisition of House of Highlights, which has grown to 100 million followers across platforms, has given it an invaluable lab in which to make and test assumptions. The Bleacher Report brand caters to current consumption trends while House of Highlights operates as “a speedboat out in front,” Spector says, focused on young and emerging audiences. With access to the younger demo, House of Highlights tests. When something works, it scales. The Creator League itself is proof. What started as a two-person iPhone stream in 2021 grew into a multi-event franchise that now, in 2025, generates more than 600 million views. This, combined with access to TNT Sports infrastructure and a long-standing tradition of hiring from within target demographicspeople solving problems for themselves and their peers, not from textbooks or in theorypositions Bleacher Report to make big bets, which they often win. In 2014, Spector greenlit Game of Zones, an animated NBA parody of Game of Thrones pitched by two freelance animators. At the time, no major sports media company had ventured into fictional, comedy-driven animation. Bleacher Report did, timing the show’s release to run alongside TNT’s NBA coverage, using the network’s reach to amplify the digital series. The show earned multiple Emmy nominations and ran for seven seasons. Four years later, Bleacher Report launched The Champions, an animated series about UEFA Champions League players, strategically timed to Turner’s acquisition of Champions League broadcast rights. It became the publisher’s most-watched show ever. That formulabold, creative bets paired with TNT’s tentpole eventsbecame a blueprint for the Creator League. The validation for the Creator League is in the competitors and copycats. The NBA has launched its own Creator Cup. The NFL brought creators to the Super Bowl. In Europe, Gerard Piqué’s Kings League and the Baller League are selling out stadiumstaking what Bleacher Report has proven digitally and translating it to physical venues packed with fans. Which is exactly where Spector sees this heading. The Creator League has captured the digital, at-home audience traditional sports are losing. The next frontier, according to Spector, is bringing those 123,000 concurrent viewers81% of them under 34into actual arenas. Building the merchandise ecosystems. Creating destination events around TNT Sports’ biggest weekends that feel less like marketing activations and more like Coachella for sports fans raised on YouTube. Money follows, Spector says. I think that is often the mantrathe ethosthat we try and apply to our content strategy and programming philosophy. If you can scale an engaged, scaled audience, the money will follow. Start with the audience problem. Solve that, and the business will take care of itself.
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E-Commerce
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